The War On Men: 10 Ways Masculinity is Under Attack

And why the elite – not women – are to blame

By Paul Joseph Watson

Image: Wikimedia Commons.

Men are facing a full frontal assault on their rights, health and culture like never before. The war on masculinity has never been so brutal – but it’s not a war being waged by women. The attack is coming directly from the top, as the establishment desperately attempts to emasculate and disempower men in order to force women to be more dependent on the state, thereby enabling more power to be centralized and aiding the growth of big government.

Here are ten ways in which the state has declared war on men and masculinity;

1) Falling Fertility

Sperm counts amongst men have significantly decreased over the last half century and particularly over the last 25 years. In some European countries, sperm counts have dropped by as much as a third since 1989. Part of the fall can be explained by exposure to pesticides, endocrine-disrupting chemicals like Bisphenol A, and the many other artificial horrors that increasingly pervade our water and food supply. Many have made the connection between falling sperm counts and the open calls by innumerable elitists to drastically reduce world population by as much as 95%. Research shows that underpopulation, not overpopulation, will be the major demographic crisis of the 21st century as a result of humans failing to achieve the replacement rate of 2.1 children.

2) Chemical Warfare “Feminizing” Boys

Exposure to phthalates, which are found in many plastics, is “feminizing” boys by blocking normal male testosterone and causing genital abnormalities, according to scientists. “Boys exposed to high levels of these in the womb were less likely than other boys to play with cars, trains and guns or engage in “rougher” games like playfighting,” according to a BBC News report. According to Elizabeth Salter-Green, director of the chemicals campaign group CHEM Trust, phthalates are a true “gender-bender” because they lead to a reduction in “male behavior”.

3) Degradation of Positive Masculine Role Models

Whereas 50 years ago, advertising, Hollywood and television was filled with examples of positive masculine role models that young men could look up to, today’s entertainment industry routinely portrays men as clueless and bumbling oafs at best (think Homer Simpson, Everybody Loves Raymond, Married With Children) or at worst as aggressive sexual predators. Since advertising is primarily aimed at women, men in commercials are also now routinely depicted as either being emasculated losers or stupefied morons. Young men consuming this content grow up thinking that it is acceptable and even encouraged to aspire to these character traits. In doing so, they are robbed of their natural masculinity and find it extremely difficult to attract well-rounded women, who are rightly disgusted by such behavior. The entertainment industry is largely controlled by men, again underscoring the fact that this assault is a top down trend that has little or nothing to do with the gender war.

4) Metrosexual Malaise

Second wave feminism was a creation of the establishment itself and at its core has little whatsoever to do with genuine concern about women’s rights. Radical feminism deliberately confuses gender roles and makes young men apprehensive about exercising their masculinity for fear of being seen as overbearing or aggressive towards women. This has contributed to an entire generation of “metrosexual” men who are promiscuous, unwilling to commit to a relationship and unable to fulfil a women’s basic needs for healthy companionship, destabilizing society and making it more difficult for women to find suitable long term partners with whom to have children.

5) Cultural Marxism

Establishment-controlled second wave feminism also advances the doctrine of cultural marxism, which claims that oppression emerges from patriarchal society and culture, and not the state. Governments love cultural marxism because it absolves them of blame. The true source of all oppression has always been the state, but by blaming it on men or western culture in general (which is primarily shaped by men), the state hides its own responsibility.

6) The ‘Men are Paid More’ Myth

The establishment promulgates the myth that men are paid more than women because of discrimination, feeding into feminist doctrines about patriarchal systems oppressing women in the workplace. In reality, the “wage gap” of around 19 per cent between the two sexes in the United States is explained by a number of reasons that have nothing to do with discrimination, including the fact that men work more hours and men seek less desirable jobs that pay higher. As a result, men account for 93% of workplace deaths despite being only 54% of the workforce. 94% of workplace suicides every year are also men. The establishment buries these shockingly high male workplace fatality figures because they completely contradict the myth that the jobs market discriminates against women.

7) The “Privilege” Trap

Statists, collectivists and their mouthpieces in the media and the establishment claim that western men (in particular white men) cannot express a valid opinion on any issue related in any way to a “minority” (such as feminism or immigration) because they have “privilege”. The “privilege” talking point is a stunt through which liberals and feminists attempt to shut down free speech. In essence they are asserting the ludicrous notion that a man’s viewpoint has no value because of the color of his skin, his gender or his country of origin. This is an inherently racist position, yet it is routinely used by leftists to shout down their ideological adversaries and silence male voices.

8) The Legal System Discriminates Against Men

In both divorce and child custody proceedings, it is widely acknowledged that courts heavily favor women and discriminate against men. Men are routinely hit with onerous alimony payments even if women are capable of working and earning a good paycheck. Men only receive custody of their children in around 10 per cent of divorce cases in the United States. The ironic thing about this system is that it has primarily been instituted by other men, emphasizing again how the war on men is being waged not by women, but by the primarily male-dominated establishment itself.

9) Masculinity as a Dirty Word

Dissident feminist Camille Paglia recently wrote a Wall Street Journal piece in which she warned, “What you’re seeing is how a civilization commits suicide.” Paglia was referring to how the emancipation of masculine virtues by the establishment threatens to create massive destabilization in society due to less and less men being able to fill traditionally “masculine” roles in the jobs market. Paglia points to schools cutting recess, the effort to deny the biological distinctions between men and women, and the left’s characterization of controversial opinions as “hate speech” as examples of how masculinity is being deliberately eroded. “Masculinity is just becoming something that is imitated from the movies. There’s nothing left. There’s no room for anything manly right now,” warns Paglia, adding that young men have, “no models of manhood.”

10) Domestic Abuse Against Men

Whereas women have numerous safety nets to turn to if they become victims of domestic abuse, men have virtually none, despite the fact that domestic abuse against men is a huge and growing problem. In the UK for example, 44 per cent of domestic abuse victims are male, while more married men suffer abuse at the hands of their spouse than married women. While domestic abuse against women is constantly highlighted by the mass media, domestic abuse against men is a complete non-issue.

Conclusion

A totalitarian society can only survive if the male population has been gelded, emasculated and disenfranchised. With this natural bulwark against tyranny removed, the elite can centralize power and pursue collectivist tyranny unopposed. This is why men and masculinity are under assault on every level – and why both men and women should join forces to fight back against this common enemy.

Facebook @ https://www.facebook.com/paul.j.watson.71

Pushed to the boundaries: The Brus of Mizoram

By Furquan Ameen Siddiqui

When Lalnunpuia, who lives in Damdiai village in the Mamit district of Mizoram, heard about a mass search operation being organised by the Mizo Zirlai Pawl (Mizo Student Association), he sent his wife and four children away to Assam. He was afraid a crisis was looming; that, like in 1997 and 2009, thousands of Bru tribals would be forced to flee their homes in Mizoram.

“Many people began leaving in early January when tensions started to escalate. The women and children were sent away. Only the men stayed back,” said Lalnunpuia, a former militant with the Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF). Lalnunpuia’s story is a common one among Mizoram’s Brus, a people who have been in conflict with the majority Mizos and who, in the last 17 years, have lost their homes, lands, and even the hope of a brighter future for their young.

The latest incident
The latest episode in the ongoing conflict came last November, two days before the Mizoram assembly elections, when Bru militants allegedly belonging to the Bru Democratic Front of Mizoram (BDFM) and helped by members of the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) abducted three young men. On November 23, Sanglianthanga (27), a Mizo, was driving telecom executive Deep Mondal (25) back to Mamit from Tuipuibari, a Bru village inside the Dampa Tiger Reserve in western Mizoram, near the Bangladesh border. After spending the night in the remote village, which is around 80 kms from Mamit, the nearest town, the two men had started back early in the morning. Somewhere between Tuipuibari and Damparengpui, another Bru village inside the dense forest, armed men forced the duo out of their vehicle. They also abducted Lalziamlana, another Mizo driver, on the same stretch of seasonal road that winds through the forest.

Conflict reignited
The incident reignited the long-standing conflict between the Mizos and the minority Brus — one that has been smouldering for the last 17 years. Enraged by the abduction of the Mizos, several protests spearheaded mostly by the powerful NGOs MZP and the Young Mizo Association (YMA) were organised throughout the state. The MZP and the state’s taxi drivers and the pickup drivers associations also started a remna kawngzawh or peace march from Aizawl to Tuipuibari demanding the release of the three men.
On December 6, the militants demanded a ransom of ` 50 million from the telecom company for which Mondal, a Bengali, works. No ransom demand was made for the Mizo men. Fearing retributive violence and a repeat of the bloody ethnic clashes of 1997 that displaced thousands, over 4000 Brus then fled to neighbouring Assam and Tripura. The incident, like many others in the northeast, hardly made it to the national media’s news tickers.

Brus living in Tuipuibari and Damparengpui allege that around 100 young Mizos accompanied by police officials came to the villages ‘enquiring’ about the abducted Mizos. In early January, Mizo NGOs called for a meeting in Aizawl, the state capital. Subsequently, local village headmen were threatened with dire consequences if they did not ask the militants to release the Mizos. “They said there would be bloodshed,” one of the village leaders said. MZP president C Lalhmachhuana, who met this reporter at his office in Treasury Square, Aizawl, denies that his organisation was involved in the mass search operation or in threatening Bru leaders.
Kidnap update
After spending nearly two months in captivity in the jungles of eastern Bangladesh, the two Mizos were released on January 21 this year. Two days later, the YMA warned of a massive search operation if the third captive, Deep Mondal, was not released immediately. Mondal continues to be held captive.

History of the conflict
In a letter dated February 10, sent to the National Human Rights Commission, the Home department of the Mizoram government listed the reasons that led to the original conflict between the Mizos and the Brus. According to the document, the Brus — recognised as Reangs as per the Constitution (Schedule Tribes) Order, 1950 — fled persecution in the erstwhile Tippera kingdom (now divided between Tripura and Bangladesh) to arrive in Mizoram in the early 1940s. “Brus have always been outsiders and can never be a part of the larger Mizo culture,” says Lalmuanpuia Punte, who was MZP’s president in 1997.
The roots of the current conflict can be traced to 1994, when a political party called the Bru National Union (BNU) was formed to promote the tribe’s welfare. In September 1997, at a conference in Saipuilui village in Mamit district, the BNU adopted a resolution to demand for an Autonomous District Council (ADC) for Brus in the western belt of Mizoram. Mizoram is predominantly inhabited by Mizos. Other tribes in the state include the Hmars, the Lai and the Chakmas, each of whom have their own ADC. Interestingly, though the Brus are the largest minority in Mizoram their demand for an ADC went unheeded. “What was wrong with that demand?” asks Elvis Chorkhy, chairman of the Bru Coordination Committee that has been working with the government to repatriate the Brus. “Was it so unconstitutional as to lead to the physical torture and harassment of the Brus?”
Curtailing militancy
Mizoram has always been projected as an island of peace in the northeast. However, the establishment of the Bru National Liberation Front (BNLF) led to growing militancy in the post-1997 period. In the eight years of its existence, the BNLF was involved in extortion, abducting several Mizos and killing security personnel. Things came to a head with the murder of a Mizo forest official in the Dampa Tiger Reserve. Widespread ethnic violence followed, with reports of arson, killing and rape by the Mizos. The brutality forced about 50,000 Brus to flee to Tripura.
The Mizos say the Bru exodus of 1997 can be traced to a ‘circular’ signed by Bruno Msha, who was then the Bru Student Union president and is currently the general secretary of the Mizoram Bru Displaced Peoples’ Forum (MBDPF). Dated March 1998, the ‘circular’ asks all Bru headmen to evacuate their villages and leave Mizoram because of a possible clash between Bru militants and Mizoram security personnel. Msha, who denies signing any such document, claims the story is a Mizo attempt to blame Bru militants for the exodus.
Each side might apportion blame to the other but ultimately, the ethnic violence of 1997 pushed many Brus into relief camps in a remote part of Tripura that borders Mizoram and Bangladesh.
Militancy was finally contained when BNLF’s 195 cadres surrendered in 2005. The laying down of arms came after the Mizoram government — dominated by Mizos — promised to repatriate Bru refugees. “With security concerns of our officials and the locals, we couldn’t start the repatriation process early. We had to wait till the Bru insurgency ceased,” said Lalbiakzama, joint secretary of the home department overseeing Bru rehabilitation.
The state government met with more success when they convinced 804 cadres of the breakaway faction Bru Liberation Front of Mizoram (BLFM) to surrender. The BDFM still exists but the government refuses to accept that it is a legitimate body, choosing instead to call its members Bru goons.

Hurdles to repatriation
Though the state government acted swiftly to rehabilitate militants who surrendered, the process to bring back displaced Brus took much longer. The first Road Map was chalked out only in 2009, four years after the militants kept their side of the promise. A meeting held in November 2009 to discuss the implementation of the road map, attended by representatives of MBDPF and surrendered BNLF and BLFM members was a failure. “The Bru leaders made impossible demands. They wanted cluster settlement in large Bru villages with at least 500 households and the settlement of all families in Mamit district, which the state government couldn’t agree to,” said Lalbiakzama.
Then, on November 13, three days before the process began, suspected Bru militants shot dead a 17-year-old Mizo boy from Mamit. A fresh spate of ethnic attacks ensued in which the Mizos reportedly burnt down around 500 Bru houses in 11 villages across two districts. Some Bru villagers say Mizoram police personnel instigated the mob to attack them. The incident pushed around 5,000 Brus to flee with more than 2,500 taking shelter in Tripura’s camps. MZP and YMA leaders allege that the Brus burned their own houses to defame the Mizos.
After the derailment of the first repatriation attempt, the Mizoram government prepared Road Map II to rehabilitate the fresh migrants after the 2009 incident. A visit by the then home minister P Chidambaram to the camps in 2010 expedited the process. “I will be coming again to ensure that all of you return to Mizoram,” he said before leaving.
Things, however, continue to look bleak for over 35,000 people still stuck in the forgotten camps of Tripura.

The delayed homecoming of the Brus
The sleepy town of Kanchanpur in northern Tripura lies about 45 kms from the Mizoram border. 17 years ago, thousands of Brus fleeing attacks from Mizos took refuge here. Many crossed the border on foot. The displaced Brus put up temporary shelters on the lower tracts of the Jampui hills that separate Tripura from Mizoram and Bangladesh. Today, there are over 35,000 Internally Displaced Persons languishing in the seven camps spread over the region. Here, scores live amidst filth and human waste with small mountain streams being the only source of drinking water.

A report by the Asian Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Network says ‘The ration quota is so inadequate that Brus do not report deaths as it means a further reduction of the rations’. The abject conditions and the lack of employment and education have made the camps a good recruiting ground for militants. Many young Brus have missed out on education and cannot even get job cards under central government schemes. “This is why we are asking for a Primitive Group Program and a development council which will look after the upliftment of the community once it is repatriated,” says Bruno Msha of the MBDPF.

Adults get a cash dole of Rs. 150 per month and 600 gms of rice per day while minors get half that amount. This is much less than other internally displaced groups like the Kashmiri Pandits and even the Sri Lankan refugees in Tamil Nadu have received in the past. Leaders of the MBDPF maintain that unless compensation is increased, no one will go back. Both the home department and Mizo organisations, allege that any attempts at repatriation are foiled by the staging of untoward incidents. The Bru side alleges that it is a conspiracy by Mizos who don’t want Brus to return. With only 5,627 people rehabilitated until last October, the Mizoram government has a mammoth task on its hands. “It has become necessary to remove those camps and resettle the displaced. We are losing precious time and a generation of kids is losing their future. The process needs to be expedited,” said Chorkhy.

Requiem for Nido

On the Lynching of a North-Eastern Indian Student in Delhi

By A K Biswas

Seventeen-year-old Nido Tania, a student from Arunachal, recently fell victim to hate crime in Delhi. The signifies what is fundamentally rotten in the public life of India as a nation. India’s feeble posturing for inclusive policy has remained starkly insufficient to make a dent on its exclusive society. The implications and ramifications of the tragdey befalling the teenager are far more frightening than meet the eye. The so-called mainland in general and the over-hyped Aryavart as the credle of Hindu culture and civilisation in particular is virtually a hell for the people of the margins. The Mephistophelean proclivity of the mainlanders towards the people from the margins has been broadcast through a series of barbaric incidents to prove a point that the latter are unwelcome either in their company or their proximity. And thus a climate of disintegration in the mainland through unbridled intolerance and insensitivity towards the less privileged has been built up that alarms few and those, who, under oaths, are charged with the sacred duty of upholding the sanctity of the Constitution and safeguar-ding the integrity of the nation, strangely  seem unconcerned. A rift with a huge potential to unleash fissiparous tendencies is distinctively in the offing.

In July-August 2012, attacks on people of the North-East in Bangalore and threat calls to students in Hyderabad forced workers and students from Pune, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and even Goa to go back to the safety of their homes out of an intense sense of insecurity. The State of Karnataka alone had witnessed in two days the exodus of 16,000 North-Eastern Indians.1 This belied the preten-sion and contention of harmony and unity in diversity of India, underlying a deep-rooted malaise. Official figures are always conservative, if not deceptive and less than the actual, if these are not used for bolstering up the image, individual and/or institutional.

People hailing from Nagaland, Manipur, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh and Assam in quest of avenues for higher or better facilities of education or livelihood face hostilities from the mainlanders. In the 1990s, a North-Eastern girl student travelling by the Guwahati Rajdhani Express to Delhi was outraged in the Munger district of Bihar. A senior Indian Forest Service officer of Madhya Pradesh cadre, a co-traveller, recounted the grim tragedy in writing to the Chief Secretary, Government of Bihar. Glaring incidents of such dimension are galore all over India. In August 2012, Diana Silva, a 22-year-old First-Year MBA student of Amity University and Meghalaya Chief Minister Mukul Sangma’s niece, committed suicide in her hostel room at Gurgaon after an altercation with a teacher.2
Diana’s friends alleged that a teacher accused her of cheating during an examination and when she protested, the former tore up her answer-sheet. A shocked and humiliated Diana locked herself up in her room and hours later, after a forced entry, the authorities recovered her body. Such teachers are rarely held accountable for their despicable crimes despite complaints to the appropirate authorities. Dons in high temples of learning, who were in occasional media focus for crimes against underprivileged students, have walked free with full impunity.

Chuni Kotal, a Lodha tribal girl, doing M.Sc. (Anthropology) in West Bengal’s Vidysagar University, to cite one instance, was harassed, humiliated and hounded as a member of the criminal tribe in the campus for over three years by one of her teachers, Falguni Chakraborty. Her complaints to the Vice-Chancellor during the period went unheeded. The malefic teacher’s manipulation debarred her from taking the first semester examination. Deeply depressed and frustrated, she ultimately committed suicide on August 16, 1992. The West Bengal Police did not even invoke the provision of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act 1989. Nonetheless retired Justice S.S. Gangopadhyaya, as head of an inquiry commission appointed by the reluctant State Government, gave a clean-chit to Chuni’s tormentor. The Commission observed:

“On a consideration of all the materials on record we are constrained to hold, therefore, that the allegations brought against Falguni Chakraborty by Chuni Kotal were not sustai-nable and further that Falguni Chakraborty never practised nor he had any reason to discriminate against Chuni simply because she was a Lodha. It may be that on occasions Falguni Chakraborty took Chuni to task for her let or non-attendance or for some such reasons. These were mere trivialities which occur as a matter of course between the teacher and the taught without any personal involvement from either side.
“These trivialities were blown big beyond all proportions to transform them into the items of the petition of complaint. On the findings arrived by us, we conclude that the behaviour meted out by Falguni Chakraborty was not as to cause intense mental pain to Chuni so as to break her heart and lead her ultimately to commit suicide.”3

So, the victim of the harrassment was herself responsible for her suicide! When the judge becomes a defender of the criminal, who can punish him? And why on earth should the tormentors of the underprivileged be at all afraid of the law-enforcing authorities? With inbuilt insularity in position, the aggressors of the dignity of the Dalits or tribals have nothing to fear.
The question is not limited to the unfortunate Lodha girl, who was the first-generation learner. The majority of lawyers and advocates, even judges presiding over law courts where victims of atrocities seek justice, have to contend with such men luxuriantly endowed with filial loyalty. Miscarriage of justice in their cases is unfailingly a foregone conclusion. This is why the Dalits and tribals as a whole entertain an overpwoering perspective that they would not get justice if and when the accused belong to the supremacist club as that of their judges.
Since decades North-Eastern Indians have been subjected to persecution and atrocities by the Indian mainlanders because of their different lifestyle, looks, features, cultural traits etc. One cannot readily remember a case involving them in which salutary and exemplary punishment has been awarded to the criminals. The National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, in a report on reservation in the higher judiciary, bemoaned: “Unfortunately the composition of the higher judiciary shows that judges continue to be drawn mostly from the very section of the society which is infected with the age-old social prejudice. In most cases, social inhibition and class interest of such judges do not permit them full play of their intellectual honesty and integrity in their decisions.”4
Profligacy with intellectual honesty or professional ethics never tormented any of them. The acquittal of 26 Ranvir Sena men, convicted for the massacre of 61 Dalits in Laxmanpur Bathe, Bihar, by a Bench of the Patna High Court last year, underlined the same age-old inhibition and prejudice. One of the judges of the Bench is said to belong to the same stock that furnished the recruits of the private militia. Lack of intellectual integrity and honesty failed the judge to recuse himself from the Bench. Besides, why did the government advocates, appearing for the victims of a massacre, not without strong vested interest, fail to agitate the issue of conflict of interest with such a judge sitting on the Bench to hear and acquit the convicts?
Hasn’t Delhi Forfeited its Right to
remain the Nation’s Capital?
The barbarous lynching of Nido has come as the proverbial last straw provoking the North-Eatern Indian students and activists to launch a peaceful and sustained agitation in Delhi against the racial discrimination they routinely face and suffer. Repeated instances of discrimi-nation and intolerance in Delhi alongside other parts of India must be viewed in a broader perspective. A question must be asked: Hasn’t Delhi forfeited its claim to remain the national Capital where Indians irrespective of religion, race, caste, place of birth—Arunachal to Gujarat and Ladakh to Kanyakumari—are unwelcome?
Insecurity coupled with racial discrimination disqualifies it to be the nation’s Capital open to polyglot, multi-ethnic and multi-cultural con-course of the countrymen. Delhi has actually become a haven for the fascist forces, like the barbarian Ku Klux Klan, over whom the writ of the authorities does not run. The political masters and executive authorities have not confronted them with all the might of the state when their victims belong to margins of the society. Their incompetence to put down the dark forces with an iron hand might unobtru-sively engulf the North-Easterners into a centrifugal torrent which ultimately can be a movement for secession from India. The Chinese in the neighbourhood do not lack fanciful designs to make matters worse for India.
Has Caste made the Crucial 
Difference in Attitude?
Following the gangrape and subsequent murder of a paramedical girl student in a school bus in Delhi on December 16, 2012 thousands of women, who were pejoratively described as highly dented and painted5 alongside students, and the common man from all walks of life thronged the streets of Delhi and elsewhere demanding justice. In the Capital they fought with the police, gheraoed Parliament, marched right upto the Rashtrapati Bhavan, had instantaneous audience with the Prime Minister on demand, abused
the Union Home Minister and Delhi Chief Minister, and almost uprooted the Delhi Police Commissioner. It was hailed as the power of the people. At subzero temperature at 3.30 am December 29, 2012, the Prime Minister and the UPA-II chairperson were at the international airport to receive the dead body and pay homage to the departed soul of the gangrape victim brought from Singapore. These were touching gestures of sympathy of the agitationists as well as the authorities. We were reassured of a new era.
Many have noted with sadness the absence as also failure of those agitationists to join in sympathy and solidarity for the North-Eaterners under attacks. [Some students of the Jawaharlal Nehru University did come, however, in the end to express their solidarity with the North-Easterners.] Why have they failed to turn up in their crisis and where have they gone? We know the answer. The caste of the Delhi rape victim made the crucial difference. This is xenophobia. It is immaterial whether the authorities and/or the countrymen of the privileged class agree or not. To the dented and painted agitationists, the caste of the rape victim was the trigger. The deprived, discriminated and marginalised know well why they have no support from the privileged.
Footnotes
1. The Times of India, August 18, 2012, news item captioned “Fresh attacks in Bangalore keep NE exodus going”. The State Home Minister quoted this statistics to the media.
2. CNN-IBN, April 25, 2012.
3. Suman Chattopadhyay, Ananda Bazar Patrika, Calcutta, June 6, 1995.
4. http://ncsc.nic.in/files/Reservatio...
5. “Those who are coming in the name of students in the rallies, sundori, sundori mahila (beautiful women), highly dented and painted,” Abhijit Mukherjee, an MP from the Jangipur seat that the President of India had vacated before his election, told a vernacular news channel.
The author is a former Vice-Chancellor, B.R. Ambedkar University, Muzaffarpur, Bihar. He can be contacted at biswasatulk@gmail.com

Include NE studies in all school curricula, says NESO

Shillong, Feb 22 : The North East Students Organisation (NESO) today demanded that details of the eight states of the region should be included in the school curricula of all state and central boards to check racial discrimination against the people of the region.

"We insist that the Centre take steps to include the North East -- its geographical location, its people, its culture, its ethos etc -- in the curricula of schools of all state and central boards to address discrimination of its (North East) people to some extent," NESO president Samuel B Jyrwa told PTI.

Jyrwa, who led a delegation of student leaders of the eight north eastern states, met Union Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde in New Delhi and handed over to him a petition also demanding a stringent law to end racial discrimination.

The NESO said the discrimination stemmed from the fact that North East, despite being part and parcel of the country, did not reflect in the school curricula in the whole country.

"Nothing of the north east was even mentioned in the national anthem. Our petition, if agreed, would go a long way towards improving national integration," Jyrwa said.

Angered by the death of Arunachal Pradesh student Nido Tania after he was attacked by a mob in Delhi last month and the subsequent assault on two Naga girls and rape of a minor girl from Manipur earlier this month, the NESO sought short term and long term measures for the Government to take up.

To improve people-to-people contact, the student body suggested the government make a one-time recruitment policy for at least 5,000 Delhi Police personnel in the state capitals in the north east.

"At least one Special Police Station should be established in Delhi for dealing with cases related to racial discrimination and atrocities on NE people, with a provision that it is manned by police officers from NE states," the NESO petition said.

India launches jobs push in Northeast

The government looks to lift 300,000 rural families out of poverty in the insurgency-stricken northeast through a new programme.

By Chandan Das

India is mounting a Rs. 8.92 billion ($143.4m) rural poverty-alleviation initiative in the northeastern states of Nagaland, Mizoram, Tripura and Sikkim where separatist groups threaten regional stability.

• The Indian government launched a rural northeast livelihood project similar to one launched in Chhattisgarh. [Shankar/Khabar]
  

The North East Rural Livelihoods Project (NERLP), which falls under the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER), follows a similar poverty alleviation effort launched in July in Maoist-affected areas by the Union Rural Development Ministry and UN Development Programme.
The project aims to create jobs or other opportunities for tens of thousands of residents and is geared toward improving the lives of women and unemployed youths, officials say.

Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio launched NERLP in his state in December, The Morung Express reported.

"Our project not only aims to provide employment and livelihood to the poor, but also stop youths from joining the rebel groups and encourage the misled youths to return to mainstream society," NERLP planning advisor Shri J. Lhungdim told Khabar South Asia.

"By providing a livelihood to the unemployed and poor, we want to ensure that no one from this region is lured to join the insurgent groups."

A World Bank loan will finance most of the five-year project's cost.

"In the initial phase, four districts each in Nagaland, Manipur, Tripura and Sikkim will benefit from the NERLP, which will cover 300,000 families from 1,624 villages in the region," Ameising Luikham, secretary of the North Eastern Council (NEC), which supervises all development activities in the region, told Khabar.

The project will emphasise the building up of community institutions ensuring self-governance, democracy, accountability and transparency, DoNER Minister Paban Singh Ghatowar said.

"We also intend to enhance the livelihood and economic opportunities by utilising available natural resources, skills development, generating accessibility to finance and developing vital infrastructures," Ghatowar told Khabar.

NERLP would complement Mizoram's three-year effort to solve a food shortage and create more stable farming methods by moving 125,000 families off Jhum cultivation – including a traditional slash-and-burn of farmland, said Mizoram Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla.

"In the absence of farming facilities throughout the year, many people were faced with starvation and this prompted several youths from the region to join the insurgent groups. However, the new efforts will help stop this tendency," Thanhawla told Khabar.

Tensions Running High Among Northeasterners in Delhi

By

• Saptarishi Dutta
• CONNECT

People from the northeast protested the death of Nido Taniam, a 20-year-old student who was beaten to death, at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi, Feb. 15.

Tsering Topgyal/Associated Press

A wave of panic ripped through the labyrinthine urban village of Munirka in south Delhi this week. The community of narrow alleys and potholed roads is home to many of the students from northeastern India who come to the capital each year to study.

It started with tweets and blogs relaying rumors that the local residents’ association had asked local landlords to evict the northeasterners, members of Tibeto-Burman language-speaking ethnic groups related to those of neighboring China and Myanmar.

Northeasterners, who tend to have East Asian looking features, are often targets of discrimination by their countrymen of Indo-European or Dravidian descent.

Munirka’s northeastern community was already on edge after a number of recent attacks on northeasterners in Delhi. In one case, Nido Taniam, a 20-year-old student from Arunachal Pradesh, was beaten to death. Police said the assault was racially motivated.

On Monday, members of the northeastern community led by Binalakshmi Nepram, a rights activist, went to the nearby police station in Vasant Vihar to request that officers prevent any evictions.
There, they met with members of the residents’ association and the police. Sandipan Talukdar, president of All India Students’ Association in Delhi, who was present at that meeting, said members of the residents’ association denied making any such eviction demand and said they had only asked that shops shut by 11 p.m. and CCTV cameras be installed.

Somnath Paruthi, the head of Vasant Vihar police station, said that he had not received any complaints of forcible evictions and would take strong action if anyone was discriminated against in this way in Munirka village.

The residents’ association agreed to print and circulate a pamphlet in the village asking people not to discriminate against northeasterners, according to Ms. Nepram. No one from the residents’ association was available for comment.

“For us this was a preventive measure,” said Ms. Nepram. “The meeting ended with a positive note,” she added.

A storm in a chai cup? Maybe. But the speed at which the rumors sped round is indicative of the strength of the distrust and underlying hostility between the two communities in this area and in the capital at large. Munirka village is largely inhabited by northeasterners and members of the Jat community from northern India.

Caroline Maninee a doctoral student in political science from Manipur in the northeast, has lived in Munirka for eight years. But she says she still feels like an oustider. “They call us Chinkis,” says Ms. Maninee.

Affordable rents make Munirka village ideal for students who account for the bulk of the northeasterners living in the area.  Jawaharlal Nehru University, where Ms. Maninee lives, is located nearby and some colleges of Delhi’s University’s south campus are about 4 miles away. Rent varies from 6000 – 10,000 rupees ($96 – 160) and four to five students usually share a house.
Residents of the area who are not from the northeast say that those who are consume alcohol, stay out late at night and pick fights. “Police never do anything,” said Kukoo, a shopkeeper and a resident who goes by one name, like many in India, and says he is scared to go out at night.
Many said they disliked the way women from the northeast dressed and accused them of being prostitutes.

“If my children look at them every day, they will become like them,” said Kamal, 32, a mother of two daughters. “If they leave the area, that will be good,” she added.
“We consume alcohol but everyone consumes alcohol,” said Brian Singson, 21, a student in Delhi University. He added that women from the northeast prefer wearing western clothes but categorizing them as prostitutes is “very unfortunate and very very untrue.”
Some landlords said they don’t rent their houses to people from the northeast. “I have four houses and not a single Manipuri lives in any of my houses,” said a longtime resident in the area. Others though preferred renting to families from the northeast rather than single people from the region.
Sunny has rented a part of his house to two northeastern families. “I have no problems with families living here,” he said. “Not everybody is bad.”
Prateek Rumba, 24, has been living in the capital for four years and comes from Darjeeling, in India’s Himalayan region, has grown used to discrimination, he says. “This happens every day.”

Mizoram observes 27th Statehood day

Mizoram observed the 27th anniversary of the attainment of Statehood on Thursday.

All the Government offices and educational institutions remained close for the day to mark the occasion.

After the historic Mizo Peace Accord was signed on June 30, 1986 the Bill to make Mizoram (then union territory) a full-fledged Statehood was introduced in the Lok Sabha on August seven the same year.

The Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha with 308 votes in favour out of 310 votes and the Rajya Sabha passed the bill with 160 out of 171 members voting in favour of the Bill.

Mizoram became the 23rd State of the Indian Union after the President gave his assent on August 14, 1986 .

The then Lieutenant Governor of Mizoram Hiteswar Saikia was sworn-in as the first governor of the State by the Chief Justice of the Gauhati High Court at the Raj Niwas in Aizawl.

BJP’s Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi has also sent his greetings and wished the people of Arunachal Pradesh and Mizoram on their Statehood day.

“Heartfelt greetings to the people of Arunachal Pradesh & Mizoram on their Statehood Day & best wishes for their development journey,” tweeted Modi.

Meghalaya A Domain of Clouds and Hills

Saifur Rahman Tuheen

Shillong Peak

Nature lovers who have already visited the popular tourist spots of Bangladesh and are thinking of travelling abroad to an affordable place should definitely think of visiting Meghalaya. Shillong, the capital city of the north-eastern state of India which shares borders with Sylhet and Mymensingh, is commonly known as the Scotland of the East for its breathtaking landscapes and cool weather. Meghalaya is also home to Cherrapunji, which holds the world record for the most rainfall in a calendar month and in a year.
The geographical structure of the state is very similar to Darjeeling of West Bengal, Gangtok of Sikkim and Shimla of Himachal Pradesh but for Bangladeshis, Shillong would definitely be the most accessible and affordable choice. Bounded with lush green forests, hilly terrain, beautiful lakes, river valleys and exotic wildlife, the monsoonal beauties of Meghalaya is worth cherishing.
How to go
The best way to travel to Meghalaya from Bangladesh is by travelling from Sylhet to the Tamabil border, as that would be cost-effective, and you'd get the chance to enjoy the sights of this beautiful city. You can hire a car or microbus from the city which will take you to the Tamabil check post, which is about 45 kilometres from Sylhet. Wake up early in the morning to start your journey, as customs and immigration offices of both countries are relatively free at that time. If you are lucky, the formalities of the Bangladeshi immigration office will take you around half an hour. Once you are done with the formalities, you can just walk down the road to reach the Indian Customs and Immigration Office. Rest assured, you will be able to complete all the formalities and procedures at the Indian office in a much more efficient and faster manner than you would at the Bangladeshi immigration office.
You can then hire a taxi or a car which will take you to Shillong city. Public transport is also available until 11 am in the morning, but you might not find the commute to be very comfortable. Shillong is just 83 kilometres from the Dawki border and it will take you about two and half hours to reach the city. The journey in itself is a treat, as the uphill road is covered in lush green hills, waterfalls and magnificent valleys. Markets line up the road and you might even find a friendly face smiling and waving at you, silently welcoming you to their land.

Elephant Falls

After You Get There
Make sure that you start from the Dawki border before noon so that you can reach Shillong by afternoon. The Dawki to Shillong road is extremely unsafe for travellers after sunset. Before you embark on this journey, do remember to reserve a hotel room in Shillong online.  Most of the affordable hotels are located in Police Bazar, the heart of the city. Hotel Centre Point, Hotel Mikasa, Hotel JK International, Hotel Boulevard, Eden Residency, Hotel Embassy, Hotel Pine Borough are the reasonably priced and popular hotels of Police Bazar. If you are in the mood for something more comfortable and are not worried about the cost, you could opt for Hotel Pinewood, Hotel Orchid, Hotel Polo Towers, Hotel Pegasus Crown, and Hotel Alpine Continental, which are situated around the city. Many hotels provide package tour facilities with a guide and a reserved cab at affordable rates. To enjoy the beauty of the place, spare at least two to three days to visit all the breathtaking places in and around the city.
Places You Can Visit
Shillong Peak and Sohbetbneng Peak: The peaks are located 10 and 20 kilometres respectively from Shillong city.  Shillong Peak is the highest point in Meghalaya with a height of 1,961 meters above the sea level. On a clear, sunny day, you get a bird's eye view of the entire city from the Shillong peak.
The Sohbetbneng Peak is situated at a height of 1343 metres above the sea level. The peak is regarded as a place of religious importance for the tribes of Khasi, Jainita, and Bhoi. It offers a feeling and essence of spirituality, and is ideal for those seeking a bit of solace from the chaos of everyday life.                         
Ward's Lake and Umiam (Bara Pani) Lake: Ward's Lake is an artificial lake within the city. You should visit the place if you have kids with you, as they will enjoy the boat rides and the flora of the 100-year old lake.
Umiam Lake, which is more popularly known as Bara Pani, is 17 kilometres away from Shillong. If you are interested in riding in a speedboat or want to go for a quiet picnic with friends and family, then Bara Pani is the place for you.
Waterfalls: Sweet Falls is one of the most beautiful waterfalls in Meghalaya situated in the Happy Valley. Rengthiam Falls is another cascading waterfall situated at a distance of 15 kilometres from Shillong. Bishop and Beadon falls are two other magnificent waterfalls located in Suna Vally. But if you are pressed for time, and can only visit one waterfall, then do not miss the Elephant Falls, which is within boundaries of the city and is an experience in itself.
Shillong Golf Course: The third oldest golf course of India, the Shillong Golf Course is considered to be the 'Glen Eagle of the East' by the United States Golf Association and Museum. Developed in 1889 as a nine-hole course, it was later converted to an18-hole course in 1924 by Captain Jackson and C.K. Rhodes. It is set in a heaving valley covered with thick groves of pine and rhododendron trees at an altitude of 5,300 feet.
Cherrapunji: Located at an altitude of 4,500 feet above sea level, Cherrapunji has been listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as a place where the rainfall can be recorded in feet rather than in millimetres. Stunning valleys and rivers elevate the charm of Cherrapunji. The town is located some 60 kms from Shillong city, and you can take a car or bus to Cherrapunji in the morning and still get back to Shillong by afternoon.
Caves: The caves of Khasi Hills, Garo Hills and Jaintia Hills are special attractions for tourists visiting Meghalaya. Mawsmai Cave, Krem Mowmluh and Krem Dem are the notable caves of Khasi Hills while Jaintia Hills is home to Krem Kotsati and The Cave of Eocene Age, which offer a sense of adventure and mystery. Bok Bak Dobhakol, Siju-Dobhakol and Terengkol-Balwakol caves are some of the longest and intricate caves of the Garo Hills.
When to Visit: March to October, particularly March and April, and September and October are the ideal months to visit Meghalaya.

Cherrapunji

Published: 12:00 am Friday, February 21, 2014