Search for history machines - Tracing Steam rollers in India

Siliguri, April 29: A UK-based association has started a campaign to spread awareness on the steam road rollers in India, which was the first country to have a fully-operational road roller in 1863. [Inset: A steam road roller at Birla Industrial and Technological Museum in Calcutta]

“We have begun by gathering as much information as we can about Indian road rollers,” Derek A. Rayner, the vice-chairman of the Road Roller Association, said. “We have asked the association members, steam-lovers in the UK and our contacts in India to help us in the task.”

“We would like people to know that steam rollers do exist in India. Rollers are important from a historical point of view since they were used to make and improve many of the roads in India,” Rayner, technical adviser to the Old Glory magazine, said in an email from York, England.

Infotainment begins

The introduction of BBC FM Radio in North Bengal and Sikkim promises to shrink the world to even smaller proportions, says Mathures Paul

Audiences in North Bengal and Sikkim can now listen to the BBC’s special FM programming for the first time, thanks to a partnership between the BBC and Siliguri-based Radio Misty 94.3 FM. Like in the other regions, the programme-mix contains infotainment updates and chat shows.
“FM is quite new in these areas and people are excited about this fresh and free entertainment medium. Youngsters are the biggest consumers of FM radio and listeners have been getting us via SW so far. But this is the first time we would be on a local FM channel. Since FM has a vast reach in this hilly area, BBC programmes are a welcome addition to the other programming mix. It is a growing and promising market,” says Vineeta Dwivedi, business development manager of BBC World Service.
Programmes include BBC Ek Minute, which takes listeners inside the world of sports and entertainment, BBC Ek Mulaqat (a weekly chatshow), presented by the BBC India editor, Sanjeev Srivastava. The show profiles India’s prominent people from the world of media, films, sports, business, arts and politics, showing ‘the other side of celebrities lives and playing their favourite songs.

CPI-M rejects criticism by allies over rally

SILIGURI, April 29: Reacting to yesterday’s report published in The Statesman about the dissent within the Left Front over the GJMM Siliguri rally issue, the Darjeeling district CPI-M said that the Left Front partners could not violate the Front’s unanimously taken decision. It is to be mentioned here that the CPI, RSP and Forward Bloc, in different statements issued yesterday, had flayed the state government’s decision of not giving permission to the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha for carrying out a rally in Siliguri.
The CPI state committee member Mr Pijush Guha criticised the state government for singling out GJMM on the issue. “If law and order apprehension involved in the proposed GJMM rally was true the administration should impose an embargo on all political parties from uttering any provocative word on the Darjeeling tangle,” Mr Guha said. Taking strong exception to these statements, Mr Jibesh Sarkar, the CPI-M state committee member from Siliguri, said that such statements being issued to the media by the Left Front constituents were not just irresponsible but were also corroding the very principle adhered by the Left Front over the years. “A Darjeeling district Left Front meeting was held in Siliguri on 27 April. The GJMM Siliguri rally issue was discussed in all its details. The RSP and the CPI representatives wholeheartedly supported the st-ate government’s decision of not allowing a GJMM rally in Siliguri for the time being. We are wondering why these parties are indulging in this detestable game of double standards on such a mo-mentous issue,” Mr Sarkar stated.

GJMM for taxes boycott in the Hills

SILIGURI, April 29: In what would only add to the state government’s trouble on the Darjeeling Hill issue, the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha has called for non-payment of all sorts of central and state taxes including the BSNL telephone and electricity bills across the Hills from 1 May.
The GJMM’s call to boycott taxes comes as a mark of protest to the state government’s persistent denial in allowing the GJMM to hold a public rally in Sil-iguri in favour of its Gorkhaland demand.
The Hill party has also called for an indefinite hunger strike on the same issue from 1 May, which is to be simultaneously carried out in Darjeeling, Kalimpong, Kurseong, Siliguri and the Dooars.
Announcing the boycott in a Press conference at the DGHC resort ‘Pintail Village’ in Siliguri this afternoon, the GJMM president Mr Bimal Gurung said, the tax and bill boycott program would continue unless and until the state government granted the GJMM permission for a rally in Siliguri.

SMC to transfer land to non-refugees in Siliguri

SILIGURI, April 29: The Siliguri Municipal Corporation (SMC) has decided to go ahead with its scheme of land settlement in favour of the non-refugees residing in the city for generations. The modalities of the scheme concerning the acquirement of land and its distribution are being finalised at the state government level in consultation with the SMC.
Giving this information, Mr Bikash Ghosh, mayor, SMC, said that nothing was done so far in the direction of land settlement for the hundreds of non-refugee families. “They under adverse circumstances had settled down in the colonies under the Refugee Relief and Rehabilitation department as well as on the government vest land. They are not enjoying the refugee status. And this has come in the way of the due transfer of land in their favour. We are proposing to transfer the land being occupied by the non-refugee families for years in their names. The state government has agreed to the SMC scheme in principle. Only the modalities of the scheme are being finalised at the Refugee Relief and Rehabilitation Department level of the state government,” Mr Ghosh said.

Kanu Sanyal: Denial to hold rally undemocratic

SILIGURI, April 29: Veteran Naxalite leader and the CPI-ML general secretary, Mr Kanu Sanyal has come down heavily on the state government for persistent-tly denying permission to the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha for holding a public rally in Siliguri.
“This is completely an undemocratic decision and the way the CPI-M led state government is behaving, it feels like as if we are living in an autocracy,” the Naxal veteran said today.
Terming the denial to GJMM to hold a public rally in Siliguri as a CPI-M ploy to ‘incite communal tension’, Mr Sanyal alleged that the ruling party was ‘trying to exploit’ the issue for electoral gains in the ensuing panchayat polls in the state.

Transport traders to boycott Motor Tax

DARJEELING, April 29: In a bid to support the GJMM’s demand for Gorkhaland, the All Transport Joint Action Committee (ATJAC) has requested all its members not to pay Tax on Motor-Vehicles to the government. “We will henceforth not pay any taxes to the government”, declared Mr Susan Rai, joint secretary of the Association.
The association, which is affiliated to the GJMM, brought out a rally today in Darjeeling. Accordingly no public transport plied on and around Darjeeling between 10:30 am to 2 pm.
The decision of the Association is a major setback to the government as the motor vehicle tax generates huge revenue every year from Darjeeling. “The Hill drivers are harassed by the Bengal police in many ways. Our decision will cripple the government”, said Mr Rai.
Despite paying the road and the vehicle taxes there have been no development in the condition of roads and transport facilities in Darjeeling. Annoyed by the “step-motherly” treatment of the Bengal government towards the Hills, the association has taken such a stand.

Heavy downpour affects life in Gangtok

GANGTOK, April 29: The heavy downpour in the evening since last few days is affecting normal life in Gangtok and adjoining areas. A student was injured at Rongpo about 30 km from Gangtok last night. The rain accompanied by gale and strong winds uprooted a tree, damaging a house at Mamring near Rangpo with no casualty. A student of Sikkim Manipal Institute of Technology (SMIT) in Rangpo was injured when a boundary wall of the Agriculture office collapsed last night. He was rushed to the nearby hospital. This incident also blocked the Rangpo to Namchi road, a state highway. [The Statesman]

Foreigners to trek Sikkim

Gangtok, April 29: Twenty-five foreigners will take part in the Khangchendzonga International Trekking Programme organised by the Sikkim tourism department in the first half of May.

The trekking, which will begin on May 3 and end on May 31, will be an opportunity for around 1,000 people, who will fan out in batches, to explore new areas in West Sikkim.

The programme, to be conducted by the adventure division of the state tourism department, will be funded by the Union tourism ministry and supported by the Travel Agents’ Association of Sikkim and the Sikkim Association of Adventure Tour Operators.

The trekkers from Finland, Poland, France, Germany, Canada, Israel and Australia will leave Gangtok for the base camp in Soreng on May 1 and acclimatise to the weather there. On May 3, the team will be flagged off from Soreng where six more persons — three Sikkimese and the rest from Bengal — will join in.

On day one, after a 16km trek, the team will reach Barsey, famous for its rhododendron sanctuary, and spend the night there.

The team will cover over 100km during the eight-day trek and visit Jorebutey, Singalila peak, Kalijar, Chewabhanjyang, Uttarey and Hee Bermiok before returning to Soreng.

Besides seeing rhododendrons in bloom in Barsey, the trekkers will also have a glimpse of both the ranges of the Everest and the Kanchenjunga from Singalila.

32 held over statehood row

Cooch Behar, April 29: Thirty-two supporters of the Greater Cooch Behar People’s Association were arrested near the district magistrate’s office here today when they brought out a bicycle rally to demand the scrapping of the “illegal” panchayat polls.

In an unannounced programme, the protesters appeared at the gate of the office around 1.30pm and started shouting slogans demanding a separate state of Greater Cooch Behar and scrapping of the polls. Police seized 31 bicycles from them.

The district administration had clamped prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the CrPC at Chhotokeshbari village in Mathabhanga since midnight last night in view of the association’s proposed cultural programme and a rally in the area to demand a separate state.

A large contingent led by additional police superintendent James Kujur was deployed in the area. The association, however, did not hold any programmes there.

Gurung warns of blackout

Siliguri, April 29: Gorkha Janmukti Morcha chief Bimal Gurung today threatened to blackout Siliguri by disrupting work at the hydro-electric plants in the hills that feed the trade hub’s power lines. [Inset: Gurung at Pintail village. Picture by Kundan Yolmo]

“We have decided not to pay any tax or bills due to the government from May 1 and they include electricity bills. If power supply to households in the hills is disconnected for non-payment of dues, we will stop work at all the power generating plants that feed Siliguri,” Gurung told reporters at Pintail village on the outskirts of Siliguri this evening.

“Rammam, Jaldhaka and a number of other hydel projects are located in the hills, along with transmission networks through which power flows into Siliguri. In the hills, we may have to light candles after dark, but the people of Siliguri will have to do the same,” Gurung added.

In Darjeeling, Morcha supporters today picketed the West Bengal State Electricity Distribution Company Ltd to prevent people from paying their power bills. The Morcha-affiliated All-Transport Joint Action Committee, too, has said its members would not pay road taxes until the condition of the roads improve.

Tibetans remember immolation hero - Prayer marks 10th anniversary

Kalimpong, April 29: The Tibetan Youth Congress (TYC) held a prayer service to commemorate the 10th anniversary of the “martyrdom” of Pawo Thupten Ngodup, who had set himself on fire in New Delhi on this day in 1998 to protest against “the continuing occupation of Tibet by China”. [Inset: Tibetans march in Kalimpong. Picture by Chinlop Fudong Lepcha]

The prayer service at Manilhang Khang gumba was followed by a silent candle-lit procession through the main thoroughfares of the town late in the evening. Monks in maroon gown led about 200 marchers, including women dressed in their traditional costume, baku, and schoolchildren.

“On this day, Tibetans all over the world salute the supreme sacrifice made by Thupten Ngodup and thousands of other martyrs inside Tibet,” said Chungdak, the Kalimpong unit president of the TYC.

New logo for Dooar & Terai tea

Siliguri, April 29: The Tea Board of India plans to introduce a separate logo featuring an elephant to brand tea produced in the Terai and the Dooars.

The tea board had earlier come up with three logos — featuring a rhino, hills and a woman holding two leaves and a bud — to brand tea produced in Assam, the Nilgiris and Darjeeling, respectively.

“The new logo will feature an elephant standing against the backdrop of tea bushes. It will be similar to the logo for Assam tea (see picture),” Basudeb Banerjee, the tea board chairman, said over the phone from Bagdogra today.

“We expect to bring out the logo by the end of this year,” Banerjee added.

All varieties of tea, be it CTC, orthodox or value-added, produced in the region will carry the logo indicating the geographic location of production, sources said.

Banerjee had come to north Bengal to inaugurate a Rs 3-crore state-of-the-art tea factory built by a tea major in a garden on the outskirts of Jalpaiguri town. He also visited the self-help groups (SHGs) formed by the small tea growers of the region.

“We have decided to open an office in Jalpaiguri, which will operate under the board’s Siliguri office, to help stakeholders here,” Banerjee said. “The office will be particularly helpful for small tea growers.”

The board has also initiated the task of upgrading the tea research station (TRA) at Nagrakata and plans to open a full-fledged training centre there.

Vehicles off road, power bills in pocket - Tough day for tourists

Darjeeling, April 29: Tourists to the hill town had to make last-minute changes to their travel plans today as taxi syndicates in Darjeeling decided to take a large part of the day off to espouse the cause of Gorkhaland.

No hired vehicles were available here from 10am to 2pm as members of the All Transport Joint Action Committee, an affiliate of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, brought out a procession and held a public meeting at Chowk Bazar. [Inset: A row of hired vehicles at Darjeeling Motor Stand while their drivers were attending the meeting. (Suman Tamang)]

“The meeting is being held to strengthen Bimal Gurung’s stand in the Gorkhaland agitation. We also want to tell the administration to stop harassing our drivers in Siliguri and improve roads,” Narbu Lama, the president of the committee, said.

The Morcha had earlier insisted that unlike the Gorkhaland agitation in the 1980s, its movement for a new state would not inconvenience tourists. However, the scenes in Darjeeling today told a different story.

Abhijit Majumdar from Calcutta was one of those who cut short their trips and left Darjeeling before 10 in the morning. “We have to board a bus from Siliguri in the evening and were supposed to start off from here in the afternoon. But we have decided to push off right away instead of taking a risk later in the day,” said Majumdar as he boarded a vehicle around 9am.

Others who were planning to go on local sight-seeing trips were also disappointed.

“I came to know about the transporters’ meeting last evening. Although I could go to Tiger Hill early this morning and visit places like Batasia Loop and the Dali monasteries, I had to give the nearby tourist spots a miss. Since we are going off to Gangtok tomorrow, it was quite a waste of a day here,” said Sikna Brahma who had come from Bongaigaon in Assam.

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Celebrated Author Nanda Hangkhim dumps Bhanu Puraskar at the desk of the Additional District Magistrate (General)

Mayfair group to raise Rs 250cr via IPO & PE

Dilip Bisoi

Bhubaneswar, Apr 28; Mayfair group, the biggest hotel chain in eastern India, is planning to raise Rs 250 crore through the initial public offering and private equity routes to expand its activities further in the region in the next two years.

“By 2010, we want to develop at least 11 projects spread over eight locations to continue our leadership position in the eastern region, said group chairman Dilip Ray. According to him, the group hotels would have a total of 576 rooms by then.

Mayfair is proposing to immediately develop a property in Gangtok. The 48-acre property has been taken on lease from the former chief minister of Sikkim, Nar Bahadur Bhandari. A 5-star deluxe spa resort will come up on about 15 acres with facilities for online casino.

In Orissa, the group has acquired 100 acres in Sipakuda village on the shore of the Chilika Lake to develop a 5-start deluxe resort of international standard with golf course and helipad. It is also planning to set up a new hotel in Cuttack, while undertaking repair, renovation and replacements (RRR) of its existing hotels in Bhubaneswar, Puri and Rourkela.

Mayfair is also looking at acquiring a hotel in Hyderabad and converting it into a 5-star one. The company has bought two properties in Darjeeling, where it already has a hotel. It is also looking for a plot at Rajarhat in Kolkata and another in Siliguri.

Ray, who now holds 100% equity of the company, said the group was planning to raise Rs 250 crore through IPO, private equity and internal accruals. “We may go for the private equity within a month and by mid-2009 will enter the market with the IPO”, he said.

Darjeeling tea estates see turnaround

Sunday, April 27, 2008 (Darjeeling)
Bankrupt tea estates and a malnourished workforce are the issues that closed down West Bengal’s tea gardens. Then in 2006, things got worse when about a thousand tea estate workers died of starvation.

But after the government intervened last year, things have begun looking up, especially in tea estates where new managements have taken over the estates.

Two years ago, Lakshman’s father had hanged himself at the Darjeeling’s Chong Tong tea estate. After the management abandoned the tea estate, he couldn’t bear to see his friends and family die of malnutrition and starvation.

But his death drew attention to the crisis and a new management stepped in.

”I can’t begin to describe how I feel sometimes. I had to go and work for the estate after my father died. I had no choice. But till he was alive I wanted to stay away from the tea estates,” said Lakshman’s, worker, Chong Tong tea estate.

Sex trade flourishes in Darjeeling

Porous borders along Nepal and Bangladesh have fuelled the growth of cross border trafficking in and around the tea estates in Darjeeling. And here intense poverty and unemployment, a deadly cocktail, has forced many to the flesh trade.

The Mechi Bridge on the Bengal-Nepal border witnesses late hour rush as visitors on both sides rush back home before the borders shut down for the night.

Besides the long lines of commodities waiting to be smuggled into India at the bridge are young men and women quietly pushing their business - soliciting for sex work.

And security personnel are the usual clients.

A few kilometers away is Khalpara, Siliguri’s red light area where many teenagers from tea estates end up earning a livelihood for themselves and their families.

”In north Bengal mainly Jalpaiguri most of the tea gardens are closed which has lead to poverty. Children also see others of their age coming from Delhi and earning so much and get attracted to that and try and go that way. And in this situation dalaals take them to brothels,” said Mrinal Ghosh, member, Child Welfare Committee.

But the money isn’t so good there; the best options are tourists. With tourism picking up once again in the region, the onset of spring brings many young people to the hills.

Villagers demand implementation of Forest Rights Act, close forest depot

SILIGURI, April 28: Demanding early implementation of the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act 2006, forest villagers from Kurseong sub-division closed down the forest department’s Kurseong central depot at Taipoo near Siliguri on 24 April.
The agitating forest villagers have also locked out the Taipoo Beat Office, which is located adjacent to the depot and have announced to continue with the agitation till their demands are met.
The central depot at Taipoo falls under the jurisdiction of the Bagdogra forest range and the entire forest produces of the Kurseong forest division is stored, processed and ferried out from there.
But the ongoing agitation has brought the depot to a standstill and the forest officials are not daring to intervene apprehending the villagers’ wrath.
According to Mr YP Aden, DFO Kurseong, the forest department was yet to know the exact reasons why the villagers closed down the Taipoo depot.

Morcha to start fast

Siliguri, April 28: Gorkha Janmukti Morcha leaders today stuck to their plan of an indefinite hunger strike in Darjeeling district and the Dooars from May 1 after the Bengal government refused to alter its position and give them permission to hold political programmes in Siliguri.

The Siliguri subdivisional office has been selected as one of the venues of the fast.

The final round of talks on the Morcha demand was held at the Circuit House here. Jalpaiguri divisional commissioner B.L. Meena led the administrative side.

“The Bengal government seems determined to stop us from pursuing a democratic movement,” Morcha general secretary Roshan Giri said after the meeting. “We have no other option but to start an indefinite hunger strike in the hills, Siliguri and the Dooars to protest against the government’s decision.”

The leaders, who had earlier expressed faith in chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, today made it clear that the trust does not extend to his government. “We do not have faith in the state government, which is trying to thrust the separatist label on us. They are trying to force us to resort to violence, but we will continue to be patient in pushing for our demands,” Giri said.

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Siliguri’s Samson pulls train, eyes Guinness record

Siliguri, April 28: He had earlier pulled a truck with his moustache and two buses with his ponytail. Siliguri’s Samson graduated to a toy train today.

Shailen Roy pulled three coaches and the engine of a Darjeeling Himalayan Railway (DHR) toy train with his ponytail at Siliguri Town Station in his first attempt at the task. [Inset: Roy pulls the toy train with his ponytail. Picture by Kundan Yolmo]

“After pulling a bus, I thought my next target would be an aeroplane, for which I had approached the district administration,” said the 5ft-5inch-tall driver of the police department, swaying his waist-length hair in triumph after the haul. “But for some reason I was not allowed. I then approached the officials for permission to pull a toy train, and was given the go-ahead,” Roy said.

Roy pulled the train — weighing 35 tonnes, which is over 600 times his own wight — seven metres in front of more than 5,000 residents of Bagrakot and Subhashpally, which are located close to the station.

Subrata Nath, the director of the DHR, and Shanti Chakraborty, member, mayor-in-council of the Siliguri Municipal Corporation, also watched the event in rapt attention. Roy’s wife and only son, however, missed the fun.

“It is an amazing feat which I saw with my own eyes today,” said Nath after the 10-minute show.