05 November 2015

Thai ‘gunrunner’ Willy Naru who ‘gave arms’ to N-E rebels set to be extradited to India

In September 2010, since the “ground situation in Bangladesh was not favourable to NSCN-IM”, it was decided to postpone the deal. Before his arrest, however, Shimray had allegedly paid Naru US $800,000.

By Sagnik Chowdhury
Willy Naru, thailand arms dealer, NIA, Interpol, NSCN-IM, North-East insurgents, Willy Naru extradition, illegal arms trading, National Investigation Agency, NIA, Thai arms trader, Anthony Shimray, india news, nation news
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Securing Naru’s custody would be a significant breakthrough for the NIA as his interrogation would help establish the chain of Chinese arms supply to North-East insurgent groups.
In a major catch for the National Investigation Agency (NIA), Thai national and gunrunner Wuthikorn Naruenartwanich alias Willy Naru, accused of brokering arms deals between insurgents in the North-East and Chinese suppliers, could be extradited to India from Thailand over the next couple of days.

Securing Naru’s custody would be a significant breakthrough for the NIA as his interrogation would help establish the chain of Chinese arms supply to North-East insurgent groups.

Government sources told The Indian Express that an appellate court in Thailand recently delivered its final verdict, turning down an appeal filed by Naru against his extradition. “Typically, it is quite difficult to secure extradition of a foreign national. Naru’s extradition would be a major catch for an Indian agency,” the source said.

India had secured an Interpol Red Corner Notice (RCN) against Naru, 58, after Naga outfit NSCN-IM’s self-styled major general and commander Anthony Shimray, who was arrested in Patna in October 2010, alleged he had paid Naru for a large arms consignment. Based on this RCN, Naru, who ran a spa in Bangkok, was arrested by Thai authorities in August 2013.

On March 26, 2011, it filed a chargesheet against Shimray, T R Calvin, Hangshi Ramson Tangkhul and Naru. On March 31 last year, a Bangkok court ordered his extradition to India, and also allowed him 30 days’ time to file an appeal against the order, which he did before the appellate court.

According to the NIA chargesheet, NSCN-IM regularly procures arms in bulk from China, “mostly from the Chinese Arms Company NORINCO (North China Industries Company)”. In 2007, Azetho Sumi, one of the top leaders of the NSCN-IM, allegedly deserted the outfit and joined NSCN-K with 70-80 weapons. Due to this, the NSCN-IM ran short of weapons, and Tangkul, the self-styled defence minister of the outfit, discussed the issue with the group’s leadership in New Delhi, NIA said.

Shimray allegedly told Naru that he “wanted to procure 1,000 pieces of arms, including AK series automatic rifles, light machine guns, pistols, rocket-propelled grenades, rocket launchers and five lakh rounds of ammunition, and gave him the list of weapons required”, says the NIA chargesheet.

A deal was allegedly fixed for US $1.2 million for 600 AK series assault rifles and 200 other weapons, including 9mm sub-machine guns, light machine guns, pistols and one lakh rounds of ammunition.

Beihei Port in South China near Vietnam was going to be the loading port while the delivery would be made at Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh.

In September 2010, since the “ground situation in Bangladesh was not favourable to NSCN-IM”, it was decided to postpone the deal. Before his arrest, however, Shimray had allegedly paid Naru US $800,000.
02 November 2015

She's 13, Female, From Mizoram - And She's Tinkle Comics' Newest Superhero

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By Lamat R Hasan

Tinkle Comics has a new superhero. She's a girl. And she's from the Northeast.
That's a spectacular leap, with many in 'mainstream' India still lost in the belief that the Northeast is more China than India.

Mapui Kawlim is a laidback 13-year-old from a middle-class household of Aizawl who would rather play cricket with friends than be a wonder kid. Or Wingstar, as she's called in the comic.
Tinkle is breaking a lot of ground with this series, some of it subtly.

Mapui is a reluctant superhero with gadgets for 'super flight' and "super strength" provided by her father Tashi Kawlim who is - hold your breath - an inventor working for the Space Development Arm of the government.

Despite her reluctance, though, Mapui clearly has a generous dose of her father's genes and learns to use Rocket Thrusters, Iron Fists and Reinforced Robotic Arms.

She also becomes her neighbourhood's unofficial saviour in between attending school, dreading math homework and keeping up with sleepover commitments.

To up her energy levels and to give her a semblance of a normal life, her father decides to give her a super-secret superhero boost.

Overnight, Mapui becomes WingStar

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Photo: Tinkle Comics
The new superhero may help dispel stereotypes associated with the people of the eight Northeastern states who have been victims of so many racial attacks in cities such as New Delhi and Bengaluru that authorities had to step in to ban the use of pejoratives such as 'chinky'.

Tinkle Comics' editor Rajani Thindiath doesn't see the new comic, which will be unveilved in November, as particularly pathbreaking. "In Tinkle, we have always had characters who hail from different parts of the country. Mapui aka WingStar may belong to the Northeast but she's also a regular teenage girl."

What she does see as pathbreaking in Mapui is perhaps the "first reluctant superhero".

Tinkle has had two female superheroes previously -SuperWeirdos with Aisha in the lead and Maya headlining the futuristic PsyMage series, set in an era when magic is power.

"We need more iconic female heroes to join the plethora of enduring male comic characters in the country - Suppandi, Shikari Shambu and Tantri the Mantri. Over half of the children in our country are female after all."

Tinkle was launched 35 years ago and despite losing some ground in recent years, still has a dedicated following. In middle class households in satellite India, grandparents reading out comics to their grandchildren or siblings fighting over who reads the comics first is not rare.

This is the segment that Tinkle Comics is trying to target.

Says Nitya Subramanian, Tinkle Brand Manager, "The comic is cherished in the southern and eastern markets. The anchors being Mumbai, Chennai, Bangalore, Trivandrum and Kolkata."

The fact that Tinkle is published in English helps, as middle class India aspires to see its children speak the language fluently. For the rest, it is translated into Hindi, Tamil and Bengali, aimed at readers between the ages of 8 and 14.

There's also the Tinkle ezine, for whose who'd rather read online.

But while the medium has always been trendy - comics are seeing a huge revival, thanks in part to events like Comic Con, and to the rise of graphic novels - what's most welcome is that the messgae is now equally on-point.

Can't wait to meet you, Mapui.

Lengpui Makes News

title=By Nirendra Dev

Mizo civil societies and youth organisations, especially those attached to non-Congress opposition political parties, will be in the national capital soon. They have a host of issues to protest against and also meet Central ministers and others.

The issue of Bru (Reang) voters has been hanging fire for a long time. Mizo society, by and large, and the political class, irrespective of party affiliations, are unhappy over the political developments in Manipur where the alleged “majoritarian”’ approach of Meiteis has created fear of suppression of ethnic Mizos, Kukis and other smaller hill tribes. Mizoram chief minister Lal Thanhawla rose above party affiliation and flayed Manipur’s  Congress government led by Okram Ibobi Singh for passing three controversial Bills. These would be brought to the notice of the Central leadership.

They have another issue as well. It is about the purported move by the state government to hand over Lengpui Airport, the country’s only state-owned one,  to the Indian Air Force. The opposition Mizo National Front and others have threatened an agitation if their “prestigious” airport is handed over to the IAF.

(It is said that for the construction of the airport the locals themselves cleared  the dense forest and when completed  it was inaugurated by a local person.)

The  youth wings of the Mizo National Front, the Zoram Nationalist Party and the Mizoram People’s Conference  issued a joint press statement in Aizawl  stating that “if the IAF operates warplanes from  Lengpui Airport, the capital Aizawl would be targeted by the enemies in times of war”. Something highly exaggerated but that’s how the tribals look at things.

The general impression about Mizos is that they are a laborious lot. The entire history of Mizo insurgency and subsequent developments after attaining statehood suggests Mizos are also pragmatic and will not unnecessarily give an emotive twist to an issue. But the IAF has a unique historical association with Mizoram and Mizos cannot forget that episode so easily — that is, the bombing of Aizawl in March 1966. It  still haunts Mizos.

Even the Army or military leadership have  appreciated that the insurgency problem in the North- east — barring Mizoram in the 1960s — is being tackled politically by the government(s) after they realised there can be no military solution. And even for the Aizawl bombing, the decision came from higher-ups and was not decided unilaterally by the IAF. But the wounds and the pain remain.
Now for the state to run an airport is a costly affair. It is altogether a different issue that the chief minister’s arch rival, Zoramthanga, has listed “gross mismanagement” as the main reason for the financial mess.

The airport has been with the state government for the past 45 years. In fact, Lengpui is the only airport in the country that is state-owned and is still neither with the Airport Authority of India nor the Indian Air Force.

“The Mizoram government in likely to hand over the airport to the IAF,” Mizoram chief secretary Lalmalsawma said, adding that the Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Eastern Air Command, on 24 June came up with a proposal to the state government. Principal Consultant of the Union civil aviation ministry, Wing Commander (Retd) Lalzawma said if the IAF took over the airport, security and maintenance of the runway would be in the hands of the Air Force while the terminal building would be maintained by the state government. He also said the IAF would construct a new hangar while the existing one would be under the state government. Besides the  financial crunch faced by a cash-starved state government, IAF sources revealed that the proposal had been given keeping in mind the strategic location of Mizoram.

The Union home ministry under Rajnath Singh in one of its routine review meetings took cognisance of the fact that the North-east militant groups were using Myanmar as bases and what prompted the IAF move was the trategic location of the state, sandwiched between Bangladesh and Myanmar and sharing a 722- km international border.

Now the government plans to convert Lengpui airport into a military one with a civil apron like Bagdogra in North Bengal.  According to security specialists, the government could use the airport at Lengpui to install powerful a air defence radar system to keep an eye on “developments” in the jungles of Myanmar. The cross-border exchange of gunfire between security forces and Naga militant group led by SS Khaplang in June 2015 was a pointer, they say.

But the politics over the move is likely to escalate. The opposition parties have warned that they would not take it lying down if the Lal Thanhawla government did not think it over. Lal Thanhawla has his reasons for going to town with the rhetoric that he had bowed out of office as chief minister in order to facilitate tformer rebel leader Laldenga to take over charge.

However, the real credit for the same should go  to the pragmatism of Mizos.