Tripura Governor Fears Earthquake

Tripura Governor Dnyandeo Yashwantrao Patil (Left)Fears Earthquake

Agartala, Apr 18 : Concerned over earthquakes hitting Tripura, Governor Dnyandeo Yashwantrao Patil has expressed his keenness to shift residence from the 95-year-old Raj Bhavan building in Agartala, according to officials.

The fear has also spread to the state's legislative assembly building, where lawmakers feel it's time they moved out from the 110-year-old structure.

"Tripura has occasionally been hit by quakes. The governor seriously expressed his wish to shift from the Raj Bhavan to a newly built state guest house," a top official, who did not want to be identified, told IANS.

The fear over quakes has increased in Tripura after the massive earthquake followed by tsunami that hit Japan March 11, claiming thousands of lives and causing all-round destruction.

The north-eastern region of India, that includes Tripura, falls in Zone V, the sixth worst quake-prone belt in the world, according to geological studies.

"We have already decided to built a new Raj Bhavan at Khejur Bagan, eight kilometres north of Agartala, and turn the present Raj Bhavan building into a Rabindra Museum," the official said.

He added: "As a tribute to the great Nobel laureate poet Rabindranath Tagore's 150th birth anniversary the state government would set up a museum and research centre at the Pushpavant Palace, currently the governor's residence (Raj Bhavan). Tagore had visited Tripura seven times between 1899 and 1926."

The Nobel laureate stayed in the palace during his last visit to the state in February 1926.

The Pushpavant Palace was constructed in early 1917 by the then king Maharaja Birendra Kishore Manikya (1909-1923).

The official, however, said that if the governor shifts from Raj Bhavan to the state guest house, it would be a problem for both officials and security personnel and the governor himself.

The Tripura government officials and ministers are trying to convince the governor to stay at the Raj Bhavan till the new building was constructed.

"The state government has asked the PWD (public works department) engineers to speed up the works on the construction of the new Raj Bhavan," the official said.

There is concern over the legislative assembly building as well.

Congress legislator Gopal Roy, voicing his worry, recently told Speaker Ramendra Chandra Debnath: "Sir, we should move away from this 110-year-old palace (currently the assembly house) because we may get killed if a quake hits the state."

Roy reminded the speaker that the north-eastern region has been frequently experiencing earthquakes.

The two-storeyed mansion Ujjayanta Palace, at present the Tripura legislative assembly, was built by then Maharaja Radhakishore Manikya Bahadur in 1899-1901. It was the command centre of the erstwhile princely rulers.

A major earthquake that struck Agartala in 1897 had caused substantial damage to the palace that was then under construction.

The Geological Survey of India had earlier notified that the mountainous north-eastern region could experience major earthquakes.

Assam experienced a massive tremor measuring 8.5 on the Richter scale Aug 15, 1950, that claimed some 1,500 lives.

The worst quake, measuring 8.7, was felt in the region in 1897. It killed 1,600 people.

First Meeting Of Lokpal Joint Panel Ends

New Delhi, Apr 18 : The joint drafting committee on Lokpal Bill Saturday had its first meeting when civil society representatives presented a new draft of the legislation to the government with both sides expressing hope that the new law will be brought in Monsoon session of Parliament.  

The 90-minute meeting chaired by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and co-chaired by eminent lawyer Shanti Bhushan was audio-recorded and not videographed as demanded by the civil society activists.

HRD Minister Kapil Sibal, one of the five ministers nominated to the committee, said after the meeting that both the sides were keen that the new Bill should be introduced in the Monsoon session, which begins early July.

The next meeting of the ten-member committee will be held on 2nd May. Sibal said both sides presented their perspective on the proposed legislation. The latest draft presented by the civil society representatives had "significant" proposals, he added.

The Minister said the entire meeting was audio-recorded and whenever decisions are taken they would be made public.

He said the committee would discuss the draft provided by the activists along with the draft cleared by the Standing Committee which would be circulated.

The new draft presented by the civil society is believed to have amended an earlier provision relating to the selection committee to choose Lokpal and its members.

Under the new proposal, Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition have replaced Rajya Sabha Chairman and Lok Sabha Speaker as proposed in the old draft.

Sibal said the next meeting will decide on the modality of public consultations on the legislation. Another Minister, who attended the meeting, said the new draft presented by the civil society was "better" than the last one and it includes better provisions on safeguard mechanism.

He said the government was ready to discuss anything but "time was short" to conduct public consultations.

A member from the civil society in the panel said the government had not agreed to publicise the audio-tapes of though they have agreed to make public the minutes of the meeting.

Government sources said audio recordings of all meetings is done and there was nothing new in it. However, they said audio-recordings will not be shared and only minutes of the meetings will be shared.

Prashant Bhushan, one of the members in the panel from the civil society side, said all concerned organisations will be consulted as part of the public consultations through websites and regional consultations.

The actual modalities will be decided in the next meeting, he said. He said India is a signatory of the UN Convention against Corruption which is in the process of being ratified.

The Convention requires an independent Lokpal for which an adequate Bill will be made through discussions.

"The fundamental principles will be decided in the next meeting. After that there would be meetings every week, may be more than one day if required, to complete the work," Bhushan said.

Anna Hazare, who led the campaign that forced the government to agree to the constitution of the joint committee and who is a member of the committee, said the meeting went off well. "It is because of you we achieved this success," he told the media.

Crime Rate in Mizoram Goes Downhill

Aizawl, Apr 18 : Around the clock surveillance, coupled with active cooperation from NGOs, has pushed crime rate in Mizoram downhill, according to DIG, Northern Range, L Hrangnawna.

The months of February and March this year have seen a 18.90 per cent decline in crime rate, compared to the corresponding period last year, the DIG said at a quarterly crime review meeting at the police headquarters here today.

Mizoram police have registered 446 cases (312 IPC cases and 134 non-IPC cases) during February-March this year, as against 550 (408 IPC cases and 142 non-IPC cases) during the corresponding months last year.

Addressing the review meeting, Mr Hrangnawna said, the decline in crime rate is attributed to hard work and dedication of the police and good co-operation from the general public.

Except Saiha district in southern Mizoram which has witnessed a 18.75 per cent increase, all the districts of the state have seen decline in crime rate with Kolasib district bordering Assam at 54.76 per cent decline.

Aizawl district has witnessed a 30.94 per cent decrease in crime rate.

The crime rate in January this year was also a 23.48 per cent decrease, compared to last year’s January.

Police registered 189 criminal cases during this year’s January, against 247 cases last year.

In the meantime, while divulging his satisfaction in nabbing criminals and handling cases, the DIG said police should not forget its duty to maintain law and order.

Development Requires Secure Environment: GK Pillai

By Soma Banerjee & Avinash Celestine

GK Pillai , home secretary, and Sudha Pillai, member-secretary of the Planning Commission , could well be bureaucracy's No. 1 power couple. They had a candid chat with Sunday ET on their work and their life together. Excerpts:

On the agitation led by Anna Hazare and the joint committee
Sudha: I would refer to the Hindi muhavra: Jiska kaam usiko saajhe...

GK: I agree with the objectives. But I do have concerns on his inflexibility-take it or leave it.

That is not democratic. We have to consider all points of view and see to the practical side too.

On how bureaucrats should conduct their lives
GK : Individuals have to choose the life they want. A bureaucrat with a government scale salary can only do so much.

You can't get into a five-star lifestyle and if you do, in a way, it is a compromise. We took some hard decisions when we entered this field. For example, I don't own a single share of any company. Several bureaucrats have invested in stocks.

I am not saying it's right or wrong. I made a choice not to buy stocks because they could interfere with my decisions. I worked with departments like commerce and shipping and was taking decisions that affected companies in these industries. What if Reliance sent a proposal and I owned shares of the company?

I would be aware of the impact of my decisions on the company and its stock price. There would be a conflict of interest. So Sudha and I try to be as neutral as possible.

On whether bureaucrats should speak their minds
Sudha: I haven't suffered for being outspoken. In fact, the people I worked for encouraged me to speak my mind. For instance, in the late '80s I was with the industry ministry where major economic decisions were being taken. Mistakes could lead to huge problems so we had to point them out. If we had a gut feeling there was something amiss, we would probe a little more and find the missing piece of the puzzle. If I didn't speak up then, my intellectual honesty would be compromised. It is the job of the bureaucrat to work harder to ensure maximum information is available and that due diligence is done.

If you have taken a decision in good faith, then it is your background and reputation that protect you. Say, it is known you are not fond of the good life. Automatically, there is some protection.

In this system, you have to be lucky not to encounter too many such situations. But if you do, it is best to speak your mind. Not pointing out something you know can backfire later. A public servant's life should be open. You cannot have skeletons in the cupboard.

On whether PJ Thomas should have been appointed as CVC at all
GK: Almost everybody in the bureaucracy agrees that the choice was bad. I believe the CVC must be appointed unanimously by the prime minister, home minister and the leader of the opposition, not by a simple majority.

This bolsters the CVC's credibility. He can claim to be chosen by all and is not a Congress or Bharatiya Janata Party ( BJP )) candidate. Then every decision will be above board and no one can say he is partisan. There are several officers who could have been a unanimous choice. As for Thomas, he should have quit the moment the scandal broke.

On Sudha Pillai not being made cabinet secretary
GK: I can't think of any reason for ignoring her. Sudha was the senior-most officer next in line so her appointment did not require a special favour. It is the government's loss.

Sudha: I don't know what worked against me. Maybe it was because I don't have an identity-Malayali, Punjabi and the like. I honestly didn't care enough to find out. I have never been a controversial officer. I have been very measured: working within the system, not making waves. I do not know and it is not for me to think. It's the prerogative of the decision-makers.

On gender bias and bureaucracy
Sudha: When I was appointed as principal secretary finance, government of Kerala and then labour secretary, everybody said I was the first woman to occupy those positions. Today they say I am the first woman member secretary of the Planning Commission. I don't take these remarks seriously. My happiest stint was in the labour ministry. We took a lot of gutsy decisions because the minister trusted us absolutely.

On whether they have different views on Naxalism, given their different jobs

GK: No. There is a need for development but it requires a secure environment. In the absence of security, officers won't go to the places they are posted to and roads, schools and panchayat buildings won't be built. Security and development must go hand in hand. It is taking time because we are acutely undermanned. The biggest mistake after 1991 was to follow the Geeta Krishnan report which advised downsizing the government. Half the districts in the country don't have collectors. For every three people who retire, we replace one. It's the same with school teachers.

Sudha: Development and security are two sides of the same coin. They are tied together. The big problem is the money required in getting systems in place. Almost `25,000 crore is needed for just meeting basic infrastructure requirement in 60 integrated action plan districts in the country. Reviews have to be done. Almost like what I did as a collector-reviewing how the government funds are allocated, where it is used, in building schools, drinking water facilities, etc.

The toughest jobs of their career
GK: My posting in the North-east. I did not know much about their culture. I read 65 books just on Nagaland, and I was told there are 83 books on the state.

Once there, I realised how important it is to understand the tribal psyche. For instance, every answer for them is a yes or a no, there are no blurred lines. You have to be very careful about what you say. If you say 'we will think about it', they will interpret it as a yes. Later, if you say it cannot be done, they will assume you have not kept your word.

Similarly, their tribal council is either for or against something-there is no in between. The tribals are honest and they listen attentively. If you interrupt them, they assume you are not listening. He would have prepared for that speech and if you interrupt you have lost them. And they respect you for your decision, even if the answer is a 'no'.

Sudha: I am like that so I must be a tribal. Jokes apart, I had quite a few difficult assignments. But most exacting was the eight months I worked with Chief Justice Pathak, the inquiry authority on the Volcker report on the food for oil issue and Natwar Singh's role in it.

I was unprepared for the assignment-it was not what I typically do. The miracle is that we finished the probe in eight months. It could have dragged on for eight years. Just doing what had to be done was a great learning experience.

Same Nation, But A World Apart

By Gangadharan Menon 



Mumbai, Apr 18 : Connected to the rest of the country by a thin umbilical cord along the northern border of Bangladesh, the Northeast has mostly been off the tourist trail for various reasons. But if you’re game for some adventure, there’s a whole new world to be explored out there.

My journey to discover this secret land actually began on this side of the umbilical cord, in the equally mysterious Sunderbans of West Bengal.

We took a bus from Kolkata to Sonakhali, and then a long boatride to the heart of the largest mangrove forest in the world. Standing at the hull of the boat, I felt like Columbus in search of the New World and that feeling stayed with me for the next three weeks till I boarded the return flight from Imphal at the end of my trip.

The Sunderbans was the perfect appetizer for the main course to follow. It’s a magical place where islands appear during low tide and disappear at high tide. The animals have adapted superbly to this ever-changing landscape.

The deer eat salty grass, and the majestic Royal Bengal Tiger swims from one island to another. Dreading these man-eaters, the womenfolk here have evolved a strange custom. When the men leave their homes in the morning, the married women remove all their ornaments and spend the day as widows; it’s only after their husbands return home safely in the evening that they wear these ornaments again.

Sunset in the Sunderbans is like nowhere else on earth. At the meeting point of high tide and low tide, the water starts swirling, building up into a gigantic whirlpool in various hues of red, orange and yellow. It’s as if they’re God’s own water colours.

Abode of the clouds
The gateway to the Northeast is Guwahati in Assam, from where we travelled south to Meghalaya or the Abode of the Clouds. It’s home to three colourful tribes that have a matriarchal way of life and also an interesting custom of inheritance. The youngest in the family inherits the most, possibly to make up for having ageing parents.

Earlier, Cherrapunji was known to be the wettest place on earth, but recently the baton has passed on to the nearby Mawsynram. Here the trunks of gigantic trees look perennially soggy, and wear a wet cloak of pre-historic moss. From a vantage point in this town, you can see a garland of seven waterfalls, fondly referred to as Seven Sisters by the locals. Nearby in a place called Laitkynsew, there were ‘living bridges’ across rivers, made from the living roots of gigantic ficus trees.

As I stood at Dawki on the border of India and Bangladesh, an eagle soared nonchalantly into the skies of the neighbouring country, unmindful of the unnatural borders created by man.

Encounter with extortionists
The journey through Assam to the exotic Arunachal Pradesh took us through Karbi Anglong, teeming with militants. When a gang of extortionists tried to stop our car, I asked the driver to get into overdrive and whiz past them, knowing that on our return journey we wouldn’t need to come back this way.

Our destination was Tawang in the northern-most part of Arunachal Pradesh, the world’s second largest monastery that’s home to over 600 Buddhist monks. After a breathtaking climb to 12,500 feet, we broke our journey at Bomdila. Here we witnessed a sunset behind eight ranges of mountains, each with a different tinge of magenta.

On the way to Tawang, we also met the proud descendants of a battalion that had pushed back the Chinese invaders in 1962. As we sipped the hospitality they offered on a cold morning, we saw a row of pine trees rising in the misty mountains, and wondered how a tranquil place like this could have been the scene of a fierce battle.

Arunachal is like many states rolled into one. Stretching from Bhutan to Myanmar, it has as many as 65 tribes in its densely forested hills. They speak in 22 dialects that are so different from each other that they don’t understand each other. It’s an amazingly rich and diverse land, but merely a dozen Indians visit this state every year. A guard at one of the check-posts told us that only a handful of tourists had preceded us in several months.

Stengun-toting soldiers
Nagaland came next on our itinerary and we had to be on extra vigil. As we traversed through the highly volatile state, I kept my hand on a chit in my pocket on which I had written down the phone number of a senior officer in Assam Rifles whom I had befriended at an army check-post.

Then we travelled to another beautiful state that’s riven with insurgency. Manipur is home to 29 tribes, and sadly also to 36 guerilla armies. I was witness here to soldiers armed with sten-guns watching over scores of farmers harvesting their crop with a song on their lips and a prayer in their hearts.

In Manipur, an unbelievable sight is that of the floating islands of Loktak Lake. These circular islands with a diameter of just 20 feet, and thickness as little as 1 foot, float serenely in the lake. They were created by nature from floating weeds compressed over time.

Today, lush green grass grows on them, where nimble-footed deer feed, hopping from one floating island to another. In the morning, you may find these islands huddling in one corner of the lake, and in the evening, they may be in another part of the lake, gently transported by the breeze.

Our return flight was from Imphal, the capital of Manipur. Unfortunately, one of the 36 guerilla armies had decided to call for a state-wide bandh that very day. Bandhs were nothing new to us, however, and we left in the wee hours of the morning to reach the airport before the guerillas could stir from their beds.

Yes, there were many anxious moments right through our three-week journey through some of the little explored areas of the Northeast, but then what’s exploration without a little adventure?

Source: DNA

Gaddafi in Mizoram: Aizawl Assault

By Jaideep Mazumdar

SHELL SHOCK: A former MNF rebel shows a shell he recovered from Hnahlan, one of the villages that was bombed.

Long before Muammar Gaddafi bombed his own people, IAF fighters in March 1966 strafed and dropped incendiary bombs on Aizawl, now Mizoram's capital, to crush the Mizo insurgency.

The bombing, which marked the beginning of horrific atrocities committed by Indian armed forces, was never reported in the media and isn't acknowledged by New Delhi.

But the wounds still fester and Mizos are now demanding an apology.

New Delhi's first reaction to insurgency breaking out in Mizoram on the night of February 28, 1966, was stupefying.

Even as the Mizo National Front (MNF) rebels started attacking Army and para-military posts all over the Lushai Hills, which was then a district in Assam and is now the state of Mizoram, Indian Air Force (IAF) fighters were despatched to bomb civilian areas in Aizawl (the then district headquarters) and nine other major villages.

On March 5 and 6, 1966, hundreds of incendiary bombs reduced houses, schools, markets, churches and even hospitals to ashes.

Miraculously, just 15 people died in Aizawl, but that was because most of the 10, 000-odd residents of the hill town had fled when fighting between the rebels and Indian security forces broke out.

The IAF fighters - Toofanis and Hunters - flew low over Aizawl and strafed many areas before bombing and devastating the town. The bombings continued with a greater vengeance the next day.

Forty-five years hasn't been long enough to dim the memories of those who witnessed the nation deploying fighter aircraft against its own people. "We were numbed with shock. Even in our wildest dreams we couldn't imagine that fighter aircraft would be sent to bomb Aizawl.

It was a scary sight, those planes buzzing overhead and dropping bombs that would explode in huge balls of fire and devastate every cluster of houses," recalls Zosiami, who was 21 then.

Zosiami left her house in Aizawl's Khaatla area with her parents, four siblings and grandparents once the Mizo rebels launched their attacks, witnessed the bombings from a forest in the nearby Lawipu hill where many had taken shelter. "We returned on March 11 to find our house and all those in our locality totally gutted," she told TOI-Crest.

"Being a Mizo was a crime in those days. We were all suspects," says JV Hluna, who teaches history at Aizawl's Pachhunga University College and has extensively researched and documented the bombings. Hluna was a high school student in Aizawl in 1966.

"On the night of February 28, MNF rebels attacked the district treasury at Aizawl and camps of police and security forces at Lunglei and Champhai.

These two places were captured by the MNF. The rebels ambushed the Assam Rifles (a para-military force commanded by Indian Army officers) battalion headquarters at Aizawl and an Assam Rifles patrol was ambushed at Chanmari area (of Aizawl) on the night of March 3 where five jawans were killed.

And then the bombings started on March 5 and 6. We fled Aizawl on March 4 and took shelter at Zokhawsang village five kilometres away. I saw the fighter planes flying in at about 10 am on March 5 and bombing Aizawl.

The fighters made about eight sorties that day and many more the next day. From Zokhawsang, we heard huge explosions and saw huge plumes of smoke rising. We knew that Aizawl was being destroyed. The feeling was terrible and we were paralysed by fear and shock."

Many government installations, including the Circuit House, were destroyed in the attack. Apart from Aizawl, IAF fighters bombed Khawzawl on March 6, Hnahlan the next day, Sangau on March 8, Thlabung on March 9, Pukpui village on March 13, Bunghmun on March 23, Mualthuam and Tuipui (the native village of Laldenga) on September 6 and Hmuntlang village on January 31, 1967.

PAST IMPERFECT JV Hluna, a history teacher in Aizawl, has extensively researched and documented the bombings and says it used to be a crime to be a Mizo in those days.

New Delhi flatly denied the bombings. "All news of the bombing was blacked out, that is why the rest of the country and the world never got to know of the atrocities, " Denghnuna, who was the government's information and public relations officer at Aizawl then, says.

But word of this 'war crime' did leak out and was raised in the Assam Assembly. The Assam government deputed two MLAs, Stanley DD Nichols Roy and Hoover H Hynniewta, both from Assam's then Khasi Hills district, and Lok Sabha MP from Shillong GG Swell on a fact-finding mission to Aizawl on March 30.

"This team collected a lot of evidence about the bombings and their report is part of Assam Assembly proceedings. Swell, responding to (Prime Minister) Indira Gandhi's statement that only rations were airdropped for besieged Assam Rifles soldiers in Aizawl, produced shell casings in the Lok Sabha, " says Hluna.

He claims that Rajesh Pilot and Suresh Kalmadi were among the IAF pilots who dropped the bombs, a claim endorsed by Denghnuna, who was nominated to the IAS and retired as a senior bureaucrat.

Apart from innumerable witness accounts of the bombings and reports submitted by the Assam Assembly team, a large body of evidence of the bombings also exists. Many families have preserved the brass and copper shell casings they recovered after their return to Aizawl.

Many wonder why New Delhi responded so harshly to the 'Mizo uprising'.

"After Lunglei and Champai fell to the MNF and the Assam Rifles camp in Aizawl was attacked, the government must have panicked and wanted to nip the insurgency in the bud by deploying the Air Force.

It must have wanted to inflict exemplary punishment, " says Hluna. "New Delhi had little knowledge, or sympathy, for the North East and as home minister Gulzarilal Nanda had said, India wanted to 'crush' the Mizos.

Hence excessive force was applied and the civilian population punished, " says Denghnuna, who also fled Aizawl on March 4 and witnessed the bombings. He returned on March 8 to find his house, located near the Assam Rifles camp, intact but its walls pockmarked by bullets.

R Zamawia, who joined the MNF while in college in 1963 and was the commander of the MNF Volunteer Force in March 1966, says the bombings were followed by large-scale entry of Indian troops into the Lushai Hills.

"They ordered evacuation of hundreds of villages which they burnt down. The villagers were resettled in new areas. Thousands were arrested arbitrarily and unspeakable atrocities were committed by them, " says Zamawia, who rose to become the 'defence minister' of the MNF.

C Zama, who has penned 14 books on the Mizo insurgency, including one on the bombing of Aizawl, says the demand for an apology from New Delhi for the bombings is gaining ground in Mizoram.

"I saw the bombings since I was in the 'Mizo National Army' (the MNF's fighting force) and was fighting in Aizawl. No such thing has happened anywhere in the country," he says.

"The wounds suffered by the Mizos are yet to heal. They're festering even though Mizoram is the most peaceful state in the North East today.

The government of India has done nothing for the emotional rehabilitation of the Mizos. This bothers me a lot. The process of reconciliation has to start with an acknowledgement of the atrocities that were committed, " says Denghnuna.

Hluna points out that while PM Manmohan Singh has apologised for Operation Bluestar, that magnanimity has been lacking when it comes to the Mizos.

Since 2007, March 5 is observed as 'Zoram ni' (or Zoram Day) by the powerful Mizo Zirlai Pawl, a civil society group.

Prayers are held all over the state and the people are urged to forgive the perpetrators of the crimes committed on them during the two decades of Mizo insurgency from 1966. The Mizos are willing to forgive, but India has to ask for it first.

THE UPRISING

A terrible famine in the Mizo Hills was the immediate trigger for the insurgency that wracked Mizo Hills for two decades. In 1959, bamboo started flowering in Mizoram (it does so every 40 to 50 years). The flowers draw rodents, who feed on it and multiply in huge numbers.

The rats then started feeding on standing crops, causing acute food shortages and a famine. The Assam government's handling of the famine (called 'Mautam' in Mizo) and providing relief was extremely poor and hundreds died of starvation.

The Mizo Cultural Society, formed with Pu Laldenga as its secretary in 1955, converted itself into 'Mautam Front' to provide relief to the starving rural population in March 1960 and renamed itself Mizo National Famine

Front in September that year. A year later, it became the MNF when, capitalising on the immense goodwill it had earned for its relief works, it started taking up political issues like integrating Mizo-inhabited areas of Manipur, Tripura and the Cachar Hills of Assam contiguous with the Mizo Hills into one administrative unit.

A series of ill-advised moves, like making Assamese the official language in the Mizo Hills and the Assam government's consistent refusal to grant more autonomy to the Mizo Hills Autonomous District Council or grant statehood to the Mizo Hills district led to the outbreak of insurgency.

Laldenga established contact with East Pakistan sometime in 1961 and was promised material and moral support.

The MNF started raising the Mizo National Army (MNA) and sending recruits to East Pakistan for training. When the MNA's strength rose to eight battalions, a secret plan codemaned 'Operation Jericho' was launched to take control of the Mizo Hills.

The plan involved surprise attacks on treasuries, fuel stations, communications facilities, neutralising the police force, taking all senior non-Mizo government officials captive and overpowering camps and bases of Indian security forces all over the Mizo Hills.

After gaining control, the flag of independent Mizoram was to be raised in Aizawl on March 1 and if the flag could be kept flying for 48 hours, Pakistan and other countries would grant diplomatic recognition to Mizoram and get the UN to grant recognition to the new country.

The plan was put into operation from the night of February 28, 1966 and many important places in the Mizo Hills fell to the rebels. Aizawl was also nearly captured by the rebels, but the 1st Assam Rifles battalion held out and foiled the MNF's plans.

'BOMBINGS PROVED DELHI'S COLONIAL MINDSET'
Pu Zoramthanga, a close lieutenant of MNF founder Pu Laldenga and the latter's successor as president of the MNF, feels the bombing of Aizawl and other places in the Mizo Hills was nothing compared to the sufferings inflicted on Mizos by Indian security forces from 1966 to 1986.

"Villages were burnt and their residents shifted to colonies guarded by Indian forces along the highways. Hundreds of women were raped, more than 2, 000 Mizos were killed arbitrarily, properties were looted and the entire community reduced to the stature of slaves, " says Zoramthanga, who was chief minister of Mizoram for two terms from 1998.

Zoramthanga says the MNF was forced to launch preemptive attacks on security forces' camps in the Mizo Hills in March 1966 after the Assam government went back on a 1965 verbal agreement between Laldenga, Assam CM BP Chaliha and Union home minister Gulzarilal Nanda.

"We were promised that no more troops would be sent to the Mizo Hills and that we too shouldn't indulge in violence. We kept our side of the agreement, but the government started moving in troops in early 1966.

Pu Laldenga and the entire MNF leadership would have been arrested and in order to preempt that, we attacked the security forces. But the Indian government's response was shocking and shameful.

Bombing the civilian populace and committing so many unspeakable crimes showed what little regard India had for Mizo lives and honour, " he says.

Zoramthanga says that the two decades of insurgency had left ordinary Mizos, who suffered terribly at the hands of Indian security forces, yearning for peace.

"Prominent NGOs, the Church and many others appealed to us to sit for peace talks and end insurgency. We honoured their sentiments and settled for peace.

We haven't achieved our goal, but then compromises for the greater good and welfare of the people need to be made, " he says in reaction to criticism that the 1986 Mizo peace accord amounted to an abject surrender.

R Zamawia, who was the Mizo National Army's chief and the MNF 'defence minister' from 1965 to 1971, terms the accord a sellout. "The accord only upgraded Mizoram's status from a Union territory to a full state.

Other points (in the accord) were minor and not worth the sacrifices of so many nationalist fighters, " he says. "In 1947, the Mizos were given the option of joining the Indian Union or becoming a British dominion.

Mizo Union, the only political party of the Mizo Hills, took the first option with the precondition that Mizo entry into the Indian Union would be reviewed after 10 years and Mizos would then have the freedom to opt out if they weren't satisfied with their experience of being part of India.

But India never allowed Mizos to review the merger."

Source: Times Of India Crest Edition

Northeast Assault Case: Neighbour Arrested in Delhi

Hmar Youth in Hospital After Assaulted in Munirka, New Delhi


New Delhi, Apr 17 : Three days after a brother-sister duo from the northeast was beaten up by a neighbour in south Delhi, police arrested the main accused in the case, Yudhveer Singh, from Munirka on Friday night.

"We have arrested him from Munirka village where he was hiding. We are interrogating him and will find out who he was with when they beat up the victims and whether he had installed a camera to tape the girl.

It is a matter of investigation and we will soon identify the others involved in the incident," a senior police officer of the area claimed to TOI.

The siblings from Manipur were allegedly beaten up by their neighbour in Munirka after they protested against him making lewd gestures at the girl and allegedly taping her on a spy camera on Tuesday night.

Earlier on Friday, Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) minister BK Handique had asked Delhi police to immediately arrest the culprits involved in the assault. "It is a matter of grave concern that the culprits are yet to be arrested after three days of the incident.

However, we have full confidence in police and we have asked them to arrest the accused immediately," Handique had said.

The incident had taken place around 11pm on Tuesday when the brother objected to neighbour Yudhveer Singh allegedly making lewd gestures at his sister and spying on her. The two siblings were allegedly assaulted by Singh and his associates following the protest. They were rushed to the AIIMS Trauma Centre.

Handique said he was personally keeping a tab on the developments of the case. Following directives from Handique, a senior officer from the DoNER ministry visited the victim and assured the necessary support and help to them.

The officer also met police officials concerned to take stock of the case. Residents of Munirka hailing from the northeast claimed that they faced discrimination regularly and the police rarely took them seriously and harassed them rather than treating them as complainants.

Source: Times Of India

Crack in Tectonic Theory About Tibet

New research questions the established view that Tibet is essentially floating on a layer of molten crust—and suggests a radically new idea.

Earthquake mechanisms and the style of faulting in the Himalaya-Tibet region show that the Himalayan range is under north-south compression, southern Tibet is in east-west extension, and northern Tibet is in both east-west extension and north-south compression. The study shows that this pattern can be explained if the strong Indian crust thrust under southern Tibet is transmitting the north-south push of India to northern Tibet. (Credit: Caltech)

CALTECH (US) — New research questions the established view that Tibet is essentially floating on a layer of molten crust—and suggests a radically new idea.

“Our research proposes the opposite view: that there is actually a really strong lower crust that originates in India,” says Jean-Philippe Avouac, professor of geology at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech).

These insights lead to a better understanding of the processes that have shaped the Himalaya Mountains and Tibet—the most tectonically active continental area in the world.

Alex Copley, a former postdoctoral scholar with Caltech’s Tectonics Observatory, along with Avouac and Brian Wernicke, the Chandler Family Professor of Geology, describe their work in a paper published recently in the journal Nature.

Tibet and the surrounding Himalaya Mountains are among the most dynamic regions on the planet. Avouac points out that underground plate collisions, which cause earthquakes and drive up the Himalaya and Tibet, are common geological processes that have happened repeatedly over the course of Earth’s history, but are presently happening with a vigor and energy only found in that area.

Even though the elevation is uniform across the Tibetan Plateau, the type of stress seen within the plateau appears to change along a line that stretches east-west across the plateau—dividing the region into two distinct areas (southern and northern Tibet, for the purposes of this research.)

The researchers propose that a contrast in tectonic style—primarily east-west extension due to normal faulting in southern Tibet and a combination of north-south compression and east-west extension due to strike-slip faulting in northern Tibet—is the result of the Indian crust thrusting strongly underneath the southern portion of the Tibetan Plateau and locking into the upper crust.

Strike-slip fault surfaces are usually vertical, and the rocks slide horizontally past each other due to pressure build-up, whereas normal faulting occurs where the crust is being pulled apart. They believe that the locked Indian crust alters the state of stress in the southern Tibetan crust, which can explain the contrast in the type of faulting seen between southern Tibet and northern Tibet.

To test their theory, the team performed a series of numerical experiments, assigning different material properties to the Indian crust. The simulations revealed evidence for a strong Indian lower crust that couples, or locks in, with the upper crust. This suggests that the “channel flow” model proposed by many geophysicists and geologists—in which a low-viscosity magma oozes through weak zones in the middle crust—is not correct.

“We have been able to create a model that addresses two long-standing debates,” says Copley, who is now a research fellow at the University of Cambridge. “We have constrained the mechanical strength of the Indian crust as it plunges beneath the Tibetan Plateau, and by doing so have explained the variations in the types of earthquakes within the plateau. This is interesting because it gives us new insights into what controls the behavior of large mountain ranges, and the earthquakes that occur within them.”

According to Wernicke, the results have motivated the team to think of ways to test further the “weak crust” hypothesis, at least as it might apply to the active tectonic system.

“One way we might be able to image an extensive interface at depth is through geodetic studies of southern Tibet, which are ongoing in our research group,” he says.

The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation funded the research. The University of Cambridge provided additional funding for Copley.