AIFF Mulling Over I-League Expansion To Save Lajong From Relegation

I-League could be expanded to 16 teams…

By Rupert Fryer

Despite finishing rock bottom of the I-League, Indian club Lajong SC might just be saved from relegation after the All India Football Federation (AIFF) confirmed they were mulling over the option of expanding the league from 14 teams to 16.

"Thanks to Lajong, soccer has touched new heights in the northeast,” AIFF treasurer Hardev Jadeja told The Times Of India.

“From every I-League match at home, the club has earned Rs.1.5 million as gate money. This is a record, which even Kolkata clubs couldn't achieve in the last five years.

We want Lajong in the first division for the development of football in the northeast.”

If the expansion gets the go-ahead, Lajong and Sporting Clube de Goa, who finished second from bottom, will both avoid relegation and be joined in the I-League by Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) and Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), who earned promotion from the second division.

[ via goal.com ]

On Display Here, Wanted by India

A new front has been opened in the battle to recover allegedly looted objects from British museums. Cahal Milmo reports

The Koh-i-Noor diamond, whose name means "Mountain of Light", had been the prize of Indian rulers from the Mughals to the Persian until it was "presented" to Queen Victoria in 1849 by the son of the Maharaja of Lahore. Critics say the stone, part of the Crown Jewels, could not have been willingly surrendered and was plundered by the British governor general, Lord Dalhousie.

Some 150 years ago, a British engineer overseeing the construction of the East Indian Railway ordered his labourers searching for ballast to break open a brick-walled chamber found in a hillside. Inside stood a statue whose ageless beauty changed the understanding of Indian culture and whose ownership is now the subject of a potentially ugly modern battle.

The Sultanganj Buddha, named after the town in north-eastern India where it was found, was dug out of an abandoned Buddhist monastery in 1861 along with other priceless artefacts under the direction of E B Harris, a pith-helmeted functionary of the British Raj.

Within months, the 1,500-year-old bronze statue was shipped to Britain after it was secured for £200 by a Birmingham industrialist, Samuel Thornton, to take pride of place in the new museum of the city whose foundries had produced many of the rails, sleepers and carriages for the East Indian Railway.

Now the so-called "Birmingham Buddha" is one of the artefacts at the top of a list of "stolen treasures" which the Indian authorities have announced they want to repatriate as part of a new co-ordinated international campaign by countries arguing for the return of thousands of allegedly looted objects held in Western museums.

The head of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), the state body in charge of India's heritage assets, told The Independent that the list of his country's treasures held abroad was "too long to handle" and there was a need for a "diplomatic and legal campaign" for their restitution from institutions including the British Museum, the Royal Collection and the Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery.

Among the items on the list are the Amravati railings, a series of limestone carvings dating from around AD100, acquired from a Buddhist temple in Andhra Pradesh by Victorian explorers; the Koh-i-Noor diamond, which sits in the heart of a crown made for the Queen Mother as the last empress of India; and the Saraswati idol, a sculpture of the Hindu deity from the Bhoj temple.

Gautam Sengupta, the director-general of the ASI, said that after decades of unsuccessful unilateral lobbying, India was looking to join a campaign with the support of Unesco, the United Nations body set up to preserve global heritage, alongside other countries with longstanding complaints about the foreign ownership of their artistic riches, including Egypt and Greece.

"As efforts so far to reclaim stolen treasures have proved futile, Unesco support is required for launching an international campaign to achieve this end. Not only India, various other countries like Mexico, Peru, China, Bolivia, Cyprus and Guatemala also the voiced the same concern to get back their stolen and looted antiquities and to join the international campaign," Mr Sengupta said.

While underlining the need to be "realistic" about the chances of large numbers of items being returned, Mr Gautam said a list of "unique items" that should be returned to their home countries was being drawn up by each of the participating countries. "Once this list is ready, these countries will jointly initiate a series of steps, including a diplomatic and legal campaign to get back the lost treasures," he added.

The initiative, which follows a conference in Cairo in April chaired by Dr Zahi Hawass, a high-profile Egyptian archaeologist who has secured the return of 31,000 artefacts since 2002, represents a step-change in long-running efforts to right what many nations consider to be wrongs of the colonial era, when powers such as Britain and France acquired millions of artefacts from their imperial possessions.

The campaigners face a tough fight. The Birmingham Buddha, which was bequeathed to the city by Mr Turner on the condition that it be made available "for the free inspection of the inhabitants [and] many who lay no claim to be decided antiquarians", is the largest metal figure of its kind at 2.3m tall and is seen as one of the finest examples of the Gupta school of sculpture, which went on to influence European art.

Curators in Britain have in recent years signalled their readiness to consider the return of a small number of artefacts. But most museums are reluctant to even enter talks about returning major items, pointing out that in many cases they are banned by law or their founding articles from divesting their collections.

Rita McLean, head of the Birmingham Museum, said: "We have not received any official request for the return of the Sultanganj Buddha. Any requests for restitution will be treated on a case-by-case basis."

The British Museum, which claims its status as a global repository for art justifies its possession of items such as the Rosetta Stone and the Parthenon Marbles, said it was satisfied that the objects highlighted by the Indian authorities had been acquired legitimately.

Koh-i-Noor diamond

The diamond, whose name means "Mountain of Light", had been the prize of Indian rulers from the Mughals to the Persian until it was "presented" to Queen Victoria in 1849 by the son of the Maharaja of Lahore. Critics say the stone, part of the Crown Jewels, could not have been willingly surrendered and was plundered by the British governor general, Lord Dalhousie.

Amravati railings

These limestone plaques once covered the façade of a "stupa" – a temple built to house Bhuddist relics – in south-eastern India. The intricate carvings, which depict scenes from the life of Buddha and are about 2,000 years old, were eventually excavated in the early 19th century by two British military explorers and sold to the British Museum.

Buddha Sakyamuni

The Sultanganj Buddha, otherwise known as the Birmingham Buddha, is a 2.3m tall bronze statue of the caped deity that was discovered upside-down in a bricked-up cavity by British railway engineer E B Harris in north-east India in 1861. He "saved" it from being smelted and the statue was sold to a Midlands industrialist for £200, where it was destined for Birmingham's city museum.

Saraswati statue

The marble statue depicting the Hindu and Jain goddess of knowledge, music and learning was one of the prized possession of the temple at Bhojsala in central India, established by an enlightened "philosopher king" who dedicated his reign to developing centres of art. The figure was donated to the temple by a local family before eventually being lost. It was acquired by the British Museum in 1886.

Elgin Marbles

The marble reliefs were stripped from the Parthenon at the behest of the 7th Earl of Elgin in 1801. The act caused controversy at the time but the Earl was exonerated and the sculptures bought for the British Museum. Greece has fought a 30-year campaign for their restitution, so far unsuccessfully.

Benin bronzes

Many of the magnificent bronzes of the ancient West African kingdom of Benin in the British Museum were acquired following a British military expedition in 1897 to punish an ambush which killed nine soldiers.

Magdala treasures

The treasures of the Ethiopian Emperor Tewodros were taken in 1867 during a punishment raid by the British Army. Items, including sacred tablets of scripture, are in the V&A, British Museum and the Royal Collection.

Rosetta Stone

The 2,200-year-old tablet unlocked the secret to Egyptian hieroglyphs by carrying a translation of the symbols in classical Greek. Discovered by the French, acquired by the British and claimed by Cairo, it is one of the most important items in the British Museum.

The Seduction of Maximum Force

By Praveen Swami

AP Rescuers search for bodies in the mangled compartment of the derailed train in Sardiha near West Midnapore dt of West Bengal on Saturday. Photo: AP

Winning the war against Maoists does not need combat jets or artillery. It needs police forces with counter-insurgency capacities and training.

Aizawl woke that Thursday morning to the thunder of combat jet engines and falling bombs. Earlier that week, Mizo National Army insurgents had engaged military garrisons strung across the State. Mizoram's capital fell days later. Prime Minister Indira Gandhi responded by ordering the Indian Air Force to attack the city. “Most houses in Dawrpui and the Chhinga Veng area were reduced to ashes,” a survivor recalled. No one knows for certain just how many died.

Three decades after the March 4, 1966 bombing of Aizawl, India is once again debating the use of massive military force — including air strikes — to fight an insurgency. Last week's tragedy in West Bengal, preceded by large-scale killings of civilians in Chhattisgarh, have made clear that New Delhi's offensive against the Maoist insurgency that has torn apart swathes of eastern and central India is floundering.

Policymakers are now considering committing the Army and air assets to provide logistical and fire support to counter the Maoist campaign. For the most part, the plans envisage only a limited support role for the armed forces — the use of helicopters, for example, for transporting commandos in remote forest areas, or unmanned aerial vehicles equipped with foliage-penetrating radar to locate large Maoist formations. But as public pressure mounts on a government that promised quick success against the Maoists, more aggressive military options will seem increasingly seductive to policymakers. India's rich experience of fighting insurgencies, though, shows that maximum force not only inflicts hideous levels of civilian casualties but it rarely secures decisive outcomes.

Lessons from Manipur

In June 1986, Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi arrived at an agreement with the Mizo National Front, laying the foundations for a peace that has survived more than two decades. The 1986 Accord, though, was preceded by a counter-insurgency campaign of colonial-era barbarism: hundreds were executed; thousands tortured; rape was carried out on a massive scale. Designed to crush a rebellion that seemed, at one stage, to be on the edge of success, India's use of the military in Mizoram ended up engendering an insurgency that festered for decades.

Like the Maoist insurgency, the Mizoram conflict had its roots in deprivation. In 1959, the region saw a famine which claimed thousands of lives. In 1961, former Indian Army officer Pu Laldenga formed the Mizo National Famine Front to campaign against New Delhi's apathy. Laldenga later transformed the Famine Front's political offspring, the Mizo National Front, into a potent political force. But by 1963, the lack of state action to address conditions in the Mizo hills led the MNF to initiate an insurgency seeking independence from India.

The army campaign seemed, at first, to work. Forces from the Silchar-based 61 Mountain Brigade were able to rapidly recapture key towns, including Aizawal. Posts taken by the MNA were recovered and its guerrillas forced to shift their headquarters across the border into East Pakistan. The fighting was intense: the Indian forces suffered 59 fatalities, 126 were injured and 23 went missing; 95 of the MNA died and 35 were injured.

But from the summer of 1966, the MNA merged into the population and began launching guerrilla strikes against the Army. Lacking effective local intelligence, unfamiliar with the terrain, and forced to rely on a vulnerable road network for logistical support, the Army lost 95 men between March and December 1966 — more than the number killed in the first phase of fighting.

Military strategists found a template for their response in imperial Great Britain's war against the Malayan Communist Party. In much modern writing, the anti-communist campaign in Malaya is marketed as an example of how victory can be had by winning hearts and minds, rather than the application of force. The idea suffuses much writing on contemporary counter-insurgency. But, as David Benet has noted, “coercion was the reality — ‘hearts and minds' the myth.” Field Marshal Gerald Templar, the architect of the Malaya campaign, referred in 1968 to the ‘hearts and minds' doctrine as a “nauseating phrase I think I invented.”

From January 1967, the security forces in Mizoram began cutting the insurgency off from its peasant base. Eighty per cent of Mizoram's population was resettled, mostly by force, into barricaded enclaves known as Protected and Progressive Villages.

In a signal 2001 essay for the journal Faultlines, the former Assam Chief Secretary, Vijendra Singh Jafa, recorded how the village of Darzo was relocated. “My orders,” a soldier he interviewed said, “were to get the villagers to collect whatever moveable property they could and to set their own village on fire at seven in the evening. I also had orders to burn all the paddy and other grain that could not be carried away by the villagers.” The officer, Jafa recounted, ordered village elders at gunpoint to certify “that they had burnt down their own village.”

Despite this massive application of force, the insurgency did not end. Even though the MNA was enfeebled by Pakistan's decisive defeat in the 1971 war, which stripped it of its bases in what is now Bangladesh, it was able to stage a series of bloody attacks. New Delhi and Laldenga were able to agree on the contours of a peace agreement as early as 1976 but the deep anger provoked by the Army's campaign made it impossible to settle the deal.

It is not hard to see why the use of massive military power against the Maoists appears seductive to policymakers. In November last year, as Central forces began to push into Chhattisgarh, Union Home Secretary announced that “within 30 days of security forces moving in and dominating the area, we should be able to restore civil administration there.” The promise has been brutally exposed. Unless New Delhi and the naxal-infested States are first able to restore order, developmental programmes targeting the Maoists' constituency are unlikely to get off the ground.

Inadequate force

But the simple fact is this: there just aren't enough security personnel in Chhattisgarh to hold, let alone dominate, the area. The Bastar division of Chhattisgarh sprawls across 40,000 square kilometres, an area larger than the Kashmir Valley. New Delhi has pumped in 14 battalions of the Central Reserve Police Force — each made up of approximately 1,000 men — as well as 5 of the Border Security Force. There are, in addition, some 7 battalions of armed police, and some 5,000 police.

That means each battalion of security forces must engage with insurgents in areas larger than 2,000 square kilometres — and in areas where the use of roads is impossible because of the large-scale use of improvised explosive devices by Maoists. Some police stations are responsible for more than 700 square kilometres of territory.

In Jammu and Kashmir, an estimated 70 battalions of the CRPF are available for counter-insurgency duties, along with 54 battalions of the Army's Rashtriya Rifles. In addition, about a third of the Jammu and Kashmir Police's 75,000 personnel are committed to counter-terrorism work. That means approximately 145,000 personnel are available to guard the 101,437 square kilometre territory on India's side of the Line of Control—an average of one for 1.4 for every square kilometre, and one for every 53 residents of the State. Manipur, with an estimated population of 2.3 million, has 67 battalions of counter-insurgency forces, including 11 army battalions — one for 34 residents. The police in Chhattisgarh, moreover, often confront Maoist formations that outnumber them 4 to 1. Most counter-insurgency doctrines call for government forces to outnumber their adversaries by at least 12:1, or higher — the levels exceeded in both Jammu and Kashmir, and Manipur.

More men alone, though, will not solve the problem. Phnom Penh, on the eve of the triumph of Khmer Rouge in Kampuchea, had one police officer for every 60 residents. The force, however, lacked tactical skills. It is also worth recalling that the United States dropped three times more ordnance on Indochina during the Vietnam war than all combatants put together did during World War II — but still lost.

In recent decades, Indian tacticians have come to realise that well-trained police forces are key to defeating insurgencies. Many have pointed out that the Army played a frontline role in decimating the Maoist insurgency that broke out in West Bengal in 1967. In October 1969, Lieutenant-General JFR Jacob led an offensive against the Maoist groups in the State, spearheaded by the 4 Infantry Division, the 9 Infantry Division and the 50 Parachute Brigade. No written account of the campaign was maintained by the Army's Eastern Command, but participants say intelligence provided by the West Bengal police led to the success. That lesson has been driven home in recent years: India's major counter-insurgency successes — whether against the tribal insurgents in Tripura, the Maoists in Andhra Pradesh, or Khalistan terrorists in Punjab — were all police-led.

“Occasional police operations timidly carried out with inadequate forces” the theoretician of counter-insurgency, Roger Trinquier, warned in his 1964 classic Modern War, “will fail pitifully.” With the force levels and resources now available in areas like Bastar, defeat is certain. Winning the war against the Maoists doesn't need combat jets or artillery; it needs police forces with counter-insurgency capacities and training. Those forces can be raised — but New Delhi needs to get to work now, instead of wasting lives chasing the phantom of a quick victory.

Got an Issue With Indian Post? Tweet About it!

..you might be heard

That's right. If you are amongst the millions of people who still use the services of the Indian Postal service, this news might just interest you.

India's Postal Service now has its own Twitter handle now! This makes it the first Government of India enterprise to arrive on the popular social networking platform.

The Twitter account will be used to post updates about various news concerning postal services - apart from addressing grievances of consumers.

Before we move further here's the link to the profile page @PostOfficeIndia. The profile was set up quite a while ago - three months back to be precise.

However, it is now that it has gathered momentum. The account, even within the short span of its existence has managed to solve many a consumers grievances - highlighting the fact that social networks could be effective costumer service medium as well.

The Twitter account is also helpful for users who want to have queries regarding what and how they can send stuff. The only problem with the account seems to be this: As of now, there is only one guy who seems to be in charge of the account. We wonder who that geek at the post office would be!

[ via Techtree ]

Highway to Nowhere

By Sonia Wahengbam

The blockade by Naga groups of National Highway 39 to Manipur has sent the prices of essential commodities skyrocketing and started a thriving black market in the state, where you can get petrol for Rs 150 a litre and a gas cylinder for Rs 2,000. Sonia Wahengbam writes on life in times of an economic blockade

These days in Imphal, television dealers have come up with a new offer. Buy a TV set and get a Tata Sky connection or 10 litres of petrol free. With petrol selling for Rs 150 per litre in Manipur and still hard to get, free petrol certainly seems a more tempting offer than satellite TV connection.

It’s been 50 days since National Highway 39 —Manipur’s lifeline where on an average day 300 trucks ply, carrying essential commodities to the state — has remained blocked. When the blockade was first enforced on April 11, many in the state simply shrugged. Bandhs and blockades are routine in Manipur and follow a predictable pattern. They go on for a few days, or a couple of weeks — the exception was the 52-day blockade in 2005 — before an agreement is hammered out and then it’s back to normal. But this time the days have stretched to over a month. It’s hard to shrug now.

What’s surprising is that there have hardly been any protests over the issue. Have Manipuris become so docile that we have forgotten how to protest, or have we become so much of an ‘I-me-myself’ society that we really don’t care about our neighbours as long as we are protected? Or are some of us too rich to bother about skyrocketing prices and scarcity of essential items? Perhaps, as long as our mini-godowns at home remain stocked, we think we’re going to be fine.

But it’s time to worry. Everywhere you go in Manipur, the talk veers towards the economic blockade. And everybody is busy looking for black marketers. Instead of thinking of a solution to end the impasse, a common query is, ‘Where can I find good quality petrol and diesel?’

And even though the price of a bag of cement has nearly doubled from Rs 350 to Rs 600, construction in the state is on in full swing.

The prices are showing no signs of dipping. A cylinder of gas is now costlier by about Rs 1,600 and lighter by about 10 kg. The fare for public transport has increased from Rs 5 to Rs 10. Any vegetable you buy, even if it’s grown in Manipur, comes with the economic blockade price tag.

For the past few months, the government employees in the Manipur have been protesting over the issue of Sixth Pay Commission arrears in the state. But the prices we are paying for essential items are what we should be paying after the Tenth Pay Commission!

Says Th Manglem, a state government employee, “The blockade has hit me and my family badly. We haven’t got our salary for the past two months because of the Sixth Pay Commission impasse and now this blockade. It’s a double blow.”

EVERY year, the NH-39 to Manipur is blocked at least a couple of times, mostly by Naga groups who live primarily in the hill areas in the state, areas they want integrated into what they call Nagalim or Greater Nagaland. The Thuingaleng Muivah-led Nationalist Socialist Council has been spearheading the demand for Nagalim, comprising Nagaland and the Naga-dominated areas of neighbouring Manipur, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.

According to a study conducted by the state government, Manipur suffered an accumulated loss of Rs 1,320 crore due to bandhs and blockades between 2004-05 and 2006-07. The state witnessed 110 bandhs and 234 economic blockades during the period — 20 days of bandhs and 60 days of economic blockades in 2004-05, which rose to 48 days and 97 days in 2005-06 and 42 days and 77 days in 2006-07. The study also says the per capita income of the state decreased by 6.10 per cent in 2004-05, 11.79 per cent in 2005-06 and 9.93 per cent in 2006-07.

“In the first few days of any blockade, the economic loss is not much—maybe a crore or so as there are items in stock, but if it carries on, then there is cumulative impact on the economic condition and by the 45th-50th day, the damage is around Rs 15-20 crore. If we talk in terms of growth rate, there is a slowdown of 1.5-2 per cent,” says Prof Amar Yumnam, Department of Economics, Manipur University.

The economic blockade this time has been called by the All Naga Students’ Association of Manipur, opposing the state government’s decision to hold elections to the district councils in the state’s hill districts. It intensified after Manipur refused to let Muivah visit his village in the state’s Ukhrul district on May 4, and the Naga Students’ Federation declared they would not allow any vehicle from Manipur to enter Nagaland.

Every day, we open the newspaper eagerly to see if any goods trucks have started coming in. Every day we are disappointed. But then we think, there’s always tomorrow.

And that fortunate tomorrow came on May 22, when 97 of the 306 trucks stranded after the blockade reached Imphal through an alternative route, National Highway 53, which connects Imphal with Jiribam in Assam. This route is not safe either and the Nagas have called for a blockade of it too. Apart from that, it’s not in great shape.

The remaining trucks reached the following day, getting with them eatables, petrol, diesel and LPG. The trucks were accompanied by State Food and Civil Supplies Minister Y Erabot and a handful of his security personnel. Erabot and his team were assisted by troops of the Assam Rifles, CRPF and BSF. The supplies arrived. The chaos in distribution followed.

After the state government announced it would ration sale of petrol, the queues of vehicles at petrol pumps grew so long that some of them lasted for two days. At all hours, the queues were at least three to four kilometres long.

And there are a lot of people out on the roads at night, outside petrol stations, sleeping inside their cars so as to keep their place in the queue. It must be a bit disconcerting, after getting one’s ration of 10 litres of petrol after such a long wait, to wake up the next day to headlines such as, “After 48 hours in queue, consumers end up buying blue petrol”—the blue referring to adulteration with kerosene oil. There are, of course, ways of beating the queue. Rows of vendors are still selling petrol in mineral water bottles outside pumps for Rs 150-170 per litre.

Says 52-year-old Ibeyaima, a petrol vendor, “Our business comes up only when there is a blockade. When I get news that there is going to be a blockade, I go out and buy as much petrol as I can with whatever little money I have so that I can sell it later at a higher price. The petrol I am selling is what I had stocked before the blockade started. I have made a good profit, but then all this money goes into buying rice and other household items, whose prices have shot up as well. So, it is more of a give and take. If I don’t do this, my family of seven won’t be able to survive in this condition.”

With fuel being scarce, many schools and tuition centres have called pre-summer breaks. Says Sangeeta, a class IX student, “Last year, schools were closed after protests over an encounter death broke out and now this blockade. We are missing out on a lot of classes.”

The worst affected has been healthcare, with many operations being cancelled, life-saving drugs unavailable, and oxygen cylinders out of stock in the hospitals.

The crisis may not be killing us yet, but it’s killing us off in bits. Manipur seems almost like a war zone, minus the sound of bomb blasts and bullets. And yet, when we think things can’t get any worse, it seems they can. After the blockade, there’s now the threat of counter-blockade. The people from the Imphal Valley have declared that since it’s the Nagas who enforced the blockade, sections of the hills of Manipur, where the Nagas live, will not get any supply from the valley.

Of the nine districts in Manipur, the Naga-inhabited districts are Senapati, Ukhrul, Chandel and Tamenglong. Bishnupur, Imphal East, Imphal West and Thoubal are dominated by Meitei and Manipuri Muslims and the Kukis inhabit the district of Churachandpur.

There are also reports that Manipuris living in Assam are planning to block the land route to Nagaland. The fire that began in Manipur now threatens to spread in the region.

The crisis grows bigger, but there’s no solution in sight. So, we move on, everyone looking out for themselves, willing to pay extraordinary prices for ordinary stuff. Earning in rupees and paying in pounds and doing what we do best: making the best of a bad situation.

Sonia Wahengbam, a former Express journalist, teaches in the Department of Mass Communication at Manipur University

Chakmas of Three Arunachal Villages Out of Census 2010

Itanagar, May 31 : As country debates the inclusion of caste in the Census India 2011, about 450 families comprising of 2000 people belonging to the tribal Chakma community from three villages under Diyun Circle in Changlang district of Arunachal Pradesh are likely to be left out from the ongoing first phase of House-listing and Housing Census for Census India 2011.

The three Chakma inhabitated villages in question are Modakha Nala, Sukha Nala and Shillongpahar under Diyun Circle in Changlang district of the state. These villages are reportedly not covered in the ongoing census work following a direction from the Extra-Assistant Commissioner (EAC) of Diyun Circle who is also the Census Charge Officer (CCO).

The Census Charge Officer of Diyun Circle has directed the supervisors and enumerators not to cover the three villages of Modakha Nala, Sukha Nala and Shillongpahar in the ongoing census.

The said direction of the CCO has come to light after the residents of Shillongpahar approached the CCO on May 9, 2010 as no enumerator visited their village for data collection. The villagers submitted a written complaint to the CCO for inclusion in the ongoing census. Instead of hearing their grievances the CCO informed the villagers that they will not be included in the ongoing census work. Interestingly, the same direction was written by hand on the complaint by the CCO. The CCO’s direction on the complaint which is available with this writer read as under:

"Under no circumstances people residing in RF/ARF area shall be included in the ongoing Census work. Enumerators have already been briefed about the matter”.

The villagers informed this writer that they have been residing in these three villages since 1966. They further stated that their villages had previously been covered for the House-to-House Child Census under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA), the Government of India’s flagship programme for achievement of Universalization of Elementary Education (Order No.ED.SSA/DEV-1/2006-07 dated 6.12.2006, C.R.C. Coordinator, Diyun Circle) and the Deputy Commissioner-cum-Chairperson, District Health Society, Changlang district appointed Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) under the National Rural Health Mission, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare (Order No.CMD/RCH/ASHA/07/-08/29/2 dated 10.9.2007) from these villages.

The direction of the CCO is not in line with the guidelines issued by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India. In its Circular vide No. 9/31/2010-CD(CEN) dated March 3, 2010 (CENSUS OF INDIA 2011 – CIRCULAR No. 16), the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India directed all the census officials in the country to prepare a comprehensive list of villages, towns and sub-districts which should include inhabited as well as uninhabited villages as well as forest settlements, unauthorized colonies, etc. Further, the circular directs the Principal Census Officer to ensure that all habitations have been included without any omission.

The Census in the country is carried out under the provision of the Census Act and Census Rules and the amendments thereafter. The duties of the Census Officers have been identified under Rule 5 of the Census Rules 1990 of the Census Act 1948. There are penalties for failure to carry out the duties under the provisions of the Census Act under the Section 11.

The duties assigned to the Census Charge Officer, among others, include to “ensure full coverage, accuracy and timelines in taking census. ”

The Chakmas, who are already very poor, of these three villages are worried that if they are not included in the ongoing census they will be further deprive of accessing benefits under various welfare and development projects of the government. Any omission in population can be rectified only after 10 years and hence it is important to net the entire population without any omission.

The first phase of House-listing and Housing Census for Census of India 2011 which started on April 15, 2010 in Arunachal Pradesh ends on May 31, 2010. The Census of India 2011 is very important as for the first time National Population Register (NPR) will be prepared. Based on the NPR data, a Unique Identity (UID) Number will be issued to each citizen which will be useful for accessing benefits under various welfare and development projects of the government.

[via Merinews ]

‘Lookout Notice’ Against Publisher Over Jesus Image

Shillong, May 31 : A ‘lookout notice’ has been issued against the owner of a publishing house that printed a blasphemous image of Jesus Christ in a school textbook, the Meghalaya government said Monday.

Education Minister Ampareen Lyngdoh told the state assembly that the notice was issued after the government declared Indra Mohan Jha an absconder.

The owner has been on the run since the Shillong bench of the Gauhati High Court terminated his interim bail March 15 and directed him to surrender to the authorities.

Lyngdoh said that the government had registered a criminal case against the publisher.

The objectionable pictures of Jesus Christ were found in the cursive writing exercise copies at a private school in Shillong and was brought to the notice of the church in February.

The New Delhi-based Skyline Publication had produced books meant for Class 1 students.

The controversial picture created a furore in Meghalaya. Several Church organizations and NGOs denounced the publisher.

Dyson Fan Set To Make a Cool Fortune

New Dyson bladeless fan set to make a cool fortune in summer as sales increase by 300%

By Lucy Ballinger

He made his fortune from a machine that sucks air in.

But, with a swift change of direction and the first heatwave of the year, Sir James Dyson has a new money spinner – an invention that blows air out.

There was a 300 per cent increase in sales of his ‘fan without blades’, the Dyson Air Multiplier, last weekend.

Cash multiplier: The new Dyson Air Multiplier, a clever gadget that provides a stream of cool air without the finger-catching blades, is proving to be a big hit

Providing a ‘smooth, cooling breeze’, apparently from thin air, the device was launched in Australia in October.

It is now available on high streets here in time for what is predicted to be a barbecue summer.

Not that booming sales are anything new for the Dyson technology empire. It more than doubled earnings last year, according to figures released yesterday.

Dyson reported operating profits of £190million in 2009, up from £90million in 2008. Sales were 23 per cent higher, and have already been boosted in the first three months of this year thanks to the launch of handheld vacuums.

The science bit: Sir James Dyson said he came up with the idea while developing his Air Blade hand dryer, a similarly revolutionary - and cool - device

The bladeless fan appears likely to follow suit. But how does it differ from conventional fans?

Instead of using rotors to chop the air, which causes an uneven airflow and buffeting, the DAM blows out cooling air as a constant smooth stream.

And with the absence of blades, you can safely put your hand through it.

Air is sucked in through the base by a 40 watt electric motor, and then pushed out at high speed through a lip which runs around the inside of its circular head.

As this is forced out, other air is drawn into the airflow, resulting in the epulsion of 405 litres every second.

The fan also has a dimmer-type switch, which means the powerful current can be easily controlled.

Without blades, curious children will not catch their hands in it, and the simple design makes it easy to clean.

The DAM – marketed as a desktop fan – rotates 90 degrees on its base, and can also be tilted to direct the flow of air.

It costs £199 and comes in two sizes and a range of metallic colours.

Sir James said: ‘I’ve always been disappointed by fans. Their spinning blades chop up the airflow, causing annoying buffeting. And children always want to poke their fingers through the grille.

‘So we’ve developed a new type of fan that doesn’t use blades.’

He came up with the idea while developing his Air Blade hand dryer – which forces air through a tiny slit to ‘brush’ water from wet hands – and noticing it draws in air from its immediate surroundings.

The 62-year-old, estimated to be worth around £500million, became one of Britain’s best-known inventors after the success of his bagless vacuum cleaner.

Dyson employs 2,500 people worldwide and is increasing its UK workforce to 1,600, with laboratories in Wiltshire specialising in microbiology, as well as fluid, electrical, thermal, acoustic and software engineering.

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