14th April 2014

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Dimapur VOL. IX ISSUE 101

reflections

By Sandemo Ngullie

The Morung Express “

www.morungexpress.com

Ukraine tries to clear proRussian rebels, dead reported on both sides

William fuels speculation of second royal baby

[ PAGE 9]

[ PAGE 11]

Global Reach opens office in Kohima [ PAGE 2]

Maoists target teachers, ambulance [ PAGE 8]

China and other large countries. However, diagrams that illustrated this were deleted by governments in the final version, which was adopted at a weeklong IPCC session in Berlin.

“The problem for the governments was that they felt that these different perspectives can cause harm for them because they can be made at different scales responsible for the emissions,” Edenhofer told The Associated Press.

The graphics divided the world into four categories — low, lower-middle, upper-middle and high income countries. Participants in the closed-door session said many developing countries objected to using such income categories.

In UN climate negotiations, only two categories are used — developed and developing countries. The former want to scrap that firewall, saying China and other fast-growing economies can’t be compared to the least developed nations and must face stricter emissions cuts, while most developing countries want to keep it. It’s a major sticking point in the U.N. talks, and it spilled over into the IPCC session, participants said.

Diego Pacheco, the head of Bolivia’s delegation in Berlin, said develop-

We need to move away from business as usual, says IPCC Developing countries concerned with IPCC categorization

In this February 25, 2008 photo, the tower of a church is pictured between the smoke billowing chimneys of the brown coal power plant Frimmersdorf in Grevenbroich near Duesseldorf, Germany. After concluding that global warming is almost certainly man-made and poses a grave threat to humanity, the U.n.-sponsored expert panel on climate change is moving on to the next phase: what to do about it. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, will meet next week in Berlin to chart ways in which the world can curb the greenhouse gas emissions that scientists say are overheating the planet. (AP Photo)

ing countries worried that graphs with four income groups in the authoritative IPCC document would open the door for industrialized countries — whom they see as historically responsible for climate change — to reframe the discussion on

how to share the burden of climate action.

“This is the first step for developed countries of avoiding responsibilities and saying all countries have to assume the responsibility for climate change,” he told AP.

Counting all emissions since the industrialized revolution in the 18th century, the U.S. is the top carbon polluter. China’s current emissions are greater than those of the U.S. and rising quickly. China’s historical emissions are ex-

‘education on conservation required’

Two arrested for racist remark against NE student

Monday, April 14, 2014 12 pages Rs. 4 –Eugene Ionesco

Barcelona loses, Madrid wins to move 2nd [ PAGE 10]

Un panel warns of rising emissions

BerliN, April 13 (Ap): The U.N.’s expert panel on climate change on Sunday highlighted the disconnect between international goals to fight global warming and what is being done to attain them.

Emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases must drop by 40-70 percent by 2050 to keep the global temperature rise below the 2-degree C (3.6-degree F) cap set in U.N. climate talks, the “Former defense minister is up next for kicking his rival Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said. unconscious.”

The opposite is happening now. On average global The Morung Express emissions rose by 1 gigaton POLL QUESTIOn a year between 2000 and Vote on www.morungexpress.com 2010, outpacing growth in SMS your answer to 9862574165 previous decades to reach “unprecedented levels” deAre you satisfied with the way spite some efforts to contain Nagaland State Government is addressing the Assamthem, the IPCC said.

Nagaland border issues?

“There is a clear message from science: To avoid dangerous interference Yes no Others with the climate system, we Are naga institutions and churches need to move away from doing enough to nurture value based leadership in the society? business as usual,” said Ottmar Edenhofer, one of three Yes 10% co-chairs of the IPCC work73% no ing group looking at ways to 17% Others fight climate change.

Details on page 7 Leaked drafts of that document showed the biggest reason for the rising emissions is the higher energy needs resulting from Dear Subscribers, population growth and exPlease inform us if The panding economies in the Morung Express is not developing world, mainly in being delivered to you on a regular basis by your paper hawker.

Contact us directly at: 9856230555.

The Morung Express Kiphire, April 13 (MexN): Kiphire Wildlife Division (KWD), in collaboration with the Nagaland Pollution Control Board (NPCB), Dimapur, today organised a workshop on ‘Sensitisation and EnviNew Delhi, April 13 ronment Education Tech(iANS): Two youth were niques for Biodiversity arrested in New Delhi on Conservation’ at Pungro.

Sunday for passing a racist The event was held in supremark against a student port of the Fakim Wildlife from the northeast, po- Sanctuary, located in Punlice said. Amit Kumar (22) gro subdivision. and Akash Kumar (23), Kamdi Hemant Bhasboth residents of Bihar’s kar, Wildlife Warden, KWD, Chhapra, were arrested expounded on the issue of after Hemang Haokip (25) sanctuary management. He complained against them informed that 6.4 square kifor the racist comment lometre of sanctuary area is made at midnight. The in- not sufficient for managecident took place in Mau- ment of a viable wildlife poprice Nagar area in north ulation, in the long run. He Delhi near Delhi University viewed that practices in connorth campus. “The victim sistency with biodiversity and the two accused are neighbours and reside in rented accommodations,” said a police official. lONDON, April 13 (pTi): India is facing a cancer crisis, with smoking, belated diagnosis and unequal access to treatment causing large-scale problems, experts said.

DiMApUr, April 13 Every year in India, (MexN): The Special around one million new Olympics Nagaland has or- cancer cases are diagganized a Mass Awareness nosed and around 600,000 Campaign through a ‘Torch to 700,000 people die from Run—Flame of Hope’ on cancer in India, with this April 15. The Run has been death toll projected to organized to “show respect rise to around 1.2 million and acceptance to those deaths per year by 2035, a who are living with disabil- new report on cancer care in India published in The ity and to recognize their Lancet Oncology reported. special abilities.” It will The new report has kick-off from City Tower been compiled by Profeshere at 9:00am and pro- sor Richard Sullivan and ceed towards the DDSC, Professor Arnie PurushoGolaghat Road, ending at tham from King’s Health 11:00am. The Governor of Partners Cancer Centre Nagaland, Dr. Ashwani Ku- at King’s College London mar will be the Chief Guest with the help of senior Infor the occasion. Everyone dian colleagues including interested has been invited Professor CS Pramesh and Professor Rajan Badwe at to the Run.

ATTENTION

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Ideologies separate us. Dreams and anguish bring us together

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conservation in surrounding village areas can provide an essential additional buffer space for spread and migration of animals. He explained that the populace can be educated on environment education techniques with the token seed money, provided by NPCB to all schools in Nagaland.

Deenbandhu Panda, DEO, Kiphire, stressed on the importance of environmental education in Naga society. “Only education is a grass root solution to social problems. Once it is done then very little recurrent efforts are required,” he stated.

Responding to the calls for economic assistance, Chompen Ezung, EAC, Khongsa, reminded that “awareness starts

with the individual and spreads to the community through family.” Already scarce financial resources are not always required to be spent, he stated. He stressed on the need for the community to step up and play a proactive role.

S Tainiu, ADC, Pungro, was the Chief Guest for the event. She explained the legalities of the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 and appealed for all to adhere by the law. She cautioned that there are stringent provisions in the said act, which prescribes punishment of imprisonment upto seven years for illegal hunting.

Pastor K. Yimto from Pungro Town Baptist Church iterated the “stewardship given to humans.”

He emphasized on what he

said are “Biblical teachings about conservation.” “God created the world with different life forms in it and saw that it was good. Now you and I are no one to degrade it from good to a worse condition. When we praise the beauty of mountain, its greenery and animal diversity there; we praise the creation of the Lord and ultimately the Lord himself.”

He further stressed on the need to discourage indiscriminate cutting/burning of trees and hunting of wild animals.

The workshop was attended by 135 participants, comprising of teachers and village authorities from Pungro subdivision and frontline staff of KWD. A group activity on awareness education plans for their

areas was conducted. The activity focused on developing eco gardens and avenue plantation; conducting monthly awareness service at churches and village level seminars; displaying hunting ban signboards and formation of eco clubs at every village by student unions. An idea to set up an Inter-Village Co-ordination Committee to maintain good practices in area surrounding the Sanctuary was also discussed.

TY Among, President, Saramati Awung Conservation Area Management Society (SACAMS), shared his experiences of prolonged conservation work with community. The programme concluded with a vote of thanks by Kiusang, RFO, KWD.

pected to overtake those of the U.S. in the next decade.

Oswaldo Lucon, a Brazilian scientist involved in the report, regretted that the diagrams were taken out, saying they are relevant to the “big picture.”

He said China, India, Brazil and Saudi Arabia were among the countries opposing using them in the summary.

Underlying the arguments“wasawholehistoryof discussions on who was going to foot the bill of environmental damage,” Lucon said.

Another IPCC report, released last month, warned that flooding, droughts and other climate impacts could have devastating effects on economies, agriculture and human health, particularly in developing countries.

The IPCC said the goal of keeping the warming below 2 C by 2100 would require a significant shift in the energy system, away from oil and coal, which generate the highest emissions. That would mean a near-quadrupling of energy from zero- or low-carbon sources such as solar and wind power.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called it a global economic opportunity.

“So many of the technologies that will help us fight climate change are

far cheaper, more readily available, and better performing than they were when the last IPCC assessment was released less than a decade ago,” Kerry said Sunday.

Current pledges by governments in U.N. climate talks to reduce or curb emissions by 2020 are setting the world on a path of 3 degrees C (5.4 F) of warming, the IPCC said. U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres, who is leading those talks, urged countries to raise their collective ambition.

“The only safe path forward is to arrive at a carbon neutral world in the second half of this century,” Figueres said. To meet the 2-degree target the world may have deploy new technologies to suck CO2 out of the air, the IPCC said. The most advanced right now is socalled bioenergy with carbon capture and storage.

That means growing crops that absorb CO2, then burning them for energy, while capturing the CO2 emissions. The CO2 is then stored deep underground, resulting in a net removal of CO2 from the atmosphere.

“We have the technologies,” said U.S. scientist Leon Clark, one of the authors of the report. “But we really have no sense of what it would take to deploy them at scale.”

Indian Army apprehends six cadres in Manipur iMphAl, April 13 (NNN): Troops of the Red Shield Division apprehended six cadres, in four different operations from April 11 to April 13, informed the PIB Defence Wing. On April 11, NSCN (K) Regional Council Member, Khubung Rongmei was apprehended. On April 13, in a search operation launched at Khumji III, two NSCN (K) cadres, Second Lt Thuanjin Gangmei and Pvt Philip Phaomei were held along with one 9mm pistol and four 9mm live rounds.

In another operation on April 13, two cadres of the Kuki National Front (KNF-N) were apprehended from general area Awlmun and Khu-

bong. They were identified as Pvt Angom Santa and Cpl Angom Tomba Singh. One 9mm pistol with magazine, two 9mm live rounds, one 9mm SMC with magazine and four 9mm live rounds were recovered from their possession.

In a separate incident on April 13, a KYKL cadre, identified as Cpl Sorokhibam Boacha was apprehended from general area Mayang Langjing, along with one 9mm Pistol with magazine and three live rounds. All the apprehendees along with the recovered arms were later handed over to the respective Police Stations on the same day, the Defence Wing stated.

india facing a cancer crisis Reforms to IMF hit serious deadlock: G20 official

SON’s ‘Torch Run—Flame of Hope’ on April 15

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the Tata Memorial Cancer Centre, Mumbai.

“Access to affordable cancer treatment and care in India lags behind other parts of the world; making such treatment and care accessible will require addressing its causes, while also developing affordable treatments,” Professor Sunil Khilnani, Director, King’s India Institute, King’s College London, said.

Although India has a relatively lower incidence of cancer (around a quarter of that in the USA or Western Europe), the rate of deaths from cancer, adjusted for age, is similar to that seen in high-income countries, the report said.

Less than a third of patients with cancer in India currently survive for more than five years after diagnosis. Around 95 per cent of the medical colleges in

India do not have comprehensive cancer care services, comprising Surgical, Medical and Radiation Oncology departments, in the same campus.

Currently there are around 2,000 medical and radiation oncologists in India – one per 5000 newly diagnosed cancer patients – and in almost all remote or rural areas even the most basic cancer treatment facilities are non-existent, it said.

As a result, urban cancer centres are overcrowded and under-resourced, leading to long waiting times, delayed diagnoses, and treatment that comes too late for many patients.

“The need for political commitment and action is at the heart of the solution to India’s growing cancer burden,” said Mohandas Mallath, a professor at the Tata Medical Centre in Kolkata.

wAShiNgTON, April 13 (reUTerS): Reforms to the International Monetary Fund have hit a deadlock despite a declaration from global financial chiefs that they would move forward without the United States if it fails to ratify the changes by year-end, a G20 official said on Sunday.

The inability to proceed with giving emerging markets a more powerful voice at the IMF and shoring up the lender’s resources appeared the most contentious issue for officials from the Group of 20 leading economies and the representatives for all IMF member nations who met over the weekend.

In a final communique, G20 finance ministers and central bankers said they were “deeply disappointed” with the U.S. delay.

“Some said that we need to give the U.S. more space,” the official, who partici-

pated in the G20 talks and spoke on conditions of anonymity, said. “I say we are at a dead end.” Any attempt to break the package of reforms, proposed by the G20 in 2010, would be disastrous not only for the United States, but for the whole group, he said, because most countries have already gone through the ratification procedures.

“If you pull the 2010 package apart, you will have to start anew,” the official said. “And this factor cannot be overcome. Nobody wants to go again through this process for the second time.”

Other officials were not immediately available for comment.

MISSION IMPOSSIBLE? Emerging markets, most handicapped by the lack of reforms, expressed exasperation over the weekend that a four-year wait for the reforms is asking too much of

them. But it is unclear what moves could be taken to overcome the impasse.

There could be some ad hoc measures taken to achieve at least some of the governance overhaul for the global lender without formal U.S. approval. Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said developing nations may demand changes to the IMF’s emergency borrowing mechanism if the United States does not approve the overhaul.

Most of the solutions, however, giving the structure of decision making at the IMF, could not be implemented without the U.S. approval. U.S. Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said President Barack Obama’s administration would do its best to push IMF quota reforms through the U.S. Congress this year.

Christine Lagarde, managing director of the IMF, said it is too early to talk about alternatives.

“Plan A is going to be explored to the end, and in depth, but if that plan A doesn’t work, then we will worry about plan B.” For now, the G20 official said, there is no plan B. The impasse in the reforms has already had some side effects, including the increase in regional funds that act on a smaller scale, but which altogether could potentially undermine the role of the IMF in the future.

At the G20 meeting over the weekend, officials tried to stay optimistic that the U.S., despite complaints from some Republicans have that the changes would cost too much at a time Washington was running big budget deficits, will come forward.

But the prospects are not promising, the G20 official said. However, “At a time when the world has become multi-polar, why should one country have the veto power?”

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WCYO condemns ‘attempt to life’ Kohima, april 13 (mExN): The Western Chakhesang Youth Organization (WCYO) has strongly condemned the “attempt to life” on Abe Mero in Kohima on April 9, 2014 allegedly by NSCN (K) cadres. WCYO in a statement issued by its President Shelepa Rhakho and General Secretary Lhikhro Kreo has termed the incident as an act of cowardice which has no place in the society. “Attack on innocent citizen is against all humanist and social morals,” it asserted. The organization has called upon everyone to condemn such barbaric act. “As a human community, we must be vigilant and careful to oppose these pernicious activity and social evils which are not justified by any sane logic.” It also appealed to the competent authority to book the culprits at the earliest and take action as per the existing law.

SPFDD emergency meeting

Students of Bethesda school hold placards and palm leaves as they take part in a Palm Sunday procession in Dimapur on April 13. Photos by Caisii Mao

Cathedral Church Kohima observes Palm Sunday

Faithful attend the Holy Mass at Mary Help of Christians Cathedral Church, Kohima on April 13.

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Kohima, april 13 (mExN): Together with the rest of the Catholic Church all over the world, Mary Help of Christians Cathedral Parish, Kohima observed the Palm Sunday on April 13. The program began with Most Rev. Dr. James Thoppil, Bishop of Kohima, the Main Celebrant blessing the palm leaves which was followed by the Gospel and the Homily.

A press release from Fr. Loyola Antony, Asst. Priest informed that subsequently around 3000 catholic faithful took a procession

from Police Headquarters to the Cathedral Church carrying palm leaves singing various songs of praise and victory.

In the Church, the Holy Mass began with an opening prayer. It was followed by the readings and the most important part, the release said, was the narration of the Passion, crucifixion and death of Jesus from Gospel According to Matthew 26:17-27:66. In his homily, the Bishop exhorted every faithful to meditate on the passion of Jesus in the coming Holy week and appreciate the love of

God for each person.

Fr. Loyola Antony in the note mentioned that Palm Sunday commemorates the triumphal entrance of Christ into Jerusalem (Matthew 21:1-9), when palm branches were placed in his path, before his arrest on Holy Thursday and his crucifixion on Good Friday. It thus marks the beginning of Holy Week, the final week of Lent, and the week in which Christians celebrate the mystery of their salvation through Christ's death and his resurrection on Easter Sunday, he added.

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Dimapur, april 13 (mExN): There will be an emergency meeting of the executive members of Sangtam People's Forum Dimapur District (SPFDD) on April 19, 9:00 am at the residence of Er. T Athriba Sangtam at Signal Angami, Dimapur. Therefore, all the executive members have been requested to attend the meeting positively.

Global Reach opens office in Kohima Our Correspondent Kohima | April 13

The Global Reach Kohima office was formally launched here today at Old Taxi Stand. It was inaugurated by Rolf Baum, Regional Marketing Manager, Intueri Education Group, New Zealand.

Global Reach Kohima office will serve the students and youth who aim to pursue their further education overseas.

The office was opened in partnership with International Consultancy Group (ICG). Established in 2012, ICG provides overseas educational counseling. ICG has launched its overseas educational counseling with Australia. It provides counseling on career, selection of programmes and courses, selection of university, assistance in the application process and visa counseling. ICG has conducted several seminars and information session and has also successfully placed three students to universities in various courses in Australia.

Meanwhile, set up in 1991, Global Reach pioneered the concept of educational consultancy counseling in Eastern India and currently manages the marketing and representation of over 350 accredited universities and educational institutions worldwide.

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Rolf Baum with Anthony L. Kaje and others during the launching of Global Reach office in Kohima on April 13. (Morung Photo)

Global Reach has professional team of trained and certified counselors to advise students on career in demand and try to match it with student’s educational background, aptitude and aspirations.

The counseling is customized and when required, assistance is also provided with useful information on educational loans and other associated processes. The counseling is free of cost. It assists the students through the entire process from career counseling to selection of programmes,

selection of university, assistance in application process, IELTS preparation and visa counseling.

Global Reach, with its 23 years of service, is considered one of the most comprehensive and professional consultants for overseas education. It has 18 branches spread across 9 cities in India and five countries. Global Reach is representative agent for many universities and educational establishments in countries like Australia, United Kingdom, United States of America, New

Zealand, Canada, Singapore, Switzerland, Sweden, Thailand, Malaysia, Ireland, Dubai, Indonesia, Netherlands, Cyprus, Philippines and Italy.

Some of the basic requirements a prospective student has to keep in mind while preparing to apply for overseas education include a passport, International English Language Testing System (IELTS) or Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), all educational certificates, educational transcripts, work experience certificates, reasons for any

gap in studies and any other relevant documents.

The IELTS/TOEFL score requirements vary depending on the course, the university and the country. Financial declaration is necessary to show the availability of sufficient fund for the proposed course of study along with cost of living.

Global Reach Kohima office is headed by Anthony L. Kaje as head of operations. The office can be reached at kohima@globalreachonline.com. Tel: (+91-370) 2290165.

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FTC 5th graduation day on April 16

A concert called 'A Journey of Classical Guitar' was held at Patkai Christian College on April 12, 2014. Seen here are Aren Longchari (left), the first Indian to be accepted for B.Mus program at Mozarteum University in Salzburg, Austria, and Ogmundur Thor Johannesson (right), artistic director of the Midnight Sun Guitar Festival in Reykjavik, Iceland and also working on promoting classical guitar in India. (Photo courtesy: Heutinggumbe)

WTC celebrates 67th graduation day

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WoKha, april 13 (mExN): Witter Theological College (WTC), Vankhosüng, which is affiliated to Senate of Serampore College (University), held its sixty seventh graduation ceremony at the KBES mission centre, Wokha with the theme “A light to the Nation” (Isaiah 49:1-6) on April 11, 2014.

A press release informed that speaker of the occasion, Rev. K. Chumben Kyong, Sr. Asso Pastor, Lotha Baptist Church, Dimapur encouraged the graduating students to prayerfully take up whatever ministry is assigned to them and be committed to it. He further urged them to let the bible always be their friend, prayer be their weapon, and walk forward to the unknown world in their ministry with humbleness, commitment and dedication.

Meanwhile, MLA & Chairman MARCOFED, Mmhonlumo Kikon, who was the special guest, chal-

lenged the graduating students to go to the world and make the college proud and be an achiever themselves in whatever field they choose.

He exhorted the people present to think beyond limitation in order to make the college grow and promised to extend his help towards the college in any way to bring a positive change. Mmhonlumo also called upon the graduating students “to be an expert in one field and pursue a lifetime scholarship and the mission work which will ultimately be recognized by God since we all strive to please God and not man,” said the release. The MLA also released the first edition of the WTC newsletter entitled “Illumine”.

Altogether, the note informed, four students completed course in Bachelor of Theology and eight students received Diplomas in Theology. Among the graduating students, Zanboni Ngullie received the overall academic award and col-

lege related awards in ten different disciplines. The award is given to the students to recognize their talents and encourage them in their ministry.

Dr. Moanungsang, Principal, WTC gave the introduction and the welcome note while M. Zubenthung Humtsoe, lecturer, said the invocation prayer.

S. Ekonthung Ezung, Academic Dean presented the conferring of diplomas and certificates while the principal and Zanbemo Kithan, Board Chairman conferred the graduating students with their diplomas and certificates. Further, Nsungbeni Ngullie, lecturer, read the scripture and Rev. Sulumo Ezung, Pastor, Wokha Town Baptist Church offered the dedication prayer. Rev. MC Kithan, Executive Secretary, KBES invoked the commissioning prayer and benediction. The ceremonial programme was chaired by Meyijungla, lecturer.

Dimapur, april 13 (mExN): Faith Theological College (FTC), Ura Villa colony, Dimapur will hold its 5th graduation ceremony on April 16, 11:30 am at Town Hall, Dimapur. Er. Picto Shohe, MLA & chairman, Nagaland Hotel Limited, will grace the occasion as chief guest and Rev. Amos Humtsoe, director, Christ for the City International as guest speaker. Founder principal of the college Rev. Dr. S Gangte has requested all board members, parents, church leaders, former graduates, friends and well wishers to attend the ceremony.

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14 April 2014

Mamata lashes out at GJM for backing Baichung Bhutia DArJEELINg, APrIL 13 (ANI): West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday lashed out at the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) charging them of not choosing a local person as their candidate and instead supporting someone who has no roots in the hills. At the same time she justified her decision of choosing Baichung Bhutia as the candidate from Darjeeling.

"Baichung is a son of the hills, hence, that's why I have chosen him, so you do not have to be afraid of everyone," Mamata Banerjee said at a rally in Darjeeling.

In an apparent dig at the GJM and its chief Bimal Gurung, Mamata said, "she never believes in fighting and hence she asked for a

common candidate, in reply we were told by the GJM that the party is discussing about the candidate and we were told repeatedly, even after making phone calls for three times but nothing has happened and after the poll dates were announced also they did not communicate about the name of the candidate. They took our courtesy as a sign of our weakness. We had given them a proposal that let there be a consensus candidate from Darjeeling but they refused to heed to our request. What have they done in return, each time they are supporting canBaichung Bhutia didates you belong from Delhi. Didn't they even as their candidate?" jee also stated that she has find a single lad from the The West Bengal chief formed a relationship with hills to contest from here minister Mamata Baner- the people of the hills and

Northeast Briefs Blasts rock Manipur IMPHAL, APrIL 13 (NNN): Two blasts rocked Manipur today but there were no casualties in both cases. At around 4:30 am, a Chinese hand grenade exploded in the residence of one Thanpao (60), s/o Chungkholun of Moreh Ward Number 2 in Chandel district, damaging a vehicle partially. The attack was suspected to be related to monetary demand. It was not clear which group could have been behind the attack. In the second incident, a powerful IED exploded at around 2:30 in Imphal East district damaging a small shop and a wooden house partially. Reports said the IED exploded at Wangkhei Keithel Asangbi under Porimpat police station, Imphal East district.

The reports also said a meeting of the Congress party was held in the community hall of Keithel Asangbi last evening. However, it was not certain whether the explosion was related to the election reason.

NE election roundup AgArtALA, APrIL 13 (IANS): A staggering 85 percent of the electorate voted in Tripura in the twophase Lok Sabha election, officials said Sunday. This is the highest voter turnout in any state so far in the ongoing parliamentary election. In 2009, the voter turnout was 84.45 percent and 67.39 percent in 2004 in Tripura, which is ruled by the Left Front led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M). Nagaland recorded 82 percent polling for its only Lok Sabha seat last week. Over 86 percent of the 1.2 million electorate voted in the West Tripura constituency and 84 percent of the 1.13 million electorate in East Tripura, state Chief Electoral Officer Ashutosh Jindal told IANS. Tripura created electoral history in the 2013 assembly polls when a record 93.57 percent ballots were cast. The state recorded 92 percent polling in the 2008 assembly elections.

No division of Darjeeling Hills: Mamata DArJEELINg, APrIL 13 (PtI): Asserting that the Trinamool Congress government in West Bengal will not allow any division of Darjeeling, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Sunday said it is bringing in development in the hills with special packages. “We will not allow any division of the Hills,” Ms. Banerjee reiterated at a poll rally in Darjeeling, while emphasising that her government has effected various development projects in the hills. She said her government okayed the setting up of ITI, engineering college and projects related with electricity and drinking water. Coming down on the ‘bandhs’ (shutdowns), Ms. Banerjee said those who call for strikes, close businesses, hotels and shops, their children go outside the hills and have fun.

“We are all for development of the hills,” the Chief Minister said and promised the elections would be held in a free and fair manner this time.

Two Militants Killed in Manipur Encounter IMPHAL, APrIL 13 (PtI): Two militants, suspected to be members of major insurgent outfit People's Liberation Army (PLA), were killed in an encounter with personnel of central paramilitary forces in Manipur's Ukhrul district, police sources said today. Personnel of 44th Assam Rifles were combing Chatrik Nampisha area yesterday in the district bordering Myanmar when they were fired upon by the insurgents. In the ensuing exchange of fire, two insurgents were killed sources said adding that the bodies have been to district hospital for post-mortem.

Palm Sunday celebrated in Mizoram AIzAwL, APrIL 13 (PtI): Palm Sunday, which commemorates Jesus Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem as king, was celebrated with religious fervour in Christian-dominated Mizoram on Sunday.

Sunday School students and the teachers took out Palm Sunday procession early morning in each village and locality across the state carrying palm leaves chanting Bible verses, singing hymns and shouting 'Hosanna in the highest, let he who comes in the name of the Lord be praised'. Church services were also dominated by Bible verses dealing with the procession of Christ and his followers to Jerusalem. Palm Sunday is celebrated in the last Sunday before Good Friday, the day Christ was crucified.

EC replaces DEO after E Kameng violence ItANAgAr, APrIL 13 (PtI): Election Commission has replaced East Kameng district election officer (DEO) Tarin Dakpe and appointed election officer Sandeep Kumar Singh in his place following post-poll violence there. Dakpe was replaced yesterday after he himself pleaded to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) for his replacement on Friday, election office sources said here today.

hence she has visited the hills repeatedly.

Mamata at the same time said that she doesn't believe in double standards and hence no bands would be tolerated in the hills.

"When they did a 45 day strike, they had shutdown shops and they left people without any food, I had strongly rejected such tactics of continuing any bandh culture. We do not believe in double standards. What we say in the hills, we say the same thing in the plains as well and vice-versa," Banerjee said.

She also narrated a host of developmental projects which she had initiated in order to develop the district of Darjeeling, whether it is creating engineering

colleges, ITI's, or developing electricity and water supply. West Bengal chief minister also reiterated the fact that she hopes to create a second Darjeeling.

She also highlighted the fact that her government has created councils for the development of Lepchas and she has ensured that 7000 men from the hills get jobs in the police.

Mamata Banerjee also reiterated the fact that she has given all the powers to the Gorkha Territorial Authority (GTA) leaving three or four subjects aside and still GJM was not able to function properly and that they are only thumping their chest for rights rather than doing any development for the hills.

powers," said the AAP candidate. He then said people in Manipur do not know what is democracy.

Outer Parliamentary constituency of Manipur is a reserved seat for the tribals where the Nagas and the Chin-Kuki-Mizo group are the two largest communities.

There are four Naga candidates and six from the Chin-Kuki-Mizo group in the fray in the Outer parliamentary constituency. The total number of voters in the constituency is 9,11,699.

Mani Charenamei (Independent), Soso Lorho (NPF), Prof Gangmumei Kamei (BJP) and Amarson Sankhil (Independent) are the four candidates hailing from the Naga community while Thangso Baite (Congress), Kim Gangte (Trinamool), K Zou (Aam Aadmi Party), C Doungel (NCP), Lien Gangte (JD-U) and Lallalmoi CPI(ML) are from the Chin-Kuki-Mizo group.

Again, the total number of voters of the Nagas is 3,70,00 while that of the Chin-Kuki-Mizo group stands at 3,30,00 and the rest are from the Nepalis, Meiteis and the MeiteiPangal (Muslims).

Suisa (a Naga), Rishang Keishing (a Naga), Kim Gangte (a Chin-KukiMizo), Holkhommang Haokip (a Chin-Kuki-Mizo), Mani Charenamei (a Naga), Meijinlung Kamson (a Naga) are some of the names of the Members of Parliament who once represented the Outer Manipur parliamentary (Lok Sabha) seat. The incumbent MP Thangso Baite hails from the Chin-KukiMizo group.

3

Gogoi attacks Narendra Modi over 'married' status guwAHAtI, APrIL 13 (PtI): In a personal and vituperative attack on BJP prime ministerial candidate, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi today demandedBharat Ratna for Jashodaben, wife of Narendra Modi, calling her "a symbol of sacrifice and pain".

"In the next 10 days, I am going to write recommending Jashodaben for the 'Bharat Ratna'. I must salute her hundred times.

She is a symbol of great Indian womanhood and a great lady," Gogoi told a press conference here. "She is a symbol of sacrifice and pain, not only in India but the entire world," he said.

In the same vein, Gogoi remarked "She should actually receive Noble Prize for her silent suffering and perhaps nobody in the country having realised her pain."

"Jashodaben is the real sanyasin. Modi claims that he is a sanyasi, but in real-

Outer Manipur candidates laments IMPHAL, APrIL 13 (NNN): Trinamool Congress candidate Kim Gangte and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) candidate K Zou, both the candidates from the Outer Manipur parliamentary seats, have expressed their lamentations that militants had ruled the roost in the April 9 Lok Sabha poll in Maniopur hills.

Kim Gangte, the lone female candidate from among the ten candidates vieing for the lone Manipur Outer seat told Newmai News Network this evening that the Congress used militants especially in Sadar Hills and Churachandpur district capturing her votes.

"The Congress accused the Naga People's Party (NPF) of capturing votes but here the Congress party had captured my votes especially in Kuki dominated areas using militants," alleged former MP Kim Gangte. The lone woman Lok Sabha poll contestant in Manipur hills further alleged that underground cadres barred the people from voting in several polling stations.

Aam Aadmi Party candidate K Zou too has expressed similar view. According to K Zou, Congress candidate Thangso Baite, NPF candidate Soso Lorho and NCP candidate C Doungel used both muscle and money powers in the April 9 Lok Sabha poll in Manipur hills.

"Most of the people went for money," K Zou alleged.

"I contesting in this poll is a case of sending a clear message of honesty and accountability. I do not like to be sent to the Parliament through money and muscle

Dimapur

ity he is a saffron man to capture power. He is a kind of 'American sanyasi'. He only knows about the Chief Minister's post. What kind of man is (now) going to be the Prime Minister of India?," Gogoi said.

Going ballistic against the BJP prime ministerial candidate, the Congress leader claimed that, "This is not an election issue but an humane issue".

While filing his nomination papers for the Vadodara Lok Sabha seat in Gujarat, Modi had for the first time mentioned his spouse's name as Jashodaben under that column.

Turning to Assam's illegal migration issue, which came for reference in BJP manifesto, Gogoi said, "In Assam, population grew by 15.35 per cent between 2001 and 2011 as per the census report. "But around the same time, Gujarat's population grew by 19.12 per cent.

'Herculean task to repatriate Bru refugees in 3 months'

A Reang woman displays the indelible ink mark on her finger after casting her vote at a polling station in Khowai District, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) northeast of Agartala, capital of the northeastern Indian state of Tripura on Saturday, April 12. The multiphase voting across the country runs until May 12, with results for the 543-seat lower house of parliament announced May 16. (AP Photo/Ramakanta Dey)

AIzAwL, APrIL 13 (PtI): Mizoram government officials today said that it will be virtually impossible to repatriate all the Bru refugees lodged in six Tripura relief camps within three months as demanded by the NGO Coordination Committee.

Although the State government on Tuesday last acceded to the demands of the Committee which resulted in the calling off of its 72-hour bandh, the exercise will be a Herculean task, the officials, on the condition of anonymity, told PTI. Mizoram government has agreed in writing that it would try to repatriate all the Bru refugees lodged in the Tripura camps within three months after the end of the ongoing election process and will take steps to ensure that those who refuse to return, their names will be deleted from the voter lists in Mizoram. "We have to be realistic in implementing the repatriation as it would involve huge amount of money and massive human resources," the officials said.

They said that various requirements for implementation of the repatriation, including financial, availability of land and villages where they would be resettled and other logistics, including availability of rice to be given as free ration for a year, were yet to be worked out. There are more than 11,000 Bru voters in the relief camps and Bru leaders have claimed that more than 30,000 Bru tribals who are the bonafide residents of Mizoram are currently staying in the camps.

Congress may bank on Muslims support in Assam guwAHAtI, APrIL 13 (AgENcIES): The Congress is expected to gain from intense political polarisation that has set in Assam like never before, as minorities who account for 30 per cent of the state's total voters are likely to favour the party this time.

Muslims, traditionally a Congress vote bank in Assam, had some years ago gradually started moving to the All India United Democratic Front (AI-

UDF), a party which claimed to champion the cause of Muslims post the repeal of the Illegal Migrants (Determination

by Tribunal) Act of 1983 by the Supreme Court in 2005. The act had been pushed through by the Congress government as one aimed at protecting minorities against undue harassment.

In the assembly elections of 2006, the AIUDF won 10 seats and started denting the minor-

ity support base of the Congress.

In the 2009 parliamentary elections, it severely damaged the Congress as the grand old party could win only seven seats, two less than five years earlier. The BJP won Mangaldoi and Guwahati, helped by a split in votes between the Congress and AIUDF. According to political analysts, voters in Assam started polarising ever since BJP's prime ministerial candidate, Naren-

dra Modi, addressed a massive rally in Guwahati on February 8. With the Shahi Imam of Jama Masjid putting his weight behind the Congress in this year's elections, Muslims are likely to back the Congress, they say, indicating that the AlUDF will be the biggest casualty of this development as it is expected lose minority support base.

In a tactical move, the AIUDF - it is contesting 10 out of

Poll officials cross mountains, rivers in Arunachal roINg (AruNAcHAL PrADESH), APrIL 13 (IANS): Crossing the turbulent Dibang river by boat, wading across some tributaries with waist-high water and trudging for miles along mountainous pathways - polling officials literally left no stone unturned as they helped voters in Lower Dibang Valley district of eastern Arunachal Pradesh to vote.

The northeastern state saw over 70 percent turnout for the two Lok Sabha seats and 49 assembly seats, which were held simultaneously, on April 9, in phase two of the elections.

With some polling stations in Lower Dibang Valley located in inaccessible areas, with no motorable

road, the polling teams had to trudge on foot, cross rivers and hilly terrain to ensure the people could vote.

Dopowa polling station is a case in point. The polling team had to walk 46 km to reach the polling station, taking at least three days, for an electorate of 18 people.

After the voting, they had to walk back the entire stretch.

A polling team comprises 4-5 presiding and polling officers, police personnel, one attendant and a porter.

They carried polling material with them, including four sets of EVMs - two sets each for Lok Sabha and Vidhan Sabha election - as well as light bedding and other material like battery lamps, torch and water filer.

"With the Election

Commission mandating that a polling station should be present within two km of every voter, polling teams are required to traverse jungles, deserts, glaciers and sea to fulfill the mandate. In some polling stations, these efforts are undertaken to serve relatively few number of electors," said an official.

The Lower Dibang Valley, with its headquarter at Roing, is one of the 17 districts of Arunachal Pradesh. It is named after the river Dibang - one of the important tributaries of the Brahmaputra.

To reach Hukani polling station, from the polling headquarters at Desali Circle, the polling team had to trudge 22 km over two

days for an electorate of 22 voters. For the 33-strong electorate in Mitake, the polling team walked for 44 km over three days. Desali has the highest number of electorate at 238. To reach Desali, the team walked 33 km for two days.

Likewise Donli is 40 km away and required three days of walking to ensure the electorate of 100 people got to vote. "In the nine polling stations in this district, polling parties walked between 10 km and 46 km on foot to conduct polls," the official said.

From Roing, the district headquarters of Lower Dibang Valley, the polling officials were ferried by Tata Sumos to Desali. They were also provided with raincoats as it was raining in the area.

the state's 14 Lok Sabha seats has put up as many four Hindu candidates and supported one independent who happens to be a Hindu. There are six seats in Assam where minority votes are a deciding factor. Meanwhile, the Election Commission has issued show-cause notices against Perfume baron and AIUDF chief Badruddin Ajmal and Congress Minister D Nazul Islam for their alleged comments on the BJP.

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India fourth largest global market for Renault’s Duster

New Delhi, April 13 (pTi): India has become the fourth biggest market for Renault’s compact sports utility vehicle Duster globally, with sales touching 85,974 units in the country, since the launch of the vehicle in 2012.

The combined production of Renault and Dacia branded Dusters has already crossed one million vehicles worldwide. The vehicles were launched across international markets four years ago.

Currently, Russia is the biggest market for Duster globally. The French car major has sold 1,51,633 units of the SUV in that country. This is followed

by France with 1,45,612 units (where it is badged as Dacia) and Brazil with 1,17,303 units in third spot.

Germany is the fifth biggest market for the SUV after India, where it sold 70,159 under the Dacia badge.

“Not only is Duster one of the driving forces behind the Renault Group’s

international growth, but it has also emerged as the best-selling Renault model worldwide,” the company said in a statement.

Renault Group’s Entry Programme Director Arnaud Deboeuf said: “With Renault branding, it perfectly meets the demands of our international customers and is contributing to Renault’s expansion in emerging markets.”

At the same time, the Dacia-badged version sold in Europe and Mediterranean Basin markets has succeeded in attracting a new clientele to the brand, he added.

Duster, which competes with Mahindra Scorpio and Ford EcoSport in India, is currently marketed in more than 100 countries and made in five factories across the world.

It is priced between Rs 7.78 lakh and Rs 11.79 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi).

For the month of March, Renault sold 4,494 units of Duster in India, while 46,786 units of the SUV were sold in the 2013-14 fiscal. The one millionth Duster was manufactured at Renault’s plant in Curitiba, Brazil, and will be delivered to a customer in the same country.

New Delhi, April 13 (bl): Bank of India (BoI) has become the first Indian bank to extend a bridge loan of $ 200 million to Air India to finance the purchase of two Boeing 787 Dreamliner aircraft.

Confirming the development, a senior Airline official said that the London branch of the Bank had come forward to extend funds to Air India to acquire the Boeing 787 aircraft.

The funds raised from BoI will be used to acquire the 13th and 14th B-787 aircraft which the airline is to take delivery of.

Like in the past, the state owned carrier will go in for a sale-and-lease back mechanism, a common route adopted by several airlines to acquire expensive assets like aircraft. The Boeing website shows that a Boeing 787 retails for between $ 211 and $ 288 million.

The actual price of the aircraft varies from airline to airline depending on the number of aircraft ordered.

Meanwhile, Air India has started liquidating its debts and has paid off ₹ 465 crore to the Delhi Airport International Limited between April 2013 and March 31 this year, officials said.

During fiscal year 2014-15, Air India expects revenue from carrying passengers to touch Rs 16,400 crore with international passengers accounting for 55 per cent of this revenue. The state owned carrier expects to carry close to 16 million passengers during the fiscal. The turnover of the Group is expected to touch Rs 21,500 crore during fiscal 2014-15 with Air India contributing Rs 19,100 crore with its two subsidiaries Air India Express chipping in with Rs 2,200 crore and Alliance Airlines providing about Rs 200 crore.

MuMbAi, April 13 (pTi): With telecom majors focusing on decentralisation of their networks by setting up customer centre desks in tier II and III cities, hiring in rural areas will continue to grow by up to 20 per cent, say experts.

“Tier II and III cities offer the feasibility in hiring the talent at much lower cost and retention is also comparatively higher.

Though ready talent is not available in these areas, it is not difficult to train them as per the requirements of the company.

So, the hiring will continue to grow in these areas...minimum 15-20 per cent higher than last year,” executive search firm GlobalHunt’s Managing Director Sunil Goel told PTI here.

He said hiring in tier II and III cities provides a wider range of availability and decentralised approach, which suits the best as business continuity plan.

It also helps the company in managing lower recurring cost in increments and physical infrastructure are also available at much lesser cost as compared

New Delhi, April 13 (pTi): Telecom major Airtel has increased mobile services rates of both internet and calls under certain schemes, giving an indication of next round of tariff hikes in the industry.

“There has been change in Airtel services rates from April 3 onwards. Airtel has reduced validity of Rs 125 mobile internet pack from 28 to 21 days,” a mobile dealer in Delhi NCR told PTI. The Airtel’s website showed similar rates but it nowhere mentioned the date from which new tariff is applicable.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India, which monitors mobile tariff at present, does not inform consumers about increase in mobile rates by service providers. A coupon retailer said that Airtel has also reduced benefit on recharge that reduce call rates.

“The change is in Rs 46 recharge voucher which is used to bring down call rates.

Earlier it reduced STD and local call rates to 45 per minute now it will be 50 paisa per minute. There are lot many changes in such vouchers,” the retailer, who did not wished to be named, said.

Simple Rules - There is just one simple rule: “Fill in the grid so that every row, every column, and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9.”

Game Number # 2847

Other major operators Vodafone and Idea Cellular have reduced validity of voucher from 30 days to 24 days. Airtel has moved benefits of reducing calls under mobile recharge of Rs 38 to Rs 48.

“Earlier recharge of Rs 38 brought down STD call rates to 40 paisa per minute but now customers will have to pay Rs 48 for same. Now Rs 38 recharge will reduce STD call rates to 45 paisa per minute,” the retailer said.

Airtel said: “There is no change in headline tariffs.

Reduction of discounts and promotional offers is a part

of our ongoing strategy.” Vodafone India spokesperson also made similar remark.

“There is absolutely no change in the base tariffs.

Promotion packs change from time to time for segment periodically as part of continuously refreshing the promotion pack portfolio.”

Idea Cellular said company’s tariffs differ from circle to circle and are based on local competitive activities in the market and there is no common change across the country. Airtel dominates Indian mobile phone services market with over 22% share.

Online shoppers population to touch 38 mn by 2015

MuMbAi, April 13 (pTi): With more and more people buying products online, credit card issuers are seeing an increase in their business, and the number of online shoppers is likely to reach 38 million by 2015, says a study.

The number of online shoppers in the country is currently estimated at 14 per cent of the total 74 million internet users and has been growing at 35 per cent over the last three years, according to an American Express study.

to the metros, he said.

Moreover, retention of employee is also becoming one of the major challenges in metro cities as high attrition inflicts a lot of recruitment, training and development cost on the companies, he said.

Industries like insurance and healthcare have also been following similar routes, he added. Echoing similar views, another industry expert opined that the need for skilled professionals in tier II and III cities has seen a significant surge to build the skill gap.

“India is a big market and also one of the most competitive in the domain with multiple players in the fray. About 50-60 per cent of the subscribers come from non metros, including tier II and III cities and those are also one of the focused revenue markets for the companies,” he said.

Randstad India CEO Moorthy K Uppaluri said with the overheating of the urban market segment, telecom companies have been pro-actively

_

SUDOKU

Airtel hikes rates of select internet, call packs

Small towns to see more hiring in telecom sector: Experts

Bank of India loans $200 mn to AI for purchase of 3 Dreamliners

LEISURE

The Morung Express

building infrastructure in rural areas over the past few years to expand their subscriber base, widen distribution networks, boost profit margins and compete more effectively.

“Market estimates show that the share of rural subscribers has increased at an annual rate of 15-20 per cent over the past year. With these developments, we believe that the telecom sector is poised to grow in tier II and III cities and expect hiring to go up by about 10 per cent this year and continue to gain momentum in future,” he said.

Given the challenge of skills gaps, he said most firms hold periodic and structured training to equip and update their workforce with the necessary skills that will help them perform their job efficiently.

“As business potential in rural markets is growing, we are also witnessing a similar trend in FMCG, banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) industries, consumer durables, education and retail segments,” he added.

According to the study, the number of online shoppers in the country is likely to reach 38 million by 2015.

Last August the country has overtaken Japan to become the world’s third-largest online market in terms of internet user base, growing at 31 per cent, after China and the US, according to research firm comScore.

Credit card providers saw twotimes more transactions on Flipkart, 1.6 times at Jabong and six times at Infibeam, says the AmEx study.

The recent ‘great online shopping

festival’ launched by Google triggered massive sales for various companies, from online retailers to credit card companies.

American Express offered attractive discounts on leading e-commerce sites like Jabong, Flipkart, Infibeam and Makemytrip and saw 22 times growth in their average daily billings during the campaign, generating USD 1.7 million billings in total and USD 1.2 million in incremental billings during the period, the AmEx study said.

India Inc to offer 10.3% raise to employees this fiscal New Delhi, April 13 (pTi): Indian companies are likely to shell out an average salary increment of 10.3% in the current fiscal with employees in pharma, health care and life sciences projected to get 12.4% raise, says a survey. The overall average increment is 0.3% points lower than the previous fiscal (10.6%), because of slow economic growth and lower attrition.

The findings are part of a survey conducted by Deloitte India, Human Capital Consulting. Companies in pharmaceutical, healthcare and life sciences are expected to dole out an average raise of 12.4%, highest across sectors in 2014-15.

It is marginally lower compared to 12.6% in the previous fiscal.

Given the overall mood of the economy, the retail sector will maintain a conservative estimate and is likely to offer the lowest average increment at 9.1%, the survey said.

“Average annual increment percentages have reduced marginally across levels. The reduction is highest at the middle management levels,” it added.

Meanwhile, as per the survey findings the average voluntary attrition rate across sectors in the 2013-14 fiscal had been 13.4%, 0.8% points lower than the previous fiscal 2012-13.

DAILY CROSS WORD

CROSSWORD # 2856

Recognition awards (monetary / non-monetary), clearly defined career paths and succession plans as well as development programmes for high potential and top performers were identified as main reasons that helped curb attrition. The highest attrition rates were recorded in the ITeS industry (16.4%), Media (15.6%), Hitech (14.2%) and BFSI (14%). Logistics had the lowest average attrition level at 10.5% followed by auto sector at 10.6%.

Employees identified as top performers are likely to get an average raise of 16.2% while persons at the key positions -- roles in the organisation that have a maximum impact on the business -- are expected to get average increment of 14.7%.

According to Deloitte, career management, developing potential leaders as well as retaining and rewarding critical talent are the top three HR challenges faced by organisations across sectors. However, it observed that to address these challenges organisations are maximising their rewards spend by identifying, segmenting and rewarding individuals who have maximum impact on the business and are focusing on hiring talented individuals, among others.

DIMAPUR Civil Hospital:

STD CODE: 03862

Metro Hospital: Faith Hospital: Shamrock Hospital Zion Hospital: Police Control Room Police Traffic Control East Police Station West Police Station CIHSR (Referral Hospital) Dimapur hospital Apollo Hospital Info Centre: Railway: Indian Airlines Chumukedima Fire Brigade Nikos Hospital and Research Centre Nagaland Multispecialty Health & Research Centre

Answer Number # 2846

KOHIMA

Police Control Room: North Police Station: South Police Station: Fire Brigade: Naga Hospital: Oking Hospital: Bethel Nursing Home:

232224; Emergency229529, 229474 227930, 231081 228846 228254 231864, 224117, 227337 228400 232106 227607 232181 242555/ 242533 224041, 248011 230695/9402435652 131/228404 229366 282777 232032, 231031 248302, 09856006026

STD CODE: 0370

Northeast Shuttles

100/2244279 2222222 2222111 2222952 2222916 2243339 2224202

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Supotsu (Sports)

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ACROSS 1.Gloves 6. South American country 10. Hairdo 14. Courtyards 15. Dry 16. Accomplishes 17. Gain knowledge 18. Stepped 19. 8 in Roman numerals 20. Intemperate 22. Feudal worker 23. Narrow opening 24. One who leases 26. Opinion 30. Euro forerunner 31. Seated oneself 32. Border 33. Marcel Marceau was one 35. Jackets and trousers 39. Fine or decorative clothing 41. Breastbone 43. Sew together loosely 44. Agreeable 46. Beige 47. An unskilled actor 49. Indian bread 50. Flat float 51. Ancient ascetic 54. Parasitic insect

56. Lion sound 57. Excessively dramatic 63. Astringent 64. Sourish 65. African virus 66. Bristle 67. Connects two points 68. Quotes 69. Biblical garden 70. God of love 71. Something of value

DOWN 1. French Sudan 2. Bit of gossip 3. Streetcar 4. Novice 5. Smooths 6. Aristocrat 7. Typographical error 8. Violent disturbance 9. Mammary glands of bovids 10. Explorer 11. Impose 12. French for “Queen” 13. Willow 21. Lacquer ingredient 25. Leisure 26. “Action word” 27. Bright thought 28. Hens make them

29. Meteorologist 34. Intensifies 36. Ancient Peruvian 37. Territory 38. Porn 40. Low-fat 42. Basic belief 45. Conflagration 48. Spunk 51. Delete 52. Anagram of “Doles” 53. Fry briefly 55. Betel palm 58. Found on most heads 59. Nile bird 60. Camp beds 61. Away from the wind 62. Not first Ans to CrossWord 2855

CHUMUKEDIMA: 03862-282777/101 (O) WOKHA: 03860-242215 (O) 9402643782 MOKOKCHUNG: 0369-2226225/101 (O) 9856872011 (OC) PHEK: 03865-223838/101 (O) 9436012949 (OC)

MON: 03869-290629/101 (O) 9856248962/ 9612805461 (OC)

Toll free No. 1098 childline

H

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TUENSANG: 03861-220256/101 (O) 8974322879

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MOKOKCHUNG:

FIRE STATIONS

STD CODE: 0369

Police Station 1: Police Station 2 :

2226241 2226214

Civil Hospital: Woodland Nursing Home: Hotel Metsüpen (Tourist Lodge):

2226216 2226263 2226373/2229343

TAHAMzAM (formerly Senapati) STD CODE: 03871 Police Station: Fire Brigade

222246 222491

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LOCAL/REGIONAL

The Morung Express

Advocacy program stresses on containing HiV/AiDs & ending stigma Dimapur, april 13 (mExN): Medical officer in-charge of Anti Retroviral Therapy Centre, Dimapur Dr. Hutoka Sema has disclosed that according to Sentinel Surveillance Report 2014, Nagaland has become the state with highest prevalence of HIV/ AIDS in the country with an alarming ratio of 0.88%.

Country’s figure stands at 0.37%.

According to a press release, Dr. Hutoka said this while presenting a lecture on “basic of HIV/AIDS & treatment facilities available” at an advocacy programme on HIV/AIDS for Kuhuboto and Khaghaboto areas at Kuhuboto town on April 12. The advocacy programme was organized

by Western Sumi Totimi Hoho and sponsored by Legislators Forum of AIDS. The medical officer said youth are more vulnerable

to the virus. He also gave more input on the purpose of ART. Addressing the program as guest speaker, N. Jacob Zhimomi, MLA & Chairman, Development Authority of Nagaland said the prevalence and increase in the ratio of HIV/ AIDS in the state is alarming and of great concern for the people of the state.

He said it was ticking like a time bomb that could devastate the society one day.

He called upon the mothers and leaders of the two areas to come to realization to face the fact and act together to fight the spread of the disease.

Also presenting a speech, Hukatoli Chophy, administrator, Legislators Forum of AIDS said HIV/ AIDS is preventable, but it has to start from within every individual. She viewed that women become vul-

nerable to the disease because of lack of education and awareness, low status and violence against them.

She stated the means to prevent the disease from spreading was education and awareness.

Ahimsa K. Zhimo, president, WSTH who delivered a lecture on “stigma and discrimination” stressed on how it is affecting the families. She said stigma and discrimination must be put to stop in order to contain the disease. She urged those attending the seminar to care and support the people infected with HIV/AIDS. The programme was chaired by Illitoli Zhimo, information and publicity secretary, WSTH and Nisheli, organizing secretary, WSTH was the recorder. Hotoli V. Chishi, treasurer, WSTH delivered welcome address.

news in picture

Palm Sunday programme being held at PHQ Junction PR Hill Kohima on Sunday. (Morung Photo)

Department of Philosophy, Patkai Christian College (4th semester) held its class internal presentation (drama) on the theme Ethics-II "Respect for Life" at Salesian College on April 5. The programme was hosted by Salesian College and the students were accompanied by Dr. Behera, (HoD) Philosophy, Patkai Christian College. (Photo: Citizen Journalist Heutinggumbe)

14 April 2014

NNC/FGN clarifies Kohima, april 13 (mExN): Federal Government of Nagaland (NNC/FGN) has clarified to a press release which appeared in local dailies on April 10 and 11, where it stated the arrest of 2nd Lieut. Pavito belonging to NNC/FGN for extortion and issuing work permit in Kohima. The Ministry of Rali Wali in a press release stated that the person in question is “absolutely” not a member of NNC/FGN. The arrested “extortionist”, the statement said, “belongs to the splinter group of NNC headed by Kiumkam Yimchunger and Hozheto Sumi calling themselves as ‘Non Accordist’.” Furthermore, it said, NNC/FGN has not issued any 'Assignment Ahza' particularly for the collection of commercial taxes in Kohima till now.

Henceforth, it has requested all the tax payers and law enforcing agency to distinguish clearly between the party nomenclatures to avoid confusion in future.

DSSATA supports agitation

MLA Jacob Zhimomi speaking at the programme.

Dimapur, april 13 (mExN): The Dimapur SSA Teachers Association (DSSATA) has extended its full co-operation and support to the ongoing agitation called by Nagaland SSA Teachers Association (NSSATA) over non-payment of due salaries and arrears. Further, all the SSA teachers under Dimapur district have been asked to attend the general meeting of SSA teachers on April 16, 11.00 am, at APO Hall, Kohima.

Dimapur

5

No general transportation will be provided, and hence, members have been requested to bear their own expenses. A strict disciplinary action will be taken against teachers who fail to turn up for the said meeting, the release cautioned. For further query, one may contact 8575904639/ 9612548280.

NNC appoints commander Dimapur, april 13 (mExN): The Naga National Council under the leadership of Z. Royim Yimchungrii and V.Nagi has appointed Maj.Vicky Zhimomi under Union Territory-1 as the new commander of Dimapur City Command. He will remain under the UT-1 Authority, stated a press release issued

by NNC Information & Publicity Wing. He has been directed to resume and perform his duty effective from the date of publication of this order.

NWHD condemns Dimapur, april 13 (mExN): The Naga Women Hoho Dimapur (NWHD) has strongly condemned "the attempt to life" of Abe Mero, ACAUT member and other civilians on April 9. The NWHD in a press release issued by its president Hukheli T Wotsa and general secretary Vimenuo Liegise stated that this kind of incidents should not be repeated, while urging the authority to book the accused and punish them according to the law of the land.

70th Anniversary Battle of Nungshigum commemorated

imphal, april 13 (mExN): The commemoration of the 70th Anniversary Battle of Nunshigum was organised at Keibi Khullen, Imphal East. The event was organised as part of the 70th Anniversary Battle of Imphal by Manipur Tourism Forum and the 2nd World War Imphal Campaign Foundation.

A press release from Santosh Shekhar, PRO, 70th Anniversary Battle of Imphal, informed that Dr Th Dhabali, Convenor, 70th Anniversary Battle of Imphal, was the chief guest for the occasion. Moirangn-

The district Administration, Dimapur visited the site of the fire incident at Rio colony, Dimapur and handed over rehabilitation package of Rs. 80, 000 in cash to the affected families. Further, on Sunday, support poured in from various quarters as NGOs, churches and individuals came forward with relief materials for the affected. Seen in the picture is EAC, Dimapur James Swu handing over the cash, which will be distributed among the affected.

Monday

ingthou Meitei, Witness of the Battle of Nungshigum, and A Achoubi Singh, Secretary, Keibi Khullen Development Committee, were the Guest of Honours and A Angamba, Co- Convenor, 70th Anniversary Battle of Imphal, presided over the function.

The Commemoration was attended by visitors from UK and US notably, Bob Cook, Retired Warrant Officer, Royal Signals and Curator of Kohima Museum, Yorkshire, UK, Brian Ward, Retired Warrant Officer, Green Howards and Assistant Curator of Ko-

hima Museum, Yorkshire, UK, Leslie Edward, Author of ‘Kohima-the furthest Battle’, Robert Street, Son of War Veteran and Author of ‘A Brummie in Burma’, Robert Palmer, a military historian, James Well, Son of Kohima War Veteran, and Tom Johnson, a US Tax Consultant and Coffee grower from Hawaii. Also joining the function was Col (Retd) Vijay Yashwant Gidh, a retired officer of the Indian Army and currently residing in Pune.

Dhabali mentioned the significance of the commemoration of 70th An-

niversary Battle of Imphal and the Importance of the Battle of Nungshigum in the entire campaign. He welcomed the veterans, their family members, war historian and everyone associated with the WWII to visit Manipur. He also said the commemoration of the Battle of Imphal will compel everyone to think about the important part of the history which unfolded in various part of Manipur.

David Cook, Curator, Kohima War Museum in Yorkshire, expressed his profound happiness in the

local group trying to preserve history by organizing the Commemoration event like today. He was hopeful that with everyone’s effort, history would live on.

Moirangningthou Meitei, who was 12 years old when the Battle of Nungshigum unfolded gave an eyewitness account and expressed his happiness in reviving the history of the Battle. He expressed his gratitude to the organisers and the visitors who travelled all the way to join the commemoration function.

Visual treat of exotic fish, flowers HTC conducts convocation april 13 (mExN): Harding Theological Colleaves visitors spellbound in Manipur Tura, lege Tura held its convocation on April 11 with Luther-

imphal, april 13 (aNi): The display of the rarest breeds of ornamental fishes and flowers at the seven- day state level Aquarium exhibition cum flower show in Imphal left visitors spell bound. The show was organised by the Manipur Science and Technology Council and Aquarium and Floriculture Entrepreneurs in Imphal.

The exhibition which kicked off on April 10 would continue till April 16 and has intrigued people of all age groups is attracting an average of 200 footfalls per day.

Speaking on the objective of organising such exhibitions, Fishery Officer, Laishram Nilakumar Singh, said that it seeks that the show was organized to sensitise people on the indigenous species of fish and flowers.

"Actually we thought it is high time for

people to understand the importance of our indigenous ornamental fish and also the indigenous flowers. So these are the two objectives we want to focus and at the same time for both this aquarium and floriculture, new entrepreneurs have to come up for our state and for our social economic development and that is why we are organising this seven- day aquarium- cumflower show," he said.

The event has been attended by aquarium entrepreneurs and floriculturalists from all across the state. At least 36 endangered indigenous fishes of Manipur are also being put up. On the other hand, the floriculturists have shown 124 plants species.

The show is a visual treat along with an enlightening experience on marine and aquatic life.

ene R Sangma, Chairperson, Meghalaya Public Service Commission, gracing the occasion as chief guest. A press release form Dr Imnanungshi, Principal, HTC, stated.

Representatives from Garo Baptist Convention, Krima, Pamongs, and many believers from different churches under Garo Baptist Convention, were present during the occasion.

Sangma, speaking during the occasion, accentuated the divine love and peace of God’s mission. She exhorted the graduating students to be strong in the Lord and to communicate the message of love and peace to the world, and especially to the Garo community.

Harding Theological College community acknowledged the unceasing love of God for the college and extended profound gratitude to ABDK, Krimas, Mondolis, donors and sponsors of the college. “From the inception of the college 1919 till today, support from the churches has been tremendous and the college community greatly appreciated it,” the Principal’s message stated.

Poll panel to make 11km Darjeeling trek to ensure chance to vote

DarJEEliNG, april 13 (aGENCiES): The Election Commission of India (EC), organising the largest democratic exercise in the world, is literary walking that extra mile to ensure democracy for all. EC officials will endure a gruelling 11-kilometre long trek to reach the remote booth of Srikhola in the mountainous northern part of West Bengal’s Darjeeling district.

At a height of 2,800 metres above sea level (msl), Srikhola houses the highest polling booth in the state. The village is nearly 100 kms south west of the Darjeeling town.

As per the Representation Of The People Act, 1951, no voter should cover more a distance of more than two-kilometres from his or her house to vote. Hence, to ensure that the 841 voters of Srikhola have the opportunity to vote along with 814 million Indians, the EC is all set to make the trek.

“The first 60 kms are relatively easy with mo-

tor-able roads, the next 29 kms on two-wheelers and for the remaining distance, officials will have to trek,” Pushpak Roy, EC officer-incharge in Darjeeling said.

The officials will not only be carrying the Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) and electoral charts, but also equipment and supplies such as generators, drinking water and food, mobile chargers, candles, lanterns and bedding. There is no electricity or housing in the area and so officials will have to carry the day-to-day necessities, and also ensure that they report back to the district headquarters on time.

The constituency will go to polls on April 17, and poll officials will start out for the venue as early as April 15 to ensure that all the voters of the constituency vote on the same day as per schedule.

About five kms from Srikhola stands another remote booth, Daragaon, at a height of 2,600 msl.

A separate team of EC officials will also reach there for its 875 voters, including 416 women.

Officials who conducted earlier polling in these areas thank the introduction of the EVM’s as carrying ballot boxes and papers were a nightmare, said an official. “Now it is much easier, as the load has reduced. Earlier, we also had to carry ballot box, papers and water proofing materials to cover the boxes as weather in those mountainous regions are so unpredictable that it can rain anytime ruining the ballots cast,” said an EC district official.

However, candidates of any of the political parties have not bothered to reach out to the voters, and at best had sent emissaries to campaign on their behalf. When questioned by Gulf News, most of the candidates expressed their surprise on the very existence of these booths, except for GJM, who claimed to have their party office there.

Militants using global SIM cards: Assam government

NEw DElhi, april 13 (ThE hiNDu): Alarmed at growing use of international SIM cards by insurgents in the north-east and poor mobile connectivity affecting the maintenance of law and order, the Assam government has asked the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) to install more mobile towers in the State, particularly along the international borders and in remote areas.

The Assam government has raised with the DoT the issue of slow pace of expansion of mobile tower infrastructure in the State and sought strengthening of mobile network in “sensitive areas” on priority.

In a letter to Telecom Secretary M.F. Farooqui, Assam Chief SecHigh tension cables seen fallen on the ground for the second day at Circular Road, retary Jitesh Khosla has explained Dimapur. Even after several complaints by the local residents, the department con- how poor telecom connectivity cerned is yet to do the needful. (Photo courtesy: Jonah Achumi) was hindering security forces in

carrying out operations against insurgent groups and manning international borders.

“Due to its geographical location and history of insurgency and extremism, Assam faces many challenges to maintenance of law and order and many threats from forces inimical to national security. It shares a long international border with Bangladesh and Bhutan and faces several serious ethno/communal sub-nationalist conflicts and militancy. Besides, there are equally contentious inter-State border disputes which need constant monitoring. In this background, an effective communication system is sine qua non for effective security monitoring of the State,” says the letter, a copy of which is in the possession of The Hindu.

Pointing out that mobile com-

munication network in Assam is far from satisfactory, particularly in forest and hilly areas, and on inter-State and international borders, the letter says: “Due to several communication shadow areas, some miscreants even use mobile SIM cards of foreign countries. This hinders proper reporting of incidents, effective surveillance and coordinated response by the security forces.”

“Given such a backdrop, it is desirable that the projects for installation of base transmission stations [BTS] in the communication shadow areas of Assam, particularly in Karbi-Anglong, Dima-Hasao, Goalpara, BTAD [Bodo Territorial Autonomous District] areas and along the Assam-Arunachal border and the Assam-Nagaland border be taken up on priority basis,” it adds.

DoT sources said the letter had now been forwarded to the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF) Administrator for taking further action. USOF is a government body to which all mobile operators contribute and the money collected is used to strengthen mobile infrastructure in remote and difficult terrains across the country.

Ironically, despite the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India recommending a four-pronged action plan for improving telecom services in Assam, neither the DoT nor the USOF has managed to implement any plan on the ground. The DoT and the USOF have even failed to implement a Union Home Ministry project, which was cleared by the Union Cabinet last year, to put up over 2,000 towers in nine Naxalaffected States.

6

The Power of Truth

The Morung Express MonDAy 14 APrIl 2014 voluME IX IssuE 101

Can You? Can you sell me the air as it slips through your fingers As it slaps at your face and untidies your hair?

Perhaps you could sell me fivepennyworth of wind or more, perhaps sell me a storm?

Perhaps the elegant air you would sell me, that air (not all of it) which trips around your garden, from corolla to corolla in your garden for the birds tenpenceworth of elegant air.

The air spins and goes by in a butterfly Belongs to no-one, no-one.

Can you sell me the sky the sky sometimes blue or grey sometimes a strip of your sky the bit you think you bought with the trees of your garden, as one buys the roof with the house?

Can you sell me a dollar of sky, two miles of sky, a slice, whatever you can of your sky?

The sky is in the clouds The clouds go by Belong to no-one, no-one.

Can you sell me rain, the water given to you by your tears, and moistening your tongue?

Can you sell me a dollar of water from a spring, a gravid cloud crinkly and soft as sheep or perhaps rainwater up in the mountains or the water from puddles left for the dogs or a stretch of sea, maybe a lake, a hundred dollars of lake Water falls, rolls on.

Water rolls on, goes by.

Belongs to no-one, no-one.

Can you sell me the earth, the deep night of the roots, teeth of dinosaurs and the lime dispersed from distant skeletons?

Can you sell me forests lying buried, birds that are dead fishes of stone, the sulphur of volcanoes, a thousand million years twisting their way up? Can you sell me the earth, can you sell me the earth, can you?

Your earth is mine Trodden by everyone's feet Belongs to no-one, no-one.

Nicolas Guillen (Cuba)

lEfT wiNg |

Cesar Chelala Source: The News

The Gulabi Gang

I

IN-FOCUS

n Bundelkhand, one of the poorest areas of the Uttar Pradesh region in Northern India, a 47-year-old woman is breaking stereotypes, and giving woman a chance to fight for their rights, and even for their survival. This is no small feat in a country plagued by discrimination against women and inequality.

In 2006, Sampat Pal Devi, who had been married at the age of 12 to an ice-cream vendor and had her first child when she was 15, created a group of women vigilantes that now numbers over 20,000, and now has even some men as its supporters. The movement is called Gulabi Gang (pink gang), after the pink-colored saris used by the members.

Another characteristic is the use of lathis (Indian fighting sticks,) which they use to punish miscreants.

In an interview with Sanjit Das, an Indian photographer and social activist, Sampat Pat Devi explained, “The word ‘gang’ doesn’t necessarily denote criminals. It can also be used to describe a team, a crew. We are a gang for justice.

“In rallies and protests outside our villages, especially in crowded cities, our members used to get lost in the rush. We decided to dress in a single color, which would be easy to identify. We didn’t want to be associated with other colors, as they had associations with political or religious groups.

We settled on pink, the color of life. It’s good. It makes the administration wary of us.”

Initially, the movement was created to help women victims of domestic abuse, but now includes all problems of inequality and abuse of women. Although gender-based discrimination against female children is widespread in developing countries, India is one of the worst culprits. Female feticide is one of the earliest and most brutal manifestations of violence against women.

Most of the members of the Gulabi Gang are poor and from India’s lowest caste, the dalit (untouchables). Sampat Pat Devi has assumed the role commander in chief of the organisation, and has appointed seven additional commanders in seven districts in Bundelkhand to help coordinate the group’s activities.

A long list of criminal charges doesn’t deter her. They include unlawful assembly, attacking a government official, and obstructing the work of an officer in duty. At times, she has had to go into hiding to protect herself. Her work, however, has inspired countless young and older women who join the group in increasing numbers.

One of the group’s earliest accomplishments happened in 2006, soon after the movement’s creation. When Sampat Pat Devi heard the cries of a woman being beaten by her husband she pleaded with the man to stop. Rather than stopping, the man also beat her. So Sampat Pat Devi, together with other five women, beat the man when their lathis until he begged for mercy. Soon afterwards, on hearing what had happened, many other women from her village joined the movement.

In the following years, the Gulabi Gang stopped several child marriages; forced police officers to register cases of domestic violence and organized protests against abusive dowries. As a result of their activities their fame spread beyond their village and the Gulabi Gang has now established operations in Banda, Meerut, Bjnor and several other places across Northern India.

Although most of the gang members’ actions are on behalf of women, they are increasingly joined by men in their protests. For example, 7,000 Banda men farmers asked the group to join them in their demands for compensation for failed crops. However, members of the gang are much less frequently using their lathis. As Sampat Pat Devi told the Hindustan Times, “My real strength is not in the stick. It is in numbers.

And one day we will be big enough to shake up Delhi, too.”

C O M M E N T A R Y

THE EDIT PAGE

Noam Chomsky Source: Truthout

Security and State Power;

A

The Prospects for Survival

leading principle of international relations theory is that the state's highest priority is to ensure security. As Cold War strategist George F. Kennan formulated the standard view, government is created "to assure order and justice internally and to provide for the common defense." The proposition seems plausible, almost self-evident, until we look more closely and ask: Security for whom? For the general population? For state power itself? For dominant domestic constituencies?

Depending on what we mean, the credibility of the proposition ranges from negligible to very high.c Security for state power is at the high extreme, as illustrated by the efforts that states exert to protect themselves from the scrutiny of their own populations.

In an interview on German TV, Edward J. Snowden said that his "breaking point" was "seeing Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper, directly lie under oath to Congress" by denying the existence of a domestic spying program conducted by the National Security Agency. Snowden elaborated that "The public had a right to know about these programs. The public had a right to know that which the government is doing in its name, and that which the government is doing against the public."

The same could be justly said by Daniel Ellsberg, Chelsea Manning and other courageous figures who acted on the same democratic principle.

The government stance is quite different: The public doesn't have the right to know because security thus is undermined - severely so, as officials assert. There are several good reasons to be skeptical about such a response. The first is that it's almost completely predictable: When a government's act is exposed, the government reflexively pleads security. The predictable response therefore carries little information.

A second reason for skepticism is the nature of the evidence presented. International relations scholar John Mearsheimer writes that "The Obama administration, not surprisingly, initially claimed that the NSA's spying played a key role in thwarting 54 terrorist plots against the United States, implying it violated the Fourth Amendment for good reason.

"This was a lie, however. Gen. Keith Alexander, the NSA director, eventually admitted to Congress that he could claim only one success, and that involved catching a Somali immigrant and three cohorts living in San Diego who had sent $8,500 to a terrorist group in Somalia."

A similar conclusion was reached by the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, established by the government to investigate the NSA programs and therefore granted extensive access to classified materials and to security officials.

There is, of course, a sense in which security is threatened by public awareness - namely, security of state power from exposure.

The basic insight was expressed well by the Harvard political scientist Samuel P. Huntington: "The architects of power in the United States must create a force that can be felt but not seen.

Power remains strong when it remains in the dark; exposed to the sunlight it begins to evaporate."

In the United States as elsewhere, the architects of power understand that very well. Those who have worked through the huge mass of declassified documents in, for example, the official State Department history "Foreign Relations of the United States," can hardly fail to notice how frequently it is security of state power from the domestic public that is a prime concern, not national security in any meaningful sense. Often the attempt to maintain secrecy is motivated by the need to guarantee the security of powerful domestic sectors. One persistent example is the mislabeled "free trade agreements" - mislabeled because they radically violate free trade principles and are substantially not about trade at all, but rather about investor rights.

These instruments are regularly negotiated in secret, like the current Trans-Pacific Partnership - not entirely in secret, of course. They aren't secret from the hundreds of corporate lobbyists and lawyers who are writing the detailed provisions, with an impact revealed by the few parts that have reached the public through WikiLeaks.

As the economist Joseph E. Stiglitz reasonably concludes, with the U.S. Trade Representative's office "representing corporate interests," not those of the public, "The likelihood that what emerges from the coming talks will serve ordinary Americans' interests is low; the outlook for ordinary citizens in other countries is even bleaker."

Corporate-sector security is a regular concern of government policies - which is hardly surprising, given their role in formulating the policies in the first place. In contrast, there is substantial evidence that the security of the domestic population - "national security" as the term is supposed to be understood is not a high priority for state policy.

For example, President Obama's drone-driven global assassination program, by far the world's greatest terrorist campaign, is also a terror-generating campaign. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan until he was relieved of duty, spoke of "insurgent math": For every innocent person you kill, you create 10 new enemies. This concept of "innocent person" tells us

how far we've progressed in the last 800 years, since the Magna Carta, which established the principle of presumption of innocence that was once thought to be the foundation of Anglo-American law.

Today, the word "guilty" means "targeted for assassination by Obama," and "innocent" means "not yet accorded that status." The Brookings Institution just published "The Thistle and the Drone," a highly praised anthropological study of tribal societies by Akbar Ahmed, subtitled "How America's War on Terror Became a Global War on Tribal Islam."

This global war pressures repressive central governments to undertake assaults against Washington's tribal enemies. The war, Ahmed warns, may drive some tribes "to extinction" - with severe costs to the societies themselves, as seen now in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen. And ultimately to Americans. Tribal cultures, Ahmed points out, are based on honor and revenge: "Every act of violence in these tribal societies provokes a counterattack: the harder the attacks on the tribesmen, the more vicious and bloody the counterattacks."

The terror targeting may hit home. In the British journal International Affairs, David Hastings Dunn outlines how increasingly sophisticated drones are a perfect weapon for terrorist groups.

Drones are cheap, easily acquired and "possess many qualities which, when combined, make them potentially the ideal means for terrorist attack in the 21st century," Dunn explains.

Sen. Adlai Stevenson III, referring to his many years of service on the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee, writes that "Cyber surveillance and meta data collection are part of the continuing reaction to 9/11, with few if any terrorists to show for it and near universal condemnation. The U.S. is widely perceived as waging war against Islam, against Shiites as well as Sunnis, on the ground, with drones, and by proxy in Palestine, from the Persian Gulf to Central Asia.

Germany and Brazil resent our intrusions, and what have they wrought?"

The answer is that they have wrought a growing terror threat as well as international isolation.

The drone assassination campaigns are one device by which state policy knowingly endangers security. The same is true of murderous special-forces

operations. And of the invasion of Iraq, which sharply increased terror in the West, confirming the predictions of British and American intelligence.

These acts of aggression were, again, a matter of little concern to planners, who are guided by altogether different concepts of security. Even instant destruction by nuclear weapons has never ranked high for state authorities.

In these terms, government actions fall in place as quite rational, including the rationality of collective suicide. Even instant destruction by nuclear weapons has never ranked high among the concerns of state authorities.

To cite an example from the late Cold War: In November 1983 the U.S.-led North Atlantic Treaty Organization launched a military exercise designed to probe Russian air defenses, simulating air and naval attacks and even a nuclear alert.

These actions were undertaken at a very tense moment. Pershing II strategic missiles were being deployed in Europe. President Reagan, fresh from the "Evil Empire" speech, had announced the Strategic Defense Initiative, dubbed "Star Wars," which the Russians understood to be effectively a first-strike weapon - a standard interpretation of missile defense on all sides.

Naturally these actions caused great alarm in Russia, which, unlike the U.S., was quite vulnerable and had repeatedly been invaded.

Newly released archives reveal that the danger was even more severe than historians had previously assumed. The NATO exercise "almost became a prelude to a preventative (Russian) nuclear strike," according to an account last year by Dmitry Adamsky in the Journal of Strategic Studies .

Nor was this the only close call. In September 1983, Russia's early-warning systems registered an incoming missile strike from the United States and sent the highest-level alert. The Soviet military protocol was to retaliate with a nuclear attack of its own.

The Soviet officer on duty, Stanislav Petrov, intuiting a false alarm, decided not to report the warnings to his superiors. Thanks to his dereliction of duty, we're alive to talk about the incident.

Security of the population was no more a high pri-

ority for Reagan planners than for their predecessors.

Such heedlessness continues to the present, even putting aside the numerous near-catastrophic accidents, reviewed in a chilling new book, "Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety," by Eric Schlosser.

It's hard to contest the conclusion of the last commander of the Strategic Air Command, Gen. Lee Butler, that humanity has so far survived the nuclear age "by some combination of skill, luck and divine intervention, and I suspect the latter in greatest proportion."

The government's regular, easy acceptance of threats to survival is almost too extraordinary to capture in words.

In 1995, well after the Soviet Union had collapsed, the U.S. Strategic Command, or Stratcom, which is in charge of nuclear weapons, published a study, "Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence."

A central conclusion is that the U.S. must maintain the right of a nuclear first strike, even against nonnuclear states. Furthermore, nuclear weapons must always be available, because they "cast a shadow over any crisis or conflict."

Thus nuclear weapons are always used, just as you use a gun if you aim it but don't fire when robbing a store - a point that Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, has repeatedly stressed. Stratcom goes on to advise that "planners should not be too rational about determining ... what an adversary values," all of which must be targeted. "[I]t hurts to portray ourselves as too fully rational and cool-headed. . That the U.S. may become irrational and vindictive if its vital interests are attacked should be a part of the national persona we project to all adversaries."

It is "beneficial [for ...our strategic posture] that some elements may appear to be potentially 'out of control'" - and thus posing a constant threat of nuclear attack.

Not much in this document pertains to the obligation under the Non-Proliferation Treaty to make "good faith" efforts to eliminate the nuclear-weapon scourge from the earth. What resounds, rather, is an adaptation of Hilaire Belloc's famous 1898 couplet about the Maxim gun: Whatever happens we have got, The Atom Bomb and they have not.

Plans for the future are hardly promising. In December the Congressional Budget Office reported that the U.S. nuclear arsenal will cost $355 billion over the next decade. In January the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies estimated that the U.S. would spend $1 trillion on the nuclear arsenal in the next 30 years.

And of course the United States is not alone in the arms race. As Butler observed, it is a near miracle that we have escaped destruction so far. The longer we tempt fate, the less likely it is that we can hope for divine intervention to perpetuate the miracle.

In the case of nuclear weapons, at least we know in principle how to overcome the threat of apocalypse: Eliminate them.

But another dire peril casts its shadow over any contemplation of the future - environmental disaster. It's not clear that there even is an escape, though the longer we delay, the more severe the threat becomes - and not in the distant future. The commitment of governments to the security of their populations is therefore clearly exhibited by how they address this issue.

Today the United States is crowing about "100 years of energy independence" as the country becomes "the Saudi Arabia of the next century" - very likely the final century of human civilization if current policies persist.

One might even take a speech of President Obama's two years ago in the oil town of Cushing, Okla., to be an eloquent death-knell for the species.

He proclaimed with pride, to ample applause, that "Now, under my administration, America is producing more oil today than at any time in the last eight years. That's important to know. Over the last three years, I've directed my administration to open up millions of acres for gas and oil exploration across 23 different states. We're opening up more than 75 percent of our potential oil resources offshore. We've quadrupled the number of operating rigs to a record high. We've added enough new oil and gas pipeline to encircle the Earth and then some."

The applause also reveals something about government commitment to security. Industry profits are sure to be secured as "producing more oil and gas here at home" will continue to be "a critical part" of energy strategy, as the president promised.

The corporate sector is carrying out major propaganda campaigns to convince the public that climate change, if happening at all, does not result from human activity. These efforts are aimed at overcoming the excessive rationality of the public, which continues to be concerned about the threats that scientists overwhelmingly regard as near-certain and ominous.

To put it bluntly, in the moral calculus of today's capitalism, a bigger bonus tomorrow outweighs the fate of one's grandchildren.

What are the prospects for survival then? They are not bright. But the achievements of those who have struggled for centuries for greater freedom and justice leave a legacy that can be taken up and carried forward - and must be, and soon, if hopes for decent survival are to be sustained. And nothing can tell us more eloquently what kind of creatures we are.

Letters to the Editor should be sent to: The Morung Express, House No. 4, Duncan Bosti, Dimapur - 797112, Or –email: morung@gmail.com All letters (including those via email) should have the full name and Postal address of the sender.

Readers may please note that the contents of the articles, letters and opinions published do not reflect the outlook of this paper nor of the Editor in any form.

7 PERSPECTIVE Mayhem In India: Cars, Lorries And Weddings Monday

THE MORUNG EXPRESS

14 April 2014

NEWS ANALYSIS, FEATURE AND DISCOURSE

Graham Peebles

A

With economic growth, levels of waste increase (on average, for every additional 1,000 rupees of income, solid waste increases by one kg per month), get more toxic, less biodegradable and more deadly. In the cities plastic and electrical rubbish is now the primary problem and lack of segregation means that everything, including biomedical waste from hospitals, gets thrown on the same municipal dumps.

Source: Countercurrents

long with the choking fumes and piles of putrid waste, sound systems and a constant bombardment of honking horns from cars, lorries and screaming buses assault residents and the unprepared in towns and cities throughout India.

Loudspeakers are used to spread political propaganda; celebrate and circulate expensive arranged and prolonged weddings; and, mounted outside temples and mosques, loudly proclaim the jargon of the just and the righteous path to salvation.

Noise pollution in the cities and towns is unbearable and adversely affects people's health: hearing complaints, sleep disturbance, cardiovascular issues, deteriorating work and school performance are some of the more serious effects of this deafening sociological epidemic, which is adding layer upon layer to the nationwide millieu of stress and environmental degradation.

What may have once been considered simply part of the chaotic charm of this extraordinary country - to be endured along with poor sanitation, burgeoning, filthy slums and open sewers - noise, air and water pollution are now seen as a major environmental issue demanding urgent government and community action.

Sound the Horn In a recent survey of the world's noisiest cities, India garnered bronze, silver and gold. The capital New Delhi comes in first, with seven million plus vehicles on its streets every day (more than in India's three other major cities combined) , followed closely by India's richest and most populous city (with 21 million people) Mumbai and then Kolkata. Cars and motorbikes are the source of much of the cacophony. Driving is a noisy adversarial affair: the thrusting horn is blasted in place of using mirrors, indicating, pulling out or overtaking. “Instead of slowing down while turning or approaching an intersection, drivers will blast their horns to warn others of their presence. They also honk at cyclists, pedestrians, children, pye-dogs, cows and anyone else unfortunate enough to be slower than them.” [BBC ] In case the essential tarmac protocol should be forgotten, lorries and trailers carry the slogan ‘sound horn' on their colourful rear end. At junctions drivers turning right use all lanes, blocking those going straight, instigating a symphony of horn blowing, loud and angry.

Honking is not allowed near schools and hospitals; but this is another law which remains largely unenforced and dangerously disregarded. Much like little yappy dogs, the smallest vehicles are often the noisiest and most reckless; “kamikaze motorbikes and scooters weave dangerously through traffic, popping out unexpectedly……...as they emit a violent buzz.”[Ibid] At night deserted city streets too busy during daylight hours, are invaded by lorries. Kings of the Road, they tear along, with enlarged air horns capable of 118 decibels, equivalent to a thunderclap (WHO guidelines for urban areas are around 50 decibels: “anything above 85 dB accelerates ear damage,” India Health ), proclaiming their dominance over all lesser vehicles and quieter, sleepier forms of life.

The driving in both urban and rural areas is appalling and hazardous: in 2010, 231,027 [World Health Organisation (WHO) latest figures] people died on the roads of India . Families, three, four and five, with school bags and the daily shop, squash onto a single moped or motorbike, with not a helmet (another unenforced legal requirement) between them. Bus drivers in poorly maintained, overcrowded buses, race from stop to stop competing for fares to boost their wages – honking as they go. Road courtesy is virtually non-existent as is observation of regulations. Laws in India are seen as liberal ornaments displayed before visiting foreign dignitaries paving the way for their corporate benefactors, and allowed to collect democratic dust the rest of the time. Politicians, from Delhi downwards set the dishonest corrupt tone, sending out a message to all in society - from truck drivers to corporate Indian man - that

laws mean nothing, will not be enforced and need not be obeyed.

Colourful chaos abounds, compounded after dark when it is not uncommon to see motorbikes, cares, lorries and tractors driven on unlit roads, without lights and often on the wrong side. Noisy, reckless and unregulated, the driving is dangerous: deadly for many, hazardous for most.

Noise pollution, whether it be from a chorus of angry lorries and cars, a four day long wedding event, or political electioneering, is unhealthy, unpleasant and a gross intrusion of privacy.

Filthy Streets, Poisonous Rivers The lack of environmental awareness and respect is, it seems part of the consciousness of the society (Indians may say ‘culture' – an overused word, uttered in justification of all manner of sociologically harmful behavioural patterns). It is a deeply destructive attitude of government neglect and community apathy, most evident in the sea of stinking waste that fills the towns, cities, and villages; polluting the ground, air and waterways.

All the rivers are polluted, resulting in high levels of water-borne diseases: the Mother of them all, The Holy Ganges, flowing over 1,560 miles from the Himalayas to the Bay of Bengal, is one of the world's filthiest rivers.

Worshipped by Hindus, the river is full of toxic industrial waste, domestic rubbish, clothing detergent and human waste (55% of the population have no toilets); millions defecate in the holy river every day, as well as using Her waters to clean their teeth, for drinking and cooking. One of the many results is faecal contamination, giving rise to a range of illnesses including diarrhoea, which is the second-largest killer of children under five, causing about 1.5 million deaths annually. A study by India's National Cancer Registry Programme found that levels of cancer in the country were highest amongst people living around the Ganges basin, due to poisonous metals and toxins.

Waste “scars meadows, contaminates streets and feeds a vast and dangerous ecosystem of rats, mosquitoes, stray dogs, monkeys and pigs.” [ New York Times ] Packs of dogs prowl urban centres, feeding on municipal waste; they fight for territory and bark into the night

– adding to the omnipresent noise pollution. Many carry Rabies, which “is responsible for more than 20,000 deaths in India every year.” In the North Western town of Srinagar in Jammu, where the ratio of dogs to humans is a mere 1:13 (it's 1:31 in Mumbai), “54,000 people were bitten by stray dogs in the last three-and-a-half years.” [ The Hindu ] Residential streets and public spaces where children play and adults gather are polluted with litter, food waste, domestic and industrial filth. The cities alone generate over 100 million tons of solid waste annually, a large percentage of which is plastic (America by comparison in 2010 generated 31 million tons of plastic waste according to ‘ Plastic is Rubbish' ), and it is estimated that (if urban populations increase at the current rate) by 2045 they will be churning out nearly 300 million tons a year. India's former Minister for the Environment, Jairam Ramesh stated (in 2010) that, " Our cities are the dirtiest cities of the world. If there is a Nobel Prize for dirt and filth, India will win it, no doubt." [ The Times of India ] And the situation has deteriorated further in the years since his damning comment.

New Delhi (population around 17 million) produces almost 700 tons of daily waste, much of which is plastic; even though plastic bags have been banned in India since 2011, they are everywhere. According to the Supreme Court of India, the country is sitting on a “plastic time bomb;” the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) says, “Total plastic waste which is collected and recycled in the country is estimated to be 9,205 tonnes per day (approximately 60% of total plastic waste);” the rest (6,137 tons) remains uncollected in the streets. In a 2013 survey conducted in 60 major cities the CPCB found that “15,342.46 tonnes of plastic waste was generated every day, amounting to 560,000 tonnes a year.”

Plastic is non-biodegradable and takes hundreds if not thousands of years to break down; microscopic plastics may never entirely decompose and India's cities are awash with them. “Transmission of mosquitorelated diseases is caused by non-biodegradable litter, which causes rainwater to stagnate, or clog drains, which in turn create breeding grounds for mosquitoes,” witnessing “a 71% increase in Malaria cases in the last five years.” [ The Hindu ]

The Morung Express

Taking out the rubbish For most people in India disposing of their waste is straightforward: simply throw it on the road, in the river or, if they're passing, on the local garbage heap. I was shocked when, travelling by train on my first visit to the country, I saw families gaily throwing their litter out of the window and toilets dropping waste directly onto the tracks. The 20 million plus travelling by train daily produce a mountain of waste around railway lines, which in towns and cities run along densely populated housing/slum dwellings .

In 2000 the Ministry of Environment and Forests issued the ‘ Municipal Solid Wastes Rules' , a set of legally binding guidelines agreed by Central Government “to regulate the management and handling of the municipal solid wastes.” The legislation makes clear that “every municipal authority shall be responsible for the implementation these rules, and for any infrastructure development for collection, storage, segregation, transportation, processing and disposal of municipal solid wastes.” Local authorities were instructed to set up waste processing and disposal facilities by the end of 2003; in keeping with government neglect, state corruption (local and national) and lack of legislative implementation, to date none of India's cities have complied. “ Open dumping, open burning, landfill/dumpsite fires, and open human and animal exposure to waste are common” are widespread. Burning of waste constitutes one of the largest sources of air pollution in cities; in Mumbai “ it is the cause of about 20 per cent of air pollution.” [ The Hindu ] Nobody wants landfill sites near their homes; in Hyderabad officials have been engaged in talks with local residents for ten years now without success. Burning of waste by privately contracted operators, an environmentally unpopular remedy “worse than the disease”, is being phased-out in industrialised nations, but appears to be Indian local governments' preferred option.

Incinerators and waste-to-energy schemes are “rotten with corrupt practices [and] cost 12 to 43 times more than simple, easily managed, low-cost composting.”

[Environmentalist and a member of the Supreme Court committee on solid waste management Almitra Patel in Asian Times] Corrupt local authorities, do not “have the capacity to operate or monitor these plants under the strict conditions required to ensure that there is no environmental pollution from toxic emissions.” The ideal solution for India is composting, because unlike developed countries, “where waste is segregated and has high calorie packaging that works well with incinerators, Indian waste is high in organics and moisture.”

India is facing what The Hindu described as a “waste management crisis”: a national plague that kills children, causes serious health issues amongst millions of people, pollutes the air and poisons the rivers. If the country is not to become the world's biggest sewer, government complacency and indifference needs to give way to a strategic plan of action. In 2012, large numbers took to the streets in nationwide protests, and roads leading to waste handling facilities were blocked. From Jammu in the Northeast to Tamil Nadu in the South people demanded an end to living in filth, and their right to live in a clean, safe environment.

Implementation of legislation together with a nationwide education programme and a massive recycling campaign is urgently required. Social responsibility needs to be cultivated; communities encouraged to look after their neighbourhood; local authorities to act in accordance with their constitutional and moral duty; and businesses forced to act responsibly. Sound the Horn of Change, India.

POLL RESuLTS

Are NAgA iNstitutioNs ANd churches doiNg eNough to Nurture vAlue bAsed leAdership iN the society?

Some of those who voted YES had this to say: • Yes, Churches do as based on Christian works, it conducts various activities & events for the upcoming youths like camping, workshops, tours, seminars, etc. In all these events, the lifestyles, personality & outlook of our young youths are broaden through various resource person..

• Yes, there have been several noble efforts by Naga churches in particular to nurture new leadership based on Christian values, but we are yet to see the impact. Maybe the churches need to rethink their strategy because it seems to be outdated.

Younger people are more accustomed to a new pedagogy of learning.

• Yes, but unfortunately we do not see any new thinking. The Naga Students Federation and Naga Hoho and other tribe hohos seem to be the breeding ground for future leaders. But unfortunately we are yet to see any one of them excel in a way that will make us all proud.

• Yes, to some extent. But leadership building new much more work. Just doing it for the sake of doing it will not help.

Some of those who voted no had this to say: • No, no our Naga institutions and churches have turned into privileged class like the 18th century French society. They are more into fashion, luxury cars, nice mansion and good political connection. Poor dedicated leaders of their contemporary are sidelined. Small program and big publicity. If these facts are not true, I have not woken up from my slumber.

• Nay both of them teach us to hate minister by saying they are corrupted, church never taught the people to save ecosystem as it is the largest mass media in the land.

• No and they cannot without the power of GOD. We Stop endorsing corrupt leaders, have the gump- Some of those who voted claim to be a Christian state. tion to say we do not approve OTHERS had this to say: Do we have this power? of what you have done wrong, • The question poses a great introspection and ret73% rospection for the upcoming Naga generations as, • No, far from it, which naga appreciate the good and ask with all due respect, by seeing the value system of leaders do we see living a them to continue such activithe Naga people from all walks of life in the current godly life? Each is after his ties and point out where they scenario where our moral principles in Christian beown. are wrong too..Be living exlief are reduced to the caricature as the hypothetical • The outward show or suamples themselves... selfand frivolous people living in the Banana Republic. perficiality of the so-called lessness is almost non exisCertainly not the epitome of a positive role model church leaders must be detent in these organisations. It and of course not the God’s own Land of Festivals. spised by one and all, just is time they asked themselves as Jesus condemned the and the leaders in the organ- • I will go fifty-fifty. Though the Church ought to be a role model, it has failed big time in countering varied Pharisees. We need to reisation itself, to be examples problems that it could have handled in the society. vamp our faith based on the with their lives. Conduct reThe church has become political and worldly which intrinsic values and teachevaluation seminars continuled the church to lose its focus as the body of Christ ings of the new Testament, ously in small groups not the and being a transforming agent. However, we also NOT respect for the haves one day big gatherings. Work need to remember that we are the church and as and disrespect for the poor. one on one... people need the church when we fail on our part, the church fails Remember Lazarus and the the personal touch.. celetoo. On the other hand, the church is established on rich man, at the end. brate the simplest person who the foundation of Christ, so no matter how corrupt • No, Because they promote may have a deeper contribumore corruption....! tion but not have the platform it becomes because of human iniquity, there is still • A big no, they are no less to share... Our schools and hope because it is through the Church God works than the politicians who sell churches need to celebrate and will work. So, there are some churches failing their souls for money people from all walks of life.. to instill good leadership in the society, nonetheless, • NO, We still need a better • No, seems not really. I think there are other who are striving to bring transformacounselors/educators and an many of our Churches initition in the society by building good leaders.

17% honest & faithful servants in ated LEADERSHIP training • It’s a 50-50.. some churches and schools are start10% our Naga society for a brightare getting backfired...looks ing to concentrate on nurturing value based leader tomorrow. so intoxicated with LEADership to youngsters, but there is still a long way • No...I think in theory they ERSHIP issues even in evto go. Let us no just jump to assumptions . Btw ery contextual settings. Our believe they are doing so, it would be very good if the same training or as Churches must inculcate but if they were, the result what you say "value based leadership" must be YES no OTHERS more on Servant- hood leadshould have been much equipped/given to adults as well (which may be ership training rather than in better. Look at the degeneven the need of the hour looking at the poor state a rhetoric Leadership propaganda... eration in our society and you have the answer... of our present society)

Readers may please note that, the contents of the articles published on this page do not reflect the outlook of this paper nor of the Editor in any form.

8

Dimapur

NATIONAL

Monday 14 April 2014

The Morung Express

‘India can be role model for smooth polls’

New Delhi, April 13 (iANS): The sheer scale of the Indian general election has left them marveling. Members of an international delegation that is in India to witness the Lok Sabha elections are highly impressed by the smooth conduct of polls and say India has become a learning centre for other developing countries.

“We visited a model polling station in Delhi and witnessing the magnificent arrangements for voters. It also shows that polls of such magnitude can be conducted in such a smooth manner. This would help the other developing countries too,” Abednego Akok, Chief Election Commissioner of South Sudan, told IANS. Akok, who had witnessed the arrangements for the Delhi assembly polls in December last year, said “India has become a learning center for developing countries of the world.

Despite being the world’s largest democracy and being prone to hassles like population, problems due to a multi-party system and frequent violation of the model code of conduct by political parties, the Election Commission of India is able to conduct polls in a very smooth manner,” Akok said.

Akok is part of the 30-member delegation

What’s in a name? Many LS candidates share names, surnames

Indigenous tribal Kandha women stand in a queue to cast their votes at a polling station at Kutamgarh village in Kandhamal district, in the eastern Indian state of Orissa, on Thursday, April 10. The multiphase voting across the country runs until May 12, with results for the 543-seat lower house of parliament announced May 16. (AP Photo)

from 19 countries that visited polling stations in other states as well as the national capital. Besides Akok, the delegation includes senior election officials from Ghana, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Malaysia, Maldives, the Philippines, Sierra Leone, Sri Lanka and a few other developing countries.

“The Indian government can be the perfect partner for a young country like South Sudan in the

area of training of staff and use of the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) system, which are very essential for smooth conduct of polls,” said the CEC of South Sudan, which became an independent nation in 2012 and its poll panel was set up a year ago.

Muiugeta, a senior election officer from Ethiopia, praised the awareness campaigns launched by the poll panel and the Systematic Vot-

ers Systematic Voters’ Education And Electoral Participation(SVEEP) - an initiative to motivate people to come out and vote.

He also appreciated the use of the newly-introduced paper trail in EVMs and wants it to be used in his country too. Muiugeta said he had seen EVMs with paper trail in Belgium which had been kept for demonstration, while in India it was used in selected polling stations of the

national capital.

“During my visit to polling stations in Delhi, i witnessed the immense excitement among the voters whereas in Ethiopia even the awareness campaigns fail to bring voters to polling booths, “ Muiugeta told IANS. He said the Ethiopian government wants the Election Commission of India to guide and provide training to his country to make them “election

New Delhi, April 13 (pTi): Call it an attempt to confuse voters or sheer coincidence, but scores of candidates in fray in several Lok Sabha seats share common names or surnames. In Vadodara, Independent candidate Narendra Babulal Modi has joined the fray against BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi.

The ‘Delhi West’ seat in the national capital, where polling was held on April 10, saw three Jarnail Singhs in the race -- one of Aam Aadmi Party and two Independents. In Bihar’s Banka seat, the CPI and BSP candidates share the same name -- Sanjay Kumar. In Uttar Pradesh, which has a maximum of 80 LS seats among all states, BJP’s Hema Malini has a namesake - an Independent candidate - in the contest in Mathura.

Three K Sudhakarans are in the fray -- one from Congress and two Independents -- in the Kannur seat in Kerala.

In Punjab’s Bhatinda seat, Congress’s Manpreet Singh has a namesake who is oriented” to conduct the polls smoothly.

Muiugeta was also amazed to know that unrecognized political parties are allowed to contest polls in India, which is not allowed in Ethiopia. There are a total of 72 recognised political parties in Ethiopia. India has a staggering 1,617 unrecognised political parties while there are six national and 47 state recognised parties.

Rigzen Lhundrup, a

contesting as an Independent. In other seats, there are candidates sharing first names or surnames. Kuldeep Bishnoi of Haryana Janhit Congress (HJC) is contesting against seven Kuldeeps in Haryana’s Hisar constituency.

In the Bhiwani-Mahendragarh seat of the state, two Satpals are contesting as Independents. In Bihar’s Samastipur, the BSP candidate is Ram Chandar Ram while the Lok Janshakti Party’s (LJP) nominee is Ram Chandra Paswan. In the Karakat Lok Sabha seat, two Independents Bhairaw Dayal Singh and Ram Dayal Singh are slugging it out at the hustings.

In Gujarat’s Bardoli, CPI has fielded one Ravaliben Shankarbhai Chaudhari as its candidate while the nominee for a party ‘Hindusthan Nirman Dal’ from the same seat is Reniyabhai Shankarbhai Chaudhari. In Karnataka’s Kolar, the BJP candidate is E N Narayanaswamy while there are three Independents -- Narayanaswamy M, S Narayanaswamy and H N Narayanswamy.

senior election official from Bhutan, said: “The best thing about the poll process in India is the systematic way it is conducted despite India being the second most populated country in the world”. He said Bhutan has a similar poll process, but despite measure taken by the Bhutanese government the polling is often not a smooth affair. Additional security is deployed many times to bring the situation

under control.

“India can be a role model for the developing nations and we can learn a lot about how to conduct the polls in a smooth and fair manner. India’s role has been magnificent in conducting the polls in Bhutan in a fair and smooth manner,” Lhundrup told IANS. Bhutan was provided over 3,000 electronic voting machines recently for the polls.

Chinese media assess Modi, Women to be inducted as Rahul, bilateral prospects officers in SSB for first time BeijiNg, April 13 (AgeNcieS): The media in China, which has been carefully following the ongoing elections in India, has appeared divided in its assessment of whether or not the outcome of the Lok Sabha polls will impact IndiaChina relations. Media outlets here have devoted most attention to the prospects of Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi, but from the perspective of how either leader might influence diplomacy with China.

“If Rahul Gandhi gets elected, it’s very likely that he will follow the current China policy of the Congress Party. As with Modi who is famous for ‘development’, we can expect more economic interactions between India and China.

What’s more, as a pragmatic and assertive political leader, it’s possible that Modi will bring his style into the Sino-India relationship,” wrote the Reference News, one of China’s mostly wide newspapers, published by the official Xinhua news agency.

Interestingly, the article also asked how an Arvind Kejriwal-led government might approach foreign policy. “For Kejriwal, as he is focusing on anti-corruption and people’s livelihood, and has no complete foreign policy agenda, it is a feasible option for him to continue the current policy towards China,” said the commentary, authored by Tang Lu, a scholar at the World Affairs Research centre run by Xinhua.

No great impact The article concluded that the outcome of elections would not have any “great impact” on ties: “No matter who gets elected, a big change in the Sino-India relationship is very unlikely.… [t]here is

a great chance that the three top candidates will continue with the current friendly attitude…,” it concluded.

The China Review News had a different view, expressing the concern that elections could strain ties.

“Bilateral ties can be the victim of party politics in India”, it said. “Border issues are always a tool used by politicians to advocate nationalism and attract votes”.

On Mr. Modi’s comments in Arunachal Pradesh that China was “expansionist”, the article said “his action can be considered as a signal of showing his strong foreign policy stand to the voters”, adding that “we must be cautious that some politicians use China as a controversial issue in the election”.

“This will definitely affect the Sino-India relationship, as the SinoU.S. relationship has shown previously. The mutual trust between China and India is built step by step, so we should focus on how to strengthen it, rather than sabotage it out of personal or party interests.”

Tang Lu, the author of the Xinhua commentary, in an interview with The Hindu suggested that a “strong leader” in New Delhi could, on the other hand, push forward ties with China on deadlocked issues more decisively.

“If the new government is stable and has a more decisive leader, that will be not only good for India, it can also push India and China to make agreements on some substantial issues,” she said, stressing that she was speaking in an individual capacity. “Personally,” she added, “I regard Modi’s words as campaign language, as his audience was domestic.”

New Delhi, April 13 (pTi): Breaking the male bastion in the five decade-old Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB), the government has approved recruitment of young women as ‘combat officers’ in the second largest border guarding force.

The women officers, after induction, will have an opportunity to serve in far-flung border locations of the force which secures ‘open’ and important Indian frontiers with Nepal and Bhutan.

Young women under and up to the age of 25 years will be recruited as direct entry officers in the rank of assistant commandants (ACs) and according to sources in the Union home ministry, the force will have the trained women officers on ground by late 2015. Till now, women could only don the combat uniform in the officer cadre in three other central security forces, the Central Reserve Police Force, Central Industrial Security Force and the Border Security Force.

However, women will still not be inducted as officers in the third border guarding force of the country — the Indo-Tibetan Border Police Force — deployed along the China border.

The SSB, in 2007, was the first to recruit women in junior ranks of constables but since then, the contingents were being commanded by male officers and hence a desire was felt An Indian Christian girl holds a cross made of blessed palm during a Palm Sunday mass at a to have women officers in the paramilitary which has close to church in Bhubaneswar, India, Sunday, April 13, 2014. Palm Sunday’s liturgy recalls Jesus’ trium1,400 women personnel in ‘khaki’ at present. phant entry into Jerusalem. (AP Photo)

PMO dismisses Sanjaya Baru’s claims as ‘baseless & mischievous’

New Delhi, April 13 (pTi): The Prime Minister’s Office on Sunday rubbished as “baseless and mischievous” the contention of former media adviser to PM Sanjaya Baru that PMO files were seen by Congress president Sonia Gandhi.

“The statement being attributed to a former media adviser to the Prime Minister that PMO files were seen by the Congress president, Smt Sonia Gandhi is completely baseless and mischievous. It is categorically denied that any PMO file has ever been shown to Smt Sonia Gandhi,” PMO spokesman Pankaj Pachauri said in a statement here.

He was responding to the claims

by Baru in his book “Accidental Prime

Minister — The Making and Unmaking of Manmohan Singh” and comments to media that the Prime Minister’s principal secretary Pulok Chatterjee would seek “instructions” from Gandhi on important PMO decisions.

Criticizing Baru, the PMO statement said, “The book written by the former media adviser is an attempt to misuse a privileged position and access to high office to gain credibility and to apparently exploit it for commercial gain.” Pachauri said, “The commentary smacks of fiction and coloured views of a former adviser.”

The statement reiterated that the question about comments of the former media adviser was raised by se-

Mercedes, BMWs, Audis hot favourites of politicians

New Delhi, April 13 (pTi): Wealthy Indian politicians prefer nothing less than Mercedes, BMWs, Jaguars, Audis or gasguzzling SUVs to scorch the road.

While marquee brands like Mercedes, BMWs and Jaguars appear to be hot-favourites for the rich and mighty, home- grown SUVs like Scorpios and Tata Safaris are among other common brands.

Lawyer by profession and BJP candidate from Amritsar, Arun Jaitley owns a Mercedes, BMW, Honda Accord and Porsche. Besides, the legal eagle -- who reported a total income of Rs 2.61 crore in 2012-13 fiscal -- has a Toyota Fortuner, his poll affidavit shows. Another BJP member, Bhojpuri film star Manoj Tiwari, who contested from North East Delhi seat, has a fleet of cars, including Audi Q7, Mercedez Benz E280, Fortuner and Honda City GXI. Bollywood actor-turned-politician Hema Malini, BJP candidate from Mathura, owns a Mercedes and Toyota Innova while her husband, superstar Dharmendra, has a Range Rover, Maruti 800 and a motorbike in his name. Sitting Nagaur MP, Con-

gress’s Jyoti Mirdha, the richest woman in the first phase of polls from Rajasthan, is also a proud Merc owner.

Haryana Janhit Congress party chief Kuldeep Bishnoi owns five cars, including a Jaguar XF, an Audi Q7 and a Range Rover. Former cricketer Mohd Azharuddin, who is contesting polls on a Congress ticket from Tonk-Sawai Madhopur, owns a Honda CR-V and a BMW 650i. BJP contestant from Bellary (Karnataka) B Sreeramulu is one of the few politicians to own the iconic Hummer in India.

Another BJP leader, Meenakshi Lekhi has not listed any vehicle in her name, but has declared Jaguar, BMW, Beetle and Chevrolet cars in her husband’s name. Her husband, Aman Lekhi,isalawyerbyprofession.Union minister Jyotiraditya Scindia has a BMW, which he inherited.

Actress Gul Panag, the AAP candidate from Chandigarh, has got a TVS moped as also a Hero Honda bike, along with a Scorpio, an Audi and an Innova. Panag’s rival Kirron Kher (BJP) has listed a Mercedes Benz in her name, as also a Scorpio and a BMW in her husband’s name.

The Congress MP from this seat, Pawan Bansal has got a Maruti Esteem and a Honda City. Realty baron Anil Kumar Sharma, who is eyeing the Jahanabad seat in Bihar on a JD(U) ticket, has declared he owns a Ford Endeavour. One of the richest candidates, R Prabhakara Reddy, who is hoping to win the Bangalore Rural constituency on behalf of JD(S), has declared nine motor vehicles. Besides a Maruti 800 and Mahindra Jeep, he owns two Mercedes, a Hyundai Santro, a Hyundai Accent, Skoda Rider and a BMW. He also possesses a Royal Enfield Bullet.

Abhijit Mukherjee, son of President Pranab Mukherjee, who is seeking re-election from Jangipur, West Bengal, has listed a Maruti-800 car in his affidavit. AAP leader Shazia Ilmi has listed one yacht in her husband’s name. Congress leader Krishna Tirath from Delhi has got a humble WagonR. Meanwhile, Sandeep Dikshit, a sitting MP and son of former Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, has got a Nissan Micra, two TVS bikes, one TVS scooty, one Bolero SUV and one Hero bicycle (purchased in 2012 for Rs 3,500). He has

also listed another BSA SLR bicycle in name of his daughter Yamini (purchased for Rs 4,000 in 2012).

Others with bikes in their asset-sheets include Dhruv Narayan Karn (a Left candidate from Madhubani), while Aam Aadmi Party candidate from the same constituency, Neeraj Pathak, has listed a ‘Royal Enfield’ bike, a sturdy twowheeler commonly known as ‘Bullet’. The ‘Bullet’ gang also includes BJP leader from Araria (Bihar) Pradeep Singh, while his JDU rival Vijay Mandal has got ‘Rajdoot’ -another sturdy bike which used to be very famous at one point of time.

Among the humble variants, Vespa scooter and Maruti-800 car have been declared by Bihar’s RJD leader Abdul Bari Siddiqui, while journalist-turned-politician Chandan Mitra has a Honda scooter. JDU candidate from Kishanganj (Bihar) has also got a Hero Honda bike, while AAP’s Ashutosh has got a Yamaha bike along with a Volkswagen car. Those owning a tractor include Union Home Minister Sushilkumar Shinde, Congress’s Priya Dutt and BJP leader Nikhil Kumar Choudhary.

nior editors when they met the Prime Minister in October last year. His answer was: “Do not believe all he is saying.” The PMO statement came as the opposition launched a scathing attack on Gandhi and the Prime Minister, citing the claims by Baru.

In his book, Baru has written, “Pulok, who was inducted into the Manmohan Singh PMO at the behest of Sonia Gandhi, had regular, almost daily, meetings with Sonia at which he was said to brief her on the key policy issues of the day and seek her instructions on important files to be cleared by the PM. “Indeed, Pulok was the single most point of regular contact between PM and Sonia. He was also the PMO’s

main point of contact with the NAC, a high profile advisory body chaired by Sonia Gandhi, with social activists as members. It was sometimes dubbed the shadow cabinet.”

As the observations created a flutter, Baru said, “It was not a secret.” He said it was well known that Chatterjee was Sonia Gandhi’s secretary when she was the leader of opposition and had also worked with the Rajiv Gandhi Foundation chaired by her.

“He was very much part of the family ... I was not witness to it, whether she physically saw the files. I knew she was consulted on issues and he was taking her concurrence,” said Baru, who had resigned from the PMO in 2008.

2 policemen, 2 militants killed in Kashmir SriNAgAr, April 13 (iANS): Separatist guerrillas shot dead two policemen in the Kashmir Valley Sunday, triggering a gun battle with security forces, officials said. Two of the militants were later killed in the gun fight. The two policemen were killed when the guerrillas attacked them at the residence of National Conference leader Yawar Masoodi in Khrew village in Pulwama district, 20 km from here, where they were posted as guards.

“The militants earlier today (Sunday) attacked the guards at the residence of the NC youth leader Yawar Masoodi,” an official said. “An operation was launched to trace the militants following which they were engaged in an encounter (gun battle).” Security forces also recovered weapons that the militants took with them after killing the policemen.

We put our lives on the line everyday: Omar Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah on Sunday said the militant attack on an NC leader’s house in Pulwama district was evidence of the risk involved in being in mainstream politics in Kashmir and no one should question the commitment of people associated

with it. “The attack on Yawar’s (Masoodi) residence is evidence of the continued risk associated with being a mainstream politician in Kashmir,” he wrote on microblogging site Twitter.

“You may not like our politics sometimes but don’t question our commitment because we put our lives on the line every day for our beliefs,” Omar added. He offered condolences to the family of two police personnel, who were killed by the militants in the attack.

“My condolences to the families of the police personnel killed in the attack on my party colleague in Pulwama district today,” Omar said. Both the militants involved in the attack on the house of NC youth leader were killed in an encounter after security forces chased them down.

Meanwhile, opposition PDP president Mehbooba Mufti condemned the attack saying bloodshed will not solve any problem but lead to more tragedies only.

“There is no place for violence in politics and it is against all tenants of decency and political conduct. These unfortunate incidents only result into tragedies and will not yield anything,” she said in a statement.

InternatIonal

the Morung express

Monday 14 April 2014

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Ukraine tries to clear pro-Russian rebels, dead reported on both sides Ukraine, april 13 (reUters): Ukrainian security forces launched an operation on Sunday to clear pro-Russian separatists from state buildings in the eastern city of Slaviansk, with dead reported on both sides as Kiev combats what it calls an act of aggression by Moscow.

With East-West relations in crisis, NATO described the appearance in eastern Ukraine of men with specialized Russian weapons and identical uniforms without insignia - as previously worn

by Moscow's troops when they seized Crimea - as a "grave development".

Ukraine faces a rash of rebellions in the east that it says are inspired and directed by the Kremlin. But action to dislodge the armed militants risks tipping the stand-off into a new, dangerous phase as Moscow has warned it will protect the region's Russian-speakers if they come under attack.

One Ukrainian state security officer was killed and five wounded on the government side in what interior minister Arsen Avakov called Sunday's "anti-terrorist" operation.

"There were dead and wounded on both sides," Avakov said on his Facebook page, adding that about 1,000 people were supporting the separatists.

The Russian news

agency RIA reported that one pro-Moscow activist was killed in Slaviansk in clashes with forces loyal to the Kiev government. "On our side, another two were injured," RIA quoted proRussian militant Nikolai Solntsev as adding.

The separatists are holed up in the local headquarters of the police and of the state security service, while others have erected road blocks around Slaviansk, which lies about 150 km (90 miles) from the Russian border.

However, details of the fighting remain sketchy. A statement from the administration of the eastern Donetsk region indicated the security officer may have been killed between Slaviansk and the nearby town of Artemivsk. Putting the number of wounded at nine, it said "an armed confrontation" was going on in the area.

Kiev accuses Moscow of trying to deepen violence and chaos in Ukraine, a former Soviet republic it once ruled. The Kremlin, it says, wants to undermine the legitimacy of presidential elections on May 25 which aim to set the country back onto a normal path after months of turmoil.

However, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Kiev was "demonstrating its inability to take responsibility for the fate of

pressed concern about similarities in some of the separatists' appearance to that of the Russian troops who seized control in Crimea.

Calling on Russia to pull back its large number of troops, including special forces, from the area around Ukraine's border, he said in a statement: "Any further Russian military interference, under any pretext, will only deepen Russia's international isolation." Moscow says the troops are on normal maneuvers.

Lavrov said it was Ukraine's Western-leaning government, viewed by the Kremlin as illegitimate, that was stoking the tensions.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was deeply concerned about the deteriorating situation in eastern Ukraine and "the growing potential for violent clashes".

Pro-Russian men stand guard at a barricade near the police headquarters in Slaviansk on Sunday April 13. Ukraine’s Interior Minister on Sunday told residents in the eastern city of Slaviansk to stay indoors, in anticipation of clashes between pro-Russian militants who have seized official buildings and Ukrainian security forces. (Reuters Photo)

worst since the Cold War due to the crisis that began when Moscow-backed Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovich was pushed out by popular protests in February.

Moscow then annexed Crimea from Ukraine, saying the Russian population there was under threat.

Some Western governWELL ORGANISED ments believe the Kremlin ATTACKERS Relations between Rus- is preparing a similar scesia and the West are at their nario for eastern Ukraine, the country" and warned that any use of force against Russian speakers "would undermine the potential for cooperation", including talks due to be held on Thursday between Russia, Ukraine, the United States and the European Union.

something Moscow has strenuously denied.

In Kramatorsk, about 15 km south of Slaviansk, gunmen seized the police headquarters after a shootout with police, a Reuters witness said.

The attackers were a well-organized unit of over 20 men, wearing matching military fatigues and carrying automatic weapons, who had arrived by bus.

Video footage showed the men taking orders from a commander. Their identity was unclear.

Their level of discipline and equipment was in contrast to the groups who have occupied buildings so far in Ukraine. They have been mostly civilians formed into informal militias with mismatched uniforms.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen ex-

GAS WAR RISK The crisis over Ukraine could trigger a "gas war", disrupting supplies of Russian natural gas to customers across Europe. Moscow has said it may be forced to sever deliveries to Ukraine - the transit route for much of Europe's gas - unless Kiev settles its debts.

For now, though, the focus of the crisis was in eastern Ukraine, the country's industrial heartland, where many people feel a close affinity

In Assad’s coastal heartland, Syria’s war creeps closer 4 dead in Chile forest fire;

sYria, april 13 (reUters): For three years, residents of Syria's Mediterranean provinces have watched from their coastal sanctuary as civil war raging further inland tore the country apart, killing tens of thousands of people and devastating historic cities. But a three-weekold offensive by rebel fighters in the north of Latakia province, a bastion of President Bashar al-Assad's Alawite minority, has brought the battle ever closer and shattered that sense of relative security.

Rebels are now fighting in the hills overlooking the sea, bringing the country's main port of Latakia within their range - rocket-fire killed eight people in one barrage on the city a month ago - and Syria's coast feels under real threat. "They can erase us, even those of us who support them," said a young Alawite woman as she drank coffee with her fiance in a Latakia cafe, 50 km (30 miles) south of where have rebels seized their first toehold on Syria's coast, by the Turkish border. While many Alawites, roughly 10 percent of Syria's 23 million people, have actively supported Assad, others sympathised with the popular revolt against him in 2011 but now fear reprisals from his mainly Sunni Muslim enemies.

Memories of a rebel offensive in August, when scores of Alawite villagers near Latakia were killed by radical Sunni Islamists and foreign jihadists, heighten tensions in the bustling streets of the city of 400,000. Even as Assad, 300 km to the south in Damascus, sounds ever more confident of holding on, the chaotic ebb and flow of civil war has intruded even into this most sheltered part of the state, while the hunt for spies and traitors and losses suffered by Assad loyalists continue to sour daily life. Even before the bombardments started to encroach on the once peaceful city, the cost of Syria's war was plain from the daily funeral processions for fallen soldiers and pro-Assad militia.

"Everyone here has been sending their sons to fight the war in other parts of Syria, and every day we hear the sirens and funerals of those soldiers," said Yasmin, a woman in Latakia who has been active in opposing Assad. But the arrival of the war on its doorstep has, she said, unnerved the

city: "We thought that we were somewhat invincible, as if the rebels would never reach us. But that's not true".

Yasmin said school buildings have filled up with Alawite refugees who fled villages further north to take shelter in the city - a common sight elsewhere but a new phenomenon on the coast: "Now they're like so many other displaced Syrians."

WITHIN RANGE The fighting which has brought fear to Latakia started three weeks ago when rebels moved in from Turkey and seized the border crossing at the Armenian Christian village of Kasab - the last crossing point from Turkey into governmentcontrolled territory. They also captured a small beach nearby to give them their first beachhead on Syria's 250 km of Mediterranean coastline - a symbolic though militarily insignificant gain. They battled Assad's forces for control of hilltops that include a satellite communications post known as Observation Point 45.

Nervous Latakia city residents say heavy artillery fire could easily strike them from that vantage point.

"It's not going to matter if you're with them or not," said a young dentist, speaking in the city centre. "The mortars won't make a distinction.

And if the rebels come down here, they won't take time to distinguish between who's with them and who's not."

As elsewhere in the tortuous, grinding war that has already killed 150,000 people, there is no indication that the fighting in Latakia marks any decisive shift in the broader conflict. The streets of Latakia are as busy as ever, even if only one ship was visible in the harbour in the first week of April - in ordinary times it handles dozens. On Thursday afternoons, bus tickets out of Latakia sell out fast as college students who board at the local university return home for the weekend.

But authorities in the port, which is also a hub for the U.N.-backed international operation to ship out Syria's chemical weapons arsenal by the end of the month, appear anxious. Two months ago, they shut down Internet connections from cafes and other public places along the entire coast, apparently to prevent communications that evade surveillance. One

cafe owner in Tartous, a city 40 km north of the Lebanese border which also hosts a Russian naval base, said he had protested in to the authorities about being forced offline. "They told me when people go online from a public place, they can't trace that person like they trace people who surf the net from home," he said.

At frequent government checkpoints along the main coastal highway, armed men scrutinise ID cards for clues to travellers' religion and political sympathies. Most security personnel and senior military officers on the coast hail from local Alawite villages, and have a keen eye for spotting outsiders. Local people say they have begun to see Iraqi Shi'ite militiamen along the coast, apparently boosting the ranks of the Syrian military.

Iraqis, who speak a distinctive dialect, have joined those from Lebanon's Hezbollah as well as advisers and commanders from Shi'ite regional power Iran in aiding Assad. This correspondent saw unarmed men wearing military fatigues with Shi'ite insignia strolling around several Syrian coastal towns and speaking with Lebanese accents. Alawites consider themselves an offshoot of the Shi'ite branch of Islam.

The death last month of Hilal alAssad, a cousin of the president, has added to the new feeling of vulnerability among government loyalists in the coastal provinces. The man, who led the local branch of the National Defence Force militia, died three weeks ago in a battle near the Turkish border with Islamist rebels - the first member of the extended ruling family to be killed since a bombing in Damascus in 2012.

Sunni neighbourhoods on the coast are being increasingly targeted by security forces hunting rebels, residents say. Young men are detained and taken away for interrogation in facilities where rights groups say many have been tortured and killed.

On the coast road near Tartous last week, a white minibus drove by escorted by three government vehicles mounted with machineguns. Inside the van, were about a dozen, mostly young, men. Their arms appeared to be shackled behind their backs. Several had their eyes covered by blindfolds.

500 homes destroyed

A man stands over and looks at the charred remains of homes after a large forest fire reached urban areas in Valparaiso, Chile, Sunday April 13. Authorities say the fires have destroyed hundreds of homes, forced the evacuation of thousands and claimed the lives of at least seven people. ( AP Photo)

santiaGO, april 13 (ap): A large forest fire raging in the Chilean port city of Valparaiso has killed at least four people and destroyed 500 homes, officials said Sunday. Thousands of people have been evacuated, including more than 200 female inmates at a prison.

Firefighters were having difficulty combating the blaze because of the topography of the city, which is surrounded by dozens of steep hills where most people live.

"This is the worst disaster I have seen," regional governor Ricardo Bravo said. "Now we fear that the fire will spread to the center of the city, which would increase the severity of the emergency."

President Michelle Bachelet has declared the city of 250,000 people a ca-

tastrophe zone, which puts the armed forces in charge of maintaining order and evacuating thousands of residents affected by the smoke and flames. Authorities have evacuated an estimated 5,000 people, a figure that is expected to rise.

Interior Minister Rodrigo Penailillo said the fire has caused the deaths of four people — three men and a woman.

Thick clouds of smoke surrounded the city's prison and nine pregnant inmates were transferred to a detention facility in the nearby city of Quillota. Prison authorities were evacuating another 204 female inmates to a sports arena.

The more than 2,700 male inmates will remain at the prison for the time being, prison guard commander Tulio Arce said.

Valparaiso Mayor Jorge

Castro said "at least 500 homes have been destroyed by the fire.'' He said shelters for those forced to flee have been set up. The city was experiencing cuts to the electricity supply, he said.

While firefighters, police and forest rangers battled the blaze, Chilean marines in combat gear patrolled streets in the city to maintain order and prevent looting.

The fire started Saturday afternoon in hills on the edge of the city and spread rapidly because of strong winds. Hot ash rained down on the city early Sunday, causing respiratory problems among the population, especially children and the elderly.

Valparaiso, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) northwest of the capital, Santiago, is home to Chile's national legislature.

Snowden the ‘traitor’ looms over Pulitzers

new YOrk, april 13 (aFp): Hero or traitor? America is still polarized over Edward Snowden and whether the newspapers that exposed the extent of NSA's vast global spying network should be lauded or condemned. Ten months later, the question on journalists' lips is whether America's most prestigious journalism prize, the Pulitzers, will honor them when the annual awards are announced Monday.

For most journalists, there is no debate. In arguably the most influential story of the decade, The Guardian and The Washington Post broke sensational new ground by exposing how the US government monitors the data of millions. But the leaks embar-

rassed the government, strained relations with allies angered that Americans had been tapping into the private phone calls of leaders and sparked a debate within the United States on the merits and morality of mass surveillance.

Public opinion is at worst divided. Many believe Americans have a right to know what the government is doing. Others say Snowden is a traitor and a criminal who should be prosecuted.

Paul Janensch, professor emeritus at Quinnipiac University's School of Communications, predicted tension between journalists and more establishment members of the Pulitzer jury.

"These are fabulous pieces of journalism on the one hand, but on the other hand the docu-

ments were leaked, they were classified, they were distressing to the US government," Janensch said. "And the person who provided the information took refuge in Russia, so I understand there can be serious debate."

In January, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper suggested that journalists reporting on the leaks had acted as Snowden's "accomplices." Glenn Greenwald and Laura Poitras, US journalists who interviewed Snowden in Hong Kong, returned home to the United States on Friday for the first time after breaking the story. They told reporters after receving a George Polk Award for their coverage with The Guardian's Ewen MacAskill and the Post's Barton Gellman that they fear arrest

and being subpoened.

"I can't imagine a more appropriate choice for a Pulitzer Prize," New York University media studies professor Mark Miller told AFP. "Glenn Greenwald has done what American journalists are supposed to do, which is serve the public interest by shedding a bright light on egregious abuse of power by the government." There is "tremendous pressure" on journalists to toe the line, Miller said, despite America's relaxed press freedom laws. "The real journalistic heros in this country tend to be the mavericks, the eccentrics, those who dare to report stories that are often dismissed derisively as 'conspiracy theory,'" he added.

Media experts say there is

no evidence that any of the reporting endangered national security, and Greenwald, Poitras and MacAskill have emphasized how carefully they had treated the material. Their supporters say it would be damaging for the credibility of the Pultizer Board, which has a reputation for being conservative, not to honor the biggest scoop in a decade.

"They would have surrendered to the right-wing or the culturally conservative on security questions in American politics," said Christopher Simpson, communications professor at American University in Washington.

American media is considered more conservative on questions of US national security than foreign publications. "Not with-

standing the Internet and everything else, there's a significant gap between news coverage in the US and Europe, most especially on international issues," Simpson said.

"I think the European coverage defers less to what the CIA might want than the US press does, and that includes The Washington Post and The New York Times." But Rem Rieder, media editor for USA TODAY, said that public opinion and coverage had evolved over the last 10 months.

Coverage that initially criticized Snowden as a slacker has increasingly focused more on what he disclosed and what Americans should do about it. "Whatever the Pulitzer Board does, the reaction at all levels in our culture will be mixed," Janensch said.

with neighboring Russia.

In the eastern city of Kharkiv, several people were injured in clashes between supporters of the revolution that brought the Kiev leadership to power and opponents who favor closer ties with Russia. In another eastern town Zaporizhzhya Interfax news agency said 3,000 pro-European supporters turned out in a unity rally and faced off with several hundred pro-Moscow supporters, many of them waving the Russian flag.

"We are ready to defend ourselves," said separatist Vyacheslav Ponomaryov, who said he had taken over leadership of Slaviansk after the city's mayor fled.

Yulia Tymoshenko - a former Ukrainian prime minister who was jailed under Yanukovich and is running for next month's presidential election - said the unrest in eastern Ukraine was the work of Russian state security agents, designed to wrongfoot the EU and United States, which have imposed sanctions over the Crimean annexation, at Thursday's talks in Switzerland.

"There is an ulterior motive for this aggression, because in a few days there will be big negotiations in Geneva which Russia, out of weakness because of financial sanctions, asked for," she was quoted as saying

by Interfax news agency.

Abdullah leads in Afghan presidential election

kabUl, april 13 (ians): Afghan presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah was leading in the partial results, the country's Independent Election Commission (IEC) chairman announced Sunday.

"The IEC had tallied 10 percent of the votes from 26 provinces and the partial results were announced Sunday," IEC chairman Ahmad Yousuf Nouristani said.

The counting of votes cast in the presidential election started April 6 and will end April 20.

"Abdullah Abdullah secured 41.9 percent of partial results followed by Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai who received 37.6, and Zulmai Rassoul 9.9 percent of the results," Nouristani said.

The results may change in future as the IEC is in the process of counting the votes, he added.

On April, 5 more than 7 million Afghans out of 12 million eligible voters cast their votes to elect a successor to the outgoing President Hamid Karzai for the next five years in the first transfer of power through polling in the country's history, Xinhua reported.

Up to 36 percent of the voters were women.

The number of presidential candidates has dropped to eight after the withdrawal of three contenders from the race, and over 2,500 candidates ran for 458 provincial councils seats in 34 provinces, including 96 seats for women.

The Independent Election Commission has set aside April 7-17 period for receiving complaints about the presidential elections.

Under the Afghan law, official result cannot be announced until serious complaints are adjudicated.

The preliminary results will come out April 24 and the final result will be announced in mid-May. If no candidate garners 50 percent plus one vote, a run-off between the top two candidates will be held May 28.

10

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SPORTS

Monday 14 April 2014

The Morung Express

Pacquiao beats Bradley by decision in rematch

LAS VEGAS, APRIL 13 (AP): Manny Pacquiao won a unanimous decision in his rematch with Timothy Bradley on Saturday, avenging his 2012 loss and claiming the WBO welterweight title. Pacquiao (565-2) pursued and peppered the previously unbeaten Bradley around the MGM Grand Garden ring with an aggressive performance recalling the Pacman in his prime. Bradley fought back with counterpunching and elusiveness, but Pacquiao kept up his attack while Bradley (31-1) struggled in the closing rounds.

Pacquiao left little doubt about the result of the rematch in the same arena where they met nearly two years ago. Bradley's splitdecision victory astonished most ringside observers, who felt Pacquiao had earned a clear decision.

"I knew I had to do more in this fight than I did in the last fight," Pacquiao said.

Judges Craig Metcalfe and Michael Pernick scored the rematch 116-112 for Pacquiao, while Glenn Trowbridge favored the Filipino congressman 118-110.

The Associated Press scored it 116-112 for Pacquiao. After the fight, Bradley said he injured his right calf early on. But he also applauded the decision when it was announced, and he congratu-

lated Pacquiao in the ring.

"I tried, I really tried," Bradley said. "I wanted that knockout. Manny is a great fighter, one of the best in the world. I lost to one of the greatest fighters in boxing. I kept trying to throw something over the top.

That's what we worked on in camp. That was the plan, but Pacquiao has great footwork." Pacquiao landed 35 percent of his 563 punches, while Bradley connected with just 22 percent of his 627 blows. Pacquiao's jab was much more effective, landing 23 percent to Bradley's measly 11 percent, and the Pacman had a slight edge in landing 148 power punches to Bradley's 109.

Pacquiao's performance righted one of the biggest perceived wrongs in recent boxing history. Pacquiao was an eight-division world champion on 15-fight winning streak when Bradley was awarded a split decision in their last bout.

Pacquiao was more aggressive and accurate from the opening minutes of the rematch, sticking to trainer Freddie Roach's pleas to take the action to Bradley.

They exchanged big shots in the opening rounds, but Pacquiao appeared to wear out Bradley with the heavy early pace — and the Pacman never slowed down.

Timothy Bradley, left, lands a left to the head of Manny Pacquiao, of the Philippines, in their WBO welterweight title boxing "I didn't want to get fight Saturday, April 12 in Las Vegas. (AP Photo)

careless," Pacquiao said.

"I picked up more steam in the second half when I made adjustments that Freddie gave me in the corner. Bradley was much better than in the first fight we had. He hurt me on the chin." Pacquiao landed a series of big left hands in the early rounds, knocking back Bradley with gusto.

Bradley responded impressively in the fourth round, wobbling Pacquiao twice with a right hand.

The pace slowed in the fifth, with Bradley showing off his defense and movement while Pacquiao attempted to trap him against the ropes. Pacquiao appeared to wobble Bradley late in the seventh round with a vicious combination, but Bradley stood with his back against the ropes and defiantly encouraged it, blocking most of the shots. Bradley appeared to pretend to have wobbly legs at one point after a Pacquiao miss, but his open mouth betrayed his weariness while Pacquiao steadily racked up rounds midway through the fight.

Bradley came on strong in the 12th, and the fighters' heads collided late in the round. Pacquiao avoided any trouble until the final bell, when he did a short dance step to his corner.

While Bradley remains

publicly confident he beat Pacquiao in their first bout despite fighting on two injured feet, that much-derided decision sent both fighters' careers on wild spirals. The two judges who scored the bout 115-113 for Bradley are no longer in the boxing business, but their decision ended Pacquiao's 15-fight win streak and forced Bradley to defend himself against widespread criticism of the result.

Bradley endured death threats and depression before returning to the ring in unusually reckless style. He brawled with Ruslan Provodnikov in March 2013 in a sensational unanimousdecision victory that silenced critics of his style and heart. Bradley then outpointed veteran Mexican champion Juan Manuel Marquez last fall, polishing his skills and making himself attractive to Pacquiao for a rematch.

Pacquiao was knocked unconscious by Marquez in the sixth round of their fourth fight in late 2012, and he took nearly a year off before returning for an unspectacular victory over Brandon Rios last fall. Pacquiao's last two performances prompted Bradley to declare Pacquiao had lost his killer instinct, noting he was unable or unwilling to stop any of his opponents since late 2009.

Barcelona loses, Madrid 1st 10 Northern Angami 1—T20 Championships wins to move second Our Correspondent Kohima | April 13

The 1st 10 Northern Angami –1 T20 Championship with the theme “Bat for Unity” will take place from April 21 to 30 at Government High School Ground, Kohima under the aegis of the Brotherhood Group.

The tournament is initiated by MLA Khriehu Liezietsu, advisor New & Renewable Energy and Music Task Force. The main objective of organizing this tournament is to encourage and uplift the talents of the youth of the area. It also aims to build friendship, trust and understanding among different communities residing in the 10th Northern Angami-1 area.

“Our dynamic leader Khriehu Liezietsu together with the Brotherhood Group wants to showcase the talents of the youth of the area and also to set the example to the people that we are a united force,” the concept note stated, adding that with the theme “Bat for Unity, together we want

Barcelona's Lionel Messi from Argentina, left, in action with Granada's Tiago Ilori from Portugal during a Spanish La Liga soccer match between FC Granada and FC Barcelona at Los Carmenes stadium in Granada, Spain, Saturday April 12. (AP Photo)

BARCELONA, APRIL 13 (AP): Barcelona compounded its exit from the Champions League by losing 1-0 at Granada on Saturday, letting Real Madrid move ahead into second place in the Spanish league with a 4-0 win over Almeria.

Barcelona's stumble ensured the same Atletico Madrid that ousted it from Europe's top-tier competition would maintain the league lead with five more rounds to go, as it was level on points with Madrid but ahead on goal difference before it visited Getafe on Sunday.

Granada's Yacine Brahimi scored what proved to be the winner in the 16th minute and goalkeeper Orestis Karnezis made saves to deny Lionel Messi and Neymar amid a plethora of scoring chances that Barcelona failed to finish.

Barcelona has four more days to regroup from back-to-back defeats before it plays Real Madrid in the Copa del Rey final in Valencia.

"It's a step back," said Barcelona midfielder Andres Iniesta, whose late shot trickled by the post with Granada bunkered down in its area.

"It hurts more given how few games are left.

Sometimes it's difficult to explain it when you lose.

We did everything but score. We controlled everything else, but just couldn't finish our chances. Sometimes when the team is emitting strange vibes, this happens." With his centerbacks Gerard Pique, Marc Bartra and Carles Puyol all injured, Barcelona coach Gerardo Martino shifted Sergio Busquets into his back line and started Alex Song in midfield.

It didn't take long for the shuffling to backfire, when Song lost the ball and Granada sprang a counterattack. Fran Rico quickly played Brahimi through for the forward to ride Martin Montoya's mark before he shot beyond goalkeeper Jose Pinto.

"I don't think the lineup changes were decisive in a match that Barcelona should have won," Martino said. "Normally Barcelona wins this game by four or five goals. After two losses, the squad feels that something important is slipping away, but on Wednesday we must try and win the final (of the Copa)."

"I can't feel good after these results, but we will keep fighting for the league.

We can't confuse sadness with giving up."

Barcelona peppered Granada's area with crosses and shots but went no

closer in the first half than Neymar's long-range attempt in the 30th that Karnezis pushed wide, while Messi tried in vain to dribble through the middle of the defense.

The visitors kept pressing after the restart and Karnezis was called on to stab Cesc Fabregas' volley around his post in the 54th.

He then stretched to palm Messi's free kick before he was well positioned to block Sergio Busquets' try.

Granada's Youssef El Arabi almost grabbed a second goal two minutes from time but he couldn't better Pinto one-on-one.

Madrid didn't miss injured star Cristiano Ronaldo as it bounced back from its poor performance at Borussia Dortmund with a dominant victory.

Angel Di Maria, Gareth Bale, Isco Alarcon and Alvaro Morata scored at the Santiago Bernabeu to keep Almeria in the relegation zone. Di Maria hit the crossbar to set the tone early and followed up in the 28th by curling in Madrid's opener.

Madrid toyed with Almeria until Bale scored his 14th league goal of the season from Karim Benzema's pass in the 53rd, with Isco hitting three minutes later. Morata went on to score five minutes from time.

Organizer during the press conference in Kohima on April 13.

to spread the message that with unity there is strength and cooperation of the people, when there is strength and cooperation there will be all round development and progress in the society.”

Also quoting “United We Stand, Divided We fall,” it said “So let us all Bat for Unity and Bowled out all our differences and negativity from our life. Let these be our collective goal.”

The tournament is open for the youth of 10th Northern Angami- 1, said the organizer during a press conference here and made

its stand clear that there is nothing to do with politics through this tournament.

The sole purpose of the tournament is to promote unity and brotherhood The tournament is restricted to only 10 teams from the constituency of 10th Northern Angami- I, however three players from within Kohima district would be allowed to participate in each team. Entry to the tournament is entirely free. The tournament will be conducted on league (robin round) basis. The teams would be provided

with uniforms and kits.

The tournament shall be of league basic in the Twenty20 format game.

There will be 21 matches with three matches a day at 7:30 AM (1st Match), 10:30 AM(2nd match) and 2:00 PM (Third match).

The organizer is intending to have selection committee where prominent players will be selected from this tournament to represent the area at the other forthcoming tournaments.

The champion will be awarded with a cash prize of Rs. 50,000 while the runners

up will pocket a cash prize of Rs. 25,000. There will also be individual prizes.

The organisers alongside the game of cricket, are also contemplating to promote music talents of the local youths by organising glittering opening and closing ceremonies.

Among others present at the press conference included Thepfuhulie Belhoconvenor, Wati Jamir- secretary, Aneiba- organizing committee member, Keviselhou- organizing committee member and Elvistechnical director.

NBA: Dallas seals playoff ISL: Sachin wins bid for berth with win over Suns Kochi, Sourav bags Kolkata

DALLAS, APRIL 13 (AP): Dallas booked its place in the NBA playoffs with a 101-98 come-from-behind home win over Phoenix on Saturday, with Monta Ellis matching his season high of 37 points.

On a day when the playoff picture became clearer, Atlanta sealed the final postseason berth in the Eastern Conference with a comfortable win over Miami, Houston maintained its hold on fourth in the West by beating New Orleans, and the Los Angeles Clippers beat Sacramento to equal a franchise record for wins in a season.

Dallas' Ellis and Dirk Nowitzki — who scored 21 of his 23 points in the second-half rally — brought the Mavericks back by hitting five 3-pointers between them in less than 4 minutes of the third quarter, erasing most of a 13-point deficit. Then, they teamed to get the lead back in the fourth, and Dallas held on in the final minutes.

The Mavericks left the Suns and Memphis to battle for the last playoff spot in the Western Conference. Dallas is back in the postseason after a 12-year playoff streak ended last season.

Eric Bledsoe led Phoe-

Dallas Mavericks' Monta Ellis, front, drives the lane as Phoenix Suns' Markieff Morris defends in the first quarter of an NBA basketball game in Dallas on April 12. (AP Photo)

nix with 29 points.

Atlanta took the final playoff spot in the East — ahead of New York — by winning 98-85 at home against Miami.

Jeff Teague scored 25 points and Lou Williams had 18 of his 23 points in the fourth quarter, including the Hawks' last 12 points.

NEW DELHI, APRIL 13 (AGANCIES): IMGReliance announced the winning bids for eight franchises in lucrative Indian Super League (ISL) football tournament. Batting legend Sachin Tendulkar won bid for Kochi franchise in ISL, which will be held in September-October.

Former India captain Sourav Ganguly bagged Kolkata franchise in ISL. Whereas, Bollywood actors Ranbir Kapoor, Salman Khan and John Abraham bagged three other franchises. Earlier, the names of Tendulkar and Ganguly and Bollywood stars Ranbir Kapoor and Salman Khan were doing the rounds as probable owners as the much awaited franchise line-up of ISL football tournament.

Den Cable, owned by Sameer Manchanda, may get Delhi, while Tendulkar, Ganguly and Ranbir may settle for Kochi, Kolkata and Mumbai franchises.

Salman had shown his interest in the Pune franchise.

The eight cities who have likely made the cut are Delhi, Mumbai, Kochi, Kolkata, Bangalore, Pune, Goa, and Guwahati. The twomonth tournament will be played in September.

The ISL is managed by IMG-Reliance, commercial partners of the All India Football Federation (AIFF).

The league will be held in association with Star India.

A top official in the AIFF told IANS that Sun TV, which also owns Indian Premier League(IPL) franchise Sunrisers Hyderabad, may get the Banglaore franchise.

A consortium, involving family members of mining giants Dempo and Salgaocar, are doing the rounds for the Goa franchise. Another Bollywood star John Abraham’s name is also doing the rounds for the Guwahati franchise. John has reportedly formed a consortium with a top football administrator from the north-east, who also owns an I-League club.

Some 30 corporates had picked up tender documents for the new IPLstyle football league but only eight made the final cut. Audit firm Ernst and Young evaluated the bids for IMG-Reliance.

“Once the franchise lineup is final, the owners will start development activities in their area in the run-up to the inaugural tournament,” an IMG-Reliance official told IANS on the condition of anonymity. Sources in the AIFF told IANS that some high-profile names like Shahrukh Khan, who owns IPL franchise Kolkata Knight Riders, and Abhishek Bachchan may have lost out in their bids despite showing initial interest.

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Tetseo Sisters bag Eastern Panorama Achiever’s Awards

Tetseo Sisters being felicitated at the Eastern Panorama Achiever’s Awards function.

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astern Panorama today handed out the second edition of its Achiever’s Awards as part of its celebration of 22 years of uninterrupted publication.

Spanning ten categories, awards were handed

Monday

Entertainment

The Morung Express

out by the Chief Guest of the formal function Roshan Warjri, Home Minister, Meghalaya. The awards were handed out to people and organizations which have made immense contributions to their respective fields of operation.

The winners of this year’s edition of the awards include the Tetseo Sisters of Nagaland for music, The Martin Luther Christian University for education, the State Bank of India for Banking, Wansuk Myrthong of Meghalaya and Anshu

Jamsempa of Arunachal Pradesh for Adventure Sports, Sumar Sing Sawian of Meghalaya for Cultural Promotion, Shankar Lall Goenka of the Jeevan Ram Moongi Devi Public Charitable Trust of Shillong for NGO, Utpal Baruah of Guwahati’s UB Photos for Photography, GVK EMRI’s 108 Service for Social Service and Chandan Bora for Rural Entrepreneurship.

Speaking at the occasion, the Chief Guest said that there is a need for news publications to remain fair while reporting even as she stated that through being a long time subscriber of the magazine, she has no doubt in her mind that Eastern Panorama is absolutely fair while reporting on news.

Others who spoke at the function were – the Managing Director of DY365 Dipannita Jaiswal, Professor B. Panda of NEHU, Shillong and the Editor in Chief of Eastern Panorama Dr. KK Jhunjhunwala.

14 April 2014

Dimapur

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William fuels speculation of second royal baby

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Victoria snubs 40th birthday party idea

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he may have a contact book with more A-listers than any of her other Spice Girl peers.

But Victoria Beckham won’t be putting it to use, this week, after claims she actively shunned plans for a major 40th birthday party.

Instead, the designer - who celebrates her big day on Thursday - wants to enjoy a simple family meal away from the spotlight. According to The Mirror, Victoria has laid down the law with good friends Eva Longoria and hairdresser Ken Paves, who are organising her celebrations. Rather than a celebrity-filled party, they report she is insisting on a small, tasteful dinner for a handful of close friends and family members at a local LA restaurant.Top of the guest list are Victoria’s parents

Tony and Jackie Adams – who will fly to the States in the next few days - plus Gordon and Tanya Ramsay.

Interestingly, Victoria’s former

Simon Fuller will. A friend of Victoria told The Mirror: ‘It’s a dinner party rather than a full-on lavish party because she made it quite clear she wanted something more low key.’Ken and Eva are great friends and have taken charge of organising things – and she’s got some other lovely friends who live nearby and are coming along. Simon Fuller is her manager but also a very close friend.

He’s been there since the beginning and Victoria gets on well with his wife Natalie too.’ Additional reports suggest that husband David Beckham will celebrate the milestone birthday by buying her a £50,000 diamond bracelet. Her four children band-mates - Mel B, Geri Halliwell, are said said to have opted for a less Mel C and Emma Bunton - won’t be expensive option and will treat her to present, but their former manager a variety of novelty gifts.

Britain’s Prince William and his wife Kate, Duchess of Cambridge, prepare to sample a wine during a visit to Amsfield Winery in Queenstown, New Zealand on April 13. The royal couple are on an official visit to New Zealand. (AP Photo)

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oyal watchers were scrutinizing the duchess of Cambridge on her New Zealand tour on Sunday, after husband Prince William appeared to hint a second baby is on the way.

The royals’ eight-month-old son Prince George, third in line to the British throne, has been the star of their New Zealand tour so far.

But William suggested during a walkabout in the North Island town of Cambridge there may soon be another royal baby to share the spot-

light.

During a meeting with Cynthia Read, who knitted the merino wool shawl which was New Zealand’s official gift when George was born, William said according to several reports: “You might have to make another one soon!”

Read, who emigrated to New Zealand from England eight years ago, was co vinced the prince was serious.

“The way William said it was like he was dropping a hint, letting me in on a secret,” she told reporters, adding the duchess said they were delighted with the first shawl “and

George wore it a lot”.

Wife Kate was also seen to be sipping water during an evening state reception for the couple on Thursday, fuelling media speculation of a second pregnancy.

The duke and duchess of Cambridge flew to the southern city of Dunedin on Sunday where they attended a Palm Sunday service at St Paul’s Anglican Cathedral and attended a junior rugby match.

They were later to travel to the resort town of Queenstown where they are scheduled to take a jet-boat ride and visit a vineyard.

Prem Chopra unveils Grand finale of Naga’s Next Top Model season-I his autobiography

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eteran actor Prem Chopra has launched his biography titled `Prem Naam Hai Mera` penned by his daughter Rakita Nanda. “I always thought how is this possible what you want to write. This is my normal life, what you want to write? She was interested to write and she did. She went to my friends with whoever I have worked...,” Prem told reporters here at the unveiling of his biography Saturday evening.

Nanda shared how she decided to write a biography on her father, popular for playing negative roles in films like `Teesri Manzil`, `Woh Kaun Thi`, “Do Raaste” and “Kati Patang”. “It started with a conversation I had with my husband Rahul. He said we were celebrating 100 years of Indian cinema and your father has been in the industry for 50 years... that should be an interesting read. That`s how it started,” she said. “I spoke to my dad and he was game. Movie by movie we went through. I was dealing with every generation of actors - Dilip Saab (Dilip Kumar), Amitabh Bachchan - for the biography... My mom has chronicled all the clippings for past 45 years and that was a big help,” she added. Many celebrities made their appearance at the event - among them Amitabh Bachchan, Manoj Kumar, Akshay Kumar, Sharman Joshi and Vidhu Vinod Chopra.

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he Grand Finale of Naga’s Next Top Model season-I is scheduled to be held on April 19 at Nouise Auditorum, Niathu Resort from 6:00 pm onwards. The model hunt is a production of O.J Modeling Grooming and Training Agency Dimapur under the President and Director Opang Jamir Metsubo, former Mister India International 2012 who represented India at Mister International 2012 contest held in Bangkok, Thailand.

The Curtain Raiser was held on July 27, 2013 at Agri-Expo. It has conducted 3 major shows, 3 minor shows and 2 days out-door shooting with celebrity model and Femina Miss India East winner Himakshi Agrawal.

The winner will be awarded with a cash price of Rs 1,00,000/- (one Lakh) each and a chance to represent India in South Korea at Miss Super Model International & Mister Planet respectively. There are 10 sub-titles apart from the winner:- Mr and Miss Congeniality, Mr and Miss Look

of the Year, Mr and Miss Internet popular, Mr and Miss Fresh face , Mr and Miss Catwalk, Mr and Miss Perfect Ten, Ambassador O.J Modeling and Grooming Agency, Mr and Miss Highest vote, Mr and Miss Talented, Mr & Miss Photogenic.

Merentoshi R. Jamir, Minister of Youth Resources & Sports will be the chief guest at the Grand Finale.

Natasha Sikka, celebrity Model and leading actress of newly released film “Tonhi” from Mumbai will be the

Carter marries Lauren Kitt...

guest of honour.

Judges of the show will be Cathrine Imtila (Director of Hero Mindmine), Apu Chang (MCCI Elken India), Senti Ao (Celebrity Stylist Mumbai), Natasha Sikkha Celebrity Model and Actress, Redeemson Ranleng, Academic Director Hero Mindmine. Performers: Aosunep Jamir frontman of the band ”Excess”, and first runner up Naga Idol will be performing at the show.

Association partner: Photography A 2 produc-

tion, Manoj Sagolsem, Beverage partner- Red Bull, Media partner- Nagaland post, Magazine coverage partner-Eclectic Magazine, Guwahati.

Designers: Arenla Susan’s collection, Ako Lkr, Leejen (Colors of Nagaland) and Delhi based Designer Prakesh Gupta.

Grooming and encouraging younger aspiring model to enter the modeling industry with positive outlook and expressing themselves confidently with great

“Attitude”, O.J Modeling and grooming training Agency offers four months course on Modeling and Grooming, six months Aviation Training, Hospitality Training, and Interview skills for job aspirants.

Recently, Imnajungla (contestant-09), who was also awarded the best ethnic wear on July 27, 2013 (first curtain raiser of NNTM) was successfully recruited as a cabin crew in Jet Airways. She is undergoing 57 days of training in Mumbai.

Opang asserted that when he started out, he had no clue about modeling, but he learned it all by himself through practice and with God’s help. Noticing the plethora of talents in Nagaland, he felt there should be agencies and sponsors to help youngsters realize their dreams. He also commented that especially the younger lot has the physique, awareness and smartness to make it to the big leagues.

Skills needed to make it as top Model: Right attitude, Right Mentor and Agency, determination, patience, hard work and Confidence, he said. “If you don’t have self belief, you will never become a top model,” Opang shared. “Nothing is impossible. I am a young boy from a small town, Mokokchung who came to Dimapur for Airlines training.” After the training, he was recruited as a cabin crew as he had hoped. He wants his Modeling agency to serve as a platform for upcoming talents who want to make it internationally.

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Eccentric singer Lady Gaga reveals she but younger brother Aaron doesn’t make it uses facial TAPE to ‘form her eyes’

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ick Carter, 34, officially tied the knot with his fiancée Lauren Kitt on Saturday. The pair’s ceremony commenced in Santa Barbara, California, but one key attendee was unfortunately missing from the reception in the form of Nick’s younger brother Aaron Carter, 26. Though his rep Steve Honig claims he never planned on attending the ceremony due to ‘a contractual obligation to appear in the Cherry Blossom Parade in Washington, D.C.,’ the singer at least wanted to make the reception. ‘Aaron changed planes several times to get into Santa Barbara. He was breaking his a** to get to Nick’s wedding,’ Steve told RumorFix. But there were mechanical problems with his US Airways plane that prevented him from making an appearance. Steve made sure to note that Aaron’s plans were made

before he knew the exact wedding date and there is no sibling rivalry.

Meanwhile, Nick - who previously vowed he’d never wed - and Lauren appeared elated to finally be man and wife. They were snapped happily kissing beneath a purple and white floral arrangement in a precious outdoor setting. The fitness expert and actress wore a sexy strapless, mermaidstyle white gown adorned with lacy details. Her brunette locks were styled into a chic updo with her veil attached. And Nick donned a black tux, white blouse, and black bow-tie.

Prior to the nuptials, the couple held a rehearsal dinner on Friday night which hosted other Backstreet Boy members such as A.J. McLean and Howie Dorough. In February, the two had a co-ed bachelor/bachelorette party at Ghostbar at the Palms Ca-

sino Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada. Nick popped the question with a seven-carat diamond ring in February 2013 after holding the

ring in his pocket for two weeks. It was a very happy occasion for Nick who lost his sister Leslie to an overdose in 2012.

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ady Gaga uses facelift tape ‘every day’ to look younger.’ The 28-year-old singer has admitted she uses the tape to pull the skin around her cheekbones and neck tight in an effort to look more youthful and revealed it is part of her morning ritual. She told the Daily Mirror newspaper: ‘When I have my wig cap on and I’m taping my face, it’s a sort of meditation for me. Every day, it starts the same way.

It’s like a mantra. ‘I wash my face, I pin my hair back and put on a wig cap and I ask, “How am I going to form my eyes today with this tape?

How will I pull back my neck with tape?”’ The ‘Poker Face’ star insisted despite not being a natural look, it can still be ‘honest’ and authentic.

She said: ‘Looking artificial can be honest. Being glamorous can come from a place of authenticity and a place of love.’ However, plastic surgeon Jeya Prakash has warned the tape could lead

to permanent damage.

He explained: “By taping your face tight, you are reducing the circulation which means there are less ‘nutrients getting to the skin, so abnormal collagen will be produced. ‘This is like internal scarring as different types of cells from the skin - like with a scar. In the long term, it will speed up the ageing process.’ Meanwhile, Lily Allen has called Lady Gaga a ‘martyr’ for choosing ‘art’ over commercial success. The Air Balloon hitmaker has defended her fellow singer after she was criticised for her latest album ARTPOP being a relative flop, insisting she deserves credit for the risks she has taken. Speaking to Rolling Stone magazine, she said: ‘If she’s not succeeding commercially because she’s standing by what she does as art, then that’s a f**king great thing. ‘That’s to be commended. That’s what makes a martyr. There’s nothing wrong with that.’

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Pallikal packs off Perry to enter Texas Open final

HOUSTON, APRIL 13 (PTI): India's top woman's squash player Dipika Pallikal marched into the biggest final of her career after getting past higherranked Madeline Perry from Ireland in the $50,000 Texas Open at the Downtown Club. The 22-year-old World No.12 battled for 75 minutes, enduring three tie-break games, to beat eighth-ranked Perry 11-7, 11-13, 13-11, 10-12, 11-4 in the Women's Squash Association (WSA) Gold 50 event on Saturday.

The win, which levels her WSA tour head-tohead record with Perry to two-all, takes Pallikal into her first final of the year but the 12th of her career.

The Indian faces a mighty challenge in the final tonight when she takes on Egyptian qualifier Nour El Sherbini, who had stunned Malaysian World No.1 Nicol David to finish the youngest runner-up in the World Championship last month. Pallikal goes into the title clash at the back of two matches lasting

LiverPooL beats City 3-2, on Course for ePL titLe

five games with the semifinal against Perry stretching to 75 minutes.

"It was another hard match, took a lot out of me.

I knew she was going to come hard at me and was playing well of late. I was able to stick to my game plan and fight for every point," Pallikal said.

Pallikal is aware of what stands between her and the biggest prize of her career.

"Facing Sherbini will be harder. She is going to be very confident. I am hoping I pull one out of the bag.

I have had a good tournament anyway and will try my best to end it on a high," she said referring to her 18-year-old opponent.

Pallikal added that it was "great" to have coach and five-time world champion Sarah Fitz-Gerald by her side. In the other semifinal, the girl from Alexandria maintained the magnificent form she showed in the World Championship. In her fifth meeting with third seed Camille Serme, El Sherbini defeated the World No.6 from France 11-5, 11-9, 9-11, 11-6 in 55 minutes to move into her seventh tour final.

The final will mark the third meeting between Pallikal and El Sherbini since June 2010 with the Indian looking for her maiden win. LIVERPOOL, APRIL 13 (AP): Liverpool became the favorite to win the Premier League after beating title rival Manchester City 3-2 on Sunday, with Philippe Coutinho's late goal settling a thrilling and emotionally charged match at Anfield. The Brazilian playmaker pounced on City captain Vincent Kompany's poor clearance to curl home a 78th-minute winner, leaving Liverpool seven points clear of third-placed City and needing to win its last four games to guarantee a first championship since 1990.

Driven on by its passionate and frenzied support, Liverpool dominated City early on and went 2-0 ahead, thanks to goals by Raheem Sterling and Martin Skrtel in the opening 26 minutes.

City produced a stirring second-half fightback, with David Silva scoring in the 57th before Glen Johnson's own goal five minutes later looked like giving the visitors a point.

Jordan Henderson was redcarded in injury time for Liverpool but that, and a second-half injury to Daniel Sturridge, failed to take the gloss off a 10th straight win for Brendan Rodgers' side. The title

Kipsang wins his 2nd London Marathon

Liverpool's Philippe Coutinho, centre, celebrates with teammate Steven Gerrard, left, after he scored the third goal of the game for his side during their English Premier League soccer match against Manchester City at Anfield in Liverpool, England, Sunday April. 13. (AP Photo)

race is far from over, though, with City having two games in hand and second-placed Chelsea having the title in its own hands if it can beat Liverpool at Anfield on April 27 and win its other four games.

All the momentum is with Liverpool, however, and it would mean so much to the club and its fans if it can win the league this season, given that Tuesday marks the 25th anniversary of the Hillsborough disaster in which 96 Liverpool fans were killed in a stadium crush. Thousands of Liverpool fans lined the streets outside Anfield hours before kickoff to cheer the players into the ground, and the sea of flags, scarves and banners in the iconic Kop stand harked back to the days in the late 1970s and '80s when the club dominated English and European football.

A string of tributes to mark the upcoming Hillsborough anniversary added to the gravitas of the contest and City's players simply failed to deal with it in the first half.

By the 26th minute, they had fallen 2-0 behind, lost midfield driving force Yaya Toure to an apparent groin injury and their defense was being undone by the

movement of Luis Suarez, Sturridge, Sterling and the excellent Coutinho. The Liverpool crowd also played its part.

Rodgers said the club would "unleash" its supporters on City and there was lift off inside the stadium when Sterling opened the scoring.

Suarez played a pass in behind Kompany, whose fitness was in doubt after twisting his knee in training on Saturday, and Sterling raced through before coming to a stop, befuddling Kompany and goalkeeper Joe Hart with some nifty footwork and then stroking home into an empty net.

City looked rattled already and its predicament worsened in the 19th when Toure hobbled off.

Then, after an unmarked Steven Gerrard had a header brilliantly saved by Hart, the midfielder whipped in the resulting corner for Skrtel to peel off Kompany and glance a header into the far corner.

Cue furious scarf-waving across Anfield.

"Poetry in Motion" was the chant from the Kop and although City settled by the end of the first half, with Fernandinho having a

low shot saved by Simon Mignolet, Liverpool still looked more potent especially on the counter-attack.

Liverpool's work rate was something to behold — two crunching tackles by Coutinho told its own story — but City raised the tempo at the start of the second half, with the introduction of James Milner for Jesus Navas sparking an improvement.

And it was Milner, after exchanging passes with Fernandinho, who crossed for Silva to poke home in the 57th.

It was all City and the equalizer came five minutes later, a series of intricate passes setting free Silva, whose center was deflected unwittingly into the net off Johnson.

Sergio Aguero came on for Edin Dzeko after 68 minutes for his first action in a month after a hamstring injury and his cross should have enabled Silva to slide in a third, but he couldn't get a meaningful touch.

It was left for Coutinho to grab the winning goal after Kompany miscued his clearance. Henderson's dismissal, for a studs-first challenge on Samir Nasri, came too late to make a difference.

Arsenal scraps through to FA Cup final

Wilson Kipsang of Kenya celebrates his win as he crosses the finish line during the London Marathon in London, Sunday, April 13. (AP Photo)

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LONDON, APRIL 13 (AP): The last of the elite runners to arrive in London but the first over the line, Wilson Kipsang's week of travel chaos had no impact on his marathon running. The world recordholder saw off a strong field to capture his second London title by breaking the course record on Sunday.

Kipsang completed the 26.2-mile (42.2-kilometer) route in 2 hours, 4 minutes, 29 seconds — 11 seconds inside the previous fastest run in London by Emmanuel Mutai in 2011 — at the end of a week that began with his passport and visa being stolen from a car at his training base in Kenya.

Although he had a spare passport, Kipsang had to travel from the town of Iten to the capital Nairobi to obtain a replacement visa before arriving two days late in London on Thursday.

Little, though, was holding back the 32-yearold Kipsang on Sunday, when he pulled away from

fellow Kenyan Stanley Biwott in the final two miles.

"The pacemakers went too early for me so I had to push myself," said Kipsang, who also won the 2012 race. "At around 31km (19 miles) it was then I decided to push harder and I felt very comfortable and strong. And then I pushed again towards the finish line and that was when I broke away."

Biwott finished 26 seconds behind Kipsang, and deposed London champion Tsegaye Kebede was more than two minutes behind Kipsang in third.

"When Wilson pushed away, I just didn't have it in my legs to keep up with him for the final meters," Biwott said. But despite the sunshine bathing London, the home crowd was left disappointed by the full marathon debut of Mo Farah, who finished eighth, almost four minutes behind Kipsang. But despite failing to match his track feats in the city in 2012,

when he won the 5,000 and 10,000-meter titles at the Olympics, Farah will return for another shot at the marathon.

"I'm not going to finish it like this," Farah said. "I'll be back. It's a matter of experience and learning."

There was a Kenyan one-two too in the women's race, which ended in a sprint finish in front of Buckingham Palace. Twotime world champion Edna Kiplagat won at her fourth attempt in London, completing the course in 2:20:21 — 3 seconds ahead of namesake, Florence Kiplagat. "Towards the end of the race I tried to push a few times but she was always there," Edna Kiplagat said of her rival. "I felt very strong so I wasn't too worried."

In the women's wheelchair race, Tatyana McFadden swapped the slopes for the streets as she successfully defended her London title with a dominant performance, winning in a course record time of 1:45:11.

LONDON, APRIL 13 (AP): Arsenal avoided FA Cup embarrassment against second-tier club Wigan on Saturday, coming from behind against the holder and winning a penalty shootout to reach the final where the London club will be looking to end a nine-year trophy drought.

After extra time ended 1-1, Arsenal's players scored all of their penalties and Lukasz Fabianski made two vital saves in a 4-2 shootout victory over Wigan in this meeting of the fifth-place teams in the Premier League and League Championship.

Wigan went in front in regular time from the penalty spot at Wembley Stadium. Arsenaldefender Per Mertesacker conceded the spot kick that Jordi Gomez converted but the German made amends by heading in the equalizer that sent the game into extra time.

"In the first half we were a bit timid," Mertesacker said. "A lot of people questioned (our character) recently but how we came back today we proved a lot."

A year after winning its first major trophy by beating Manchester City and then again in this year's semifinals, Wigan couldn't produce another upset against a Premier League power — much to Arsene Wenger's relief.

Arsenal players celebrate their win against Wigan Athletic at the end of their English FA Cup semifinal soccer match at Wembley Stadium in London, Saturday, April 12. (AP Photo)

"It was important mentally," the Arsenal manger said. "If you imagine the consequences of going out tonight, it would have been quite worrying."

With the second half of his 18-year reign defined by the lack of silverware, Wenger desperately needs to collect a first trophy since the 2005 FA Cup success when Arsenalreturns to Wembley for the final.

Arsenal will discover on Sunday whether it will face Premier League side Hull or third-tier club Sheffield United on May 17.

It could be a bittersweet end to the season, though, with Arsenal at risk of miss-

ing out on the Champions League after 16 successive years. Just before kickoff at Wembley, Arsenal was dislodged from the fourth Champions League place

by Everton, which beat Sunderland 1-0.

What a slump it has been for Wenger's side, having spent so much of the opening months of the season on top of the league.

The failure to strengthen the squad in the January transfer window has come back to bite Wenger.

How differently things could have turned out if he had brought in an additional striker. Instead, Wenger on Saturday was relying for

goals on 21-year-old striker Yaya Sanogo, who was starting just his fourth game since joining on a free transfer before this season. Olivier Giroud was on the bench.

Sanogo's lack of cutting edge and pace in front of goal quickly became apparent.

The Frenchman was denied

by Scott Carson from close range after five minutes and again just before halftime when his unconvincing first touch to control the ball allowed the goalkeeper to thwart the attempt. If there was anything to reassure a dreary Arsenal side failing to produce the fluid football Wenger champions, it was Wigan's inability to provide

much attacking menace.

So Arsenalgifted Wigan the opening to go in front.

Mertesacker slid in with a lunge to cut out Callum McManaman's run and the forward went to ground in the penalty area. After a delay while Arsenal defender Nacho Monreal received treatment elsewhere on the pitch, Gomez, a product of Barcelona's youth system, sent the spot kick beyond the reach of Lukasz Fabianski. The anger among Arsenal fans who have grown accustomed to failure was clear: Jeers greeted Wenger's decision to bring Giroud on, not for Sanogo but Lukas Podolski in the 68th.

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