Limboo language as ancient as Chinese Mandarin: Dutch researcher

FROM ANI

Gangtok, Oct 3: Dutch researcher Prof Dr George Van Dreim has revealed that the Limboo language, widely spoken in the Himalayan region of Nepal and India, is as ancient as the oldest language of the world – Chinese Mandarin.

”I have undertaken extensive studies on the Limboo community since 1993 and found out that the Limboo language is as ancient and original as the Chinese Mandarin language,” Prof Dreim informed during a felicitation programme here yesterday by the Limboo community of Sikkim.

Prof Dreim was accorded a rousing reception and felicitated by the Limboo community of Sikkim for his untiring work on documenting the rich heritage of the indigenous Limboo community living in the Himalayan region of Nepal and Sikkim.

He was presented a citation and memento by the Sikkim Limboo Literary Association, the apex body of the Limboo community in Sikkim.

The Dutch researcher from Leiden University, Holland, had widely travelled in Limboo belts of Eastern Nepal for his study which is a part of Himalayan Languages project of the University, an ongoing linguistic research on the languages of the Himalayan region. He is being assisted by 23 research fellows.

Limboo is the largest of all Kiranti languages and a major regional language of eastern Nepal.

Prof Dreim’s contributions to the Limboo language and community are a grammar (Phedappe) dictionary and verbal analysis of the language.

His book ‘Early History of Limbuwan’ will be published soon.

Nepal Maoists not committed to democracy, says Koirala

FROM SOUTH EAST ASIA NEWS NET

Kathmandu, Oct 4 : Nepali Congress president Girija Prasad Koirala has accused the Maoist leadership of not showing commitment to democracy in Nepal.

In a tea-party organised by Nepali Congress’s Kathmandu-9 committee on the occasion of Dahain festival here today, Koirala accuse the Maoists of betraying Nepali people by speaking of establishing of People’s Republic in Nepal.

Koirala said he would not take rest from the 60-years long fight for democracy and his party would continue to work for peace and political stability in the country.

He also said that Maoists creates obstacles in the process of writing the new Constitution, Nepalnews reported

Nepal cabinet forms a committee to initiate talks with armed outfits of Terai

FROM SOUTH EAST ASIA NEWS NET

Kathmandu, Oct 4 : The Nepal cabinet has decided to form a three-member team to initiate talks with armed outfits of Terai.

Nepalnews quoted Minister for Information and Communication Krishna Bahadur Mahara as saying that the government team will be led by Minister for Peace and Reconstruction Janardan Sharma Prabhakar and will include two other members – Minister for Local Development Ram Chandra Jha and Minister for Education Renu Yadav.

The government has invited the armed outfits to agree for talks to end their grievances.

The fresh government decision has come amid news reports that over a dozen armed outfits had met recently in Bihar and decided to work jointly. Some of them had even announced ceasefire during the festival season.

The government has also decided to release 372 prisoners from among those who had completed 50 percent of their sentence and those who are over 70 years of age.

The cabinet also instructed Home and Law Ministries to withdraw cases against prisoners of political conscience.

Mistaken identity of Gorkhas in Assam

FROM MERINEWS

BY NANDA DEWAN

Indian Gorkhas are suffering identity crisis due to inflow of Nepali nationals. Indian Gorkhas are always confused with Nepali nationals. This misconceptions has been prevalent in the country for almost 200 years and time has come for rectification.

AS FREEDOM movement started gearing up the Father of Nation, the pioneer of the movement, Mahatma Gandhi, decided to visit different parts of the country to organise the masses for the movement. In one such programme at Polo Ground, Tezpur a Congress worker and leader of a group, Chabilal Upadhyay had attended as a freedom aspirant. After the meeting was over then British district administration had tried to influence Chabilal and divert his mind. “You are a Nepali and your country Nepal is Independent. You will be paid Rs 500 as a compensation for keeping yourself distant from the freedom movement and we would provide you an imported gun for your self defence.”

At this Chabilal Upadhyay replied, “I am born and brought up in Assam and I would love to die in Assam. I know Nepal is an Independent country but Assam, my motherland, is still is under your colonial rule and I neither can leave Congress nor stay back from the freedom struggle movement.” At this hour, Gandhiji was at Parmananda Agarwalla’s house and he was moved by the patriotic feeling of a Gorkha and patting young Chabilal he said, “Well done, India needs youths like you to be Independent.”

During the freedom movement, when the entire country was united, the administrators tried to isolate the genuine Indian patriotic Gorkhas by terming them as Nepali nationals. The administrators at a meagre amount of Rs 500 tried to persuade him by calling him non-Indian or a foreigner, while he was born and brought up in this land even before the Constitution of India was drafted. Since 1921, this allegation has created identity crisis for the Indian Gorkhas, which is still in existence. The battle between Gorkhas and British was concluded by the Sagooly Treaty of 1815-16. How many people out of 100 crore Indians know that the Gorkhas have became a part of India with their own land. Thus, this is how the conspiracy was hatched to deprive Gorkhas of being an Indian identity.

Six SSB jawans killed in Sikkim road accident

FROM THE HINDU

Gangtok (PTI): Six jawans of Seema Suraksha Bal (SSB) were killed and eight other persons, including some SSB personnel, injured on Saturday when a private jeep in which they were travelling in plunged into a 100-ft gorge near Kumrek in East Sikkim district.

Superintendent of Police, East Sikkim, M S Tuli said, “The mishap took place when the jeep carrying 14 persons, including the SSB personnel, lost control and fell into the gorge on Rango-Singtam Highway at about 12 noon.”

While six SSB personnel died on the spot, at least eight other persons, including some SSB men were injured in the mishap, he said.

The injured were rushed to Singtam hospital where the condition of two SSB personnel were stated to be critical.

The officials of 24th battalion of SSB have been informed and they were on way to the hospital to take care of the personnel, SP said.

An investigation was underway into the accident, he said.

Cactus Bonanza!

THE HIMALAYAN BEACON [BEACON ONLINE EXCLUSIVE]

ALL PHOTOS BY BARUN ROY

Nepali CA to start work on new constitution

FROM PEOPLE’S DAILY ONLINE

Nepali Constituent Assembly (CA)Chairman Subas Nemwang said Friday that new constitution would be drafted right on time even though the last four months have passed without much action in this direction.

Speaking at a program in the capital Kathmandu on Friday, Nemwang said the parties were very close to resolving their differences over the draft of the CA regulations and that the constitution-making process would start once the regulations were agreed upon.

According to him, the parties in the CA have differed on only one point of the draft — on whether the CA members would be obliged to follow party whip.

Nemwang also said that the CA would start the process of constitution-making after Dashain vacation. The 10-day Dashain festival is the biggest and longest festival in the country.

The nation would get a new constitution within the stipulated time, two years, Nemwang added.

Nepal records steady tourist arrival growth in nine months

FROM GULF TIMES

KATHMANDU: The number of tourist arrivals in Nepal in the first nine months of 2008 rose by 2% over the same period last year, officials said yesterday.

The rise in the number of people visiting the Himalayan nation was seen as the tourist season got under way and the country expected a surge in the number of arrivals over the coming three months.

The Nepal Tourism Board said the negative growth seen from April to July had reversed and the arrivals in September were up by 1% as the total number of visitors arriving by air from January through the end of last month hit 257,181.

The tourist figures were only for arrivals by air, and the board’s Sharad Pradhan estimated that another 50,000 tourists travelled overland to Nepal.

Officials said the growth could be attributed to growing political stability and better air connectivity to the country.

The rise was pushed by a surge in visitors from South Asia, Oceania and North America.

“India, the largest tourist-generating market for Nepal, showed remarkable growth of 14% in September, and the South Asian region posted an overall growth of 13%,” the board said.

Dhaka urges consumers to avoid Cadbury products

FROM THE PENINSULA ONLINE

DHAKA • Bangladesh’s health minister on Thursday said people should avoid eating products made by Cadbury after the British sweet maker recalled 11 brands of its China-made chocolates. AMM Shawkat Ali said government officials had asked testing authorities to examine Cadbury products made in China for traces of the industrial chemical melamine.

“Until the test results are available, the chocolate of that brand had better not be consumed,” Ali was quoted as saying by the privately owned bdnews24.com. An increasing list of China-made foods and drinks have been removed from stores around the world since a tainted-milk scandal was first exposed several weeks ago.

Normally used in making plastics and fertiliser, melamine is believed to have been added to milk to give it the appearance of higher protein content.

Four Chinese children have died and thousands sickened after consuming contaminated milk products.

Authorities in Bangladesh said Tuesday that a brand of milk powder imported from China was contaminated with melamine.

Nepal tourist arrivals record steady growth

FROM EARTH TIMES

Kathmandu – The number of tourist arrivals in Nepal in the first nine months of 2008 rose by 2 per cent over the same period last year, officials said Friday. The rise in the number of people visiting the Himalayan nation was seen as the tourist season got under way and the country expected a surge in the number of arrivals over the coming three months. The Nepal Tourism Board said the negative growth seen from April to July had reversed and the arrivals in September were up by 1 per cent as the total number of visitors arriving by air from January through the end of last month hit 257,181.

The tourist figures were only for arrivals by air, and the board’s Sharad Pradhan estimated that another 50,000 tourists travelled overland to Nepal. Officials said the growth could be attributed to growing political stability and better air connectivity to the country. The rise was pushed by a surge in visitors from South Asia, Oceania and North America. “India, the largest tourist-generating market for Nepal, showed remarkable growth of 14 per cent in September, and the South Asian region posted an overall growth of 13 per cent,” the board said. “Tourists arrivals from the United States of America and Canada increased by 13 per cent in September in comparison to the same month last year,” it added.

Nepal’s sovereignty still at risk, says Prachanda

FROM ANI

Kathmandu, Oct 3 : Nepal Prime Minister Prachanda today said that the country’s national sovereignty and unity is in danger of being attacked.

Speaking at a programme organised by Indigenous people’s organizations here, Prachanda said that there are dangers of possible attempts to stir up the country’s sovereignty and unity from within and outside the country by taking advantage of the transitional phase.

He laid emphasis on the need for using the current situation as an opportunity by all sides as the country is in the process of drafting a new Constitution.

He said: “We will be able to set up our declarations, promises and sacrifices in the form of a constitution in a historical manner.”
Prachanda also said the government was set to implement the accord of International Labour Organisation (ILO) Convention 169 on Indigenous and Tribal People at the earliest.

He reiterated his commitment to implement the ILO accord, one of the key instruments in the body of international law relating to indigenous people, by amending the law.

“The rights of the indigenous, tribal and oppressed people would be established after the drafting of a new constitution,” he said.

Kanu Sanyal’s party gains

SILIGURI, Oct. 3: Some two hundred CPI-ML (Liberation) members from the North and South Dinajpur districts in north Bengal today switched over to the Kanu Sanyal-led CPI-ML.

According Mr Ajit Das, who was the CPI-ML (Liberation) district secretary in North Dinajpur, the switchover has been triggered by ‘ideological, political and organisational differences’ within the party.

“A vast majority of the district secretariat and local committee members were aggrieved over the issues, which has now culminated in the switchover to the CPI-ML led by Mr Kanu Sanyal,” Mr Das said. The CPI-ML state secretary Mr Subrata Basu informed that the party would hold a convention of the new entrants at Raiganj on 19 November. Mr Kanu Sanyal would address the convention, he said. The CPI-ML (Liberation) central committee member Mr Abhijit Mazumdar was very surprised

Celebrations for Planet Earth

FROM THE STATESMAN

SILIGURI, Oct. 3: The North Bengal Science Centre today organised a host of programmes as a part of its year-long celebrations to commemorate the International Year of Planet Earth at the NBSC hall in Matigara near Siliguri today.

The one-and-half-hour long function started with a discussion on the topic, ‘Exploring Earth’. Mr Rajiv Nath, project co-coordinator, NBSC, delivered a lecture, which was followed by a word-framing competition on earth science. The function concluded with an open house quiz contest. Over, 80 students from the two selected schools of Siliguri took part in the programmes. The first 10 winners were awarded attractive gift hampers.

On the concluding day of the two-day celebrations tomorrow, the centre will organise an exhibit hunting competition. Over 100 students from four schools in Siliguri will participate in the programme. The participants will be required to search for specific exhibits from the earth science gallery at the centre on the basis of clues to be supplied by a team of experts.

A multi-media presentation on global climatic changes and a 25-minute-long film show on Amazon rainforests will also figure on the concluding day.

Body protests against order

FROM THE STATESMAN

SILIGURI, Oct. 3: The North Bengal unit of the Primary Teachers’ Trainee Students (PTTS) today took out a procession in Siliguri to protest against the 3 March, 2006 Calcutta High Court order that the certificates obtained by those who have completed the one-year course offered by the 115 primary teachers’ training institutes in the state since 1995 would not be taken into consideration during recruitment.

The march started from the Siliguri Mahakuma Parishad office at 1.00 p.m. Senior PTTA leader, Mr Avijit Sarkar said that they would launch an agitation if their demands were not met within two weeks and threatened to gherao the education minister during his visit to Siliguri on 23 October.

Kshiti speaks up for the Hills

FROM THE STATESMAN

DARJEELING, Oct. 3: “Darjeeling, which is flooded with tourists during the festival period, is desolate this year because people are wary to come here. I request them to visit the hill station, as the situation here is completely normal. However, it is unfortunate that repair of National Highway 55, which leads to Darjeeling from Siliguri, would begin only after the tourist season ends,” said the state PWD minister Mr Kshiti Goswami here today.

The minister today attributed the long gap in the maintenance of the NH 55 to the “climatic condition” of the place. “It rains for most time of the year in Darjeeling and the cold weather is not suitable for road works,” he said.

According to him, the state government has proposed a Rs nine crore package to the Centre for the repair of the facility. “The state government has submitted an estimate to the Union surface transport ministry, which referred it to the National Highway Authority. The fund is expected to be sanctioned soon,” Mr Goswami said. Mr Goswami also inspected the Darjeeling Correctional Home and the Old Secretariat Building, both belonging to PWD today

Calf suffocates to death after ‘rescue’ efforts by herd

FROM THE TELEGRAPH

The carcass of the elephant calf being taken to Lankapara watch tower for post-mortem on Friday. Picture by Anirban Choudhury

Huntapara Tea Estate (Alipurduar), Oct. 3: An elephant calf, nearly a month old, suffocated to death after it slipped into an 8ft-deep drain of a garden and probable rescue efforts by older members of the herd went awry.

The soil surrounding the drain loosened and fell on the baby elephant as the older ones probably tried to reach into the ditch for it.

“The body of the calf was covered with soil and only its small trunk and legs were visible,” said Jyotsna Barman, a resident of Huntapara Tea Garden who was among the first to reach the spot. “The elephants also damaged many tea bushes.”

The herd of 17 pachyderms had entered Huntapara garden from Titi forest around 11.30pm yesterday. Foresters from the Lankapara range of the Cooch Behar division, who were informed by garden workers about the herd’s entry, reached the spot, 65km from here, along with an elephant squad and drove the herd towards Titi.

Although the foresters could not throw light on how and when the baby elephant fell into the high drain in Section 38 of the garden, they assumed that it had slipped into the ditch unnoticed while crossing it.

Around three-and-a-half hours later, the elephants, which perhaps could not find the calf in their herd by then, returned to Huntapara that shares its boundary with the Titi forest to bring back the calf.

Footprints around the drain suggested that adult elephants had tried to reach down to rescue the calf, the foresters said.

“But because of their feet movement, huge chunks of soil fell on the calf in the drain and subsequently it died,” said Ujjwal Ghosh, the divisional forest officer (DFO) of Cooch Behar.

Early this morning, the residents of the garden saw the calf lying inside the drain.

Threat to expose DGHC scamsters

FROM THE TELEGRAPH

Darjeeling, Oct. 3: The brother of a senior GNLF leader who was hounded out of the hills has decided to blow the lid of the multi-crore Sarva Siksha Abhiyan and the alleged mid-meal scams.

Tilak Dewan said many of the accused in the two scams had joined the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha.

Dewan is the younger brother of AR Dewan, the secretary of the GNLF Darjeeling Branch Committee and one of the accused in the July 25 firing that killed a Morcha member. The shot was fired allegedly from the house of another GNLF leader, Deepak Gurung.

“Following the unfortunate incident my house was ransacked and the entire family had to leave (the hills). I was not involved with any party but this incident took place because of my brother’s political affiliation,” reads Dewan’s letter to the media. The bombshell comes in the second part, where Dewan said if anyone was interested in knowing about the scams he was “ready to provide concrete evidence”.

Although the CID has been investigating the case since 2005, there has not been much headway in the Sarva Siksha scam as Lakpa Rynden, then education secretary of the DGHC, is on the run. The council filed an FIR after it was discovered that Rs 5.5 crore meant for repair of 102 school buildings had been siphoned off.

“I have not taken any advantage of my brother’s position in the council (AR was the education councillor when the scam occurred), but there were many who utilised it. Those involved in the mid-day meal and Sarva Siksha scams joined the Morcha.”

No documentary proof has been found yet of the multi-crore mid-day meal scam, although various political parties have referred to it at public meetings in the past few years.

Dewan’s justification for writing the letter is that he wants to clear his names of the two scams.

Secret cameras to watch Puja crowd

FROM THE TELEGRAPH

The meeting to discuss the extra security measures in progress in Siliguri on Friday. Picture by Kundan Yolmo

Siliguri, Oct. 3: Closed circuit TV cameras will be installed at different locations in and around Siliguri as part of heightened security measures during Pujas.

New Jalpaiguri railway station and crucial junctions like Airview More and Hashmi Chowk are among the seven to eight spots that police have selected to erect the cameras to monitor the movement of people.

Security agencies here have been put on full alert in the wake of blasts in Tripura, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Delhi preceding the Puja season.

Siliguri’s strategic location, sandwiched between Nepal and Bangladesh and free-entry Bhutan to the north, as well as its role of gateway to the Northeast, poses a constant security threat as it is. With thousands of tourists and pandal hoppers coming in from outside during the next few days, the watch for dangerous elements hidden among them intensifies.

“We have asked the organisers of some big Pujas to set up CCTVs in their pandal periphery as well,” said K.L. Tamta, inspector-general of police (north Bengal).

“The erection of cameras helps in two ways – first, we have recordings of crowd movement and can pinpoint any suspicious movement, and secondly, the fact that such cameras are constantly operating is a major deterrent to those who have any disruptive intentions,” said the police officer.

Driver of school bus killed in race – Only two students in vehicle, one suffers minor injuries

FROM THE TELEGRAPH

The overturned bus at Kashibari on Friday. Picture by Kundan Yolmo

Siliguri, Oct. 3: The driver of a school bus died when it fell off the road while he was racing another bus near Salbari this afternoon.

One of the two students of Techno Model School who were in the bus suffered a minor injury on the forehead. The other was unhurt.

Police and the students said driver Nayan Das was trying to overtake another when the vehicle slipped off NH55 and fell into a ditch at Kashibari, a kilometre from the school and 6km from here.

Thirty-five-year-old Das was a resident of Bagrakot in Siliguri.

Tara Chhetri, a resident of the Kashibari, said the sound of crashing metal had alerted him and his family around 2.45pm.”We were having lunch. We rushed out only to see the bus lying in the ditch. The body of the driver was stuck in the cabin. There were two students inside the bus who came out on their own.”

Sudipta Kar of Class XI (commerce), one of the two students, said the bus was travelling at a high speed. “We soon covered the distance between us and the private bus in front of us. Our driver then tried to overtake the vehicle. The bus hit the right portion of the other vehicle’s rear. This broke the windscreen of our bus and it toppled and went off the road.” Sudipta had bruises on her forehead.

Shuvankar Mondal of Class-XI (science) suffered no injuries.