Week Long Hornbill Festival Ends

Kohima, Dec 8 : The week-long Hornbill festival showcasing various facets of Naga traditional as well as contemporary life and culture, ended this evening at Kisama Heritage village near here.

During the closing ceremony, 480 dancers in their traditional attires, representing 16 different Naga tribes led by Angami Nagas performed a unity dance in the open amphitheatre of the Heritage village.

The festival, basically a tourism promotion event, witnessed a sizeable number of foreign tourists, mostly Europeans this time.

In the main market of the capital town, people thronged the last day''s ''Night Bazar'', organised by Kohima Chambers of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) since December 1.

However, the final day of the Hornbill National Rock Contest was on at Indira Gandhi Stadium here, as nine contestants were selected last night for the final round.

Survey of Sylhet-Meghalaya Borders Starts Today

Sylhet, Dec 8 : All preparations are set to start joint survey of Sylhet-Meghalaya borders today.

The survey officials yesterday held a brief meeting with their Indian counterpart on Sonarhat-Lakhat border near border pillar No 1266 on Sylhet-Meghalaya frontier in a bid to start joint survey on some of the disputed places. They checked maps and other documents and decided to start field survey this morning.

As per earlier schedule, the survey was to start yesterday but it could not begin due to lack of coordination among different departments.

Land records officials of Bangladesh and India in last week set the programme at a joint meeting on Tamabil International Check Post.

"The survey will start tomorrow [Wednesday] as the survey men sat with their Indian counterparts today [Tuesday]," Sylhet Deputy Commissioner Abu Syed Muhammad Hashim said.

Union Parishad Chairman Fokhrul Islam, who accompanied the survey staff to the border point, yesterday said, "The survey staff of both sides held discussion on Sinarhat border at about 11:00am today. We would start the job tomorrow."

Meanwhile, sources said officials concerned of Bangladesh Rifles were not properly informed about the decision to start the survey yesterday and it caused deferment of the act for one day.

The decision to conduct survey on the Sylhet-Meghalaya border came against the backdrop of long-standing disputes on the much talked border areas like Sonarhat, Dibir haor, Sripur, Tamabil, Bichhnakandi, Protappur and Lalakhal in Sylhet.

"The joint survey would be done initially on 13 points on the border from Lobhachhara in Kanaighat upazila to Lalakhal and Dibir Haor in Jaintapur and Sonarhat in Kanaighat upazila. It will be held in presence of land officials and BDR," the deputy commissioner said.

The border guards of the two countries exchanged fire time and again on those bordering areas as the Indian Border Security Force and the tribesmen attempted to forcibly occupy water bodies and farmlands inside Bangladesh territory during the recent months. Over a hundred people of the neighbouring habitats sustained injuries while many had to leave their homesteads for days and weeks. Even the BSF picked up some BDR men to the Indian territory and they were returned after long hours.

The BDR chief Major General Md Rafiqul Islam and the former chief and the BSF Inspector General visited the borders to calm the situation and agreed for joint survey. The matter was discussed in the regional border conferences and in the Joint Border Working Group meetings in Delhi and Dhaka.

Deputy Director of Land Records Nilmoni Sinha led the Bangladesh side while Meghalaya Land Survey Commission Joint Director TS Sangma and Deputy Director Marwin took part in the preparatory meeting held last week.

Bnei Menashe Celebrate Hanukkah

Lighting menorah Photo: Yochanan Phaltual

Members of northeastern Indian community claiming descent from one of Ten Lost Tribes of Israel usher in first night of Jewish holiday with joy and ceremony, as they continue to nourish hope of making aliyah.

The 7,200 members of the Bnei Menashe community of northeastern India ushered in the first night of Hanukkah on Wednesday with joy and ceremony, as they continue to nourish the hope of making aliyah in the near future.

"For most of their sojourn in exile, the Bnei Menashe did not observe Hanukkah nor were they aware of its existence until the modern era.

This, due to a very simple reason: Their ancestors were exiled from the land of Israel some 560 years before the historical events which Hanukkah commemorates,” Shavei Israel Chairman and founder Michael Freund said.

"But as part of their return to the Jewish people, they have embraced the holiday and made it their own, celebrating it together with Jews everywhere.

The Bnei Menashe still in India are anxiously awaiting a decision by Israel's government to allow them to come home to the Jewish state, and we pray that their dream will soon be fulfilled.”

Embracing holiday (Photo: Yochanan Phaltual)

The Bnei Menashe (Hebrew for "sons of Manasseh") claim descent from one of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel, who were sent into exile by the Assyrian Empire more than 27 centuries ago. They live in India's northeastern border states of Manipur and Mizoram.

Throughout their exile, the Bnei Menashe nonetheless continued to practice Judaism just as their ancestors did, including observing Shabbat, keeping kosher, celebrating the festivals and following the laws of family purity. And they continued to nourish the dream of one day returning to the land of their ancestors, the Land of Israel.

In recent years, Shavei Israel has brought some 1,700 Bnei Menashe back home to Zion. Another 7,200 still remain in India, waiting for the day when they too will be able to return to Israel and the Jewish people.

WikiLeaks Founder Assange May Surrender to British Police

London, Dec 7 : Julian Assange's lawyer was arranging to deliver the WikiLeaks founder to British police for questioning in a sex-crimes investigation of the man who has angered Washington by spilling thousands of government secrets on the internet.

Lawyer Mark Stephens told reporters in London that the Metropolitan Police had called him to say they had received an arrest warrant from Sweden for Assange. Assange has been staying at an undisclosed location in Britain.

"We are in the process of making arrangements to meet with police by consent," Stephens said on Monday, declining to say when Assange's interview with police would take place.

The 39-year-old Australian is wanted on suspicion of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion in Sweden, and the case could lead to his extradition. Interpol placed Assange on its most-wanted list on Nov. 30 after Sweden issued an arrest warrant. Last week, Sweden's highest court upheld the detention order.

Assange has denied the accusations, which Stephens has said stem from a "dispute over consensual but unprotected sex." The lawyer has said the Swedish investigation has turned into a "political stunt."

The pressure on WikiLeaks mounted from other quarters Monday: Swiss authorities closed Assange's bank account, depriving him of a key fundraising tool. And WikiLeaks struggled to stay online despite more hacker attacks and resistance from world governments, receiving help from computer-savvy advocates who have set up hundreds of "mirrors" - or carbon-copy websites - around the world.

In one of its most sensitive disclosures yet, WikiLeaks released on Sunday a secret 2009 diplomatic cable listing sites around the world that the US considers critical to its security. The locations include undersea communications lines, mines, food suppliers, manufacturers of weapons components, and vaccine factories.

Pentagon spokesman Col. David Lapan called the disclosure damaging and said it gives valuable information to the nation's enemies.

"This is one of many reasons why we believe WikiLeaks' actions are irresponsible and dangerous," Lapan said.

WikiLeaks has been under intense international scrutiny over its disclosure of a mountain of classified US cables that have embarrassed Washington and other governments. US officials have been putting pressure on WikiLeaks and those who help it and is investigating whether Assange can be prosecuted under espionage law.

In what Assange described as a last-ditch deterrent, WikiLeaks has warned that it has distributed a heavily encrypted version of some of its most important documents and that the information could be instantly made public if the staff were arrested.

For days, WikiLeaks has been forced by governments, hackers and companies to move from one website to another. WikiLeaks is now relying on a Swedish host. But WikiLeaks' Swedish servers were crippled after coming under suspected attack again on Monday, the latest in a series of such assaults.

It was not clear who was organizing the attacks. WikiLeaks has blamed previous ones on intelligence forces in the US and elsewhere.

WikiLeaks' huge online following of tech-savvy young people has pitched in, setting up more than 500 mirrors.

"There is a whole new generation, digital natives, born with the Internet, that understands the freedom of communication," said Pascal Gloor, vice president of the Swiss Pirate Party, whose Swiss Web address, wikileaks.ch, has been serving as a mainstay for WikiLeaks traffic.

"It's not a left-right thing anymore. It's a generational thing between the politicians who don't understand that it's too late for them to regulate the Internet and the young who use technology every day."

Meanwhile, the Swiss postal system's financial arm, Postfinance, shut down a bank account set up by Assange to receive donations after the agency determined that he provided false information regarding his place of residence in opening the account. Assange had listed his lawyer's address in Geneva.

"He will get his money back," Postfinance spokesman Alex Josty said. "We just close the account."

Assange's lawyers said the account contained about $41,000. Over the weekend, the online payment service PayPal cut off WikiLeaks and, according to his Assange's lawyers, froze $80,000 of the organization's money.

The group is left with only a few options for raising money now - through a Swiss-Icelandic credit card processing center and accounts in Iceland and Germany.

Monday marked the first day that WikiLeaks did not publish any new cables. It was unclear whether that had anything to do with the computer attacks.

Source: AP

When a Man Loves An Older Woman

By Shilpa Raina


New Delhi, Dec 7 : Somebody has very rightly said love knows no age. At a time when the dynamics of marriage are changing rapidly and youngsters are experimenting with their lives, 'cougar' relationship is a new phrase catching up among them.

The term cougar refers to a relationship where a woman is romantically involved with a much younger man and it was the theme of the 2009 superhit film 'Wake Up Sid'. Audiences loved watching Ranbir Kapoor falling in love with the older Konkona Sen Sharma and even thronged the theatres for it.

'This trend is not so uncommon in India. It has been around for some time now. And, yes, Indian sensibilities are not in conflict with such relationships,' psychiatrist Sanjay Chugh told IANS.

'The phenomenon, whether people like it or not, is increasingly coming out in the open. In the past too, such relationships existed but were not talked about too much,' he added.

Way back in 1967, Hollywood came out with its well-known classic 'The Graduate', where Anne Bancroft, an older woman, seduces a much younger man, played by Dustin Hoffman.

And such experiments were not restricted to the celluloid.

Quite a few Hollywood celebrities have had successful 'cougar' marriages and the recent example is Demi Moore who has enjoyed marital bliss with 15-year younger actor Ashton Kutcher.

Other such couples are Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins (12-year age gap), Mariah Carey and Nick Cannon (10-year age gap).

Even pop diva Madonna, known for her experimental looks, tried it when she tied the knot with 10-year younger Guy Ritchie. But they separated two years ago.

In India, the most publicised cougar couple was Saif Ali Khan who married Amrita Singh way back in 1991. She was 12 years older to him. Their marriage had raised a lot of eyebrows, with people questioning the compatibility and the big age-gap, but it lasted a good 12 years. In 2004 they got divorced.

Samir Parikh, a consultant psychiatrist at Max Healthcare, says anything unusual is bound to get attention.

'Anything which is slightly different raises eyebrows for a while. This happens more so with celebrities because they are so much in the public glare and the reactions are all the more manifest,' Parikh told IANS.

Even master blaster Sachin Tendulkar's wife Anjali Tendulkar is five years older to him whereas Bollywood actress Manisha Koirala has married seven years younger Samrat Dahal and choreographer-turned-director Farah Khan exchanged vows with eight-year younger Shirish Kunder.

According to Chugh, if one looks at the Indian value system closely, it emphasises on making a relationship work and not so much on the peripherals.

The age difference of a year or two doesn't even qualify for the term 'cougar', and there are many examples of such couples in the Hindi film industry - Bollywood actors like Aishwarya Rai and Shilpa Shetty have respectively married Abhishek Bachchan and Raj Kundra who are two years younger to them. Even legendary actress Nargis was a year older to her actor husband Sunil Dutt.

Sometimes such marriages are seen by society as an attempt by a woman to have some fun in her life or by someone who wants to tame her partner and can do so by marrying a younger man.

This psyche was beautifully portrayed by director Ajay Sinha in the popular television serial 'Astitva - Ek Prem Kahani', about a young photographer marrying a doctor who's 10 years older to him.

Chugh said: 'Just as a woman would look for a father figure or fulfil her needs for protection in an older man, a man would look for a mother figure or fulfil his needs for tender care and love in an older woman.'

Moreover, a drastic shift in the financial status has made today's women independent and they enjoy the power to pick and choose their partners without worrying about age, money and caste.

'Women today, just like the men, are experimenting and are also sure enough of themselves to take such chances. In this whole discussion, we must not make it a feminist thing as it is as much a woman's choice as a man's. The younger man is also, at the same time, taking the decision to marry an older woman,' said Chugh.

Manipur Girl Molestation Case : Delhi Police Detain Friend of Accused

By Atul Krishan

New Delhi, Dec 7 : Police suspect culprits have fled the city


A day after MiD DAY broke the story of the attempted to abduction and molestation of a northeastern girl working with a BPO, Delhi police has detained an associate of the two African males who are accused in the case.

Facing facts: The victim was on her way home after collecting her debit 
card from a private bank in Saket when she was attacked.

DCP (south) HGS Dhaliwal called up this reporter and said that cops have seized the passport of the two men and hope to arrest them soon. He said that investigation is in full swing.
Meanwhile, a police official close to the investigation said that the culprits who allegedly attacked the victim may have fled the city.

"We went to the residence of the accused and found them missing. We have informed the airport authority to stop them from flying out of the country," said the official.

"They ran away from their rented accommodation in a hurry, but left their passports behind that are now in police possession. They can not go back to their country now. We hope it will help the police arrest the accused," a police source told MiD DAY.

Taken for a ride

At around 4:30 pm on Monday evening at PVR Saket, two media students of IGNOU took an auto to Maidan Gari (IGNOU campus). According to them, as the auto started moving, a six-foot tall man of African origin pushed them and entered the moving vehicle.

The girls shouted at him and asked him to step out but he refused to do so and started shouting at them. The unknown male was sporting a red sweater, blue jeans and a black cap. He also asked the auto driver to speed up.

When the girls started shouting at him, the man folded his hands and requested them to allow him to stay as some people were chasing him.

"After about 200 metres, the auto stopped at a traffic light. As it stopped two policemen dragged the man out of the auto. But he started attacking them and escaped.

If something like this is happening at a place like Saket then where do we go?" asked one of the students.

via Midday

Gang Leader Arrested in Dhaula Kuan Rape Case

New Delhi, Dec 7 : The leader of a five-member gang which had allegedly abducted and raped a 30-year-old call centre employee here, was tonight arrested from neighbouring Haryana, police said.

Kamru alias Mobile (25) was "arrested from Lakhuwas village in Sohna police station area of Gurgaon at around 9:30 pm," a senior Delhi Police official said.

With this, police claimed it has arrested all the five youths hailing from Dhaujj Village of Haryana's Mewat who allegedly abducted and raped a Mizo woman in south Delhi's Dhaula Kuan on November 26.

The first arrests were made by police on December 2 when they apprehended Usman and Shamshad from Dhaujj. Shahid, another suspect, had surrendered to the police in Faridabad in connection with another case and was later arrested.

Kids’ Fest Runaway Hit in Hornbill

Members of Chang Naga community dress as warriors to perform at the annual Hornbill Festival at the Naga Heritage village on the outskirts of Kohima on Monday. (PTI)

Kohima, Dec 7 : The Kids Carnival, a part of the Hornbill Festival 2010, has been attracting scores of children at the Naga Heritage village, Kisama, during the past few days.

Started in 2009, Kids Carnival was the brainchild of Kevilezo Kense and Kevitsu Doze from Synergy Group Enterprises. Despite running into losses last year, the two young men were not deterred, and this year, they have managed to hire a giant Ferris wheel from Guwahati, attracting more children at the carnival. A fancy show, singing, drawing/painting, essay and dance competitions were the some of the contests organised at the carnival this year.

Seeing the children’s response during last year’s Hornbill Festival, the tourism department felt the need for a proper children’s park and the hillock, which is the current carnival site, was converted into an attractive park, spending an amount of Rs 2.5 crore, Kevilezo said.

The government, through the tourism department, has also been supporting and encouraging the Synergy Group Enterprises by extending financial assistance, said Doze.

Synergy Group Enterprises, which comprises a team of event managers specialising in a variety of events, is also managing the 30 Thai groups currently attending the Hornbill Festival 2010.

With event management picking up gradually in Nagaland, the organisers said they were hopeful that young Nagas would get the opportunity for full-time employment, if more local events were outsourced to event management groups.

Kense also asked for more inputs and feedback from the public, so that the Kids Carnival concept could be improved in coming years, incorporating the likes and dislikes of the children.

A Naga king chilly-eating competition was also held at Naga Heritage Village, Kisama. The Naga chilly is one of the hottest chillies in the world. The festival officials said it is officially called Naga king chilly and is registered with the department of horticulture, government of Nagaland.

A total of 11 participants took part in the competition, which was also attended by parliamentary secretary for tourism, law and justice, Yitachu as the chief patron.

James Angami, who ate eight Naga chillies, was declared the winner of the competition and walked away with a cash prize of Rs 10,000, while Neluyi Chakhesang and H. Pukhu Khiamniungan ate five and four chillies respectively.

Dr Throshe and his medical team gave first aid to the participants. Director, horticulture department, Joseph gave away the prizes.

The chilly-eating competition was organised and conducted by XL group.