Northeast Kitchen Stirs Up Taste Of Exotic Flavours

Chennai, Oct 16 : They've made the city their home for decades but a taste of home has been lacking for long. Ramayon Keishing and his wife Nimrim from Manipur have plugged this gap by setting up North East Kitchen, to provide the flavours of home to those who have moved from Manipur and Nagaland to Chennai for work and to study.

Curious Chennai-ites are also flocking to the restaurant with just five tables near Ethiraj College in Egmore to try out the new and exotic food. Ramayon does the cooking while Nimrim serves customers.

"I had two ideas in mind when I decided to open the restaurant," says Ramayon, who has lived in Chennai for close to 20 years. "First, give locals a chance to taste food from the northeast. Second, I wanted to reach out to people from the northeast who don't have access to home food."

Ramayon, who moved to Chennai in 1996 as an accountant for an NGO, is well-versed in Tamil. In 2003, he joined a Korean restaurant in Sriperumbudur as manager. "Over the years, I saw the demand for, and response to, Korean food in Chennai improve. While working at that restaurant, I realised that there was a lot of similarity between the northeast and Korean food. So I was confident that people here would enjoy eating Manipuri food," Ramayon said.

In April, he resigned, took two months to look for a good location and in July, finally opened his restaurant.

Meat is prepared with special herbs and spices from the northeast. He serves food from all the northeastern states such as eromba of Manipur (a spicy, pulpy chutney made of fermented fish and bamboo shoots), bei of Mizoram (steamed vegetables with pork, spinach and bamboo shoot), akhuni of Nagaland and Manipur (made from fermented soyabean). He gets about 30kg of each of the ingredients from Manipur every three months.

Ramayon says the pungent smell of fermented food may put people off at first but they quickly develop a taste for it. "Fermented fish or ngari is used widely in northeastern dishes. Bamboo shoot or soibum is another favourite. "I think I will slowly be able to introduce people to other fermented food from the north east," he says with a smile.

Northeast Student Attacked in Bangalore, Allegedly For Not Speaking Kannada

Northeast student leader allegedly attacked in Bangalore for not speaking in Kannada

Bangalore, Oct 15 :  An engineering student from the northeastern state of Manipur was attacked in Bangalore last night by men who allegedly demanded that he "speak in the local Kannada language or get lost".

Michael Lamjathang Haokip, who heads a Manipuri students' body, alleges that he and his friends were standing near a food stall when they were attacked with stones by the men. The attackers allegedly demanded to know why they were speaking in English.

"They said you are eating Karnataka food, living in Karnataka. You should speak Kannada or else get lost. They were speaking in Kannada...we nodded and they took it as an insult. They picked up stones and attacked us and I got injured," said the 26-year-old, who was badly hurt in his head.

"I don't know if those three hit us because they were drunk. Just because I am living in Karnataka doesn't mean I have to speak Kannada," he added.

A case of assault has been registered and the three attackers have been arrested.

Boxing champion Mary Kom, who is in Bangalore for a marathon event, was among those who reacted with anger at the assault on a student from her state.

"I don't feel good listening to such news. There should be unity and peace in our country, so that such incidents don't repeat," Mary Kom said.

The incident took place after midnight in the city's Kothanur area, home to a large number of students from other parts of the country.

Michael has alleged in his police complaint that a crowd that was watching the commotion supported the attackers. He was allegedly chased by a mob till he reached a police station.

The Bangalore police say they are trying to confirm whether this was a hate crime or a case of drunken behavior.

Four Years After Delhi’s Other Gang Rape, Five Convicted

By Aditi Malhotra

A woman held a placard during a protest against the gang rape of a northeastern woman in Delhi’s south in 2010.

Before the famous Delhi gang rape case in 2012, there was this one:  In 2010, five men raped and kidnapped a 30-year-old female call center employee in India’s capital, a judge ruled on Tuesday.


The woman, who had come to India’s capital from the northeastern state of Mizoram, was picked up at gunpoint on Delhi’s southern ring road at about 1 a.m. and assaulted in a moving vehicle before being thrown out in Mangolpuri, an industrial neighborhood in Delhi’s west, police said. The five men, Usman, Shamshad, Kamruddin, Shahid and Iqbal, who each use a single name denied the charges.

The verdict was delivered by Judge Virender Bhatt at a sessions court in Dwarka in southwest Delhi after hearing 58 prosecution witnesses and 10 defense witnesses during the course of the trial.

Amit Shrivastava, a lawyer for one of the five defendants said he may appeal to a higher court of law. “The final battle is yet to be fought,” Mr. Shrivastava said.

A hearing for sentencing in the case is set for Friday, Oct. 17. Satwinder Kaur, the prosecutor, said that she would seek life imprisonment for the men. Life is the maximum punishment and 10 years in prison the minimum that the men can expect because they were charged under a previous provision of the law.

Under the new legislation introduced in 2013, death is the maximum punishment in the “rarest of rare” cases of sexual violence. The law was amended in response to the death of a 23-year-old woman who was gang-raped and murdered in New Delhi in 2012. The men responsible for her rape and murder were put on death row and are currently appealing the sentence.

Following the incident in 2010, people from India’s northeast living in the capital took to the streets campaigning for better safety for hundreds of women who come from India’s northeastern states to big cities like Delhi for better education and employment opportunities.

Activists say that despite the efforts of the government to curb the discrimination against people from the northeast and the increased attempts to check violence against women in the city, northeastern women remain uncomfortable in the Indian capital. They are often victims of racial discrimination as well as crimes against women.

The results of a 2011 survey by a New Delhi-based helpline dedicated to people from the northeast, revealed that 78% of those interviewed said they faced racial discrimination. The helpline also recorded crimes against northeastern women, and molestation accounted for 34% of the crimes recorded.

India does not have an anti-racism law, a demand that was made earlier this year by a committee appointed by India’s federal ministry of home affairs to look into issues relating to security and determine the causes behind racism. The committee was set up after the death of Nido Taniam, a 20-year-old boy from the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh, who was fatally attacked by a group of men, an assault that police said was racially motivated.

Foreign Tourists inflow into the Northeast India Has increased by 27%

Shillong, Oct 15 : Foreign tourists inflow into Northeastern states has increased by over 27 per cent last year against a national growth of only 5.9 per cent, a top Union Tourism department official said here today.

"The number of foreign tourists visiting the Northeast region has increased by 27.9 per cent in the past one year," Union Tourism Ministry Secretary Parvez Dewan told reporters at the sideline of a third International Tourism Mart – 2014 held here.

A jump of 12.5 per cent was registered in foreign tourist visits (FTVs) to the northeast in 2012 as against 2011, which further rose by more than 100 per cent to register a growth of 27.9 per cent during 2013 in comparison to 2012, he said.

There were a total of 58,920 FTVs to the northeastern states in 2011 with the figure going up to 66,302 in 2012. That number further increased to 84,820 in 2013.

Among the eight states, there is a sudden growth in the flow of foreign tourists to Manipur, one of the eight states in the Northeast region in the past one year, they said.

"About 154 per cent of foreign tourists visits Manipur during 2012-2013 which is keenly followed by Arunachal Pradesh with a growth of 111 per cent," Dewan told reporters at the sideline of a 3rd International Tourism Mart– 2014 held here.

Tourist inflow to Tripura increased by 51 per cent, Nagaland – 33 per cent, Meghalaya – 27 per cent, Sikkim – 19 per cent and the least was Mizoram with 9.25 per cent only, he said.

In 2013, Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) to India were 6.97 million with a growth of 5.9 per cent as compared to 6.58 million during 2012, a data of the tourism ministry said.

Stakeholders in the industry had suggested that state governments should facilitate field visits by embassy officials of those countries who issued travel advisories to their nationals against visiting these states in the region.

Ebola Scare in Manipur, High Alert in The Northeast

A Japanese tourist currently living in Manipur has been kept in isolation for showing symptoms akin to Ebola. Alerted by this development, all state governments of the North East have increased their screening procedures for immediate detection of cases of Ebola and have also started keeping a close watch on the entry of foreign nationals in the states.

According to a news report published in downtoearth.org.in, 27-year-old Kawakubo Yuko entered Manipur from Myanmar. She suddenly developed fever and was hospitalised. The doctors soon raised the red flag suspecting her symptoms were identical to that of Ebola and immediately admitted her to the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences (JNIMS) in Imphal nearly a week ago. Her blood samples have been sent to the National Institute of Virology, Pune, and the results are yet to come in.

A scientist at NIV (who does not wish to reveal his name) said, "There are samples of Ebola which come in like the sample from Manipur. Though no positive samples have been found as of now, the result for Manipur samples will also be coming in a few days".

NIV has a team of 15 scientists working on the samples of Ebola coming from Pune, Mumbai and other parts of the country.

In the meanwhile, the Manipur government is taking no chance. It has set Ebola screening gates for passengers at the Imphal airport and at the international border with Myanmar As an additional layer of security, the state is also screening people at its borders with Nagaland and Assam.

The biggest worry at this moment is the state government may be extremely ill-prepared, infrastructure wise, in case of an outbreak. Thus the state is in overdrive to take all kinds of precautions.

Other states like Assam are also on alert. There is already a pre-existing method of screening foreign nationals for the last few months. Their travel details are also been looked into. Footballers from Africa have also been checked, according to the news report. Tripura has also implemented a search protocol.

Though there have been earlier Ebola scares in cities like Mumbai and Delhi, so far, all the cases have turned out to be negative.

Government’s Bid To Import Rice From Myanmar Flounders

By Sandip Das

New Delhi, Oct 14 : The government's attempt to import about one lakh tonne of rice from Myanmar for the Targeted Pubic Distribution System (TPDS)

The government's attempt to import about one lakh tonne of rice from Myanmar for the Targeted Pubic Distribution System (TPDS) in Manipur and Mizoram may not succeed, with the Food Corporation of India (FCI) getting bids far higher than the expected price.

Sources told FE that MMTC and STC, which floated the global tenders on behalf of FCI for importing rice, got average bids of around $600 per tonne against the expected $400 per tonne. The corporation got $ 588 and $ 680 per tonne respectively for Manipur and Mizoram for rice import from Myanmar. “We received bids (for rice import) much higher than our anticipation of $ 400 per tonne,” an official said.

Last month, the government had approved import of one lakh tonne of rice in the next five months from Myanmar to the north-eastern states in view of disruption of grain supplies due to commencement of long-pending railway gauge conversion work on the 220-km Lumding (Assam)-Badarpur-Agartala (Tripura) line.

A food ministry official said the government has to now plan out an alternate model for meeting the demand for rice for TPDS in the north-eastern states during the gauge conversion work.

The cost of transporting rice from surplus states like Punjab or Andhra Pradesh to Tripura and Mizoram works out to about R3,200 per quintal, taking into account FCI’s economic cost at R2,755 per quintal. "As against this, importing rice from Myanmar would be more economical at around R2,400 per quintal ($400 per tonne), including the cost of transportation from the border," an official had earlier said.

Food ministry officials said although the railways has proposed to complete the gauge conversion work by March 2015, it might be delayed. “Since more than 70% of transportation of foodgrain from Assam to the rest of the north-eastern states is done through the railways, the government is importing rice to increase grain stock so that TPDS distribution is not disrupted,” an official had said.

Lost Child-Tracing Portal Hit By Poor Infrastructure in Northeast India

Guwahati, Oct 13 : Lack of computers in many police stations and poor internet connectivity have stopped police in many northeastern states from uploading data in TrackChild, a national portal aimed at searching missing children, say officials.

Representatives of state governments in the region raised the issue during a consultation on TrackChild, organized by the union women and child development ministry under its Integrated Child Protection Scheme (ICPS).

"Children going missing and trafficking is a very serious issue in Assam and rest of the northeast but our police stations have not been able to make proper use of the portal yet," said Assam Social Welfare Secretary H.K. Sarma.

"One of the reasons could be that many police stations don't have a proper computer system in place. Even if they have one, it is used in the daily activities of fighting militants and criminal activities. If the ministry can financially support our police stations to buy computer sets and put in place a proper system, things will move for the better," he said.

Launched by the ministry in January 2012, TrackChild was aimed to offer a common digital online platform to put up details including photographs of missing children and assist police, NGOs and other child care institutions across the country to track them.

It was designed and developed adhering to the guidelines provided in the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000 and Model Rules 2007 and the provisions laid down in the ICPS.

One of the tasks entrusted under ICPS to the state governments is the setting up a system to facilitate data entry and matching of missing and found children, and also enable follow up of the progress of children who are beneficiaries of the scheme. The portal also ensures proper monitoring and welfare of the children under the scheme.

"Poor internet connectivity in the region is also another problem for police and officials concerned in using TrackChild and this also hampers the investigation process," said Sarma.

"Records of northeastern states in tracking the missing children is bad so far. Data of missing children are uploaded in TrackChild only at the CID headquarters in Guwahati, instead of police stations in the districts," he said.

Sarma said about 9,500 children went missing from Assam alone between 2007 and June 2014 of which only 3,840 have been recovered from different places in the country either by police or NGOs working for children.

The northeastern region has however have lagged with only 190 of about 850 police stations in its eight states - Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Mizoram, Tripura and Sikkim - putting up data of only 1,427 missing children, since the portal's launch.

Manipur, where children often goes missing or trafficked out of the region is even yet to start the project in the state.

"Infrastructure (computer and internet) is still a problem but we a re trying to start it soon," said an official of Manipur social welfare department.

Many children belonging to poor families in Assam and Manipur have been rescued from children home in south Indian states such as Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Kerala in the past.

They are normally taken out with the promise of good education and care but were many times found living in uncongenial atmosphere. Many children even faced physical, sexual and emotional harassment.

Kiren Rijiju Assures Safe Environment for Northeast People

New Delhi, Oct 13 : Union Minister of State for Home Affairs Kiren Rijiju today assured people from North-East that the Centre will take adequate steps so that they get a safe environment in every part of the country.

Rijiju, while speaking at the 51st annual function of Naga Students Union in Delhi, said that the Union Home Ministry would ensure safe working environment for North-East citizens "like it is for others".

"I have been a part of Naga Students Union, Delhi for long and it is a matter of pleasure that the Union has been working tediously for the students and people of North-east in Delhi," Rijiju was quoted as saying in a BJP press release.

Delhi BJP President Satish Upadhyay said that the party would ensure that students and people of North-Wast region get "congenial atmosphere" to study and work in the national capital.

He also said that BJP would work for "assimilation" of North-East people in the main stream.

In the programme attended by nearly 2,500 North-East students, Naga Students Union President J Maivio said that the organisation would keep working for them in Delhi.

Meghalaya Blockade Cuts Off Parts Of Northeast

Agartala, Sep 25 : The northeastern states of Tripura and Mizoram, and southern Assam remained cut off from the rest of India following a blockade of the National Highway (NH) 44 in Meghalaya, official said here on Wednesday.

The Movement for Indigenous People's Rights and Livelihood, a non-governmental organisation in Meghalaya, has called for an indefinite "economic blockade" from Sep 23 against a ban imposed by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on unscientific coal and sand mining in the state.

The NH 44 from Guwahati passes through Meghalaya connecting southern Assam, land-locked Tripura and Mizoram with the rest of India.

"Thousands of southern Assam, Tripura and Mizoram bound goods-laden trucks, passenger buses, small cars and other vehicles have been stranded in different places of NH 44 in Meghalaya. The agitators attacked and damaged some vehicles Tuesday and Wednesday," a Tripura transport department official said.

"We have approached the Meghalaya government to intervene into the matter and restore the normal movement of vehicles through the NH 44. The NH 44 blockade would further affect the scarcity of essentials and food grain in Tripura, Mizoram and southern Assam due to monsoon related transportation difficulties."

The official said that after torrential rain during the past three days huge landslides on the NH 44 at Tansen (50 km south of Shillong) in Meghalaya also blocked the movement of vehicles through the highway.

Following a public interest litigation filed by an NGO of Meghalaya, the National Green Tribunal in April imposed a ban on unscientific coal and sand mining in the northeastern state.

The NH 44 blockade was launched just days before train services in Tripura, Manipur, Mizoram and four districts of southern Assam would be stopped for gauge conversion by the Northeast Frontier Railway.

Tripura Transport Minister Manik Dey said this would further affect the movement of food grain from different parts of the country to Tripura, Mizoram, southern Assam and parts of Manipur.

10 Dead as Floods Wreak Havoc in Assam and Meghalaya

Two men wade through flood water looking for a safer location at Goalpara in Assam on Monday

Heavy rains across northeast India wreaked havoc triggering flash floods in several districts of Assam and Meghalaya, killing ten people and leaving scores homeless in the two states.

Seven persons were killed in Meghalaya's South West Garo Hills district after heavy rains lashed the area inundating over 100 villages and affecting over one lakh people, district Deputy Commissioner (DC) Ram Singh said.

"Seven persons have lost their lives in the floods with over 100 villages inundated and more than one lakh people affected," Singh said, adding the rains have led to flooding in the Ganol River badly affecting crops and livestock, besides hampering relief activities in the area. In the West Garo Hills district of the state, several villages have been inundated by the flood waters of Jinjiram River, the DC said.

The MeT department has warned of heavy to very heavy rains at a few places with extremely heavy rains at isolated places in Meghalaya in the next 24 hours. In the meantime, heavy rainfall caused severe floods in the state claiming three lives and leaving several villages in Goalpara, Dhubri, Lakhimpur and Kamrup (Rural) districts, besides Guwahati inundated. The Army, BSF and NDRF were assisting the district administration in rescue operations.

Hatsingimari and Mancachar in Dhubri district were the worst-hit with the BSF, NDRF and SDRF personnel evacuating over 5,000 marooned people to safer places, a Chief Minister's Office (CMO) spokesman said. A landslide claimed the life of a child in Hatsingimari area, district administration officials said.

In severely water-logged Guwahati, which is under Kamrup (Metropolitan) district, a body was recovered from Bharalu river flowing through the city, while a 71-year old man identified as Ashib Bhattacharjee was electrocuted in the waterlogged Netaji Road in Lalganesh area here, they said.
Kamrup Metropolitan district Deputy Commissioner M Angamathu said a relief centre with food and water has been set up for the succour of the people of Guwahati's Anil Nagar.

All education institutions in Guwahati have also been ordered to remain close tomorrow in view of the water-logging and the exams to be rescheduled, Angamathu said.

Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, who is closely monitoring the situation, asked the Chief Secretary and the Deputy Commissioners of Dhubri and Goalpara to take all measures and evacuate the marooned people and move them to safer places with the help of personnel from NDRF, SDRF and other agencies, a CMO release said adding helplines with numbers - 0361-2733052; 0361-2237042 and 8811007000 have been set up for assistance to flood affected people in Guwahati.

Flood waters have also marooned over 30,000 people of 30 villages in the Kharkati and Borsola area in Lakhimpur district, the officials said. Forecasting no let up in the rainfall in the next two days, the MeT office said the south-west monsoon has been active over Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Meghalaya since Sunday.

Light to heavy rains have occurred in several areas in Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura since yesterday, it said. A report from Aizawl said the Mizoram government has issued a warning in all the eight districts saying there is a possibility of extreme weather conditions in the state and neighbouring states during the next two days. The warning said heavy rainfall could hit northeastern states like Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura during September 23 and 24.

Probe against Ahmedabad hotel for asking northeast Indian staff to stay away during Xi Jinping's visit

Its a too little too late...Its the mainland Indian attitude...

Ahmedabad's Hotel Hyatt which hosted Prime Minister Narendra Modi and China's President Xi Jinping.

NEW DELHI: The Union home ministry on Monday ordered a probe into allegation that employees of northeast origin at an Ahmedabad hotel were asked to stay away during Chinese President Xi Jinping's recent visit to the city.

Sources said the ministry asked the Intelligence Bureau to find out the veracity of the order and, if so, who issued it and why.

There were also reports that northeast-origin employees at a mall in Ahmedabad were asked not to come for duty on the day Xi visited the Gujarat capital last week.

The IB has been asked to send its findings by Tuesday after probing the allegations in both the incidents.


Prime Minister Narendra Modi (right) with Chinese President Xi Jinping at Sabarmati riverfront. (PTI photo)

The sources said that the home ministry ordered the probe taking serious objection to the allegations.

Last week, taking umbrage at the reports, Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi had said, "It is an insult to the northeast. They doubted us as if we are not patriots. Are we not citizens of India? This is not good for the region."


Prime Minister Narendra Modi (2nd from left) with Chinese President Xi Jinping (right) and first lady Peng Liyuan (2nd from right) at Sabarmati riverfront in Ahmedabad.

Verdict Due in 2010 Gang-Rape of Mizoram Woman

By Aditi Malhotra


Women held placards placards during a peaceful protest in New Delhi

Two years before the fatal gang rape of a young woman on a bus in Delhi in 2012 shook India and shocked the world, another young woman in India’s capital was gang-raped in a moving vehicle, this time at gunpoint. The verdict in the trial of the men accused of the crime is expected Monday.

On November 24, 2010, a 30-year-old woman from the northeast Indian state of Mizoram was allegedly picked up at gunpoint on Delhi’s southern ring road at about 1 a.m. The woman was returning from work at a call center in Gurgaon, a satellite city in the National Capital Region, police said.

The five men abducted her in a goods carrier and assaulted her before throwing her out of the vehicle in an industrial neighborhood in Delhi’s west, according to the prosecutor.

They face charges including kidnapping and rape. All five have pleaded not guilty. They were arrested soon after the incident from a northern Indian district called Mewat in the state of Haryana.

On Monday, a fast-track court in southwest Delhi will hand down a verdict to the five men, lawyers involved in the case said. The case was shifted to a fast-track court in April, more than a year after New Delhi cleared dockets to set up special courts for quick disposal of cases relating to sexual assault following the 2012 Delhi rape.

Although they are being tried in a new court, if the defendants are convicted, they will face punishment under old provisions of the legislation on sexual assaults, which were in place before punishments were toughened up in response to the 2012 gang rape.

If found guilty, the maximum punishment for the five men who all take single names – Usman, Shamshad, Kamruddin, Shahid and Iqbal- is life imprisonment.

Under the new law, death is the maximum penalty in extreme cases of rape. In September 2013, a Delhi court sentenced the four men guilty of the December 2012 attack to death. The men are appealing that conviction.

In the case of the 30-year-old victim from Mizoram, the court has heard testimony from 58 prosecution witnesses and 10 defense witnesses, and has recorded hundreds of pages of evidence.
The crime threw light on to the treatment of people from India’s north east who come to the capital for work, especially women.

An estimated 15,000 people travel from the India’s north east to New Delhi every year for better education and employment opportunities. The seven northeastern states share closer ethnic and cultural links with Southeast Asia and migrants from India’s northeast often end up being the targets of casual racism because of their appearance.

According to the results of a 2011 study by New Delhi-based Northeast Support Center and Helpline, 78% of northeasterners in New Delhi said they faced racial discrimination. Of the crimes against northeastern women recorded by the helpline, molestation counted for 34%.

The Indian government has acknowledged several instances of discrimination against people from the northeast and taken steps to ensure their safety. In 2011, the federal ministry of home affairs, made the use of the derogatory slur “Chinki,” a punishable offense with a maximum punishment of five years in jail.

Then earlier this year, after the murder of a 14-year-old boy from the northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh- an alleged hate crime- the Delhi police introduced a special helpline to address issues relating to people from the region.  At the time, campaigners also pushed for the introduction of an anti-racism law, a suggestion also put forward by a government committee established to look into the issues of racism against people from the northeast. So far, the requests have not been granted.

Activists say people from the northeast continue to have a hard time in the capital, particularly women. Binalakshmi Nepram, a rights activist, said women from the northeast “become victims of a multifold challenge of racial profiling combined with the increase in crimes against women and lack of quick justice.”

“Women from the northeast are still stereotyped as being ‘morally loose’ and ‘easily available,’” said Ms. Nepram.

Rights Group Alleges Racism in Champions League Ad

New Delhi, Sep 22 : The Asian Centre for Human Rights (ACHR) has called for immediate stopping of the broadcast of one of the ‘Champions League T20-T20 Nights Are Back’ advertisements for promoting stereotypes and racial prejudices against the Nepalese who are considered as the same people as of the Northeastern States because of Tibeto-Mongoloid features.

In its interventions with the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Broadcast Content Complaints Council, International Cricket Council and the Board of Control for Cricket in India, ACHR alleged that it in one of the advertisements, “Champions League T20-T20 Nights Are Back!”, one of the Nepali looking youth says, “Wo Raatein Bhi Kya Raatein Thi, Nach te teh, gaate teh, chilla te teh, purra mohalla ko, haami toh jagate teh” (what nights were those nights, used to dance, used to sing, used to shout, we are the ones who used to wake up the entire locality)”– implying that Nepalese work as night guards and wake up the residents of the locality. The same is being repeatedly broadcast with distinguishable heavy, Nepalese accent in various TV channels and FM radios, the ACHR stated.

“In North India where Nepalese and Northeasterners are considered being the same people because of their same physical features, such stereotyping only promotes racism and acts of racial violence.

Though unconnected to the advertisement, on September 14, two Manipuri boys were attacked at Munirka village, New Delhi after they protested when some local youths made fun of them. In fact, the Northeasterners being called Nepali or “Bahadur” derogatively often leads to such incidents.

The Bezbaruah Committee set up by the Ministry of Home Affairs in its recent report stated that 86 per cent of the Northeasterners living in Delhi had faced some sort of racial discrimination while crimes against Northeasterners have gone up by 270 per cent in the last three years,” stated Suhas Chakma, Director of Asian Centre for Human Rights.

“Though Nepalese serve in various sectors including in the film industry, they are often stereotyped as night watchmen/guards in mass media and this creates inferior impression about the Nepalese and by implications the North- easterners among the viewers. These acts of stereotyping are reprehensible and justify the need for a law against racism in India,”further stated Chakma.

Sports has consistently been used to combat racism across the world but cricket, which is the most popular sport in South Asia, is being used to promote stereotyping and racism. The advertisement reflects extreme lack of sensitivity which is one of the root causes of racism in India, the ACHR added.

Source: Newmai News Network

'Northeast Space Centre Not Getting Data From Central Agencies'

Shillong, Sep 19 : The North East Space Application Centre (NE-SAC), set up by the Centre to develop high-tech infrastructure support for the northeastern states, is grappling to obtain required data from central agencies due to the "security threat" perception in the region, an official said Thursday.

"We (NE-SAC) have been struggling to collect data from central and state agencies in in view of the security threat perception surrounding the northeastern states. This reluctance to share data has only put a hindrance for us to implement various programmes, like the Flood Early Warning System effectively," NE-SAC director S. Sudhakar told journalists.

"A centre like NE-SAC, which has been identified for disaster-related issues, should be provided with the database generated by various centres/state departments for analysis and generation of planning inputs, which will help in decision-making and implementation of various programmes more effectively," he added.

The NE-SAC is assisting various central and state departments to use space technology for their planning processes and also enhance the implementation of central schemes effectively to bring economic inclusive growth at the village level.

Lamenting that government agencies were not assisting the NE-SAC, Sudhakar said a system for data sharing should be created that will help in decision-making and implementation of various programmes.

"People are working in isolation. We need an integration of data as the space community has a greater role to play in improving preparedness for various disasters," he said.

The NE-SAC has initiated various programmes, including establishment of the North Eastern Regional Node for Disaster Risk Reduction (NER-DRR), he said.

Gogoi urges Rajnath to deploy SSB along Assam-Naga Border

Gogoi also expressed concern over the alleged presence of Nagaland Armed Police in some villages in the disputed area

Guwahati, Sep 19 : Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi on Thursday urged union home minister Rajnath Singh to initiate immediate measures to deploy Sashtra Seema Bal (SSB) as a neutral force in the affected villages along its border with Nagaland.

“Necessary suitable directions may be passed to the government of Nagaland and SSB authorities for ensuring early return of the affected families from the relief camps,” he said in a letter to the union minister. Gogoi pointed out the urgent need to rehabilitate the displaced persons at the earliest as delay to their homes “may further aggravate the law and order situation in the state.... Sooner the people return to their villages, the better it is for maintenance of the law and order situation.”

The chief minister also expressed concern over the alleged presence of Nagaland Armed Police in some villages in the disputed area and requested Singh to ensure withdrawal of the forces from the villages immediately. He also reviewed the prevailing law and order situation along the Assam-Nagaland border with senior officials at his official residence last night, officials in the chief minister’s office said.

Officials of the home and political department and Assam police informed the chief minister that some Naga villagers backed by NSCN militants were creating obstruction in the process of rehabilitation of the displaced persons, thus creating a sense of insecurity and panic among villagers.

Eleven persons were killed along the Assam-Nagaland border in Golaghat district since 12 August and nearly 10,000 people had taken shelter in relief camps. Of them 5,700 have so far returned to their villages while 4,167 are still in the camps, the officials said.

Are You Chinese, Peng Asks Northeast Students

New Delhi, Sep 18 : China's First Lady Peng Liyuan today mistook a group of students from the northeast India as Chinese only to be told by them that they were Indians.

          
As Peng entered the Tagore International School, she was greeted by students wearing Indian traditional costumes. She noticed a group of students, including few from the northeast who greeted her "Ni Hao" (How are you?).
         
Mistaking the northeast students as Chinese, she stopped and asked one of them, "Ni sh zhonggu rn" (Are you Chinese?).

The translation is ""你是中國人？"
         
"Bu. Woh shi Indu ren. (No, I am an Indian)," Albert Ginsangmuam K (12), a class VII student, responded confidently.
         
Hailing from Manipur, Albert, wearing a kurta, said he was nervous about the first interaction with Peng and he had not expected her to speak to him.
         
"I know a bit of Chinese, but I was a bit nervous. What if I made a mistake? What would have the school said?" Albert, along with many of his classmates, has taken up Chinese language course.

No North-easterners To Serve China President in Ahmedabad, Why?

Sinlung Says: We are just wondering why? Are the people from Northeast not Indian enough? or India is afraid Chinese president will see them as its citizens?

By Kuldeep Tiwari

The Gujarat police don't want any untoward incident to mar the Chinese president's visit to Ahmedabad.

Keeping the objective in mind, the police have asked the management of the hotel where Xi Jinping will be staying to ask its staff from northeast India to keep away from the venue on Wednesday.

According to reliable sources, the police don't want anything or anybody to make a bad impression on Xi Jinping.

"So, they have asked the management to communicate verbally with its north-eastern staff and those from Tibet and ask them to stay away from the venue," sources said. It should be noted that the mall and hotel staff, even those from the north-east, had been issued passes. But they have since been told to keep away from the venue.

Likewise, a police source said, "In order to avoid any conflict the police have asked the north-eastern and Tibetan staff at Hyatt hotel and AlphaOne Mall to stay away from the main venue where the function will take place."

The source added that the police might have taken the steps to avoid mistaking north-easterners as Tibetans.

However, both - the police and the managements played it safe and refused to answer any questions related to the development. When contacted, Joint Commissioner of Police (JCP) Special Branch Vikas Sahay said, "I am very busy, we will talk later." Officials at Grand Hyatt hotel also refused to comment on the issue.

BIZ AFFECTED

Meanwhile, cops have asked AlphaOne to close the mall to general public on September 17. As per an estimate, this could cost them a loss of about Rs 35 lakh.

However, the mall has already started feeling the heat. The police, on Monday, had cordoned the entire mall and surrounding roads for security purposes.

Restricting vehicles from entering the mall is like asking people to stay away from the mall as there is hardly any parking space available in the surrounding area, sources said.

This is affecting mall's footfall and business. Likewise, the Hotel Hyatt also won't be able to admit new guests in the hotel from September 16 night till the Chinese President is in residence.

On September 17, the hotel will have to keep their restaurant and cafe closed for the outsiders/visitors for security reasons.

DoT May Soon Order Solar-Powered Tower Deployments in Northeast

New Delhi, Sep 18 : The telecom department (DoT) will shortly mandate deployment of solar powered towers to boost mobile coverage in the Northeast, especially in mountainous regions close to the Chinese border.

DoT's plans to explore alternate energy sources to run mobile towers in the Northeast follows a recent study by the telecom regulator, which revealed major gaps in telecom coverage in Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Manipur and Meghalaya.

According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ( Trai) report, Arunachal Pradesh has the highest coverage gap (55.9 per cent), followed by Meghalaya (38.1 per cent), Mizoram (32.3 per cent) and Manipur (24.3 per cent).

A senior DoT official said plans were afoot to "use solar powered telecom towers" in the remote corners of the Northeast that still remained outside the mobile loop.

'Go green' has been a popular theme in government circles, especially after DoT unveiled stiff green targets for telcos more than two years ago.

The green telecom policy requires mobile operators to reduce diesel consumption and run 50 per cent of their towers in rural areas and 20 per cent in urban areas on hybrid power by next year. And by 2020, will need to run 75 per cent and 33 per cent of their towers in rural and urban zones respectively on hybrid supplies, which have been defined as a mix of grid power and renewable energy based on solar, wind, biomass or fuel cells.

But telco appetite for green energy technologies remains low, given the huge capex required to set up solar energy capacity. As a result, DoT has lately been pressing the finance ministry to provide viability gap funding (VGF) to telecom operators and tower companies to help them meet their green energy targets mandated by the government.

The DoT official, quoted above, conceded that going solar would be expensive for telco as "the cost would be roughly Rs 10 lakh per site".

It also proposes to involve Renewable Energy Service Providing Companies (Rescos) in driving the go-green thrust.

It is a different matter that the Resco model has failed to deliver so far. Last year, tower operators under the Tower And Infrastructure Providers Association (Taipa) banner had floated a request-for-proposal inviting clean energy equipment suppliers to form Rescos that would set up independent clean energy generating stations for selling power exclusively to tower operators or mobile phone companies directly.

Though talks were held with 70-odd applicants, only two companies were finally engaged as Rescos for a pilot involving the greening of some 1100 tower sites.

As a result, barely 1 per cent of India's near 5 lakh telecom towers run on green energy solutions now. Recently, DoT mandated deployment of green energy technologies for powering upcoming mobile networks in naxal hit regions across nine states. Bharat Sanchar Nigam has been mandated to roll out the networks. The near Rs 3560 crore venture would be fully subsidised by the Universal Services Obligation Fund (USOF), an independent DoT arm that finances rural network infrastructure rollouts.

Feelin' That Homecoming Spirit, in Our City

CHENNAI: Naga students gathered to share their vibrant culture and tradition at the 36th Fresher’s Day organised by the Naga Students Union Chennai (NSUC) recently. 

The event was held at Holy Trinity Church hall, Vepery, and had Lakme Fashion Week model and former Mister International India 2012 Opang Jamar Metsubo as their special guest. “Never stop believing that you can do it. Take every step and every failure as a push towards success,” said Opang, who was in the city for the first time for the event.

The chief guest for the meet, T K Rajendran, Assistant Director General of Police (Law and Order), referred to the Naga students as ambassadors of North East and gave his well wishes to the new entrants to the city.

The programme was followed by a fashion expo and music show, presented by the members of NSUC. The union limned their culture and traditions through dance, fashion show and folk songs performed by various tribes of Naga community.

The performances included Zeliangrong cultural folk dance and Tangkhul cultural show. Besides that, the students also organised Mr and Miss Fresher, Maram folk song and Poumai presentation. Celebrity hairstylist Rachel B Singh, actor and model Sahithya Jagannathan and Opang were the jury members for the competition. Losii Frances from Rajiv Gandhi College won the Mr Fresher title and Akumsenla Kichu from Madras University won the Miss Fresher title. Zeliangrong tribe bagged first place in the cultural show, followed by Tangkhul and Maram tribes.There are around 6,000 Naga students in the State who are bound together through the union.

“Through this unification we share a cultural bond away from our homes,” said R Shing Timothy, vice-president of NSUC. The association aims to help new entrants in the city to get accommodation, find jobs and get admitted to good educational institutions. Most Naga students prefer Chennai for education, citing the good colleges here. Most of them are enrolled in colleges like MCC, Loyola, MGR and Bharath University.

The only challenge they face here is adapting to humidity and food. But, the city has two restaurants — North East Kitchen and Naga Reju — serving home-cooked Pork in bamboo shoot, fried rice, king chilly with chicken and Kimchi as side dish,  in authentic North-Eastern style.

2 Manipur Boys Beaten Up in South Delhi

Police said they have apprehended two of the accused, both juveniles, and are looking for another person involved in the crime.

New Delhi, Sep 15 : Two youths from Manipur were brutally beaten up in south Delhi's Munirka village after they allegedly got into an argument with a group of locals. Police said they have apprehended two of the accused, both juveniles, and are looking for another person involved in the crime.

The incident was reported around 9.30pm on Saturday when the two youths, Lulminlal Haokip (21) and Lepmin Len (18) were sitting on the footpath near Babulal Chowk in Munirka village. They alleged that two youths, who were smoking near a shop, kept laughing at them. When they called one of them and asked what the matter was, the boy started abusing them.

When they protested, the boys called two of their friends who were nearby. Soon the two groups got into a fight during which one of the locals picked up a rod from a construction site and attacked Haokip and Len. Though Haokip escaped the blows, Len was hit on his back and arms which left deep cuts. The boys even called one of their elder brothers to help them in the brawl.

By this time, the others from the locality had gathered at the spot. Seeing a crowd, three of the boys managed to escape but one of them was caught.

The two youths was rushed to a local hospital where Haokip was released after first aid, but Len had to undergo a few stitches on his wounds. Cops later apprehended another accused. Police said a case of causing hurt has been registered.



In their statement, the two injured youths told that the fight broke out after racial and abusive comments were passed against them. They said that both of them were students in south campus of Delhi University and staying at a flat near Babulal Chowk. They had gone to get grocery when the incident happened.

"Initially we tried to reason, but they wanted to put up a fight purposely and started hitting us without a provocation," Len told the cops.

Police said that two accused youths were produced before a juvenile justice board and later sent to a reform home on Sunday.