UN, Mizoram Govt Sign Deal To Initiate Livelihood Project

Aizawl, Oct 17 : The United Nations and the Mizoram government Thursday signed a USD 4 million agreement to initiate a livelihood project in the state.

According to UN representatives, the project would employ a “virtuous cycle” approach to manage and protect the state’s ecosystem and cut out “unscrupulous middlemen” by teaching business plans to farmers and others in the primary sector.

The UN entourage consists of four specialised agencies — ILO, FAO, UNIDO and UNDP — and the global body’s Resident Coordinator in India Lisa Grande said an office to oversee the project would be set up in Aizawl latest by December 15.

Grande described the four-year-project as a “unique initiative” which is the “only one of it’s kind in India”.

State Planning Board Secretary P L Thanga said the project was incubated in late 2012 by the FAO initially and other specialized UN agencies were roped in given the scale of problems faced in the state.

The project is expected to create market linkages for Mizoram’s primary products and also focus on “sustainable” use of bamboo, one of the state’s most well-developed natural resources.

A system to prevent outbreaks of diseases among domestic animals is also planned since Mizoram., bordering both Bangladesh and Myanmar, is prone to the entry of exotic ailments that devastate the animal husbandry sector.

Delhi To Host 4-Day Northeast Fest in Nov, To Focus On Attacks Issue

New Delhi, Oct 17 : A four-day festival beginning next month will showcase music, dance, fashion and food of the northeastern states with a special focus on "bridging the cultural gap" in the wake of several incidents of attacks on people from the region.

Icons from the northeast like champion boxers M C Mary Kom and Shiva Thapa, Bollywood actor Adil Hussain and Everest conqueror Anshu Jamsenpa among others and policy makers are expected to attend the event scheduled from November 7 to 10.

Other than exhibiting the cultural heritage of northeastern states, the festival organisers will also hold discussions on critical issues concerning the region.

"The theme this year is 'Insurgence to Resurgence' with focus on highlighting the positive stories of entrepreneurship and development," said chief organiser of the festival Shyamkanu Mahanta.

"The whole objective is to present to the people of Delhi North East India in one platform and also to encourage tourism," he said.

"We want to show that just because we have different racial features, we should not be neglected. The festival is an attempt to bring people together and make them aware about the northeastern culture, which will help in avoiding any such discrimination," said Joint Commissioner (Training) Robin Hibu, who is the nodal officer for northeast people in Delhi Police.

The festival will be held at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts and is being organised by socio-cultural trust Trend MMS in association with the northeast community of Delhi comprising student organisations and activists.

"We are going to highlight the recent attacks on people of the northeast. There is a cultural gap, especially between people from the northeast and other parts of the country. The main goal of this festival is to bridge this cultural gap," said J T Tagam, a social worker from Arunachal Pradesh.

A session will be held on ways of introducing subjects from northeast in school and college curriculum to create awareness about the region.

US Consul General, Mizoram government will continue to combat drug menace together

Aizawl, Oct 17 : Visiting US Consul General in Kolkata Helen LaFave and the Mizoram government today agreed to continue coordination in combating the drug menace, an official statement said.

LaFave and state Excise and Narcotics commissioner L Hmunsanga and other senior officials met in Aizawl and discussed the issue of checking drug trafficking across the Myanmar border from the infamous Golden Triangle and other countries of the region, the statement said.

The US government had rendered help including training of narcotics officials and financial assistance to the state excise and narcotics department officials. The US diplomat said that she visited Mizoram to pursue the issues discussed by President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the latter's visit to the US.

She also met Mizoram chief secretary L Tochhawng, leaders of the central committee of the Young Mizo Association (YMA) and officials of the Mizoram State AIDS Control Society (MSACS).

Why India is Planning A New Road Near The China Border

By Subir Bhaumik

India and China disagree over the demarcation of several Himalayan border areas

India has unveiled plans to build a mountain road along the disputed border with China in the country's remote north-east.

The $6.5bn (£4.06bn), 1,800km (1,118 miles) all-weather road will stretch from Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh state to where the borders of India and China meet with Myanmar.

The road will connect sparsely populated and poorly-connected hill communities living in four large frontier districts of Arunachal Pradesh.

It will also help farmers in the mountainous region to transport their organic crops and medicinal herbs to low-lying and busy markets in neighbouring Assam state.

"This road will not boost our defences but help connect far flung communities for economic development denied to them for so long," says India's junior home minister Khiren Rijiju, himself a resident of Arunachal Pradesh.

But Indian military officials say the road will help consolidate Indian defences.

This represents a change in Indian military thinking that has so far opposed developing roads near the border, in case it is used by the Chinese during a conflict for speedy movement inside Indian territory.
The road, however, could could ignite fresh tensions between India and China.

The world's two most populous countries disagree over the demarcation of several Himalayan border areas and fought a brief war in 1962.

'Colonial legacy' Chinese foreign office spokesperson Hong Lei has said India's plan may "complicate" the boundary dispute which he described as a "colonial legacy".

"Before a final settlement is reached, we hope that India will not take any actions that may further complicate the situation. We should jointly safeguard the peace and tranquillity of the border area and create favourable conditions for the final settlement of the border issue," he told reporters in Beijing.

Chinese officials say it is not fair of India to undertake such a huge road building project in an area which is still in dispute.

"Once the dispute is resolved and the boundary is clearly demarcated, India can build such roads in its territory, but it would be unfair to build a road in a disputed territory," says Kong Can of the Yunnan Development Research Institute.

He says India should agree to develop the BCIM (Bangladesh-China-India-Myanmar) highway and economic corridor from Calcutta in India's West Bengal state to Kunming in China's Yunnan province cutting through Bangladesh, India's north-eastern states of Assam and Manipur and Myanmar's northern provinces.

"This highway and economic corridor will help integrate our economies and open huge opportunities for developing our under-developed frontier provinces and create a climate of trust that will help resolve the border dispute," Kong Can said.

India is going slow on the project, so far just agreeing to "explore" its possibilities.

Roads in Arunachal Pradesh are poor and make troop movement difficult

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has responded to demands from his security establishment to develop its defences against China, which has reportedly beefed up its military infrastructure in Tibet with a string of new railway lines, roads and at least five new airports.

Also, the rail route to Lhasa is likely to be extended to Nyingchu, close to the Arunachal Pradesh border, Indian military officials say.

"China has vastly beefed up its military infrastructure in Tibet and we are only catching up. Unless we do that, China will always arm-twist us on the border and try to impose a solution on its terms," says Lt Gen JR Mukherjee, former chief of staff in India's eastern army.

Last month India and China pulled back troops after a two-week stand-off near their de facto border in Ladakh. Chinese President Xi Jinping was visiting India when India accused his country of the fresh territorial incursion.

Many believe that has added to Indian apprehensions and could have influenced the decision to build the long border road that now upsets China.

Subir Bhaumik is a former BBC correspondent and author

Hate crime near Delhi, 2 Northeast Men Attacked

By Leena Dhankhar

New Delhi, Oct 16 : A day after the attack on Manipuri men in Bangalore, two young men from Nagaland were severely beaten up in Sikanderpur near Delhi by a gang of locals.

One of the two men from Nagaland who were severely beaten up in Gurgaon. (HT Photo)

The locals numbering about seven, held the men in confinement in Sikanderpur area and beat them up with cricket bats and hockey sticks, a support group for northeast students alleged. After the attack the attackers also cut their hair, and asked them to tell their friends from the northeast to leave the area.

"If you were from Manipur, we would have killed you, " the attackers allegedly told the men.


Combo image of two men from Nagaland. (HT Photo)

The victims were first rushed to a provate hospital nearby, but seeing the injuries were severe, they were taken to the Civil Hospital.

Zoramthanga Ready To Broker Peace if Any Group Wants?

Aizawl, Oct 16 : Former Mizoram chief minister and opposition Mizo National Front (MNF) chief Zoramthanga today said that he was ready to broker peace with any government and insurgent group, if they wanted so.

Addressing a press conference here, former underground leader Zoramthanga said that he had recently held discussion in Delhi with former UK Premier Tony Blair's 'Intermediate group' engaged in brokering peace deals across the globe.

He said that members of the Intermediate group, headed by Blair's right-hand man Jonathan Powell was interested in the time-tested and most successful historic Mizo Peace Accord signed between the Indian government and the erstwhile underground MNF on June 30, 1986.

Zoramthanga had been involved in the Naga peace talks and also in the peace deal with the Garo insurgent group ANVC (Achik National Volunteer Council), which recently signed an accord with the Centre in Delhi.

He was sent to Bangkok to meet NSCN (I-M) leaders Isak Swu and Th. Muivah and also ANVC top leaders including Washington.

The former chief minister said that he did not rule out mid-term poll in Mizoram as the Congress government led by Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla has been facing severe financial crisis and the state was apt for declaration of financial emergency under the constitution.

He alleged that the Thanhawla administration has miserably failed in financial management resulting in severe financial problems.

Attack on Manipuri Student Raises More Questions On The Safety of Outsiders in Bangalore

Bangalore, Oct 16 : A suspected hate crime was reported in Bangalore where a Manipuri student alleged that he was beaten up by people who demanded he speaks in Kannada. Three people have been arrested in connection with the case.

Speak in Kannada, else flee - this was the kind of threat 22-year-old Michael allegedly faced when he went to have dinner at a roadside eatery in east Bangalore on Tuesday night.

"Three men came to us. One of the miscreants told us to speak in Kannada. He said that we need to speak Kannada as we live in Karnataka and and eat Kannada food. They tried to hit us after that," Michael Lamjathang Haokip said.

Speak in Kannada, else flee - this was the kind of threat 22-year-old Michael allegedly faced.

Although out of danger now, Michael sustained injuries on his head. What is shocking is the apathy of the onlookers who did not come to the boy's rescue. The engineering student has been living in Bangalore for the past four years.

Even as the terrified student tried to make an escape and reach the Kothanur police station, the group of men followed him. But luckily a police van reached the spot and the men were taken into custody.
The police have booked the three men under the Rowdy Act for assault and intimidation. But they are refusing to call this a racial attack.

"It should not be termed as a racial attack. Even the victim has told that it is not a racial attack. The three people were drunk and were semi-literate people and in their drunken state, they did this. They don't have authority to beat up anyone. That is why we have taken up this case," said Alok Kumar, Additional CP (Law and Order).

This is not a one of a kind incident for Bangalore. In May 2012, another Manipuri student Richard Loitam was found dead under mysterious circumstances triggering protests across the country. Months after that, a mass exodus of northeastern Indians from Bangalore was triggered by a hoax SMS, threatening the community.

The latest incident only raises more questions about the safety of outsiders in Bangalore.

India Plans Huge Palm Oil Expansion, Forests At Risk

By Shreya Dasgupta
Palm oil, a ubiquitous ingredient in supermarket products ranging from shampoos and cosmetics to processed foods, comes at a huge environmental cost. Between 1990 and 2010, palm oil monocultures replaced over 3.5 million hectares of forest in Malaysia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea. This large scale deforestation has resulted in a massive loss of biodiversity and wildlife habitat, best illustrated perhaps by the annihilation of orangutan populations. Moreover, conversion of large peatlands to oil palm plantations releases millions of metric tons of CO2 into the atmosphere.

While Malaysia and Indonesia produce over 85 percent of the world’s palm oil, India is its largest importer. This push for import comes from a huge gap that exists between the demand and supply of edible oils in the country. In fact, over 65 percent of the country’s demand for edible oils was met by imports in 2013-14, with palm oil leading the way. Since the early 1990s, India’s palm oil imports have skyrocketed from about 100,000 to over 8.8 million metric tons in 2014. 

To reduce the demand and supply gap, India too has joined the bandwagon of oil palm cultivators. After all, oil palm is economically attractive for many reasons. The oil is very cheap, is the highest yielding vegetable oil crop, and has a variety of uses in consumer products. The Ministry of Agriculture estimates that India has the potential to cultivate oil palm in 1.03 million hectares of land–nearly the size of the U.S. state of Connecticut–and produce four to five million metric tons of palm oil per year. 

In 1992, India launched the Oil Palm Development Program (OPDP) to expand land under palm oil cultivation in six Indian states. In 2004-05 the scheme was introduced in six more states, including those in northeast India – Mizoram, Tripura and Assam. But the growth of palm oil in the country has not been very rapid. To boost oil palm cultivation, the ministry introduced a Special Program on “Oil Palm Area Expansion” (OPAE) in 2011-12 aimed at increasing oil palm production in the 12 states from 50,000 to 300,000 metric tons in the next five years. For this, the OPAE has budgeted over $50 million (Rs 300 crore), mostly to be spent on special incentives for oil palm farmers in the form of subsidies on seeds, irrigation systems and processing units.  

In recent years, the state of Mizoram in northeastern India has pushed hard for oil palm cultivation. But the seemingly lucrative oil palm may come with great socioeconomic and environmental consequences. 

Palm oil and Jhum in Mizoram 

The Mizoram government has earmarked 101,000 hectares of land for oil palm cultivation. Until 2013-14, oil palm plantations covered 17,588 hectares. Expansion of oil palm plantations falls within the government’s New Land Use Policy (NLUP) to wean farmers away from their traditional practice of subsistence farming, called “jhum,” to more economically stable commercial agricultural and livelihood practices. 

In jhum cultivation, farmers burn down patches of bamboo forests to grow an assortment of food and cash crops without addition of any fertilizers or pesticides. After cultivation, they move to newer areas, allowing the older fields to rest and regenerate into forests. While the alternating cycles of forest clearance and regeneration makes it difficult to estimate the extent of deforestation in Mizoram, data from the Global Forest Watch puts the net loss of tree cover in the state at 20,000 hectares from 2001 through 2012—or about 1 percent of its nearly two million hectares of forest cover. 

For many policy makers, (and some ecologists), jhum cultivation is destructive, leading to loss of forests, and low economic growth. Green cover provided by oil palm plantations instead appears to be a more acceptable and profitable alternative. But is jhum as bad as it is made out to be? 

“One of the reasons [jhum is considered destructive] is that ecologists have always compared jhum (or logged, or fragmented forest) to a primary forest, and concluded that primary forest is better for biodiversity,” Umesh Srinivasan, a doctoral student at the National Center for Biological Sciences in Bangalore, India, told mongabay.com. “One of the fallouts has been that people tend to dismiss all non-primary forests as being ‘worthless’ and substitutable…. Oil palm might provide a permanent ‘green cover’, but then so does a lawn! In terms of sustaining biodiversity, this green cover fares quite poorly.” 

In an article published in Economic and Political Weekly, Srinivasan and his colleagues added that jhum also facilitates cultivation of multiple crops organically, and provides a host of other benefits like bamboo, timber, firewood, and edible plant species – “a bounty that an oil palm plantation will never be able to match.” 

Shifting from jhum to oil palm plantations could thus undermine food security in the state. According to TR Shankar Raman, a wildlife scientist with the Nature Conservation Foundation in Mysore, India, who has worked in Mizoram, oil palm plantations are not only replacing the traditional jhum fields that yield multiple food and cash crops, but also areas in valleys set aside for the cultivation of wet rice.  

The notion that jhum is devastating for Mizoram’s forests may need a re-evaluation, he suggested in commentary on the state’s land use policies. 

“Even before NLUP was implemented, despite decades of extensive shifting cultivation, over 90 percent of Mizoram’s land area was under forest cover, much of it bamboo forests resulting from jhum,” he wrote. “Recent declines in forest cover have occurred at a period when area under jhum cultivation is actually declining, while area under settled cultivation is increasing, suggesting that the land use policy has been counterproductive to forests.” 

Oil palm is also a highly water-intensive crop. And several areas of Mizoram demarcated for oil palm suffer from acute water scarcity. 

“There is a fairy long dry season in Mizoram. In fact it is very common to see tankers carrying water, including in Aizawl, Mizoram’s capital,” Shankar Raman told mongabay.com. “So bringing in a crop that requires substantial water input into a landscape where there is a shortage of water seems like bad planning to me.” 

Mindless expansion of oil palm plantations in northeastern India may also be grave news for this biodiversity hotspot’s wildlife. Permanent loss of forests to monocultures of oil palm and a lack of adequate planning are already resulting in increased rates of human-wildlife conflict. 

“Some plantation cultivators next to the reserve have started complaining about wildlife like porcupines and rodents destroying their crops, and are now asking for compensation from the forest department,” said Shankar Raman, who has worked in Dampa Tiger Reserve, Mizoram’s largest wildlife sanctuary. “The areas where oil palms should be cultivated have not been planned well. For instance, they should have avoided buffer areas in conservation landscapes, water sheds, and productive rice valleys.”  

Can oil palm be sustainable in Mizoram? 

Oil palm cultivation in countries like Malaysia and Indonesia has caused widespread forest loss. In several parts of these countries, plantations have forcibly and unethically displaced local communities. To combat such growing concerns, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), an internationally accepted certification scheme, was established in 2004. The strict RSPO standards aim to promote practices that make palm oil production environmentally and socioeconomically sustainable.  

Mizoram’s government has signed memoranda of understanding (MoUs) with three private companies – Godrej Oil Palm Ltd., Ruchi Soya Industries Ltd., and Food and Fats and Fertilizers Ltd. – which will purchase oil palm fruits from farmers and sell the oil produced in their processing mills to domestic markets. All three companies are currently members of RSPO. 

According to Shankar Raman, however, most of the RSPO standards are not yet in place in Mizoram. And if nothing changes in how oil palm plantations are currently managed, palm oil cultivation will most likely not be sustainable in the long run, he said. Despite the current unsustainable practices, writing off oil palm completely will be neither possible nor desirable, said Srinivasan. Better practices, however, are necessary. 

“For instance, replacing existing crops with oil palm plantations will not really make much difference to biodiversity,” he said.” Also, what we need before oil palm starts expanding in a big way is to identify areas that: (a) are suitable for oil palm climatically, and (b) areas that are biodiversity priorities, and ensure that the areas of overlap are not replaced with oil palm.”  

This article was originally written and published by Shreya Dasgupta,