Top News in Himalaya Darpan Today!

India surrenders on the issue of Tibet – George Fernandez

Allegations of fund embezzlement by Kalimpong Municipality

DGHC Administrator should pursue development works neutrally – R. B. Rai

GNLF to initiate Gorkhaland Movement III

and more… 

Power from civic waste

Siliguri, March 30: The Siliguri Municipal Corporation (SMC) will generate power from organic waste with the help of the West Bengal Renewable Energy Development Agency.

The SMC has identified a plot at Putimari, in Rajganj block, 12km from the town, for the proposed project.

“We will donate 13 acres of land and set up infrastructure like boundary wall, housing for employees, drainage, roads, electricity and water,” said Mukul Sengupta, member, mayor-in-council (MIC), conservancy.

According to Sengupta, the SMC collects 300-400 tonne of garbage every day from different wards, 30 per cent of which are used for producing fertiliser. The rest will be segregated by the solid waste management system of the civic body. The organic wastes will then be burnt in a furnace to generate around 5 to 7mw power.

The civic body pays Rs 7-9 lakh per month as electricity bill for streetlights and pumping water. The money will be saved once the project starts, Sengupta said.

“We have agreed to give the technical support to the SMC in generating power,” Shaktipado Gan Choudhury, the special secretary of the Bengal power department and director of the agency said from Calcutta. A similar project, the first in Bengal, was implemented by the Howrah Municipal Corporation.

The Siliguri mayor, Bikash Ghosh, said the civic body got the idea of generating power from waste at a meeting convened by the agency in December for all municipalities of north Bengal. “We decided to accept the proposal in our last mayor-in-council (MIC) meeting on March 24 and the board meeting endorsed it two days later,” he added. [The Telegraph]

Climbers felicitated on trek’s silver jubilee

SILIGURI, March 30: It has been twenty five years since some energetic youths of North Bengal Explorers’ Club of Siliguri first stepped on the summit of Mt. Koktang in Sikkim Himalaya creating a history of sorts. In commemoration of the silver jubilee of the remarkable feat the Himalayan Nature and Adventure Foundation organised a programme today at the Kanchenjunga stadium hall in Siliguri. Mr Amulya Sen, the official advisor, West Bengal Mountaineering and Adventure Sports Foundation under government of West Bengal, Mr Nima Tashi of the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, Mr Bhanu Banerjee, an eminent mountaineer and Mr Animesh Basu , a prominent member of the successful scalers of the Mt Koktang in 1982 were present at the function.
Apart from the addresses by the eminent personalities a slide on Mt Koktang expedition of 1982 was presented by Mr Animesh Bose.

‘Incarnation’ of Geshe Rinpoche visits Tashi Choleing Monastery in Kurseong

Kurseong March 30: The Third incarnation of Geshe Rinpoche, five-year-old Lozang Jig med Ngag-ghi Wangchuck today visited the Tashi Choleing Monastery, here. During his visit, he received a warm welcome and was felicitated by monks. Thousands of followers of the Lamaism’s Gelugpa sect followers and other devotees assembled there receive the third incarnation of Geshe Rinpoche. Five-year-old Lozang Jig med Ngag-ghi Wangchuck was requested to take over the regime of the Tashi Choleing Monastery which was established by Geshe Rinpoche, himself in the year 1919.

The secretary of the Gelugpa sect followers, Mr Fubu Tshering Lama said that under Geshe Rinpoche, a total of five monasteries were constructed and established in the region of Darjeeling and Sikkim . Among those five monasteries the Tashi Choleing Monastery was established first. Notably, after the death of the second incarnation of Geshe Rinpoche, Geshe Ngawang Gyalten Jigm Choekyi Wangchuk on 10 September in 2001 in New York, he was born as the third incarnation in New York on 2 June 2003 to a couple who were related to Geshe Rinpoche.  Importantly, Geshe Rinpoche was one of the legendary spiritual masters of Tibet , whose sphere of Dharma activities and fame spread throughout Tibet and Himalayan region from Ladakh to Arunachal Pradesh since 1920s. He travelled far and wide on pilgrimage through these areas and spread the pure teachings of the Lord Buddha. [The Statesman]

India, Bhutan tell the same story on women’s reservation

SILIGURI, March 30: One is the 60-year old largest democracy of the world, the other a tiny infant democracy, but when it comes to the representations of women in Parliament, both India and Bhutan have the same story to tell. While the Bill for a 33 per cent reservation for women in the Indian Parliament is beating the dust for years now, Bhutan ~ the world’s newest democracy, too, hardly shows off any better picture for the fairer sex. In the just concluded first-ever democratic polls in the secluded Himalayan Kingdom, the two Bhutanese political parties in the fray fielded only 10 women candidates out of the total 94 who contested for the 47-member Bhutan National Assembly. The National Assembly happens to be the powerful Lower House in the two-tier Druk Parliament system.

Percentage wise, the women candidates accounted for 10.63 per cent, which is no better than the meager 10 per cent women who contested the 2004 general elections in India.
Of the two political parties that wrestled in the 24 March Bhutan National Assembly elections, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) had fielded six women candidates and the rest four were nominated by the Druk Phuensum Tshogpa (DPT). Interestingly, the DPT, which has registered a landslide victory by winning 45 of the 47 National Assembly seats, also recorded wins for all its four women candidates, while none of the six PDP women could sail through.  Going by the winning figures, the strength of women in the first-ever Parliament (Lower House) in Bhutan stands at 21.27 per cent, which however, is better than the 8.28 percent women representing in the current Lok Sabha in India.
This is when the world’s largest democracy, India, has by now conducted 14 Lok Sabha elections since Independence, while for the century-old Druk Kingdom, this was the first tryst with democratic elections in its transition to a democratic constitutional monarchy from the absolute monarchy.

Now, GJMM women’s wing gets ready for Gorkhaland agitation

DARJEELING, March 30: As the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha prepares to launch its next set of programmes for the democratic agitation of Gorkhaland; its women’s wing is not lagging behind either. At a meeting organised by the Gorkha Jan Nari Morcha (GJNM) today at Gym Khana in Darjeeling, the future course of action was discussed among an assembly of women present from all the wards in Darjeeling. “The role of the women in the past few months is commendable but we will need a more active participation from your side”, stated Ms Urmila Rumba, convener of the GJNM addressing the gathering of more than two thousand women. Earlier, the participation of women in the movement for Gorkhaland was relatively low but in the present scenario they are the ones who are spearheading the movement. In fact it was the GJNM who had first gone forward with the indefinite hunger strike in February, demanding the removal of Mr Subhash Ghisingh from the post of the administrator of DGHC. “The movement will be more intensive now and we have to be stronger and pledge to bring Gorkhaland under the flag of GJMM”, said Mrs Asha Gurung, advisor of the GJNM.

News in Brief

State support

Siliguri: Dawa Pakhrin, Kalimpong branch president of the GNLF, said on Sunday that the Indian National Front for New States, with which it had a meeting in New Delhi recently, has supported the party’s demand for a separate state.

Tibetan rally

Siliguri: The Tibetan Solidarity Committee will organise a peace procession on Monday in Siliguri and the members of the community living in West Bengal and Sikkim will participate in it.

Power project

Gangtok: The National Hydroelectric Power Corporation Limited has commissioned all three units of 510mw Teesta stage-V hydroelectric project at Balutar in East Sikkim. Of the three units, which can generate 170mw each, one has already started functioning, while the rest are expected to start operations shortly.

Rallies & visitor bar to cement base

Darjeeling, March 30: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha has decided to organise a string of rallies across the Darjeeling hills to strengthen the cry for Gorkhaland.

Analysts, on the other hand, believe that the processions to be brought out by several wings of the party are part of a strategy to retain its sway in the hills, especially since there has been no activity of late.

“After the success in stalling the Sixth Schedule bill from being passed in Parliament and forcing Subash Ghisingh to resign from the post of caretaker administrator of the DGHC, there has not been much political activity in recent times,” said an observer.

As part of its base-strengthening move, the Morcha has also put a restriction on visitors to its office in Singmari here, so that its central committee leaders reach out to the masses, especially in the villages.

Roshan Giri, the general secretary of the Morcha, while confirming that the rallies would start from April 8, said: “Bimal Gurung, the party president, will also tour different areas to meet our supporters and strengthen our base.”

While the party’s town committees from Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Kurseong have been asked to organise a rally on April 8, the Morcha’s ex-servicemen supporters will bring out a procession the next day

According to an announcement made earlier, the party will hold a one-day token hunger strike on April 10 in Darjeeling district and the Dooars to counter the public convention being organised by the Siliguri Municipal Corporation (SMC). The SMC is against the Morcha demand of including the Siliguri subdivision in the proposed Gorkhaland map drawn up by the party.

The student wing of the Morcha will bring out a rally on April 11 followed by another on April 15 by the teachers’ organisation of the party.

“People from the minority communities have been helping us tremendously and they will bring out a rally on April 17,” said Giri.

Climber recalls days with Edmund, hunting for yeti

Siliguri, March 30: Nearly half-a-century ago, Bhanu Banerjee accompanied legendary climber Edmund Hillary to a Himalayan expedition in pursuit of the Abominable Snowman and came back with some incredible memories.

“Every single moment of the expedition is still fresh in my mind. The fact that I was with Sir Edmund Hillary, listening to first-hand tales of the Everest Conquest, was extremely fulfilling,” said Banerjee.

The aim of the 1961-62 expedition, however, was not the highest mountain on earth, but the mythical creature, yeti. World Book Encyclopedia had sponsored the Himalayan Scientific and Mountaineering Expedition.

“We wanted to find out if the yeti existed or not,” Banerjee said. “We went from one remote village to another up to 19,000ft and returned assured that the yeti is just a myth,” Banerjee said.

Monsoon worry for Kalimpong – SOS to PM: save us from landslides

Kalimpong, March 30: Six-hundred-and-forty households in and around Kalimpong have appealed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to save them from landslides, a threat that looms large in the hills during monsoon.

Writing on behalf of the families, Save The Hills, an NGO, regretted that nothing had been done since the end of the last monsoon, which had caused widespread landslides and deaths in the subdivision, especially in early September. [Inset: A petrol pump that was damaged by landslide at 11th Mile, Kalimpong, in 2007. A file picture ]

“We have written and spoken to numerous government officials, urging them to identify critical landslide-prone areas and commence appropriate prevention measures on a war footing during the dry season. Regrettably, nothing has been done in this regard,” read the letter signed by one member each of the 640 households.

The signatures were collected by the NGO in eleven badly-hit areas like Bhalukhop, Alainchikhop, Pudung, Tirpai Bazar and Dungra Bustee.

The residents in their letter addressed to Singh in his capacity as the chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority said they run the risk of losing their lives and properties once the monsoon starts.

The NGO had last week written to B.L. Meena, the caretaker administrator of DGHC, in this regard.