Meghalaya Groups want ILP Implemented

Shillong, Jun 7 : Meghalaya's powerful pressure groups Khasi Students' Union and Federation of Khasi, Jaintia and Garo People Thursday sought the implementation of the inner line permit (ILP) to keep "doubtful citizens" out of the state.

In view of suspected illegal migration from neighbouring Bangladesh into Meghalaya, moves are afoot to ensure that tabs are kept on even Indian citizens who enter the state.

The ILP is a document issued to Indian citizens undertaking travel to protected areas in some states. Only those in possession of such a document are allowed to travel to protected areas, for a specified period of time.

The system exists at present in parts of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram.

The call to implement the ILP in Meghalaya comes in the wake of Chief Minister Mukul Sangma admitting at Wednesday's meeting of chief ministers in Delhi that there was an influx of people with "doubtful citizenship" into Meghalaya.

"Now that Chief Minister (Mukul Sangma) himself has admitted the presence of doubtful citizens in the state, we strongly demand that the government implement the inner line permit recommended by the Lanong panel to regulate the inflow of outsiders into the state," KSU supremo Daniel Khyriem said.

The committee on influx, headed by Bindo M. Lanong, who at the time was deputy chief minister of the state, had recommended last year that the ILP system be recommended in the state to check the influx of illegal immigrants.

On Wednesday, Sangma, speaking at the conference of chief ministers on internal security, said: "Meghalaya has been facing the problem of influx of people with doubtful citizenship from the neighbouring states of Assam, Tripura and West Bengal."

Echoing the student body, the Federation of Khasi, Jaintia and Garo People (FKJGP) urged the government to implement the inner line permit in this mountainous state at the earliest to protect the identity of the indigenous people.

"We are glad that the chief minister has admitted the presence of doubtful citizens in the state. Therefore, we strongly urge the government to implement the ILP in the state," FKJGP chief Joe Marwein said.

Stressing that the influx poses a threat to the demographic structure of the state, Sangma said the state government had created an anti-infiltration directorate to tackle the burgeoning influx problem more effectively.

"We have sanctioned 117 posts in the first phase and we are in the process of filling up the sanctioned posts. Another 206 posts will be sanctioned in the second phase in due course. In addition, district level teams and special police squads have also been constituted," the chief minister said.

Meghalaya shares a 443-km border with Bangladesh, part of which is porous, hilly and unfenced, and prone to frequent infiltration.

Sangma said Meghalaya has only 265 sanctioned posts of police officers and other staff under the Prevention of Infiltration (PIF) scheme, and about 125 Border Security Force border outposts to check infiltration from across the border with Bangladesh.

"Considering the length of the international border, the existing number of posts under the PIF scheme is highly inadequate to deal effectively with the illegal influx of foreign nationals," he said.

On A Musical Rampage

NICKY JATIN SHARMA

• Special Arrangement Rock 'n' Roll band Rampazze. Photo: Anand Gogoi
• 
  Special Arrangement Rampazze logo

Nicky Jatin Sharma talks to the vocalist/guitarist of Delhi-based band Rampazze, which believes in keeping the rock ‘n’ roll roots alive.

How did Rampazze come together?

We came from North-East India for pursuing our graduation in Delhi and that’s where we met. Our common interest towards similar kind of music brought us together and we started jamming during the weekends. After a few jam sessions we were ready to perform at gigs and that is how Rampazze started.

Tell me about your music.

We play rock ‘n’ roll; hard rock with a bit of modern touch.

Musical influences…

Influences range from The Beatles to Foo Fighters. The music industry is variant and colourful and there’s a lot to learn from almost everybody out there. Individually, we all listen to many different music and are influenced by various artists. As a band we love AC/DC, Led Zeppelin and many classic rock and rock ‘n’ roll bands. Everything started from rock ‘n’ roll; that is the root of hard rock and heavy metal.

Achievements…

Most recently, our debut music video Inspiration was aired on MTV Roots and was declared Winner of the Best Music Video at the 5th International Documentary & Short Film Festival. Besides, we'd won most of the competitions we participated in colleges and all of us have won individual awards like best guitarist, vocalist and drummer in many competitions. We opened for Finnish rockers Poets of the Fall in IIT Kanpur in 2008. We have also headlined many college festivals and other shows across the country.

Touring the country…

We can probably call ourselves lucky to have had some top flight gigs and headlining tours under our belt. We have toured almost the entire country over the last six years, and played in all the major cities. Our strongholds are in the Northeast and Delhi/NCR, but we have also performed in Chennai four times (World Music Day 2008,Unseen Underground Pub Fest in Star Rock, June Rock out and Unseen Underground Ragnarok’08) and we have a great fan base in this city. People here respect rock ‘n’ roll music even though there are many heavy metal bands and they are very friendly people.

Is there something about your band that you would like people to know?

Maybe the fact that none of us is a trained musician. We are all absolutely self-taught musicians who have never gone for any formal music classes. But I do not think it’s that important. What’s important is that we have released two music videos — Inspiration and the crowd favourite Cheap Liquor... Wicked Hangover. Watch, enjoy and share.

Listen to Rampazze here @ http://www.reverbnation.com/rampazze

Ngamrothang Hmar elected as North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council chairman

Guwahati, Jun 6 : Ngamrothang Hmar of Congress was elected the chairman of the 11th North Cachar Hills Autonomous Council (NCHAC) unopposed on Wednesday.

Returning officer Barun Bhuyan declared Hmar the chairman after no other nomination was filed for the post.

Ngamrothang, a non-Dimasa tribal leader of DimaHasao district, is also the secretary of the district Youth Congress.

Meanwhile, KulendraDaolagupu, a Congress member, proposed that election for the post of the chief executive member (CEM) of the council be held on June 13.

The proposal was sent to Assam governor JB Patnaik for consideration and will only be held after the governor gives his nod.

Mizoram Opposition Demand Lalthanhawla's Resignation

Aizawl, Jun 6 : All three major opposition parties in the state have demanded the resignation of chief minister Lalthanhawla, who also holds the public works portfolio, and his younger brother, Lalthanzara, parliamentary secretary of the public works department (PWD). The parties hold the duo responsible for the "manmade disaster" that claimed 17 lives in northern Aizawl on May 11.

Mizo National Youth Front (MNYF) president PC Laltlansanga, Mizoram People's Conference Youth (MPCY) president V L Zaithanzama and Zoram Nationalist Party Youth (ZNPY) president Joseph L Ralte issued a joint statement on Wednesday.

They alleged in the statement that Lalthanhawla and his brother were responsible for the deaths as it was an abandoned PWD office building in Laipuitlang locality of Aizawl that swept away nine houses, killing 17 people.

The statement also alleged that the PWD did not act even after cracks appeared on the ground near the building in October 2012, despite repeated warnings from local council leaders. This eventually resulted in the disaster.

"If transport minister P C Zoramsangliana submitted his resignation following an accident of a Mizoram State Transport bus and education minister Lalsawta resigned over mistakes in the technical entrance examination, the chief minister and the PWD parliamentary secretary should also resign," the statement said.

"The delay in dismantling the PWD building and the complacency of the Congress government led to the disaster and people looking after the PWD must own moral responsibility," the statement added. The opposition youth wings demanded a judicial inquiry into the incident.

Mizoram To Ensure Maximum Sportsmen to 2016 Olympics

Aizawl, Jun 6 : Mizoram would work to ensure that maximum number of sports persons from the state represent the country in the 2016 Olympics, its Sports Minister Zodintluanga said today.

Young talents from the rural areas would be harnessed to the maximum and nine sports disciplines have been identified by the government as the priority ones, he said at a meeting 'Olympic Vision 2016" here.

The nine disciplines are archery, boxing, badminton, hockey, shooting, weight lifting, table tennis, taekwondo and judo.

Sports persons, who were from outside Aizawl would be provided all facilities and brought here for coaching and training.

Northeast India home To Legless Amphibians

In the deep recesses of the forest in northeast India, three new species of legless amphibians, evolved from the caecilians, spend their lives.

This discovery, carried out in collaboration with The Natural History Museum in London, and the University of Delhi, revealed three new species of amphibians, which have now been named Chikilidae. This rare discovery, done by professor SD Buju, an amphibian research professor from the University of Delhi, and his PhD student Rachunliu Kamei, was described as the 'discovery of the year' in February 2012.

Buju, who was popularly known as Delhi's frogman, discovered this new family of tailless amphibians, which seem to have evolved from other caecilians more than 140 million years ago.

Their findings, which involved the discovery of more than 40 additional new species of amphibians, were published in the international journal ZOOTAXA.

The three new species of amphibians discovered, were named as Chikila alcocki, Chikila darlong and Chikila gaiduwani. The results from this study were based on checking several morphological traits and molecular DNA markers, which is by far, the most systematic surveys conducted on caecilians for far, and the first ever in northeast India.

ZOOTAXA, which is an International Journal of Zoological Taxonomy, describes the discovery as the 'Discovery of three new blind-legless amphibians from northeast India' and highlights that northeast India may actually be a treasure trove for more unknown species.

There may be less than 200 species of caecilians in the world, according to Biju. They came across these tailless species during a fieldwork of soil digging survey carried out between the years 2006 to 2010 in many different parts of India, particularly northeast India, including Manipur, Meghalaya, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Darjeeling, Sikkim, Nagaland, Mizoram and Tripura.

This study, which has managed to introduce two new members to the Chikilidae family, is unique and one-of-a-kind, mostly due to the fact that this family has only one member- Chikila fulleri, till date, which was a broken museum species, over 100 years old.

What's even more surprising is the fact that Rachunliu, who is also popularly known as Chun, has named one of the species as Chikila Gaiduwani after her father- Gaiduwan Gaipuizei Kammai.

Given that there are millions of different animal species today, it seems that each of us may get the chance to name a species after ourselves, or someone close to us, in the near future.

Agro Economy Of Northeast Region To Face Flood Devastation Again

By Debasis Sarkar

Despite many flood controlling authorities or their projects, flooding and inundation are likely to continue this year too.

Siliguri, Jun 6 : Approaching monsoon has started ringing alarm bell in North East Region of India(NER) and Northern West Bengal, two of the worst flood affected areas of the country.

Bengal's latest initiative to form a special '(flood) combat force,' also could not increase the confidence level of perpetually victim areas in the sate. Despite many flood controlling authorities or their projects, flooding and inundation are likely to continue this year too badly hampering agro economy of the entire region.

"A special combat force is being formed to take up flood damage control activities. Specialized on the job, this force can be of great help to the disaster prone areas," said, Irrigation and Waterways Minister Rajib Banerjee. But the announcement could hardly generate any extra confidence in commonly victim areas.

Annual heavy erosion in East Bank of Farakka upstream is one of the largest threats in entire Ganga basin. "This will become violent this year too, be there any force or not," said Mr. M. Alam, senior member of Ganga Bhangan Pratirodh Action Nagorik Committee. Large scale dredging of Ganga to give it strength to withstand 25Lakh cusec monsoon period hydroload was proposed earlier. But, "None is there to arrange the fund of over Rs 1,600 crore needed for the job," said Mr. Alam.

"Water retaining capacity of all foothills rivers has also gone down badly due to heavy siltation. Naturally, flooding of both banks, in case of heavy water flow, has become obvious. Dams or walls are minuscule relief only," said geologist from NBV University Dr. S Sarkar.

According to National Commission on Flood reports, contribution of NER is very high in national average loss of Rs 1,000 crore due to flood. And, frequency, intensity, spatial coverage or magnitudes of flood damage in NER and NB are increasing year after year.

As per the report of special task force of the Water Resources Development ministry, West Bengal suffered most due to flood in last 50 years. The overall loss was estimated as around Rs 15,000 along with loss of more than 8,700 human lives and over 6 lakh livestock. On an average, floodwater washes out more than 2.5 lakh heater agro land every year causing heavy loss.

To handle the situation, Government of India approved Rs 8,000 crore Flood management Program for 11th Plan period. There was GoI's Critical flood control and anti-erosion schemes worth Rs 305 crore, or scheme for anti-erosion projects in the Brahmaputra and Barak valleys worth Rs 225 Crore.

Another State Sector scheme of Rs. 166.68 crore for NER and West Bengal is tere. Above all, Brahmaputra Board has earmarked Rs 800 crore for NBFCC area for the period till 2017. But these all put together could hardly build up any extra confidence level for the victims.

University in Shillong Suspected in Fake PhDs Scam

Shillong, Jun 6 : Police are investigating an Indian university suspected of issuing fake PhDs after it awarded more than 400 doctorates in a single year, officers said Wednesday.

Police have arrested four senior officials from CMJ University in the northeastern state of Meghalaya on suspicion of fraud and forgery and are hunting for the chancellor, who has fled.

"We are not sure about his whereabouts, as he keeps changing his location frequently," senior state police official Sunil Kumar Jain told AFP.

The private university, established in 2009 in the state capital Shillong, handed out 434 PhDs during the 2012-13 academic year despite its small faculty, arousing suspicions a
mong local officials who filed a police complaint.

A PhD at CMJ University takes between two to five years and costs 127,000 rupees ($2,250), according to its website.

"In good faith, the universities were given permission to operate, but some seem to have taken this for a ride and this is distressing," said Meghalaya chief minister Mukul Sangma.

Credentials fraud is a serious problem in India, fuelled by a huge demand for qualifications, endemic corruption and poor regulation of the ultra-competitive and fast-growing education sector.

In 2011 a racket in fake airline pilot licences was exposed, while in 2010 police arrested the head of the national body responsible for certifying medical qualifications for allegedly accepting a bribe.

The Times of India reported on Monday that PhDs from CMJ were on sale for between $4,000-10,000, with the amount paid determining how quickly the qualification would be granted.

SP Sharma, a lawyer for CMJ University chancellor Chandra Mohan Jha, accused the state administration of being "prejudiced" against the university.

Anguished CMJ students issued a deadline, set to expire Thursday, to the Meghalaya government to resolve the debacle and give them some clarity about their futures.