BENGAL: 1.1 lakh to vie for 21000 seats

FROM THE TELEGRAPH

Calcutta, Jan. 19: The state joint entrance examination (JEE) 2009, scheduled to start from April 19, will see a “record turnout” of more than 40,000 students from outside Bengal. Most of them are from Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

The enrolment of the 40,000 students from other states has taken the total number of examinees to 1.1 lakh – “another record” – who will vie for around 21,000 seats in 66-odd engineering colleges across Bengal.

“This is indeed an overwhelming response… Never in the past have so many students from other states enrolled for the JEE,” said Siddhartha Dutta, the chairman of the West Bengal Board of Joint Entrance Examinations.

Board officials attribute the rise in the number of “outstation” students to a number of factors, including the law-and-order situation in the state and the lifting of the age bar on examinees.

“A lot of students from Bihar, UP and Jharkhand used to go to southern states to study engineering. But the recent attacks on north Indians in Maharashtra have prompted a rethink among parents, who are now wary of sending their children down south,” said an official. “Bengal, compared with other states, is safe and the cost of living is low here.”

DOOARS TERAI: Bimal ready to camp in Dooars

 

FROM THE TELEGRAPH

Members of Nari Morcha plead with police at the barricade at Saili More to let them go to Malbazar on Monday. Picture by Biplab Basak Gorubathan, Jan. 19: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha president Bimal Gurung today insisted there would be no going back on Dooars Chalo campaign. Addressing a news conference at the DGHC Parijat Guest House here, Gurung said the party would continue the campaign even if it meant camping here for two or more months. “We will go to Malbazar today and Nagrakata tomorrow. But there will be no violence and we will maintain discipline,” he said before leading a rally to Malbazar which was stopped midway. Blaming the CPM and its youth wing, DYFI, for the clashes on Friday, Gurung said the incident would not have happened if the Morcha supporters had been allowed to hold its earlier-announced meeting at Nagrakata. “It was all a conspiracy hatched by the CPM to drive a wedge between the Gorkhas and the Adivasis,” he added. “The government should realise that the region we live in is surrounded by four countries, and any turmoil here could be detrimental to the interest of India.” The Morcha president claimed that his party enjoyed the support of 25 per cent of the Adivasi population in the Dooars, while the CPM was trying to use them to suit its own cause.

SIKKIM: Sikkim culling begins today

FROM THE TELEGRAPH

Gangtok, Jan. 19: Culling of chickens in a three-km radius of Rabongla will begin tomorrow after results from the High Risk Animal Diseases Laboratory in Bhopal confirmed the presence of avian flu virus in the samples taken from dead poultry of the area.

This is the first outbreak of avian flu in Sikkim this year. Sources in the government said reports of similar chicken deaths were filtering in from Turuk in South Sikkim as well.

Around 30 chickens had died in the Rabongla area over the past week, triggering fears of an outbreak of the disease.

“We have formed a rapid response team and we are waiting for a medical squad from the Centre to arrive tomorrow with Tamiflu tablets which will be administered to the culling team members before they begin operations,” said South Sikkim collector D. Anandan.

The sale, consumption and movement of poultry products in and around Rabongla had been banned, the collector said. “We are also spraying all the vehicles entering the subdivision and all occupants of the vehicles are being made to walk over a carpet sprayed with disinfectant at the entry points at Melli and Rangpo. We are also launching a campaign so that the public does not panic and they co-operate with the culling teams,” said Anandan.

The state government today announced a compensation package – which is higher than the rates paid by other states – for the birds which will be culled. While full-grown chickens are being paid Rs 100 each, chicks are fetching Rs 15 each and a dozen eggs Rs 100, a government announcement said.

Chief minister Pawan Kumar Chamling today held a review meeting at his Mintokgang residence to discuss the steps being taken to control the outbreak.

The principal secretary of the animal husbandry department, T. W. Barfungpa, said the disease had probably arrived in the state because of the smuggling of birds from the affected regions in West Bengal and Assam.

Chamling instructed police to enforce the ban on the entry of poultry products to the state and to make sure that no smuggling took place.

 

SILIGURI: Siliguri link to Nepal sex trade

 

FROM THE TELEGRAPH

Anuradha Koirala addresses the seminar in Siliguri on Monday. Picture by Kundan Yolmo Siliguri, Jan. 19: The Khalpara red-light area here is emerging as a major “wholesale trading” centre of children trafficked from Nepal. An NGO has attributed the phenomenon to the close proximity Siliguri has with eastern districts of Nepal. “Siliguri has become the main transit point of human trafficking from Nepal to India and other countries as the town is contiguous to the Himalayan nation and it has better connectivity with rest of India. The Khalpara area of the town has now become a hub of trafficking and prostitution as girls are brought there from eastern Nepal districts of Jhapa, Morang and Sunsari,” said Anuradha Koirala, the chairperson of Maiti Nepal, the Kathmandu based NGO fighting human trafficking since 1993. Today, the NGO organised a seminar in Siliguri to discuss the measures needed to be taken to arrest the trafficking from Nepal. “Because of easy and low cost transportation and lack of strict immigration rules, traffickers dump the children at Khalpara from where they are sold off to brothels in cities like Mumbai, New Delhi, Calcutta and Pune,” said Koirala. The NGO will approach brothel owners at Khalpara and convince them against using children in the flesh trade. “We may be their (brothel owners) enemies, but we will ask them not to engage children in prostitution. We intend to take the help of organisations like the Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, which are working with sex workers to rescue children, for the purpose,” said Bishwa Khadka, the director of Maiti Nepal.

Beaten up, cops open fire in Cooch Behar

 

FROM THE TELEGRAPH

Jiten Pramanik being taken to hospital and (below) police arrest Sibajee Sarkar from Nagore. Pictures by Nantu Dey Raiganj, Jan. 19: Police fired in the air and burst tear gas shells after supporters of Greater Cooch Behar People’s Association attacked the force which was trying to clear blockades on NH34 this morning. Nine policemen were injured in the attack and one of them, home guard Jiten Pramanik, was admitted to the North Dinajpur district hospital. The Association members who had blocked the national highway at Nagore, 13km from Raiganj town, from 6am, had isolated the policemen one by one to beat them up. A blockade had also been set up at Botolbari, 8km from Nagore. The Association was ready with food stock enough to cook a meal for 300 and more, who were getting ready for a 12-hour squatting. The Association, which has been clamouring for the separate state of Greater Cooch Behar, said it had intimated the police about its programme two weeks ago. North Dinajpur police superintendent Sankar Singha said his force had no prior information. At 8am, the crowd with posters and banners with their demand for Greater Cooch Behar assembled at Nagore. In Botolbari, there were about 25 to 30. After additional police superintendent James Kujur, and Raiganj subdivisional officer Animesh Bhattacharya came at 9.30am, the Association leaders were told to remove the blockades on the busy national highway. The Association’s organising secretary in North Dinajpur, Sibajee Sarkar, however, refused to budge. The police then lathi-charged to scatter the crowd. The protesters withdrew after the first bout of lathi charge, but regrouped and attacked the policemen with stones and choppers. The police retaliated by bursting tear gas shells. However, the attackers continued raining missiles on the policemen and captured Pramanik, dragging him to the ground. They beat him up with lathis. When the police saw that their colleagues being assaulted, they fired in the air to disperse the attackers and rescued him. The Association supporters then made for the paddy fields lining the highway with the police bursting tear gas shells and following them. The remaining crowd was chased away from the makeshift marketplace along the highway at Nagore. The Botolbari blockade was dispersed after a mild lathi charge.