24 April 2010

MoEF Provides Clearance to Lafarge's Mining in Meghalaya

moef New Delhi, Apr 24 : The ministry of forest and environment (MoEF) on Friday gave the green signal to limestone mining in Meghalaya by French multinational Lafarge for its cement plant in Bangladesh but put a series of conditions, to fulfill which the company would have to shell out more than Rs 100 crore.

The forest and environment clearance for the mining, to which as many as 31 conditions were attached, was conveyed to the Supreme Court on Friday by MoEF through an affidavit filed by standing counsel Haris Beeran.

The key conditions relate to payment of money for afforestation activity in twice the area under mining and creation of a special purpose vehicle (SPV) for development of the area around the mines, from which the limestone is transported to the plant at Chhatak through a conveyor belt.
MoEF said Lafarge Umiam Mining Pvt Ltd has to pay five times the normal afforestation cost working out to Rs 55 crore with an interest of 9% from April 1, 2007. This would amount to nearly Rs 70 crore taking into account the interest component.

Added to this, the mining company has to pay Rs 90 per tonne of the mined mineral since the commencement of mining. With Lafarge Surma having already mined around four million tonnes of limestone, it would have to pay around Rs 36 crore that will constitute the SPV, which would contribute towards the development of health, education, economy, irrigation and agriculture in the project area solely for the local community and welfare of tribals.

The clearance from the MoEF was sought by the Supreme Court taking into account the charges of Shella Action Committee, a conglomerate of traditional village bodies, that limestone was being mined in forest areas and that the environmental clearance was obtained fraudulently.

Lafarge Umiam was mining the limestone quarry area spread over 100 hectares near the Indo-Bangladesh border for supply of raw material to Lafarge Surma Cement Project at Chhatak in Sunamganj, Bangladesh.

Demand to Divide Renamed NC Hills District

Non-Dimasas petition chief minister

By Sarat Sarma

Members of the Indigenous Women Forum participate in the rally at Haflong on Friday.

Nagaon, Apr 24 : More than 3,000 supporters of the Indigenous Women Forum took out a rally in Haflong today demanding immediate geographical bifurcation of Dima Hasao district, formerly known as North Cachar Hills district.

The protesters later submitted a memorandum to chief minister Tarun Gogoi through Dima Hasao deputy commissioner Dilip Borthakur.

Other demands of the forum include a high-level inquiry into police firing on the picketers of the Indigenous Peoples Forum and the Indigenous Students Forum on April 9 and adequate compensation to the five persons who had sustained bullet injuries.

“Our innocent picketers had to be the victims of a pre-planned political conspiracy engineered by a group with vested interest to derail our democratic struggle for a separate district,” senior Indigenous Peoples Forum leader A. Langthang said over phone.

“We hope a geographical bifurcation of the district and a Sixth Schedule status for the newly floated one would bring peace and development to the district. Our struggle would continue till the legitimate demand is not fulfilled,” the general secretary of the Indigenous Women Forum, Bethsy Singson, said.

These organizations, basically representing the non-Dimasa communities, were floated just after Dispur announced the new name of the district.

On April 9, the forums called a 24-hour district bandh.

Dima Hasao superintendent of police V.K. Ramisetti and additional superintendent of police A. Sinha were seriously injured when picketers threw stones at the police team that reached the spot where they were attempting to make their bandh successful.

The police later opened fire on the picketers in which five of them were seriously injured.

“We hope the chief minister would feel the situation in the hill district. We want a fruitful solution to all our problems from his end at the earliest,” Singson said.

Nokia’s 4 Sub-Rs 3,000 Phones

In pics: Nokia’s 4 sub-Rs 3,000 phones

Close on the heels of Nokia launching a slew of smart phones in the high and mid-range segment, the company has now launched a bevy of low-end models in India.

The new launch series include Nokia 1280, cheapest phone from Nokia's stable so far. The phone is almost 20% cheaper than it's previous cheapest, the 1202.

With Apple and RIM gnawing Nokia's share in the high-end market, seems Nokia wants to tightly guard its share across other segments by constantly refreshing the line-up.

Here's looking into Nokia's 4-new additions in the low-end segment.







Nokia 1280

Nokia 1280

Nokia's low-end 1280 can store upto 500 contacts. It packs FM-radio with a standard 3.5 millimeter stereo headphone jack. It also has five separate phone books.

Among key features, Nokia 1280 packs FM radio, prepaid tracker, flashlight, anti-scratch cover and dust-resistant keymat. The phone will also support Nokia Life Tools. The handset is priced at Rs 1,300.











Nokia 1616

Nokia 1616

Weighing mere 79 grams, Nokia 1616 sports a sleeker design and has a dust resistant keypad. Measuring 1.8", the phone has TFT display. The phone features a flashlight, an FM radio, MP3 grade ringtones, a speakerphone and multiple phonebooks.

The phone's battery supports up to 8.5 hours talktime and 22 days standby time.

Nokia 1616 will sell for Rs 1,600.











Nokia 1800

Nokia 1800

Nokia 1800 sports similar specifications to Nokia 16161, including the screen size and battery life.

However, Nokia 1800 comes with a wired headset in the box, which is ideal for use of built-in FM radio.

The phone offers prepaid tracker, flashlight, anti-scratch cover and dust-resistant keymat among other features.

The phone is priced at Rs 1,800.











Nokia 2690

Nokia 2690

Sporting a 1.8'' screen, Nokia 2690 packs 3.5-mm audio jack, Bluetooth with A2DP, multimedia player, Flash Lite 3.0, stereo FM radio, microSD slot for upto 8GB memory expansion and a VGA resolution camera.

The phone book supports up to 1,000 contacts. The device has a standby time of approximately 13 days and is priced at around Rs 2,749.

Waiting To Exhale

imageSenti Toy and Nagaland have both fallen off the maps of our imagination, and a pity it is, says ARIJIT SEN.

“It is worthwhile to remember that as early as in 1929, the Naga Club (a political platform of unified Nagas) submitted a memorandum to the visiting Simon Commission of British India in Kohima, demanding that the Nagas be left alone and free as they were before being conquered by the British Empire”

The Case Of Naga Insurgency — Ethnic Life-Worlds in North-East India by Prasenjit Biswas & Chandan Suklabaidya

In my mind, the images of Sentienla Toy Threadgill and that of her home state Nagaland often fuse together. I have never met Senti Toy, only spoken to her. But I have visited her hometown Kohima, known its people, seen the mountains and followed the goings on in the state for a few years now.

I believe Toy is one of the best singer-songwriters around these days. In the Summer of 2007, her album How Many Stories Do You Read On My Face was in the Wall Street Journal’s Top 5 listings in the ‘alternative pop’ category. Some steps up or down in that space stood English rock band Radiohead and Canadian singer-songwriter Leslie Feist. So far, that’s the only album she’s released.

imageWhen we spoke, I asked Toy about the song ‘Kohima’ on that record. “I was born in Kohima and grew up there,” she said. “And growing up, I have always felt lucky to be there. When the violence escalated in Kohima—this was when I was in college in Bombay—I wrote that song in a moment of hopelessness.

I was trying to sort of cling on to whatever I could of the place I knew, in the only way I could really.” The song talked about the mountains of Japhu, and the gunshots that would kill many in her state. It helped her smell the mountains and feel the rain—in Bombay then, in New York later.

A decade after her song, Nagaland continues to remain where it was—in underdevelopment, in confusion and hopelesness. Any change? In 2010, the Indo-Naga peace talks has a new interlocutor, RS Pandey, a 1972 batch retired IAS officer--appointed on 11th February.

And Indian Home Minister P Chidambaram has ‘welcomed” the decision of the two icons of the Naga movement, Isak Chisi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah to walk towards South Block in New Delhi this April.

They are apparently going to sit across the table and talk. Like always, there is no clarity on how the leaders accepted India’s invitation and who is going to talk to whom. In fact on their 30th Raising Day, this 31st January, Muivah’s speech was read out in Dimapur.

Muivah has been clear that the peace process is being held at the Prime Ministerial level between Government of India and NSCN as two entities and participation of non-mandate groups in the talks of the settlement issue under the axis of Home Ministry of India will only dilute what has been achieved so far.

So, much before any incremental movement on the Indo-Naga ceasefire agreement signed in 1997, India, it seems, already has started going around in circles. Something that is unfortunate and yet not surprising.

There have been no less than 50 rounds of talks held between New Delhi and NSCN(IM) from 1999. Yet, no party has been able to achieve any breakthrough.

It is also not just absence of clarity on the April-talks, that is worrying. There are a host of other issues that remain unresolved. Swu and Muivah’s faction of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland maintains that they and only they represent the hopes and aspirations of the people of Nagaland. But in these thirty years after NSCN was formed, many factions have hit the headlines. Each group maintains, ‘we represent the Naga people”.

SS Khaplang, who was part of the original trio of the NSCN, moved out in 1988 to form the NSCN-K—another prominent faction. And in 2008, when I was in Dimapur, Azeto Chopy had just formed the NSCN-Unification faction. Lost in all this complexity of talks, of conflict resolution, of pride, of one tribes supremacy over the other, of history, of stereotyping, are the people of Nagaland.

For sixty years, the Nagas have refused to budge from their idea of independence as opposed to the idea of freedom imposed on them by India (see Box). In all these years, in the name of controlling insurgency, village after village in Nagaland have witnessed violence.

Many Nagas maintain that there have been mass murders and rape of Naga women in the name of counter-insurgency operations by the Indian army. Kaka D Iralu, grand-nephew of AZ Phizo ( founder of the Naga National Council) records such horrific violence in graphic detail in his book, Nagaland and India — The Blood And The Tears.

Often a one-sided account, yet it’s also probably the only one that gives voice to the silence of many who suffered — a book I found in Kohima in 2008. In all these years, life in Nagaland has got trapped between underdevelopment, corruption, so-called democracy and an armed movement against the Indian state that still exists.

Also, in this time of friction, an incredible amount of wealth has accumulated in the hand of a few Nagas, both working for the Indian state and outside it.

The Naga movement many believe have been hijacked by such group of elites—within the outfits and within those who believe in Assembly and Parliamentary elections of the Indian state. So, these certain group of people travel from place to another--- Paris to Geneva to Bangkok---talking peace, talking progress, while not an inch of development takes place on the ground. Behind all the high-pitched discourse, there have come up a next generation of young Nagas, who laugh in exasperation when asked about violence.

“There is more to violence and your visit to Camp Hebron (where the NSCN-IM is stationed)”, Vibou Ganguly, former student Presidency College, Calcutta, now a resident of Kohima belonging to Naga-Bengali parentage, told me. Probably, true. “People have started local businesses, handicraft, textile, floral/horticultural industries to think of some. Even in terms of music, artists are looked at as professionals that get paid,” says Senti. However, “unemployment of the educated is at an all time high as well,” she adds.

image

It is also a fact that in 2009, at least 17 people where killed in clashes between one underground group with another in Dimapur, Kohima and Wokha. A much reduced number of fatalities, yes. But the clashes stay on. This suffering has been captured beautifully in the lyrics of Senti Toy’s songs.

Sentienla, herself might have moved on to a better life, yet she hits the nail on the head. “Kohima tell me the old old story of the sweet simple way you once knew”, she sings.

About a decade after she wrote and sang that song, Toy had moved to New York. Her brother, back in India, wanted to hear it again and asked her if she would record it for him. By her own admission, Toy is not “tech-savvy” and so decided to enlist the help of a semi-professional home studio in her neighborhood. That decision set off a series of lovely accidents and collaborations. Toy met with sound engineer Dick Kondas at the studio.

He was so taken with her unusual use of time that Kondas worked to get her a record deal with Intoxicate Records owned by Tower Records, Japan. “That was pretty much it,” says Toy, in an understatement that appears to be her way of talking. When the record company representative finally did meet her, he looked quite surprised, Toy said. “The way, I looked [Asian] was unexpected and he wanted to know where I was from,” she explains. “But by then it was a done deal anyway, so it really didn’t matter.”

Serendipity does seem to rule Toy’s life. In 1992, as a student at Bombay’s Sophia College, she met American jazz artist Henry Threadgill. In 1994, she married him and made New York her home. By 1995, she was playing with Very Very Circus, Threadgill’s band.

So when Toy plucked up the courage to say yes to the album deal in 2006, “some other things seemed to just fall into place rather serendipitously, like meeting old musician friends asking me about my music”. The collaborations on her very first album are an artistic dream: a young Anandan Sivamani on percussion;  Pianist/accordionist, Tony Cedras, who had worked with Paul Simon in Graceland ; Fernando Saunders, who had played with Jeff Beck, John Mclaughlin and Joan Baez, on bass; and Brandon Ross, known for projects with Arrested Development and Jewel, on guitar. Holding the lot together is Toy’s indescribably beautiful voice and her ability to tell powerful stories.

Music critic, Jim Fusilli, called it “one of the best of 2007” in Wall Street Journal. John Mcluaghlin said, “it’s one of the most refreshing recordings he has heard in many years”. Tower Records, though, gave her album only a limited release in the US and Japan. So far, not one Indian music company has shown the least interest.

The Tower Records website calls her music “unclassifiable”, and Toy herself is unwilling to try and define it. “Much as I want to stay rooted to my heritage, I find I walk a fine line,” she says. “The kind of music I do—which is really Western-style music—is the music that I grew up with; it really is ‘native’ to me.

I don’t fit in the popular stereotypical image of artists [from India], at least in this part of the world [the West/USA]. I can’t even think of competing in that world. So I find the freedom to do just what I want and that’s actually a good place to be.” Typically, Toy is not judgmental about the content that floats on the airwaves currently.

“A lot of so-called popular music has its roots in political commentary, like rap, hip hop, and plenty of rock and pop,” she says. “There are all kinds of music that serves different purposes: entertainment, poetry, art, politics and so on. They all remain relevant and have their audiences, but the corporation-backed system is such that the most listened-to songs today are the ones backed by big money.”

And so, in a world where new musical stars are born every week, Toy’s sparkling debut is barely remembered. Away from the studios, she stays up all night in her room in New York City, writing up her submission for a PhD on ethnomusicology. On the New York University website, Toy is the only PhD candidate without a listed email ID. She’s settled into a complex obscurity, much like Nagaland.

I thought back to 2008. I was waiting outside the Kohima War Cemetery for Theja Meru—a tall gentle, Angami with a soul-deep addiction to music. I was covering the Nagaland elections, looking specifically for ideas and people that would bridge the gap between Nagaland as a proud, vibrant state and Nagaland as a part of India. Meru, I’d been told, was a bridge-builder of just that sort.

He runs the aptly named Dream Café, known to play only independent bands and oldies, and is a painter the rest of the time. He has also set up the music project Rattle And Hum, which strives to bring good music to Nagaland and promote good home-grown music in the rest of the country. On the bitterly cold morning I met him, Meru gifted me a copy of Sentienla Toy’s album. That year, I would play it on heavy rotation.

On that trip, I met people from the underground, politicians and young musicians. I despaired at ever being to capture the complexity of the issues in a television story or even an article.

As Toy’s Nagaland continues to battle its problems, she understands the frustration of communication only too well. “I can’t say that I necessarily react to news of violence as a musician first—my first response comes as a concerned Naga, and simply as another fellow-human in this world,” she says.

“One person dead is already too many, and it’s never ever a solution; nothing is ever worth killing for and nothing can convince me otherwise. It’s been a long complicated journey for the Nagas with deep historical roots. If it is violence that defines the Naga nationalist movement, where is the hope?”

[via Tehelka ]

Civil Society Groups Condemn Proposed Action Against Arundhati Roy

By Avijit Ghosh

New Delhi, Apr 24 : Any attempt to prosecute Arundhati Roy for an article she wrote on Maoists would confirm the government's determination to choke off dissenting voices from coming out from the south Chhattisgarh theatre of 'war', say leading activists.

"Whether or not one agrees with the writer, a country which prides itself as a democracy must allow the free and honest expression of such views," says the public statement, condemning Chattisgarh police's threatened action against writer-activist Roy whose essay "Walking with the Comrades" was published in a national newsmagazine recently.

The 36 signatories include activist Aruna Roy, advocate Prashant Bhushan, economist Jean Drez, former navy chief R H Tahiliani, RTI activist Arvind Kejriwal, environmentalist Vandana Shiva among others.

For her 'insider' account of days spent with Maoist groups in Dantewada district, the DGP Chattisgarh apparently received a complaint which he referred to the law department to see whether the writer can be booked under Chattisgarh Special Public Security Act.

"When a complaint is as absurd, should it not be rejected outright?" questions senior advocate Prashant Bhushan adding that the fact that they're even considering such an action shows how unwilling the State is to consider any other point of view. "Instead of trying to understand these people, who they are, you just show you want to go in and kill them."

A large number of people support Roy, says activist-advocate Colin Gonsalves - also a signatory -- because the possible police action is seen as a an attempt to stifle voice of dissent; dissent from the government's point of view. "The government gets rattled when an alternate point of view is articulated intellectually. Roy has been able to articulate that point of collective self-defense: that when poor people are attacked with guns, they do have a right to defend themselves. Usually, human rights activists are pushed on the back-foot on that point, but Roy articulated it well."

The statement says, "It is important for the people to be as well informed as possible about the phenomenon of Maoism and how it has arisen so that a properly informed decision can be taken about how to deal with its challenges.... in a holistic and sensitive manner."

To that end, the attempt towards action against Roy smacks of fascism. "Criminalising this kind of writing is a clear sign of fascism," says Bhushan.

dateline-dantewada-roy-with-the-maoists

Parliamentary Panel To Push For Development of Northeast Airports

Pakyong in Sikkim runway New Delhi, Apr 24 :  Expressing its concern at the state of airports in the Northeast, a Parliamentary panel has called for development of Guwahati, Dibrugarh and Teju airports and improvement of facilities.

The department related Standing Committee on Transport, Tourism and Culture on working of Civil Aviation Ministry in its report said that construction of a green field airport at Pakyong in Sikkim is in progress and 23 per cent of project work has been completed and that it is scheduled to be completed by January 2012.

While Rs 80.50 crore has been allocated for construction of green field airports at Pakyong, Rs 20 crore has been earmarked for construction of green field airport at Itanagar. Airport Authority of India has been proving the funds in form of grants –in-aid.

Work at Guwahati airport include construction of isolation bay, relocation of boundary wall and road, extension of runway from 9000 feet to 12,000 feet, besides other related works.

Mizoram in Vanguard of Indian Mobile Phone Craze

By Subir Bhaumik

Woman with a mobile in Mizoram

Mobile phone usage in India has grown hugely (Pic: Subhamoy Bhattacharjee)

More than half the population of the tiny north-eastern Indian state of Mizoram is now using a mobile telephone, newly released figures show.

Officials say that the figures are remarkable because the state is one of the most remote in India and private industry is practically non-existent.

Landline telephone connections are available but are few and far between.

The figures suggest that what is happening in Mizoram is being replicated throughout India.

Officials say that overall "tele-density" in the country has reached 43.5% - or 509 million subscribers.

Mizoram is much ahead of the national average in tele-density and that is quite surprising

Esther Lalruatkimi,
Mizoram trade secretary

The Mizoram state economic survey in January 2010 indicated there were 561,917 mobile phone users in the state - which has a population of about one million people - and the figures might have gone up since then.

The survey said that Mizoram's mobile phone users currently pay a total monthly bill of 50 million rupees ($1m).

All Indian mobile networks are doing roaring business in the state, where the government is the biggest employer.

Airtel is the largest network in Mizoram, with 192,000 subscribers in January 2010, followed by BSNL, Aircel, and Vodafone.

Soaring growth

India is now on a par with China and only the second nation in the world to achieve half a billion mobile phone subscribers - with nearly 15 million new customers being added every month.

Map

So fast is the industry growing that the Indian government's target of 500 million mobile phone users by the end of 2010 has already been exceeded.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said recently that the number of Indian mobile phone users will cross the 650 million mark by 2012.

India's love affair with cell phones started in the mid-1990s. At that time, the country had just 10 million mobile and landline connections.

Growth has soared since then because of regulatory changes and the falling costs of calls and handsets.

"But Mizoram is much ahead of the national average in tele-density and that is quite surprising," says Esther Lalruatkimi, Mizoram's trade secretary.

Mizoram is India's most literate state, with more than 95% of its people able to read and write.

Almost the entire population is Christian and most speak English - a legacy of Church-funded education - in addition to their mother tongues.

[ via BBC News ]

23 April 2010

Two Nations That Must Cooperate to Save The Planet

By Tom Oswald

China, India need to partner for the planet

china_1

Above, a watershed in Wuqi County, China, after crop fields on the slopes were converted to grass and tree cover. Researchers are advocating for collaboration and cooperation between China and India to address environment issues facing the planet, including water availability and climate change. (Credit: Guanliang Liu)

MICHIGAN STATE (US)—In a recently published report in the journal Science, researchers advocate using scientific collaboration to help break down political barriers between China and India, two nations with growing economies and populations—and growing influence on the global environment.

“China and India are the two largest countries in terms of population,” says Jianguo “Jack” Liu, a coauthor of the report and a distinguished professor of fisheries and wildlife at Michigan State University. “Even while the rest of the world is in a recession, the economies of China and India are growing and the countries’ consumption of raw materials is increasing. Cooperation between the two is vital to mitigating negative environmental impacts.”

“We all have a huge interest in a sustainable world and the way we’re managing it now, it simply isn’t sustainable,” adds Peter Raven, coauthor and president of the Missouri Botanical Garden. Raven also is a foreign member of both the Chinese and Indian academies of science. “The problems get worse every year; biodiversity loss and climate change have clear global significance.

“Our thesis is the two countries share so much adjacent territory that the environmental benefits should be obvious and, informed by scientific analysis, should provide a bridge between them.”

According to Liu, water availability could be an increasingly challenging issue facing the two countries and one that will require careful cooperation. Many rivers flow through both China and India—if one country builds too many dams on its side to generate hydroelectric power, it will likely cause water shortages downstream in the other country.

“Water is a huge issue,” Liu says. “It’s being discussed extensively. We need to make people aware of the benefits of cooperation. It’s more than just China and India that will be affected if these two countries don’t work together. The environmental impacts will be felt around the world, including in the United States.”

“One thing we have learned from the recession is that without sustainability there cannot be unlimited growth,” adds Kamaljit Bawa, University of Massachusetts-Boston distinguished professor of biology and president of the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment in Bangalor, India. “The two countries are not facing recession and it is time for them to exercise environmental stewardship. Future economic growth is contingent upon this stewardship.”

Researchers from the Institute of Terrestrial Ecosystems in Zurich, Switzerland; University of California-San Diego; Yale University; Jawaharlal Nehru University, in Delhi, India; and Kunming Institute of Zoology, in Yunnan, China, contributed to the work.

Liu’s research is supported by the Michigan Agricultural Experiment Station, the National Science Foundation, and NASA.

via  Futurity