Indian Girls in US Beat 'Fairer Sex' at Work

New Delhi: Indian girls have emerged as more ambitious with a desire to attain top level positions than their counterparts in the US, reflecting a shift in the social status of women in the country, a latest report revealed.

"The widespread nature of aspiration among Indian women is extraordinary with a whopping 80 per cent of them ready to go extra-mile to achieve their ambition compared to 52 per cent in the US," it said.

The report titled 'The Battle of Female Talent in India' is prepared by a non-profit think tank Center for Work-Life Policy.

Interestingly, the report noted that less than 30 per cent of women in India work and only 10 per cent between the ages of 18-23 are enrolled in higher education.

Still in 2009, women back home represented 11 per cent of CEOs, almost 4 times the 3 per cent figure for women in U.S and U.K as contained in the Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 companies respectively.

"The impressive levels of aspiration amongst Indian women have been fuelled by the country's rapid economic growth that has brought about a shift in the social status of women," the report said.

However, growth in the number of working Indian women is still muted due to the major barriers like childcare issues, workplace gender bias, safety concerns, travelling time and extreme working hours, it added.

About 70 per cent of Indian women find it tough to cope with the responsibility of taking care of the kids , parents and other elder members, while 45 per cent of Indian women believe that unfair treatment at workplace is a major hurdle.

Safety concerns affect 52 per cent of women in India commuting to their jobs while 73 per cent experience societal disapproval of travelling alone for job purposes.

DeAnne Aguirre of Booz & Company (USA) said winning the war for female talent in India requires commitment.

Aguirre suggested that the companies must strive to become a magnet for smart women through an intellectually challenging, growth-oriented, equitable, and supportive workplace.

Besides, female ambition should be sustained through the cultural tug-of-war by promoting networks that help build ties among them and provide the organisational know-how to succeed, Aguirre added.

Aguirre insists that the females should be provided with the flexibility to deal with family-related pulls and work-related pushes through creative solutions based on local knowledge.

Keeping the above things in mind, some corporates like Google, Goldman Sachs, Infosys, ICICI Bank, GE, Tata, Ernst & Young, HSBC, and Pfizer are creating processes and practices that would enable Indian women to compete and flourish at their full potential.

Source: Agencies

China Reveals World's Fastest Train

Beijing, Dec 9 : China played host to railway authorities and railway experts from around the world in Beijing , and used the opportunity to showcase a high-speed train that clocked the fastest ever speed in a test run last week.

In the spotlight is the 16-car CRH380A, a new generation of high-speed train which Chinese Ministry of Railways officials say recorded a top speed of 486.1 kilometers per hour on Friday, far exceeding Japan's bullet trains.

Chinese railway officials say the CRH380A, designed to operate at a cruising speed of 380 kph, is the fastest train in operation in the world today.

China is reportedly in the process of developing a super high-speed train that can run at 600 kph.

China South Locomotive & Rolling Stock Corp., which designed the CRH380A, was clearly the focus attention as foreign railway experts toured an international exhibition of railway technology organised by the Ministry of Railways on the sidelines of a world congress on high speed rail.

After attending a briefing by China South Locomotive, an Iranian government official said Iran is considering buying the Chinese high-speed train.

"We definitely want to import it," an Israeli railways executive also said.

Railways executives from the US State of California also listened attentively as China South Locomotive officials briefed the international visitors.

China boasts the world's longest high-speed railway network, which totals 7,531 km, and Chinese railway officials say the country plans to expand the system to 16,000 km by 2020.

The exhibition, held at the China National Convention Center in Beijing, has drawn entries from more than 200 companies worldwide, each showcasing its wares and know-how to a global audience of railway experts and transport officials.

The Man Who Invented Bollywood Dance

By Aarthi Gunnupuri

India is playing host to Bill Clinton and the sleepy town of Lucknow is a stop over.
On the menu is the finest Awadhi cuisine and the best dancer India can find to entertain a former U.S. President.

After the performance, Clinton says to the lead choreographer and dancer, “The world must see you!”

Shiamak Davar is a dancer-choreographer-entrepreneur-philanthropist. His schedule is packed through the year with staged live performances at power-packed places like the World Economic Forum at Davos, Indo-Tokyo Friendship Week in Japan, and this year's Commonwealth Games in New Delhi.

In fact the Government of India summons Shiamak Davar from Mumbai pretty much every time they need to showcase the best of emerging India's contemporary culture.

And he's not up there in front of world leaders doing token Bollywood gyrations.

He's up there dancing a style he invented in Mumbai 30 years ago, when a fellow named Shahrukh Khan was a young, lovestruck upcoming actor courting a dancer in Davar's troupe who would later become the superstar's wife.

They invented a contemporary Indo-Jazz Bollywood genre made up of elements that combine classical Indian with Western jazz. And to give you an idea of scale, for the Melbourne Commonwealth Games in 2006 Davar says, "We put up a nice 11-minute show, 400 dancers from my troupe performed alongside 300 Australian dancers trained by us. It was a magical experience."

1980s entertainers clique
Twenty-six years after he began teaching contemporary dance to seven students in a run down Grant Road school, today the Shiamak Davar Institute of Performing Arts (SDIPA) has centers around the world, including Canada, the Middle East and of course India. New centers are coming up in London and New York.

Right now instructors from the Debbie Allen Academy -- a school founded by one of the United States' most important dancers and choreographers -- are in Mumbai training top Indian dancers handpicked by Shiamak Davar in a one-year course at SDIPA.

To work with Allen's academy is to tap into dance history that reaches as far back the movie "Fame" in which Allen starred, the Academy Awards which she choreographed six years in a row and So You Think You Can Dance, a popular television dance competition on AXN, where she is a judge.

Malcom Gladwell, author of "Outliers," argues that an uber-successful person (the outlier) is often surrounded by a set of advantages that propel them to greater glory.

On his site, Gladwell says, "In order to understand the Outlier, I think you have to look around them -- at their culture and community and family and generation."

Born into SoBo old money, with the resources to hone his talent, Davar went off to study at premier performing institutes in London, including the Guildford School of Acting.

On his return, he began to teach dance in 1985, then founded the academy in 1992.

The first batch of seven students was an eclectic mix of the soon-to-be famous in India's entertainment industry. Singer Lucky Ali, model Rachel Rueben and actor Kitu Gidwani were good friends who enrolled to support their friend's endeavor.

"We used to all hang out together, Rachel, Jackie (Shroff), Sunil Shetty…" Davar remembers.
He says their addas in the 1980s were Pastry Palace at Napean Sea Road and the coolest club of their time -- Studio 29 on Marine Drive, inspired by London's Studio 54.

At the prestigious Cathedral School, Davar’s classmates were the present Mid-day MD Tariq Ansari, BBC anchor Nisha Pillai and CNN’s Fareed Zakaria.

"Fareed was a very quiet guy. I was the complete opposite -- always singing and dancing,” says Davar. Today, he counts among friends, industrialists, media moguls and the powerhouses of Bollywood, including the Bachchans, Shahrukh Khan and Aamir Khan.

Many of these connections may have inspired and driven the young Davar. But the one that seemed to have the biggest impact on his career was his relationship with Shahrukh Khan, through Khan’s wife Gauri.

"Gauri was in one of my classes, a hard-working student who later also joined my troupe," recalls Davar. "Shahrukh would hang around often, waiting for her to finish up. Soon, we got to know each other and he persuaded me to choreograph 'Dil Toh Pagal Hai', my first Bollywood film.”

Khan’s character, the male lead in the film, plays a dancer-choreographer. DTPH, as it came to be known popularly, was a rage. Everyone outside Mumbai knew Shiamak Davar after that.

MasterCard DOWN: MasterCard.com, Swiss Bank, Lawyer's Site Hacked By WikiLeaks Supporters With DDOS Attack

London, Dec 9 : Hackers rushed to the defense of WikiLeaks on Wednesday, launching attacks on MasterCard, Visa, Swedish prosecutors, a Swiss bank, Sarah Palin and others who have acted against the site and its jailed founder Julian Assange.

Internet "hacktivists" operating under the label "Operation Payback" claimed responsibility in a Twitter message for causing severe technological problems at the website for MasterCard, which pulled the plug on its relationship with WikiLeaks a day ago.

MasterCard acknowledged "a service disruption" involving its Secure Code system for verifying online payments, but spokesman James Issokson said consumers could still use their credit cards for secure transactions. Later Wednesday, Visa's website was inaccessible.

The online attacks are part of a wave of support for WikiLeaks that is sweeping the Internet. Twitter was choked with messages of solidarity for the group, while the site's Facebook page hit 1 million fans.

Late Wednesday, Operation Payback itself appeared to run into problems, as many of its sites went down. It was unclear who was behind the counterattack.

MasterCard is the latest in a string of U.S.-based Internet companies – including Visa, Amazon.com, PayPal Inc. and EveryDNS – to cut ties to WikiLeaks in recent days amid intense U.S. government pressure. PayPal was not having problems Wednesday but the company said it faced "a dedicated denial-of-service attack" on Monday.

Meanwhile, a website tied to former Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin came under cyberattack, she said. In a posting on the social networking site Facebook last week, Palin called Assange "an anti-American operative with blood on his hands." An aide said staff moved quickly to secure the website and no data was compromised.

WikiLeaks' extensive releases of secret U.S. diplomatic cables have embarrassed U.S. allies, angered rivals, and reopened old wounds across the world. U.S. officials in Washington say other countries have curtailed their dealings with the U.S. government because of WikiLeaks' actions.

PayPal Vice President Osama Bedier said the company froze WikiLeaks' account after seeing a letter from the U.S. State Department to WikiLeaks saying that the group's activities "were deemed illegal in the United States."

Offline, WikiLeaks was under pressure on many fronts. Assange is in a British prison fighting extradition to Sweden over a sex crimes case. Recent moves by Swiss Postfinance, MasterCard, PayPal and others that cut the flow of donations to the group have impaired its ability to raise money.

Neither WikiLeaks nor Assange has been charged with any offense in the U.S., but the U.S. government is investigating whether Assange can be prosecuted for espionage or other offenses. Assange has not been charged with any offenses in Sweden either, but authorities there want to question him about the allegations of sex crimes.

Undeterred, WikiLeaks released more confidential U.S. cables Wednesday. The latest batch showed the British government feared a furious Libyan reaction if the convicted Lockerbie bomber wasn't set free and expressed relief when they learned he would be released in 2009 on compassionate grounds.

Another U.S. memo described German leader Angela Merkel as the "Teflon" chancellor, but she brushed it off as mere chatter at a party. American officials were also shown to be lobbying the Russian government to amend a financial bill they felt would disadvantage U.S. companies Visa and MasterCard.

The most surprising cable of the day came from a U.S. diplomat in Saudi Arabia after a night on the town.

"The underground nightlife of Jiddah's elite youth is thriving and throbbing," the memo said. "The full range of worldly temptations and vices are available – alcohol, drugs, sex – but all behind closed doors."

The pro-WikiLeaks vengeance campaign on Wednesday appeared to be taking the form of denial-of-service attacks in which computers are harnessed – sometimes surreptitiously – to jam target sites with mountains of requests for data, knocking them out of commission.

Per Hellqvist, a security specialist with the firm Symantec, said a network of web activists called Anonymous – to which Operation Payback is affiliated – appeared to be behind many of the attacks. The group, which has previously focused on the Church of Scientology and the music industry, is knocking offline websites seen as hostile to WikiLeaks.

"While we don't have much of an affiliation with WikiLeaks, we fight for the same reasons," the group said in a statement. "We want transparency and we counter censorship ... we intend to utilize our resources to raise awareness, attack those against and support those who are helping lead our world to freedom and democracy."

The website for Swedish lawyer Claes Borgstrom, who represents the two women at the center of Assange's sex crimes case, was unreachable Wednesday.

The Swiss postal system's financial arm, Postfinance, which shut down Assange's bank account on Monday, was also having trouble. Spokesman Alex Josty said the website buckled under a barrage of traffic Tuesday.

"Yesterday it was very, very difficult, then things improved overnight," he told the AP. "But it's still not entirely back to normal."

Ironically, the microblogging site Twitter – home of much WikiLeaks support – could become the next target. Operation Payback posted a statement claiming "Twitter you're next for censoring Wikileaks discussion."

Some WikiLeaks supporters accuse Twitter of preventing the term "WikiLeaks" from appearing as one of its popular "trending topics." Twitter denies censorship, saying the topics are determined by an algorithm.

Twitter's top trending topics are not the ones people are discussing the most overall, but those they are talking about more right now than they did previously, Twitter explained in an e-mail Wednesday. If tweets were ranked by volume alone, the weather or other mundane topics would dominate the trends.

WikiLeaks angered the U.S. government earlier this year when it posted a video showing U.S. troops on a helicopter gunning down two Reuters journalists in Iraq. Since then, the organization has leaked some 400,000 classified U.S. war files from Iraq and 76,000 from Afghanistan, which U.S. military officials say could put people's lives at risk. In the last few weeks, the group has begun leaking a massive trove of secret U.S. diplomatic cables.

U.S. officials have directed their anger at Assange, but others have begun to ask whether Washington shares the blame for the diplomatic uproar.

"The core of all this lies with the failure of the government of the United States to properly protect its own diplomatic communications," Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd said Wednesday, criticizing the fact that tens of thousands of U.S. government employees had access to the cables.

Assange, meanwhile, faces a new extradition hearing in London next week where his lawyers plan to reapply for bail. The 39-year-old Australian denies two women's allegations in Sweden of rape, molestation and unlawful coercion, and is fighting his extradition to Sweden.

In a Twitter message Wednesday, WikiLeaks spokesman Kristinn Hrafnsson shrugged off the challenges.

"We will not be gagged, either by judicial action or corporate censorship ... WikiLeaks is still online," Hrafnsson said.

North East Migration and Challenges in Mega Cities

By Madhu Chandra

Recent crimes against North East girls in Delhi has compelled me to write this article before the completion of a research study on the subject undertaken by North East Support Centre & Helpline sponsored by All India Christian Council. Once against the plights face by the people of North East India in Delhi and NCR has come to lime light after the gruesome crime of kidnap and gang rape case of a 30 years old Mizo girl at Dhaula Kuan in a moving vehicle on midnight of November 23, 2010. Segregation society likes ours in India, unless pressure mounted up on law enforcing agencies, justice many times unheard and denied to communities like North Easterners and oppressed Dalits.

Delhi has become a capital of rape and unsafe for women, particularly those working at night. Unfortunately, the law enforcing agencies kept on playing a reactive mode all these years and if continues in same mode, the Dhaula Kuan case which was not the first and will be the last either. A proactive preventive paradigm shift is what needed of the hour. Steps are taken to handle pre-crime preventive measures by installing night police patrolling in unsafe areas, CCTV cameras and ordering BPO industries to follow safety guideline. These steps should not be forgotten after a week or a month but should be monitored round the year as proactive preventing approach.

But, there has been unanswered questions why has the people from North East India, particularly girls and women become vulnerable for sexual abuse in national capital city. It will be worth to look at some realities on North East Indian migration and challenges face in mega cities.

Until early 2000, most of the people who used to come to cities like Delhi are those working in central government jobs and pursuing higher studies. The large number of migration began after 2000 and became more in last two or three years that came with purpose of higher studies and hunt of employment opportunities.

Duration of stay in mega cities differs from community to communities. Most of the student communities come for four to five years and return home at completion of studies while those who managed to get job, continue or migrate to other cities. Those who work in Government jobs and private sectors continues to stay until they get retired and return back to their native states but this phenomena is likely to changed in days ahead due to unrest of socio-political situation at back at home states. It will also be important to understand what pushes and pulls North Easterners to mega cities and challenges they face.

Push Factors for North East Migration

There are numbers of push factors for North East Indian migration to other mega cities like Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Mumbai, Kolkata and many others. Identification of these push factors are important for whole nation as it will reveal how the life in the region has been for years. The push factors:

First, socio-political unrest in the region - this includes mushrooming of militants, bloodshed, constant ongoing public strikes, Arm Forces Special Power Act and corrupt nature of government machineries etc. These unrests have been there in the region for last over 50 years in some states and lesser in others. Life in the region is nightmares – 100 days public strikes in a year – market shuts, school closed and public transportation off the road. Hardly two hours of electricity available, water supply hardly once or twice in a week. Markets, shops closed at 4 evening and street pin drop silence after 8 pm, anyone can be harassed, picked, adducted and killed by night patrolling police and militants.

North Eastern people lived in their own villages, towns, cities in midst of all these unrest for years but people did not desire to go out of own states until globalisation reached mega cities of India. The moment the globalisation reaches mega cities of India, young generation of North East India got attracted and started migrating in pursue of employment, mostly in un-organised BPO companies like Call Centres, shopping malls and hospitality industries.

Second, lack of employment opportunities in entire North East states is a major push factor of migration to other mega cities. Government employment is small percentage of work forces, available to those who have political connection or have money power to bribe. Educated poor, who have no political connections, have no hope for government employment in the region.

Private sectors and non-governmental business establishment are also nil in whole of region, which mean the lack employment opportunities apart from limited governmental jobs. Having the impact of English medium education through private schools, not many at master but at high school and intermediate level are attracted by globalisation in mega cities like Delhi.

Third, educational system is badly affected and it should be top most worried for entire region. Almost all government run schools collapsed, a bit of education survived is from private schools. Worse effected state is Manipur, where 100 days without classes in a year, it is going on for last few years. The effect of education infected by socio-political crisis of the region may not be seen in short period but region particularly the state of Manipur will suffer its consequences in near future.

Parent, who is in any possible to manage, will send their children for better education outside state. This has also become a challenging as many innocent children are targeted for human trafficking. To seal the problem of child trafficking, Supreme Court of India has ordered to stop any children below 12 years of age from going out of Manipur state. This order has some connotation of violation of the freedom of parents desiring to send their children outside of the state for better education, although the order of court is appreciated when it comes to the concern of stoping child trafficking.

Going beyond the education system affected, push factor of migration is the lack of educational opportunities. The field of professional education to match the demand from the emergence of globalisation is totally lacking in the region. This lacking as push factor pushes students outside of region in pursue of their higher studies.

Fourth, the communal conflicts among the different heterogenous communities and insurgencies has destroyed hundreds of villages, lost thousands of lives and made many homeless and orphans. Many of them are internally displaced and when had opportunities to migrate to other mega cities with friends and relatives; they take the change and ended up in mega cities like Delhi.

Pull Factors for North East Migration

The major pull factor for migration of people from North East India is impact of globalisation. Although four push factors mentioned above have been the issues in the region for last few decades. Yet the phenomena of migrating to mega cities, particularly in search of job opportunities did not take place until the emergence of globalisation. Globalisation has opened door opportunities for whole world and it has attracted the people of North East India to move to mega cities.

First, better environment of educational opportunities with multiple choices of study branch have attracted young generation from North East India region. This pull factor attracts all students in region but small percentage of population can afford.

Second, employment opportunities in central government jobs have attacked educated young generation from North East region, yet they have to compete through examination. Reserved jobs in central governmental department made easier for Scheduled Caste and Tribe communities both in higher and lower professions.

Third, globalisation has opened doors to employment opportunities, particularly semi-professional and semi-skilled crowds. Many of young boys and girls from North East India, who are at level of semi-skilled and semi-professional, get jobs in organised and non-organised private sectors like BPO, and hospitality industries, shopping malls etc. Appealing personalities, ability to communicate in English and hospitality/socially oriented culture, honesty, hard working culture of North East region are few more flavours attracted to private companies. Nevertheless, not without challenges when they migrate to mega cities particularly in Delhi and NCR.

Challenges Faced by North Easterners in Mega Cities!

Unprepared they came, unprepared they faced challenges and unprepared yet to address them. It is a multidimensional challenge that needs to address together so that some of heinous crimes committed against the people from North East India, particularly in Delhi and NCR.

First, social profiling all Mongoloid looking face is the greatest challenge faced by the people of North East India in Delhi and NCR. It is the main root causes of sexual abuse, social discrimination and racial attack. Social profiling has caused North East girls as vulnerable in the eyes of perpetrators.

The notion of social profiling – the opinion formed upon ones appearance, culture and levelling everyone equal with some opinions formed upon some experiences. Once a community is socially profiled, ones economic, social, educational and professional status does not matter and everyone is looked upon socially and racially with low image. Social profiling is the reflection of segregated society based on caste hierarchy and apartheids.

Next to social profiling is the mind-set of people on North East communities which has become a major cause of sexual abuse, social discrimination and economic exploitation. A mindset of social profiling is that the people from North East India are strangers, free culture, cheap and do anything one likes, you can get free. Social profiling is also seen in the attitudes of local police when they insult, deceive, ignore and deny the complaints and connived with perpetrators in many cases.

Second, the education, employment and livelihood earning are affected by social profiling, racial discrimination and gender-based violence. In most of the cases of sexual abuse, rape and racial attack, victims had to move to another secured localities. When they relocate, any business they have been running is immediately affected and some times they are not able to restart the same villages and at last had to return back to their native states. At some risky situation, boys and girls are so much traumatised from the incident they had gone through and affect their mental and some become mentally ill and their lives are destroyed. The very purpose for which the people from North East India migrated for are affected at different level.

Third, those working in private sectors, particularly those in non-organised sectors face huge challenges. Pay is less, hardly manageable for their living cost and to support family members at home. Their jobs are not secured, any time, they can be terminated and many terminated without pay. At entry point, certain amount agreed and paid just half at the end of the day.

Four, the last nevertheless least, young north east girls are targeted by human trafficking agents. It is equally real at mega cities and back at home. Insufficient of salaries and insured jobs in private companies has caused the desire to better and more secured jobs. In search better and secured jobs, many of innocent girls and boys ended at the end of human trafficking agencies. Thereafter, the life and challenges of social profiling and racial discrimination move to another paradigm shift, which is far greater danger than what has been faced so far.

Issue is big, need to seek remedies, preferably together, more of integration, socially acceptable among the societies with inputs law enforcing agencies, social scientists, civil societies and government machineries, keeping in mind that Diversity in Unity is the strength and beauty of India.

About the author: Madhu Chandra is a social activist and research scholar based in New Delhi. Regional Secretary of All India Christian Council (www.indianchristians.in), Spokesperson of North East Support Centre & Helpline (www.nehelpline.net) and National Secretary of All India Confederation of SC/ST Organisations (www.scstconfederation.net).

Assam Police Modernises With Uzis, MP5s

Guwahati, Dec 9 : Vintage World War I era firearms like the .303 rifles have become a thing of the past with police commandos in insurgency-hit Assam now equipped with sophisticated weapons like the Israeli Uzi and the German MP5 submachine guns to match the new face of urban terror.

'We have almost been able to phase out .303 rifles and replaced them with several sophisticated close-quarter and long-range weapons like Uzis to equip our forces so that combating terror becomes more effective,' Assam police chief Shankar Baruah said.

For long, the .303 rifles, accurate and good in the field, were used by the Assam Police, but with militants resorting to urban terrorism, realization dawned that the weapon was not good enough to be used while fighting rebels in cities.

'We need to buy more assault and combat rifles like the Uzi as fighting terrorism in the jungles and villages is different from populated cities where one would have to avoid collateral damage.'

The Israeli Uzi comes in various sizes from submachine guns to pistols and all the variants very accurate and easy to handle with optimum results.

The Heckler and Koch MP5 submachine gun is a lightweight, air-cooled, magazine-fed, delayed blowback operated, select-fire weapon that can be shoulder or hand fired and is invariably very accurate with sustained fire modes.

'The Uzi and the MP5 are weapons now used by elite anti-terror forces in most parts of the world as the volume of fire is greater and is very accurate and hence the in thing for security forces in tackling urban terror,' another senior police official said.

The wave of terror bombings in Assam in October 2008 had exposed how poorly equipped the state police force was - with World War I era firearms, defective bulletproof vests and insufficient numbers - to deal with heavily armed terrorists, say experts.

'We are also trying to get some aerial weapons to equip our forces for maximum results,' the police chief said.

In most Indian states, the police forces continue to fight with .303 rifles similar to the Lee Enfield weapons used by the British troops during World War I.

'There is need for specialization of the police force by imparting training and equipping them with more advanced weapons. Already the process is on,' Baruah said.

Even today, police in Assam wear plastic helmets and body protectors designed to ward off sticks and stones, rather than bullets as they fight terrorists armed with AK-47 rifles, pistols, grenades and RDX.

'The entire strategy and training module of the police force needs to be reformed, especially in view of the growing urban terror attacks seen in Assam and other places,' former Assam police chief Nishinath Changkakoty said.

Bangladesh to Boost Trade, Ties With Northeast India

Agartala, Dec 9 : Bangladesh will upgrade its diplomatic offices in northeast India to boost trade and people-to-people contact with the region, officials said here Wednesday.

'The Bangladesh government has approved plans to upgrade its mission in Agartala to deputy high commission level,' first secretary and head of Bangladesh's Agartala mission (visa office) Mohammad Abu Taher Mondal told reporters.

Mondal said Bangladesh also expected to increase its volume of export to Tripura to Rs.300 crore during the current financial year.

He said that in 2007-08, Bangladesh had exported goods worth Rs.84.15 crore to Tripura and imported commodities worth Rs.1.51 crore from the state.

Northeastern states like Tripura, Meghalaya and Assam export commodities like limestone, tea, machine parts, fruit and coal to Bangladesh and import cement, stone chips, bricks, Hilsa fish, dry fish, edible oils, readymade garments and furniture from the country.

Bangladesh's deputy high commission in Kolkata recently held camps at Siliguri in West Bengal and Guwahati in Assam for visa seekers.

Bangladesh High Commissioner to India Tariq A. Karim, during his recent visit to Tripura, said that he had asked his government to set up deputy high commissions at Mumbai, Chennai and Guwahati.

'If more Indians are willing to go to Bangladesh frequently, visa camps would be held in different places in northeast and eastern India more often,' said Karim, accompanied by Bangladesh's deputy high commissioner to India Mustafizur Rahman.

The Agartala visa office, set up in 1974 and upgraded in 1990, is the only Bangladesh mission in northeast India.

Tripura Capital Agartala Hosts Northeast Students National Integration Program

Agartala, Dec 9 : Over 1500 students from eight northeastern states recently took part in a three-day-long Northeastern Students National Integration Movement program.

They also participated in a peace march in the city and raised slogans against militancy.
The Holy Cross Educational Foundation of Tripura organized the event with the theme - "Together towards tomorrow for peace".

"We have been able to bring about peace in the region and spread awareness on peace in the region. We have been able to educate students on the need for peace in the society," said Joe Paul, the coordinator of NESNIM.

The event had its share of singing competitions, cultural performances and interactive workshops.

Instead of competing with each other, participants from different regions and ethnic groups dressed in their traditional attires and performed with each other showcasing integration and amalgamation of different cultures at its best.

Hundreds of students took out a candle rally and took an oath to promote their cause.
"Through my experience at NESNIM, I have come to learn about how to make friends with people of other groups and communities and states that help me unite with other people," said Russna Lamint, a participant from Meghalaya.

Assamese participant Vaishali said: "It is a movement for peace and we all are from different parts of Northeast India. We have come here and are united to light the candle of peace, as we are the future of this country."

Integration programs like these will definitely help build better understanding among the youth of the region and will go a long way in giving a fillip to the development and prosperity of the region.