No North-easterners To Serve China President in Ahmedabad, Why?

Sinlung Says: We are just wondering why? Are the people from Northeast not Indian enough? or India is afraid Chinese president will see them as its citizens?

By Kuldeep Tiwari

The Gujarat police don't want any untoward incident to mar the Chinese president's visit to Ahmedabad.

Keeping the objective in mind, the police have asked the management of the hotel where Xi Jinping will be staying to ask its staff from northeast India to keep away from the venue on Wednesday.

According to reliable sources, the police don't want anything or anybody to make a bad impression on Xi Jinping.

"So, they have asked the management to communicate verbally with its north-eastern staff and those from Tibet and ask them to stay away from the venue," sources said. It should be noted that the mall and hotel staff, even those from the north-east, had been issued passes. But they have since been told to keep away from the venue.

Likewise, a police source said, "In order to avoid any conflict the police have asked the north-eastern and Tibetan staff at Hyatt hotel and AlphaOne Mall to stay away from the main venue where the function will take place."

The source added that the police might have taken the steps to avoid mistaking north-easterners as Tibetans.

However, both - the police and the managements played it safe and refused to answer any questions related to the development. When contacted, Joint Commissioner of Police (JCP) Special Branch Vikas Sahay said, "I am very busy, we will talk later." Officials at Grand Hyatt hotel also refused to comment on the issue.

BIZ AFFECTED

Meanwhile, cops have asked AlphaOne to close the mall to general public on September 17. As per an estimate, this could cost them a loss of about Rs 35 lakh.

However, the mall has already started feeling the heat. The police, on Monday, had cordoned the entire mall and surrounding roads for security purposes.

Restricting vehicles from entering the mall is like asking people to stay away from the mall as there is hardly any parking space available in the surrounding area, sources said.

This is affecting mall's footfall and business. Likewise, the Hotel Hyatt also won't be able to admit new guests in the hotel from September 16 night till the Chinese President is in residence.

On September 17, the hotel will have to keep their restaurant and cafe closed for the outsiders/visitors for security reasons.

5 Mizoram ‘Evangelists’ Freed On Bail

By Adam Halliday 

Aizawl, Sep 18 : Five members of Mizoram Missionary Society arrested last week from Khargone, Madhya Pradesh, for allegedly offering money to a labourer to embrace Christianity have been released on bail and escorted to safety. The missionary workers were released Tuesday night after being taken into custody on September 12. The society has been working in the state for 27 years.

The missionary society has dismissed the charge that its members were offering Rs 1 lakh to the labourer to convert to Christianity, claiming the missionaries get a monthly stipend of only Rs 6,500 and that they cannot afford to offer such a large sum of money.

Seven people, including two women, from Mizoram had been held under the MP Freedom of Religion Act on September 12 for allegedly offering money to Sunil Prajapati to embrace Christianity in Badwah of Khargone district. While Badwah police claimed that Sunil was the complainant, others said local VHP and Bajrang Dal activists had taken up the matter with police.

The women were released on the same day, but five male members were taken into custody. They have been identified as Vanlalsawma (45), K Lalropluanga (35), Thangsangliana (22), R Laldinfela (21) and Zonunmawia (20).

Lalropluanga told The Indian Express over phone that there was no complainant and that police had reached the spot after being called by local Bajrang Dal workers. The society members were on way to hold a prayer meeting in the house of a villager, but even before they entered the house they were stopped by some people and handed over to police, Lalropluanga said.

In-charge of Badwah Police Station V S Parihar said the five Mizo missionaries were “only involved in evangelism” and that they had been active in Khandwa for a long time.

Nine years ago, three other Christian missionaries from Mizoram had been booked in a similar case in Betul district, but were acquitted seven years later. While defining its work as “direct evangelism”, or going door-to-door and talking about Christianity, the Aizawl-based society said its “core” work involves running Ebenezer English Medium School in MP’s Burhanpur district. It currently has 262 students and 17 teachers, most of them Korku and Rathia tribals as well as Dalits.

“BJP MPs, MLAs and sarpanches have always been supportive,” the society added. However, it described Khargone as a relatively “hostile” area where Catholics have borne the brunt of attacks.

Nagaland Police Unearth illegal Tax Network run by NSCN(IM)

By Samudra Gupta Kashyap

Guwahati, Sep 18 : Three weeks after the newly appointed Governor of Nagaland constituted a high-powered committee to probe illegal taxation in the state, the police have unearthed an organised network, controlled by NSCN(IM) cadre, who were illegally taxing transport and commercial vehicles. The network also involved 17 transport and goods companies.

The police action comes a year after NGOs and tribal bodies launched a statewide movement to check illegal ‘taxes’ imposed by different groups.

Dimapur Police additional SP Wati Jamir said the network was run from the offices of different transport and goods carrier companies. The anti-extortion team of the police said the racket ran into crores of rupees. Several persons have been taken into custody and offices of all companies under scanner have been shut down.

“Based on specific inputs, the investigating team Monday raided and searched the office of one M/S Freight Carriers (India) Pvt Ltd in Dimapur, which led to the recovery and seizure of 43 illegal lorry challans for trucks plying on the Guwahati-Imphal route through Nagaland,” Jamir said.

The police found that the challans had the signature of one John, a NSCN(IM) cadre. The managers of the company, Rajbir Sharma and Vikash Sharma, were taken into custody.

During questioning, the two managers admitted that “taxes” were collected from all Manipur-bound transport trucks by issuing the challans on the direction of the NSCN(IM) cadres.

DoT May Soon Order Solar-Powered Tower Deployments in Northeast

New Delhi, Sep 18 : The telecom department (DoT) will shortly mandate deployment of solar powered towers to boost mobile coverage in the Northeast, especially in mountainous regions close to the Chinese border.

DoT's plans to explore alternate energy sources to run mobile towers in the Northeast follows a recent study by the telecom regulator, which revealed major gaps in telecom coverage in Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Manipur and Meghalaya.

According to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India ( Trai) report, Arunachal Pradesh has the highest coverage gap (55.9 per cent), followed by Meghalaya (38.1 per cent), Mizoram (32.3 per cent) and Manipur (24.3 per cent).

A senior DoT official said plans were afoot to "use solar powered telecom towers" in the remote corners of the Northeast that still remained outside the mobile loop.

'Go green' has been a popular theme in government circles, especially after DoT unveiled stiff green targets for telcos more than two years ago.

The green telecom policy requires mobile operators to reduce diesel consumption and run 50 per cent of their towers in rural areas and 20 per cent in urban areas on hybrid power by next year. And by 2020, will need to run 75 per cent and 33 per cent of their towers in rural and urban zones respectively on hybrid supplies, which have been defined as a mix of grid power and renewable energy based on solar, wind, biomass or fuel cells.

But telco appetite for green energy technologies remains low, given the huge capex required to set up solar energy capacity. As a result, DoT has lately been pressing the finance ministry to provide viability gap funding (VGF) to telecom operators and tower companies to help them meet their green energy targets mandated by the government.

The DoT official, quoted above, conceded that going solar would be expensive for telco as "the cost would be roughly Rs 10 lakh per site".

It also proposes to involve Renewable Energy Service Providing Companies (Rescos) in driving the go-green thrust.

It is a different matter that the Resco model has failed to deliver so far. Last year, tower operators under the Tower And Infrastructure Providers Association (Taipa) banner had floated a request-for-proposal inviting clean energy equipment suppliers to form Rescos that would set up independent clean energy generating stations for selling power exclusively to tower operators or mobile phone companies directly.

Though talks were held with 70-odd applicants, only two companies were finally engaged as Rescos for a pilot involving the greening of some 1100 tower sites.

As a result, barely 1 per cent of India's near 5 lakh telecom towers run on green energy solutions now. Recently, DoT mandated deployment of green energy technologies for powering upcoming mobile networks in naxal hit regions across nine states. Bharat Sanchar Nigam has been mandated to roll out the networks. The near Rs 3560 crore venture would be fully subsidised by the Universal Services Obligation Fund (USOF), an independent DoT arm that finances rural network infrastructure rollouts.

Lalmalsawma Appointed as Mizoram Chief Secretary

Aizawl, Sep 17 : Lalmalsawma was today appointed by the Union Home Ministry to take over as chief secretary of Mizoram from November one, 2014.

The present incumbent L. Tochhawng would retire from service from that date.

The order, issued by the Ministry of Home Affairs was sent to the state chief secretary and the principal secretary to the chief minister.

Lalmalsawma is the 1983 batch (AGMU cadre) Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer who had served in the state in different capacities.

Aizawl Named ‘Permanent Venue’ of bi-annual Mumbai International Film Festival

Aizawl, Sep 16 : The Films Division under the I&B Ministry has announced that Mizoram capital Aizawl, which has no permanent theatre screening movies or any film-making infrastructure to speak of, will be a permanent venue for the bi-annual Mumbai International Film Festival.

Speaking at the inaugural function of the week-long “MIFF in Mizoram” at Aizawl on Monday, Films Division Director General V S Kundu said, “There will be two permanent venues for the MIFF. Every year we will take the MIFF to four venues where we will also conduct workshops for local film-makers. Two among these will be permanent venues. Aizawl will be one such permanent venue.”

“Mizo people have a natural tendency for audio-visual arts, especially in music and aesthetics. The MIFF will seek to help build a vibrant Mizo film industry. We need to start cultivating the skill-set of Mizo youth… to make the right films,” Kundu said.

The Films Division has in the last few weeks been screening award-winning MIFF films in various states including Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura. In Aizawl, the “MIFF in Mizoram” is scheduled to screen 25 films, including four made abroad, over six days and conduct daily workshops for film-makers.

“The state should develop infrastructural support for films, such as a film library where film-makers can watch films. The challenge is that Mizoram does not have a permanent commercial theatre, so in that regard perhaps informal cinema screening places can be built,” Kundu added.

Mizoram Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla, who inaugurated the film festival, said, “I must admit that we have no infrastructure whatsoever for films. Equally I must admit our youths have also not received any encouragement. But the credit goes to them that many have made some good films on their own, and without any training.”

“I am very grateful to Union I&B Minister Prakash Javadekar for helping organize this program,” Lal Thanhawla said of the “MIFF in Mizoram”.

Two feature films from Mizoram had featured in the MIFF earlier this year. Both were made by local independent film-makers.

While “Khawnglung Run” gained popularity in the state through screenings at community halls, “Chengrang Lanu” was helped along by the state’s Information and Public Relations Department, which has asked the Finance Commission for funds to set up a film-city in the state.
- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/india-others/aizawl-named-permanent-venue-of-bi-annual-mumbai-international-film-festival/#sthash.QN0XMmIT.dpuf

Meghalaya Boy Wins Bronze in World Kickboxing Championship

Shillong, Sep 16 : Edward Mawthoh, a junior from Meghalaya, has bagged a bronze medal at the World Kickboxing Championship 2014 held in Italy recently.

Mawthoh competed in the 48kg category of the Under-16 full contact sports, which was held from September 6-14 at Rimini, where he bagged a bronze, Meghalaya Association of Kickboxing Organisations (MAKO) secretary Larry P Warjri said.

Mawthoh lost to Roman Synyaev of Russia who went on to bag gold at the championship.

He is one of the six cadets sent from the state to compete in the world stage, the official said.

Mentored by MAKO coach Donny Ranee, Mawthoh is a promising player, who had earlier also won a number of medals and trophies for Meghalaya at different regional and national level championships.

Ranee led the 18-member Indian contingent, five of whom were from Meghalaya, to the Championship.

Feelin' That Homecoming Spirit, in Our City

CHENNAI: Naga students gathered to share their vibrant culture and tradition at the 36th Fresher’s Day organised by the Naga Students Union Chennai (NSUC) recently. 

The event was held at Holy Trinity Church hall, Vepery, and had Lakme Fashion Week model and former Mister International India 2012 Opang Jamar Metsubo as their special guest. “Never stop believing that you can do it. Take every step and every failure as a push towards success,” said Opang, who was in the city for the first time for the event.

The chief guest for the meet, T K Rajendran, Assistant Director General of Police (Law and Order), referred to the Naga students as ambassadors of North East and gave his well wishes to the new entrants to the city.

The programme was followed by a fashion expo and music show, presented by the members of NSUC. The union limned their culture and traditions through dance, fashion show and folk songs performed by various tribes of Naga community.

The performances included Zeliangrong cultural folk dance and Tangkhul cultural show. Besides that, the students also organised Mr and Miss Fresher, Maram folk song and Poumai presentation. Celebrity hairstylist Rachel B Singh, actor and model Sahithya Jagannathan and Opang were the jury members for the competition. Losii Frances from Rajiv Gandhi College won the Mr Fresher title and Akumsenla Kichu from Madras University won the Miss Fresher title. Zeliangrong tribe bagged first place in the cultural show, followed by Tangkhul and Maram tribes.There are around 6,000 Naga students in the State who are bound together through the union.

“Through this unification we share a cultural bond away from our homes,” said R Shing Timothy, vice-president of NSUC. The association aims to help new entrants in the city to get accommodation, find jobs and get admitted to good educational institutions. Most Naga students prefer Chennai for education, citing the good colleges here. Most of them are enrolled in colleges like MCC, Loyola, MGR and Bharath University.

The only challenge they face here is adapting to humidity and food. But, the city has two restaurants — North East Kitchen and Naga Reju — serving home-cooked Pork in bamboo shoot, fried rice, king chilly with chicken and Kimchi as side dish,  in authentic North-Eastern style.