Award drama!

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.

Nepali writer returns award

Darjeeling, April 28: Writer Nanda Hangkhim was today made to shuttle from one office to another when he went to return his Bhanu Puraskar to the Bengal government to protest against the police lathicharge on an ex-servicemen’s rally near Siliguri on April 9.

The state information and culture department gave Hangkhim the annual award in 2005 for his contribution to Nepali literature. [Inset: Hangkhim (right) with the award at the additional district magistrate’s chamber. (Suman Tamang)]

At least two officers, one from the department and the other from the district collectorate, refused to take the award back before the 64-year-old writer dumped the citation at the table of the additional district magistrate (general) and left.

“I also wanted to know from the authorities how I should return the Rs 25,000 that came with the award, but they were of no help,” said Hangkhim. “Two of my brothers, Prem and Lal Bahadur, have served in the army and Prem took part in the peaceful rally (on April 9). The state government has blood on its hand. How can I keep this award any longer?”

The writer added that he had intimated the information and culture department about his desire to return the award on April 13, but got no response from the officials.

This morning, Hangkhim went to the department’s office near Mall where assistant director Suprina Blon met him. Blon spoke to her higher-ups but said she did not have the authority to take back the award. Sources said Hangkhim was asked to meet district magistrate (DM) Rajesh Pandey.

When Hangkhim and his well-wishers reached the collectorate, located 2km away, they were referred to additional district magistrate (general) P. Zimba before they could enter Pandey’s chamber.

Zimba said the DM had informed her that they were not in a position to take back the award because they “had not received any instruction from the state government”.

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CBI fake stamp on Subba- Apex court told lottery baron had forged birth certificate

New Delhi, April 28: The CBI informed the Supreme Court today that controversial Assam MP Mani Kumar Subba’s birth certificate and several other documents — submitted to the Election Commission to prove his Indian nationality to enable him to contest general elections — appeared to be fake.

Additional solicitor general Gopal Subramanium told the court — which had asked the CBI on January 20, 2005 to look into allegations that lottery king Subba was not an Indian national — that several documents, including Subba’s birth certificate, were “not genuine” and appeared to have been forged.

The CBI observations have come as a blow to the ruling Congress in Assam with the party having started preparations for the Lok Sabha elections.

A lottery baron, Subba is known to be the key fund-raiser for the party.

A senior Congress leader, who did not wish to be named, said the development had come as a huge embarrassment for the party and particularly those who had all along been backing Subba. “The current state leadership was not at all happy over the role that Subba had been playing.”

General secretary and party spokesman Haren Das said he had only heard about the matter and was in no position to make any comments.

Ripun Bora, a minister and government spokesman, echoed him saying it was a “sensitive matter” and still sub judice. He said it was for the party high command to comment.