Battle Over Cannons of Waterloo

Aizawl, Mar 30 : Battle lines have been drawn between the Mizoram unit of the Indian National Trust for Art and Natural Heritage (INTACH) and the Assam Rifles over possession of two cannons which were used in the battle of Waterloo in 1815, reports PTI.

The Mizoram unit of INTACH said that the two pieces of artillery displayed at the Assam Rifles battalion headquarters since 1892 were taken away in 2003 by their custodian, the First battalion of AR, to Tuensang in Nagaland.

P Rohmingthanga, a retired IAS officer and convener of the state’s INTACH said that the two historic cannons were placed at the Assam Rifles battalion headquarters here by Lt Colonel J Shakespeare in 1892.

Shakespeare, in his book ‘The Making of Aijal’ (as Aizawl was known in those days) published in 1939 wrote that the cannons were among those used by the Duke of Wellington’s troops which were part of the combined armies of the Seventh Coalition to defeat French emperor Napoleon Bonaparte in the battle of Waterloo. He wrote that they were part of armament of a Burma-bound warship that was docked in the Chittagong Port (now in Bangladesh) in 1857.

“When the detachment of the 34th Native Infantry mutinied on November 18 that year as part of the Sepoy Mutiny, the cannons were thrown overboard to prevent them from falling in the hands of the natives and were fished out after crushing the mutiny and brought to Aizawl,” he wrote.

“Though Shakespeare was an army officer, he was also the civilian administrator of the then North Lushai Hills, the northern part of the present Mizoram state,” Rohmingthanga said.

He claimed “anything installed by the civilian head of a district could not logically belong to the armed forces, certainly not by the Assam Rifles, which came into existence only in 1917.”

“Historically and legally the cannons belong to the people of the state and have high heritage value and not to the central para-military forces,” he said, while conceding that the Assam Rifles could have custody of the artillery pieces, but they must be kept in Aizawl.

However, the Assam Rifles and the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), the controlling authority of all the country’s para-military forces, do not agree with the contention of the Mizo INTACH.

“The cannons are war trophies that changed hands from the British Indian Army to the Assam Rifles,” the MHA officials held.

The MHA, in a note on June nine, 2009 said that as per service norms, war trophies were kept by respective units and formed an integral part of the battalion’s history and legacy.

“These (the cannons) are kept with honor and pride by the Assam Rifles and it is proposed to shift them later to the Assam Rifles museum,” the note added.

The museum is situated in the Assam Rifles headquarters on the outskirts of Shillong in Meghalaya.

The MHA stuck to its guns even after Yogendra Narain member-secretary of the INTACH intervened on behalf of the Mizoram unit saying that Mizos were robbed of the heritage cannons by the Assam Rifles.

A top AR official, however, said, “the Assam Rifles has been in existence since 1835 though it was not known as the Assam Rifles then, but we do not want to get into any argument on anything that belongs to us.”

The INTACH Mizoram unit, on the other hand, refused to budge from its stance with Rohmingthanga saying that he has written again to the MHA and spoken to the Union Home Secretary. “We also sought the help of Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla, who is also a member of the INTACH, to ensure that the cannons are back at their original place in Aizawl,” he said.

“The cannons belong to the people of Mizoram, not to the para-military forces. Let them (Assam Rifles) have the custody of the cannons, but they must be in Aizawl.”

Mawia, a 61-year-old resident of Aizawl said that the two cannons displayed in front of the historic Quarter Guard of the Assam Rifles battalion headquarters at a place now known as the Mahatma Gandhi Square was a prize possession of Aizawl.

“It was said that if you point a finger at the two cannons they will be fired on you, so as young boys, whenever we went past the Quarter Guard we pointed our fingers inside our trouser pockets so that the cannons would not know that we were pointing fingers at them,” Mawia chuckled.

Tripura Constitutes Police Accountability Commission

Agartala, Mar 30 : The Tripura government has constituted a police accountability commission to ensure "impartial and efficient" policing, an official said here Sunday.

"The four-member commission, constituted Saturday, would formulate guidelines for efficient, effective, responsive and accountable policing and identify performance indicators," the police official told IANS.

Former Tripura advocate general D.P. Kundu was appointed as its chairman while social worker Champa Dasgupta, and legal experts Bimal Bhowmik and Dipak Kumar Chowdhury are its members.

The official said: "The commission will look into allegations of serious misconduct against police personnel or any other case referred to it by the government, the director general of police or any member of the public."

He said Tripura was the second state in northeast India after Assam to constitute such a commission.

IANS

Meghalaya Plans ‘Seed Money’ For The Weaker Section

Shillong, Mar 29 : The Meghalaya government has planned to arrange ''seed money'' to the weaker sections of society to raise loans and take up income generating schemes. "The government is planning to introduce a scheme to provide seed capital to beneficiaries to raise loans and take up income generating schemes.

This will facilitate the enhancement of the flow of credit to marginal farmers, especially BPL families," Finance Minister Mukul Sangma told PTI. An amount of Rs 5,000 is proposed to be provided to a family as seed money for opening bank accounts. "At the initial stage, 6,000 families are proposed to be covered, with an outlay of Rs 3 crore," Sangma said.

The financial inclusion, he said, will ensure access to financial services and timely credit to the weaker sections of the society, especially those residing in rural areas as banks have been requested by RBI to open at least one account for each family. Initially four districts East Khasi Hills, Jaintia Hills, Ri Bhoi and West Garo Hills have been identified for 100 per cent financial inclusion.

"The deputy commissioners have been asked to assist the banks in a village household survey to be conducted through the block development officers," Sangma said.

PTI

The Best Paper Fold Pinhole Ever

We've seen our share of pinhole cameras before, including a room sized pinhole and one that uses Polaroids. However, we've never seen a pinhole camera as nice as the one from Francesco Capponi (AKA dippold) before.

You can print it on paper (A4!) so all you really need to have is a printer (and if you are reading this via computer, I assume you have one right to your left).

You'd need a thick paper though, or some cardboard, to glue your instructions to. You can probably use the cereal box leftovers from the snoot you made.

Or better yet, print it on a big A4 sticker and mount it on that cereal box.

The diagram is available here. Instructions come in a step by step pictorial (above), just like that old Lego ship you built a few years back.

The design is very slick and it uses a dying breed of 35mm film.

You can communicate (with dippold & with each other) about the pinhole cam here, on the original instructions page.

via make

Northeast Woman Makes Computer Learning Easy

Indrani Medhi

Guwahati, Mar 29 : A young woman from Assam has achieved honors in the challenging realm of computer literacy. What is more she, along with two co-workers, have earned a patent from the US Patent and Trademark Office last year.

Indrani Medhi, an associate researcher with Microsoft, has developed text-free user interfaces designed to help illiterate and semi-literate users for whom the computer appears as an alien tool. Her design, according to experts, “would allow any first-time illiterate person…to immediately realize useful interaction with minimal or no assistance.”

The achievement was important enough to gain attention of the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and she was featured in the Technology Review, the institute’s magazine on innovation. In the March 2010 edition, Medhi’s work has been described in some detail.

The magazine’s TR 35 list, in which she is mentioned, recognizes just 20 individuals under the age of 35, whose work shows exceptional brilliance in fields such as biotech, materials, computer hardware, energy, transportation and the internet. Medhi’s contribution is in the area of computer and electronics hardware.

Significantly, Medhi’s work was exemplary in its land-to-lab linkages. An architect trained in NIT Nagpur and Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Medhi spent long periods in the slums of India, Philippines, and South Africa understanding the genuine needs of the under privileged communities.

According to the Technology Review, during her research Medhi discovered that illiterate people with no experience with computing were intimidated by technology. The young innovator surmounted the problem by preparing full context videos with a storyline that made the technology easily comprehensible to the user.

Speaking to The Assam Tribune, Indrani’s mother, Meera Medhi, said that her daughter was always keen to develop something that would benefit the poor and marginalized. “Now her innovation has made her realize a dream,” the proud mother remarked. She said that the creative imagination that enabled Indrani to develop the new product could have its roots in her childhood spent in drawing and reading.

Indrani’s father, Bimal Medhi, revealed that despite a busy schedule, she offers voluntary service in a Bengaluru-based animal welfare facility.

It is worth mentioning that the TR 35 list was prepared by a distinguished panel, which included K Vijay Raghavan, Director, National Centre for Biological Sciences, TIFR, PK Sinha, Chief Co-ordinator, CDAC, and Viswanath Poosala, Head of Bell Labs India, among others.

via The Assam Tribune

NIDians Find 6 Places For Design School - Mizoram Included

Mizoram is Best in India For Designs

Ahmedabad, Mar 29 : If given the opportunity and support to set up design schools on the lines of the National Institute of Design (NID) across the country, students of NID would choose Chandigarh, Surat, Puducherry, Bhopal, Jamshedpur and Mizoram as the right places.

In a programme called Design Concepts and Concerns (DCC), which is a part of the one-year foundation course for the undergraduate students of NID, the students were assigned projects to stimulate their vision of various design schools contextually suitable for different parts of the country.

Six teams were assigned six different zones in the country including the east, west, north, south, central and the northeast zones. Using their understanding and talent of design thinking taught in the DCC course, the teams were required to conceptualize the details of the design institutes in their assigned zones, including the location, structure, curriculum, functioning, objectives and other details of each institute.

Explaining how they decided on their location, a student who is a part of the team handling the northeast zone, Ritwick Nandi said: "We made great efforts to understand, research and analyze the backgrounds while choosing the location. We considered the pros and cons of various places in the seven states of the north-east, including factors like safety and security, vibrancy in craft and culture, literacy and openness of the local people, connectivity, climate and so on.

We found Mizoram as the best place as it has the second highest literacy rate in the country, it has been getting a 'peace bonus' from the central government for being the safest and the most peaceful state for the past 10 years, it has an airport, is strategically located with an upcoming trade route to south-east Asia, a liberal society and low cost of living."

It should be noted that the government had shown interest in Jorhat in Assam for setting up a design institute like NID in the northeast. A student of the team said, "Jorhat does not have a pleasant climate like Mizoram.

As students from across the country and abroad are expected to study and reside in the institute, safety and security are of prime concern and Mizoram is thus a comparatively better place."

Mizo Divorce Ordinance No Longer in Force

Aizawl, Mar 29 : Women in Mizoram will have to continue their fight for equal rights over property after separation and divorce as an ordinance introduced in this regard is no longer in force in the state.

The Mizo Divorce Ordinance notified in the official gazette on October 6, 2008, is no longer in force as the session of the Assembly held on December 16 did not adopt it and it expired, Law Minister Lalsawta said today.

The matter has been referred to the state Law Commission for detailed study and to draft a more comprehensive bill, Lalsawta told the Assembly.

The new Congress government felt that the ordinance did not include important provisions as it was issued in haste by the previous Mizo National Front (MNF) government, he said.
Sinlung Says:
Mizo women are up in arms over the outdated Mizo Christian Marriage law that allows men to walk out of marriages at will. Social rights activists argue that the law, apart from enslaving women, has increased prostitution in Mizoram. 

One reason is that the existing law does not allow a Mizo woman to get any money from the husband in the event of divorce.

And most of Mizoram’s sex workers do happen to be divorcees. Says B. Sangkhumi, head of MHIP, Mizoram’s apex women’s body, “It’s time we had a Mizo Christian Marriage Act or the Indian Marriage Act.”

Manipur’s Agriculture Fair Shows New Agricultural Techniques, Products

Imphal, Mar 29 : The northeast region of India has long been recognized as a hub of medicinal and aromatic plants where scientific cultivation of the natural abundance can ensure high benefits to farmers.

To showcase new agricultural techniques, organic products and equipment, the agriculture fair was held at the premises of the Central Agricultural University (CAU) in Manipur state.

The fair showcased organic products, equipment and agricultural techniques tailored for the climate and terrain of the northeastern states of the country, which are imparted to farmers and even school dropouts.

‘Agriculture is the main source of livelihood for the people of Manipur and the other states of the northeast region. Development of agriculture and the allied sectors plays a crucial role towards the overall development of the region. Obviously, agriculture and allied sectors are the backbone of the economy, not only of northeast (region) but the entire country,’ said Manipur Governor Gurbachan Jagat.

The main objective of the fair is to give a fillip to scientific technology in agriculture and its allied sectors and train farmers in the same.

‘We have come here to exhibit the items during the agricultural fair and we have come from Mizoram (state). So whatever the products we displayed, we have imparted training to the farmers and school dropouts; something like ginger candy, as ginger is found in good quality in Mizoram, so we are imparting training to the unemployed youths,’ said Dr K P Chowdhury, coordinator of the agriculture fair.

The region has been facing problems of shortage of food and nutrition due to the constant rise in population, poverty, land degradation and overall scarcity of land resources to sustain the livelihood of the farming community.

ANI