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09/04/2009: "Naga Hoho Yes to Common Platform Eastern Mirror EMN"
Naga Hoho Yes to Common Platform Eastern Mirror EMN
KOHIMA, SEPT 4: The apex body of Naga organisations, the Naga Hoho has approved the formation of the ‘Naga Common Platform’. The decision was adopted at its 2nd Federal Assembly held in Kohima on September 2.
Talking to NNN over phone, Naga Hoho Secretary General Chuba Ozukum revealed that the Naga Hoho Federal Assembly discussed various pertinent issues concerning the Naga society. However, three main issues deliberated were ‘Naga Common Platform’, Nagaland Village Council Act and Recognition of villages and tribes.
On the Naga Common Platform, he said that the Naga Hoho unanimously approved its formation and has decided to request the Convener and Secretary designate of the platform to convene a meeting for further deliberation on the issue.
Taking serious note of the Nagaland Village Council Act, which was approved by the State Assembly recently, the Naga Hoho after thorough deliberation resolved to appeal the Nagaland Government to keep the act in abeyance.
Expressing that the Act intends to put the tribal and village council hohos as statutory bodies, the House opined that the Act requires in-depth discussion and deliberation before being implemented.
The Hoho has also resolved that it would recommend cases of establishment of villages and recognition of tribes in the State to the Government, if need arises.
On being asked about the political impending Naga issue, he said the Naga Hoho could not hold any discussion on the Naga political issue due to paucity of time but would take it up in the coming days. (Newmai News Network)
EMN: Later, in an official release issued by Assembly Secretary Kenyuseng Tep, the Hoho said the house had been of the opinion that a platform such as the Common Naga Platform is essential. However, it felt that more consultation on the matter is imperative to make the platform clearer with proper guidelines and principles.
On the Nagaland Village Council fourth Amendment bill 2009, the release informed that Federal Assembly unanimously rejected the bill while voicing apprehension ‘of bridge to the traditional customary practices of the Nagas’. It has, therefore, decided to appeal the government to keep the Bill in abeyance.
All the tribal Hoho representatives participated in the deliberations and voiced the need for all Nagas to come together to resolve the issues confronting the Nagas with equal representation and participation of every tribe at every level and forum, it was informed.
Two ZYF cadres injured, five surrendered after encounter with AR The Imphal Free Press
IMPHAL, Sept 3: At least seven cadres of the Zeliangrong Youth Force (ZYF) have been apprehended and cache of arms recovered by the 36 Assam Rifles of Red Shed Division today.
According to a statement of the PIB Defense Wing, the incident took place around 11:30 this morning while the troops were conducting a routine domination patrol near Khunkhu Naga area under Motbung police station, during which suspected militants fired upon the troops and ensued in an encounter between the two sides that lasted for more than three hours.
In ensuing encounter two militants were shot and five more were forced to surrender. The troops recovered a large quantity of weapons and ammunition from the arrested militants which includes one SLR, two US made Rifles, two Revolvers, one pistol and one shot gun, two Indian Army Combat Uniforms, one smoke grenade, badges of rank of Lt. and 2nd Lt. Pain killers and medicines.
During preliminary interrogation the arrested militants revealed that they belonged to Zelianrong Youth Front, a break away faction of the NNC and the outfit is under the leadership of one self styled Lt. Chamwang who hails from Tamenglong. Chamwang was injured in today`s shoot out and has been handed over to Motbung police station along with another injured SS Lt Nayalum. Police later brought the duo to RIMS hospital.
Meanwhile, contrary to statement made by the PIB Defense Wing, on receiving the information regarding the incident a team of media person rushed to RIMS Hospital but failed to find any of the casualties. However on consulting officials of the RIMS and the concerned police station, it was found out that the victims has been hospitalized at JN hospital and they were identified as Chawang, 35, s/o Kaiphun Liangmei of Sugram Nagaland, who has been injured seriously. The other one has been identified as Nalung, 29, s/o Jolbu of Natuwa Nagaland.
The identities of five other militants arrested during the encounter were Obet, 25, a/o Chaba of Jaluke Nagaland, SS Wishangbou, 25, s/o Chakirangbou of Piyanglong, Tamei, Corporal Kajatlong, 18, s/o Tingpao of New Jaluke Nagaland, SS Lt. Gomtala, 30, s/o Doucom of Rialong Tamei and Diphunbou, 28, s/o Kiran of Naluma Nagaland.
Sangtams celebrate Mongmong festival Staff Reporter (NPN):
DIMAPUR
Cultural troupe presenting a folk song at the Mongmong festival in The Oasis, Dimapur. (NP)
Sangtam community on Thursday gathered at the Oasis to celebrate Mongmong festival which was organized by the Sangtam Union Dimapur. Presentation of various cultural items and a huge feast of the festival were the main highlights of the programme.
Gracing the programme as chief guest DMC chairman, Khekaho Assumi mainly called upon the youth from the community to utilize the various resources and opportunities available to them.
He also asserted on the importance of education and on using it as the main source of strength. Pointing out that Dimapur was a place with a potpourri of people from different communites, Khekaho also added that there was a host of opportunities also. The chairman also highlighted the main aim of the government in taking out various road shows all over the state.
Former Medical Director Dr Meren enlightened the gathering on the significance of the festival while the Sangtam Thsingmüjanglarü Dimapur unit presented a folk dance.
Later after the programme, a demonstration on feeding of three stone in the hearth (Müshub Yangdühba) was also shown. It may be mentioned that the practice of feeding stone was to find out how the harvest of the year would be.
Folk dances were also presented by Alisopur Union Dimapur and Jingkhu Welfare Society.
Uneasy Engagement China and India Dispute Enclave on the Edge of Tibet By EDWARD WONGNY Times
TAWANG, India — This is perhaps the most militarized Buddhist enclave in the world.
Perched above 10,000 feet in the icy reaches of the eastern Himalayas, the town of Tawang is not only home to one of Tibetan Buddhism’s most sacred monasteries, but is also the site of a huge Indian military buildup. Convoys of army trucks haul howitzers along rutted mountain roads. Soldiers drill in muddy fields. Military bases appear every half-mile in the countryside, with watchtowers rising behind concertina wire.
A road sign on the northern edge of town helps explain the reason for all the fear and the fury: the border with China is just 23 miles away; Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, 316 miles; and Beijing, 2,676 miles.
“The Chinese Army has a big deployment at the border, at Bumla,” said Madan Singh, a junior commissioned officer who sat with a half-dozen soldiers one afternoon sipping tea beside a fog-cloaked road. “That’s why we’re here.”
Though little known to the outside world, Tawang is the biggest tinderbox in relations between the world’s two most populous nations. It is the focus of China’s most delicate land-border dispute, a conflict rooted in Chinese claims of sovereignty over all of historical Tibet.
In recent months, both countries have stepped up efforts to secure their rights over this rugged patch of land. China tried to block a $2.9 billion loan to India from the Asian Development Bank on the grounds that part of the loan was destined for water projects in Arunachal Pradesh, the state that includes Tawang. It was the first time China had sought to influence the territorial dispute through a multilateral institution. Then the governor of Arunachal Pradesh announced that the Indian military was deploying extra troops and fighter jets in the area.
The growing belligerence has soured relations between the two Asian giants and has prompted one Indian military leader to declare that China has replaced Pakistan as India’s biggest threat.
Economic progress might be expected to bring the countries closer. China and India did $52 billion worth of trade last year, a 34 percent increase over 2007. But businesspeople say border tensions have infused business deals with official interference, damping the willingness of Chinese and Indian companies to invest in each other’s countries.
“Officials start taking more time, scrutinizing things more carefully, and all that means more delays and ultimately more denials, “ said Ravi Bhoothalingam, a former president of the Oberoi Group, the luxury hotel chain, and a member of the Institute of Chinese Studies in New Delhi. “That’s not good for business.”
The roots of the conflict go back to China’s territorial claims to Tibet, an enduring source of friction between China and many foreign nations. China insists that this section of northeast India has historically been part of Tibet, and should be part of China.
Tawang is a thickly forested area of white stupas and steep, terraced hillsides that is home to the Monpa people, who practice Tibetan Buddhism, speak a language similar to Tibetan and once paid tribute to rulers in Lhasa. The Sixth Dalai Lama was born here in the 17th century. The Chinese Army occupied Tawang briefly in 1962, during a war with India fought over this and other territories along the 2,521-mile border.
More than 3,100 Indian soldiers and 700 Chinese soldiers were killed and thousands wounded in the border war. Memorials here highlighting Chinese aggression in Tawang are big draws for Indian tourists.
“The entire border is disputed,” said Ma Jiali, an India scholar at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, a government-supported research group in Beijing. “This problem hasn’t been solved, and it’s a huge barrier to China-India relations.”
In some ways, Tawang has become a proxy battleground, too, between China and the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of the Tibetans, who passed through this valley when he fled into exile in 1959. From his home in the distant Indian hill town of Dharamsala, he wields enormous influence over Tawang. He appoints the abbot of the powerful monastery and gives financial support to institutions throughout the area. Last year, the Dalai Lama announced for the first time that Tawang is a part of India, bolstering the India’s territorial claims and infuriating China.
Traditional Tibetan culture runs strong in Tawang. One morning in June, the monastery held a religious festival that drew hundreds from the nearby villages. As red-robed monks chanted sutras, blew horns and swung incense braziers in the monastery courtyard, the villagers jostled each other to be blessed by the senior lamas.
At the monastery, an important center of Tibetan learning, monks express rage over Chinese rule in Tibet, which the Chinese Army seized in 1951.
“I hate the Chinese government,” said Gombu Tsering, 70, a senior monk who watches over the monastery’s museum. “Tibet wasn’t even a part of China. Lhasa wasn’t a part of China.”
Few expect China to try to annex Tawang by force, but military skirmishes are a real danger, analysts say. The Indian military recorded 270 border violations and nearly 2,300 instances of “aggressive border patrolling” by Chinese soldiers last year, said Brahma Chellaney, a professor of strategic studies at the Center for Policy Research, a research organization in New Delhi. Mr. Chellaney has advised the Indian government’s National Security Council.
“The India-China frontier has become more ‘hot’ than the India-Pakistan border,” he said in an e-mail message.
Two years ago, Chinese soldiers demolished a Buddhist statue that Indians had erected at Bumla, the main border pass above Tawang, a member of the Indian Parliament, Nabam Rebia, said in a session of Parliament.
Tawang became part of modern India when Tibetan leaders signed a treaty with British officials in 1914 that established a border called the McMahon Line between Tibet and British-run India. Tawang fell south of the line. The treaty, the Simla Convention, is not recognized by China.
“We recognize it because we agreed to it,” said Samdhong Rinpoche, prime minister of the Tibetan government-in-exile. “If China agreed to it now, it would be a recognition of the power of the Tibet government at that time.”
China has grown increasingly hostile to the Dalai Lama after severe ethnic unrest in Tibet in 2008. This year, it turned its diplomatic guns on India over the Tawang issue. China moved in March to block a $2.9 billion loan to India from the Asian Development Bank, a multination group based in Manila that has China on its board, because $60 million of the loan had been earmarked for flood-control projects in Arunachal Pradesh. The loan was approved in mid-June over China’s heated objections.
“China expresses strong dissatisfaction to the move, which can neither change the existence of immense territorial disputes between China and India, nor China’s fundamental position on its border issues with India,” Qin Gang, the Foreign Ministry spokesman, said in a written statement.
In May, weeks after China first tried to block the loan, the chief of the Indian Air Force, Air Chief Marshal Fali Homi, now retired, told a prominent Indian newspaper that China posed a greater threat than Pakistan.
Another official, J. J. Singh, the governor of Arunachal Pradesh and a retired chief of the Indian Army, said the next month that the Indian military was adding two divisions of troops, totaling 50,000 to 60,000 soldiers, to the border region over the next several years. Four Sukhoi fighter jets were immediately deployed to a nearby air base.
Since 2005, when Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China visited India, the two countries have gone through 13 rounds of bilateral negotiations over the issue. A round was held just last month, with no results.
“The China-India border has got to be one of the most continuously negotiated borders in modern history,” said M. Taylor Fravel, an associate professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who is a leading expert on China’s borders. “That shows how intractable this dispute is.”
Xiyun Yang contributed research from Beijing.
McLeod Russell to pay 20 pc bonus
Correspondent Assam Tribune
DIGBOI, Sept 4 – McLeod Russell India Ltd., which owns 54 tea gardens in India, 3 in Vietnam and 1 in Rwanda in Africa, is the largest tea producing company in the world with an annual production of 82 million kg made tea. As in the previous year, this year also McLeod Russell is the first among the tea companies to announce the quantum of bonus to be paid to the employees.
This year the company signed an agreement recently with Assam Chah Mazdoor Sangh led by Pawan Singh Ghatowar, MP and the State president of ACMS, to pay to its employees in the Upper Assam zone 20% bonus in two instalments – 12% during the Durga Puja and the remaining 8% at the start of the school session in January, 2010. The company was represented by Nandu Ganguly, visiting agent of the company.
