Lachung tourism festival concludes

GANGTOK, May 13: In a bid to boost tourism in Lachung, some young locals had initiated a Tourist Festival for the first time here, which concluded today. Young talents performed traditional dance wearing their traditional attire. “The main reason behind organising such a festival is to promote tourism through this festival and also to preserve our tradition and culture.

“So we initiated the step at this time as this is the peak of the tourist season and would really attract the tourists,” Mr Pemba Lachungpa the man behind the festival said.  Locals also performed a famous Tibetan Opera called Lamu Dance by Deoghar Tsogpa by Kalimpong troop. The opera kept the audience spell bound. “I felt like I am in Tibet while I enjoyed the Tibetan Opera so now we don’t need to go to Tibet to enjoy the culture there one can enjoy it here.

Compensation during mopping drive

SILIGURI, May 13: The Darjeeling district administration has announced to continue awarding monetary compensation against culling of fowls during the mopping up drive also.  The two-day long mopping up drive in the bird flu affected Matigara, Naxalbari (Siliguri) and Mirik (Kurseong) blocks in the district would begin tomorrow morning.

“Today we held a meeting to take stock of the overall bird flu scenario in the affected areas and also the outcome of the culling operations that was initiated last Saturday. In the said meeting, superceding the existent norms under special considerations, we decided to continue awarding the compensation during the two days of mopping up drive as well,” the Darjeeling DM, Mr Rajesh Randey said.  Meanwhile, according to a district ARD source, during the four days of culling operations that concluded today, a total of 20,298 birds have been culled in across the 41 villages in the three affected blocks.

Apolitical body criticises state govt

SILIGURI, May 13: Jana Jagaran Mancha, a recently formed apolitical organisation principally consisting of noted academicians of the region, has strongly criticized the state administration for indulging for years massive infiltration from Nepal into several areas of Siliguri and adjoining Naxalbari and Bagdogra areas.
Prof Haren Ghosh, an eminent academician and a senior functionary of JJM alleged today that though since 1988 the state government was being warned of the development it had done nothing to control the infiltration. “Taking advantage of the 1950 Indo-Nepal friendship treaty the Nepali influx into Siliguri and its adjoining areas has been continuing unabated for years. Champasari, Hyderpara and Salugara are fast becoming Nepali majority areas and this development may prove ominous for the territorial unity of West Bengal in near future,” Mr Ghosh warned.

” A delegation of distinguished academicians from Siliguri met the then chief minister Mr Jyoti Basu in 1988 and appealed to him to look into the matter. Mr Basu seemed worried and assured them that he would take up the matter with the Centre. Yet, nothing has happened while the Nepali population keeps growing alarmingly in several areas of the city and its adjoining areas like Naxalbari and Bagdogra,” the noted academician lamented.

Mr Asoke Hore, the secretary of the Jana Jagaran Mancha said that a signature campaign was going on in Siliguri to ventilate the common people’s opposition to the state bifurcation demand being raised by the Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha. “The campaign began yesterday and on the first day around 5000 people including some Nepalis spontaneously registered their signatures. We on behalf of our organisation would oppose any attempt to disturb the hoary harmony between the Hill and the plains”, Mr Hore asserted. [The Statesman]

AIGL to observe raising day on 15 May

DARJEELING, May 13: The All India Gorkha League will celebrate its 65th raising day on 15 May in which it will also spell out its political stand “vis-à-vis the political situation of Darjeeling”. “We definitely have a strategy for Gorkhaland which we will talk about on the 15th”, stated Mr Madan Tamang, president of the AIGL. While the goal of all the hill parties is the attainment of Gorkhaland; the strategies they follow are different. The GJMM who is spearheading the Gorkhaland movement has adopted the democratic form of agitation; the CPRM too is going on the same lines by organising hunger strikes and the proposed dharna at the Writers in Kolkata this month. The AIGL though had not outlined a programme so far.

Stressing on the need for education Mr. Tamang said that it is on that basis Gorkhaland must be achieved. “We should have more of our people joining the governance mechanism. That can be achieved only through education”, said Mr. Tamang. This is the first public meeting of the AIGL after the one it had convened in December last year. The AIGL President who had always stressed on the need for “collective leadership” has maintained a distinct silence despite the criticism raised against him by the GJMM. “Each person is allowed to have his own set of ideologies. My brand of politics is different from theirs. If they want to burn my effigy they are free to do so”, said the leader.  [The Statesman]

Treated like refugees in their own country

BERHAMPORE, May 13: They are ready to exercise their franchise in the last phase of panchayat poll, but villagers who have been rehabilitated on char land located near the Bangladesh border after their village Parashpur, under Jalangi block, was swallowed by the Ganga, say they are treated like outsiders in their own country.  “After being rehabilitated on char land after our village vanished under the river, we villagers are made to feel like refugees in our own land,” said 80-year-old Mr Milad Biswas, who comes over to neighbouring Doirampur village market twice every week to buy seeds to sow in the char land.

The river Ganga, known here as the Padma, is rapidly eating into villages in Jalangi block, bordering on Bangladesh. Villagers of the now under-water Parashpur village have to deal with BSF personnel, posted at Doirampur village of Ghoshpara gram panchayat under Jalangi block of Murshidabad district, who they allege do not allow them to carry rice, seeds for tilling their land, and other essential commodities, into their makeshift village on the river’s char land.  Villagers alleged the BSF insists on checking the rice seeds they buy from the Doirampur market for farming purposes, and other wares. “I have been waiting since 7 a.m. for the BSF to clear a bag containing 40 kg seeds that I need to sow in my land. It is 10.30 a.m. now, they still haven’t checked my wares,” Mr Biswas complained.

Lachen warms up to welcome visitors

Siliguri, May 13: Warm home-stays, fantastic folk tradition and charming people, Lachen in North Sikkim has these and more to usher in a new trend of community-based rural tourism. [Inset: A Buddhist monastery in Lachen]

Following a joint initiative of the United Nations Development Programme and the Union ministry of tourism, the nondescript high-altitude village of the Lachenpas, located 110km from Gangtok, is now ready with facilities to welcome visitors and it is being featured in the top 15 destinations of Incredible !ndia’s Explore Rural India campaign.

“Lachen is one of the 36 places we had identified in India as pilot sites to develop and promote rural tourism,” said Mayura Balasubrahmanyam, project support officer, endogenous tourism, UNDP.

Race to meet water supply date

Darjeeling, May 13: The Bengal government is working on a war footing to inaugurate a long-delayed drinking water project in Darjeeling by November next year.

The Darjeeling Water Supply Scheme is expected to supply enough potable water to all parts of the town, solving a 30-year-old problem.

The Rs 55.86-crore scheme, first conceived in 1995-96, was sent to the backburner for more than a decade before it was revived in 2006.

According to a project report submitted by the chief engineer of the public health engineering department, D.C. Bhattacharya, to Darjeeling MLA Pranay Rai, the project is progressing as expected despite the current political turmoil in the hills, where the demand for a new state has been revived. “The project report as of now is satisfactory, but we will have to keep an eye on the progress,” said Rai.

Mamata’s pill for hill peace

Siliguri/Cooch Behar, May 13: Mamata Banerjee today said the failure of the Bengal government and the Centre to meet the aspirations of the people residing in the Darjeeling hills has given rise to the statehood demand. [Inset: Mamata Banerjee]

The Trinamul Congress chief, who had come to north Bengal to campaign for panchayat polls, said her party would take up the issue once the elections are over. In recent times, the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha under Bimal Gurung has revived the movement for a separate state of Gorkhaland in the hills.

“Staying in undeveloped areas over years with no initiative for growth in sight has contributed to the agitation,” Mamata told reporters at the New Jalpaiguri station where she arrived this morning from Calcutta while on way to Cooch Behar.

The Trinamul chief suggested that the government should negotiate with the Morcha before the situation spirals out of control.

Culling dulls army lake attraction

Siliguri, May 13: Residents of Sukna army cantonment and visitors to Madhuban Park and Umrao Singh Lake situated inside the military area will no longer be able to have a glimpse of a major attraction thanks to the outbreak of bird flu. Over 200 ducks, swan and geese, which inhabited these recreational sites, have been culled as the deadly disease was detected just 500m from the cantonment. [Inset: Officials prepare for the burial of birds. (Kundan Yolmo)]

“It was a sad but unavoidable decision. These birds were a welcome add-on to the locations for young as well as old visitors who used to feed them and take pictures,” said a senior army officer.

“We had got to know that chicken in Poinikumari and Sukna villages had started dying from April 27 and that samples had been sent for tests. Many of us had hoped that the results would be negative. But once the confirmation from the Bhopal lab came in, the civil administration approached us and instructed that all the birds within a 10km radius would have to be culled. The culled chickens included the ducks and swans,” the officer added.

Over the past two days, around 230 chickens in the lake, besides about 10,000 ones in three villages within the cantonment area, were killed.