Kingfisher's Calendar Girls

Hot Babes on Calender

See Vijay Mallya's models in bikini... The new year is just a few months away... And the Kingfisher team has got into action selecting calendar girls for their 2011 edition.

Model to be?
To be a Kingfisher Calendar girl, all the models have to to meet the criteria. Will these models make it?

First criteria
The model must have the height - at least 5'6".

Second criteria
The model must flaunt the right attitude.

Third criteria
The last but not the least a great and lean body with long legs.

A winner every year?
Last year, Himarsha Venkatsamy won the Kingfisher model contest.

The photgrapher
This year Atul Kasbekar is behind the lenses.

The judges
Mandira Bedi and Atul Kasbekar would be deciding the fate of all the girls auditioning for the calendar all the way from Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.

Women's Group in Northeast India Gets Global Funding

By Shalini Kathuria Narang

The Global Fund for Women, an international organization committed to defending women's rights globally, has awarded a first grant of $12,000 to the North East Network, which works in India's seven northeastern states.

The GFW funding will help the organization to expand a home-based weaving livelihood project running for several years with 90 tribal Chizami women in Nagaland. Through training on skills enhancement, costing, production planning, quality control, and group management, NEN aims to increase the earnings for women, professionalize weavers in a democratic system of working together, and increase the weavers' awareness of their social and economic rights.

Two women began the North East Network in 1995 after participating in the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing. Besides New Delhi, the NEN has offices in India's conflict-ridden states of Assam, Meghalaya and Nagaland.

"We aim to bring gendered understanding of human rights violations in the region in the context of conflict, livelihood, and/or health," said Monisha Behal, chairperson, NEN. "One of our activities is to use the (United Nations') Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination against Women … to influence the State machinery to fulfill its obligations to women. In Meghalaya, we work with the state enforcement authorities on issues of gender and perspectives change especially on violence against women. Its success has influenced NEN Assam, started this year, to do the same."

In Nagaland, she continued, "NEN has addressed ecological conservation through wildlife education. Through the GFW, it is marketing finished traditional Naga weaves in India. NEN has also strengthened biodiversity and conservation measures by helping gauge the value of local plants and herbs and reviving grains like millets in farms."

In Assam too, Behal said, "the cooperation between women's and youth groups, village councils and state agencies is visible. We have also trained several organizations on the Right to Information Act."

By participating in international conventions, including UN meetings regarding Security Resolution 1325, NEN works to highlight the human rights issues facing the women living in the conflict zones of northeast India. It was the first organization in the northeast to create a map of support services available to women in distress.

The group also promotes State accountability by encouraging citizens to use the Right to Information Act, especially regarding land issues, ration allowances and appropriate wage labour.

The group has built partnerships between women's groups and state agencies, including police and medical personnel. It also focuses on building a multi-sector, gender-sensitive approach to violence against women, especially Meghalaya. A community in Meghalaya has donated land for NEN to build a resource centre.

North East Network can be contacted below:

North-East Network
J.N. Barooah Lane, Jorpukhuri,
Guwahati 781001, Assam
Tel/fax: 91 361 2631582/ 2603833.
email: assamnen@yahoo.co.uk

Boxing Goes Hand in Glove With Mary Kom

MC Mary Kom, India's four-time women's world boxing champion, returns to her home town of Manipur.

By Sanjoy Majumder

New Delhi, Sep 9 : A diminutive woman, no more than five feet tall, feints and sways away from a punch.

Then, dancing around the boxing ring, her left hook slams into her much larger opponent, making her rival wince in pain.

A gong sounds, the referee strides forward and lifts her arm and the crowd explodes. This is the woman India calls "Magnificent Mary" - MC Mary Kom - mother of two young twins and four-time world boxing champion.

She's preparing for the women's world boxing championships in Barbados, where she is hoping to win a fifth title, but her long-term goal is the London Olympics in 2012.

"When I was small, I was very interested in fighting - karate, kung fu and boxing. I used to always watch action movies, all the Jackie Chan movies," she says breaking into peals of laughter.

Her halting English and infectious smile only adds to her charm and in a country where her sport is not that well-known, she's become quite a star.

But to get a true picture of her status, you need to travel all the way to India's north-east and her home state of Manipur, right beside the border with Burma.

She grew up in the countryside amidst lush green paddy fields with mountains swelling in the distance.

Her parents still work in the fields, as she once did.

The fields where Mary Kom once worked

It was a tough upbringing in a state hit by a violent insurgency. Even our presence brought soldiers out from the neighbouring army base.

Inside the family home, one she visits only occasionally, the neighbours have dropped in as well as Mary Kom boils water to make some tea.

"She never told us she'd taken up boxing," her father Tonpa tells me.

"We only found out when we read in the papers of her success in a local competition. In fact, I didn't really want to encourage her to become a sportsperson because I thought it would cost a lot of money, more than we could afford."

Crowd-puller

Mary's success has made quite a difference to her parents' economic circumstances. "She supports the family now," Tonpa says.

But it's not just her family that's proud of her.

During a visit to her primary school, the Loktak Christian Mission School, she's immediately mobbed by the students who crowd around her clamouring for her autograph.

The school's run by the local church and its modest grounds are where she first made her mark as an extraordinary athlete.

"She used to run up and down the dirt track outside the school because we didn't have a proper running track," says one of her teachers, Surchandra Singh.

"She used to be so fast, like the wind," he says grinning.

Autograph hunter at Loktak Christian Mission School

Now she's an inspiration not just in her village but the entire state.

At a crumbling indoor stadium in Imphal, the Manipuri capital, 60 boys and girls trade punches under the watchful eye of their coach, Ibomcha Singh, who looks like a cross between a Zen master and Mike Tyson.

This is also where Mary Kom first began boxing 10 years ago and under the same coach.

He laughs as he recalls how she came up to him one afternoon and asked to join his training sessions.

"I said 'no' - you are a girl and besides you are so small and thin. Then she started crying. After giving it some thought, I took her in."

Honour boards line the stadium walls and one name leaps out: MC Mary Kom, World Champion.

This modest training ground has now become India's boxing nursery and many hope to follow in her footsteps.

A ripple runs through the group as Mary Kom walks in clad in a t-shirt, sweat pants and trainers.

A warm-up session begins followed by an intense sparring session with the coach.

"Gold at London 2012, that's what I want," she says afterwards, breathing heavily as she wipes the sweat of her face.

"After that I can retire," she says, breaking once again into that infectious laugh.

Despite her good humour, the pressure on her is intense. After all she carries the hopes not just of her Manipuri community but a country of one billion people.

via BBC News

Brus of Mizoram-Tripura Border Areas To Be Verified on The Spot

Aizawl, Sep 9 : The Mizoram government and Mizoram Bru Displaced People's Forum (MBDPF) would conduct a joint spot verification in Mizoram-Tripura border areas next week and visit several villages in view of the proposed repatriation of Bru refugees from Tripura, official sources said today.

Elvis Chorkhy, President of the MBDPF also secretary of the Bru Coordination Committee (BCC), has been in Aizawl for two weeks along with the BCC chairman Surjomoni Reang, former president of the erstwhile underground Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF) holding discussions on the proposed repatriation of Bru refugees now lodged in six relief camps in North Tripura district.

Chorkhy said they have to determine if the villages identified for resettlement would be large enough to accommodate those who wanted to return and whether the lands belonging to the villages would be sufficient for jhum cultivation and other agriculture purposes.

Reacting to the press statement issued yesterday by some Bru refugees who called themselves Bru Displaced Welfare Organisation (BDWO), which said that the refugees would boycott the repatriation plans as the Mizoram government refused to accept their demands, Chorkhy said that at least 90 per cent of the refugees wanted to return as soon as possible.

"We do not think that some people who formed BDWO would be able to influence our people," he said.

The state home secretary Lalmalsawma and other senior officials were in New Delhi to hold talks with the officials of the Ministry of Home Affairs tomorrow on the Bru repatriation issue, he said, adding that the spot verification would be undertaken after the officials return to Aizawl.

Hundreds of Brus left Mizoram in 1997 and 2009 when Bru militants murdered two Mizos, a forest guard in October 21, 1997 and a 17-year-old boy near Bungthuam village on November 13, 2009.

A recent head count conducted by the MBDPF found that there were 31,703 Brus in the relief camps belonging to 5,448 families who are bona fide residents of Mizoram.

The head count and the joint verification by the state government and the MBDPF were significant as Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram, during his visit to Aizawl on May 25 had urged the Bru leaders to ensure that all the Bru refugees returned to Mizoram from Tripura latest by the end of October.

Grouping of Villages ''Saddest Chapter'' in Mizoram

Aizawl, Sep 8 : Grouping of villages in which people had to part with their ancestral homes has been considered by many as the ''saddest chapter'' during the insurgency period in Mizoram from 1966 to 1986.

Grouping of villages was a method employed by the Union Government in 1967 to contain and crush the Laldenga-led insurgency in Mizoram (then Mizo hills district under Assam province). ''During those days, transport and communications were very poor, so we need to understand the difficult situation which the army had to deal with,'' Mizoram Governor Lt Gen (rtd) M M Lakhera said, after inaugurating an international seminar on 'Grouping of Villages here today.

''With better transport and communications these days, it the Indian Army which has now opposed to such method (grouping of villages) to fight insurgency in areas such as affected by Maoists,'' the Governor added.

Pointing out that of the total 707 villages in present Mizoram, there are about 142 villages whose population was less than 200, the Governor said it might be a good idea to relocate these small villages into a larger units for better development.

''The impact of grouping of villages in Mizoram needs to be evaluated ''he added.

Organised by Zoram Research Foundation, the four-day seminar has experts from across the country and abroad presenting papers.

Giving a keynote address, Lalkhama, a retired IAS officer, highlighted different unwanted incidents during the Mizoram insurgency. ''What is more important now is to learn from the past experiences,'' he said.

Prof C Nunthara, former head of sociology department, NEHU and S K Agnihotri, IAS(rtd), former special officer of grouping of villages, presented papers in the morning session.

In his paper, Prof C Nunthara, wrote that the Indian Army launched Operation Accomplishment (1967-1970) where villages were re-grouped to isolate civilians from insurgents under the provision of Defence of India Rules introduced by the British during the World War-II.

''The proclaimed purpose was to safeguard the villagers from the undergrounds and to accelerate development work,'' Nunthara said.

On the contrary, the paper claimed, regrouping of villages largely increased the people's support for the insurgents. The method failed to achieve not only military but also economic targets as it resulted in a large-scale migration to urban areas due to the destruction of traditional jhum cultivation and failure to provide alternative means of livelihood.

According to Nunthara, of the total 764 villages in Mizoram at that time, 516 villages were evacuated and regrouped into 110 grouping centres.

However, S K Agnihotri, IAS, (retd) and former special officer of grouping of villages in Mizoram, claimed that the scheme was generally successful. ''It succeeded considerably in meeting the first criteria of a counter-insurgency operation, viz, defence or providing security to common citizens,'' he said.

''The incidents of violence involving common citizens came down which consequently made the life of the insurgents difficult and, thus creating conditions for diplomacy and dialogue,'' Agnihotri said.

Col Ali Ahmed, research fellow (Institute of Defence Studies & Analyses, New Delhi); Dr Lalngurliana Sailo, associate professor (department of History & Ethnography, Mizoram University); Prof Sajal Nag (Head of History Dept), Assam University and Shanaz Kimi Leblhuber, research fellow, University of Vienna, Austria, presented papers in the afternoon session.

Other resource persons included Prof Nandini Sundar, department of sociology, Delhi University; Dr Joy L K Pachuau, Associate Professor, Centre for Historical Studies, JNU, New Delhi; B K Roy Burman, former chairman of Commission for Review of Environmental & Social Sector Policies, Plans & Programmes for Human Development.

1,000 New HIV Cases in Nagaland

Dimapur, Sep 8 : The HIV/AIDS prevalence scenario in Nagaland continues to remain alarming with the Nagaland State AIDS Control Society (NSACS) detecting over 1,000 HIV positive cases in the first quarter of this year.

With this, the cumulative figure of HIV positive cases in Nagaland have touched over 10,000 since 1999. There have been 505 recorded AIDS related deaths and 1,898 are currently on ART treatment.

Interacting with this reporter, NSACS Project Director Dr Neiphi Kire termed the figures as alarming. While the State’s overall percentage has come down drastically, the situation in the commercial district of Dimapur refuses to stabilise, he further stated.

Dimapur alone accounts for least 150 new cases every month, a trend since 2009, a clearly worried Dr Kire said.

Emphasising on the need to bring about a paradigm shift in tackling the problem in the commercial hub, the reason that the State continues to record high statistics, Dr Kire informed that the department was organising a two-day integrated HIV programme for the district on September 19 and 20. NACO Director General is expected to participate in the programme along with other stakeholders including student organisations, NGOs and civil society leaders, he said.

The doctor also did not rule out the possibilities of the HIV positive figures further shooting up, stating that the department suspects at least 19,000 possible positive cases of which some 9,000 are yet to be reached.

The NSACS head also expressed concern over the growing figures in Kiphire district which, he said, has seen a sharp increase posting 23 positive cases in the first quarter of 2010 out of the 685 tested.

The Department has already earmarked and agreed on establishing one ART centre in Pungro sector. However, as per guidelines, the department has to await final clearance from NACO which will follow after the feasibility report.

The completion of the feasibility report by officials from the centre of excellence as per NACO guidelines is being awaited, the PD informed.

On stepping up measures to reach advocacy programmes to all sections of the society, especially the rural areas, Dr Kire said that the department has adopted a strategic change by engaging Inter-Personal-Communication (IPC) system.

“We engage women organisations of the respective tribes who reach out to the community members and villages. The department has already covered Kohima, Phek while others are underway,” he informed.

He was also of the opinion that the IPC format has been showing results with many women organisations now coming forward to work hand in hand with the department.

On high risk groups, the migrant population has been found to be the most sensitive, it was learnt. Realising the imperative need to map them, the NACO had reportedly carried out an exercise by engaging Sharon Agency.

The mapping, however, limited migrant population to an insignificant 2,000 to 3,000 in Dimapur when the actual number could be anywhere near 15,000 to a lot more, the NSACS Director regretted.

222 Child Miners in Meghalaya: Govt

Guwahati, Sep 8 : Under pressure from the National Human Rights Commission, the Jaintia Hills district authorities in Meghalaya have found 222 children working in unscientific coal mines. The figure is way short of 70,000 child labourers a Meghalaya-based NGO had claimed were working in the hill state's coal mines

often referred to as "rat holes" for unscientific and life-threatening methods employed to extract coal.

"In a district inhabited by barely 2 lakh people, it is impossible for 70,000 children to work in coal mines here," said a senior district official from headquarters Jowai.

Of the 222 children identified, 153 were found to belong to local communities. The rest had come with their parents from Assam, Bihar, Nepal and Bangladesh.

Rat-hole mining - workers go down at least 25m to extract coal with hands and primitive tools - is prevalent in Lad Sutnga, Bapung, Lad Rymbai and Khliehriat areas of Jaintia Hills. Similar technique is used in mines in Shallang, Langrin and Borsora areas of West Khasi Hills district and Nangalbibra of South Garo Hills district.

"We have convened a high-level meeting in the next few days to discuss ways of rehabilitating the child miners," said Arindam Som, Meghalaya's commissioner-secretary of mining and geology.

NHRC had on August 13 asked the Meghalaya government to work on a package to help children working under hazardous conditions in coal mines.

But a rehab plan for the children is easier said than done as locals engage in mining according to their traditional land tenure system wherein the people own the mines, not the government.

Owing to this "technical problem", Meghalaya's mines are classified as cottage or small-scale mines not covered under the Coal Mines (Nationalization) Act.

Manipur-Myanmar Border Fencing Progressing: Police Official

By Iboyaima Laithangbam

Imphal, Sep 8 : The erection of an insurmountable fence along an eight km long stretch of the Manipur-Myanmar border is progressing satisfactorily.

Disclosing this to journalists here on Monday, Major General C.A. Krishanan, Inspector General of Assam Rifles (South), said the work would be completed on schedule. The fence, once completed, will help State and security forces to check the free movement of rebels and their new recruits to their base camps on no man's land.

Maj. Gen. Krishanan said both India and Myanmar had reached an understanding to flush out the rebels from such camps. There were regular flag meetings between the Army officers. Intelligence inputs and other vital information to combat insurgency were shared. The Border Security Force had been replaced by the Assam Rifles, whose troopers were well-trained in counter-insurgency.

There are reports of killing and arrest of rebels by Assam Rifles troopers along the border. Besides, some Myanmarese nationals who had infiltrated into Manipur on their way to other parts of India are intercepted by the Assam Rifles every now and then. Shortly after the terror attack against the United States, nearly 200 top-notch rebel leaders were rounded up in Myanmar. However, reports said that they had been set free after one month.

Rebels from other North-Eastern States have been using Moreh in Manipur for crossing over, since in view of the legalised border trade they can easily mingle with the traders and tourists.

Highly-placed sources said the 1,643 km-long India-Myanmar border was porous and the rebels were crossing in many unpoliced areas.

Tougher travel norms

Sources also said that travel regulations at Moreh in Manipur and border towns such as Namphalong and Tamu in Myanmar would be made more stringent to single out the rebels.

For instance, an Indian trader or tourist can now visit the border towns by paying an immigration fee of Rs. 10 a head. There is no inquiry or identification. On the other hand, there is no such system at Moreh with the result that Myanmarese nationals have simply been boarding a bus or taxi to come to India.