16th April 2014

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www.morungexpress.com

Dimapur VOL. IX ISSUE 103

reflections

By Sandemo Ngullie

The Morung Express “

www.morungexpress.com

Don’t give up on your dreams, or your dreams will give up on you

SC says transgenders ‘third category’

Sunny Leone to host ‘Splitsvilla’

[ PAGE 8]

[ PAGE 11]

”

Wednesday, April 16, 2014 12 pages Rs. 4 –John Wooden

ESSU appeals SBI for bank branch in Aghunato sub-division [ PAGE 2]

Post, Guardian win Pulitzers for NSA revelations

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Phelps coming out of retirement [ PAGE 10]

[ PAGE 9]

CORRUPTION MATTERS!

ACAUT Nagaland begins anti-corruption movement Corruption issue resonates Files RTIs in two Nagaland state government departments among Indians in the polls

Morung Express news Kohima | April 15

Throwing eggs, Tomatoes?

Stop this insanity at once.

Do you have any idea how much an egg or a kilo of tomatoes cost these days?

The Morung Express POLL QUESTIOn

Vote on www.morungexpress.com SMS your answer to 9862574165 Are you satisfied with the way Nagaland State Government is addressing the AssamNagaland border issues?

Yes

no

Others

Petrol price cut by 70 paise a litre NEW DELhI, APRIL 15 (PTI): The price of petrol was today cut by 70 paise a litre, excluding local levies, the second reduction in rates this month as appreciation of the rupee against the US dollar made oil imports cheaper. The reduction, effective midnight tonight, excludes local sales tax or VAT and the actual cut will be higher, varying from city to city. Announcing the rate cut, Indian Oil Corp, the nation’s largest fuel retailer, said, “The continued appreciation of the rupee has resulted in reduction in petrol prices.”

There will be no change in diesel prices as oil firms revise rates of the nation’s most consumed fuel on a monthly basis.

“This is a turning point for the Nagas. It is a breakaway from the past and against the status quo,” said Mar Longkumer as the Action Committee against Unabated Tax (ACAUT) kick started its anti-corruption movement on April 15 and changed its name to Against Corruption and Unabated Taxation Nagaland. As ACAUT took its first step against corruption by filing RTIs in the Rural Development Department and Personnel and Administrative Reform Department Kohima, it asserted that this small step is a giant leap for the Nagas.

“Our movement is not against any individual or a particular department; we are against the system of corruption and we are not going to leave any department. We will cover all districts,” said Dr. Khekugha Muru, Convenor RTI Committee, ACAUT Nagaland. Kezhokhoto Savi, Advocate, Convenor (Legal Cell) ACAUT asserted that the purpose of the RTI is to promote empowerment

and help eradicate corruption, while adding that one core belief of ACAUT was the belief in information as power.

ACAUT mentioned that in their interaction with the Naga Political Groups, it was made clear to them that corruption was not just about the groups but the government as well. On being asked why they have filed RTIs on the two departments, ACAUT asserted that during the First phase of their state tour, there were a lot of complaints from people at the grassroot level about allocated funds not reaching the villages and districts. The government told the villages to implement on loan basis

but failed to compensate, ACAUT said. This was the first hand information they received from the people.

“Distributive justice empowers people but it is missing in our system so far,” said Tia, member of ACAUT. The RTI filed in the RD department demanded for information on the total sanction amount for the last five years in all districts, total amount disbursed district wise in the last five years, total number of working days and payment of wages. Many staffers were not present at the office even at 11:00 AM and it was informed that the department does not have a Public Information Officer.

Regarding the Per-

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pared with 65 percent in the South. However, as recently as 2012, 82 percent in the South saw government corruption as pervasive, suggesting the issue is likely not far from their minds.

A slim majority of Indians (51 percent) do not believe the current government is doing enough to fight corruption, which could cost the governing Congress party some votes, Gallup said. This includes 54 percent of 18 to 34-yearolds, who have the potential to be a potent political force because of their numbers.

Regionally, the East gives the Congress partyled government the most credit for fighting corruption; 50 percent say the government is doing enough to fight corruption, while 26 percent say it is not. In the North, 80 percent say the government is not doing enough.

These differences could reflect the efforts of local governments in fighting corruption and may not necessarily represent views of the national government, even though the survey question wording specifies “the government of your country,” Gallup said.

Young Indians are currently divided in their perceptions of the honesty of elections, with 46 percent saying they are confident in the process and 43 percent saying they are not, Gallup said. Older Indians are more likely to say they are confident in the honesty of elections than not. Confidence in the honesty of elections also varies by region, with the North leading the country in terms of electoral pessimism.

Less than a fifth of residents in the North say the electoral system is honest, while majorities in the South (52 percent), West (64 percent), East (63 percent) and central part of India (67 percent) are more confident. Gallup said survey results are based on face-to-face interviews with 3,000 adults, aged 15 and older, conducted September-October 2013 in India. Before 2013, results are based on face-toface interviews with approximately 2,000 to 5,000 adults, aged 15 and older, conducted 2008-2012 in India. The margin of sampling error is ±2.2 percentage points, according to Gallup.

With Monsoon looming, Google urged to address ‘errors’ CIHSR fear more erosion DIMAPUR, APRIL 15 (MExN): The Industrial Village Razhupe Council and the Caretaker for Angami tribal land, West Point, TL Angami have demanded that certain boundary demarcations appearing on Google Maps be removed. A press note from TL Angami stated that at present, boundary pillars set up in 1925 by the Assam Government are shown on

‘Inappropriate action’ of Assam Police questioned MoKoKChUNG, APRIL 15 (MExN): The Ao Senden has condemned what it termed as the “inappropriate action” of the Assam Police in “arbitrarily preventing Naga voters from voting in the Lok Sabha election in 59 Tamlu A/C, Tamlu.” A press note from the Ao Senden stated that 49 A/C Tamlu falls within Ladiagarh Tamlu of Longleng District and asserted that “it is an ancestral Naga land.” “However, it’s easy proximity with Assam had given undue advantage to Assam Police and other third forces to often illegally infringe, disrupting the peaceful co-existence and development of the region,” it stated. Ao Senden said that such acts “bring mistrust and disunity among the people of Nagaland and Assam.” It called upon the people in border areas to refrain from undemocratic actions but to restore traditional understanding and resolve the issue through dialogue.

It however stated that “various incidents in the recent past have proven the lackadaisical attitude of the state government.” It lamented that the failure to conduct elections in 49 A/C Polling station under Tamlu is “not only denial of citizen’s democratic rights but a total failure of the state machinery.”

sonnel and Administrative Department, ACAUT called for more transparency in keeping the public informed on the record and status of employment in Nagaland state. The RTI demanded for information on the total number of government employees in the state, total number of appointments made under Class I, II (gazetted and non-gazetted), III, IV in the last five years and their break ups, number of appointments in the last five years through NPSC, number of direct departmental recruitments made in the last five years for class I and II (both gazette and non gazette posts) and Grade III and IV.

WAShINGToN, APRIL 15 (IANS): A majority of Indians of all generations see corruption as a widespread problem that they don’t think the current government is doing enough to combat, according to a new US poll, which says the issue will “resonate” in these elections.

Contending political parties’ promises of tackling the country’s graft “likely resonate with Indian voters, including the estimated 150 million young people who will be casting a ballot for the first time,” according to Gallup, a leading US public opinion organisation.

Three-fourths of Indian adults aged 18 to 34 said in 2013 that corruption is widespread in their government, nearly identical to the percentages of similarly minded adults aged 35 to 54 (76 percent) and 55 or older (72 percent), it said.

Voters in the North may be somewhat more receptive to anti-corruption messages than those in the South, Gallup said noting nearly nine in 10 Indians in the North believe corruption is widespread in their government, com-

Google Maps as “boundary between Nagas and Assam.” It asserted that this can “never be accepted by Nagas” and informed that the pillars were erected by the Assam government “without the historical fact of the Nagas.”

The note further expressed concerns that “many unrecognized colonies” are shown on Google Maps, within the govern-

ment prepared map of Industrial Village Razuphe, Dimapur. It said that the colonies included Hill View Colony, Industrial Estate Colony, Aokong Colony etc. The IVR Council condemned this development and demanded that Google “immediately delete” the markings on its map.

The note asserted that Nagas “shall not part with even an inch of their land

to non Nagas” and called upon all to “wake up and protect their land.” It stated that the present markings on Google Maps, “distorts the rightful historical background for the land of the Nagas,” and demanded that “such errors and false records” be immediately removed. It further cautioned that legal action would be initiated against Google, if it fails to act on the issue.

Electricity finally reaches 2 border villages

The embankment built in 2012 is already weakened and falling off. In the background are the CIHSR staff quarters, which is located in close proximity to the point where the river takes a sharp curve. Photo by Caisii Mao

Morung Express news Dimapur | April 15

With the rains looming, the Christian Institute of Health Sciences and Research (CIHSR), Dimapur fears the coming monsoon will further aggravate soil erosion this year as well.

Reinforced wire-mesh embankment, built to protect the southern boundary of the CIHSR in 2012, is already showing signs of damage.

The Chathe River, snaking along the CIHSR’s southern periphery has already washed away a sizeable portion of land.

In 2010, its boundary wall, running some 150 feet was washed away, while the river continued to eat away at whatever that was left after the wall fell. If left unattended, it will not be long before erosion brings the river dangerously close to the CIHSR’s southern block.

The department of Irrigation and Flood Control had taken up a riverbank protection project early in 2012 to control the ero-

sion. The project included pouring concrete over boulders bound by wiremesh. The embankment running some 200 meters was built at an estimated cost of around Rs. 5 crores.

Two monsoons later, the protective embankment is showing signs of severe wear and tear.

This monsoon, the CIHSR feels that the embankment will not be able to withstand the force of the river. “We’re scared that when the river swells this monsoon, it will take more of the hospital’s land away,” said a concerned Dr. Viu Meru, Deputy Director (Administration), CIHSR. The CIHSR’s staff quarters are directly in the path of the river before it takes a sharp curve downstream.

Quarrying on the riverbed, during the lean season, is further aggravating the problem. It has weakened the embankment as the steel wire nets holding the boulders underneath the concrete slabs has slackened. At some portions, the concrete slabs

have given way.

The CIHSR has intimated the department of Irrigation and Flood Control for remedial steps. But funding constraints and government protocol is believed to be putting the brakes on the department from tackling the problem. Dr. Meru said that the department had suggested for the CIHSR to make another proposal to the government.

Further, a proposal to divert the course of the river is doing the rounds.

The idea, if it takes shape will greatly cut down cost.

The affected portion of the boundary is located at a point where the river takes a loop-like curve. Cutting a canal on the other side will allow the river to take a straight course and enable it to join the point where the curve ends. This will also prevent the CIHSR’s southern boundary from taking the full force of the water. The owner of the land, where the anticipated canal will pass, is believed to have agreed in principle to the proposal at a price.

TUENSANG, APRIL 16 (MExN): Two remote villages along the NagalandMyanmar border have been provided with electricity for the first time, through the initiative of the Nagaland Empowerment of People through Energy Development (NEPeD).

A press note informed that Aniashu and Kingpao villages, located 60 Kms southwest of Noklak, were each provided with a 3 Kilowatt Hydroger to generate electricity. The villages had no grid connectivity and Kingpao is a three hour trek from Aniashu village, as there is no road connectivity either.

Project Operations Unit (POU) members, Ayong Chang and David Yepthomi undertook the installations at the two villages with the help of 3 “rural engineers” from Kingjung village and local villagers. The note informed that “rural Engineers” are villagers trained by NEPeD staff in the running and maintenance of the hydrogers. Hydrogers are small turbine based electricity generating units and can be easily installed even in small streams, as they require less water for operating, it

One of the “rural engineers” installing the 3KW hydroger at Kingpao village.

added.

Since 2011-12, NEPeD has also introduced NEPeD Energy Committees (NEC), which usually includes the “rural Engineers” and at least two women members, apart from others.

The NECs are encouraged to maintain and repair the hydrogers and also to generate income from the electricity produced.

According to the press note, the two village coun-

cils expressed gratitude to the NEPeD POU Members for the successful installation of the Hydrogers. The villagers expressed hope that this will increase income generating activities of the villagers with the addition of man-hours through lighting facilities and savings, achieved with the reduction of expenditure on lighting materials like candles, kerosene oil and firewood.

NEPeD members trained the villagers on how to conduct repairs and maintenance on the machine and also briefed them about the effects of climate change. The villagers were also made aware of the need to assume responsibility through the conservation of catchment areas, as a need to sustain the ecology and for continual operation of the hydrogers.

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Dimapur

Wednesday

LocaL

16 April 2014

People throng Doyang River during community fishing organised jointly by Philimi (Sumi) and Tsungiki (Lotha) villages on April 15. (Photo by K. Filip Sumi)

Tseminyu SDPDB meeting held Tseminyu sub-division.

The DFO made a special mention of Sendenyu village bio-diversity conservation which is perceived to be the best conserved area in the whole of Nagaland. He also informed the members about a Project (REDD) that is reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation in Phenshunyu, Khenyu and Rumesinyu villages/PKR Range on a pilot basis which is one amongst the six REDD

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DiMApur, April 15 (MExn): The Thuvopisumi Village Council has reaffirmed its commitment to uphold the Chakhesang Public Organization’s (CPO) resolution to ban hunting of wildlife. Apart from public support, the exercise was declared publicly before the district administration on March 9, 2009 at Thuvopisu village

by Zachive Thele, the then Deputy Commissioner of Phek, stated a press release jointly appended by the

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ESSU appeals SBI for bank branch in Aghunato sub-division

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TsEMinyu, April 15 (Dipr): Tseminyu SDPDB meeting was held on April 14, 2014 at SDPDB conference hall. ADC Tseminyu & Vice Chairman SDPDB Vikhweno M. Meratsu initiated the discussions.

District Forest Officer, Sidramapa, IFS, Kohima presented an elaborate departmental activities. The members present were impressed by the department’s efforts especially at

The Morung Express

Head GB and the village council chairman of Thuvopisu village. This step, the release said, aims to ensure the conservation of fauna and flora thereby strengthening the ecosystem and biodiversities for present and future generations.

In this respect, the village council unanimously resolved to impose prohibition of hunting wildlife in its jurisdiction, it added.

“Any person or party violating the directive will be dealt appropriately.”

Block Projects in India.

The board also discussed the poor infrastructure of BSNL, the difficulties State Bank of India is facing in catering to the needs of the two sub-divisions- Tseminyu and Pughoboto. The Vice Chairman requested the heads of offices to be present in the station and deliver the best possible service for the benefit of the people and also requested the Senior Medical Officer to take precautionary

measures especially in those villages which are malaria prone zones as monsoon is approaching. She also requested all the heads of offices to do social work on May 3, 2014 cleaning office premises and put up proper fencing.

The Postal department was requested to present departmental activities at the next SDPDB meeting. The house decided to open a SDPDB Tseminyu website consisting of profiles of all departments.

DiMApur, April 15 (MExn): Eastern Sumi Students’ Union (ESSU) has expressed the “sad grievances” faced by the people of Aghunato subdivision due to the transfer of SBI, Aghunato Branch to Zunheboto since April 27, 2001. In a letter addressed to the Chief General Manager, Network 11, SBI, Local Head Office, Guwahati, ESSU on behalf of the people of Aghunato sub-division, comprising 54 villages appealed for reshifting of the bank while expressing optimism that, with it, “availability of basic life sustaining goods will be enhanced, raise level of living including higher incomes, more jobs, better education and expand the range of economics and social choices.”

The letter appended

by ESSU president Vihepu Yeputhomi stated that Aghunato town is one of the oldest towns in Nagaland established in 1952 and upgraded to SDO (Civil) in 1978 and inaugurated as ADC HQ in 1991. The people of the area with total population of 30,361 are left in a miserable con-

dition in spite of government’s various initiatives to cater to the needs of the people through banking facilities because of people's increasing unawareness of the wide scope/ benefits offered through banking. Instead, he said, people have to undertake a herculean task travelling to Zunheboto for a single transaction. “These have been one of the most adverse impacts on the socioeconomic growth of the people.”

He further informed that there are several departments functioning under the administration of ADC Aghunato which provides employment to nearly three thousand people.

There are more than five hundred pensioners under the sub-treasury officer, Aghunato. Every month, the letter informed, all pensioners have to undertake a usual hard task travelling and spending two/three days in Zunheboto to “encash their meagre pension” in the lone surviving and overcrowded SBI, Branch Zunheboto. Besides, it stated, “government’s flagship programmes like MGN-

Mock drill on fire prevention Our Correspondent Kohima | April 15

As part of the observance of fire service week, the state’s fire & emergency services today conducted a mock drill on fire prevention and safety measures at Government High School Chandmari, Kohima.

Addressing the students, SI Kenny Khing said the objective of the mock drill is to instill the habit of preparedness for any eventually of fire incident.

The mock drill demonstrated the mechanism

of sounding alarm, rescue operation, administration of first-aid and fire fighting.

On Monday, the department carried out awareness programme on fire prevention and safety measures in various locations of Kohima, Dimapur, Mokokchung, Tuensang, Zunheboto, Mon, Wokha, Phek, Chumukedima and Kiphire. The fire service week will go on till April 20.

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for training.

With a dream of having her own spa therapy centre, she dedicated herself to learning and gaining experience, the note stated. She worked five years in well known spa centres like The Headmaster, and Blossom Kochhar Day Spa in Chandigarh.

According to the release, Ating Newmai chose Haryana instead of Nagaland or any other North East states, because spa culture is not popular in the region yet.

“Better get a good training and experience where such culture is popular and prac-

ticed in society.”

Asked about placement, she replied, “I can take a good number in my centre and the rest, I have a good contacts with big spa centres and hotels, I will refer to them. There is no problem of employment after training. We need to keep good links. Our youth need to work hard and persevere in their profession.”

On the name Seven Sisters, Ating explained, “It is my dream to reach out to the youth of the seven sister states of the NE India and also we are seven sisters in our family.”

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT Pfutsero govt college students tour South India Scato Swu 3-4-1924 / 7-4-2014

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We express our deepest gratitude to all who stood by our beloved father Late. SCATO SWU and made his life meaningful.

We are also grateful to all who participated and attended the funeral service and helped bid him a befitting farewell.

We remain indebted to one and all who extended their invaluable help through prayer, physical presence and material support and gave us comfort in our moment of grief.

With heartfelt gratitude from The Family.

MEx File DC Mokokchung graces DIET sports meet

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IMFL destroyed in Mokokchung

Naga woman launches spa in Haryana

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cess to three different districts of Nagaland namely, Zunheboto, Kiphire, and Tuensang. Many villages and towns, besides under the administration of ADC, Aghunato, are also in close vicinity to the towns and people from these places depend on Aghunato for selling their local products. Aghunato, it asserted, being a transit town has a wide scope of developing into a commercial centre for the surrounding area.

Stating that bank premises has been properly maintained constantly by the inhabitants and has been renovated brilliantly, both inside and outside surrounding and ready for use now, ESSU on behalf of the people of the area assured “unflinching support” and “highest security” for the smooth functioning of bank, its officials and the conduct of its business.

Enunciating that the people of the area have endured much suffering for a long period of time, ESSU has urged the governing authority to comprehend prudently over the longing of the people.

Mokokchung, April 15 (Dipr): Deputy Commissioner Mokokchung, Muroho Chotso graced the inaugural programme of the Literary and Sports meet 2014 of District Institute of Education & Training (DIET) Mokokchung at DIET campus on April 15, 2014. Addressing the inaugural programme as chief guest, he stated that games and sports is an essential component of education and one needs to contribute in any field of games and sports for both mental and physical well being. The chief guest also hoped that being the leading DIET in the state, the trainees would deliver improved quality of teaching after passing out from the institute.

Mock drill being performed on fire prevention at Government High School Chandmari, Kohima on April 15.

DiMApur, April 15 (MExn): In what could be termed a big achievement, a Naga woman launched her own Seven Sisters SPA and Training Academy in Haryana on April 8, 2014. In a small gathering of friends and well wishers, Shashi, a Haryana MLA inaugurated the academy.

A press release informed that Ating Newmai from Jalukie Town, the proprietor of the Academy, was one of the hundred youths sponsored by the State Government in 2009 under Youth Capacity Building and sent to Noida

REGA, KCC and different schemes, loans and subsidies that have been granting crores of rupees every year to the area alone had to meet lots of hardship in managing of these endowments.”

ESSU further expressed that almost 16,000 of the students of the area, studying both within and outside the state are being deprived of the core banking facilities. Also, it said, Nagaland government has officially stated that all students’ scholarships will be disbursed only through bank accounts. Parents take an arduous task to send money to their children compelling them to bank at SBI Zunheboto. Even though Nagaland Board of School Education had issued official order for High School Leaving Certificate Examination Centre at Aghunato, it has not been operational till date due to absence of safe and secure storing facility of question papers, it added.

The letter further explained that Aghunato town is strategically located at a place that has direct and smooth-surfaced ac-

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pfuTsEro, April 15 (MExn): The Pfutsero Government College, Pfutsero organized an educational tour for BA final year students from March 21-April 6, 2014.

A press release from Sudha Beryl, HoD, Department of Economics informed that 29 students took part in the tour and visited places like Chennai, Bangalore, Mysore, Ooty and Kanyakumari.

Two Assistant Professors namely, M.

Sudha Beryl and Neichupe Kapfo, Department of Tenyidie accompanied them. The tour was sponsored by Higher Education, Government of Nagaland. The excursion team and the college as a whole have expressed gratefulness to the Department for “giving such a lifetime opportunity to rural students” and hoped that more of such opportunities will continue to be extended in the future.

Mokokchung, April 15 (Dipr): 77 cases & 10 bottles of IMFL worth Rs, 1,92,500 in the market were destroyed on April 14 at the premises of the Court of Session Judge Mokokchung. The seizure was made under “Nagaland Liquor Total Prohibition Act” in and around Mokokchung during the past one month. The destruction was carried out following a disposal order passed by Niechochiyi Suyie, NJS, Session Judge, Mokokchung. The destruction of the IMFL was done in the presence of a destruction committee headed by SDO (C) Mokokchung as chairman.

KODH 42nd Foundation Day today

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kohiMA, April 15 (Dipr): The Kohima Orphanage and Destitute Home (KODH) will observe its 41st Foundation Day on April 16, 1:00 pm at its premises, five kms away from state capital. It may be mentioned that KODH was founded on April 16, 1973 by Late.

Ama Zaputuo-ü Angami. She passed away on March 24, 2011 at the age of 89, running the home for 38 years till her demise. Now the KODH is looked after by her daughter Neibanuo. The KODH has appealed to all well-wishers and all concerned to attend the foundation day and also extended gratitude to all the wellwishers for helping the KODH in both kind and cash.

Genealogical research seminar for Chishi clan DiMApur, April 15 (MExn): A Genealogical Research Seminar of Chishi Clan has been convened on April 25, 2014 at 9:00 am at the private residence of Er. Ghukhuyi Chishi, Addl C.E. (Electrical) at Thilixu Village, Dimapur. All concerned members representing respective pedigree/ area have been requested to attend the same. Interested persons have also been invited to the seminar.

Flower exhibition-cum-sale underway in Kohima

Our Correspondent Kohima | April 15

A two-day long flower exhibition-cum-sale under the aegis of Nagaland Flower Growers Society (NFGS) got underway here today at TT. Indoor Stadium, Officer’s Hill.

Dr. Lallan Ram, director, Central Institute of Horticulture, Medziphema graced the occasion as the chief guest. Speaking on the occasion, Dr. Ram asserted that floriculture industry do not only help generate income but create aesthetic atmosphere in the society. He also lauded the organizer for taking forward the diverse scope of floriculture in the state.

Earlier, Meyievino Thelüo chaired the func-

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Flowers displayed at the flower exhibition-cum-sale which is being held at TT. Indoor Stadium, Officer’s Hill, Kohima under the aegis of Nagaland Flower Grower Society (NFGS). It will go on till April 16. (Morung Photos/Chizokho Vero)

tion while welcome address was delivered by NFGS president Akruzo Putsure. Brief history of NFGS was given by NFGS

general secretary Sungtinaro Jamir.

Closing function has been scheduled at 2:00 PM on April 16 with Chandak

AK, wife of the Governor of Nagaland as guest of honour. Watienla Jamir, director, department of horticulture will deliver short speech.

Asangla Francis will chair the function while vote of thanks will be proposed by Kaisa Rio, wife of the Chief Minister of Nagaland.

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REgional Manipur's second Lok Sabha seat votes Thursday

Wednesday

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IMPHAL, APrIL 15 (IANS): Eight candidates are in the fray in Thursday's poll to Manipur's second Lok Sabha constituency with issues like misgovernance, unemployment and drug menace besides a stringent security law having dominated the campaign.

Around 874,000 voters, including 448,000 women electorate, are eligible to vote to select one member to the lower house of parliament from among the eight candidates, including a woman, in the Inner Manipur constituency.

Once ravaged by terrorism, Manipur still suffers from militancy, with the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958, (AFSPA) being one of the big issues besides development.

"Withdrawal of the draconian law (AFSPA) is a big issue in Manipur. People wanted repeal of the Act," political analyst Raj Kumar Tarunjit Singh told IANS. "The Congress government in Manipur has also failed to convince its central leadership about the

Campaign ends in Manipur IMPHAL, APrIL 15 (PTI): Campaign for the second phase of the Lok Sabha elections in Manipur for the second of the two seats in the state, Inner Manipur, ended on Tuesday.

The Congress held this prestigious seat for ten years.

Campaigning was lacklustre with the main issue being the withdrawal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958 imposed in the state in 1980 September.

Star campaigners were BJP Prime Ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and Congress Vice-President with the two addressing public meetings at rural areas at Lamshanin Imphal West district and Khangabok in Thoubal district. significance of withdrawal of AFSPA. Development is the other major issue in this election," Singh said.

"Women voters outnumber their male counterparts and in Manipur's society too, womenfolk play a significant role," he added.

On April 9, around 78 percent of the total 911,000 voters in the tribal reserved Outer Manipur constituency cast their ballot.

According to political pundits, though there are eight candidates in the fray, the main battle will be be-

tween Congress's incumbent member Thokchom Meinya Singh and Moirangthem Nara Singh of the Communist Party of India (CPI) and R.K. Ranjan Singh of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

Meinya Singh, who is seeking re-election for the third consecutive term, defeated Nara Singh in the 2009 polls.

State Congress president and Deputy Chief Minister Gaikhangam also said the polls for Inner Manipur was crucial for the party.

"The Congress has gone all out to win both the Lok

Sabha seats in the state to help the party's cause in the country this time," he said.

The Trinamool Congress, headed by West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, has fielded Sarangthem Manaobi, a former Indian Police Service officer.

Repeal of the AFSPA, development of the state, misgovernance of the Congress government, unemployment and drug menace are among the major issues this time.

BJP's prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi and Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi addressed rallies in the state, once ravaged by terrorism. Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio had also campaigned.

Due to security reasons, polling hours in Manipur will be from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m, unlike the other northeastern states where votes could be cast between 7 a.m. and 5 p.m.

Once a princely state, Manipur merged with India Oct 15, 1949. The state shares an unfenced border of around 400 km with Myanmar.

principal rival is 32-yearold Manas, a youth Congress leader. He is being seen as a greenhorn though politics is in his blood. Son of Assam's social welfare minister Akon Bora, Manas had won Rahul Gandhi's 'primary' to be nominated from the constituency.

"It will be a contest between a grandmother and a grandson," Manas said recently. Bijoya refused to react on this statement when dna contacted her.

Manas is banking on his minister-father's support base. The fact that six out of the 10 assembly segments in the Guwahati Lok Sabha seat are currently held by the Congress has made him optimistic about his success. He claimed that the voters would reject Bijoya for they have lost faith in their sitting MP. "She is more an actor than a politician. As an MP, she did very little for the constituency. Also, it's a pity that she couldn't solve the flood and erosion problems of Assam despite once donning the mantle of Union minister of state for water resources in the then NDA government," said Manas. "Assam has 55% young voters. I am a young

leader and hence I am confident of my victory."

Bijoya is equally assured. "My prospects are bright. I have been heartily greeted at every place that I have visited. In fact, in some places, people waited for hours to listen to me," she said, adding the perceived 'Modi wave' will also work in her favour.

In 2009, Bijoya was the joint candidate of BJP and AGP, following a seat-sharing agreement between the two. Despite that, she won by just 11,855 votes. She had defeated Captain Robin Bordoloi of the Congress then. Keeping that in mind, chief minister Tarun Gogoi pitched for Bordoloi but the Congress high command went ahead with Manas.

Since BJP and AGP have now fallen apart, Bijoya's biggest threat is the fragmentation of the anti-Congress votes. Apart from Manas, AGP bigwig and former Rajya Sabha member Birendra Prasad Baishya is in the fray. Political analysts feel that Baishya will be able to cut into the anti-Congress votebank. Muslims, who constitute 25% voters in the constituency, will also play a key role in deciding the fate of the candidates.

IMPHAL, APrIL 15 (THE HINDU): The Maoist Communist Party (MCP) is calling a 12 hour general strike in Manipur on Wednesday ahead of the polling in the general Inner Manipur Parliamentary seat. Its demolition squads have planted 15 bombs at strategic places to make the strike a success.

This was stated in a press statement issued by Nonglen Meitei, secretary publicity and propaganda of the MCP on Tuesday.

Making a frontal attack against the Congress and its MP for the last two terms, Meinya Thokchom, the MCP statement said that the MP Areas Development fund for the last two terms has not reached the people. Under the Congress Ministry led by Okram Ibobi a number of persons had lost their close family members. The days of the Congress rule in India and Manipur are coming to an end, it said.

Earlier the MCP had warned the people not to venture out during the general strike as they may get injured. The strike however does not cover press, essential services and those who are participating in socio-religious functions. However,

Assamese student beaten up by Delhi college mates NEW DELHI, APrIL 15 (IANS): A 21-year-old Delhi University undergraduate hailing from Assam was Tuesday beaten up by his fellow students inside the college canteen over a petty issue, police said. The main accused has been arrested.

B.A. final year student Pran Saikia, who studies in PGDAV College in the south campus, was attacked around 12.30 p.m. "Saikia suffered injuries after some of his college mates beat him up. The incident occurred after a plate of eatables of one of the accused fell after it hit the victim's hand," a police officer said.

The main accused, Sonu, in his 20s and a B.A. first year student in the same college, was detained along with 15 other associates. He was later arrested.

West Bengal will see voters for the Lok Sabha polls queue up April 17.

Part of the remote Srikhola-Daragaon village panchayat of Darjeeling district, which houses the highest polling booths in the state, Rammam has a total electorate of 334, with 175 male and 159 female voters.

Earlier, there were two polling booths under the panchayat - a part of the Bijonbari Block - at Srikhola Primary School nearly 2,800 metres above sea level, and the Da-

ragaon Junior High School around 2,600 metres above sea level.

"Whenever the number of voters in a booth goes beyond 1,200, that booth is divided and a new booth is created. Rammam has been carved out by dividing the Daragaon booth," Pushpak Roy, election officer-in-charge in Darjeeling, told IANS. Srikhola has 842 voters, including 395 women. After the formation of the new booth, Daragaon is left

3

'Militants under MoU can cast votes' IMPHAL, APrIL 15 (NNN): Those militant organisations under the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) can cast votes in the ensuing Lok Sabha poll provided the cadres' names are enrolled in the electoral list of the polling stations where the cadres hailed from, according to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO).

Notably, earlier the ECI allowed those militant groups under the Suspension of Operation (SoO) to cast

the threat that the bombs will be detonated here and there comes as a damper and most sections of the people including presspersons may not stick out their necks.

The MCP had blasted several bombs in the past few days. They had targeted Meinya Thokchom, MP, Mirabai Akoijam, Social Welfare Minister. Police and security forces are not taking the bomb threat lightly. On April 9, the Deputy Speaker Presho Shimray had a narrow escape when militants carried out an ambush while he was returning to Imphal after casting his vote in Ukhrul district. Though the accusing fingers had been pointed to one armed group there has been no claim.

In view of the threats, Mr. Thokchom moves out and attends some campaign meetings only when there are adequate security coverage for him. He could not participate in the interaction programmes organised by the Editors’ Guild - Manipur and a news channel, probably on security grounds.

Meanwhile, police have beefed up security measures throughout the three valley districts which go to polls on Thursday.

Lacking basic services, Rammam celebrates new polling booth SILIGUrI, APrIL 15 (IANS): Situated nearly 2,600 metres above sea level, Rammam lacks conventional power, landphone and TV connectivity. For the inhabitants, recharging their mobile phones involves an arduous four-five-hour trek into neighbouring Sikkim. But this village in north Bengal is now elated - at least they have a new polling booth.

The newly set up polling station at Rammam Forest Primary School in the Darjeeling hills of northern

Dimapur

LT Jeyachandran, former Executive Director of RZIM [Asia Pacific] speaking at a session titled 'Working with God' as part of a UESI Manipur AGM at Community Cafe, Ukhrul, on April 13. About a hundred young entrepreneurs, church leaders, community leaders, bureaucrats, and academicians, attended the session. (Photo: Kahorpam Horam)

BJP's 75-year-old Bijoya Chakraborty takes MCP calls for 12 hour on Congress' 32-year-old Manas in Assam general strike in Manipur GUWAHATI, APrIL 15 (DNA): It will be a contest between experience and exuberance when former Union minister Bijoya Chakraborty of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) takes on Manas Bora of the Congress in Guwahati.

The contest in the prestigious seat is being billed as one between a grandmother and a grandson by none other than the Congress candidate himself.

The 75-year-old Bijoya is a seasoned politician. She has worked with the Janata Party and the regional Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) before she decided to don the saffron colour. While in the AGP, she had served in the Rajya Sabha from 1986 to 1992.

After the stint in the upper house, she joined the BJP and was made a Union minister in 1999 when the National Democratic Alliance came to power.

In the 2004 polls, the BJP fielded legendary singercomposer Bhupen Hazarika in her place but the move boomeranged as Hazarika lost. The BJP was quick to realise the mistake and renominated Bijoya in the 2009 polls, which she won.

This election, Bijoya's

16 April 2014

with 841 electors, of whom 416 are women. It had 1,120 voters in 2009.

The new booth has created a buzz among the voters, who are happy at the prospect of having to walk "just seven-eight km" to take part in the world's biggest democratic exercise.

"Earlier, we had to walk nearly 10-12 km to reach Daragaon to cast our votes, but this year we will have to walk just seven-eight km to reach the Rammam Forest Primary School," said school teacher Debdoot Rai.

PUBLIC NOTICE

This is to inform all members of the Public, especially those living in and around Dimapur that the family of Late. N. I. Jamir, comprising all the Children and grandchildren including Mrs. Yashila Jamir, wife of Late. N. I. Jamir, has no obligation or accountability to any loan or loans availed by Mrs. Imtirenla aka Imtila Ao wife of Dr. L. Taka Ao of Diphupahar from various moneylenders or individuals or societies or through any brokers or middlemen. Further, that she has no property in her name and that all loans taken with the mortgage of land in the name of any of the family members including the land of Dr. L. Teka Ao, in any form of Patta, Jamabandi or land deed is not authorised by any members of the family and therefore illegal.

The attention of the members of the public is further drawn to the Public Notice issued by the family, in the name of the three living brothers and the husband of Mrs. Imtila in the issue of Nagaland Post dated the 17th of May 2005, indicating the list of land held under various Pattas, and notifying all members of the Public, not to accept them as mortgage under any condition being unauthorised and therefore, illegal, for which none of the family members shall be responsible liable for any such illegal transaction.

Alemtemshi Jamir, IAS (Rtd)

their votes under the care of Nodal Officers of the election in 14 designated camps. There are 280 eligible voters under SoO. But for the seven militant groups under MoU, things are different as they cannot cast their votes in the designated camps.

There are seven militant groups under the category of MoU which include URF, KYKL-MDF, KCP-Lamphel, UPPK, UTLA, KCP-Nongdrenkhomba, and KCP-MC (Lallumba). Un-

der this category there are 584 cadres.

Meanwhile, the CEO said today that since the ECI did not give permission for the militant groups under MoU to cast votes in the designated camps. So the CEO had sought the concerned authorities including the Director General of Police for security arrangement for the cadres so that the cadres can come to their respective polling stations to cast votes without violating the guidelines set by the Home department.

NAGALAND ELECTRICITY REGULATORY COMMISSION (NERC) NAGALAND : KOHIMA

Old MLA Hostel Complex, Nagaland : Kohima -797001 Tel: (0370) 2292101(O) / 2241592(R) Fax: 2292104 (O); www.nerc.org.in e-mail: nerc_kohima@yahoo.com

NOTIFICATION

Dated Kohima, the 31st March, ‘14

No. NERC/TARIFF/CONV/2014: In exercise of the powers conferred by Section 62 of the Electricity Act, 2003; the Nagaland Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC) Kohima, on this 31st day of March, 2014 hereby notify the Revised Electricity Tariff for the FY 2014-‘15 and issue the Tariff Order accordingly for supply of Electricity in the State by the Department of Power, Nagaland, which shall come into effect from the 1st of April, 2014 and shall be in force till revised.

The Appendix (Tariff Schedule) to the Tariff Order is appended to this Notification for information and necessary action of all concerned.

The Tariff Order can be also accessed in NERC website: www.nerc.org.in.

Appendix Tariff Schedule

Sl. No. Category 1 2 A. 1 CATEGORY ‘A’ DOMESTIC (a) upto 30 kwh (b) 31 to 100 kwh (c) 101 to 250 kwh (d) > 250 kwh Monthly minimum charges

2 CATEGORY ‘B’ INDUSTRIAL (a) upto 500 kwh (b) 501 to 5000 kwh (c) > 5000 kwh Monthly minimum charges 3 CATEGORY ‘C’ BULK Monthly minimum charges 4 CATEGORY ‘D’ COMMERCIAL (a) upto 60 kwh (b) 61 to 240 kwh (c) > 240 kwh Monthly minimum charges

Rs./kwh 3

3.25 4.35 5.00 5.80 100.00 pm/kw of contract demand or part thereof 4.50 5.30 6.00 150.00 pm/kw of contract demand or part thereof 5.40 150.00 pm/kva of contract demand or part thereof

5.70 6.80 7.90 150.00 pm/kw of contract demand or part thereof 5 CATEGORY ‘E’ P.W.W. 5.30 Monthly minimum charges 75.00 pm/kva or part thereof 6 CATEGORY ‘F’ Public Light To be recovered from consumers * 7 CATEGORY ‘G’ INTER-STATE 5.40 8 CATEGORY ‘H’ AGRICULTURE 2.70 Monthly minimum charges 50.00 pm/HP or part thereof 9 CATEGORY ‘I’ TEMPORARY CONDLF – 8.00 NECTION Others – 11.00 10 Kutir Jyoti(point) Same as DLF 11 SINGLE POINT METERED RURAL 3.25 12 SINGLE POINT METERED URBAN 4.00 * Charges for public lighting have to be recovered from the Consumes of Domestic, Commercial, Industrial and Bulk categories at the rates shown below.

Domestic Rs. 10 per connection / month Commercial Rs. 15 per connection / month Industrial Rs. 20 per connection / month Bulk Supply Rs. 25 per connection / month B. OTHER CHARGES: (a) Disconnection Charges i. Single phase L.T. ii. Three phase L.T. iii. H.T. consumers (11 KV above) (b) Reconnection Charges i. Single phase L.T. ii. Three phase L.T. iii. H.T. consumers (11 KV above) C. METER RENT i. Single phase L.T. ii. Three phase L.T.(whole current) iii. Three phase L.T.(CT operated) iv. 11 kv H.T. v. 33 kv H.T. vi. 66 kv EHV vii. 132 kv EHV D. METER TESTING CHARGES

E.

F. G. H.

Rs. 150.00/connection 250.00/ connection 1500.00/ connection

150.00/ connection 250.00/ connection 1500.00/ connection Rs. per meter/month 20.00 50.00 100.00 500.00 750.00 900.00 1000.00 Rupees per meter per test i. Single phase L.T. 100.00 ii. Three phase L.T. 300.00 iii. H.T. consumers (11 KV above) 1000.00 SECURITY DEPOSIT Rs. per connection i. Single phase L.T. 250 ii. Three phase L.T. 750 iii. H.T. consumers (11 KV above) 3000 SURCHARGES (DELAYED PAYMENT) Rs. 0.10/kwh pm or part thereof BILLING PERIODICITY Monthly CHARGES OF POLES USAGE FOR ADVERTISEMENT Rupees 1 Charges for application and agreement forms 100.00 2 Charges towards dismantling of hoardings/banners 300.00 3 The pole rental charges for advertisements: Rs./month a. Category I-Commercial area (Max size 3'X2') 100.00 b. Category II - Residential area (Max size 3'X2') 60.00 c. Category III-National Highway (Max size 3'X2') 40.00 (outside the city/town limit) Sd/Er. D. A. SHISHAK Chairman-cum-Member Nagaland Electricity Regulatory Commission (NERC), Kohima.

C M Y K

4

businEss/public discoursE

Wednesday

Dimapur

16 April 2014

Cash-rich Infosys gifts higher dividend to investors Bangalore, april 15 (ianS): With a whopping Rs.30,000 crore ($5 billion) in its reserves, cash-rich Infosys has decided to share a part of its wealth with its lucky investors by increasing its dividend to 40 percent of post-tax profits from 30 percent it was paying since inception in 1981.

“As our reserves, including cash and cash equivalents crossed Rs.30,000 crore ($5 billion) for the full year (201314), the board has decided to increase the dividend payout ratio to 40 percent to our investors,” Infosys chief financial officer Rajiv Bansal told IANS here Tuesday. The board’s decision will be subject to approval of shareholders at its annual general meeting in June.

Having paid an interim dividend of (400 percent) Rs.20 per share of Rs.5 face value for the first half (April-September) of fiscal 2014, the global software major has declared a final dividend Rs.43 per share (860 percent) for

J

Spring is also marked as ‘the eve of last leg’

ohn Keats in his poem ‘The Human Seasons’ beautifies the spring as youth the time of passionate, energetic and vibrating in which he compared the four seasons of the year to man’s life at different stages and he compared summer to the ripe period of manhood. The poem ‘spring’ written by Gerard Manley Hopkins has captured his joy in this season, as nothing is so beautiful as Spring—the awakening and fertility in both animal and plant life. The weeds and grasses sprout long leaves forth fruit trees begin to blossom and fruitfulness of the earth reminds him of the Garden of Eden, spring, which he also compared to the time of innocence in the minds of young girls and boys. Spring indeed is a season fills emotion in the mind of peoples by the nature of beauty that attracts them. The poets who love of nature thus beautified with his words of gentle and harmony of his deep appreciation of the beauty that he finds around him impels him to give utterance to it in the most expressive language, which is itself often of imperishable beauty.

Spring brings summer, and these two seasons influenced the city /urban dwellers is through the heat and shower, the hotness, and warm discern the times that they know the seasons coming is in refer to the year but not much affect and experience the nature as compared to that of rural countryside. This very season followed by summer is also a worse part of times for peoples resided in rural countryside as many are struggling ‘tooth and nail’ to cross this virulent times every year. This beautiful greenery nature comes along as thorns as many lives go in to graveyard during these seasons due to some chronic diseases or different season’s related problems. Peoples in rural native forget the blooming beauty of nature; instead burden of sorrow brings disappoint and mourn in their minds.

Once they were roaming through mountains, uplands, hills, plains, forests, rivers, streams, seashores, riverbanks etc. in search of food for their livelihood—connecting with neighbors in processing business. But with the dawning of spring, routes are closed—neighbors stopped visit and they hesitate to go through the place once they had gone; The roads once they were travelling are spreading by weeds and grasses and mudslide puddle over the roads once there were meandering ‘to and fro’ is becoming silent than the sounds

second half (October-March) of the just-concluded fiscal.

The total dividend pay-out for the fiscal will be Rs.63 or a whopping 1,260 percent to the investors, including institutional, retail, promoters and employees through stock options. “The final dividend outgo for the second half will be 40 percent (Rs.4,259 crore) of our net profit of Rs.10,648 crore for the fiscal under review,” Bansal said.

Of the company’s total 57,42,36,166 shares, promoters, including co-founders and their family members own 9,15,08,078 (15.94 percent), foreign institutional investors (FIIs) 22,92,75,165 (40.65 percent), Indian banks, financial institutions and insurance firms 6,24,42,997 (9.86 percent), retail investors 6,03,26,712 (10.29 percent) and the rest by private corporate bodies, NRIs, OCBs and others, including global deposit receipts/American deposit receipts.

Honda launch special edition of Amaze

new Delhi, april 15 (pTi): Honda Cars India today launched the special edition of its compact sedan Amaze to mark the first anniversary of the car in the Indian Market. The anniversary edition of Honda Amaze will be available at a special price that will be Rs 71,861 higher than prices of the VX and S variants in petrol and diesel, Honda Cars India Ltd (HCIL) said in a statement.

Amaze S and VX variants in petrol are priced at Rs 5.69 and Rs 6.64 lakh respectively, while the same variants in diesel are priced at Rs 6.65 lakh and Rs 7.49 lakh (all prices-ex showroom Delhi). “Honda Amaze has been a game changer in its segment and has enabled HCIL to reach out to so many new customers, bringing them into the Honda fold,” Honda Cars India Senior Vice President, Marketing & Sales, Jnaneswar Sen said.

The company has sold more than 80,000 units of the Amaze since its launch in April last year. The anniversary edition comes with various sporty features extra, including front under-spoiler, side under-spoiler, rear under-spoiler, trunk-spoiler along with door visors and exhaust pipe finisher. Interiors have been further enhanced with premium upholstery and contrasting wooden finish panel on the dashboard.

grEETings

n the 14th of April at 11.50 PM, Kyochamo of Mekokla Village passed away after two days of consuming local Mushroom. His wife and his elder daughter are still in a critical condition.

As a public leader, I personally requested the CMO Wokha to intervene into the matter since it was a question of life and dead. Accordingly, he has deputed an Ambulance from PHC Sanis Sub-division to Mekokla Village. However, since Lt. Kyochamo was too weak to travel 33 KMs stretch of road from Mekokla Village to Sanis, only his elder daughter could be lifted to Sanis PHC. Since the health condition of Lt. Kyochamo was worsening, a

To, Boys of Linfreak Wishing you happiness; To welcome each morning, Wishing you laughter; To make your heart sing.

Wishing you friendship; Sharing and caring, And all of the joy; The birthday can brings There couldn’t be a better day; To take a chance to say, That you are wished a joy and luck- Be happy everyday!

4m ur Boss

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.”

SUDOKU Game Number # 2849

significant that they have been marked as entrance to the house of death. If there were medical services during the times of pandemic, epidemic or any endemic, of course, many would have survived from it. It is unfortunate for rural dwellers happenings such tragedy in the absence of medical while they were unable to meet the cost of transporting charges and to pay to doctors or other workers, diagnostic tests and drugs at city. Instead, they look for an alternative chance to cure through rituals of primitive practices.

The status of health and nutrition of rural population is on the aggregate far from satisfactory and the mortality indices are much worse for the rural population as compared to the urban. The deficiency of staple food is the primary form of malnutrition that is aggravated by the extra burden of disease and it is more severe in the under-nourished that lead to much greater death among them.

Poverty leads to sickness by depriving individuals of their needs of adequate nutrition and shelter and by exposing them to hazards of poor sanitary conditions and established that the prevalence and distribution of disease is influenced by socioeconomic factors. Parents hardly get time to care for children who are also suffering from malnutrition, eventually surrender to death. Grannies and granddads usually bid farewell to their family, near and dear ones, as they know certain as that if they may not able to live beyond this monsoon!

City dwellers may not imagine the bitter hardships gotten by rural peoples for they have conveniently being availed all medicines and hospitals that can cure irrespective of times, seasons or diseases if illness is not his fate of death. Medical interventions is importunely be momentous by accessing of health care services, connecting of roads and adequate sanitizing at the rural level to overcome from the factors that led to death of rural populations. This is something strange, but in fact, somewhere else in the country the fascinated beauty seasons turns susceptible to last leg.

Bausha Pauwung Buchem, Nyengching, Longleng (The view expressed in this article is writer’s lamentation for en-wave loss of lives in rural countryside when there were no medical services.)

vehicle was sent to Sanis to pick up a Doctor from Sanis PHC after confirming from the CMO Wokha that I can send a vehicle to lift the Doctor to my village.

Even after making a very special request, the Doctor refused to go to the village. Perhaps, he was scared to travel the long stretch of jerkybumpy road from Sanis to Mekokla. May be he thought it will damage his health if he travels in such a country road. Nevertheless, I do not wish to find fault on that particular Doctor because there are four Doctors posted at Sanis PHC but only one was available in the station at that point of time. As such, the blame should go to those who were

not attending their duty and not the one who was sincerely discharging his duty. I can imagine that many poor villagers have lost their lives because of Medical Negligence.

For almost a decade now, the Public of my area have been demanding for establishment of PHC at Yan-mhomo area because many of such cases keeps occurring frequently but due to non-availability of medical facilities the poor villagers have been made an unfortunate victims. Moreover, the said area is malaria prone zone. Hence, I once again urge upon the concerned authority to initiate setting up of PHC at Yan-monmo area (between Akuk and Mekokla Village).

At the same, I urge upon the medical department to instruct the Doctors and other Medical practitioners employed by the State Govt. to regularly stay in their respective place of posting as many poor villagers faces this kind of situation almost everyday but unable to ventilate their hardships due to ignorance. Lastly, I would like to convey my profound gratitude to Dr. Enrithung, CMO Wokha, Dr. Wothungo, Dy. CMO and Dr. Zuben, District Malaria Officer for giving their best effort. May God Bless you all.

Achumbemo Kikon Ex-Candidate, 40 Bhandari A/C.

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.

_

LEISURE

of nature; River streams once they were crossing over is no longer a road of cross intersection than can looking the rushing streams at far in one side.

Spider webs blocks their road once the spring is arrived and even small insects tries to hunt them.

Rural dweller faces trial and tribulations that lead a very hard life fighting against the ravages of nature and weather. They spend their times in extremely hard working—working from early morning, even before daybreak till late in the evening, sometimes even after the sun has set incessantly all day long. They rarely care for the day’s heat or the rains and face all the climatic hardships. I saw some mothers delivered baby when they were in the field, sometimes on their way home from work. This is due to poverty—at stake laboring—mothers had undertaken even at the time when she must be in special care.

Nevertheless, in spite of such a hard life and working hard, they spend all their life in utter poverty is mainly due to the reason that is dependent solely upon monsoons. The rural farmers’ fate is always at the mercy of the quality and quantity of rains. Sometimes, untimely or early rains damage the crops and drought, flood or famines give havoc in their already tough life.

Amidst farmers while in hardship struggling for food—diseases, sorrow, suffering, hunger and death are in regular visits especially during these height of tensions which they often falls ill and dies uncared for. Death rates are doubles during these seasons than that of happening in autumn and winter as they fall in to the prey of mortal call.

Among the rural populations—mothers, children and aged old fragile are in high vulnerable that encountering with different diseases of both infectious and non-infectious of which some diseases are curable if care and treatment is taking at earlier stages. However, non-availability of doctors, medicines and rural community inability to pay for promotive and curative medical services also leads to poor health. It was lamenting for me when I witnessed the death of brother and sister from same house in two days at springtime. In the following summertime, there’d been witnessed of another tragedy of mournful happened in the same village that two brothers passed away within an hour, which was deeply depressed and melancholy. Many lives are lost during these very seasons. Therefore, the onset of spring is something

In need for a PHC at Yan-monmo area

O Dearest of all Thole, Today will be remembered In so many lovely ways And we will start together One more year of many happy days!!

Many happy returns of the day!!

Forever urs Roko!!

The Morung Express

DAILY CROSS WORD

CROSSWORD # 2858

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 # 2848

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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ACROSS 1. Smack 5. Make into law 10. Catholic church service 14. Prong 15. More recent 16. Killer whale 17. Atop 18. Accumulation 20. Deliberately impassive in manner 22. Body suit 23. Shade tree 24. Models 25. Interruptions 32. Wolf cries 33. Master of ceremonies 34. Letter after sigma 37. On the road 38. Muse of love poetry 39. Colored part of an eye 40. K 41. Line dance 42. Positive pole 43. Not asked for 45. Slumber 49. Mesh 50. A mild powdered seasoning 53. Helps 57. Excessive

59. Found in some lotions 60. Stow, as cargo 61. Style of interior furnishings 62. Story 63. Fastened 64. Used a broom 65. Visual organs

DOWN 1. An upright in a wall 2. Sponge 3. Dwarf buffalo 4. In an affectionate manner 5. Bivouac 6. A noble gas 7. Hole-making tool 8. Mobile phone 9. Tall woody plant 10. Slogan 11. Operatic solos 12. Gain points in a game 13. Smooths 19. Thicket 21. Add 25. East Indian tree 26. Hawkeye State 27. Go to and fro 28. Small slender gulls 29. Insect stage 30. In base 8 31. Prefix meaning

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LOCAL

The Morung Express

Wednesday 16 April 2014

CTC Convocation 2014 Governor visits fire

moKoKchUNg, april 15 (mExN): The 39th Clark Theological College (CTC) graduation ceremony was held at the College campus on April 13, 2014 with Dr. Wati Longchar, Dean, SCEPTRE, Kolkata as guest speaker and Dr. Lanunungsang, Pro-Vice Chancellor, NU,

ed the congregation that as servants of Christ, the graduates must remember the four H’s. The first H stands for Head, the second for Heart, the third for Hearing, and the last H for Hand. It is only when one serves with the Head, the Heart, the Hearing, and the Hands that people will be

brew Language” – Aorenla Longchar and Dev Raj Bhatta. “The College Award for Pastoral Leadership (for M.A in Pastoral Ministry students)” – L. Jatenmongba. “The College Award for Academic Proficiency for Master of Theology (Overall/all branches)” – Takusenla (Christian Eth-

Students and faculty of Clark theological College during the college graduation ceremony on April 13.

Kohima Campus, Meriema as guest of honour.

A press release from the principal of CTC, Rev. Dr. Takatemjen informed that in his speech, Dr Wati Longchar challenged the graduating class by dwelling on the joy and excitement in serving Christ.

He drew attention to the fact that today we live in a society which is uncontrolled, manipulated, and destroyed by an unjust economic, political and religious system. “Our system has become like a tomb.

There is nepotism, corruption, violence and bloodshed everywhere. It is only when one serves with commitment that one’s labour of love will be rewarded,” he said. Meanwhile, Prof.

Dr Lanunungsang exhort-

blessed, he added.

In all, 67 students graduated under three programs namely, M.Th, M.A and B.D. The following graduates received awards: “Imlong Chang Award for Academic Proficiency”, “The College Award for Greek Language” and “Scripture Knowledge Award” – Bendangmenla T. Imsong. “Dr. I Ben Wati Award for Christian Ministry” – Aorenla Longchar and Jamesh T. Marak. “The College Award for General Contribution” – Albert N. Hau. “Lobenshilu Imchen Award for Best Conduct” – Nokdensang. “The College Award for Church Music” – Zhamhalie. “Rev. I. Anang Award for Preaching” – Sungjemyala, Eyingbeni M. Erui and Tzudilong.

“The college Award for He-

ics). “The College Award for Academic Proficiency for Master of Arts in Pastoral Ministry” – L. Jatenmongba.

“The College Award for Academic Proficiency for Master of Theology in Christian Ministry” – Asha Limbu.

“The College Award for Academic Proficiency for Master of Theology in Christian Ethics” – Takusenla. “The College Award for Academic Proficiency for Master of Theology in Christian Theology” – Diana Kesen.

Apart from this, the college also awarded “Certificate in Fundamentals of Music Theory” to 9 Graduating students and “Choir Certificate” to 7 students.

57 Graduating students also received certificates for “Leadership Development Course”.

victims in dimapur

DimapUr, april 15 (mExN): Nagaland Governor, Dr. Ashwani Kumar, today visited the relief camp of victims of the April 12 fire incident at Muslim Colony, Lhomithi Village that rendered around 158 families homeless.

The governor accompanied by his wife and district administration and police led by SP Dimapur, VZ Angami, interacted with the victims of the fire incident. The governor also enquired into the cause of the fire incident from the landowners of the colony and former member of Dimapur Municipal Council, Simon Yepthomi.

Meanwhile, landowner of Muslim Colony, L Akuto Yepthomi, son of late Lomithi Sema, has clari-

Nagaland Governor, Dr. Ashwani Kumar, interacting with victims of the April 12 fire incident at Muslim Colony, Lhomithi Village, on April 15.

fied that the fire broke out in Lhomithi village and not Rio Colony as reported in some local newspapers.

The family members of late Lomithi have also expressed gratitude to the governor and his wife for their visit and interaction with the fire victims and said that the visit would go

a long way in inspiring the victims presently camped in a relief camp to start a new beginning. The Dimapur district administration led by ADC, Elizabeth Ngullie, and district disaster management authority also handed additional relief fund to the fire victims today.

ident, Kihoto Kiba, and general secretary, Shitovi Swu, stated that the victim bore injury marks on the back of the head and multiple bite marks on the body. The union expressed shock to learn that the father of Kaito, GB of Mukalimi Village had shouted “who dares who?” holding

a piece of wood, instead of lending a helping hand when Kahuto had gone in search of the victim. The union in this regard urged the law enforcing agencies to punish the murderer as per the law and appealed to the judicial authorities not to grant bail under any circumstances.

ENPO supports NSSATA demand DimapUr, april 15 (mExN): The Eastern Nagaland Peoples’ Organisation (ENPO) has appealed to the Department of School Education, Nagaland, to address the “extreme plight and unjust hardships” of Nagaland SSA Teachers Association (NSSATA), while fully supporting the latter’s demands for implementation of the release of the

pending salaries without further delay.

A press release from ENPO joint secretary, Manlang Phom informed that SSA is a special universal drive by the central government with the basic objective of socioeconomic uplift of the people through compulsory education empowerment. Hence, it has urged the state government to comply with respon-

sibility and accountability for the purpose of a progressive upcoming generation of the state.

Further, ENPO asserted it will not compromise in the educational rights of the people and would therefore continue to support the welfare, needs and privileges of both the teachers and students for the same.

Tribal leaders discuss Nganlang inaugurates three EPA projects challenges of modernity

Leaders of various tribal communities based in Dimapur.

DimapUr, april 15 (mExN): Under the initiative of NEZCC, leaders from various tribal communities based in Dimapur met at NEZCC to discuss about “the challenges faced by the tribal society ushered in by the advent of modernity and its impact in the society especially on the younger urban generation.”

A press release informed that the tribal communities of Nagaland stationed in Dimapur resolved to jointly organize Community Learning Programme (CLP) under the aegis of NEZCC at NEZCC Park. Speaking on the importance of an action plan with active participation of com-

DimapUr, april 15 (mExN): In what could be marked as a day of achievement for the department of Land Resources in Dimapur district, B S Nganlang, Parliamentary Secretary for Land Resources, Government of Nagaland, today inaugurated three Entry Point Activity (EPA) projects – rostrum cum retaining wall at Piphema (Old) village, marketing shed at Pherima, and community utility building at New Chumukedima village. All three public facilities were constructed under IWMP-VII, batch IV with contributions from the village.

Integrated Watershed Management Programme (IWMP) has been one of the best implemented centrally sponsored schemes of Agri and allied department in Dimapur district with all the villages covered under IWMP making maximum benefit with proper implementation of the schemes.

Inaugurating the completed projects in three villages as chief guest, the parliamentary secretary expressed satisfaction over the purposeful and effective implementation of the schemes in the respective villages. Addressing the gathering in the

three villages, Nganlang stated it was in the interest of the department to improve the quality of life of the villagers and thereby reaching all the facilities to the grassroots.

Nganlang urged villagers to be sincere and also extend cooperation to the department to get optimum benefit from the various schemes. He said proper implementation of the schemes in the villages reflects performance and image of the department. Given the climatic, geographical and communication advantage, he encouraged the villages to make best use of the

facilities.

Earlier, Hoto Yeptho, Additional Director, Land Resources, who accompanied the chief guest along with other officials and staff of the department, enlightened the villagers about various avenues that could benefit the people. Hekato N, Deputy Project Officer, Land Resources, presented an insight and functioning of IWMP in the district. On behalf of the villagers, elders and leaders of three villages expressed gratitude to the department officials for reaching the facilities to the villagers.

munities concerned, Lipokmar Tzudir, Director, NEZCC explained the need, objectives and focus of the CLP, the note added. He stated that customs and practices form the main fabric of our culture; hence its continuity for posterity should be emphasized and addressed before it is too late.

NEZCC will sponsor three resource persons and 25 students from each community to impart training for 10 consecutive days on a cycle covering all the tribes in a span of 160 days beginning May 2014. The programme is scheduled to start from May ForgottEn road In dIMapur: the road which connects Home guard training Center toluvi and many villages 19 at the NEZCC Park that will in Dimapur district becomes a fishing puddle in rainy season. Who is supposed to maintain this road? Do you vote be open to interested public. for money or for development? (Photo: Vikato Zhimo Akuluto, Citizen Journalist)

OrganizatiOns cOndemn rape Of a minOr in KOhima Kohima, april 15 (mExN): The Chakhesang Hoho Kohima (CHK) has expressed disgust and outrage at the rape reportedly committed by one Povetso on a minor at Mohonkhola, Kohima on April 13, 2014.

“No words are adequate to condemn such sadistic act on a minor by an adult,” stated a press release issued by president of CHK, Zhonyi Rhi. The statement cautioned all the Chakhesangs that any attempt to bail out the accused or interference in the enforcement of law by any individual shall not be tolerated.

Further, the Chakhesang Hoho extended solidarity to the traumatized girl and the family and also Poumai Women Organisation Kohima, and Poumai Public Union Kohima. It also offered “wholehearted cooperation” to all concern for deliverance of justice to the victim. Meanwhile,

the Hoho also condemned the attack on Abe Mero on April 9, 2014 at Jail Colony, Kohima. “Violence perpetrated on peace loving citizens is uncalled for and we urge the authorities to take timely action on the culprit,” it added.

CYF: The Chakhesang Youth Front (CYF) has also stated it was aghast and appalled at the rape of a minor girl by Povetso at Mohonkhola, Kohima. Asserting that under no circumstances can such act on a minor be tolerated nor endured, the CYF has urged the authorities to provide the severest punishment to the accused and also called upon all not to interfere with the due diligence of law. While extending its support and goodwill to the speedy recovery of the traumatized child and the family, it also expressed cooperation with all the organisations and authorities

concerned for prompt delivery of justice.

MUK: The Mao Union Kohima (MUK) while expressing shock to learn of the rape by Povetso has condemned the “despicable act” in the strongest term. In a condemnation note, MUK president L Athikho Lirina and its general secretary D Neli Koso stated, “Rapists have no place in a civilized society.”

Therefore, it urged the law enforcing agencies to give “most befitting of punishments to the criminal as deterrent for the future so that all our children can remain free from the clutches of such depraved persons who prowl and pounce on.”

NMHP: Strongly condemning the “dastardly act” of rape by Povetso from Phek district, the New Minister Hill Panchayat (NMHP) has stated that it “seriously take into account that the good name of the

colony has been maligned by such atrocities committed to one of its residents.”

The panchayat in a release issued by its chairman Neibo-o Kire and Lima Imsong has appealed to the law enforcing authority to deliver justice by awarding befitting punishment to the accused with no bail. The Panchayat also extended solidarity to the victim and the family members.

PSUK: The Poumai Students’ Union Kohima (PSUK) has also strongly condemned the rape by one Povetso. The Union in a statement has urged law enforcing agencies to punish the accused as per the law and appealed the judicial authority not to grant bail to the accused under any circumstances. It also urged upon all the right thinking citizens to condemn the inhuman act.

PWUK: The Pholami Welfare Union, Kohima

5

MEx FILE Vehicles requisitioned for election asked to claim hire charges Kohima, april 15 (Dipr): All private vehicles requisitioned and used for the just concluded Parliamentary Elections in Kohima district have been asked to claim payment of hire charges from the Election Office, Kohima on production of requisitioned order and duty slip from April 16 to 22. This was informed by Assistant Election Officer, Kohima, Mhathung.

RSU to conduct registration of non-locals

Murder at Ghathashi Town condemned DimapUr, april 15 (mExN): The Ighanumi Welfare, Dimapur, has condemned the “cold blooded murder” of late Kuhovi Swu, S/o Xekiye of Ighanumi village by one Kaito on the wee hours of Sunday, April 13, at Ghathashi Town. A statement from the welfare’s pres-

Dimapur

(PWUK) expressing shock over the rape of a minor by Povetso has vehemently condemned the “dastardly act”. Asserting that “this evil act should never have a place in our society,” it appealed to every sensible person to denounce it. Further, the PWUK stating that it will never accept this kind of evil act from any of its member expelled the accused from the union with immediate effect. It sternly cautioned that, any individual or group trying to bail the culprit will not be tolerated and that any untoward repercussion shall solely rest on such person or group who tries to bail him. The PWUK also extended its sympathy to the victim and her family.

The union also assured its fullest support and cooperation to the family, Poumai Public Union, Kohima (PPUK) and Poumai

Women Organisation, Kohima (PWOK) to bring the culprit to justice.

DGU: The Dimapur Gorkha Union (DGU) has vehemently condemned “the satanic and demonic act” of Povetso, 30, who raped a minor girl aged around 5. In a note, chairman, Disciplinary Action Committee, DGU expressed concern that “our” societies today have become very unsafe for women and girl child. “The mindset of human being has become so corrupt that we can no longer trust even friends, guests, visitors, neighbors. This is not the first incident of rape on minor girls in Nagaland. The atrocities against women and girl child have reached its zenith.” DGU further appealed to every citizen of Nagaland irrespective of caste, creed and religion to pray for the innocent victim.

TSEmiNYU, april 15 (mExN): The Rengma Students’ Union (RSU) has informed that it will organize “compulsory registration/renewal of all non- locals within Rengma areas” from April 22 to 24. A press note from the RSU informed that the exercise will be conducted from I0:00 AM to 3:00 PM, on the said dates, at its office headquarter in Tseminyu. RSU cautioned that it would take strict action against those failing to turn up within the stipulated three days.

GPRN/NSCN expels two DimapUr, april 15 (mExN): As per the discipline of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, under Section B-Morality, Article 3, clause b, the office of the chief secretary, GPRN/NSCN has expelled John Sangtam, Deputy Secretary (FaNR) and Benjamin Pochury, Under Secretary (Law & Justice) from the party for a period of two years for indulging in adultery. This was informed by Chief Secretary, GPRN/NSCN, Khekiho Chophi in a press release.

NSCN (IM) condoles DimapUr, april 15 (mExN): NSCN (IM) has mourned the demise of late Jamkhohen Lotjem on April 12. A condolence message from MIP-GPRN stated that late Lotjem died after a prolonged illness at his residence at Motbung. Born on April 4, 1938, late Lotjem joined NNC in 1963 and later joined KTU-NSCN/GPRN on September 6, 2005, as APO, and last served as a steering committee member, MIP stated. Late Lotjem is survived by his wife Tingkholhing Lotjem, sons and daughters, grand children, and great grand children. The MIP expressed gratefulness to late Lotjem for serving the nation with all his heart and soul. “We pray that God Almighty will accept him in the heavenly abode and also pray that the spirit of nationalism will continue to burn in the heart of his family.

May his soul rest in eternal peace,” MIP stated.

St. Francis Xavier’s church observes Palm Sunday Kohima, april 15 (Dipr): St. Francis Xavier’s Church Kidima observed Palm Sunday with the rest of the world with Reverend Father Thomas Muttathil, Parish Priest as main celebrant on April 13, 2014. The Parish Priest explained that Palm Sunday means to accept appreciation and praise from the people of God on the day. He further appealed to the faithful people to ask pardon for their failures and mistakes and pray to Mother Mary to give the grace. Stating that holy week begins from Palm Sunday, the Parish Priest also said it is important to retrospect during that time. Sprinkling of holy water to the faithful people, enchanting hymns, procession with palm leave and Eucharist celebration were the highlights of the programme.

Tobu SDPDB meeting held TobU, april 15 (Dipr): The SDPDB meeting of Tobu was held on April 14, 2014 under the chairmanship of ADC & Vice Chairman Akup Thangsing. The chairman welcomed the Board members and thanked the members and the people of 55 A/C Tobu for their cooperation rendered during the parliamentary election and commenced the meeting with the reviewed of the last meeting minutes. Some of the points discussed at the meeting were construction of town council hall, maintenance of circular road, maintenance of water supply source, proper power supply within Tobu town and also announced to the house the upcoming inauguration of newly recognized Ukhalanpong village under 48-Moka constituency on May 13, 2014.

Water harvesting structure at Tichipami village ZUNhEboTo, april 15 (mExN): A water harvesting structure under MMA at Tichipami village under Zunheboto district was inaugurated by G Kiyevi Ayemi, District Agriculture Officer (DAO), Zunheboto on March 26. A press release from the DAO informed that the main aim of the water harvesting structure under MMA Scheme is to help the poor farmers with water supply for irrigation purpose and domestic use.

WCH appeals for shifting DC office DimapUr, april 15 (mExN): The office of the Western Chakhesang Hoho has appealed to the state government and the authority concerned for timely shifting of the present district administration (DC) office to the newly constructed complex at Chumukedima. A press release from the Hoho president Vekhosayi Nyekha and press secretary, Rhudu Shupao, called for shifting the office at the earliest for the convenience of the public.

Garo Students’ Union condemns DimapUr, april 15 (mExN): Garo Students’ Union, Nagaland Zone has vehemently condemned the life attempt on Abe Mero, who is also the convenor of the finance committee of Naga Mothers’ Association and a member of ACAUT at Jail colony, Kohima on April 9. The students’ union also condemned the rape of a minor by her father’s friend at Mohonkhola, Kohima on April 13. “It is highly condemnable and a shameful act which should be condemned by every right thinking citizen, this kind of scene should be considered as intolerable, ugliest and inhuman in a civilized society,” stated the president of the union in a release. It further urged the law enforcing agencies to award befitting punishment to the culprits as per the law of the land.

Life Consumer Society and RTI to conduct awareness prog DimapUr, april 15 (mExN): The Life Consumer Society and RTI, Dimapur district, has informed establishments of brick factory units, stone crusher units, motor vehicle garages, and hotels, in Dimapur district that the office would be conducting “Awareness cum Social Audit programme” by visiting the establishments mentioned to safeguard the interest of the consumers. The visits will be conducted phase-wise and in this connection, the office has requested the establishments mentioned to display the mandatory information issued by competent authority at prominent place within their business premises.

6

IN-FOCUS

The Power of Truth

The Morung Express

THE EDIT PAGE

C O M M E N T A R Y

Swanee Hunt & Laura Heaton National Geographic

Women in Rwanda Help Heal Their Country Contextualize Change WEDnEsDAy 16 APrIl 2014 volumE IX IssuE 103

S

ocial change is an integral and natural process of human progression. Without transformation human life would remain stagnant; and such a status quo would breed and sustain an unjust and intolerant system. Currently, there are many situations around the world undergoing political and social change. In part, this reveals people’s desire to transform the present world order which has failed to be socially, economically, culturally and politically responsive.

For most part of the 20th century, human experience reveals that the world order had become immune to the cries for justice and freedom. Eventually this resulted in a dialogue of the deaf, in which the powers that be resorted to force to legitimize and purse their agenda by suppressing people’s yearning to live with dignity and respect.

Today, in the second decade of the 21st century, the present generation of leaders has a responsibility towards embracing a more holistic understanding of knowledge, culture, patterns of interaction and relationships in the struggle for transformation. One of the greatest challenges is to seek ways to establish the transformative elements of relationship not only between peoples but also between people and the structures that govern them. Unless this transformation takes place, movements for social changes will invariably continue to perpetuate the dominant understanding of relationship, which is violent in itself.

Theories of social change are contextual and contentual in nature. Strategies and design for change are required to be premised on the needs of the people. Western paradigms have lived off its usefulness in contemporary politics and it is time for the world to turn its attention and focus towards indigenous paradigms, which have remained suppressed and dormant for a very long time.

The recovery of indigenous values is a response to multiple domination and deprivation of non-western cultures.

It sustains its very existence on the principles of respect, accommodation, diversity and sharing. This seeks to represent an inclusive process that is aimed in recovering woman and man in creative forms of being and perceiving. There is thus, a shift in the concept of activity from one of destruction to creation, and the concept of power from domination to empowering partnership. Such a paradigm is focused in creating and providing space for a pluralistic and inclusive humanity to take its rightful place in human history.

Through critical reflection and learning from the experiences of other struggling peoples, it will be prudent for Nagas to create structures that are relevant, contextual and reflective of their own struggle, aspirations and relevance.

lEfT wiNg |

I

Shradha Chettri IANS

Banning a book is pointless today

t's pointless banning a book in today's day and age when everything is easily available at the click of a mouse. A ban, instead, hypes up even a not-so-worthy book for readers, said noted writer Ruskin Bond.

"It is no use banning a book in today's age because one can easily read it from the internet. So it becomes difficult to ban any form of literature now," the 79-year-old told IANS in an interview at the Cambridge Bookstore here where he visits every Saturday to sign books and interact with readers.

He was commenting on the controversial withdrawal of the US scholar Wendy Doniger's book "The Hindus: An Alternative History" that was taken off the market in February by its publishers (Penguin) following pressures from various groups.

"Sometimes it also gives undue importance to the book," the plump, bespectacled and ruddy-complexioned Bond, who will turn 80 in May and still has a fair amount of silver hair on on his head, said.

"Personally I think Doniger's book did not deserve all the fuss. It wasn't doing particularly well, but after this controversy, more people wanted to read the book," the Padma Bhushan recipient pointed out.

Even though the raconteur understands the importance of internet, he is unapologetic about being "technologically illiterate", and proudly admits he would always prefer the smell of books over the swiftness of web.

"A book is something you can keep. It is something you can possess for years," said the writer, who penned his first novel "The Room on the Roof", when he was 17.

"People like building their own libraries and these books will always be there. Other forms of entertainment will come along with it," he added.

Of British descent, Bond, who was born in Kasauli in Himachal Pradesh, and grew up in Jamnagar in Gujarat, has surrendered to the quaint surroundings of Landour near Mussorie, now in Uttarakhand, since 1964.

This is where he writes, using pen and paper and not bowing to the lure of technology.

"The written word still holds the foundation of story telling. Now-a-days many people prefer to write on the laptop and computer, but I very much believe in the power of written word," said the Sahitya Akademi recipient who is best known for children's literature and ghost stories.

Author of over 300 short stories, poems and novels, he has written works like "Ghost Stories from the Raj", "A Town Called Dehra" "The Parrot Who Wouldn't Talk" and novels like "Vagrants in the Valley", "The Blue Umbrella" and "Angry River".

His autobiographies, like "Rain in the Mountains" and "Scenes from a Writer's Life " talk about his life in Dehradun and trip to England also fall within his literary oeuvre.

Despite writing exhaustively on his personal life, nature and the many people around him for over three decades, the writer of British descent feels he would never run out of stories.

"I have always written a lot about my past. As I go back into my life, and the older I get, I have more to write on because there are many family, friends, incidents and events to be remembered and told," said Bond, whose iconic character Rusty was inspired from his own life.

"There is never going to be a day when I will run out of material to write about," he added.

Bond has a big surprise for his fans, who would soon be reading a philosophical tale from the author.

"Age has not taken a toll on my writing, but it has taken a toll on my tummy," he said with a hearty laugh. "Now I am writing something philosophical because as you get older your views on life change," he candidly admitted.

C

rowds of police officers and nurses converged in a room painted with bright alphabet letters at a hospital in Rwanda’s capital, Kigali. A plush frog and a couple of dolls with Afros lay on the table, props that might be used by a child to entertain herself while her mother seeks care or to act out a haunting scene of abuse for a counselor.

The Isange One Stop Centre is just the first in a growing, countrywide network of clinics where survivors of sexual violence can seek medical treatment, counseling services, and legal help filing claims against their attackers. The design is intended to ensure that the patient has to tell her story only once.

Before we stepped into the center, we’d spent an hour with Rwanda’s top police commander, Inspector General Emmanuel Gasana. A wide-chested, muscular man, he peppered his comments with surprising phrases like “prevention mechanisms” and “gender budgeting.” “When we first started this gender-based violence work,” he said, “we started to see the numbers [of reported attacks] going up. I was asking all the time, What’s happening? But because of the campaign, it moved things.” Women began to see attacks on them as crimes and, very gradually, as traumas they’d endured for which they shouldn’t feel ashamed, Gasana explained. Given his gold-decorated epaulets and pants tucked into polished boots, the words seemed incongruous. But he delivered them with an obvious sense of pride. Community-policing committees – 90,000 civilians across the country, he noted – are also on the case, charged with maintaining security.

Twenty years after a genocide, these efforts are evidence of the impact of Rwanda’s new vanguard of leaders: women who have played a central role in all aspects of the country’s rebuilding. The One Stop Centre and the broader system of trained officers the police are putting in place are the consequence of a major push to make good on the government’s policy of zero tolerance for sexual violence.

New Laws and Protections The most famous example of strides for Rwandan women came in 2008, when Rwanda became the first country ever to have a female majority in parliament.

That same year, the legislature adopted a progressive law making domestic violence illegal and mandating harsh prison terms for rape. “We don’t want to just make a law,” Judith Kanakuze, who led the bill’s drafting, said in a prescient 2005 interview. She wanted to change behavior – to stop men from beating their partners and stop women from tolerating the beating. Kanakuze saw the law as one element in a larger strategy to change cultural expectations that were dangerous for women. In years prior, Rwanda’s parliament had passed pivotal laws enabling women to own land and daughters to inherit property. The legislature’s newly formed Forum for Parliamentary Women played a central role in both bills.

In subsequent elections, female members of parliament widened their margin. Last September they picked up even more seats and now hold 64 percent of them. Thirty percent is a given – the quota set in the postgenocide constitution to boost women’s representation throughout the government. Credit for pushing the percentage beyond that minimum goes primarily to the political parties, which placed women prominently on their candidate slates. Most influentially, the ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), led by President Paul Kagame, mandated that its lineup be 50 percent female.

Power to the Capable The decision to focus on women’s equality “is embedded within the RPF,” said Christopher Kayumba, a lecturer at the National University of Rwanda and political pundit. It’s a matter not only of rights but of practicality. “Kagame isn’t pushing for women just for the sake of it. He’s mostly interested in capable people.”

In 1994 Rwanda was demolished and grieving, its coffers empty and coffins full. The post-genocide government had to hand off responsibilities to dedicated party members who had proved to be talented managers earlier when the RPF was organizing after decades in exile. Aloisea Inyumba was 29 when she became Minister of Gender and Social Affairs. Fatuma Ndangiza worked beside Inyumba as they reconstructed the ministry. For a year the new government staff were paid with food. “But we were so committed,” Ndangiza explained. She went on to describe how Inyumba, with her background in fund-raising for the RPF, “had this idea that women should never be beggars. She didn’t want women to see themselves as victims but to be powerful. She said, ‘After all, if our

M

ost of the kids in a school set amid the lush green, rolling hills of eastern Rwanda don't identify themselves as Hutu or Tutsi. That's a positive sign for Rwanda, which is now observing the 20th anniversary of its genocide, a three-month killing spree that, according to the official Rwandan count, left more than 1 million people dead, most of them Tutsis killed by Hutus.

The teenagers attending the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village, a school with dorms that creates tight-knit student families, say the ethnic slaughter that their parents or grandparents were a part of either as victims or perpetrators won't be repeated. The school director echoes the sentiment. "This is the generation now that will in the future make sure that this kind of politics doesn't exist in the country. We promote unity and hope," said Jean Claude Nkulikiyimfura. "One of the major debates is that better education would help the kids not to think, 'Yes, I'm a Hutu. I'm a Tutsi.' Good education would promote the idea of how do you develop yourself, how do you develop your community, instead of this division that was created mostly by their parents," he added.

The school tries to bring in Rwanda's most vulnerable kids, especially those affected by the genocide. Most students are orphans, he said. Others have parents in jail because of their role in the violence. "What we try to do is heal their hearts," he said. "These kids come wounded. They come with

Bizimana Emmanuel, who was born two years before the genocide, is consoled by an unidentified woman while attending a public ceremony to mark the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, at Amahoro stadium in Kigali, Rwanda on Monday, April 7, 2014. Sorrowful wails and uncontrollable sobs resounded Monday as thousands of Rwandans packed the country's main sports stadium to mark the 20th anniversary of the beginning of a devastating 100-day genocide. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis)

mothers have brought us up to this level, why can’t Rwandan women be economically empowered actors?’” Some women balk at having their work recognized as significant because of their gender. One highlevel official grumpily waved away any discussion of her achievements as characteristic of “women’s triumphs” in Rwanda. But the next generation understands the importance of the acknowledgement.

Nadine Niyitegeka, 22 years old, graduated in December from the country’s first women’s college, the Akilah Institute for Women. She attributes women’s advancement to female leaders having proved their worth. In the immediate aftermath of the genocide, they “showed how powerful they were, and the government started believing in women,” she said. “If you can have many Aloisea Inyumbas in this next generation – that’s us, because we’re still young – we can do as much as she did or even more. Our country can develop and reach a great step.” That young women like Niyitegeka have their sights set high is a testament to the influence of iconic role models. In addition, her generation, which has grown up in the post-genocide era, has seen its prospects for education rise significantly, placing those bold ambitions within reach.

Girls Can Do Math In 2009 the government mandated basic education for all young Rwandans, girls as well as boys. It’s become cheaper to attend school, though students say related expenses can be prohibitive. The change came about because women challenged the longstanding cultural notion that sending daughters to school was much less valuable than sending sons.

“At first people would often say, Well, you know, girls normally stay at home, so this is a bit complicated. Girls don’t do math!” said Therese Bishagara, a Rwandan refugee who grew up and went to school in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, then moved to Kinshasa, the DRC’s capital, to study molecular biology. After the genocide she moved back to Rwanda and was soon tapped to direct the newly created Kigali Health Institute.

Bishagara and a dozen other female university graduates decided to start a chapter of the Forum for African Women Educationalists (FAWE). “It was part of the effort to ensure that the country would not replicate previous policies of discrimination,” she said.

“Even the children of parents who had committed atrocities – we wanted to ensure that those girls would also become the [educated] elites of this country.” The FAWE women trained young men and women from rural areas to go back to their communities and urge parents to let their children be educated.

When FAWE opened a school in 1999, its organizers decided to focus on sciences “to prove that girls can study technical fields, whether biology or economics, and not only social studies,” Bishagara said. “It was compelling to work with prominent women who could stand as an example of the value of educating girls. They could say, You see, I went to school, and now I have this

important position. Seeing them in office sends the message, You must give opportunities to your daughter as well, because one day she could become a minister, a director – just like her brothers.” Today Bishagara is a senator. The Ministry of Education reports that girls complete high school at rates slightly higher than boys and that the percentage of women at universities is steadily on the rise. Still, despite the many strides, there have been controversies and obstacles.

How Strong Are the Gains?

Last year parliament rolled back the country’s maternity leave, giving new mothers six weeks off rather than three months. How could those representatives – the vast majority with children themselves – not be more sympathetic to the needs of women with newborns? Officially, the policy shift came from a concern that companies would discriminate against women who might need paid time off to have a baby. Proponents argued that a woman could choose to take more leave with reduced pay and that eventually a special government fund would make up the difference.

Privately, though, many people frowned upon the decision, saying it illustrated the powerful female parliamentarians’ insensitivity to the needs of less privileged women. Furthermore, the maternityleave debate applied only to an advantaged slice of citizens; it’s out of the realm of consideration for the 85 percent of Rwandan women who are still farmers.

Similarly, researchers studying the impact of women’s leadership point out that the benefits haven’t yet reached women who live in rural areas or have lower levels of education. A report published last year by the German development fund and the Rwandan government noted that women’s participation in some locallevel positions is as low as 3 percent. The government’s own Gender Monitoring Office documented a “wide existing gender gap” between policy and practice. “In other words,” stated a 2010 report, gender equality “has not fully trickled down to the grassroots level,” despite laws, policies, strategies, and mechanisms.

Dinah Musindarwezo is a gender specialist who now heads the pan-African women’s rights group FEMNET, based in Kenya. Working for years in her native Rwanda, she was frustrated at times by what felt like the slow pace of progress. But her optimism grew along with the scope of her work. “When I stepped outside of Rwanda, I realized all the things we’re doing right,” she said, then laughed when reminded of her exasperation three years before. “Of course, deep social changes take time, especially when dealing with communities where education levels are still low. But it’s clear how, pushed along by political leadership, there is a change of attitudes in people toward women in Rwanda that I do not see in almost any other African country.”

Swanee Hunt is founder and chair of the Washington-based Institute for Inclusive Security, which advances women’s leadership for security and social justice. She is Eleanor Roosevelt Lecturer at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government and a former U.S. ambassador to Austria. Her book “Rwandan Women Rising” will be published in 2015 by Duke University Press. Laura Heaton is a writer and journalist based in East Africa.

Rwanda orphans school teaches unity post-genocide Jason straziuso Associated Press

heavy scars in their souls."

Though the school's first classes were populated by students orphaned in the genocide, today's 500 students are orphans because of other factors, such as HIV/AIDS and because of violence that took place in neighboring Congo or incursions from Congo after the genocide ended.

Unity is the theme. The school hopes to teach the students that their position in life will be achieved through merit. Gender won't matter, and more importantly, Nkulikiyimfura said, ethnic identity won't matter.

Sharon Kalisa's favorite subject is history, especially genocide studies.

The 17-year-old said she wants to know how and why the genocide happened.

Both of her mother's parents were killed in the 100 days of violence. Kalisa says she sees similarities between the Holocaust and the Rwandan genocide, most notably the undercurrents of poverty and unequal rights.

A decade after the genocide, New York City resident Anne Heyman and

her husband attended a talk about Rwanda. There, they asked what the biggest problem the country faced was. They were told the number of orphans the genocide left behind was overwhelming. There was no hard number, Nkulikiyimfura said, but some estimates put the number of orphans in the low millions.

Heyman decided to open a school on the model used in Israel for orphans of the Holocaust. With help from the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and corporate donor Liquidnet Holdings, she purchased land in 2006 to build a school and dorm-like homes.

The school's annual budget is $2 million a year, or about $4,500 per child.

Almost all the operating funds come from donors in America but the school will soon get new funds from a $24 million solar project with 28,000 solar panels being built on school land

by Gigawatt Global. The project will generate 8.5 megawatts, about 8 percent of Rwanda's electrical capacity, said Chaim Motzen, the project's coor-

wRiTE-wiNg

dinator. Heyman died earlier this year at age 52 after a horse-riding accident.

Coralie Keza, 20, said Heyman made a big impact on her.

"The thing I liked about this place is it changed me, having good people around you," she said after eating lunch of rice, potatoes and cucumbers at the school cafeteria, a building boasting a colorful mural depicting people walking on a red-dirt road, some handin-hand, and other happy people.

"Pushing you to do good things, being supportive of your breakdowns. Before coming here I was someone else, not this person. I felt hopeless. I had no desire of living." She added: "Kids from here will do good things in life and I really wanted her to see that."

Nkulikiyimfura, a graduate of the University of Arkansas, is proud of the school's graduation record. The first year of graduates, in 2012, saw 90 percent of the class go on to university, college or technical schools. About a dozen are studying abroad. Four students from the school attend classes at McGill University in Montreal, Canada. Keza hopes to join them. While the students at the Agahozo-Shalom Youth Village represent just a small section of Rwandan youth, Rwandan society overall hesitates to talk about the Hutu-Tutsi divide, following a directive from the Tutsi-led government that was issued to squelch tribal animosities. The students at this school give the impression that their generation may move past old ethnic distinctions and divides.

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.

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WEDNEsDAy

THE MORUNG EXPRESS

16 April 2014

PERSPECTIVE NEWS ANALYSIS, FEATURE AND DISCOURSE

The Newspaper with an Opinion The Morung Express

A Reporter Revisits His ‘Shameful’ Coverage Bartholomäus Grill

I

Source: iHT

t was April 1994, and Princess was infected by the feverish mood that had taken hold in all of South Africa at the time. She was our housekeeper in Johannesburg, a plump, sedate and humorous woman, whose real name was Nolizwe Mneno. She had changed her name to make it easier for white people to remember.

The first free election in the country’s history was slated for the end of the month, an election in which all citizens — black and white — would participate for the first time. The end of apartheid made headlines around the world, an epochal event with more than 400 correspondents reporting on it. I was one of them.

On April 16, 11 days before the “mother of all elections,” a press contingent accompanied Nelson Mandela, the future president, to the Umlazi Township near Durban. It was one of his final appearances before the election, and about 50,000 people had gathered for an open-air rally, dancing, singing and celebrating the freedom fighter as though he were the Messiah.

White domination was coming to an end; an African dream was becoming a reality. It was the news story of the day, but only because no one — including me — was aware of the sheer magnitude of the nightmare unfolding in the center of the continent at the same time. I was working for the German weekly Die Zeit at the time and, like others, I too wrote unforgivable stories from afar for which I am ashamed today, 20 years later.

The first reports from Rwanda, 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) to the north, were confusing: accounts of military showdowns, bloody unrest, ethnic squabbles and fraternal strife. SPIEGEL published a story in its 16/1994 edition which spoke of “anarchy that feeds on itself.” Rwanda was dismissed as a typically African conflict. “Rwanda?” a British colleague asked, “Oh, it’s just the Tutsi and the Hutu smashing each other’s heads in. It’s never-ending tribal warfare.”

The “tribal warfare” was in fact genocide, the most horrific since the Nazi murder of Jews during the Holocaust and “Killing Fields” of Cambodia.

“We were left alone. The entire world looked the other way,” says Jonathan Nturo, 34, a slender, small-boned man. He is sharply dressed, wearing a red leather jacket, Burberry jeans and sunglasses. He wants to look cool when he visits the hell he managed to escape.

A Mystery to This Day Standing on a hilltop in Murambi, a scattered settlement in southern Rwanda, Nturo recounts how he and his family and their five head of cattle arrived there. He describes how they, together with tens of thousands of terrified people, set up an emergency camp on a construction site for a high school, next to the same three, now-rusty yellow cement mixers that are still standing there today. Government troops had promised to protect the refugees, and they were still hopeful they would escape the mass murderers.

Jonathan Nturo was 14 at the time.

On April 6, at 8:20 p.m., a plane carrying Rwandan President Juvénal Habyarimana was shot down as it approached the airport in the capital Kigali. The circumstances of the incident remain a mystery to this day. But the apparent assassination marked the beginning of the genocide. That same night, the presidential guard and Interahamwe militias (“fighting together” in the official Rwandan language Kinyarwanda) went on a murderous and incendiary rampage through the streets of Kigali. A group of fanatical Hutu had seized power and decided to wipe out the Tutsi minority, which made up about 10 percent of the population, once and for all. The violence swept across the entire country within a week.

“My father didn’t want to believe it at first,” Nturo recalls. “Only when villages began burning in our region and three of my siblings had been killed did we leave and head for Murambi.” They reached what they believed was a relative safe-haven on April 10, at around 4 p.m.

At 10:30 that evening, Lieutenant General Roméo Dallaire, in Kigali, called his operations center in New York. The Canadian officer was the head of UNAMIR, the United Nations Assistance Mission for Rwanda. Its mandate was to keep the fragile peace and safeguard the transition to democracy that had been negotiated in the 1993 Arusha Accords.

For months, Dallaire had been issuing dire warnings about escalating violence in Rwanda. In January, he had reported on secret weapons caches, hit lists and death squads in an encrypted telex. Now the peacekeepers’ worst-case scenario had become a reality. Dallaire requested immediate reinforcements, arguing that disaster could be averted with about 4,000 troops and a strong mandate. But his superiors in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations, headed by the later UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, turned down the request. They refused to believe that a crime against humanity was about to unfold in Rwanda.

‘African Holocaust’ During the next 100 days, the Hutu regime and its accomplices murdered some 800,000 Tutsi and moderate Hutu — the equivalent of five killings a minute. It is likely that never before in human history had so many perpetrators murdered so many people in such a short period of time. Roméo Dallaire would characterize it as an “African Holocaust.”

The inferno erupted in Murambi at 3 a.m. on April 21. Suddenly, soldiers began shooting indiscriminately into the crowd and tossing hand grenades, says Nturo. An hour later, militias from the surrounding hills forced their way into the camp and started systematically slaughtering the helpless refugees, using machetes, knives, spears, sickles, hoes and clubs.

The Nturo family was torn apart in the chaos.

Jonathan joined a group of young men who desperately tried to defend themselves by throwing bricks from the construction site at the assailants.

But they were greatly outnumbered. Almost miraculously, about 100 of the trapped refugees, including Nturo, managed to escape in the midst of army gunfire. They ran down into the valley and swam across the Murambi River.

Nturo points to a banana grove on the opposite hillside, where he hid in the early morning hours.

He is trying not to let on how disturbing the memories are to him.

Nevertheless, he seems distraught, gesticulat-

Twenty years ago on April 6, the genocide against the Tutsi in Rwanda began. At the time, many Western reporters played it down as “ethnic warfare,” including Bartholomäus Grill, now a correspondent for SPIEGEL. He looks back with shame ing wildly, speaking quickly and stuttering occasionally. “We are afraid to talk about it,” he says. He tells us about the sleepless nights when the ghosts of the past return to haunt him, and about the unsuccessful attempts to treat him for post-traumatic stress disorder in therapy.

At least 40,000 people died in Murambi, the scene of one of the most horrific massacres. No one knows the exact death toll, but skeletons are still being found in the area today. “Kubera umurimo wari wakozwe” (“You’ve done good work”), the prefect of the Gikongoro administrative district said, thanking the hordes of killers.

The first TV images appearing around the world during those initial days were so monstrous and inconceivable that commentators referred to the slaughter as an “aberration of nature,” a murderous frenzy, a “maladie de tuer,” or “killing sickness” — as if the genocide had descended on Rwanda like an insidious virus.

Naive Global Press Today we know that the genocide was not the work of archaic, chaotic powers, but of an educated, modern elite that availed itself of all the tools of a highly organized state: the military and the police, the intelligence services and militias, the government bureaucracy and the mass media.

The killers were no demons but the henchmen of a criminal system. They pursued a simple logic of extermination: If we don’t wipe out them, the Tutsi, they will destroy us, the Hutu.

A national memorial was built in Murambi, where the unfinished school buildings were left untouched.

“The media didn’t describe what happened here as genocide, but as ethnic warfare,” the first informational panel reads. Rwandans haven’t forgotten how naïve the global press was at the time.

The murderous excesses had nothing at all to do with “tribal warfare.” The Hutu and the Tutsi have shared language, customs and culture for centuries.

There were mixed marriages, and many Rwandans were unable to tell whether someone was Hutu or Tutsi. The causes of the tragedy were to be found elsewhere: the pressures of overpopulation in a small, agricultural country, the struggle over scarce resources, colonial segregation policies that had fueled latent racism between the ethnic groups and the ruling elite’s thirst for power.

A sickening stench of decay emerges from the open doors of the classrooms in Murambi. Hundreds of chalk-wide bodies, preserved in lime, lie on wooden platforms inside, people with severed limbs, beheaded children, crushed skulls with spearheads protruding from them, women whose legs were ripped apart to rape them — and faces frozen in expressions of horror.

Time Standing Still He only finds his voice again when he goes back outside, stepping onto a concrete slab overgrown with grass. “Under here is the mass grave that the French played volleyball on top of,” he says. The French, who had cultivated a close friendship with the Hutu regime, supplied it with weapons, advised its military and trained its militias. The French also sent a “rescue mission” to Rwanda, Opération Turquoise, when the murderous orgies were over. It created a safety corridor through which the killers, mingled in with hundreds of thousands of Hutu refugees, were able to escape to Burundi or Zaire, now the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Some boys holding up homemade pinwheels wave at us as we drive away from the memorial.

“The normalcy is eerie,” says Nturo. “Sometimes I’m amazed that grass still grows here, that life goes on.”

He wants to go up to Gataba, where his father and brother were beaten to death. They too managed to flee from Murambi, but they only made it to the small village on the next hill. We encounter a man on a bicycle with a stack of brand-new machetes on his rack. The smooth blades glitter in the sunshine.

Nturo intended to speak with the wife of the man who murdered his family members. But as we drive slowly past her shop, he loses his resolve. “No, not today,” he says. “The mood is strange.” In fact, the mood is hostile, as people on the village square stare at our off-road vehicle. Nturo doesn’t want us to get out to interview them. Their answers, he says, can be read in their suspicious faces: Here comes that guy with journalists, stirring up the old stories.

It’s time to finally let it go. After all, as they would argue, the “incidents” happened two decades ago, and the past is the past.

But the past refuses to go away, not for Nturo, and not here in Gataba. The bodies were lying on the ground in front of a white-tiled market stand, a sort of sales counter where the meat of cattle and goats was cut up. Four men beat his father and brother to death, says Nturo. Their leader, a wealthy businessman, is now in prison and his wife is running his affairs. Perpetrators and victims live side-by-side in Gataba, with its majority Hutu and minority Tutsi population.

‘It’s Justice’ Some try to suppress what happened 20 years ago, while others are unable to forget. Those who are too vocal about the Hutu-Tutsi question are accused of “divisionism” and given severe penalties for making incendiary remarks. Rwanda’s authoritarian government, which has ordered reconciliation, is still headed by President Paul Kagame, the Tutsi whose rebel army captured the country in 1994 and ended the genocide. Today Rwanda is an economic success, a dictatorship in the developing

world modeled after China or Singapore. And just as in those places, anyone who opposes the regime is harassed and silenced, if necessary.

On the trip back to Kigali, we see prison gangs working in rice fields on the valley floor. Ordinary criminals are wearing pink prison uniforms, and from a distance they look like a group of flamingos. In their midst are some dressed in bright orange: They have been convicted of committing acts of genocide. “Everyone should see that they were ‘génocidaires.’ They must pay for their crimes. It’s justice,” says Nturo.

He grew in an extended family of 14, but he and his mother along with two sisters and one brother were the only ones to survive the massacres. He has often been asked to guide tours in Murambi, but has always refused. He has built a tall, protective wall around himself, a wall that begins to crumble whenever he returns to this place of death. His strategy for overcoming the past is to suppress it, through hard work and professional success. He studied business and finance administration at the University of Butare and he earns a good living in his job at an aid organization. He lives alone in Kigali. He doesn’t want to be reduced to an “Abarokotse,” or a survivor who is eternally imprisoned by his memory.

Some Rwandans are innocent captives, including Dancille Nyirabazungu, who has been locked in the prison of the past for the last 20 years. Time has stood still for her since April 1994, she says. Every day, her poverty reminds her of the massacre that took place in the church in Ntarama, not far from her hut. She lost 20 family members and relatives, five of her nine children were killed and her husband was hacked to death with machetes in front of the church altar.

The 61-year-old now lives with her son and two grandchildren in a house consisting of two small, dark rooms. There are no tables or chairs, there is no electricity or running water, just an outhouse in the vegetable garden. Nyirabazungu has just come home from work, her clothes are tattered and dusty.

Her job consists of dragging around stones on a construction site, for a daily wage of just under 1.

A Large, Dark Stain Ntarama is in the Bugesera district, a swampy, inhospitable stretch of land plagued by mosquitoes and where, in the first major pogroms in the late 1950s, many Tutsi fled or were forcibly relocated. In April 1994, during the time of “Itumba,” or heavy rain, they were to be destroyed once and for all, like vermin. The hate-obsessed Hutu called them “Inyenzi,” or cockroaches.

Thousands of Tutsi fled from the surrounding areas to the church in Ntarama, in the hope that this holy place would be protected, because many of the persecutors were devout Catholics who, like their victims, attended mass every Sunday. Dancille Nyirabazungu and her family also sought protection in the church. But on April 15, at 8 a.m., militias surrounded the building. They beat holes into the brick walls of the church and threw hand grenades inside.

Then they forced their way into the building and killed those who were still alive.

A large, dark stain — the blood of battered babies — is still visible on the front wall of the building next door, which once housed the Sunday school.

There is a stick leaning against the wall. “That,” says Nyirabazungu, “is what they used to skewer the women, from their vaginas to the tops of their heads.” Her voice is flat and matter-of-fact, and if it weren’t for her eyes, it would seem as if she felt no emotion whatsoever. But the horrors of that day are permanently etched into those eyes.

Why? Why? She repeats the question over and over again. Why? She has no explanation for the acts of barbarism. How could one explain that doctors killed their patients in their hospital beds; that teachers massacred their students; that nuns poured gasoline on parishioners and set them on fire?

“Keep going! The graves aren’t full yet!” announcers with the national radio station, Radio Milles Collines, told the unfettered mob. Killing became a civil duty of sorts, and ordinary people, raised to obey authority, complied. They kept on killing, driven by fear, hate and bloodlust, and by greed for the victims’ property.

A Dark Feeling of Foreboding Nyirabazungu, 41 at the time, hid in the vestry under piles of bodies, pregnant with her son Eric. He was born in June 1994, a child of the genocide. She gave him a second name, Rucyamubicyika, or “He who has survived terrible things.”

Where was God in those days of murder? “He was here, or else we wouldn’t have survived,” says Nyirabazungu. And then she asks, in return: “Where were you? Why didn’t you help us?”

These kinds of questions still shame me today.

It wasn’t just the UN, the West and other African nations that failed; it was also journalists, like me.

We ran after the big story in South Africa, paying little attention to Rwanda or merely spreading clichés about the country.

On April 15, when the massacre in Ntarama was in full swing, my quickly written remote analysis was published in Die Zeit. I told tales of the “gruesome tribal war” in the heart of Africa, where everyone was fighting against everyone else. Bellum omnium contra omnes — the Latin phrase always fits when you know little about what is actually happening.

At the end, I wrote that foreign intervention was probably pointless. That report contains the most unforgivable mistakes I have ever made in my professional life.

On Sunday, April 24, 1994, it was as silent as a grave in the Catholic church of Ntarama. The bodies were lying between the pews; it was a scene of unspeakable horror. Piles of corpses lay in the church courtyard, in the surrounding bush and in the swamps in the valley below.

But on that same Sunday, the congregation in Regina Mundi Church, the largest Catholic church in Soweto, was singing. The early mass had begun, the election was only three days away, and the people were gripped by euphoria. They sang the national anthem, Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika, or God Protect Africa, as they celebrated life, freedom and the future. We reporters were swept up by the feeling of elation, and some sang along with the congregation.

There were holes in the ceiling, from the bullets white soldiers fired while hunting down black resistance fighters. But by then, the violent excesses of apartheid were nothing but vague memories. And in those hours of happiness, the violent excesses of Rwanda had not yet entered our consciousness, not even as a dark feeling of foreboding.

(Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan)

There was a time when our Nagas worshipped nature and the spirits. Today we are predominantly Christian. Looking at our society and the world as a whole, it is very easy to be pessimistic when we see poverty, corruption, violence and blatant crimes performed with no consequences or justice.

The mockery of our own identity as people and believers needs to be challenged by consistently and progressively living for change. We see divisions among tribe, clan and even Christian denominations like Baptists, Catholics etc. with varied thoughts on practices, ceremony and religious rules. However, this week, as the Easter weekend draws near, we would like to remind our readers that even through pain, suffering and the death of Jesus Christ, God can still give life and bless us with hope through difficult times. We are Christians because we believe in the “resurrection” and when God can conquer death than we must have “hope” and work towards creating our utopian Christian society.

We wish all our readers a blessed Easter weekend.

resurrection - Our Blessed Hope Daniel Khan, Asst. Professor, Department of Political science

H

ave you ever wondered what life is all about, what happens when a person dies, is there hope beyond the grave? If you have these questions, let the events of the coming days i.e., Good Friday and Resurrection Day, bring new meaning and hope to your life. As it is, a Christian who understands the power of Christ’s resurrection has greater hope. The first and so far the only resurrection to eternal life has been that of our Savior, Jesus Christ. The first scriptural hint of Jesus' death and resurrection was written some six millennia ago, i.e., 4,000 years before the birth of Christ.

The resurrection of Jesus from the dead is the foundation of the Christian system (1. Cor. 15:14). If there was no resurrection, Christianity would be a hoax, and we would have been wasting our time. But the truth is, the event of Jesus’ resurrection is unquestionable. (1 Cor. 15: 16, 17) – If Jesus had simply died without being raised, Satan would have been victorious.

He would have defeated Jesus, and we would all still be in our sins. In order to defeat Satan and thereby justify us, Jesus had to rise from the dead. The resurrection is the triumphant and glorious victory for every believer. Jesus’ Resurrection rebuilt our hopes, gave joy, new beginning and new life.

Allow me to draw your attention to the changes which occurred as the result of our Lord’s resurrection. There are some important benefits of Jesus resurrection for all mankind.

Forgiveness of Past Sins (Matt. 28:10): “Don’t be afraid! Go tell my brothers to leave for Galilee, and they will see me there”. By “brothers” Jesus probably meant his disciples. This shows that He had forgiven them, even after they had denied and deserted him in His greatest hour of need. As we think about the resurrection in relation to our sins, we must recognize that, only because of the resurrection of Jesus we can have forgiveness for our past sins.

His resurrection gives us the assurance that Jesus has overcome death and won a great victory for His people. It is the resurrection that makes all the difference and puts us right with God. As Acts 4:12 says, “Salvation is found in no-one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.” There is no other way to heaven except through the risen Lord Jesus Christ. His death paid the penalty of our sins. His resurrection guarantees that God will forgive us of our sins when we sincerely and wholeheartedly cry out to him for forgiveness. “If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart God raised him from the death, you will be saved.” (Romans 10:8).

Power for Present Living (Matt. 28:20): The resurrection of Jesus not only guarantees forgiveness for past sins, it also guarantees power for present daily living. Because Jesus is a living savior, He empowers us to live each day for Him. As Jesus said, “I am with you always...” (Matt. 28:20). The resurrection of Jesus is a testimony to the resurrection of human beings, which is a belief of the Christian faith. It tells the world that the kingdom of God is ruled by a living Sovereign. Unlike all other religion, Christianity alone possesses a founder who transcends death and who promises that His followers will do the same. As Christians, we take comfort in the fact that our God became man, died for our sins, and was resurrected the third day. The grave could not hold Him. But the founder of Christianity – 60 years after his death appeared to John on the island of Patmos and said, “I am the first and the last and the living one; and I was dead and behold, I am alive for evermore.” Revelation 1:17-18).

Hope for Future Destiny (Matt. 28:20): - It is a magnificent promise that the power which raised Jesus Christ from the dead will one day raise believers back to life. 1st Corinthians 6:14 says, “By His power God raised Jesus from the dead, and He will raise us also.” Jesus told his disciples in John 14:1-2 just before he was crucified: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms, if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you”. Right now Jesus is preparing a place in heaven for every single believer, who trusts in Him with a real living faith. One day, those of us who wholeheartedly believe in Jesus will go to Him and live with Him in heaven for all eternity.

At one point of time, the Apostle Peter lost all his hopes because he had failed Christ miserably by denying him three times, the night of Jesus’ arrest. But still he was able to write about hope because Jesus’ resurrection changed everything and gave him a new hope and life. Thus, with confidence, he gives us three solid reasons to rejoice and have hope in 1st Peter 1:3-7: “Rejoice!

Your Past can be forgiven; Rejoice! Your Present can be handled; and Rejoice! Your Future can be secured.”

I want to ask you some questions today: Is Jesus alive in you? Has His resurrection become your resurrection? Are you benefitting daily from the resurrection? Are you saved?

Because of the resurrection of Jesus, your sins can be forgiven. You can know the power of Jesus in your daily life and havehope foreternal destiny. In three simple ways – acknowledge that you are a sinner; believe that Jesus died to pay for your sins; and confess and repent for your sins.

Trust in Him, in His death, burial, and resurrection because it has given us the assurance of Eternal salvation.

“Degree of Thought is a weekly community column initiated by Tetso College in partnership with The Morung Express. Degree of Thought will delve into the social, cultural, political and educational issues around us. The views expressed here do not reflect the opinion of the institution. Tetso College is a NAAC Accredited UGC recognised Commerce and Arts College.

For feedback or comments please email: admin@tetsocollege.org”.

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

Wednesday 16 April 2014

SC says transgenders ‘third category’

New Delhi/KolKAtA/thiruvANANthApurAm, April 15 (iANS): Transgenders should be treated as a third category and as a socially and economically backward class entitled to job reservation, the Supreme Court said Tuesday. Activists termed the verdict “revolutionary” but said social acceptance will take longer because of the stigma associated with them.

Recognising transgenders as a third gender, the apex court bench of Justice K.S. Radhakrishnan and Justice A.K. Sikri directed the central and state governments to include them for reservation in jobs and education.

The court also said both the union and state governments would frame welfare schemes for them.

Transgenders were elated at the judgment.

“The judgment is good in terms of recognising us as the third gender, but the discrimination will continue (in society),” Shaila Jaan, a transgender, told IANS. “Things will only change if the mentality of people towards us changes. So social awareness and change in the education system, along with acceptance will definitely bring change,” she added.

Chandni, a transgender, asked how will people treat them. “Will they ridicule me or will they make an effort to know and be friends with me?”

Activists Term Verdict Revolutionary

An Indian eunuch dances to celebrate the Supreme Court’s verdict recognizing a third gender category, in the eastern Indian city of Bhubaneswar, on Tuesday, April 15. India’s top court on Tuesday issued a landmark verdict recognizing transgender rights as human rights, saying people can identify themselves as a third gender on official documents. (AP Photo)

The judgment also gave hope to the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.

The verdict “is important on a global level and India is one of the few countries to give this landmark judgment”, gay rights activist Leslie Steven told IANS. Filmmaker and gay activist Onir also welcomed the judgment. “This judg-

ment also means hope to the LGBT community and we are hopeful to win that battle too,” Onir, who has directed movies like “I Am” and “My Brother Nikhil”, told IANS. In Kerala, human right activists termed the court verdict as “historic and revolutionary”.

“We have seen and heard about the ill-treatment meted out to trans-

genders because of the convention of human beings classified as male or female. They were treated as social outcasts. They will now get a new lease of life,” said former CPI-M lawmaker Sebastian Paul, who is also a lawyer.

West Bengal’s transgender community was also elated over the court ruling, saying it brings the promise of social security

and the much-needed infrastructural support from the state and central governments.

Estimated at about 20,000, members of the third gender in the state felt it would ensure a decent livelihood, respectable source of income and part of the national census.

Ranjita Sinha, project director of the Association of Transgender/Hijra in

Bengal, asserted the community’s presence, particularly the eunuchs or hijras, in Indian mythology and culture, which makes their recognition as a third gender justifiable.

Many from the community who would go into sex work because of lack of options would now be entitled to education and jobs, said Santosh Kumar Giri, a third gender and secretary of the group Kolkata Rista.

Two years ago, the Election Commission allowed enrollment of transgenders under the “Others” category in electoral rolls. Since then, 28,314 transgenders have been registered across India with the poll panel.

However, there are certain “inconsistencies” which need “revision”, according to gender-sexuality activist Pawan Dhall in context of the apex court ruling upholding section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, ruling that consensual gay sex between adults was illegal.

“Recognising them as a third gender means no one can point a finger at their sexual orientation whereas for lesbians and gays it is not the same. There is a contradiction in that. So the law has to be consistent with all and needs to be looked at,” Dhall, a founder-member of the voluntary organisation Varta that promotes gender and sexual education in Kolkata, told IANS.

The Morung Express

Show dying declaration of Delhi gangrape victim: SC

New Delhi, April 15 (iANS): The Supreme Court Tuesday asked Delhi Police to show the dying declaration of the Dec 16 gangrape victim as it extended its interim order putting on hold the execution of death sentence of Mukesh and Pawan Gupta who were convicted of the crime.

The apex court bench of Justice B.S. Chauhan and Justice J. Chelameswar asked Additional Solicitor General Siddharth Luthra to produce the dying declaration as counsel M.L. Sharma appearing for Mukesh and Pawan expressed his inability to produce it before the court.

Justice Chelameswar observed: “If dying declaration is convincing, then we don’t think why this court should interfere in the matter.”

Mukesh, Pawan, Vinay Sharma, Akshay Thakur and Ram Singh along with a juvenile were accused of gang rape and assault on a 23-year-old paramedical student inside a private bus. The victim and her friend were thrown out of the bus after the crime.

The victim died of grave intestinal injuries Dec 29, 2012, at Singapore’s Mount Elizabeth Hospital where she was airlifted to for specialised treatment.

The apex court bench of Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai and Justice Shiva Kirti Singh at a special sitting March 15, 2014, suspended the execution of the death sentence of Mukesh and Pawan till March 31. This was extended

by Justice B.S. Chauhan and Justice J. Chelameswar by a week till April 7, 2014, as court wanted to look into the trial court verdict.

The suspension of the sentence was once again extended by a week April 7, and the court asked Mukesh and Pawan’s counsel to place before it the post-mortem examination report of the Singapore hospital where the victim was treated and died of her injuries.

Mukesh and Pawan have contended that the prosecution’s story that the victim’s end came because of heavy bleeding on account of serious injuries to her intestines was not confirmed by the post-mortem report by the Singapore hospital.

They have contended that their trial was not free and fair, and the trial that started Jan 21, 2013, was under “public/political pressure” with “object to hang the petitioners (Mukesh and Pawan) and other accused people”.

Describing the entire trial as “miscarriage of justice”, the petitioners have contended that they were represented by a state-appointed advocate.

On March 13, the Delhi High Court bench of Justice Reva Khetrapal and Justice Pratibha Rani upheld the death sentence of Mukesh and Pawan along with two other convicts.

Modi regrets targeting Women candidates still stuck in ‘winability’ factor?

Manmohan, attacks Rahul

hAzAribAgh, April 15 (iANS): BJP’s prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi Tuesday regretted attacking Prime Minister Manmohan Singh but targeted Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi.

Addressing an election rally here, Modi said he regretted attacking Manmohan Singh as Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi were to blame for the party’s poor governance.

“Sometimes I used strong words against Manmohan Singh,” he said.

“After some books were released (recently), I felt I should not have targeted Manmohan Singh as the mother and son were responsible for everything.

“Sometimes the daughter and son-in-law were responsible, and everything was taking place under the leadership of the mother,” Modi said, referring to Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi.

But Modi launched a tirade against Rahul Gandhi over the latter’s allegation that Modi’s Gujarat government had given away land to corporate houses at a rate for which one could buy toffee: Rs.1.

Rahul Gandhi had also compared the Gujarat model of development to an in-

New Delhi, April 15 (iANS): Political parties have made a plethora of promises during the campaign for the 2014 general elections for the betterment of women and their pledge to reserve a third of seats in parliament and state legislators to women. But, surprisingly, when it comes to giving them an opportunity to contest the polls, the parties seem to have baulked at the idea.

“Women lose out when they are measured by the yardstick of winability. That is the argument which is given most of the time,” senior BJP leader and party spokesperson Nirmala Sitharaman told IANS. She’s not far off the mark. An analysis of the candidates fielded in the first five of the 10-phased polls shows that the number of women fielded by even the major political parties like the Congress and the BJP is woefully inadequate.

The Congress has fielded only 22 women among the 193 candidates it has named so far and the BJP only 10 women among its 202 candidates for the first five phases of the elections, said the NGO Association for Democratic Reforms, which works for accountability in the political process.

The Aam Admi Party (AAP), which made a debut at last year’s Delhi assembly elections, has also fallen short, with just 32 women candidates among the 200 it has fielded in the first five phases.

Sitharaman contended that it was high time the winability argument was questioned. “I see no other way than bringing in the women’s reservation bill to answer this problem,” she said of the bill the Rajya Sabha had passed but which lapsed as the Lok Sabha could not clear it during the pendency of the

flated balloon. Modi said Tuesday: “Will the country choose a person who wants to play with balloon and craves for toffee?

“I thought this election will be fought on serious issues. On one side are a galaxy of leaders in the BJP like L.K. Advani, Sushma Swaraj, Murli Manmohar Joshi and on the other side is a player who is still behaving like a child. “For 10 days balloon was on his lip. Now he speaks about toffee.”

Modi was in Hazaribagh to address a rally in favour of party candidate Jayant Sinha, the son of former central minister Yashwant Sinha. Modi also detailed the achievements of the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government of 1998-2004. He came down heavily on the UPA for keeping the NTPC power project in Jharkhand pending.

He urged youths top vote for the BJP for a better future and promised farmers that the minimum support price of foodgrain will be raised to 50 percent of the input.

“Those in the age group of 18 to 28 years need jobs, they warn to earn livelihood and feed their families…

They can’t afford to waste five more years by electing a wrong government,” Modi Two homeless children sleep on a pavement in front of a closed shop in Kolkata, on said.

Tuesday, April 15. (AP Photo)

15th Lok Sabha.

CPI-M politburo member and Rajya Sabha member Brinda Karat agreed.

“Women’s representation is not adequate, though it is better than before.”

Had it cleared parliament, the bill, which sought to reserve 33 percent of seats in parliament and state assemblies for women, would have set aside 179 of the Lok Sabha’s 543 seats - two members are nominated - for women in this election.

According to data released by Empowering India portal, a non-profit organization giving information on elections, the percentage of women winning in elections is far higher than men as in the 2009 national polls. The success rate for women candidates was 11 percent as compared to six percent for men.

Despite this, parties are still unwilling

to field more women candidates. Peeved at the low number of women candidates fielded, women’s groups are questioning the very call to women to vote. “When our presence is not considered important in parliament, when decisions about our future are taken without consulting us, why should we cast our votes to elect another group of politicians who do not believe in the cause of women’s empowerment in this country?” asked Ranjana Kumari, Director of the Centre for Social Research, while speaking to IANS. “The Indian constitution promulgated in 1950 promised to secure for all its citizens justice, social, economic and political, and equality of status and of opportunity. Despite this, women in India continue to be grossly under-represented in the legislatures, both at the national and the state levels,” she said.

Gopalkrishna Gandhi wants CBI under RTI Act

New Delhi, April 15 (iANS): Former West Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi Tuesday said the CBI should be brought back under the ambit of RTI Act and it should become “a people’s partner” to combat corruption.

Delivering the annual D.P. Kohli Memorial Lecture here organised by the CBI, Gandhi said the “RTI-trained public” won’t accept corruption and “it will expect, prod and make the CBI an instrument of change”.

“It is important, therefore, that the CBI establishes a partnership with the people of India,” he said, addressing an audience that included former and present directors of the Central Bureau of Investigation.

“At present, the CBi and the people of India are poles apart. The CBI is clothed in opacity, then ornamented by secrecy and finally perfumed by mystery.

“This,” he added, “has to change.”

Gandhi pointed out that for a short

time the CBI -- the country’s premier investigation agency -- came under the RTI act.

“The heavens did not fall during that time. But the triple wrappings of opacity, secrecy and mystery made it move to be taken out of the purview of the RTI Act. “This is a great pity. The CBI is about investigation into corruption and certain crimes. It is not (a) security or intelligence agency.

“And even if some aspects of its investigation needed protection against disclosure, there are enough provisions under the RTI Act’s exemption clauses to have come to the CBI’s aid.

“But to remove the CBI from the purview oftheRTI Actaltogetheris,tomy mind, notjustun-transparentbutunwiseandultimately harmful to the CBI’s future as a people’s partner in the resistance to corruption and crime. “The CBI has nothing to lose and everything to gain by partnering (with) the pole of India,” Gandhi said.

Voters lured by cash handouts, drugs, bootleg liquor

New Delhi, April 15 (reuterS): Election officials have seized a record $36 million dollars of cash concealed in cars, private planes and even ambulances that they say was destined to buy off voters and pay for expenses over and above the spending limit.

Opinion polls show the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and its allies coming to power thanks to the popularity of Narendra Modi and widespread disgust with the Congress party, whose last years in power have been dogged by corruption scandals and a sharp economic slowdown.

Despite the dramatic political change it could bring, the 2014 election would appear to be the same grubby game of

cash-for-votes that has marred previous ballots in the world’s largest democracy, only this time on a far bigger scale.

Cash seized in the three weeks since the staggered election was announced has already surpassed the 1.9 billion rupees for the whole of the 2009 ballot period, the commission said.

Voting in this year’s election began on April 7 and winds up on May 12.

The Election Commission has also recovered 100 kg of heroin, most of it in Punjab that has long been a transit point for drugs from Afghanistan, but is now itself India’s heaviest consuming opium state.

More than 10 million litres of liquor have been seized, too, over the past 20 days as politicians pour

resources into an election that will cost an estimated $5 billion by the time it ends, second only to the last U.S. presidential election.

“The seizures that we have made of cash, liquor and drugs are far bigger than we had anticipated.

The scale of the problem is immense,” P.K. Dash, who leads the expenditure monitoring effort at the independent Election Commision, told Reuters.

He attributed the increase to the growing number of business leaders getting involved in politics, as Asia’s third-largest economy gears up for an expected second generation of reforms to restore rapid growth.

“A couple of elections ago it was not such a game of money,” Dash said. “Now

With a legal spending you have business people in politics, whereas earlier limit of 7 million rupees they were involved in man- ($116,200) for each parliamentary seat at stake, aging their empires.” much of the money being SPENDING GOES UN- spent by candidates has been driven underground.

DERGROUND They splash out on poPolitical funding remains opaque in India, litical rallies, luring voters with political parties refus- and party workers with ing to disclose fully their free meals, cash in envelopes, plastic pouches of sources of finance.

State funding has been alcohol and - in the case of mooted in the past to stop the youth of Punjab - small illicit spending, but the black balls of opium paste that they drink with tea. idea has never taken off.

Dash said his team had Critics say a first-pastthe-post system for elect- found cash in the dashing lawmakers means the boards of cars, liquor in pressure on candidates milk vans and synthetic to outspend their rivals drugs in trucks carrying is intense. And in a coun- vegetables.

One man caught with try where nearly a third of the population of 1.2 bil- 40 million rupees in a small lion is estimated to live car at a checkpoint in the on less than $1 a day, rela- northern town of Ghazitively little money can go a abad three days before polling there said he was a long way.

businessman.

But he could not explain what his business was and he seemed to have no source of income. Police filed a case against him, one of 9,000 lodged across the country since the campaign began.

In two southern states, vans carrying banknotes for bank ATMs were discovered with sacks of unaccounted-for additional money. Cash was also found in an ambulance in Odisha after a policeman noticed a suspiciously high number of the vehicles on the move in a remote corner of the eastern state.

To escape detection, politicians are handing out coupons to voters that they can use to get free alcohol and food.

In Punjab, the com-

mission has seized cartons of pink coupons that voters can exchange for a free chicken, blue coupons for local liquor and green ones for branded spirits.

ROLLING PIN BRIGADE More worrying is the distribution of drugs that is worsening an already serious problem in Punjab.

Besides heroin smuggled from over the border with Pakistan, record seizures of synthetic drugs have been made in the past month, the state’s additional electoral officer Raminder Singh said.

“It is contraband goods. You can’t say for sure for what purpose, (but) the fact that it has been caught during the election period makes it suspect,” said Singh.

Anita Sharma, an archi-

tect-turned-civil rights activist who is leading a campaign against drug abuse in elections in Punjab, said political workers hand out capsules of home-made drugs to youths who campaign for a candidate.

“They are fanning an already serious drug problem here,” Sharma said, citing a 2009 affidavit that the state government submitted to the high court saying 67 per cent of rural households in Punjab were home to at least one drug addict.

She and a band of women travel each day to the worst-affected areas to urge womenfolk to report instances of drug distribution. They all carry bread rolling pins in their hands as a symbol of their determination to flatten offenders.

InternatIonal

the Morung express

Wednesday 16 April 2014

Dimapur

9

Post, Guardian win Pulitzers for NSA revelations

NEW YORK, ApRil 15 (Ap): The Washington Post and The Guardian won the Pulitzer Prize in public service for revealing the U.S. government’s sweeping surveillance programs in a blockbuster series of stories based on secret documents supplied by NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

The Pulitzer for breaking news was awarded to The Boston Globe for its “exhaustive and empathetic” coverage of the Boston Marathon bombing and the manhunt that followed.

Two of the nation’s biggest and most distinguished newspapers, The Post and The New York Times, won two Pulitzers each on Monday, while the other awards were scattered among a variety of publications large and small.

The stories about the National Security Agency’s spy programs revealed that the government has systematically collected information about millions of Americans’ phone calls and emails in its effort to head off terrorist attacks. The resulting furor led President Barack Obama to impose limits on the surveillance.

The reporting “helped stimulate the very important discussion about the balance between privacy and security, and that discussion is still going on,” said Sig Gissler, administrator of the Pulitzer Prizes.

The NSA stories were written by Barton Gellman at The Washington Post and Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras and Ewen MacAskill, whose work was published by The Guardian

Snowden says Pulitzer Prize is a ‘vindication’ NEW YORK, ApRil 15 (Ap): National Security Agency leaker Edward Snowden says giving the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service to those who reported on the U.S. government’s sweeping surveillance efforts is “vindication.” Snowden issued a statement Monday through the Freedom of the Press Foundation congratulating The Washington Post and The Guardian on their awards for stories based on documents he provided. He became a board member of the nonprofit organization earlier this year.

Snowden says awarding the top prize in U.S. journalism to his colleagues is “a vindication for everyone who believes that the public has a role in government.”

He adds that the reporters he worked with faced “extraordinary intimidation” and other pressure to get them to stop reporting. Snowden added: “Their work has given us a better future and a more accountable democracy.”

In this Sept. 21, 2013 photo provided by the New York Times, part of New York Times photographer Tyler Hicks’ Pulitzer Prize-winning entry, a woman and children hide inside Westgate Mall during an attack by militants in Nairobi, Kenya. Hicks was awarded the 2014 Pulitzer Prize for breaking news photography, it was announced Monday, April 14, 2014, in New York. (AP Photo

US, the British newspaper’s American operation, based in New York.

“I think this is amazing news,” Poitras said. “It’s a testament to Snowden’s courage, a vindication of his courage and his desire to let the public know what the government is doing.”

Snowden, a former contract employee at the NSA, has been charged with espionage and other offenses in the U.S. and could get 30 years in prison if convicted.

He has received asylum in Russia.

In a statement issued by the Freedom of the Press Foundation, Snowden saluted “the brave reporters and their colleagues who kept working in the face

Empowering girls can curtail rape, sexual assault

CAlifORNiA, ApRil 15 (iANS): Simply empowering women to take responsibility to protect themselves can sharply reduce cases of rape and sexual harassment, a significant study reveals.

A low-cost empowerment programme for adolescent girls in Kenyan slums sharply curtailed rape and sexual harassment of these girls. They were living in an environment where women have low status and are frequently attacked, the researchers added.

The researchers at Stanford University’s school of medicine, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital Stanford and a non-profit ‘Ujamaa-Africa/No Means No Worldwide’ found that nearly 18 percent of participants had been raped in the year before their programme began. The intervention involved teaching girls verbal and physical techniques to prevent sexual harassment and assault.

The study evaluated the effectiveness of these techniques for 1,978 adolescents living in Nairobi slums. The girls received 12 hours of empowerment training over six weeks as well as two-hour refresher courses at three-, six- and 10-month intervals.

The empowerment training included lessons on self-efficacy, personal awareness, assertive communication skills and a variety of physical skills for defending against and escaping from single or multiple attackers.

“This study demonstrated that a simple intervention empowers girls to take responsibility for protecting themselves and leads to a major decrease in violence against those girls,” explained Yvonne Maldonado from Stanford University.

“We are teaching girls that it is OK to say no with-

of extraordinary intimidation, including the forced destruction of journalistic materials, the inappropriate use of terrorism laws, and so many other means of pressure to get them to stop.”

Snowden’s supporters have likened his disclosures to the release of the Pentagon Papers, the secret Vietnam War history whose publication by The New York Times in 1971 won the newspaper a Pulitzer. His critics have branded him a criminal.

“To be rewarding illegal conduct, to be enabling a traitor like Snowden, to me is not something that should be rewarded with a Pulitzer Prize,” said Rep.

Peter King, R-New York.

“Snowden has violated his oath. He has put American lives at risk.”

At The Boston Globe, the newsroom was closed off to outsiders, and staff members marked the announcement of the breaking-news award — coming just a day before the anniversary of the bombing — with a moment of silence for the victims.

“There’s nobody in this room who wanted to cover this story. Each and every one of us hopes that nothing like it ever happens again on our watch,” Globe Editor Brian McGrory told the newsroom.

The bombing last April 15 that killed three people

out feeling guilty, teaching them that ‘I have permission to defend myself’,” added Lee Paiva, cofounder of ‘No Means No Worldwide’.

UN warns Nepal against amnesty for civil war crimes

KATHMANDU, ApRil 15 (REUTERS): Nepal would weaken the foundations of “genuine and lasting” peace after a decade-long civil war if it gave amnesties for serious crimes committed during the conflict, the top United Nations human rights official said.

Nepal, home to Mount Everest and birthplace of Lord Buddha, is still recovering from a brutal conflict that ended in 2006 in which more than 16,000 died, hundreds disappeared and thousands were wounded or displaced.

Last week, the government drafted a law to set up two panels - Truth and Reconcilication Commission and the Commission on Disappeared Persons - as part of a peace deal that ended the conflict.

Navi Pillay, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, said the proposed legislation would grant powers to the truth panel to recommend amnesties for serious abuses, contrary to the core principles of international law.

She said the amnesty provisions in the bill, to be discussed by parliament this week, replicated those in an earlier law that was struck down by the Supreme Court in January. “This process should be victim centred, depoliticised and should respect the right to a remedy and accountability through criminal prosecution,” Pillay said of the transitional justice system.

Government troops and Maoist rebels committed widespread atrocities including rape, torture, arbitrary arrests and unlawful killings during the insurgency, human rights groups say. No one has been prosecuted in a civilian court so far.

and wounded more than 260 also led to a Pulitzer in the feature photography category for Josh Haner of The New York Times, for his photo essay on a blast victim who lost his legs.

The Times also won in the breaking-news photography category, for Tyler Hicks’ coverage of the Westgate mall terrorist attack in Kenya. The Washington Post won a second Pulitzer in the explanatory reporting category, for Eli Saslow’s look at food stamps in America.

The Pulitzers are given out each year by Columbia University on the recommendation of a board of distinguished journalists and others. The two win-

ners of the public service award will receive gold medals. The other awards carry a $10,000 prize.

The Center for Public Integrity’s Chris Hamby won for investigative reporting for detailing how lawyers and doctors rigged a system to deny benefits to coal miners suffering from black lung disease.

The prize for national reporting went to David Philipps of The Gazette of Colorado Springs, Colorado, for an investigation that found that the Army has discharged escalating numbers of traumatized combat veterans who commit crimes at home.

The Pulitzer for international reporting was

awarded to Jason Szep and Andrew R.C. Marshall of Reuters for their coverage of the violent persecution of a Muslim minority in Myanmar.

The Oregonian won for editorial writing for its focus on reforms in Oregon’s public employee pension fund.

The prize was the third in the newspaper’s history for editorial writing.

The Tampa Bay Times’ Will Hobson and Michael LaForgia in Florida won in local reporting for writing about squalid housing for the homeless.

“These reporters faced long odds. They had to visit dicey neighborhoods late at night. They had to encourage county officials to

be courageous and come forth with records,” said Neil Brown, Tampa Bay Times editor and vice president. “And in the end, what they were ultimately doing was standing up for people who had no champion and no advocate.”

The Philadelphia Inquirer’s architecture critic Inga Saffron won for criticism. At The Charlotte Observer, Kevin Siers received the award for editorial cartooning. No award was handed out for feature writing.

The Post’s Gelman said the NSA stories were the product of the “most exhilarating and frightening year of reporting.”

“I’m especially proud of the category,” he said. “Public service feels like a validation of our belief in the face of some pretty strong criticism that the people have a right to take part in drawing the boundaries of secret intelligence in a democracy.”

In the arts categories, the fiction prize went to Donna Tartt for “The Goldfinch,” while the general non-fiction prize was won

by Dan Fagin, for “Toms River: A Story of Science and Salvation.”

Alan Taylor won the history prize for “’’The Internal Enemy: Slavery and War in Virginia, 17721832” and the biography prize went to Megan Marshall for “Margaret Fuller: A New American Life.” The drama prize was awarded to Annie Baker for “The Flick” and Vijay Seshadri got the poetry prize for “3 Sections.” The music prize went to John Luther Adams for “Become Ocean.”

Russia tests US President’s ability to stop its advances

WASHiNGTON, ApRil 15 (Ap): With the White House asserting that Russia is stoking instability in eastern Ukraine, President Barack Obama is once again faced with the complicated reality of following through on his tough warnings against overseas provocations.

Obama has vowed repeatedly to enact biting sanctions against Russia’s vital economic sectors if the Kremlin tries to replicate its actions in Crimea, the peninsula it annexed from Ukraine, elsewhere in the former Soviet republic. Despite those warnings, Russian President Vladimir Putin appears to be testing Obama’s limits, instigating protests in eastern Ukraine, the White House says, and massing tens of thousands of troops on the border, but so far stopping short of a fullscale military incursion.

“They have been willing to do things to provoke the situation that no one anticipated,” Matthew Rojansky, a Russia analyst at the Wilson Center, said of Russia. “It’s such a highstakes, high-risk situation, and here they are right in the middle of it.”

For Obama, the U.S. re-

sponse to the chaos in Ukraine has become more than a test of his ability to stop Russia’s advances. It’s also being viewed through the prism of his decision last summer to back away from his threat to launch a military strike after Syria crossed his chemical weapons “red line” — a decision that has fed into a narrative pushed by Obama’s critics that the president talks tough, but doesn’t follow through.

While there has been no talk of “red lines” when dealing with Putin, Obama has said repeatedly that Kremlin advances into eastern Ukraine would be a “serious escalation” of the conflict that would warrant broad international sanctions on the Russian economy. But perhaps trying to avoid another Syria scenario, White House officials have carefully avoided defining what exactly would meet Obama’s definition of a “serious escalation,” even as they make clear that they believe Russia is fomenting the violence in cities throughout Ukraine’s vital industrial east.

“We are actively evaluating what is happening in eastern Ukraine, what actions Russia

has taken, what transgressions they’ve engaged in,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday. “And we are working with our partners and assessing for ourselves what response we may choose.”

As with the situation in Syria, Obama faces few good options as he watches Russia destabilize Ukraine, the former Soviet republic that has sought greater ties with Europe.

There’s little appetite in either the U.S. or Europe for direct military action, and the White House said Monday it was not actively considering sending Ukraine lethal assistance. That’s left Obama and his international partners largely reliant on economic and diplomatic retaliation.

Obama’s initial warning that Putin would face “costs” if he pressed into Crimea was largely brushed aside by the Russian leader, who went so far as to formally annex the peninsula from Ukraine. Economic sanctions on several of Putin’s closest associates followed, as did Russia’s suspension from the exclusive Group of Eight economic forum, but neither appears to have dis-

couraged Moscow from making a play for eastern Ukraine.

With tens of thousands of troops massed on Russia’s border with eastern Ukraine, Obama is facing calls from some Republicans to take tougher action now. Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker, the top Republican on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, sent Obama a letter over the weekend calling on the administration to immediately ratchet up economic penalties against Moscow.

“Rather than wait for a Russian invasion of eastern Ukraine to implement additional sanctions, which seems to be U.S. policy at the moment, we must take action now that will prevent this worst-case scenario before it becomes a reality,” Corker wrote.

Privately, some of Obama’s advisers are also pushing for more robust penalties now to serve as a deterrent against a full-on Russian military incursion. But questions remain about Europe’s commitment to take the kind of coordinated action that would stand the best chance of changing Putin’s calculus.

Killing of environmental activists rises globally

BANGKOK, ApRil 15 (Ap): As head of his village, Prajob Naowa-opas battled to save his community in central Thailand from the illegal dumping of toxic waste by filing petitions and leading villagers to block trucks carrying the stuff — until a gunman in broad daylight fired four shots into him.

A year later, his three alleged killers, including a senior government official, are on trial for murder. The dumping has been halted and villagers are erecting a statue to their slain hero.

But the prosecution of Prajob’s murder is a rare exception. A survey released Tuesday -- the first comprehensive one of its kind - says that only 10 killers of 908 environmental activists slain around the world over the past decade have been convicted.

The report by the London-based Global Witness, a group that seeks to shed light on the links between environmental exploita-

tion and human rights abuses, says murders of those protecting land rights and the environment have soared dramatically. It noted that its toll of victims in 35 countries is probably far higher since field investigations in a number of African and Asian nations are difficult or impossible.

“Many of those facing threats are ordinary people opposing land grabs, mining operations and the industrial timber trade, often forced from their homes and severely threatened by environmental devastation,” the report said. Others have been killed over hydroelectric dams, pollution and wildlife conservation.

The rising deaths, along with non-lethal violence, are attributed to intensifying competition for shrinking resources in a global economy and abetted by authorities and security forces in some countries connected to powerful individuals, companies and others behind the killings.

Three times as many people died in 2012 than the 10 years previously, with the death rate rising in the past four years to an average of two activists a week, according to the non-governmental group.

The victims have ranged from 70-year-old farmer Jesus Sebastian Ortiz, one of several people in the Mexican town of Cheran killed in 2012 while opposing illegal logging, to the machine-gunning by Philippine armed forces of indigenous anti-mining activist Juvy Capion and her two sons the same year.

Brig. Gen. Domingo Tutaan Jr., who heads the Philippine military’s human rights office, told the Associated Press that a military investigation showed the three died in crossfire as troops clashed with suspected outlaws. “We don’t tolerate or condone human rights violations and we hope Global Witness can work with us to pinpoint any soldier or officer

In this file photo taken, Feb. 6, 2012, and released by The Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR), Cambodian environmental activist Chut Wutty, left, stands next to a log in a jungle in Kampong Thom province north of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Wutty, who fought against massive illegal deforestation, was shot by a military policeman in April 2012 as he probed logging operations in one of the country’s last great forests. A survey released Tuesday, April 15, 2014 - the first comprehensive one of its kind – says that only 10 killers of 908 environmental activists slain around the world over the past decade have been convicted. (AP File Photo)

involved in those killings,” Tutaan said.

Brazil, the report says, is the world’s most dangerous place for activists with 448 deaths between 2002 and 2013, followed by 109 in Honduras and Peru with 58. In Asia, the Philippines is the deadliest with 67, followed by Thailand at 16.

“We believe this is the most comprehensive global database on killings of environment and land defenders in existence,” said Oliver Courtney, senior campaigner at Global Witness. “It paints a deeply alarming picture, but it’s very likely this is just the tip of the iceberg, because information is very hard to find and verify. Far too little attention is being paid to this problem at the global level.”

Reports of killings, some of them extensive, from countries like Central African Republic, Zimbabwe, and Myanmar, where civil society groups are weak and the regimes authoritarian, are not in-

cluded in the Global Witness count.

By contrast, non-governmental organizations in Brazil carefully monitor incidents, many of them occurring in the Amazon as powerful businessmen and companies move deeper into indigenous homelands to turn forests into soya, sugar cane and agrofuel plantations or cattle ranches. Clashes between agribusiness and the Guarani and Kuranji people in the Amazon’s Mato Grosso do Sul province accounted for half of Brazil’s killings during 2012, the report said. Human rights groups and news reports say killings are often carried out by gunmen hired by agricultural companies.

In Thailand, Sunai Phasuk of the U.S.-based Human Rights Watch echoed the report’s assertion that an “endemic culture of impunity” was prevalent, and that governments and their aid donors must address this.

10

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SPORTS

Wednesday 16 April 2014

The Morung Express

Phelps coming out of retirement Rockets win to secure

Paul Newberry

cords in two different events on the same day at the 2003 world championships in Barcelona. He took down the mark in the 100-meter butterfly during a semifinal heat and smashed his own record in the final of the 200 individual medley about an hour later.

AP National Writer

Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian ever, is coming out of retirement to swim next week at the Arena Grand Prix in Arizona.

The meet will be his first competitive meet since the 2012 London Olympics, where he won the last of his 18 golds and 22 medals overall — a staggering total no one else comes close to.

The swimmer's camp is remaining low-key about the comeback, refusing even to acknowledge it's the first step toward competing at the 2016 Rio Games although everyone knows Phelps wouldn't be going to all this trouble (drug testing, training five days a week) if he wasn't preparing for the only meet that really matters.

By taking that approach, Phelps has left himself with plenty of wiggle room should his comeback fail to meet his own incredibly high standards. Rest assured, he doesn't want to wash out like others who came out of retirement, including fellow swimmers Ian Thorpe and Janet Evans.

Both attempted to qualify for the London Olympics and didn't make it past their national trials, a sad epitaph to their brilliant careers.

Phelps' coach, Bob Bowman, insisted nothing can take away from Phelps' impact on the sport, no matter what happens over the next week or month or two years. "His legacy is sealed," Bowman told The Associated Press on Monday.

It should help that Phelps is planning to swim lessstrenuous races and fewer events than he did in his prime. And he's still only 28, far from over the hill as an

home-court advantage

LONDON CALLING: After serving a threemonth suspension over an embarrassing bong picture and facing doubts about whether he wanted to keep competing, Phelps returned for his fourth Olympics in 2012. He swam seven events — one less than in 2004 and 2008 — and started out with a disappointing fourthplace finish in the 400 IM. He bounced back to win four golds and two silvers, smashing Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina's record of FILE - In this Aug. 3, 2012, file photo, United States' Michael 18 career medals.

Phelps displays his gold medal for the men's 100-meter butterfly swimming final at the Aquatics Centre in the Olympic Park during the 2012 Summer Olympics in London. Phelps is coming out of retirement, the first step toward possibly swimming at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Bob Bowman, the swimmer's longtime coach, told The Associated Press on Monday, April 14, 2014, that Phelps is entered in three events — the 50- and 100-meter freestyles and the 100 butterfly at his first meet since the 2012 London Games at a meet in Mesa, Ariz., on April 24-26. (AP Photo)

YOUNG MICHAEL: In 2000, Phelps qualified for his first Olympic team at age 15, making him the youngest U.S. male swimmer since 1932. The following year, still three months short of his 16th birthday, he became the youngest male athlete. "He wouldn't be do- Spitz's iconic Olympic re- to set a world record in the San Antonio Spurs' Tony Parker (9) passes the ball off under pressure from Houston Rockets Dwight Howard (12) and Tering this if he didn't think he cord. Only 11 other ath- 200 butterfly. rence Jones (6) in the first half of an NBA basketball game Monday, April 14 in Houston. (AP Photo) could do it," said Dara Torres, letes have won as many who pulled off numerous gold medals in their ca- AUSSIE, AUSSIE, AUSSIE: HOUStON, ApriL 15 fourth quarter to go on top out the previous eight be- 76-68 entering the fourth A bit overlooked given (Ap): The Houston Rock- and was up by three later cause of a left ankle strain. quarter. comebacks and won three reers as Phelps won during silver medals at the 2008 Bei- that magical week in China. Phelps' Olympic domi- ets needed one win in their in the period when Hous- "I feel like I was in a better Houston led by nine For good measure, he set nance was his performance last two games or a loss by ton scored eight straight to rhythm, but I'm going to after the first quarter and jing Olympics at age 41.

How impressive is or was part of seven world at the 2007 worlds in Mel- Portland on Wednesday regain the lead at 95-90. A continue to get in shape, scored the first five points Phelps' legacy? Here's a records. The only time he bourne, Australia. Tunlayup by Jeff Ayres got the continue to do whatever I of the second quarter to exlook at five of his most missed out might have ing up for Beijing, he went to secure home-court adSpurs within four points can to get my wind back so tend its lead to 35-21. The vantage in their first-round been his most impressive 7-for-7 with five world rememorable moments: triumph — rallying to beat cords. Alas, he didn't get a playoff series against the before Harden knocked I can do more things on the Spurs had cut into the lead down a long 2-pointer with floor." The Spurs opened midway through the quarGREAT HAUL OF CHINA: Milorad Cavic by one-hun- chance to claim an eighth Trail Blazers.

They were certainly less than a minute left to the fourth quarter with a ter and got within 41-36 Phelps will forever be dredth of a second in the victory through no fault of 14-4 run to go on top 82- with about five minutes left his own; the heavily favored happy to wrap it up Mon- make it 100-94. linked to his remarkable 100-meter butterfly.

Marco Belinelli had 17 80 for their first lead since in the half after four quick U.S. team was disqualified day night instead of waitperformance in Beijing, in the prelims of the 400 ing until Wednesday to points to lead the Spurs, the first quarter. Belinelli points by Duncan. where he won eight gold DOUBLING DOWN: Phelps became the first medley relay while Phelps learn their fate. Chandler who limited the minutes got that run going with a medals (five individual, An alley-oop dunk by three relays) to break Mark swimmer to set world re- was resting up for the final. Parsons scored 21 points of stars Tim Duncan, Tony 3-pointer and finished it Duncan about three minutes later cut Houston's and Dwight Howard and Parker and Manu Ginobili with a jump shot.

Houston missed five lead to 48-40 late in the Terrence Jones added 20 with their top seed in the apiece to lift the Rockets to Western Conference play- shots, including two la- second quarter. Harden a 104-98 win over the San offs already secure. Dun- yups as San Antonio took got miffed at Ginobili's can had 12 points in less the lead. A layup by Parker physical defense after that Antonio Spurs.

The victory gave No. 4 than 30 minutes, Parker cut Houston's lead to three and put his left shoulder seed Houston home-court scored 10 in about 25 and points with about eight into him and knocked him advantage in their first- Ginobili had 10 in about 22. minutes left in the third to the ground as he drove riO DE JANEirO, ApriL 15 to 354.2 million for Roy Hodgson's market value is more than a third of round playoff series with "We definitely did what quarter. The Rockets then down the court. That play (AFp): Spain, Argentina and Brazil hopefuls. Belgium's squad outranks the 287 million euros for the entire Portland. "We fought hard we wanted to do," Parker used a 7-2 run to push their was initially ruled a flagrant have the most expensive squads of Italy at 336.1 million to 322.4 million Portugal squad. for it," coach Kevin McHale said. "We were able to play advantage to 64-56. Par- foul on Harden, causing Honduras bring up the rear with said. "It took a little longer everybody — no injuries sons started the run with him to yell and curse at the the 32 sides competing in the World for the Azzurri.

The report ranked Argentina and their squad valued at just 32.3 mil- than I hoped, but we knew — and we got a good sweat a 3-pointer and Jones did officials as Patrick Beverley Cup in June, Brazilian financial daily Barcelona superstar Lionel Messi as lion euros -- or less than one quarter we had to get 54 wins and out of it. We did some good the rest, starting with a tip- held him back.

Valor reported on Monday.

The squad of reigning champions the highest-valued player at 138.1 of Messi and half the estimated 67.4 we got there with one to stuff and Houston got the in before capping it with a The play was reviewed Spain is worth an estimated 486.9 million euros despite a 1.4 percent million for Brazil and Barcelona star spare. I'm glad we didn't win at the end." Harden soaring, one-handed alley- and knocked down to a million euros ($674 million), ahead drop in his estimated price over the Neymar, whose price tag is up 22.5 have to wait until Wednes- added 16 points with sev- oop dunk on a pass from personal foul, but Harden of 474.1 million euros for Argentina past year. Portugal and Real Madrid percent on last year. The values are day to try and get it." received a technical for his en assists for the Rockets, Harden. and 470.2 million for hosts Brazil, ac- forward Cristiano Ronaldo saw his based on 77 criteria including age, The Rockets scored behavior after the call. GiJames Harden agreed. who swept the four-game cording to sports analysis consultan- estimated value rise 11.4 percent technical ability, fitness and also "We wanted to come out series this season with San seven straight points later nobili made the free throw over the past year after he landed the marketing clout up to the date of the here and take care of busi- Antonio. Howard had 17 in the quarter to push its and Boris Diaw's hook shot cy Pluri Consultoria.

The company valued Germany's world player of the year accolade -- participating nations' last outings. ness and not rely on our last rebounds and Jones pulled lead to 14, but San Antonio got San Antonio within five, squad at 445.6 million euros with but he still trails Messi by more than The consultancy will update its val- game on the road," Harden down 11 for Houston. scored the last six points of but Howard reverse layup France coming in ahead of England 30 million euros. At 107.3 million ues after the final squads are unveiled said. San Antonio used a big It was the second game the quarter with four from left the Rockets ahead 50at 398.6 million euros for Les Bleus euros, Ronaldo's estimated current on May 7. run at the beginning of the back for Howard after he sat Ginobili to cut the lead to 43 at halftime.

Spain pip Brazil as World Cup's most expensive squad

Victorious Juve close in on third straight title

rOME, ApriL 15 (rEUtErS): Two goals in 10 first half minutes from Sebastian Giovinco and Fernando Llorente were enough for Juventus to close in on their third straight Serie A title with a 2-0 stroll at Udinese on Monday.

The win sent them eight points clear of AS Roma at the top on 87 points with five games remaining as a scudetto that has rarely looked in doubt heads towards the dominant Turin side.

Italy's Giovinco opened the scoring with a sweet curling strike after 16 minutes and fellow World Cup hopeful Llorente of Spain tapped in his 14th of the season following a goalmouth scramble at a corner 10 minutes later.

"This was a potentially dangerous match and we could not afford to drop points," Juve coach Antonio Conte told reporters.

"The title race is still open and we did well to face this match with the right determination, approach and concentration."

Without top goalscorer Carlos Tevez, it was left to Giovinco to provide Juve with thrust up front and his second of the season was a signal to Italy boss Cesare Prandelli that he was not to be forgotten. Cutting in from the right, he whipped in a superb shot with his left that flew past rookie Udinese keeper Simone Scuffet, who was unsighted by four players.

Tiny Giovinco was unlucky in the 69th minute when managing to squeeze

Juventus' Paul Pogba, left, and Udinese's Maurizio Domizzi, fight for the ball during the Serie A soccer match between Udinese and Juventus at the Friuli Stadium in Udine, Italy, Monday, April 14. (AP Photo)

off a shot after impressive close control in the area only to see his effort rebound back off the post. "I'd been looking for that goal, as I'd not scored for a while.

I'm glad it came in a match as important as this," said man of the match Giovinco.

SEWN UP Llorente's stabbed finish from close range, which game after Scuffet poked the ball away from Paul Pogba as it pinged around the area, was less elegant but ended the match as a contest. "It was a decisive match. We're very happy because there are fewer games left and the points difference is the same so it went brilliantly well for us," Llorente said.

Juve were comfortable enough to substitute their match winners with Mirko

Vucinic and Pablo Osvaldo to see out victory before Luis Muriel hit the post for Udinese in stoppage time.

Udinese stay 14th on 38 points after a flat performance befitting a side that has all but mathematically secured Serie A safety and has little left to play for.

Francesco Guidolin's side are 13 points clear of the drop zone and were playing two years to the day since the tragic death of their player Piermario Morosini, who died after suffering a heart attack and collapsing on the pitch while playing on loan at Livorno. Juve have to travel to the Italian capital to face Roma, who beat Atalanta 3-1 on Saturday, in their penultimate match next month but the title could already be sewn up by then.

South Korean Lee's doping ban reversed

SEOUL, ApriL 15 (rEUtErS): South Korea's Olympic badminton gold medallist Lee Yong-dae has had his one-year ban for missing dope tests reversed, the Badminton World Federation announced on Tuesday, leaving him free to compete at this year's Asian Games.

The 25-year-old won mixed doubles gold at the 2008 Games in Beijing and a bronze medal in the men's doubles in London four years later. Another Korean player, Kim Kijung, was also banned for one year but is now also free to compete.

The BWF had given the players one-year suspensions in January for "violating the requirements relating to filing whereabouts information and resulting missed tests under the BWF Anti-Doping Regulations".

Both players appealed the decision to the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).

At the time, the BWF said it chose not to dish out the maximum two-year ban due to Badminton Korea Association's (BKA) failure to make diligent efforts to keep it informed about the players' whereabouts.

On Tuesday, however, the BWF said on its official website that new evidence had been presented as part of the disciplinary process, evidence that should have been made available in January.

It added that the sanc-

tions had been reversed and the players were eligible to resume playing immediately.

"The information and evidence presented at the January hearing was insufficient and ambiguous and there was no proof beyond reasonable doubt that the players were not at fault," said the BWF. "The appropriate decision applied at that time.

"However, this new evidence renders the CAS Appeal almost entirely unnecessary as it means 'material evidence' would be presented for the first time without having been made available to or evaluated by the BWF Doping Hearing

Panel."

After reviewing its original decision, the BWF panel wiped out the players' "missed tests and filing failures" and expunged their records.

The doubles specialists will now be able to compete at the Asian Games from Sept. 19 to Oct 4 on home soil in Incheon.

'LEE EFFECT' At a news conference in Seoul, a smiling BKA president Shin Kye-ryun, flanked by lawyers who argued the players' case, said justice had been done.

The association had admitted the situation had arisen due to their admin-

istrative errors and that the athletes had done nothing wrong, he added.

"The last three months were difficult for us. Lee and Kim had a lot to say but they had to endure all this time. I am so grateful for them," Shin added.

"Lee said to me on the telephone, 'I am extremely sorry and grateful to the Korean citizens. I will do my best in training for the Games and repay the debt that I owe to my fans.'"

Jeffrey Jones, one of the lawyers acting for the players, said the lesson to be learned was that Korean sports bodies had to strictly abide by rules and regulations. "The Korean asso-

ciation did not fully understand the importance of rules and regulations... we lawyers are not smart but we studied regulations and procedures," added Jones.

While it was still possible that the World AntiDoping Agency (WADA) could revive the case, Jones said it was unlikely as he had already spoken to them and they did not seem eager to drag the case further.

Even if WADA moved to press the case again, "Lee Yong-dae can compete in the Asian Games because a whole new trial should be open and the verdict won't be made until the end of the Asian Games,” added Jones, who also helped soccer player Park Jong-woo get his Olympic bronze medal after the IOC withheld it from him.

Following South Korea's victory over Japan in 2012, Park triggered a diplomatic row by holding up a sign referring to a territorial dispute between the Asian neighbours.

Jones represented Park at an IOC hearing and the player was able to receive his medal last year.

The BKA's Shin said the association would hire an official to manage athletes schedules and interpreters in a bid to avoid future issues. "Lee went through an unfortunate event but I think there is 'Lee Yong-dae effect' after all. What I mean by that is: 'Wow things like that can happen to athletes like Lee!' so we should be more careful and vigilant."

Wednesday

Entertainment

The Morung Express

16 April 2014

C M Y K

to receive Break through Artist of the Year Award

Produced by Pharrell Williams, the neo-soul superhero anthem "It's On Again" also features Hans Zimmer's cinematic touch.

P

op singer Ariana Grande is set to receive the Breakthrough Artist of the Year Award at the Music Biz 2014 Awards. The Way hitmaker will be honoured by officials at the Music Business Association on 8 May (14) during a ceremony in Los Angeles.

Grande, who first made a name for herself as a star on Nickelodeon's popular kids' show Victorious, will be feted for her standout achievements as a singer over the past year, including a number one record on the U.S. charts with her debut album, Yours Truly.

Grande, 20, expresses her gratitude for the prize in a statement which reads Music has always been my first love, so receiving this Award is a true honour for me. I've been pursuing a career as a singer since I was eight, and it's a great feeling to know that the industry has embraced me with open arms.

Previous recipients of the Breakthrough Artist of the Year award have included Emeli Sande, Nicki Minaj, John Legend and Carrie Underwood. Twisted Sister frontman Dee Snider will also be honoured at the event for his philanthropic work with the Harry Chapin Memorial Humanitarian Award.

T

he Alicia Keys-Kendrick Lamar collaboration for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was released on Monday, and the neo-soul superhero anthem marks another harmonious pop pairing for Pharrell Williams and Hans Zimmer.

Zimmer's presence is felt throughout Williams' recent album release, G.I.R.L., and the two again layer cinematic string sec-

Johnny Depp subpoenaed in 'bizarre' murder case

J

ohnny Depp has been dragged into a bizarre murder case by a lawyer who wants to prove that his client is insane. The 50-yearold actor was served legal documents at the premiere of his upcoming sci-fi movie, 'Transcendence'.

Nancy Lekon, who has been charged with murder, was driving a limo in downtown L.A's Skid Row neighbourhood back in 2009 and allegedly mowed down a pedestrian, dragging her for a mile and killing her, TMZ.com reported.

At that time, Lekon, who has pled not guilty, had told the cops that she was in a relationship with Depp. The lawyer now wants Depp to testify to show the jury that his client is delusional.

Orlando Bloom Visits Syrian

Refugees in Jordan with UNICEF

S

itting at the back of a basic classroom in a refugee camp, Orlando Bloom appeared a million miles away from his pampered Hollywood life.

Something the 37-year-old actor was only too

during his two day visit. with extreme heat in the His empathy was no doubt summer.

The British star lisheightened by the fact he is a father to a three-year-old tened inboy, Flynn, who he cares for with his

dren l i h c n a Syri flict s t e e m as he tated by con l o o h c to s een devas k c a b s goe ves have b m o o l B li tently as he o Orland Jordan whose es- joined the children for in tranged model classes, including a music

aware of as he revealed the 'little or no hope for the future' that the Syrian children he met in Jordan feel.

The Pirates of the Caribbean heartthrob, who

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Ariana Grande

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became a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 2009, has shared a bleak picture of life for the over 100,000 refugees, who are currently forced to call Za’atari, one of the largest refugee camps in the world, home.

'These families had lives that most of us can relate to,' Orlando told UNICEF

wife Miranda Kerr.

'Parents had jobs. Kids went to school and got to play. This war obliterated their lives and uprooted them from their homes.

Now they're living in precarious situations with lit-

tle or no hope for their futures,' he said. 'They don't want to live like refugees.

They just want their lives back and a future for their children.' Families live in tents and tiny caravans in a harsh desert area next to the Syrian border. There are freezing temperatures in the winter, contrasted

lesson, at one of the schools that have been set up in the camp to provide some feeling of normality. Later, the actor visited a Syrian family in the northern city of Irbid, Jordan, who fled violence in Aleppo - Syria's largest city - two years ago.

Sitting on the floor cross-legged in jeans and a black UNICEF T-shirt, Orlando appeared concerned as he heard how what little savings the family had are gone and how life has become increasingly difficult. He then appeared to share a joke with a young girl in a tartan dress as he sat alongside her father Samer like any other visitor. Samer told Orlando about how he was tortured in his homeland, and about the fears that his children still carried even after being in Jordan for two years.

It is hoped the Alister's visit will raise awareness for the much needed money UNICEF need to continue their vital work across the region. Over five-and-a-half million children have been affected since the conflict in Syria began in 2011 and over a million Syrian children are now living as refugees. This has led to limited access to clean water, nutrition and education. What makes things even worse, Orlando added, is 'these children have seen more extreme violence than any child should'.

tions over funk beats for "It's On Again." Lamar kicks off the track with his rap verse, while Keys sings of carrying out superhero duties. The song is the film's closer.

"I'm very excited to be a part of such a powerful collaboration with Kendrick Lamar, Pharrell Williams and Hans Zimmer," said Keys in a statement when the track was announced. "This is the next

chapter in the Spider-Man legacy and we really feel 'It's On Again' captures the experience, the story — and most importantly — the meaning behind the film, which is that we all have the potential to be extraordinary. There's a little bit of a superhero in all of us." Added Williams, "Hans has created an iconic score theme and it was exciting to collaborate with him again on this

song. When I was making the song, I knew Alicia and Kendrick had to be on it. They take the song to a whole new level."

"It's On Again" will be available on iTunes, while the entire Amazing Spider-Man 2 Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is set for an April 22 release.

The soundtrack will also feature new material from Williams, the Neighbourhood, Alvin Risk and LIZ.

Phosphorescent's "Song for Zula" is also listed.

The Amazing SpiderMan 2 score was composed by Zimmer, with the Magnificent Six — Williams, Incubus' Mike Einziger, Johnny Marr, Junkie XL, Andrew Kawczynski and Steve Mazzaro. The film, starring Andrew Garfield, Emma Stone and Jamie Foxx, will hit U.S. theaters on May 2.

Naomi Watts Opens Up About Diana Flop

A

ctress Naomi Watts has shrugged off the box office failure of her Diana, Princess of Wales biopic, insisting she knew there were problems with the film. The Impossible star played the tragic British royal in Diana, which failed to pull in audiences on both sides of the Atlantic following its release last year (13), making less than $65,000 (£43,600) in the U.S. in its opening weekend.

Watts has now opened up about the movie's disappointing performance, and compared the film to a sinking ship. She tells Australia's Harper's Bazaar magazine, I got seduced by the fantastic character. Diana did a lot of things that had positive and negative results. She was multifaceted...

But ultimately there were problems (with the film) and it ended up taking a direction that was not the one I was hoping for. With risk there is every chance it's going to fail. If you have to go down with that sinking ship, so be it. The film focused on the princess' love life in the years leading up to her death in a car crash in Paris, France in 1997.

C M Y K

Sunny Prem Chopra Leone is 'a happy to host

villain'

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ctress Sunny Leone will host the upcoming seventh season of popular reality show `Splitsvilla`. Splitsvilla, aired on an entertainment channel, is based on the American dating reality show `Flavor of Love`. Sunny, 32, has decided to return to the small screen as the host of Splitsvilla and will replace actress Sherlyn Chopra for the upcoming (seventh) season of the dating show, a source said.

The `Ragini MMS 2` star had earlier participated in the fifth season of reality show `Bigg Boss`. She is doing the show this season.

She will be hosting the show and will be seen on regular basis (on the show). Every time we try something new for every season, we thought getting her (Sunny) was a good idea for the show,a source said.

The reality show revolves around young boys and girls trying to secure a place in Splitsvilla which is a `Villa`.

It is a `hunt for love` show where they compete in tasks to stay in the competition and mingle with contestants to find love. In the end, a boy and a girl are crowned the winners of Splitsvilla (they are a couple.) It is yet not known, how many contestants will be part of the show this season.

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eteran actor Prem Chopra, popular for playing negative roles on the big screen, says he has no regrets and he is happy being a villain.

I have been an honest and hard working actor irrespective of the status of the film, whether it's big or small. I always wanted to create certain characters which I thought I will be getting them but eventually it was going to the heroes.

As a person, if you ask me 'Do you have any regrets' I have no regrets. I

have been a happy villain, Prem, who acted as villain in 1960s films like Teesri Manzil and Woh Kaun Thi, told reporters here at the unveiling of his biography Prem Naam Hai Mera Saturday evening.

Meanwhile, the actor is also happy for veteran lyricist Gulzar, who has been chosen to receive the Dadasaheb Phalke Award. It's a moment to cherish. I am very happy for him. Whoever is deserving, gets it.

Good luck to Gulzar, said Prem.

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for an Inclusive nagaland IPL 7 to kIck off In UAE SON launches torch run and flame of hope UndEr sHAdoW of grAft

16-April

18:30 1st IPL

Abu DhAbi, April 15 (iANS): The seventh edition of the lucrative Indian Premier League (IPL) gets underway here Wednesday night with allegations of corruption and spot-fixing looming over it.

The first 20 matches, from Wednesday to April 30, will be played in the UAE as the dates were clashing with India's General Election. The Twenty20 bandwagon will return home for matches scheduled from May 2-June 1.

The first match is between defending champions Mumbai Indians, captained by Rohit Sharma, and Gautam Gambhir-led Kolkata Knight Riders, winners of the 2012 edition.

The organisers are hoping that cricket takes the centre stage and not drama and scandals -- as in the last edition. The Supreme Court, which appointed legendary Indian batsman Sunil Gavaskar to oversee the seventh edition of the IPL, would also be keeping tabs on the happenings.

Off-field issues aside, IPL-7 promises to be a closely fought affair. Fresh auctions earlier in the year saw the merry-go-round of players and every franchise has a fair sprinkling of new faces, though most of them have been regulars in the tournament. Many iconic players find themselves in new company, making opponents in yesteryears comrades today.

For one, Yuvraj Singh, who cost the Royal Challengers a small fortune, will, along with his India teammate and franchise captain Virat Kohli, look to right the wrong of the World T20 final where he choked against the wily Sri Lanka attack.

With prolific batsmen Chris Gayle and AB de Villiers, besides Yuvraj and Kohli, RCB, without doubt, have the most dangerous batting line-up. Delhi Daredevils, too, spent big

Mumbai Indians vs Kolkata Knight Riders Abu Dhabi

shahrukh-deepika set to Perform At IPL 7

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ollywood superstar Shahrukh Khan and charming Deepika Padukone are gearing up to entertain their fans, but this time not on the big screen but at the opening ceremony of Indian Premiere League (IPL) to be held at Abu Dhabi on April 16. Meanwhile, SRK who owns the team of Kolkata Knight Riders along with his wife Gauri Khan and youngest son AbRam Khan were spotted at Abu Dhabi.

While, SRK's other two kids are regular visitors of IPL but this will be little AbRam's first IPL youngster will be seen at have always been eyetour, however it is not the stadium or not. Open- balls catching and the IPL confirmed whether the ing ceremonies of IPL 7 ceremony will also not

be any exception as King Khan and Deepika are all ready to set the floor on fire. Both the stars will perform in some of their super hit tracks and the rehearsals are on in full swing.

Meanwhile, SRK recently posted a self picture on Twitter saying, "All night in Abu Dhabi. I haven't slept last two days but I know it will be a real fun with the IPL Players and so hard work comes easy." His tweet added, "The full moon has followed me from Mumbai to Abu Dhabi...so has it's dark side. Nice to be here and seeing all my IPL buddies. Bulawa Aaya Hai."

sachin tendulkar monitors MI training

Abu DhAbi, April 15 (pTi): The Mumbai Indians players were buoyed by the presence of Sachin Tendulkar, who joined the team`s training session here today as the high-profile franchise starts its title defence against Kolkata Knight Riders in IPL 7 on Wednesday.

The MI players were overjoyed as Tendulkar, who reached here late last night, came in the team`s practise outfit at the Sheikh Zayed Stadium in Abu Dhabi.

Having retired from all forms of the game after the Test series against West Indies ended on November 16 last year, Tendulkar seemed to be itching to have a hit in the nets. He has already been named as an "MI and purchased the likes of Dinesh Karthik and Kevin Pietersen. With the new purchases on board, the GMR-owned team is expected to do better, having had a dismal season last year, finishing at the bottom of the ladder.

Mumbai will be without their talisman and city icon Sachin Tendulkar but with some key additions like Mike Hussey and Corey Anderson, they would look

Icon" recently and will also do his bit to promote the franchise`s cause of "Education for All".

The legend today padded up and had a half-an hour session at the nets during which he was a picture of concentration as if he is going to be a part of the playing XI tomorrow.

He also did his customary knocking facing throwdowns from a member of the support staff. "It was a lesson for the youngsters in the manner Sachin went about his drills.

If someone thought that he wanted to hit a few balls for fun, they were mistaken. His drills were just like it used to be before a match," an MI source told PTI today.

Tendulkar also keenly watched

to repeating last year's winning performance. Rajasthan Royals, the team most affected by the spot-fixing and betting charges, will be without Indian cricket's great wall Rahul Dravid, but he will be around to advise them. They once again look to be one of the weaker teams in the competition and with only four matches slated to be played at their home ground Sawai Mansingh Stadium, in Jai-

the Rohit Sharmas and the Kieron Pollards at the net session and was seen talking to chief coach John Wright. The highest scorer of all time in international cricket, will be a part of the team`s think-tank where in he will be providing inputs to coach Wright and skipper Sharma on team combination and strategies.

The iconic cricketer had said a few days earlier about how he would want to contribute with his expertise as Mumbai Indians aim to do an encore like Chennai Super Kings did in 2010, 2011 editions of the cashrich league. "I have been a part of the Mumbai Indians team since its inception and am delighted to continue my association.

pur, things could get difficult for them. After winning in 2012, the Kolkata Knight Riders couldn't quite carry the same form into the following season, failing to qualify for the playoffs and finishing a disappointing seventh in the nine-team league.

The Knight Riders, though, have made some very smart buys this year.

They have brought in Australian pacer Pat Cum-

mins and Indians Piyush Chawla and Umesh Yadav to strengthen their bowling which was a major issue last year. The mercurial Robin Uthappa has been roped in to give the batting some much needed power. Add to that prolific all-rounders like Jacques Kallis, ShakibAl Hasan and Andre Russell -- and the Kolkata outfit have the wherewithal to give any team a run for their money.

Nagaland governor, Dr. Ashwani Kumar, writing a message on the banner after lighting the ‘Flame of hope; organized by Special Olympics Nagaland at DDSC Stadium on Tuesday. Also seen is Independent MLA and chairman, NSMDC, Thomas Lotha.

DiMApur, April 15 (MExN): Nagaland governor, Dr. Ashwani Kumar, has expressed optimism about an “Inclusive Nagaland” where there is no discrimination on grounds of disability or disparity of health or wealth.

Inaugurating the mass awareness campaign (torch run and flame of hope) organized by Special Olympics Nagaland here at DDSC Stadium on Tuesday, the governor said it is a matter of satisfaction that in Nagaland, there are so many “noble organizations” and kind people working for the differentlyabled.

“This flame of Hope which we have lit today with the torch brought by these special athletes signifies the desire of the people assembled here for an ‘Inclusive Nagaland’”, Kumar said after lighting the ‘Flame of Hope.” The governor also commented on the commendable culture of Naga people, who according to Kumar, are known for visiting hospitals and looking after welfare of the sick and needy.

Kumar said that though every human being may be

born different and brought up differently with several disparities in health, however, the society and the state should take the onus to see that each and every member are given equal consideration.

In this regard, the governor commented that while crores of rupees have been spent by the Government of India and Nagaland on construction of stadiums and sports complexes in the state, these venues remained “underutilized” for most of the years.

He said the case of Indira Gandhi Stadium in Kohima, constructed in 2003, had been hardly been in use. He suggested that instead of the stadium lying waste, the facility could be used for holding Special Olympics and sports meet for the differently abled.

To buttress his argument, the governor cited the example of China, where after the Olympics Games in Beijing in 2008, the international Paralympics was held in September 2008 in the same stadium and World Special Olympics in Shanghai which was held in the year 2007 before the actual Olympics.

He said the gesture of the Chinese government had clearly sent a message to the world that there was need to give equal importance and full consideration to the people with special needs.

“The state government and society must utilize these facilities and provide more opportunities to our children to improve their physical health, stamina and competitive spirit”, Kumar said.

On the occasion, the governor also presented certificates to special athletes who have won various medals at national and international Special Olympics Games.

MLA and chairman, Nagaland State Mineral Development Corporation (NSMDC) N. Thomas Lotha, who led the ‘Torch Run’ from Clock Tower to DDSC Stadium, in his address said the state government has in its “priority list” the construction of a Regional Training Institute for differently-abled persons in Dimapur.

Thomas urged the governor to use his good office to remind the centre on the institute.

Heat lose to Wizards; Pacers get top seed Zidane wanted to coach france

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Miami Heat guard Dwyane Wade (3) shoots in front of Washington Wizards forward Martell Webster (9) and forward Nene (42), from Brazil, in the first half of an NBA basketball game, Monday, April 14, 2014, in Washington. The Wizards won 114-93. (AP Photo)

WAShiNGTON, April 15 (Ap): LeBron James' only visible significant role was that of postgame heckler, interrupting Michael Beasley's interview amid a loose, upbeat locker room that normally wouldn't jibe with a 21-point loss — or throwing in a towel in the race for a No. 1 seed.

James and Chris Bosh took the night off Monday, and the Heat were beaten 114-93 by the Washington Wizards in a no-contest game that guaranteed the Eastern Conference's top

seed for the Indiana Pacers.

So, no disappointment at all? "There would be no disappointment," said Dwyane Wade, who played because he needed some minutes after his recent nine-game layoff with a hamstring injury. "When the playoffs start, we have a new season and we will be looking forward to it."

So the Pacers are locked in to a first-round series against the eighth-seeded Atlanta Hawks, while the two-time defending champion Heat get the No.

2 seed and either the Wizards or the Charlotte Bobcats. Miami began the day still in contention for the top spot, but they would have needed to win their last two games and have Indiana lose to Orlando on Wednesday because the Pacers hold the head-tohead tiebreaker.

Figuring it would be better to be fresh for the postseason, Heat coach Erik Spoelstra sat two of his Big Three, saying they were dealing with "minor ailments" from "the residual

of a long season."

"It was out of our control. Those guys put in a lot of mileage," Spoelstra said.

"Our schedule was fairly extreme down the stretch. I've never been a part of a group that's played that many games in that few of days down the stretch. That's not an excuse, but we want to just make sure our guys are sharp and feeling healthy."

James has made it part of his annual routine to rest before the playoffs.

He missed the final game in 2011 and sat out the last two in both 2012 and 2013.

Trevor Ariza scored 25 points to lead the Wizards, who shot 59 percent and made 14 3-pointers and remain one game ahead of the Bobcats in the race for the No. 6 seed. Washington has made it a point to avoid finishing seventh to keep from having to face the Heat in the first round — knowing full well the cast of characters will be different than it was Monday night.

"We played against a totally different Miami Heat today than usual," Wizards center Marcin Gortat said. "Nothing to be excited about. … It was more like a scrimmage game than a big battle." The Heat went with their 20th starting lineup of this season and trailed by as many as 36 in the second half. Beasley finished with 18 points, Toney Douglas had 14, and Wade scored nine in 18 minutes. Miami has lost four of five and is just 11-13 since March 4, including 3-9 on the road.

pAriS, April 15 (Ap): Midfield great Zinedine Zidane offered to coach the national team two years ago but was turned down by the president of the French Football Federation. Noel Le Graet says in a book due out this week that Zidane expressed an interest in replacing Laurent Blanc after the 2012 European Championship.

Blanc and Zidane played together when France won the 1998 World Cup and Euro 2000.

France Football magazine published an extract on Tuesday from Le Graet's

book, "Champions du beat Brazil 3-0 and also in next season as a possible monde 98, secrets et pou- the 2006 final — has been replacement for Claudio voir" (98 world champions, linked to the Monaco job Ranieri. secrets and power).

In it, Le Graet writes "Zinedine Zidane would have liked to have coached Les Bleus," adding "it's clear, he wanted it" and "I met him at his request."

But Le Graet refused because Zidane, now Real Madrid's assistant coach, lacked experience.

"It was not the moment, he needed to coach a team first," Le Graet said.

The 41-year-old Zidane — who scored twice in the 1998 final when France

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