Northeast India Goes Waka Waka Over World Cup

On June 28, 1994, a hitherto unknown footballer, Oleg Anatolyevich Salenko, creates World Cup history by scoring five goals in a match against Cameroon in the game’s biggest showcase hosted by the US. Across the seven seas, a baby is born on the same day, in Jorhat in Upper Assam.

The baby is lovingly named “Salenko” by his soccer-crazy uncle.

June 10: In a country where cricket is the sporting religion, the Northeast has always had a special place for soccer. Even the country’s first Olympic football team’s captain, Talimeren Ao, rose to fame from a village in Nagaland’s Mokokchung district.

No wonder, as soccer fans across the globe get ready for the start of action in the 19th edition of the World Cup in South Africa tomorrow, the Northeast is putting on its boots for a shadow battle on behalf of their “own teams”.

Veteran Naga footballer Imti Yaden has ensured that he will not be disturbed for the next 30 days — he has bought a separate TV for himself to watch the matches live.

An avid supporter of Argentina, Yaden said, “I have bought the TV exclusively for myself so that my family members do no disturb me with their serials and movies”.

But the love for football goes beyond players and the male fraternity.

Akashitora, a Guwahati-based actress and TV host, may not know the difference between dribbling and a scissors kick, but that has not stopped her from professing her “undying love for the pony-tailed Roberto Baggio”, the former Italian star.

“He was the fantasy of millions of women, the ultimate football hero,” Akashitora gushed.

However, she will be backing the Brazilians this World Cup and has plans to watch all the matches live on television.

From actors to political leaders to the man on the street, from Mizoram to Tripura, everyone has been bitten by the World Cup bug.

So much so that Meghalaya deputy Speaker Sanbor Shullai has printed as many as 5,000 brochures with the match telecast timings for soccer fans in Shillong. Shullai is himself distributing the brochures to whomever he meets, including his fellow legislators and ministers.

“Since I am a football fan, I want others to enjoy the World Cup as well,” Shullai said, adding that he was trying to arrange for LCD projectors for people to watch the matches on giant screens from the semi-final onwards.

Meghalaya’s enthusiasm is undiminished even though its very own team, the Shillong Lajong Football Club, was relegated to the second division in the I-League, after showing great promise in the initial stages. The club’s general secretary, Larsing Ming Sawian, said he would be in South Africa to watch the matches live from the semi-finals onwards. Sawian says watching the matches will help him “in providing some tips to my own club”.

In Guwahati, the Gauhati Town Club — which has its own football team and academy — has decided to screen the matches at its newly constructed 200-seater auditorium at Judges’ Field on match days.

Samarjit Neog, a former Ranji wicketkeeper and a senior club office-bearer, said the screening will be for the club’s 29 trainees and coaching staff, members of its senior teams and general members.

Similar arrangements have also been made at the SAI centre for its 25 football trainees. “We have made it compulsory for the boys to watch the matches,” SAI director in-charge Subhas Basumatary said.

In Manipur, the state power department is trying for minimise powercuts, particularly during match timings.

The Manipur Olympic Association has written to Manipur chief secretary appealing for regular power supply during the World Cup.

Despite the fuel crisis, caused by the economic blockades, acclaimed player Irengbam Surkumar Singh is contemplating buying a generator so that he can watch the World Cup uninterruptedly. He will be cheering Italy.

Led by the diehard soccer-fan chief minister Lalthanhawla, Mizoram’s passion for the game is infectious. So soccer crazy are the Mizos that there is a mad scramble to buy big screen TV sets to watch the World Cup. Giant screens will come up — from the quarter-final stage — at Kulikawn, Burrabazar, Chandmari and Zarkawn in Aizawl for the public.

Tripura’s former footballer Bimal Roy Chowdhury summed up the mood of the state with an anecdote of how he had offered “special puja at the local Laxmi Narayan temple for Brazil’s success in the final match of 1970 World Cup with Italy”. And Brazil did win.

Traditionally, football fans of Tripura have always rooted for Brazil but since the emergence of Argentina as a football powerhouse in 1978 and especially after Maradona’s performance in 1986, Tripura’s fan following has been sharply polarised between the South American giants.

Arunachal Pradesh, however, seemed totally indifferent to the craze. Most of the youths are not even aware of the World Cup and even among those who are, there is hardly any interest. This, despite the fact that the state’s under-19 team drubbed Jammu and Kashmir recently in a match of the Junior National Championship in Calcutta.

For the rest of the Northeast, such an attitude may be blasphemy.

Ask Raghav Saikia, a student of Class X in Don Bosco in Jorhat, who was born as “Salenko” during the 1994 World Cup. Or his football-crazy uncle.

As the action starts tomorrow, they will certainly be among those staunch fans who will sit glued to the TV. And shout in joy or cry in despair.

Melting Mountains Put Millions at Risk in Northeast India and Asia: Study

By David Fogarty

 Singapore, Jun 11 : Increased melting of glaciers and snow in the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau threatens the food security of millions of people in Asia, a study shows, with Pakistan likely to be among the nations hardest hit.

A team of scientists in Holland studied the impacts of climate change on five major Asian rivers on which about 1.4 billion people, roughly a fifth of humanity, depend for water to drink and to irrigate crops.

The rivers are the Indus, which flows through Tibet and Pakistan, the Brahmaputra, which carves its way through Tibet, northeast India and Bangladesh, India's Ganges and the Yangtze and Yellow rivers in China.

Studies in the past have assumed that a warmer world will accelerate the melting of glaciers and snow in the Himalayas and Tibetan Plateau, which act like water towers, the study published in the latest issue of the journal Science says.

But a lack of data and local measurement sites has hampered efforts to more precisely figure out the magnitude of climate change impacts on particular countries, the numbers of people affected in coming decades and the likely effects on crops.

The issue is crucial for governments to assess the future threats from disputes over water, mass migration and therefore political risk for investors.

Lead author Walter Immerzeel and his team conducted a detailed analysis looking at the importance of meltwater for each river, observed changes to Himalayan and Tibetan glaciers and the effects of global warming on the water supply from upstream basins and on food security.

Immerzeel, a hydrologist at Dutch consultancy FutureWater and Utrecht University, said he believed his team was the first to use a combination of computer modeling, satellite imagery and local observations for all major Asian basins.

They found that meltwater was extremely important for the Indus basin and important for the Brahmaputra basin, but played only a modest role for the Ganges, Yangtze and Yellow rivers.

WARNING SIGNAL

The Brahmaputra and Indus basins are also most susceptible to reductions of flow because of climate change, threatening the food security of an estimated 60 million people, or roughly the population of Italy.

"The effects in the Indus and Brahmaputra basins are likely to be severe owing to the large population and the high dependence on irrigated agriculture and meltwater," the authors say in the study.

For the Yellow River in northern China, the reverse appeared true with climate change likely to lead to more rainfall upstream, which, when retained in reservoirs, could benefit irrigation downstream.

The findings are a warning signal for Pakistan in particular whose growing population of 160 million people is heavily dependent on the Indus to grow wheat, rice and cotton from which the nation earns hard currency.

Immerzeel said adaptation was crucial.

"The focus should be on agriculture as this is by far the largest consumer of water," he told Reuters in an email interview.

"You could think of measures such as different crop varieties which are less water consuming, different water management, or by providing economic incentives to farmers to use less water."

[ via Reuters ]

Northeast Students Find Helping Hands in Campus

By Tenzin Nyima

New Delhi, Jun 11 : Ngamgoulem Kipgen, a DU applicant from Manipur, feels lost in Delhi. The 19-year-old has applied for a the Geography (Honours) course but is finding it difficult to adjust in a new place.

"I come from a small town in Manipur and this sudden exposure in an unfamiliar city is tough to handle," she said.

But students like Kipgen have help at hand as many of them from Northeastern states such as Manipur and Nagaland have formed organizations to help students during the admission process.

The Nagaland Student Union, Delhi  (NSUD), which is among the largest organizations in Delhi for Northeastern  students, comprises more than 14,000  members. It helps students fill application forms and also helps them fight discrimination and is functional throughout the year.

Students from the Northeastern states often complain of discrimination and abuse. "I have many friends who were refused accommodations in PGs as they hail from the Northeast.

Landlords often pass snide remarks on the character of girls," said Chupalemba Chang (22), a DU graduate.

"Last year, 39 cases of abuse, molestation and rape of people belonging to Northeastern states were recorded. The number keeps increasing each year," said Madhu Chandra, spokesperson, Northeastern Support Centre and Helpline.

Besides these, there are other groups such as the Kuki Student Organisation with 700 members in Delhi that also supports students financially.

Manipur Blockade Likely to be Lifted Shortly: Pillai

By Iboyaima Laithangbam

Two fasting leaders arrested after their condition deteriorated

— PHOTO: RITU RAJ KONWAR
President of the Manipur People's Party Nimaichand Luwang (second from left) and vice-president Sapam Dhananjoy (second from right) being brought to hospital after their arrest, in Imphal on Thursday. They were on a fast-unto-death since Monday.

Imphal, Jun 11 : Union Home Secretary G.K. Pillai and leaders of the Naga Students Federation (NSF) indicated on Thursday that the blockade imposed on Manipur by the NSF on May 3 would be lifted shortly.

But there is no word from the All-Naga Students' Association Manipur (ANSAM), which has blocked National Highways 39 and 53, the lifeline of Manipur, since April 11 in protest against the conduct of the elections to the Autonomous District Councils.

NSF leaders entered Manipur through the Mao gate on May 3 “to watch the situation” ahead of a proposed visit to Manipur by Thuingaleng Muivah, general secretary of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim. But they were turned away. Soon after their return to Nagaland, they announced the blockade.

Talking to a news channel, Mr. Pillai said the blockade might be lifted shortly. But it would have been better if the Manipur government allowed Mr. Muivah to visit his home village. He said the State government had feared that Mr. Muivah would sabotage the ADC elections.

Talking to journalists at Shillong a few days ago, Mr. Pillai wanted the blockade lifted. The limit of tolerance was crossed, he said, and the organisers would be pulled up.

A five-member delegation of the NSF is in New Delhi.

Reports said the NSF had written to Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi, hinting that the blockade might be relaxed “within a short period of time” in view of the appeals by several organisations.

Nevertheless, the NSF said it still objected to the deployment of the State forces in what it regarded as the Naga areas and the promulgation of the prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code.

However, much water has flowed under the bridge: the Manipur government declared a cash reward for information leading to the arrest of the acting presidents of the ANSAM and the United Naga Council, both close allies of the NSF, following a directive from the High Court.

Furthermore, Nagaland has started suffering from a counter-blockade imposed by several organisations at Karbi Along, a district of Assam, after the NSF rejected appeals to lift the blockade on Manipur. The supporters of the counter- blockade damaged oil tankers and goods-laden trucks. Truckers now refuse to ply to Nagaland.

The police arrested the Manipur People's Party president Nimaichand Luwang and vice-president Sapam Dhananjoy, who have been on a fast unto death Since Monday demanding the lifting of the blockade. They were taken to hospital for nose-feeding after their conditioned worsened.

Talking to journalists, Manipur People's Party leaders said both the leaders would continue their protest in prison. They charged the government with failure to take any concrete step to clinch an agreement with the tribal bodies that imposed the blockade.

The Gorkhas, Migrant Nepalis and India

Shyam Prasad Pokharel, a migrant Nepali coal mine labourer in Jaintia Hills, Meghalaya

By Dinesh Wagle

During the course of my week-long stay in Shillong (and other parts of Meghalaya and Assam) I interacted with many Gorkhas and Nepalis both in their homes and offices. Some of them came to see me at the guest house in Jhalupara where I was staying. Jhalupara neighbourhood resembles most Nepali towns where Narayan Gopal blares at the music kiosk and youths playing Counter Strike video game scream Nepali expletives. A person I was meeting at the guest house called me beforehand to ask an unexpected question: “Do you think you are being followed by the Meghalayan intelligence?”

The person had more questions later when we met: Why do you think Nepalis are harassed in Meghalaya when they intensify their demand for statehood in Darjeeling? Why were Nepalis evicted from Bhutan around the time Gorkhas were agitating in Darjeeling? Who really killed Madan Tamang (two weeks ago in a gruesome day-light murder in Darjeeling) at a time when the Gorkhaland movement had reached a crucial stage? Don’t you think the Indian government is unnecessarily worried about the possible movement for greater Nepal (of pre-Sugauli treaty days)? Don’t you think the Indian establishment is doing injustice to Nepali speaking Indians by not trusting their commitment to the Indian union?

“Look, I am not a Nepali,” he said. “I am an Indian with Nepali blood flowing in my veins. That blood boils when the so-called mainland Indians question my Indianness. I can’t hide my eyes, my nose and my tone, can I? , They keep looking for opportunities to associate us with Nepal and make a point that we are not Indians. I tell them we are not plants for whom roots are a matter of life and death. I was born in India like my father. So I am an Indian.Nepalis, let alone Gorkhas like us who are Indians of Nepali origin, are dying or ready to sacrifice their lives to defend you and your borders. Don’t question our commitment to India- I tell them.”

That is why Nepali speaking Indians are looking for an identity that retains their Nepali connection and remembers their glorious history but, they hope, portrays them as Indians. Thus the change in telephone greeting. The chief of the volunteering unit of Guwahati-based All Assam Gorkha Student Union no longer says ‘hello’. “Jai Gorkha,” he thunders if the person on the other end is a Nepali speaker, especially from northeast and Darjeeling area of India. “We are not Nepalis,” he says. “We are Gorkhas.”

Some Gorkhas feel the free movement of Nepalis into India is creating confusion among Indians as to which Nepali speaker is a Nepali and which is an Indian. They believe the 1950 Indo-Nepal treaty of peace and friendship that allows visa-free movement of citizens between two countries is the root cause of the problem. “We have been demanding the abrogation of the treaty and the implementation of a visa system since 1985,” said Bir Bahadur Chhetri, president of the Meghalaya unit of Bharatiya Gorkha Parisangh and ex-Bharatiya Janata Party leader in the state. Some Khasi organizations are also demanding the same. They argue that the treaty shouldn’t be implemented in Meghalaya. Other Gorkhas, under pressure from Khasis, issued a statement two weeks ago demanding abrogation the treaty when the situation was tense in Meghalaya. (Khasis were attacking and killing Nepalis and Gorkhas alike to avenge the May 14 Lampi (or Langpih) firing in which Assam police killed four Khasis who were part of the mob that attacked Gorkhas and police in the village that is claimed by both Assam and Meghalaya.)

“These people who call themselves Gorkhas look down upon Nepalis,” said Yubaraj Acharya, vice president of the northeast unit of pro-CPN UML Migrant Nepali Association, India. “Khasis don’t separate Nepalis from Gorkhas while beating, killing and evicting us. They target the Nepali language speaking community. For them all are Nepalis, foreigners. We are all migrants here.”

“But we are not migrants,” countered a Gorkha who was listening to our conversation. “We are Gorkhas. We are Indians, not Nepalis. Yes, the language we speak is Nepali but then English is spoken not just in England but also in America and Australia.”

Nepalis feel India should respect the treaty and ensure their safety as long as the treaty exists. “Nepalis are not secure in the whole of northeast, let alone Meghalaya,” Acharya said. “They are often harassed. The government of India should ensure the safety of Nepalis living in this region.”

Lack of security may be the case for general Nepalis but the government of India, it seems, is very serious about the safety of Nepali diplomats or visiting high-level officials. That is why, perhaps, India rarely allows Nepali diplomats or visiting dignitaries to go to its northeastern region. “Isn’t it ironic that no minister from Nepal has ever visited this region where tens of thousands of Nepalis live and work?” Acharya said. “Well, at least not in Meghalaya where I have been living in the past 45 years except for the SAARC summit a decade ago.”

When the ex Nepali ambassador to India Bhesh Bahadur Thapa visited Guwahati in 2002 he was reportedly the first Nepali envoy to visit the region since 1967. He complained about the uncooperative attitude of the Indian foreign ministry that dissuaded embassy officials from going to the northeast citing the lack of security. Last year two diplomats from the Nepali embassy in Delhi visited Guwahati in their personal capacity to take part in a program that a Guwahati-based literary group had organized with the financial assistance of Nepal-India joint venture BP Koirala Foundation. Later they complained of not being allowed to interact with the Nepali migrants in the city by the ‘organizers’ who, the migrants suspect, were under pressure from the Indian establishment.

Despite all the turmoil on the streets and political instability, Nepal, it seems, is more peaceful and hospitable. Indian envoys are not only allowed to visit but very much welcome in any part of the country including the picturesque Mustang valley bordering China.

“Nepalis are complaining about the lack of interaction with the governments of northeast India and Nepal at the higher levels,” I asked Mukul Sangma, the chief minister of Meghalaya, during an interview at his office. “How do you address that?”

“There will soon be an official interaction at the top level,” he said. “We are organizing an energy summit in Shillong soon. We are expecting high level delegations from Nepal and Bangladesh.”

PS: On the last day of my stay in Shillong, as I was preparing to leave for Guwahati to catch a train to Delhi, a smiling and soft-speaking Gorkha came to see me. “I work for the MHA,” he said meaning India’s Ministry of Home Affairs.

“IB?” I asked meaning Intelligence Bureau.

“Why lie to you?” he said. “Yes, I am from the IB.”

**This article first appeared on Sunday (6 June) issue of The Kathmandu Post

From The Sidelines

By Rajdeep Sardesai

Some people believe football is a matter of life and death, I am very disappointed with that attitude. I can assure you it is much, much more important than that. - Liverpool coach Bob Paisley

If sports is modern-day religion, then for the next five weeks, football will be venerated as a global deity. No other sport has successfully touched a chord with so many millions across the globe as The Beautiful Game has. Thirty-two countries will compete for the Holy Grail of football, the Fifa World Cup. They will range from tiny Slovenia to five-time winners Brazil. Much has changed since the first World Cup in 1930 when barely 13 countries made the trip to Montevideo in Uruguay. On the road to South Africa, 208 countries participated in the qualifying matches (more than the Olympics, more than the member-countries of the United Nations). One thing hasn’t changed though: India will reaffirm its standing as a world-class spectator nation.

Ironically, India did qualify for the World Cup of 1950, but had to withdraw because its request to play barefoot was rejected by Fifa. The 50s and early-60s were, in fact, perhaps the only period when Indian football showed some signs of being able to compete at international level. India won the 1951 and 1962 Asian Games gold, and quite remarkably, finished fourth in the 1956 Melbourne Olympics with a team that at the last could wear boots! In the current world rankings, India is ranked 133, just above Bermuda, Tajikistan and Barbados, but below Faroe Islands, Fiji and Luxembourg, the populations of which might barely match a south Delhi residential colony.

Why is it that the world’s second most populous country won’t be competing in the ultimate mass sports event? (Remember, even China qualified once for the 2002 World Cup.) There is, of course, the usual argument of how our obsession with cricket has reduced other team sports, including the original national game of hockey, to the margins. That may be true, especially in the deplorable manner in which major corporates have shunned sports outside of cricket. But it still doesn’t provide a full explanation as to why football should lose out in the manner it has. Brazilians are obsessed with football in the near-manic manner of cricket in this country. Yet that hasn’t prevented them from producing world-class teams in a range of other sports from volleyball to basketball.

It also isn’t as if Indians aren’t passionate about football. Watch a game in Margao, Shillong or Kozhikode, and the exuberance of the fans can match the best in the world. I have deliberately left out Kolkata, the home of Indian football, because Kolkata at one level has come to symbolise the decline of the sport. For Kolkatans, football for the longest time was about narrow parochialism: East Bengal versus Mohun Bagan was the ‘life and death’ contest. Instead of truly professionalising club football, Kolkata allowed it to lapse into a cesspool of mediocrity, much like the rest of Bengal.

For the longest time, the Calcutta Football League, played on poor grounds with limited infrastructure, appeared to satisfy the Bengali fans’ appetite for the sport. By the time the ineffectual football administrators woke up to the need to truly professionalise the league, it was simply too late. The rest of the world had left us far behind.

Ironically, the wake-up call came with the arrival of satellite television in the 1990s. Suddenly, the Indian football fan was exposed to the best talent in the world, not just once every four years at a World Cup, but virtually every weekend through the live telecast of the major soccer leagues. The quality of the football on show made us realise just how much we had lost out in a rapidly-changing sport, how second rate imports from Africa or Latin America could never be a substitute for the real thing. Today, a generation of Indians is being born who are Manchester United and Real Madrid fans and not that of an Indian football team; fans who idolise a Wayne Rooney before they would a Baichung Bhutia.

In a sense, this ‘globalisation’ of sport also provides an opportunity to revive football in the country. As the next few weeks will confirm, there is an enormous appetite to watch football in this country. The challenge is to translate this popular appeal for the sport into a genuine footballing culture. This would require, for starters, a need to shed a certain Brahminical disdain for playing physical ‘contact’ sport. Every school must have a football ground as a way to ‘democratise’ the sport, every child must be encouraged to kick the ball. Indian cricket has succeeded as it truly democratised itself, moving beyond the traditional elites of Mumbai and metropolitan India. Football, too, by laying a solid foundation in the North-east for example, can actually become an aspirational sport, an opportunity for the non-cricketing centres to find a place in the country’s sporting sun.

None of this will happen overnight. It will probably need a 20-year plan. We may never be able to compete with the physically superior Europeans and Africans, or the artistic Latin Americans. But as the relative football success of a Japan and even a China has shown, if there is a willingness to invest in the future, it’s possible to reap the rewards over time. We may never play in the World Cup in my lifetime, but can’t we at least work to recapturing some pride in the Asian context?

Post-script: Since I can’t wave an Indian flag at the World Cup, I am planning to make Portugal my team. My Goan blood won’t let me have it any other way!

Rajdeep Sardesai is Editor-in-Chief, IBN Network 
**The views expressed by the author are personal

Mizoram Prepares to Meet Disasters

Aizawl, Jun 10 : Mizoram is the first among the Indian states to raise State Disaster Response Force, which is currently undergoing its first batch of training at Central Training Institute at Sesawng, about 40 kms from here.

Disaster Management and Rehabilitation Minister N K Chakma, accompanied by his Cabinet colleague H Liansailova, today visited the ongoing training sessions.

Instructors from the Ist battalion NDRF (National Disaster Response Force), Guwahati, were teaching 50 policemen, selected from Ist and 2nd Bn Mizoram Armed Police, how to carry out rescue and relief operations during natural calamities and man-made disasters.

While interacting with the trainees, the Minister said every part of the world is in danger of facing natural and man-made disasters due to rapid climate change, therefore such disaster response training is must.

He pointed out that even as Mizoram is annually ravaged by disasters such as fires, landslides and cyclonic storms, rescue operations could not be carried out smoothly due to lack of training. ''Basic training in disaster management will help us carry out rescue work more efficiently and minimize casualties,'' he opined.

Cabinet Minister S Hiato also encouraged the trainees to learn as much as possible from the training as they are supposed to further mobilise the general masses in disaster management. ''You must be prepared to give even your lives if need be to save others,'' he stated.

Mizoram State Disaster Response Force has four companies, viz, Ist and 2nd battalions each of MAP and Indian Reserve Police.

The first batch of training started from May 24 and will last till June 19.

Did Sarah Palin Get Breast Implants?

Did Sarah Palin get breast implants? That seems to be the question du jour. Palin showed up to the Belmont Stakes last weekend wearing a white t-shirt that has some people saying her girls might have been surgically enhanced.

Here's an image of Palin as she appeared on the cover of Newsweek last November and at the Belmont Stakes this past weekend. (Image via Fox News)

FOX was all over this story.