Tripura Tourism Gets a Helpline

Agartala, Apr 20 : The Tripura Tourism Development Corporation Ltd (TTDC) has introduced toll-free digital helpline round the clock to provide information related to state tourism for both domestic and international tourists.

State Tourism Minister Anil Sarkar said here today that the helpline was operational in three languages - Bengali, Hindi and English - and has voice recording system to cater to the needs of tourists and it was the first of its kind in Northeast.

''Any person from any part of the country can call 91-381-2300332 for information regarding the state's destinations, hotels and other relevant details at anytime and the queries would be recorded for further action from the part of the corporation,'' Mr Sarkar said.

He said the tourism sector in Tripura has registered a steady growth over the past few years and it got further impetus with the setting up of separate corporations. Both domestic and foreign tourist arrivals have also increased by 27 per cent over the past two years in the state.

While as many as 2,41,155 tourist footfall were recorded in 2008-09, the number of tourists went up to 3,25,694 in 2009-10 and of the total tourist inflow, altogether 4,763 were from foreign countries like China, Germany, Holland, Canada and the UK and the state had earned Rs 1.6 crore.

The TTDC has already taken a number of steps to boost the tourism sector especially in the field of eco-tourism and religious tourism and the state government had sought a special financial assistance from the Centre to revive Unokati, the immortal sculpture in the state.

Child Trafficking Rampant Through Porous Borders of Northeast India

Guwahati, Apr 20 : Porous and unmanned International Border along Bangladesh and Nepal not only provides safe corridors to ultras but also acts as easy gates for human trafficking, especially minors.

''Children are easier to smuggle through borders, cheaper and easier to control, which makes them more vulnerable. Further, the unmanned borders along the Northeast region make it even easier for the traffickers,'' Hasina Kharbhih, team leader of an NGO Impulse, said, delivering a lecture on Human Trafficking for child labor prostitution here today.

The coal mines of Jaintia Hills in Meghalaya alone have engaged an estimated 70,000 child laborers, of which many are trafficked from neighboring countries like Bangladesh and Nepal, she added, quoting a study done by her NGO, which works primarily in the field of human trafficking. ''The Northeast is a source, destination and transit region for human trafficking.

The highway networks in the region connect many national and international destinations. The destinations are usually New Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Goa and Kolkata and extend as far as Thailand, Singapore and Thailand,'' Kharbhih added. ''Child trafficking, be it for forced labor or prostitution, is very much rampant in Northeast along with the rest of the country.

Within India, there are an estimated 2.3 million women in prostitution, of which nearly six lakh are children,'' she claimed.

She informed that the Northeast states were at high risk of trafficking due to displacement from armed conflicts, quoting a report of the International Displacement Monitoring Centre.

The report states that over 20,000 people are displaced in Assam, 70,000 in Manipur, 60,000 in Tripura and 3,000 in Arunachal Pradesh. The criminal business of human trafficking generates over 10 billion US dollar a year, making it the third largest ''activity'' after drugs and armament.

Bangla Diplomat Visits Mizoram to Boost Border Trade

Aizawl, Apr 20 : Bangladesh High Commissioner to India Tariq A Karim arrived at Lunglei town in southern Mizoram this morning, in a bid to boost the Indo-Bangladesh border trade.

Official sources said, Karin accompanied by commercial councellor for Bangladesh, residence commissioner from Delhi's Mizoram House and trade & commerce officials from Aizawl, proceeded the border area to inspect sites for integrated check point and other border trade centres.

''The Bangladesh high officials visit to Mizoram is expected to expedite the much-awaited border trade between Mizoram and Bangladesh,'' said Mizoram Parliamentary Secretary and High Powered Committee-Lunglei S Laldingliana, who accompanied Mr Karin to the border.

As per the 8-point declaration adopted by major trade bodies in Dhaka on February 25, Mizoram is to have direct trade links with Bangladesh through the Thekemukh-Kawrpurichuah check post.

''Mizoram will also be connected by road up to Demagiri and construction of bridges connecting Mizoram with Bangladesh will soon be underway,'' official sources said.

Couple Stranded in Dubai Get Married -- Via Webcam

By Michelle Ruiz

Call it a sign of the times. When volcanic ash over European air space grounded a couple in Dubai, they still managed to make their wedding in London -- thanks to the wonders of modern technology.

As friends and relatives gathered for their reception in east London Saturday, 24-year-old Sean Murtagh, of London, and Natalie Mead, 30, of Australia, were stuck at their hotel in Dubai, delayed by the volcanic ash that has grounded commercial air travel since it began spewing last week in Iceland. Instead of missing their reception, the couple, who tied the knot in a civil ceremony in Brisbane three weeks ago, said "I do" again in the lobby of the Millennium Airport Hotel -- broadcasting it to their London relatives via webcam.

Caroline Black, who officiated -- online -- from London, told AFP: "It was just like any other wedding except the bride and groom weren't there."
Dozens of other stranded hotel guests sang the wedding march as the bride walked down a makeshift aisle in the hotel lobby, wearing a dress plucked from her luggage and purple flowers in her hair. The groom borrowed a shirt and trousers for the impromptu nuptials, which were broadcast via Skype on a laptop borrowed from the hotel.

"Hi Mom! Hi Dad," Sean and Natalie said -- loudly -- into the webcam in video captured by Gulf News. "Yes, it's wonderful. Thank God for modern technology!"

The hotel helped decorate the lobby and even made a three-tier wedding cake for the happy couple.
"We didn't think anything like this was going to be possible," Murtagh told Gulf News. "We had an amazing day and yeah, it's one day that we can't forget whether we want to or not."

While the Murtaghs managed to overcome their travel woes, the larger travel crisis continued today, with safety concerns forcing the closure of major airports across Europe and as far east as Bulgaria. Several European airlines, including Lufthansa, Air France and Royal Dutch Airlines KLM, reported they conducted successful test flights -- without passengers -- over Europe Sunday, urging a lift on the ban that has cost airlines up to $200 million per day.

New iPhone 4G Leaked: 'iPhone HD' Revealed?

It seems eager Apple fans may not have to wait for Steve Jobs to take the stage to find out what will the next iPhone, dubbed the 'iPhone 4G' (or iPhone HD) will look like. Gizmodo claims to have gotten its hands on 'Apple's next iPhone'--and has posted extensive pictures and video to prove it.

According to Gizmodo, which disassembled and inspected the purported iPhone 4G, new features of the upcoming iPhone include: a front-facing video camera, flash for the camera, a better display, an improved camera lens, an aluminum side casing (instead of plastic), an additional 3 grams of heft, and a 16 percent bigger battery.

This (alleged) iPhone 4G was lost at a bar in Redwood City, California, and had been disguised to resemble an iPhone 3GS. Gizmodo says of the found phone, 'We're as skeptical--if not more--than all of you.

We get false tips all the time. But after playing with it for about a week--the overall quality feels exactly like a finished final Apple phone--and disassembling this unit, there is so much evidence stacked in its favor, that there's very little possibility that it's a fake.

In fact, the possibility is almost none.' Is this leaked iPhone 4G the real thing? Check out the photo and video below and tell us what you think.

Engadget has turned up additional photographic 'proof' of the iPhone 4G, which Daring Fireball's John Gruber lends credence to by pointing to a 2006 Apple patent filing.  

 
Via Gizmodo

No Compromise on Sovereignty: ULFA

Guwahati, Apr 19 : The military chief of the banned United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA), Paresh Barua, Monday took an ‘uncompromising’ stand on the outfit’s demand for ‘sovereignty’ for Assam, affirming that the ULFA still enjoys ‘complete support’ of the masses.

In an emailed statement to the media, Barua claimed that a plebiscite, held in a free and fair manner, will reaffirm the ULFA’s contention that the group still enjoys complete support of the masses in its struggle to ‘liberate’ Assam.

“ULFA’s demand for independence of Assam is based on historical premise and we will not relent from our armed struggle unless our objective is achieved,” Barua reiterated.

Welcoming the initiative of a group of intellectuals of convening a meet later this month to discuss the state’s ‘problems’, Barua demanded from the group of convincing the Indian authorities to sit for talks with the ULFA on the ‘sovereignty’ issue.

“The group of intellectuals must persuade the Indian government to talk on complete independence for Assam while seeking a political resolution to the India-ULFA conflict. Else, any resolution adopted in the proposed meet will not be a reflection of the people of the state and will not be acceptable to ULFA,” the ‘commander-in-chief’ of the outfit said.

He slammed the intellectuals for their ‘pro-India’ stand and criticized their role in seeking to find solutions to the state’s problems by stating that they are ‘slaves’ of the Indian Constitution – the constitution which has ‘deprived’ the Assamese of their ‘rightful liberty’.

“If they (the group of intellectuals) think that the ULFA will come for a resolution of the political conflict with India by bowing down to the Indian Constitution as they have done, they are mistaken,” the military chief said.

Claiming complete support from the masses to their ‘independence struggle’, Barua said, “The Indian government, which prides itself on its democracy, should hold a plebiscite on the sovereignty issue and see for themselves the mass support the ULFA has in Assam.”

The United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) was formed on April 7, 1979, by Bhimakanta Buragohain, Rajiv Rajkonwar alias Arabinda Rajkhowa, Golap Baruah alias Anup Chetia, Samiran Gogoi alias Pradip Gogoi, Bhadreshwar Gohain and Paresh Baruah at the Rang Ghar in Sibsagar (Assam) to establish a ‘sovereign socialist Assam’ through an armed struggle, the South Asia Terrorism Portal says.

The ULFA has a clearly partitioned political and military wing. Paresh Barua heads the military wing as the outfit’s ‘commander-in-chief’.

Top ULFA leaders, including ‘chairman’ Arabinda Rajkhowa, ‘deputy c-in-c’ Raju Baruah and political ideologue Bhimkanta Buragohain, are lodged in the Guwahati jail, with only a handful of top leaders, including Paresh Barua, elusive at the moment.

[via India Blooms News Service]

Cyclonic Storm Causes Havoc in Many Parts of Manipur

Imphal, Apr 19 : Over 100 houses in different parts of Manipur state were damaged following a cyclonic storm and heavy winds during the wee hours of Sunday.

The storm swept across the State and left a trail of destruction in many areas.

The gale, accompanied by hailstones, caused widespread damage in different parts of Bishnupur and Imphal West districts, however, there were no reports of human casualties.

"Yesterday, when all people were asleep at around 1.45 or 2.00 am, there were violent storms that occurred twice. The first one was a strong one and continued for a longer period. However, the second storm was stronger than the first one and continued for a short period," said Chaoba Nameirakpam, a villager.

Some of the houses were totally razed while tin roofs of many houses were blown away. The storm also uprooted many trees and electric poles, and led to snapping of wires.

More than 50 houses were damaged in Oinam Assembly constituency of Bishnupur district. The gale left a similar trail of destruction at Chajing Karam in Imphal West district as well.

Apart from the houses, the storm also razed down a school. Local residents here are faced with a lot of inconvenience, as fallen electric poles are still lying across roads.

ANI

Bombing Your Own People; The Use of Air Power in South Asia

By Sanjeev Miglani

(U.S. Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt jets, also known as the Warthog. File photo)

Pakistani army chief of staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani offered a rare apology at the weekend for a deadly air strike in the Khyber region in the northwest  in which residents and local officials say at least 63 civilians were killed.

Tragically for the Pakistani military, most of the victims were members of a tribe that had stood up against the Taliban. Some of them were members of the army. 

Indeed as Dawn reported the first bomb was dropped on the house of a serving army officer, followed by another more devastating strike just when people rushed to the scene. Such actions defy description and an explanation is in order from those who ordered the assault, the newspaper said in an angry editorial.

But the question really is wasn’t it coming? The counter-insurgency strategy that Pakistan has pursued to wrest control of its turbulent northwest along the border with Afghanistan has consisted of heavy use of air strikes and long range artillery barrages in the initial stages before putting boots on the ground.

It’s the steam-roller approach that Lord Curzon, the turn-of-the century British Viceroy of India, spoke about when confronted with a similar challenge in Waziristan – except that it relies on stand-off weapons like releasing bombs from the safety of a jet aircraft to keep military casualties down, taking a leaf from the U.S. playbook in Afghanistan.

Indeed it would appear that while the U.S. is trying to change tack after years of  deadly strikes in Afghanistan, and focus on avoiding casualties at all costs, the Pakistanis are relying on the classic counter-insurgency strategy of overwhelming force as Tim Foxley writes on the Afghanistan blog or the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

He calls it a mismatch in the way the war against militants is being fought on the two sides of the Durand Line separating Afghanistan and Pakistan, but if you looked elsewhere in the region, a heavy hand is increasingly the preferred course for security forces.

Sri Lanka conducted nearly daily air strikes and artillery barrages to crush the Tamil Tigers last summer at great cost to civilian lives. Some people in India are calling for a similar approach to tackling a strengthening Maoist insurgency operating deep in the jungles of central and eastern India. It’s the sort of option that New Delhi has balked at in half a century of fighting rebellions in its northeast and Kashmir in the last 20 years although it has thrown men and armor at the militants outnumbering them by a significant ratio.

But it takes quite a doing to bomb your own people in your territory and the only time New Delhi carried out air strikes were in the northeast state of Mizoram back in the 1960s when the separatist Mizo National Front almost overran the remote state.

We are not counting the raids in Kargil in the summer of 1999 because those were irregular Pakistan soldiers who moved into the Indian part of Kashmir, triggering a near-war between the two countries.

The gains from the air strikes in Mizoram are debatable. While they succeeded in pushing back the guerrillas, it left deep scars and probably pushed back a resolution of the insurgency by several years. (Mizoram is now one of the most peaceful states in the Indian northeast).

The use of air strikes almost always brutalizes an insurgency as B.Raman, former head of India’s Research and Analysis Wing writes..  ”Air strikes on one’s own nationals tend to aggravate an insurgency situation by causing casualties of civilians….. and driving more people to join the ranks of the insurgents,” he says. They also attract criticism from rights organizations, eroding international support even when you have a perfectly legitimate reason to take a tough but measured stance towards the insurgents.

It’s not that states are not using air power to help fight insurgencies. You can use planes  for surveillance, both in terms of aerial photography and for electronic monitoring of ground signals. But to carry out bombing runs is a significant escalation.

[ via Reuters ]