A Year After The Northeast Exodus From Bangalore

Bangalore, Aug 22 : Exactly a year ago, on August 15, 2012, northeasterners started leaving Bangalore in droves after bulk SMSes threatened their safety. An estimated 30,000 boarded whatever trains they could jump on to, and headed home.

Says Linus Kamei, then president of the Naga Students' UNION: "It was as if all hell had broken loose. Everyone was worried and even though the Karnataka and northeastern governments reassured safety, nothing mattered."

Many have returned to Bangalore since. Edmund Zhimomi, 21, had always considered Bangalore his home and it was pressure from his family that forced him to return to his home state, leaving his course. Although his family wanted him to stay back, he finally decided to get back to his studies. "Being in Bangalore was one of the best things to have happened to me and I was not ready to give it at any cost," said Zhimomi.

Students seem to have got back to their routine. "We are back to status quo. In fact, within months of the exodus, most northeastern students who had left Bangalore returned. Even this year we have not seen any drop in admissions by students of the northeast," said Johnson Rajkumar, assistant professor, department of communication, St Joseph's College.

Lawrence Liang, a lawyer with the Alternative Law Forum, said they ran a helpline during and after the exodus. "Till the exodus happened, no one had a clear picture of how many people, and from which states, were working in Bangalore. To say everyone has returned is incorrect. Many people said they would stay back in their home states with whatever they have than struggle in distant lands."

Commercial establishments say their employees have returned. Employment opportunities in a city like Bangalore remain lucrative. But there are exceptions like Vinod Sharma, who runs a Tibetan restaurant near Koramangala. He had to hire a new set of employees after the exodus. "I had three men, all from Manipur, working for me, but they packed and left. My attempts to contact them never succeeded, I had to hire new employees."

Chinese Incursion in India Caught On Tape

For the first time in television history, Chinese troops were caught on tape intruding in the Indian space at Indo-China border near Taiwan in Arunachal Pradesh.

The video fueled racist comments on Times of India's Facebook page as some Indian commenters resorted to stereotypical remarks such as "ching chang chung ching".

The record was however soon set straight by Kima, a popular Mizo blogger from Mumbai, who commented:

"Sorry to contradict some of your sentiments but the language you can hear is not Chinese, the Indian soldier is speaking in Mizo, he's a Mizo, he's calling out to his Mizo mates and saying "Hepa hi min lo manpui rawh" (Help me grab this Chinese guy!), "Hminga, a kawnghren ah khan man ta che" (Hminga, grab him by the freaking belt) etc.

They're trying their best to push them back. Come on Mizos, show these Chinese our headhunting traditions and put the fear of God in them. And to my Indian fellowmen, can you please refrain yourselves from saying stuff like "ching chang chung ching" etc? There are a hell lot of people from the North East with similar facial features guarding the borders FOR India, protecting all of us."

The earlier racist comments have since been deleted.

Watch the video of the Chinese incursion caught on tape:

Controversy Raised Over Kaladan Project

Aizawl, Aug 22 : A top diplomat courted controversy here by declaring that the flagship of India’s Look East Policy – the Kaladan Multi-Modal Transport Project (KMMTP) currently being implemented in Mizoram does not have the required Union Cabinet sanction.

This is surprising as the Mizoram PWD is in the midst of implementing the 171 km road project from the National Highway 54 to Zochachua on the Mizoram-Mynamar border where the land route from Paletwa, Myanmar from the Sitwee port is to join it.

“I am in charge of the KMMTP project and I know that it does not have Cabinet sanction,” Special Secretary, Union Ministry of External Affairs, said when asked about the project after his key note address at a conference on foreign policy here on Monday.

When asked to clarify his remarks dismissing people’s concerns about the environmental and social impact of KMMTP on tribes living in these areas terming them ‘mere propaganda’, he said that misconceptions were being spread around about the project.

But when it was pointed out that the KMMTP road project in Lawngtlai district had been halted by the Union Ministry of Environment & Forests as it did not have the required forest clearance from that Ministry, his reply was, “there is no KMMTP project in Mizoram and if there is we are not involved in it.”

Raghavan’s stand has put the Mizoram Government in a quandary leading the Chief Minister Lalthanhawla to claim State right to dig roads wherever it sees fit. Besides, the CM pointed out that the KMMTP is part of India’s Look East Policy.

Under this, the Ministry for Development of North East Region (DoNER) has sanctioned 99.3 kms of new road to link up with the activities on the Myanmar side under KMMTP under the Special Accelerated Road Development Programme for North East (SARDP-NE). It is being implemented by the State PWD.

The work is being implemented by two companies which has already completed formation-cutting in about 50 kms of the road in Lawngtlai district.

The work has now stopped pending grant of forest clearance since late last month as about 16 hectares of forest land and 181 hectares of jhumlands will be affected.

2 Cops Suspended For Thrashing Northeast Students

By Dwaipayan Ghosh

The students had got down from a DTC bus and were in conversation with the DTC bus ticket checker when two sub-inspectors from Bharatnagar police station intervened and started threatening the students.

New Delhi, Aug 22 : Delhi Police is probing an allegation by a pair of students from the northeast that they were thrashed by two sub-inspectors over the trivial issue of not purchasing a bus ticket.

The North-East Forum for International Solidarity has claimed the two students were beaten up near Delhi University's Satyawati College. The sub-inspectors, Puneet and LakshmiChand, have been suspended.

"The two students belonged to the North-East Forum for International Solidarity that spearheaded the protests against Hindi-ization of DU. The two were on their way to Satyawati College to discuss the demerits of the four-year undergraduate programme and problems faced by northeasterners in the city," said Thanglunmang Khongsai, a NEFIS representative.

The students had got down from a DTC bus and were in conversation with the DTC bus ticket checker when two sub-inspectors from Bharatnagar police station intervened and started threatening the students.

"When the students allegedly objected, the policemen picked them up and took them to the police station where they not only thrashed them but passed remarks about their racially typical facial features. They were released only when they had signed on a statement saying they were not assaulted by the police but by a third party," Khongsai said.

The two students were later taken to Hindu Rao Hospital for a medico-legal case report which will be produced in court and the deputy commissioner of police, said sources.

Talking to TOI, DCP (northwest) N Gnanasambandan said they are taking the allegation seriously.

"We have found that the police were involved in an incident with two DU students. There are allegations and counter-allegations on the matter. We are sending senior officials to speak to the victims. Depending on what these officials find, we will begin legal action against the errant officers. We will also study the MLC report," the DCP said.

Stop Fratricidal Killings: Nagaland Warns Underground Groups

Kohima, Aug 22 : Nagaland Home Minister G Kaito Aye today warned Naga underground groups that the state government would have no option but to intervene to stop fratricidal killings.

“If the factional killings continue then the state government may have no option, but to intervene for the larger interest of the Naga people,” Aye said in a press statement.

Stating that the clashes were narrowing down options for the state government, he said that it could not remain a “mute spectator to the continuing acts of factional kidnappings and killings.

Stating that ‘enough is enough’, he said that patience and time was running out for the factional clashes to end.

He said that the continuing standoff between the groups despite repeated appeals from all quarters and the state government was destroying the “very basic foundation they had set out to achieve in their common goal”.

This, he said, could prove detrimental to the peace process and all that was achieved in the last 16 years of ceasefire between the Naga underground and the government of India.

Aye’s appeal came at a time when the Naga underground groups, especially the Khaplang and Khole-Kitovi faction of NSCN, were continually clashes despite the call for peace and reconciliation from civil societies and government.

The minister said it was with genuine intent that he sought the reconciliation of the cadres of various factions to the agreed ceasefire ground rules because they were under its purview.

“Factional clashes, kidnappings and killings are contrary to the ceasefire ground rules,” he said.

Embers That Refuse To Die

By Sanjay Barbora

More than the multiple demands for Statehood in Assam, it is the insistence on closed, ethnically homogenous and exclusive units that gives cause for concern

It has been almost a year since western Assam’s Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District (BTAD) witnessed unprecedented violence that left hundreds dead and thousands displaced. Since then, there has been a predictable report from the Central Bureau of Investigation pointing to the role of various political entrepreneurs in the clashes and shedding scant light on the layers of complicity between the State and various non-State actors in fomenting trouble. The recent verdict on the formation of the state of Telangana has already led to agitation for separate states in Assam, Bodoland being but one of many competing claims over common territory. One has to remember that ever since India’s independence, questions of belonging, claims to land, resources and political demands for autonomy have been part of an incendiary amalgam that has resulted in thousands of deaths and many more displaced in the State of Assam. These debates are likely to sharpen, now that both Central and State administrations are trying to bully autonomy-seeking activists into tempering their demands for separate homelands.

Historians and linguists mapped people, places and pasts into this area in a manner that lends itself to contestations and conflicts in Assam. This mapping has rested on a finite set of beliefs and ideas that appear with predictable frequency. Hence, indentured workers and immigrant peasant communities were invested with a particular narrative of movement and identity that they find difficult to shake off even now. For all practical purposes, BTAD — like other parts of northeast India — is peopled by two kinds of communities: (a) those who claim a pre-colonial presence and (b) those who came during the colonial period.

Entrapment, resource capture

The demand for Bodoland is actually the culmination of almost 60 years of political mobilisation among the various indigenous tribes in the plains of Assam. The bases of these demands have their roots in the colonial moment of contact between a predominantly European administration and local communities. It is through this 19th century encounter that the political, social and economic structures of the region were to be transformed radically. Among the more salient causes is the fact that the land and forest-based rural economy has been irretrievably transformed. Extrapolating from historical and political scholarship on the region, Belgian scholars Nel Vandekerckhove and Bert Suykens term this process as one of “tribal entrapment,” wherein 19th century colonial policies were responsible for sequestering forests from indigenous tribal groups in the Brahmaputra valley. Between the expanding tea plantations and tightly secured forests, land use rules in the Brahmaputra valley became unfavourable for indigenous communities. This continues to add rancour to political debates and claims for ethnic homelands.

These demands are also an extension of the acrimonious debates of the early 20th century where Assamese nationalists raised the issue of immigration from Bengal and the Gangetic plains, much to the dismay of their counterparts in the mainland. In the 1950s and 1960s, tribal leaders had to remind caste-Hindu Assamese politicians about the need to redistribute power and administrative control to ensure the development of their communities. The idea of losing control over land and the markets — both of which evoked radical nationalist sentiments among the Assamese-speaking political class in the 20th century — had similar echoes among educated tribal leaders, who then looked upon Dispur as the source of their problems. The idea, therefore, of setting up the mirror image of the State — with a secretariat, legislative assembly and university — is a very strong impulse and a rite of passage for leaders in Haflong, Kokrajhar and Diphu that cannot be wished away. However, it is the insistence on closed, ethnically homogenous units that is cause for concern and unfortunately, the homeland demands seem to play right into the script that insists on extreme forms of exclusion. This obfuscates the fact that most homeland demands have actually grown out of coalitions and alliances of disparate groups who felt short-changed by the status quo.

Confronting autonomy

There is a popular belief that Assam, unlike many of its northeastern neighbours, is a multi-ethnic State, where composite identities and cultures are a norm. While this might be a comforting salve in times of conflict, the manner in which communitarian demands have taken on ethnic tones proves otherwise. Since the 1990s, various governments — including the ones led by the Asom Gana Parishad — have cynically created toothless, autonomous councils for every community with a pre-colonial claim to belonging in the Brahmaputra valley. Political scientist Sanjib Baruah likens these councils to the Bantustans of apartheid-era South Africa and in a sense, he is not far off the mark. Assam’s autonomous arrangements are far more tragic though. While every community can aspire to demand a council, perhaps even an autonomous state if its numbers are right, the two largest groups within Assam — Bengali-speaking Muslims and Adivasis — will forever remain outside the ethnic homeland arrangements, since their presence can be clearly dated to the colonial period. Hence, the insiders versus outsider tensions assume serious consequences for all in the State.

Every time there is talk of extending the powers of an autonomous council, other communities, especially those who can never claim a council of their own, are quick to protest. They fear that their land and livelihoods will be lost, that they will be left without a political voice and that they will forever live under the shadow of fear and violence. This suits political entrepreneurs from every community since it reflects the empirical realities of forced displacement from villages and farms that have taken place in almost every district for the last decade. Land, whether as an asset to be acquired or one to be lost, remains the most frequently cited cause for concern for all communities in the State. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that one of the most contentious matters for non-Bodo communities in BTAD is the transfer of the department of land and revenue from Dispur to Kokrajhar.

One is not sure if this means an end to land alienation for indigenous communities and their equally beleaguered neighbours. Agriculture has become just another means of livelihood among many for people of rural Assam, especially in the autonomous areas such as BTAD. For six days a week, rows of cycles are parked outside the enormous gates of Samdrup Jhonkar that borders Bhutan and Baksa district in western Assam. They belong to daily wage earners from the Assam side of the border, who throng out at 5 p.m. every day and return home to villages where dreams of political justice have been subsumed by the crassness of new economic realities.

Unless Assam’s political entrepreneurs are able to comprehend the weight of this transformation of the State’s politics and economy, one is afraid that the cynicism displayed in last year’s violence will reappear. If so, the much-needed efforts to foster dialogue and non-violent debates on the politics of belonging, claims to land and resources and demands for autonomy, will suffer a tremendous setback. On the government’s part, it would be more judicious to initiate dialogue with activists, rather than set them on a path of confrontation that might lead to more violence in the near future.

(Sanjay Barbora is with the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Guwahati campus. E-mail: xonzoi.barbora@gmail.com)

The Prof behind the Good Science in Breaking Bad

By Gary Stix

Donna J. Nelson, BB's science consultant, all dressed up for a never-used cameo appearance as a nursing-home attendant.

Since 1983, Donna J. Nelson has taught some 10,000 students as a professor of organic chemistry at the University of Oklahoma. Her research extends to characterizing carbon nanotubes and examining carbon–carbon double bonds every which way and even promoting chemistry education as a means to increase the number of chemists and chemical engineers in the workforce.

On her 31-page, single-spaced CV, one item that leaps out is the notation of her role as a science consultant to the smashingly popular cable TV show Breaking Bad.  Nelson decided to help the show’s writers when she read in Chemical & Engineering News that they were looking for expertise to ensure accuracy of the dialogue and plot devices related to chemistry. Since then she has gone on to suss out answers to questions such as how much meth you could synthesize with 30 gallons of methylamine using the P2P meth recipe.

[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]

Scientists often criticize the way that their various disciplines are depicted in popular media. How does Breaking Bad stand up as far as that goes?
I have heard people at professional meetings, such as AAAS [American Association for the Advancement of Science], who were in symposia about taking science to the public. They did not know that I was in the room and they would start talking about Breaking Bad. They asked one of the speakers what was going on with the show because it seems to get the science right, disproving the myth that it’s impossible to get the science right and still have an interesting show.

Can you give me an example of where your input has had an impact on the show?
In season 4, episode 1, there’s a lot of dialogue about enantiomers and diastereomers
and how a reaction creates chiral centers, things like that. I did work with them on that scene. It’s where Walt is really trying to impress people, telling them that they’re not going to be able do the synthesis without him and his knowledge.

Anything else?
One thing I thought was sort of humorous was when I was to talking to them about methylamine and I said when you use that precursor—and the writers stopped me and said, “Precursor? What’s a precursor?” And if you notice they now they throw that word in all the time.

Another suggestion I made was when Walt was teaching high school and there was a scene on alkenes. They asked is there anything that Walt would write on the board. I told them I could send a drawing of alkenes and that is indeed what’s on the board. The alkenes are missing a couple of hydrogens but otherwise they did a pretty good job of drawing them.


Didn’t they ask you to calculate the exact yield you get from 30 gallons of methylamine using the P2P method of synthesizing meth?
The story behind that is that the first step in the synthesis is pretty much the same in any P2P method. Step two, the reduction step, can vary from one synthesis to another, and there’s a lot of differences in the reducing agents. And so I said, I don’t know what reagent you want. They said to send them a list, and they liked the one that was aluminum–mercury because it would be easier for the actors to say those words. I looked at the other reducing agents and they would, indeed, have been difficult for the actors to the say on the air.

That’s another example of where I let them be boss. I wouldn’t go back to them and suggest another reagent because it might be safer, cheaper or have a higher yield, I  just said “yes sir.”

That reagent turned out to be obscure, and I had to go to a German patent from the 1950s to get the information to make the calculation. Fortunately, when I was a graduate student, I had taken German. So I was able to get back to them and tell them the quantity of meth produced, in pounds. So it worked out, but it was a little trouble.


A lot of people harp on the fact that meth would not really be blue, the way Walt’s supposedly hyperpure meth is. Did you talk to them about that?

When advising them I didn’t run into the lab to try to reproduce these syntheses. I can only draw on my own experience as an organic chemist making crystals, I did one time make one compound with huge needles, similar to what they show in Breaking Bad. That was 9-Borabicyclo[3.3.1]nonane. Some people call it “banana borane.” I used that when I was a postdoc with H. C. Brown [a 1979 Nobel chemistry laureate] at Purdue. I was usually able to get it very, very pure just like Walt was able to get his very pure. If these large needles are really  pure, they are colorless. But when I looked at them closely, it was almost as if they had a slight bluish tinge.

What Walt is supposedly synthesizing is powder blue. I can tell you the pure crystals I made never looked anything like that. I don’t think that’s realistic. but  it’s part of artistic license that we must allow allow creative artists to have. I think it was just meant to  be Walt’s trademark. There are times I think people try to make too much of these details as if Breaking Bad were a science education show. That perhaps is one time in which we just need to let the writers have a little bit of artistic license and let them go with it. Overall, I was not uncomfortable with the way they showed things because of my own experiences.

Were there things changed to ensure that you wouldn’t teach people how to make meth?
I’m sure there were. Vince [Gilligan, the show’s creator and producer] had DEA [U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration] agents advising the show and checking everything written. The DEA helped to ensure that certain critical steps were omitted and that everything in this regard was kept legal. That was very smart of Vince. That ensured that any complaints they received could be referred to the DEA.


How did you get involved with the show?
During Breaking Bad season 1, Chemical & Engineering News—an American Chemical Society magazine—interviewed Vince. He said his writers had no scientific background and he would welcome constructive comments from chemically inclined people. I recognized this as an opportunity to help the show and the public, as well as an opportunity to do something really fun. I volunteered to help, and Vince took me up on the offer.

Do you think Breaking Bad has fostered interest in science?
I think it has. My students will say that they just love that show and that they’re so interested in science now. Previously, very few students would come up and talk enthusiastically about chemistry, and now they do.


Did the chemistry-related theme, making meth, ever give you pause?
I hadn’t seen the show before when I read an interview with Vince Gilligan in Chemical & Engineering News. So before deciding to offer to help, I  watched season 1, and  I saw it show Walt getting beaten up and dragged through the sand. At that point, I realized that no kid watching this would want this as a lifestyle, so I decided I could volunteer as an adviser with a clear conscience.

Image Sources: Donna Nelson and Wikipedia

source: scientificamerican

No One Wants To Be A Drone Pilot, U.S. Air Force Discovers

The Air Force's drone program is too unmanned for its own good.

By Kelsey D. Atherton 

Predator Drone Pilot Wikimedia Commons

While the vast majority of U.S. Air Force pilots still control their aircraft from inside the cockpit, about 8.5 percent are drone pilots who operate their vehicles remotely. That percentage is expected to grow, but there's a problem: the Air Force can't get enough people to volunteer for the training, according to a new report written by Air Force Colonel Bradley Hoagland for the Brookings Institution think tank.

Here's the challenge: Drones are usually chosen for jobs that are "dirty, dangerous, or dull"—with dull being the key word here. Some surveillance drones require round-the-clock shifts, and the very stressful work is so time intensive that drone pilots often cannot take advantage of additional training and education, which in turn dampens their prospects for career advancement, according to the study.
Burnout also seems to be a major concern, as drone pilots quit at three times the rate of manned aircraft pilots.

If the Air Force can figure out how to get more people to sign up for drone training, the problem should self-correct: A larger pool of drone pilots would hopefully mean shorter shifts and more time for career advancement.

One way to increase the number of drone pilots would be for the Air Force to alter its requirements for pilots. The Air Force only allows commissioned officers to fly drones, and commissioned officers must have a bachelor's degree in addition to technical training. By contrast, the Army allows warrant officers, who only need a high school diploma or GED, to fly both unmanned aircraft and helicopters.
Or, it just might be that actually flying through the air will always be more awesome that piloting an aircraft from the ground.