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.