Agartala, Apr 22 : Consumer and home products direct marketing company Amway India hopes to do business worth Rs.20 billion in the country by 2012, adding more products to its portfolio, a company official said here Tuesday.
"After commencing commercial operations and business with Rs.9.1 million in 1998, Amway has done business worth Rs.14 billion last year (2009) in India," company vice-president (East) Diptarag Bhattacharjee told reporters.
"We now hope to take this to Rs.17 billion this year," he said.
Amway India, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the U.S.-based Amway Corp, has invested about Rs.1.51 billion in India, of which Rs.260 million have come as foreign direct investment.
Bhattacharjee said almost all the 115 Amway products in five categories are manufactured in India through seven third-party contract manufacturers with production facilities and skills conforming to international standards.
The five categories of Amway products include personal care, home care, nutrition and wellness, Cosmetics and Great Value Products.
He said in 2009 Amway tripled production capacities at its leading vendor facility at Baddi in Himachal Pradesh.
The company is now one of the top FMCG (Fast Moving Consumer Goods) players, a feat achieved in just over 10 years of commercial operations.
"Despite economic recession in 2009, we have grown from Rs 11.28 billion to Rs 14.07 billion in 2009 and registered 25 percent growth in turnover," said Bhattacharjee.
According to him, the largest number of Amway product users in India are in the northeast.
Amway did business worth Rs.880 million in seven northeastern states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland and Tripura last year.
New Delhi, Apr 22 : Twenty months after she was prevented from taking off for Beijing for participation in the Olympic Games, Monika Devi was on Wednesday slapped with a two-year suspension that will end in June this year, clearing the way for her participation in the Commonwealth Games.
Doubts remained, however, on Wednesday afternoon over the Manipuri weightlifter's Commonwealth Games prospects as the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) lawyers indicated that they would look into the order in detail before saying anything on a possible appeal.
The usually-effervescent Monika was glum-faced immediately after the operative part of the five-page order was read out by Anti-Doping Disciplinary panel Chairman Sudhir Nandrajog. For, a casual observation was made by the ‘prosecution' lawyer Rahul Kumar that the International Weightlifting Federation (IWF) rules, from March, 2008, stipulated a four-year sanction for a first-time doping offence.
Monika's anti-doping rule violation for testosterone, dates back to June, 2008. Her eventual sanction was applied on the rules of the IWF, as they existed at the time of her sample collection (June 6, 2008), though her ‘positive' was confirmed only through a ‘B' sample testing done at the WADA-accredited Tokyo laboratory on January 15, 2009.
The interest in the case centered round the date of commencement of the suspension once Monika made a tacit admission last Monday that she had violated the rules, though unwittingly.
Under the NADA rules, with which the case started last January, she would have been suspended from the date of the decision, providing for a deduction of any provisional suspension period she might have undergone.
Since August, 2008, Monika had not undergone any provisional suspension, though, as she pointed out, she had not been able to compete in any competition during the intervening period.
A sympathetic disciplinary panel found a legitimate way out in the NADA rules that prohibited application of the rules retroactively, thereby bringing in the relevant IWF rules (2008) to decide on the matter.
However, one crucial point seems to have been overlooked by the panel, that of a four-year suspension prescribed by the IWF for a first-time offence since March 2008 through an Executive Board decision.
The Indian Weightlifting Federation Secretary, Sahdev Yadav, told The Hindu on Wednesday that the four-year ban would not be applicable to domestic testing.
(IWF rules are silent on different application of rules for national-level testing, though in practice the federation does resort to its own interpretations of rules in certain cases.)
Yadav said Monika would undergo two re-instatement tests, to be conducted by the federation, in May and June, before being inducted into the National camp.
He said Manipur would be penalized Rs. 50,000 as a fine for the offence committed by Monika.
Asked if she was not happy that she had received a suspension that would end very soon, Monika said: “Why should I be happy? An athlete has many dreams to realize. Only then can one be happy.”
The panel's ruling was based on the 2008 IWF rules regarding commencement of the ineligibility period that stated that it had to be from the date of sample collection.
By going back to the IWF rules, apparently in an effort to give a ‘fair sanction', the panel might have unwittingly opened up a debate about a stiffer punishment for Monika under the revised sanctions of the International Federation.
NADA will have 14 days to appeal before the Anti-Doping Appeal panel headed by retired High Court Judge C.K. Mahajan.
Face the facts: Your duty lies in looking as nonplussing as possible. Blend in with your surroundings. Be inconspicuous. No, you don’t really have a criminal record to be nervous, but neither did the dead woman and the child in front of you. Nevertheless, you are being watched with the utmost suspicion.
You’re surveyed through a gun-sight during twenty of every thirty seconds of every minute. If you look at a soldier directly, you’re asking for attention. If you look down at your basket in your hands, it’s apparent you’re concealing something. If you appear wary of your surroundings or point or even walk unsteadily, there are people who’d immediately know. If the authorities spot you, they’d be on you in ten seconds. If they search you, they’d question you and confiscate your possessions, including the little basket in your hand. If they do that, they’ll find the red gunny bag.
If they get the bag, they’ll find the camera concealed inside. And then, before you could think of what went wrong before you were busted, your fate has already been decided between state sponsored- torture and a point-blank gunshot to your forehead. This isn’t a land of your rights or mine. It’s junta-ruled Burma. There is no government nor police. At-least, none that fits the definition of catering to the needs of a population, which in itself defies it’s meaning for existence, since the sole purpose of the two is to suppress you, in case you raise your voice upon the junta.
In simple terms, you’re the hostage. The government is your enemy, and you’re the government’s enemy. The police is it’s weapon of force: An army ready to crush even the solitary ant that shows signs of defiance. You show resilience, they kill you. You appear suspicious, they kill you. You try and convince them with your subservience, they still kill you. Journalists are criminals, you’re a mind-freak if you walk the streets with a camera visible in your hands.
This is what you gather during the first twelve minutes of Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country, though all that you see is the insides of that gunny bag covering your line of vision and an unedited sound sequence that speak volumes of the tension (watch trailer below). Yet, for our guerrilla styled journalist aliased “Joshua”, being caught and facing sure-fire death is only half of his worries. His other half is more anxious about the deteriorating condition of the camera, and the valuable hours of battery power going to waste. His entire self-appointed purpose in life now depends on a cheap, rechargeable lump of lithium!
The camera does come out briefly and beholds burma, a sight that jumps right out of a 1970s communist-era chinese film-set. Everybody around appears the same. Whether you’re alone or in company, walking or riding people simply stare.
There is no conversation in the public unless it’s utterly important. People speak in hushed voices. Even the rickety public buses are devoid of human sound. The lone sound breaks the silence of voiceless drone. It’s a megaphone that’s high enough to echo the voice of the announcer all the way up to the center of the town. It’s a blunt announcement from the Junta HQ that the price of fuel has been doubled with immediate effect.
People listen quietly and carry on with their lives, fully knowing what this really means. Everything is going to be double the price from tomorrow. And for no clear reason too. It’s an order, live with it. No one asks why, no one raises a voice in public, even the strongest at heart would be discouraged by such a public attitude. And that’s the way things are run in Burma. But wait, you’re not supposed to know all this if you’re not inside Burma. What you’re seeing is banned footage, that’s shot first-hand by our protagonist-hero Joshua, who runs an outlawed television network wing, The Democratic Voice of Burma (DVB).
Joshua’s identity should naturally be kept a secret, due to the clandestine journalism he must continue in order to keep the outside world abreast of what’s really happening inside this iron wall-ed country. DVB gathers footage by deploying some twenty odd volunteers with cameras and microphones. These men and women spread into crowds and gathering of public demonstrations.
Their job is to take as much footage of the happenings as possible. These footage are then smuggled through couriers via neighboring countries like Thailand, or through the internet to Oslo, from where they are shared worldwide to news channels like CNN and BBC, who relay them back to Burma. Mind the fact that apart from the sole love for their people in their hearts, these volunteers are neither trained camera-men, nor are they trained in emergency situation handling, in case they encounter violence, or in worst of worst cases get caught and lose their lives. You might think it’s madness in both ways.
The footage acquired might never be evidential enough without proper spying devices, and these volunteers might give away valuable information about the DVB’s secret operations. But at the end of the first 30 minutes of the film, you lose all need of doubt when you look at Joshua (and hear other DVB members) crying at the extremely rare, blurred image of Aung-San-Suu-Kyi they managed to film when protesters were surprisingly allowed to venture close to the democratic leader’s house, where she’s being held under house arrest for the past decade.
That scene is so heartbreaking that given the circumstances, even reason itself wouldn’t be able to fathom why such a misfortune should befall such a nation in these times that we live in: Times when self-proclaimed, self-appointed world-ambassadors of goodwill and peace conquer much more violent, terrorism-infested nations with ease, by brute force under false pretexts of impending danger to the world while all the time the objectives seem to be nothing but carrying their tall banners of wealth, so tall that the blood-red dust of destruction would fail to soil the silky white above, all the while when countries such as Burma languish inside an information abyss.
Burma VJ gradually becomes more of a work-in progress, not just a mere documentary that shows the power of guerrilla journalism. It’s a call for help by that smaller voice inside every hopeful Burmese’s mind.
The film itself focuses on the Saffron Revolution, an uprising by the Buddhist monks in 2007, the first signs of any major protest since 1989 when nearly three thousand people were killed as the junta brought the demonstrations to halt, effectively so after putting the democratic leader Aung San Suu Kyi under house arrest, even until today. These protests by the Buddhist monks rapidly gathered momentum and volume, mostly as the unstoppable monks were seen as the last force of power against the junta.
Though the monks refused to turn political, they cite their sole purpose in staging the famous marches in around 25 cities across the country simultaneously, being the liberation of the people. The Burmese thought the dictators wouldn’t dare to attack the monks, but within the next few hours, public gatherings of more than five are banned, and people are warned against police firing.
The protests are eventually suppressed as the army does the unthinkable and starts beating up the monks and carrying them away in trucks to undisclosed locations. A Japanese reporter is shot dead at close range. A dead body of a monk is found floating on the Yangon river. Young adults cower in a stairway praying for strength in the face of death.
And the DVB is there to record it all. The regime quickly understands the power of the camera and the reporters are constantly chased by government intelligence agents who look at the ”media saboteurs” as the biggest prey they can get. However, the important mission is not forfeited, even as the DVB members watch helplessly as their offices are being raided by the police.
Anders Østergaard’s film takes on the terrifying immediacy of home-made horror, as he carefully assembles the scrambled, jittery video recordings with a little bit of post-production in between for that added sense of dramatization.
Joshua having to flee his country initially for fear of being captured a second time operates out of Thailand. All of the post-production scenes show a silhouette of this emotional, but brave young man sitting with frustration, as he listens to his crew over phone-calls, patiently waiting for video feed on his computer.
“Burma VJ” ends without any real, direct hope. But as long as the country’s people hunger for freedom, and a few citizens are brave enough to document the atrocities around them on video, there’s always hope for a better tomorrow.
Subscribe here to the YouTube channels of the Democratic Voice of Burma (I think they’ve posted the entire movie online in nine parts) and the Burma VJ Movie channel. Visit http://burmavjmovie.com/ and http://www.dvb.no/ for further info, spread the word and show your support on Twitter and Facebook It’s taken an Academy award nomination for a film of such importance to hold ground and reach our for help, let’s not wait for something bad to happen in order to confront the apalling reality. [ via bollywood-mania ]
National award winners Distant Rumblings & Antaheen part of film fest
A poster of Antaheen
Kohima, Apr 22 : The Indian Panorama Film Festival 2010 will begin here from Friday. The three-day event is being jointly organized by the Nagaland government and the Directorate of Film Festivals, Union ministry of information and broadcasting.
Of the 14 films to be screened, four are from the Northeast, including three from Nagaland.
Apart from Ilisa Amagi Mahao which is a Manipuri film directed by Ningthouja Lancha, the three other films of the region — My Brother Jack, directed by Kivini Shohe, World War II as I Remember directed by Vikeyielienuo Chielie and Metevino Sakhrie and Distant Rumblings by Baniprakash Das — are from Nagaland.
Das said Distant Rumblings, a documentary,includes scenes of real incidents of World War II in Kohima and Manipur.
“It all happened when we (I and Rongsenkala, the producer) saw a wreckage hanging from a tree at Noklak. We were told that it was a World War II wreckage.”
Thus began a research work and it took them three years to make the documentary of 22 minutes and 22 seconds. During the course of the research, they met many war veterans and their relatives who shared with them the agony they had faced during the war.
Distant Rumblings bagged the National Award for the best investigative film and also the Karim Nagar Jurist Special Mention Award. The film was screened at the prestigious Mumbai International Film Festival, Kerela International Film Festival, Germany, Paris and the Indian Panorama Film Festival Goa. The film will be screened on Friday at the State Academy Hall, Kohima, after the inaugural function at 3:30pm.
Other films to be screened are Vithal, a Marathi film, The First Leap, an English film directed by Haobam Pawan Kumar, Oye Lucky, Lucky Oye (Hindi), Land Gold Women (English and Urdu), Kutty Srank, Malayalam, Ekti Kaktaliya Golpo (Bengali), The Prince and the Crown of Stone (English), Antaheen (Bengali) and Gabhricha Paus (Marathi).
These films will depict the region’s society and economy.
Bhupendra Kainthola, director, Indian Panorama, the Directorate of Film Festivals, said the aim of the film festival here was to provide the Naga people the opportunity of watching good movies.
“This is going to be a very exciting for the people of Kohima,” Kainthola said.
A. Lassa, the additional director general of field publicity, government of India, said each film was unique and she was all praise for the team of Distant Rumblings .
She said the objective of the film festival is to forge a bond between the Northeast and the rest of the country.
“Cinemas create an emotional integration too,” she said, adding the films would have socio-economic themes. “The door of opportunity is opened for the Naga people,” she said.
“I am sure there will be some people to make films both documentary and feature films after this festival,” Kainthola said, adding the Indian Panorama had given ample opportunities to the filmmakers and would continue to encourage the people.
Every year there would be an Indian Panorama Film Festival in the Northeast, he said.
At the inaugural programme, R. Tohanba, parliamentary secretary for information and public relations, economic and statistics, will be present to watch Distant Rumblings and Dev D, a Hindi film.
Dibrugarh, Apr 22 : When Ajoyananda Borah first jotted down his thoughts in a personal diary as a schoolboy, he had no idea that his new hobby would become an abiding passion in the days to come or make him an aspirant for the Limca Book of Records.
Borah’s diaries would be hard to beat in terms of sheer volume but the 67-year-old’s claim to fame is a non-stop journey of half-a-century. “I cannot claim that my diary is a complete record of contemporary events or has literary value like that of Lakshminath Bezborua or cultural impact like the diaries of Bhabendra Nath Saikia. But my claim is the continuous and non-stop journey of half-a-century,” he said.
The former senior announcer of All India Radio, Dibrugarh, has been maintaining personal diaries for the past 49 years, from 1961, without a day’s break. His favourite pursuit entered its golden jubilee year in January this year.
If his feat is recognised, Borah will edge out present record holder Chandulall Chowdhary of Mumbai who has been writing diaries since 1965. Borah’s diaries have already gained entry into Asomiya Book of Records — first published in 2006 and edited by Santanu Kausik Baruah.
“Though I developed the habit of writing in 1954, when I just got admitted to Jamuguri High School in Sonitpur district, I do not have records of the initial years because most of the jottings were on loose pages,” Borah said. He started maintaining hardbound diaries from 1961 after he completed matriculation and got admitted to Darrang College, Tezpur.
Borah said he “was not directly influenced by anybody but indirectly inspired by my high school teachers like Biren Borkotoki, Keshab Mahanta, Golok Rajbongshi and Radhika Mohan Bhagawati.”
Born in 1943 at Biswanath Gymkhana European Club near Pabhoi TE, Borah started his career as a high school teacher after graduating in 1964.
Five years later, he joined the All India Radio (AIR), Dibrugarh, as programme announcer since its inception in 1969. He retired in 2003 after 35 years of service. His lesser known distinction is that he was one of the first four programme announcers along with actress Eva Achow, musician Hiren Gohain and literatteur Prafulla Chandra Bora.
He also produced several radio plays like Phani Sarma’s Kiyo and Rajani Kanta Bordoloi’s Manomati, Bir Chilarai and Socrates.He dramatised multi-episode serial novel reading like Chandra Prasad Saikia’s Tore More Alokore Yatra (50 episodes) based on the life and times of Jyoti Prasad Agarwala, B.K. Bhattacharya’s Iaruingam (25 episodes), Homen Borgohain’s Asataraag, Jogesh Das’s Dawar Aru Nai and Mamoni Raisom Goswami’s Dasarathir Khoj among others. Radio listeners of AIR, Dibrugarh, still remember Borah’s replies to letters in the popular programme, Dak Pakhili.
Now a resident of 26 Ajanta Path (Survey), Guwahati, Borah is legitimately seeking a place in the Limca Book of Records.
Apart from keeping records of national, international and important local current events, Borah has jotted down weather conditions, prices of commodities such as sandals, cloth, rice and pulses as well as stitching charges, hair cut, cinema tickets and train fares in his diaries.
“Raining after five months”, he noted on March 26, 2009. “No rain from 8th Oct, 2009 till date in Guwahati,” says an entry on February13, 2010.
Borah’s personal notes run into 17,900 pages but an index allows easy reference to the volumes.
Has he set a target similar to that of Col. Ernest Loftus of Zimbabwe, who holds the world record for writing diaries for 91 years? “It is simply impossible. I am already 67. Let me see how long I can continue. I will go on writing till the last day,” Borah said. Col. Loftus died at the age of 103 in 1987.
In the golden year of his diary writing, he has a message for the denizens of his state: “I urge everybody to start the habit of writing diaries and observe June 12 — the birthday of Anne Frank — as Diary Day in Assam.”
New Delhi, Apr 22 : An office-boy of a call centre was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly installing a spy-camera in the ladies' lavatory in the office, police said.
Sanjay was apprehended following investigations into a complaint filed by a call centre in north-west Delhi's Peetampura and its women employees after they found a spy-camera in a packet of freshener.
The incident came to light four days ago but the complaint was made today, a senior police official said.
A case under Section 509 (for using word, gesture or act intended to insult the modesty of woman) of IPC has been registered against Sanjay, working in the administration section of the company.
"When one of the women entered the lavatory they saw something blinking in the Odonil packet. On closer scrutiny, she found out that it was a camera and informed the company management," the official said.
The company has about 120 employees and 60 per cent of them are from the Northeast states of India.
According to L Lamak Maram, President of Naga students Union who is helping the victims, the women employees confronted the company management demanding that they be shown the footage.
The company assured it will look into the matter, he claimed, adding, they told the employees that a helper in the organization was responsible for the installation of camera.
"It is very demeaning and we don't know for how long this has been going on. Some people have seen the footage, which has blurred images of women," an employee said.
A saying in Northeast goes, ‘If you’ve haven’t tasted Dogs meat, you aren’t man enough.’ Dog meat, a delicacy among the many tribes of Northeast India eaten openly in large amount. Though dog meat is eaten in large extend in, dogs are mainly imported from neighboring Assam.
Everyone has their own perception about Dogs and Dog meat, some people would die for dogs like the the SPCA and Recue Ink, however some people especially in Northeast India would pay any price to have the meat.
Maybe its what make us humans and we choose to be vegetarians or non-vegetarians, dogs or snake eaters. I don’t think anything should be imposed, as this has been practiced for hundreds of years even before all HYPED organizations were born.
To get a more here is a normal working day in the dog meat market:
Live Dogs are Packed in Gunny Sacks
Dogs are Selected
Dog selection still continues till the correct size and weight is found.
Then…it’s Killed and roasted so all hair in the body is burned off…
Dog Head is a Special delicacy and separated from the rest
Body is chopped off, making sure that no blood is let loose
Another one ready to meet the same fate
Now that the head’s apart; the body’s opened up…
Fully Opened for the Prime cuts
The Blood and the Prime Cuts like the Thighs are kept in the red Bowl.
The rest of the pieces are chopped down….
This Head is specially ordered for…
The Meat market where you can choose the prime cuts
A Little Haggling…
Sold most of the stuff for Today
Just opened the next round…and waiting on customers.
Shillong, Apr 21 : With downsizing apparently leading to political instability in some North Eastern states, particularly Meghalaya, senior AICC leader Oscar Fernandes today suggested that there should be a separate "yardstick" for the region.
"It was a part of the Administrative Reforms Commission. It is being discussed. Hope we will arrive at something... we could have a different yardstick for Northeast," he said when asked if there could be a rethink on the 97th Amendment that restricts the size of ministry to 20 per cent of the assembly.
Fernandes said, "It needs support from all. There is a realisation in certain quarters."
D D Lapang, who resigned yesterday as chief minister after a revolt in his party, said, "Yes, downsizing is a factor that has caused political instability.
"Leaders with potential cannot be given proper chances. They cannot be accommodated in a small ministry," Lapang said.
