A visit to the Monastery that once held the relics of Lord Buddha!

Tashi Dargayling Monastery, Darjeeling

All photos by Barun Roy

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Today’s Beacon Online Exclusive Wallpaper

Chamling visits Namchi to initiate face lift

NAMCHI, May 14: The Chief Minister Pawan Chamling today visited various places in and around Namchi, in order to take stock of the various developmental projects currently under progress here.

He was accompanied by the minister, Rural Management and Development Department, KN Rai, Area MLA, Melli, Girish Chandra Rai, secretaries of all the government departments along with the officials from the South District.

Mr. Chamling started his inspection from the construction site of the Ropeway near Gandhi Park here. He directed the engineers of the concerned department to ensure that the ropeway meets top standards. He also directed them to look for a good parking area near the site.

During his visit to the Jorethang Road, the CM directed the engineers to make provisions for street lights up to Kamrang College Road. He also suggested that sufficient numbers of pay and use toilets in and around Namchi town should be constructed in order to facilitate both the locals as well as tourists.

Scavengers in danger

Asian vultures will die out within a decade, given the ‘so called’ urgent action being taken to
eliminate the livestock drug that has caused the species’ catastrophic decline, writes Arunayan Sharma

Life on earth is disappearing fast, as is the obvious process, but urgent action is necessary to preserve the balance, claims the 2007 IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, the world’s most authoritative assessment of plants and animals. Threatened birds are more rare than the geographic range of maps suggest, according to a new study in Conservation Biology. Vultures in Africa and Asia have declined, with five species reclassified on the IUCN Red List. The rapid decline in their numbers over the last eight years has been driven by the drug diclofenac, used to treat livestock. Gyps vultures were being found dead and dying in Pakistan and throughout India, and major declines and local extirpations were being reported. Early evidence suggested that a viral disease may have been the causal agent, but there is now strong evidence that Gyps vultures are fatally susceptible to veterinary painkillers containing diclofenac. Other suggested factors are changes in human consumption and processing of dead livestock and massive poison and pesticide use, but these are only likely to be of minor significance. [Inset: White-rumped Vulture (Gyps bengalensis) ]

As per ornithological classifications, nine species of vultures are found in the Indian subcontinent, six of these commonly sighted in West Bengal. The species were seen in many parts of North Bengal as well, but now their location is hard to find. The worst sufferer is the White-rumped Vulture (Gyps bengalensis), also known as the Bengal Vulture, because of its abundant presence in Bengal. This species faces a high risk of extinction.

In Africa, three species of vulture have been reclassified, including the White-headed Vulture or Trigonoceps occipitalis, which moved from Least Concern to Vulnerable (in endangered status), the White-backed Vulture (Gyps africanus) and Rüppell’s Griffon (Gyps rueppellii), both moved from least Concern to Near Threatened. The decline has been due to a lack of food, reduction in wild grazing mammals, habitat loss and collision with power lines. They have also been poisoned by carcasses deliberately laced with insecticide. The bait is intended to kill livestock predators, such as hyenas, jackals and big cats, but it also kills vultures.

Bagdogra gears up to welcome PM

SILIGURI, May 16: The Bagdogra airport in Siliguri is eagerly waiting to welcome Prime Minster Dr Manmohan Singh tomorrow, who is scheduled to break journey here on his way back to New Delhi from Bhutan. This is the first occasion when the PM Dr Singh would step in at the airport.

Dr Singh, who embarked on a two-day tour of Bhutan this morning, would leave the Druk nation at 3.30 p.m. tomorrow. The chartered aircraft, carrying the PM, his officials and a 25-member media team, wo-uld land at Bagdogra at 4.05 p.m. for refueling. West Bengal chief secretary Mr Amit Kiran Deb would receive the Prime Minister at the airport, Mr Rajesh Pandey, Darjeeling DM said.

The Bagdogra airport authorities have changed the schedule of two SpiceJet passenger aircraft tomorrow in view of the PM’s visit. Restrictions have been imposed on the movement of vehicles within the airport campus for the day.

Band rocks Gangtok – Steam power

Gangtok, May 16: Kathmandu-based Nepali band Abhaya and the Steam Injuns gave a scintillating performance here last evening, having halted in town to promote their latest album, Nayan. [Inset: Abhaya and the Steam Injuns performs in Gangtok on Thursday night. Picture by Pema Leyda Shangderpa]

The band has experimented with Nepali fusion music — rock and jazz — in Nayan, where beats of madal and dhimae (traditional musical instruments) and Birahini (a Nepali rhythm) blend with screaming guitars to produce a totally different sound.

Abhaya Subba, the lead vocalist, preferred to describe the band’s new music as “eclectic”.

“We thought that we should create a new kind of future for Nepali music and at the same time break away from playing the same old songs and that is how Nayan came about,” Abhaya, who hails from Darjeeling, said last night.

The lead singer added that the album had generated a big response from music lovers in Nepal and different parts of India. “We hope it will do well in Sikkim as well,” she said.

Culling in hills to start from Sunday

Darjeeling, May 16: The Darjeeling district administration has decided to start culling in the Bijanbari-Pulbazar area, where the outbreak of bird flu has been confirmed, from Sunday. [Culling at Sukna. A File Picture]

District magistrate Rajesh Pandey today held a meeting with other officials to work out the logistics of the operations.

“Since it is advisable to inform people about the culling process beforehand, we have decided that the operations would start from Sunday,” said Pandey. The epicentre of the outbreak has been identified as Pulbazar, about 30km from Darjeeling town, and the culling of fowls and ducks would take place within a radius of 5km.

The 200-odd employees of the animal resource development department will form 25 teams that are expected to cull about 17,000 birds in the Bijanbari, Samalbong, Kaijlay, Chungthung, Singtam, Soom and Liza Hill areas. Among these, Chungthung, Singtam, Soom and Liza Hill are tea gardens.

A control room has also been set up near the Bijanbari block office.

Fuel stop for PM at Bagdogra today

Siliguri, May 16: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will be making a stopover at Bagdogra Airport tomorrow on his way back from Bhutan. He will halt for about 30 minutes when the Airbus 319 carrying him would be refuelled. [Inset: Manmohan Singh]

“It is basically a technical landing. The runway at Paro (in Bhutan) is not long enough for the aircraft to take off with a full load of fuel for the flight back to Delhi,” said Bagdogra airport director K.K. Bhaumik.

Hence the stopover, which will also be utilised by Singh to hold a news conference for journalists accompanying him from Delhi. The Prime Minister is on a two-day visit to Bhutan, the youngest democracy in the world, and is the first foreign leader to do so after elections were held there in March.

Singh will be commissioning the 1,020mw Tala hydel project and lay the foundation stone of another 1,095mw Punatsangchhu hydel project tomorrow, as well as address the new members of the Bhutan Parliament.

Second seal delay for consumers – Staff shortage in buyers’ body

Siliguri, May 16: “Jago grahak, jago” was the tag-line of an advertising campaign in the print and electronic media in recent times, asking consumers to be aware of their rights and seek redress for the grievances. But the government machinery enabling the consumer to do so is woefully wanting in the Siliguri region.

For one, judgments passed by the District Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum here had been held up for several days for want of the second signature on the order, without which it cannot be handed over to the complainant and the opposing party. A forum, be it at the state or district level, comprises a president and two members, one of whom has to sign the order along with the president.

Secondly, the office of the Consumer Affairs and Fair Business Practices, which works hand in hand with the Forum, has for a long time functioned almost in name only.

One of the member’s posts in the Forum has been vacant since the last incumbent Prasanta Roy left after completion of his five-year term on January 11. The second member, Sumedha Bhattacharya, has not been keeping well, preventing her from attending the Forum regularly, sources at the office on Hill Cart Road said.

Rise of Independents

Siliguri, May 16: The dismal performance of panchayat representatives of different political parties in the Jalpaiguri district over the past five years has resulted in an increase in the number of independent candidates in this year’s rural polls.

Last time, around 500 Independents, including those owing allegiance to parties like the CPI-ML, KPP and the SUCI, had contested in the three-tier panchayat polls in the district. This year, the number is 768.

“Around 400 of them are either members of some political party or dummy candidates contesting as Independents. The remaining, however, are people who are not usually associated with politics. They include people with different occupations and even housewives,” a senior official of the Jalpaiguri district administration said.

The trend is prevalent in the tea belt of the Dooars. Sitamoni Oraon, who runs a group called Mahila Jagriti in Damdim-Bagrakote near Malbazar, said: “Many of our members have filed nominations as Independents. The elected panchayats ruled by political parties have implemented very few development projects in our villages. If elected, we will sit with villagers and chalk out plans to work for them.”

In the closed Ramjhora Tea Estate, 30-year-old Aruna Ghatal is in the race for a panchayat seat as an independent candidate. “Many people in our garden are not ready to buy the stories of political leaders because in the past five years, the garden’s condition has deteriorated,” she said. “So we have filed nominations to work for our the people.”

Divorce to cost half the assets

Gangtok, May 16: The Sikkim government will bring in laws to ensure that women are treated at par with men with regards to inheritance rights and can seek 50 per cent as compensation from their husbands in case of divorce.

“We are drafting a bill that will bind a man to give 50 per cent of his property to his wife in the event of a divorce,” chief minister Pawan Chamling said here today while attending the statehood day celebrations at Chintan Bhavan. “The same bill will ensure that if a man brings home a second woman, 50 per cent of the husband’s property has to be given to the wife if she files for a divorce,” the chief minister said.

The bill is being prepared by the law department and will be tabled in the next Assembly session, he added.

Chamling also announced that the government will issue a notification soon to give equal property rights to sons and daughters.

“This will protect the girl child. No one has approached us for these rights but it is an initiative on the part of the government to give proportionate rights to our women,” Chamling said. Sikkim currently has 40 percent reservation for women in panchayat and municipal bodies.

ICSE shocker: All round hike in fees

Darjeeling, May 16: The Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (ICSE) has come under the scanner following its decision to hike fees by astronomical proportions.

The executive committee of the council at its meeting on April 23 decided to revise the fee structure with “immediate effect” for a period of three years.

A circular issued by the academic body said the hike was necessitated because of several reasons, including “cost escalation of the new building of the council and the creation of a golden jubilee corpus fund” for subsidising the examination fees of economically-disadvantaged students. The details of the subsidy have not yet been announced.

Gorkha agitation worry for IT players – Entrepreneurs call for ‘ideal atmosphere’

Siliguri, May 16: Entrepreneurs in the IT sector in and around Siliguri and those about to set up units here have voiced their concern over the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha’s agitation, which, they think, has disrupted normal life and affected their business in town over the past few months. [Inset: A billboard of Quantum IT centre in Matigara. Picture by Kundan Yolmo]

In the past couple of years, the emergence of Siliguri as a potential IT destination in Bengal — second after Calcutta — led to creation of jobs for youths residing in the region. A number of companies opened units, some have decided to establish theirs, while a few more are working on proposals from the Bengal government.

Deadline, clashes before final show – Fast threat in Morcha style

Cooch Behar, May 16: The Greater Cooch Behar Democratic Party has gone the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha way, threatening to go on an indefinite hunger strike from tomorrow if those responsible for stabbing one of their leaders in Dewanhat are not arrested by tonight. [Inset: A rally of CPM supporters on bicycles in Jalpaiguri on Friday, the last day of campaigning. (Biplab Basak)]

According to a complaint lodged with the Kotwali police station, Rahul Miyan, the convener of the local area committee of the party at Dewanhat, 14km from here, was set upon last night and stabbed several times on the head and body. Rahul was on his way home around 11pm after finishing the last phase of campaigning. He was admitted to the Maharaja Jitendra Narayan Hospital in serious condition.

The Greater Democratic Party has filed an FIR naming the CPM’s Dewanhat branch committee secretary, Samir Dey, and seven others. Cooch Behar superintendent of police Anil Kumar said a hunt is on for the culprits.