A Shillong court in the Meghalaya state of India has fixed July 22
for hearing on charge framing against BNP leader Salahuddin Ahmed in a
case filed for trespass.
Judicial Magistrate KML Nong Bri set the date in presence of lawyers
from both sides today, reports a correspondent from Kolkata.
Talking to The Daily Star over telephone, public prosecutor IC Jhan
told that SP Mohonto, lawyer of Salahuddin, was present while the date
was announced. The defence counsel did not raise any objection in this
regard, Jhan added.
Contacted, a lawyer of Shillong said if Salahuddin admits his fault
on July 22, the court will then fix a date for delivering its verdict.
Otherwise, the trial will begin, he added.
Indian police arrested BNP leader Salahuddin Ahmed on May 12 in
Shillong district of Meghalaya on charge of entering the country without
travel documents. The BNP joint secretary general was arrested from
Golf Link locality of Shillong.
After the arrest, Salahuddin was initially sent to MIMHANS mental
hospital in Shillong and was later shifted to Shillong Civil Hospital.
Later he was admitted to Indira Gandhi Regional Institute of Health
and Medical Science after Salahuddin’s wife Hasina Ahmed demanded better
treatment for her husband.
Within 23 days of the arrest, Shillong Sub-Inspector M Lamhare
submitted the charge sheet accusing Salahuddin of trespassing only.
Two days later, Salahuddin secured conditional bail and started living at a rented house at Police Bazar in Shillong.
Aizawl, Jul 15 : Mizoram has the highest number of rural residents without land among the tribals in Northeast India.
According to the Socio-Economic and Caste Census 2011, a whopping 80 per cent of the state’s Mizoram’s rural dwellers are landless, compared to the national average of 56 per cent of villagers without land.
Mizoram tops the rest of NE states in terms of landless villagers as 88,757 of the total 1,11,626 families living in the rural areas do not own an inch of agriculture land.
Of the total 80,43,896 families in the Northeast region living in rural areas, 1,007,77,240 are without arable land, constituting 59 per cent of the total rural population, the Census revealed.
Sikkim, the smallest state in the NE region, tops the rest of the NE states as 53,339 of the total 88,727 rural families are owning arable land. Northeast tribals are worse than their mainland Indian counterparts as 59 per cent of families living in the rural areas in the hilly region are without land, compared to 56 per cent among tribals in mainland India.
While 80,43,896 families of ST/SC in the NE region are living in rural areas, 13,60,207 of them are living in urban areas.
Mizoram has the highest number of Scheduled Tribe (ST) as 98.91 per cent of the total population belongs to ST.
About 80 per cent of farmers in Mizoram still practice the slash-and-burn system of cultivation or jhumming, that involves clearing of forest and burning the slashed trees and leaves for cultivation.
The land used for jhumming cultivation cannot be reused until the next five years. Most of the forest used for cultivation belong to the concerned village councils, who distribute land to the villagers on yearly basis.
Aizawl, Jul 8 : Mizoram Finance Minister Lalsawta today presented a second vote-on-account for three months from August in the State Assembly for not getting directions from the Centre on the share ratio of Centrally-Sponsored Schemes, among other reasons.
Lalsawta said he was compelled to seek the second vote on account amounting to Rs 1,823.81 crore as the State government was yet to receive instructions from the ministries concerned about the ratio of share-holding pattern of various Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS).
“Even though the recommendation of the 14th Finance Commission was in favour of State governments by increasing the share in taxes from 32 per cent to 42 per cent, the discontinuance of the Special Category Status of the North Eastern states has caused insurmountable financial problem to Mizoram and other states of the region, as increase in the states’ sharing ratio with the Central government in respect of CSS has been indicated by the Centre,” he said.
Being a resource-deficient State, Mizoram might not be in a position to take up certain CSS which the State could somehow manage with some difficulty earlier, he said.
The NE states, including Mizoram, had submitted to the Centre a joint and common cause demanding restoration of the privileges of a Special Category State, he said, adding that the states of the region were still waiting for a positive response from the Central government.
The Finance Minister regretted that the amount of fund to be devolved to the State government from the North Eastern Council (NEC) and the Ministry of DoNER, which were part of the plan size determinants, were also yet to be ascertained.
Tributes paid: The Assembly today paid rich tributes to former State Chief Minister Brig Thenphunga Sailo and former legislator Lalnghenga. Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla termed their demise as an irreparable loss to the Mizo people.
Shillong, Jul 8 : BSNL will pursue the telecom ministry to
allow Mobile Number Portability (MNP) in the north eastern region, a
senior company official today said.
"I'll try to ensure that the
MNP service is extended to NE states. I'll raise this issue with the
Union minister who will be visiting Agartala later this month," BSNL
NE1, chief general manager, DP Singh told reporters in Shillong.
BSNL wants MNP in North East India.
North eastern states are barred from MNP, implemented in the rest of the country on 3 July for security reason, he said.
Singh
said that over 100 towers located in remote areas of the region have
been shut down due to cost overrun. These towers were earlier funded by
the Centre under the Universal Service Obligation (USO) scheme.
He,
however, said that the Centre has recently approved a proposal to
implement a comprehensive development plan for the north eastern region
at a cost of over Rs 5,336 crore aimed at connecting 8,617 villages.
"This
project which includes 2G mobile service in uncovered areas and
providing reliability in transmission networks will be commissioned in
September next year," Singh said.
Stating that the NE1 circle has
made a loss of Rs 88 crore this year, Singh said the revenue collection
went up by Rs 17 crore and assets worth Rs 46 crore had been added to
the network.
While informing that wi-fi hotspot connectivity would
be provided at important tourist places, Singh said 44 locations in
Meghalaya, 35 in Mizoram and 94 in Tripura have been selected for the
service.
Heading towards a cliff: Learnings from three months of reportage from the state.
By M Rajshekhar
Between March and June, Scroll reported its Ear to the Ground series from Mizoram.
The idea was to create a snapshot of
the state and its people at this point in time, to try and understand
the major forces shaping the lives of the people in the state. Twelve
articles later, what have we learnt?
We learnt, principally, that the state is heading towards a cliff.
As one of our first stories observed, Mizoram has very little industrial activity.
As much as 90% of its revenues come from the central government. In
such a setup, the state government is the biggest economic engine in the
state.
And over the years, state politicians have become adept
at using the state's resources to win support by doling out patronage.
Voters are doled out cash through the state's principal rural
development programme – the New Land Use Policy. As for party workers, they are kept satisfied, as this article described, by slipping road contracts to them.
Over
the years, however, the state government's expenditure on itself –
paying staff salaries, interest on the loans it has taken, subsidies for
the doles it gives – have risen so high that the state is now
struggling to provide essential services to its people.
This was starkly evident in the stories that Scroll wrote on the state's faltering HIV and public health programmes.
The state government's monthly expenses are so much higher than its
monthly incomes that it has to divert money meant for, say, healthcare
towards meeting more pressing administrative expenses like salaries and
interest payments.
The fallout? Payments to the state health
programme are badly delayed. The mandarins in charge end up making hard
choices on what to fund – staff salaries or immunisation. These delays
are taking a huge toll on the state. Its anti-AIDS programme, for
instance, is losing the battle against the disease.
The state's people are suffering too. While reporting from Mizoram, Scroll met numerous teachers, forest guards and others who had not been paid for six or so months. One teacher Scroll met in Lawangtlai town, T Lalremliama, had begun driving an auto to make ends meet.
The paradox
It is a paradoxical situation. The state government spends so much on itself that it has little money for the people of Mizoram.
This pattern shows up even more starkly when you look at the financials of the autonomous tribal councils in
southern Mizoram. In the Lai and Mara councils, so much money goes into
staff salaries that literally zero rupees is left for actual
development work – in these councils, voters are won over by promising
them jobs in the district councils. (When the locals protest, the
council leaderships blame the state's Mizo population. A fissure that
the Bharatiya Janata Party was wondering how to exploit.)
Across
Mizoram, with little industry, jobs are hard to come by. Whenever any
new economic livelihood opened up, as the story on the Korean wave in Mizoram showed, a lot of people would rush into it. Similarly, one would keep encountering graduates driving cabs.
Staying there, it appeared that one reason discontent was low was the strong role of the Church in daily life.
However, things are now reaching a denouement of sorts. After the 14th Finance Commission,
the funds available with the state government will come down steeply.
This leaves the state government facing a hard question. Will it cut
back on patronage while protecting welfare expenditure? If so, what
happens to its support bases?
As things stand, the state
population has got used to the idea of government handouts in the form
of programmes like the New Land Use Policy. State mandarins, around the
time I left, were starting to clamour for the Seventh Pay Commission.
In the months ahead, will the Mizoram government steer a more prudent course?
Agartala, Jul 7 : Only six displaced Brus belonging to two families living in Tripura, have turned out so far in identification process launched by the Mizoram government as part of repatriation initiative, said an official of North Tripura district.
He said a section of refugees that turned out in the identification process, had informed that they would not go back unless inquiry into the conditions of the previously repatriated families were conducted and ensure their security and proper rehabilitation. No turn out in identification process indicates Brus are reluctant to return in Mizoram, the official said, adding that it was carried out by the officials of both Tripura and Mizoram with prior intimation to the refugees.
When the identification process had begun on June 2, the leaders of Bru refugees had asked them not to turn up for identification unless their 10-point demands were met, he said.
According to reports, the process of identification had begun last month and was completed in three of the six camps on July 4.
The next phase of identification is scheduled to start from July 13 next at Ashapara of Kanchanpur.
The preparations came after the Supreme Court instructed both the Centre and the Mizoram government to repatriate all Brus within six months.
According to record, as many as 900 families of Bru have been repatriated from six camps of Tripura between 2005 and 2014. They were allowed to stay scattered in Mizo-dominated villages of Mamit, Kolasib and Lawngtlai district.
So far, government of Mizoram got Rs 44 crore from the Centre for rehabilitation of Bru refugees. It also received Rs six crore for ensuring safe repatriation.
Agartala, Jul 7 : Aiming to ensure smokeless cooking gas to kitchens in Agartala, Tripura Natural Gas Company Ltd (TNGCL) has set a target of supplying piped natural gas (PNG) to 10,000 new households by March 2016.
TNGCL had already connected more than 20,000 households in Agartala with PNG.
"If we replace all Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) cylinders with PNG in the city, the cylinders can be distributed in the villages where women are still cooking with firewood," said Jitendra Choudhury, chairman of Tripura Industrial Development Corporation Ltd (TIDC) and Lok Sabha MP.
He added that TNGCL is a joint venture of TIDC, a government of Tripura undertaking, and AGCL is a government of Assam undertaking. Since 2005, Gas Authority of India Ltd (GAIL) is also a major shareholder to facilitate the implementation of Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) in the transport sector of the state.
Agartala became the first city in eastern India in 2010 when conversion of vehicles to CNG was launched. It was targeted to convert all vehicles to CNG by 2013. But non-expansion of CNG filling stations is the reason why it did not happen yet, said Choudhury. He however, pointed out that besides PNG connection to kitchens, more than 5000 auto-rickshaws and over 1,500 other vehicles, including buses, were being fitted with CNG kits mostly in Agartala and Udaipur. "Due to insufficient flow of gas in northern and southern parts of the state, TNGCL is not being able to expand the network of CNG filling stations. ONGC is exploring new gas fields to enhance performance of the existing wells," added Choudhury.
Besides household connections, TNGCL has already provided PNG connection to 300 commercial business centers and 47 factory units in the Bodhjungnagar industrial area on the outskirts of Agartala. To cater to the increasing number of CNG vehicles, the company has set up a main CNG refilling station at Udaipur in South Tripura.
New Delhi will start
putting into operation this week an agreement on telecommunication links
between India and Bangladesh within a month of its signing.
India’s Communications and Information Technology Minister Ravi
Shankar Prasad will commission the work sometime this week to link
Agartala in Tripura border with International Gateway for Internet
Service (IGIS) at Cox's Bazar.
“This will improve the internet
connectivity of the landlocked north-eastern states of India,” said a
senior official at the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), India’s
state-owned telecom service provider.
To improve the internet
connectivity in north-eastern region, an agreement between the BSNL and
Bangladesh Submarine Cable Company Ltd (BSCCL) was signed last month.
Anupam
Shrivastava, CMD BSNL and Md Monwar Hossain, MD BSCCL, had signed the
agreement for the provision of International Bandwidth for Internet from
Cox’s Bazar to Agartala.
“Connectivity in northeast region of
India is currently unstable mainly due to large-scale road widening work
resulting in poor internet service quality in the region.
“On
the initiative of Government of India, the BSNL explored the possibility
of leasing bandwidth from the BSCCL for providing connectivity to the
NE region through the territory of Bangladesh to improve internet and
telecom services in the region,” the government official said.
The BSCCL will provide the International Port (IP) transit service from Cox's Bazar Cable Landing Station.
The
terrestrial route in Bangladesh will be Cox's Bazar-Chittagong-Comilla-
Brahmanbarhia-Akhaurha for primary link and Cox's
Bazar-Chitagong-Comilla-Dhaka-Narsinghdi-Bhairab-Akhaurha will be the
secondary link.
Bangladesh Telecommunications Company Ltd (BTCL)
has to lay nearly 30-kilometre Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) from
Brahmanbarhia to Akhaurha.
BSNL will set up International Long Distance (ILD) Gateway at Agartala along with equipment.
Initial
requirement of the BSNL will be 10GBPS IP transit and IP port at
Akhaurha ICP. This endeavour of BSNL will improve the internet
connectivity for the people of the region.
The official also said
that the Indian government would spend about Rs 190 million to create
the infrastructure, including the laying of the OFC to avail the 10G
bandwidth from BSCCL.
A Shillong court in the Meghalaya state of India has fixed July 22
for hearing on charge framing against BNP leader Salahuddin Ahmed in a
case filed for trespass.
