Over to KargilSikandar, a student of the Sector 10 College of Art, has painted an 8 by 12 foot canvas depicting a soldier dying on the battlefield. The photograph that accompanies this week's edition of Cityscape shows the young artist and his work. "I was moved by the loss of young lives and inspired by the courage and the supreme sacrifices being made by young soldiers at the front," he explains.The painting is on display at IndusInd Art Gallery in Sector 8. "If somebody wants to buy the painting, the spill-over of the money received will be sent to the funds for Kargil martyrs." says Ritu Jhingan, founder member of Strides Charitable Trust, who organised the fund-raising function where the painting was first displayed.When Kargil donations from Punjab and Haryana High Court lawyers and judges were not coming up to the mark, a few judges of the High Court took it upon themselves to motivate members of the Bar.Taking time from their otherwise heavy schedule, a few judges came down to the Bar room in the complex to motivate the lawyers to contribute generously. With the judges themselves each contributing Rs 20,000, they were able to motivate many lawyers to contribute in thousands. At the end of the day on Friday alone the corpus touched the Rs 5-lakh figure. The motivation included personal intervention by a few judges also.The drive is still on and collections from the High Court Bar are still flowing in.Give `em a handTwo school boys and an adult, all from Kerala and all with amputated hands, need help. They came to the Nevedac Prosthetic Centre and each has brought about Rs 5,000 - half the cost of an electronic limb. They had thought that they would be able to apply for grants to meet the balance of the cost under a Central Government Scheme, but when they reached the Centre they learned that the scheme hadn't come though yet.They've been asked to deposit the cost of the limb by July 13. They're loathe to make the costly trip all the way back to Kerala without the hoped-for limbs. For now, they're camping at Nevedac and hoping for assistance. Anyone who would like to help can chip in directly to Nevedac, or contact Roshni, a charitable organisation at Rajpura phone 01762-27004.Which Natwar?Congress leader and former Union minister and diplomat K. Natwar Singh was in the city last week to deliver a talk on India's foreign policy and the situation in Kargil. By a slip of the tongue, one of the journalists addressed him as "Mr Natwar Lal". The perturbed Congress leader shot back: "Arre Bhai, Natwar Lal to na bolo mujhe." Natwar Lal is the name of a notorious thug., No resemblance, to the Congress stalwart of course.A phone-call awayThe city unit of Alcoholics anonymous has introduced a round the clock telephone helpline service for providing information about the disease of alcoholism and the AA Programme for recovery. the number is 650111 and there's a pager number is 9610-41044. The lines are open for everybody, all the time.
