3rd June 2014

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Dimapur VOL. IX ISSUE 150

The Morung Express “

www.morungexpress.com

Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower

Telangana erupts in joy; KCR takes over as 1st CM

reflections

By Sandemo Ngullie

–Steve Jobs

[ PAGE 2]

US politicians question prisoner swap with Taliban

LUckNow/NEw DELhI, JUNE 2 (IANS): Pressure mounted Monday on the Akhilesh Yadav government in Uttar Pradesh over the grisly gang rape and murder of two minor girls in Badaun, with politicians and human rights agencies blaming the government If you`re in a hurry to reach Dhobi nullah. I suggest for the poor law and order you take the Merapania- situation in the state.

In Lucknow, activists Wokha road. of the Bharatiya Janata Party women’s wing held a march and surrounded the chief minister’s office to protest against the rising incidents of atrocities against women in the state.

Lok Janshakti Party chief Ram Vilas Paswan and his son and Lok Sabha member Chirag Paswan Monday met the families in Katra Sadatganj village and said they were living in constant fear and accused the Samajwadi Party government of conThe Morung Express niving with criminals. Pasthe union minister for POLL QUESTIOn wan, consumer affairs, food and Vote on www.morungexpress.com public distribution, lashed SMS your anSwer to 9862574165 out at the Akhilesh Yadav government for not doing Are educational qualifications necessary enough in the aftermath of for a ministerial post in the crime. He questioned the government? the decision of the chief minister to stay away from Yes no Others the village.

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DIMAPUR, JUNE 2 (MExN): Members of the Christian Forum, Dimapur, have urged the NSCN (IM) to “reconsider re-opening of the door of active dialogue towards achieving the common goal of the Nagas everywhere.”

“The ACAUT, the FNR, Peace Talks and public cry are mutually inclusive to serve the same and common purpose of solving Naga Issues,” stated chairman Rev. L. Bizo, secretary Fr. Chacko Karinthayil, and vice-president Rev. Dr. P. Dozo of the Christian Forum, Dimapur, today. “It is a known fact that the ACAUT is endeavoring hard not only for cleaner civil society, but even for a better political order at home with the theme “One Government, One Tax” which has already received the seal of approval as people’s mandate. No other national principle can be better and greater than unity, peace; and integrity of people and their sacred common aspiration,” they noted. Furthermore, they reminded that the spirit of the Lenten Agreement would be kept alive, “which was signed during the Lenten period that related to the suffering and death of Our Lord culminating in forgiveness of human sins for our redemption has been a step forward.”

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Violence against women is a human rights issue

Pressure mounts on UP government over gang rape, murder of minors

NSCN (IM) urged to reopen dialogue with ACAUT

Maria reaches French Open quarterfinals

[ PAGE 9]

[ PAGE 11]

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Tuesday, June 3, 2014 12 pages Rs. 4

Students learning about wildlife and biodiversity

Raveena wants new government to focus on northeast India

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Special centres for rape victims, assures Maneka

An Indian woman, left, one among the protestors demonstrating outside the office of Uttar Pradesh state chief minister Akhilesh Yadav, demanding that he crack down on an increasing number of rape and other attacks on women and girls, scuffles with police in Lucknow, India, Monday, June 2. Police used water cannons to disperse hundreds of women who were protesting Monday against a rise in violence against women in the northern Indian state where two teenagers were gang-raped last week and later found hanging from a tree. (AP Photo)

In New Delhi, Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi described the incident as a “terrible” case and said the centre was viewing it very seriously. “It is a terrible case and symptomatic of what is happening in the country,” Gandhi told reporters. Asked if she would also visit the families, like other politicians, the minister said: “I will not go

there. I would use that time to put in place an institution to make sure that such incidents do not recur.”

The two girls, aged 14 and 15 years, were abducted, gang raped and murdered May 27 when they went to relieve themselves in a field. Their bodies were later found hanging from a tree.

Maneka Gandhi also questioned the need for a CBI probe into the incident

as “it is an open and shut case”. “Men commit rape and molestation as they can get away with it,” she added.

Meanwhile, the union home ministry, asked the state government why the SC/ST Act was not slapped against culprits in the case.

“The law is there. It is to protect the SCs and STs from atrocities. It was a clear case of atrocity on a weaker section of the society. We do

not know why the state government has not slapped it (clauses) against the accused,” Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju told reporters. National Commission for Women chairperson Mamta Sharma also expressed her anguish over the incident. She said the state government has suspended one constable, but the superintendent of police and senior superin-

NEw DELhI, JUNE 2 (IANS): The government would set up special centres for rape victims in each district of the country to give them protection, medical treatment and legal help, Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi announced Monday.

The project which will approximately cost Rs.500 crore would be set up by the end of this year, Gandhi said during a media briefing here. The centres will provide medical and legal help to rape victims as well as police and ambulance services, she said.

“We have funds for the project, but if needed we will take money from the Nirbhaya Fund, which was created for the welfare of women in the aftermath of the December 2012 Delhi gang-rape,” the minister said.

Gandhi said the basic infrastructure would be put in place fast and a nodal officer has already been appointed for the project. The centres would be set up in line with existing ones in countries like Malaysia and England. “They will have a dedicated and competent medical and legal staff,” she added.

Listing the priorities of her ministry in the first 100 days of government, Gandhi said her focus would be on setting up the rape crisis centres, refurbishing the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) and building toilets for women across the country. “I would be happy to spend all my MPLAD fund in building toilets for women,” she said. tendent of police also need to be suspended.

The United Nations also condemned the gang rape and murder and called for immediate action against the perpetrators and to address violence against women across India.

“There should be justice for the families of the two teenaged girls and for all the women and girls from lower caste communities,

who are targeted and raped in rural India. Violence against women is not a women’s issue, it’s a human rights issue,” Lise Grande, resident coordinator of the UN system in India, said in a statement. The statement said the UN system in India stands united with people across the country to do what it takes to ensure that every woman and girl can live safely and with dignity.

‘Let us not forget the peace initiatives of our forefathers’ Tohonba calls for “correct” Morung Express news Dimapur | June 2

Parliamentary Secretary for Border Affairs, N. Thomas Lotha, has asserted a harder stand on Nagaland’s border issue. Resolving the border dispute between Assam and Nagaland, in particular the prevailing tension along the Dimapur-Karbi Anglong border, is high on his list of priorities, said Lotha after visiting Dikoi, Rilan Yan and Indisen on June 2. He was accompanied by SP (Border), James Kinghen.

The dispute at Dikoi has already claimed two lives while the firing incident at the Lahorijan

Border Post of the Assam Police at Dillai, near Rilan Yan on June 1, has further resulted in escalation of apprehension along the disputed Dimapur-KA border.

“It was unfortunate, the killing of innocent villagers... so also I out rightly condemn the firing incident (at Dillai),” he said, while wishing swift recovery to the Assam Police personnel, who was wounded in the shootout.

On the Assam-Nagaland border dispute, Lotha said that the Government of India is also partly to be blamed. “I partially question the wisdom of the GoI... why it had not properly demarcated the

boundary between Assam and Nagaland” when the latter was carved out of Assam. In the same breath, he said that Assam should respect Nagaland’s position. “What we’re requesting (Assam) is to respect our (Nagaland’s) position as we respect your (Assam) position.”

Partially hinting at arm twisting tactics of the Assam government, he said that Assam having 14 Lok Sabha members gives it greater political mileage in Delhi.

Further, according to him, Delhi is more prone towards Assam when it comes to the border issue between Assam and Nagaland.

Nevertheless, he said that the

doors are open to resolve the dispute. “If the Assam government is willing, I will definitely stretch out an olive branch to my counterpart in Assam... to work out an acceptable formula for peace in the border (while) exploring all possibilities for lasting settlement.”

On Nagaland’s part, he said that he needs the support of the civil society, the affected people and the unwavering support of the Nagaland government. While maintaining that Nagas are not encroaching on Assam’s land, he said, “We’ve signed a series of agreements. Let us not forget the peace initiatives of our forefathers.”

‘Proper verification electricitY: Poor generation, required for counting’ poor supply, poor distribution Excise Commissioner responds to ACAUT DIMAPUR, JUNE 2 (MExN): Commissioner of Excise, Government of Nagaland, Maongwati Aier, has stated in a rejoinder today that the ACAUT or any NGOs are “welcome by the Excise Department” but “proper permission should be sought in writing after which a joint verification can be done.”

Aier was responding to the ACAUT’s questions to the Excise Commissioner on the exposure of discrepancies in the destruction of liquor by the Excise Department wherein nearly half the cases of liquor to be destroyed were found missing by the ACAUT on counting.

“ACAUT members did not seek written permission from the Excise Department for counting of the liquor bottles. However, they have counted at their own which does not tally with official report of the Destruction Committee. Therefore, if there is any discrepancy after verification of the office records responsibility can be fixed on the officials concerned,” stated the Commissioner of Excise.

Aier clarified that the destruction of liquor and drugs carried out on May 26 was brought from the malkhana of the Supdt. of Excise, Dimapur District, and that the Destruction Committee was under the Chairmanship of the Dy. Commissioner of Excise (Hq).

“On the strength of the Destruction Committee the destruction was done on 26.5.14 after inviting the Churches, NGOs, District Administration, Police and Para Military forces,” he noted.

The Excise Commissioner maintained that the “Destruction Certificate was signed by all the Committee Members after the destruction. And the concerned Superintendent of Excise, Dimapur and Destruction Board Chairman stated to the undersigned in front of the Media persons that there was no shortage in the Liquor brought for destruction.”

Further, Aier claimed that the Destruction programme was “started by a Prayer by the Pastor after which the Chairman of the Destruction Board requested the NGOs present to speak or clarify on the issue but none of the NGOs came forward to speak on the counting or permission to count the liquor bottles.”

Electricity woes slated to continue in Nagaland and the North East Morung Express news Dimapur | June 2

Nagaland State like most parts of the North East continues to be dependent on the monsoons for sustained supply of electricity during the summer season. Delayed monsoons imply hydro-electricity projects (HEPs) going kaput, exerting maximum pressure on thermal power plants to meet the region’s power requirements.

According to engineers of Nagaland’s Power department, at present, two gas-based plants in Tripura and one in Assam, are the only source of power in the region, while it has to live with whatever is allocated from the Eastern Region. The contribution from hydro-based stations is minimal, the engineers said, while stating that out of the six HEPs in the region, not a single station is generating more than 15-20 percent of its total installed capacity at present.

The quota of power allocated to one State is dependent on the quantum of power generated by the generating stations. In simple

terms, it means that when power generation reduces, the quota is slashed.

On the power situation in Nagaland, the engineers said that there was a drastic reduction in supply during the past two-three weeks as a major thermal plant in Tripura had to be shut down due to technical reasons. Further, one transmission line, feeding the North East region from the Eastern grid, also had to be shut down during the same period. It has, however, been restored.

The problem does not end there. The engineers said that there still is the problem of allocation shortage from the North East Regional Load Dispatch Centre and unforeseen “system constraints” here. Most of the existing power supply equipment in Nagaland, and Dimapur in particular, are over loaded resulting in frequent breakdowns. The engineers expressed helplessness in this aspect as it means that even if the State receives the required quota of power, the existing distribution system is not in a position to sustain the load.

At present, aside from the quota allocated by the NERLDC, the State is buying 25 MW during peak hours and 20 MW during off-peak hours, the engineers said.

statistical data in Nagaland Our Correspondent Kohima | June 2

Asserting that Nagaland State’s economy will not improve without statistics, Parliamentary Secretary for CAWD and Economics & Statistics, R. Tohonba, today called for correct statistical data in Nagaland State.

He said that the economy of the State cannot grow without strengthening this department.

Visiting Directorate of Economics & Statistics here Monday morning, Tohonba stressed on the need for timely submission of statistics and data by the various line departments and also to ensure that correct data is collected as it is to do with formulation of planning and policy making of the Government.

He said the economics & statistics department is not a scheme-based department but works solely on dissemination of data and information to all the departments to maintain accuracy and stability.

In this, he said that those officers who sincerely devoted their time and energy would give much benefit to the State. The parliamentary secretary also assured to cover up the remaining infrastructure development, particularly DSO residence and staff quarters. He also assured to expedite the matters pertaining to upgradation of post, cadre review, manpower as well as upgradation of grassroots data collection.

Further, he called upon the officers and staff to coordinate with one another and strengthen the department.

Economics & statistics secretary, Kevileno Angami, said the department plays

an important role in policy formulation and planning through compilation and dissemination of data.

She said the department also calculates economic performance of the State as well as conducts sample surveys.

The secretary also expressed the need to present economic survey before the budget session to highlight the actual position of the State’s economy.

Stating that online registration for births & deaths has already been started in Kohima district on pilot basis, she hoped that a similar system would also cover the rest of the districts under the leadership of Tohonba.

Also informing the need for cadre review and strengthening of manpower in the department, she regretted that many staff find difficulty to perform their duties effectively due to absence of staff quarter and non- availability of rented houses in many districts and requested the parliamentary secretary to address this area. She said the officers and staff have to play a big role in policy formulation and contribute to the State more positively.

Director Y. Sacheo Ovung said the department has full confidence under Tohonba’s leadership and assured to respond to various challenges ahead by extending full cooperation to him.

He also called upon the officers and staff to display devotion and sincerity in order to yield better result and make the economics & statistics as one of the best departments in the State.

Earlier, the function was chaired by additional director I. Chuba Jamir.

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2 YouthNet IMPACT 5000 by 18 Dimapur

Tuesday

Farmhands and interested small farmers attend the mentoring activity for Commercial Piggery Program under the Impact 5000 by 18 Campaign.

DiMaPur, June 2 (Mexn): The Commercial Piggery Program under the Impact 5000 by 18 Campaign – a collaboration of YouthNet and Department of Youth Resources and Sports, Government of Nagaland is conducting a month-long mentoring activity, from May to June, of farmhands attached to the earlier trained piggery farmers under the campaign.

Young educated Nagas who are business graduates, hotel management graduates and MBAs came forward as farmhands who do manual work in their respective farms. A group of 60 young, educated and uneducated farmhands and interested small farmers has participated in an on-farm practical observation program where they have discussed issues of daily farm management challenges, the general economic scenario in the State, and why we need to be more productive and not be ashamed of

manual work. The mentoring activity will continue for a month where farmhands will be assessed on their maintenance of basic records and management of daily tasks under the supervision of trained farmers.

The project headed by YN program Lead Abokali

portunities of these farm hands. Apart from working towards a goal to deliver hygienic local pork as compared to the many stories of unhygienic pork that is being imported to Nagaland on a daily basis, Abokali mentions that the initiative aims to help build an entrepreneurial ecosystem – an inclusive support system for all stakeholders involved in the piggery sector.

A participant mentioned that educated unemployed is a very easy and old excuse and this is the time we started adding value to ourselves and family. “It is also the time when the Government needs to support us with basic requirements such as constant Power supply, better roads for transportation, basic infrastructure and keeping away people in the excuse of social taxation. This will push the young generation to stay motivated, decrease unemployment and produce better for Nagaland,” added the participant.

Mentoring activity for commercial piggery prog underway

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LocaL

3 June 2014

Jimomi and mentor of the program are Dr. Simon Ao along with five young veterinary doctors including Dr. Unikali Jimomi from Veterinary Hospital, Dimapur; Dr. Bongtok of Longleng; Dr. Manjan and Dr. Pangdun from Mon and Dr. Yanben Kikon from Wokha. They have been working with these farmhands and sharing knowledge on how to vaccinate pigs, administer medicine and general farm management economics, in the process also learning the challenges and op-

The Morung Express C

Students learning about wildlife and biodiversity

Phek, June 2 (Mexn): The North East Network (NEN) organised the graduation ceremony of the first batch of the Hoolock Gibbon Eco Club (HGEC) and launched the World Environment Day (WED) at the Village Council Hall, Chizami in Phek district on June 1.

Delivering the introductory speech, Seno Tsuhah of NEN elucidated on the background of WED, which is the ‘United Nations’ principal vehicle for encouraging worldwide awareness and action for the environment’. While sharing on this year WED theme ‘Raise your voice, not sea level,’ she called on the participants to take responsible actions towards building a sustainable future. She further highlighted the vision of NEN in engaging the young people of the community in environment conservation work.

That these young members of the HGEC will grow up to become responsible citizens and protect their environment – natural resources such as the forests, water, land, wildlife, biodiversity.

She acknowledged the support of the community leaders, the educational institutions and the parents of HGEC members towards NEN’s conservation education project, and that ‘their presence (including the subdivision’s Administrator) has made this event complete’.

T.L Kiusumong Tikhir, SDO (Civil) in his short

NGHSSEA prog rescheduled

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kohiMa, June 2 (Mexn): The Nagaland Government Higher Secondary School Employees Association (NGHSSEA) has informed all the members concerned that the Association has postponed the seminar cum result observation program to be scheduled on June 6 to a later date due to unavoidable circumstances. A press note issued by Visezü Thakro, Publicity Secretary stated that the inconvenience is highly regretted.

DC Kohima calls meeting on drainage

The first batch of Hoolock Gibbon Eco Club (HGEC) graduates from North East Network (NEN) during the graduation ceremony held on June 1.

speech highlighted the realities of climate change - global warming, alarming rise of sea levels, and changes in weather patterns that affects all of us. He called on the audience to take collective action in addressing this issue by planting more trees, to judiciously utilize natural resources and energy. While congratulating the HGEC members for completing the course, he encouraged them to ‘develop deeper sense of responsibility towards our environment and be ambassadors to bring about environmental awareness’.

Kewepelo Tsuhah, VCC in his speech reminded that “God has given the ‘stewardship’ role to humans and thus it is the latter’s responsibility to protect the biodiversity and ecology’.

He cautioned that ‘there is no forgiveness for going against nature and it is na-

ture itself that will strike us back for our actions’.

Sharing her experience, Kuwe-u Rhakho (aged 15 years), one of the HGEC members expressed ‘Besides learning about environment, wildlife photography, and writing about nature, my life is transformed through the eco club. Today I am a more confident person and I can stand in front of people and speak out about environmental concerns’.

At the event, educational materials produced

by HGEC with the financial support of Department of Forests, Environment and Wildlife Nagaland through the Nagaland Wildlife and Biodiversity Conservation Trust were released. They are - ‘Butterflies of Chizami – 2nd edition’ documented by HGEC, and 3 posters – Biodiversity of Chizami, Common

Birds of Chizami, Common Butterflies of Chizami, by the VCC Chizami, Head GB, CYS Chairman and CWS Chairperson respectively.

Tikhir gave away Certificates to 16 HGEC members who completed the 3-year course on ‘Wildlife and Biodiversity Education Programme’ under NEN. A press release also stated that the event was attended by 135 persons from Chizami comprising of the Village Council Chairman (VCC) and his team, head GB, Village Development Board, Women Society, the Youth Society, Women’s Society, Village Education Committee, church leaders, public leaders, representatives of educational institutions, Town Adhoc Committee, Chizami Range Public Organisation, HGEC members with their parents, and well-wishers.

kohiMa, June 2 (DiPr): Deputy Commissioner, Kohima, W.Honje Konyak convened a meeting on 31st may 2014 in his office chamber to discuss matters relating to construction of drainage in the State Capital. The meeting was attended by officials from Border Roads Organization Roads & Bridges, PHE, Kohima Village Council, Angami Public Organization, NCSU, Kohima Village Youth Organization, Angami Youth Organization, BSNL, Police and the district administration. The Deputy Commissioner said that the BRO will be undertaking construction of drainage in the State Capital and called for cooperation of all concerned and extend all possible support. He emphasized on the need for systematic drainage line in Kohima and the need to beautify the State Capital. The meeting resolved to carry out clearing of illegal constructions around the drains for carrying out the drainage constructions smoothly.

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SBC releases praise & worship album ‘Be equip with quality education’

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Praise and worship team during the release of the praise and worship album.

Mokokchung, June 2 (Mexn): Rev. O Yashi Jamir released a praise and worship album in Ao Naga language titled ‘Tematiba

Tetushi’ produced by Sungkomen Baptist Church on June 1 during the congregational devotional service.

“The CD album is pure-

ly the original composition of Sungkomen Baptist Church youths and is intent to bring all people, both young and old in wor-

shiping the lord in a common platform understandable to all,” said SN Among Jamir.

A press release received here informed that the audio CD is for free distribution and will be sent to all the Ao Churches through ABAM Youth Department.

Among Jamir also said that the album would be available shortly in YouTube and other Social Medias for free downloading.

“Tematiba Tetushi” or the “Highest Praise” is an album consisting of 10 songs is a project of pure faith and dedication a ministry through Ao Songs that will touch the heart of all generations in glorification of the Lord Almighty.

Officers undergo training on food safety

kohiMa, June 2 (Mexn): The Food Safety & Standards Authority of India is organizing a five days training programme for AO, DO & Food Safety Officers in the State of Nagaland from June 2 to 6 at the ATI, Kohima.

Dr. AK Singla, Deputy Director, FSSAI at the inaugural programme highlighted the introduction to training programme. He said FSS Act came into existence in the

year 2006 and after much deliberation for 2 more years.

Ministry of Health & Family Welfare now oversees the whole affair.

Dr. Neiphi Kire, Principal Director & Addl. Food safety Commissioner, H& FW, Kohima in his address said this is one specific area where the department is lacking behind and stressed on the much needed training for the officials in the State. “With much ex-

In loving memory of our most beloved Lt. Imlitemjen Longchar, NCS (On his 1st Death Anniversary)

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19.09.1974 – 03.06.2013 A year has passed, since you let us for heavenly abode, but the memories with us still as fresh as ever in our hearts.

You were a man, ever giving, amiable, gentle, Love and affectionate, Always thought of others, Yourself Never, A precious one from us is gone, Our time together was too short, But our love will continue till We meet in the Eternal Home.

Sadly missed you LovingApa, Sister, Brothers & love ones

ploitation in the food market by the businessmen, we are all prey to all kinds of food adulterations and it should be checked with stringent measures at the earliest,” Dr. Kire said.

He also added that at both the district and state level, Food Analysis Wing is in process where samples are collected and sent to the laboratory. However, at present, the wing needs upgradation and only after it is es-

tablished to a proper set up, the department will be able to implement this Act with more success in the future.

Dr. G Kemp, Director (Health), Health & FW Kohima, Chaired the programme. IEC Bureau, DHFW, Kohima in a press release has informed that the resource persons for the training programme will be a host of Directors, Assistant Directors and Deputy Directors of FSSAI.

Phek, June 2 (DiPr): The Government Higher Secondary School, Phek hold its fresher’s welcome day programme at Town Hall on May 31 with Phek EAC, Tiayanger Jamir as the guest speaker in the first session.

Speaking on the occasion, Tiayanger Jamir called upon the fresher’s to equip themselves with quality education in order to achieve their desire

goals. He also called upon them not to lose their mind of being in the government school because the School has capable teachers in imparting quality education and further urged upon them to change their mindset, which would ultimately lead to a greater height of excellence. He also added that the need of the hour is quality education and practical works/ studies are very much important,

Vezho Sakha led the function while invocation prayer was pronounced by Cheweku (Cl. 12). Speech on behalf of old timer was delivered by Masheto and Munulu spoke on behalf of the Fresher’s. Prayer for Fresher’s was offered by Ninkin (PGT) GHSS, Phek and benediction was pronounced by Tsupolu (Cl. 12). All the teachers and students from GHSS attended the programme.

DC Kohima flags off DPDB exposure trip

kohiMa, June 2 (DiPr): Deputy Commissioner, Kohima, W.Honje Konyak flagged off the Kohima DPDB exposure trip to Shillong, this afternoon, the 2nd June 2014 from DC’s Office, Kohima. Speaking on the occasion, DC Kohima appreciated the efforts of the Kohima DPDB for organizing the tour programme and also appraised the participating members that they have a great responsibility to learn from their experiences while on tour and impart it to the people concerned after their return.

The tour to Shillong is headed by ADC, Chiephobozou, Bodeno S.Colo. The other members

Participants during the training, demonstration and capacity-building programme organised by ATMA Phek Meluri Block.

on 29 respectively. Pineapple Farm School was inaugurated at Hutsü Village.

The resource persons for the programme were A.O Phrumasie, A.O Lisutho, Dr. Debojyoti (SMS, Animal Science), Keniseto Chücha (Farm Manager KVK

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DC Kohima flagging off the DPDB exposure trip to Shillong on June 2. (DIPR Photo)

include CEO, KMC, Lithrongla Tongpi, representative from the Department of IPR and representatives from Potterland, Kitsubo-

ATMA organizes prog on agri and allied topics

Phek, June 2 (Mexn): ATMA Phek Meluri Block organized training, demonstration and capacity building programme on various agri and allied topics covering villages like Hutsü, Yesi and Khumiasü Village on May 21, 22 and

for which he called upon them to equip the same in order to face with the competitive world.

While urging the students to have basic skill to improve themselves where dignity of labour is a must in order to enhance their approach which would lead to a greater height of excellence he called upon the students to move forward with the changing time.

Phek), Jikutho (Fishery Demonstrator); BTM and ATM of Meluri Block. Altogether 99 farmers benefitted in this programme.

This was stated in a press release issued by Keduwete-ü Lomi, Block Technology Manager, ATMA Phek, Meluri Block.

zou, Daklane, North Block, Phekerkriema and Kidima.

The highlight of the exposure trip will be the visit to Mawlynnong, Shil-

long which is Asia’s cleanest village and also known as God’s own garden.

Mawlynnong is located 90 kms from Shillong.

DDOs informed on erroneous names & GPF account numbers

kohiMa, June 2 (Mexn): The office of Accountant General (A&E) Kohima has informed Drawing and Disbursing Officer treasury wise that, erroneous names and GPF account numbers have been forwarded, which does not tally with the subscribers name and account numbers maintained by the Office concerned. The amount of monthly subscription and arrears are presently kept in the ‘Unposted Items’ pending receipt of correct account numbers and names.

Therefore, all DDOs are requested to contact their respective Treasury Officer for collection of list of erroneous names and account numbers for due rectifications and further submission to this Office before issue of Annual GPF statements.

The total number of DDOs under each Treasury, which have forwarded erroneous names and GPF account numbers are

as follows: Kohima North Treasury-78 DDOs; Kohima South Treasury-42 DDOs; Mokokchung Treasury-62 DDOs; Dimapur Treasury: 74 DDOs; Phek Treasury: 30 DDOs; Wokha Treasury: 28 DDOs; Zunheboto Treasury: 35 DDOs; Mon Treasury: 40 DDOs; Tuensang Treasury: 56 DDOs; Peren Treasury: 14 DDOs; and Kiphire Treasury: 16 DDOs. PF-Branch Accounts Officer in a press release has requested all DDOs to collect the list from their respective Treasury Officers for due correction and further submission to this Office. Treasury Officers are requested to assist in distribution and resubmission of the same. The reply can also be submitted through e-mail at kahoto_j@yahoo.co.in or agaenagaland@cag.gov.in.The last date for submission of corrected names and account numbers is 30-06-2014.

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REgional 3 ‘Sikkim deserves peace bonus in NDA regime’ TKLD condemns assault Tuesday

The Morung Express

GanGtok, June 2 (IanS): The land-locked northeast Indian state of Sikkim shares its boundaries with three countries - China, Nepal and Bhutan - but has been peaceful in the last two decades, and is set to become poverty-free as well, is seeking a peace bonus - an airport and rail connectivity- from the new government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

"One of our longstanding demands is the peace bonus that we believe this government will seriously consider," Sikkim Democratic Front's Pawan Kumar Chamling, who has successfully fought antiincumbency to become chief minister for a record fifth time, told IANS in an exclusive interview.

Stating that infrastruc-

3 June 2014

ture development would be his key focus area, the 63-year-old leader said: "Sikkim remains the only state without airport or railway connectivity (it can only be reached by road from Siliguri in north Bengal). The central government should also look into the feasibility of alternative means of transport like ropeways for hill and mountain regions."

A decisive mandate under Narendra Modi is beneficial not only for Sikkim but also for the entire country, the chief minister said, adding he expects cordial relations between Sikkim and the central government to grow further. "We have very good relations with the BJP and have chosen to stand shoulder to shoulder with

the NDA to develop our country. Under the leadership of Atal Bihari Vajpayee, many historic decisions like opening of Nathu-la, inclusion of Sikkim in NEC (North Eastern Council) and ST (scheduled tribe) status for Limboo-Tamangs were taken," Chamling told IANS. "We will take the Sikkim-Centre ties to a new level," he said.

Chamling first became chief minister in 1994. With the fifth straight win of his SDF in the recent assembly elections, he is now on course to become the longest-serving chief minister of India, surpassing the record of Jyoti Basu who served as chief minister of neighbouring West Bengal 1977-2000. "Our stress on peace, security and devel-

opment has found resonance with the people of Sikkim," he said.

Stating that he has his tasks cut out, Chamling said: "By 2020, we would have empowered our workforce with enough skills and opportunities to economically sustain their families and only minimal welfare schemes will be necessary."

"We want to be self-reliant by the end of the 12th Plan period," said the chief minister, who believes local youth have the first right on jobs created in Sikkim.

Chamling said a separate ministry for the development of the Himalayan region would help build upon the positive initiatives such as the task force by the Planning Commission on mountain regions and earmarking 10 percent of budget to the

northeastern states.

"We need more concentrated decisions at the policy level. A separate ministry for the development of the Himalayan region is the answer to it; we definitely support it," Chamling told IANS. Dismissing as mere "anti-Chamling" and "no threat" the fledgling Sikkim Krantikari Morcha (SKM) who ate into the SDF votes and reduced its numbers to 22 in the 32-member assembly, the chief minister said: "People vote for policies and work, not on the basis of personalities." "Time and again we have proved that as far as Sikkim goes, there is no anti-incumbency, only pro-incumbency," he added. The SDF had won all the 32 seats in the previous election in 2009.

new DelhI, June 2 (Mexn): The Tangkhul Katamnao Long, Delhi (Tangkhul Students’ Union Delhi) today condemned the assault on a married Tangkhul couple by a group of 10-15 men. The TKLD through its president Phungshok Khongreiwoshi informed that the incident occurred around 1:00 am on May 28 at Kotla Mubarakpur, Delhi.

While extending solidarity with the victims, the TKLD narrated the sequence of events. It informed that trouble began when the couple returning home from dinner was stopped by four-five men who refused to let them pass. When the couple objected, “the men began to molest the wife and when the husband tried to defend his wife, he was also

thrashed.” After the assault, the men fled from the spot.

The couple then called up the Police who in turn noted down the sequence of events and left after dropping the couple near their home. “The accused came back with more people, 1015 of them, and brutally assaulted the husband while four-five of them sexually assaulted the wife again.

The molestation was accompanied by abusive and discriminatory language,” the TKLD stated.

An FIR was lodged (FIR 455) under IPC 323/341/354 that very day, but so far, only one accused identified as Jimson has been arrested, TKLD informed and expressed displeasure at the police inaction. The student body informed that a witness to the incident was also threatened and told to

Dimapur

refrain from assisting the victims. Further, one of the culprits claimed that he was the son of an MP and that the victims could not harm the accused, TKLD stated.

TKLD expressing ire at this act stated, “We will not sit quietly while our sisters and mothers are molested and our brothers and fathers are assaulted and humiliated. Our voices should, and will be heard although we do not encourage violent acts.”

Further, TKLD stating that this reflected the system governing the Government of Manipur which permits the majority to continuously dominate and exploit the minority demanded an adequate structural change in the political representation and administration of the state of Manipur.

‘26 journalists killed in 12 years in NE’

St. Joseph’s College, Jakhama

PanaJI, June 2 (IanS): Twenty-six journalists have been killed over the past 12 years in the northeast region, making it one of the most dangerous places for working journalists, according to a Press Council of India member.

Amarnath Konsuri, member of the Press Council sub-committee for formation of a proposed law for protection of journalists in India, told reporters here that the legislation would have a provision of compensation as well as a

Applications are invited for a temporary teaching position in the English Department.

Applications may be sent by email only to stjosephc@gmail.com on or before June 10th.

job for the kin of slain journalists.

"In the last three years, four journalists were killed in Tripura and three in Manipur alone. Overall, 26 journalists have been killed in the northeastern states and Assam in 12 years, while 25 were killed in Jammu and Kashmir," Konsuri told a press conference. "What's even more shocking is that there has not been a single person convicted so far," he said. Speaking about a legislation which was being drafted by a sub-committee

Rijiju reviews progress of NE committee's work new DelhI, June 2 (PtI): A committee which was constituted to look into the concerns of persons hailing from the North Eastern states will submit its report next month suggesting remedies and if necessary recommend change of laws for their protection. The committee under the chairmanship of former Union Tourism Secretary MP Bezbaruah, called on the Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju, who re-

viewed the progress made by it after its constitution on February 6. Asked whether the Committee would suggest enactment of any law to stop the alleged racial discrimination against the people from the Northeast, the former IAS officer said it was one of the issues that the committee was deliberating. Bezbaruah said the Delhi Police has conveyed that it has been sensitising its personnel about the people of NE.

OFFICE OF THE

NORTHERN ZONE NPF UNIT Peren Dist. Nagaland

CONGRATULATIONS

The Zone Unit congratulates Shri. T.R.Zeliang for being successful in his political career and becoming the Chief Minister of Nagaland as the 1st ever in the Zeliangrong Community.

The Zone also extended its appreciation to Shri.

Neiphiu Rio, the MP for giving such chances to the community.

The Zone Unit also wishes all the Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries success in their future endeavours.

NAMRANGPEUNG President Northern Zone NPF Peren: Nagaland

ITEIBAMBE HAU Gen. Secretary Northern Zone NPF Peren: Nagaland

vACANCY

of the PCI, Konsuri said the thrust of the law would be on getting faster justice in cases involving attacks on journalists.

Konsuri also said the law would provide for the deceased journalist's family, because in most cases they were out on the streets, in absence of assistance both from the state and the media management. "We are going to recommend a compensation of not less than Rs.10 lakh and a government job for the deceased journalist's kin," he said.

For more info contact 9436437544

LOST NOTICE GOVERNMENT OF NAGALAND

DIRECTORATE OF YOUTH RESOURCES & SPORTS NAGALAND: KOHIMA

NO.DYRS/YS-C/S/2013-14/577

Date Kohima 2nd June 2014

ADvERTISEMENT

Application are invited from interested candidates willing to undergo 3 months Job-Oriented training and placement in outsourcing industries under Skill Grooming Project undertaken by the Department Of Youth Resources & Sports in commemoration of 50 years of Statehood. * A walk- in-Interview and one-on-one screening will be conducted in the Directorate of Youth Resources & Sports, Kohima from 18th to 20th June’14 during office hours. * Eligibility criteria - Graduate in any stream. Preference will be given to those candidates having Computer knowledge. * Upper age limit – 30 years. * Candidates should come with relevant educational documents on the above mentioned date. * Free Training will be provided by experienced resource in the Directorate of Youth Resource & Sports, Kohima. * Travel Expenditure & Accommodation in Delhi for the short listed candidates for few months will be borne by the Department.

(KELEI ZELIANG) DIRECTOR

DEPARTMENT OF HIGHER & TECHNICAL EDUCATION Meritorious Awards Ceremony

Dated Time Venue

: 03/06/14 : 11:00 AM : Durbar Hall, Raj Bhavan, Kohima

PROGRAMME Chairperson

: Shri. F.P.Solo Commissioner & Secretary Department of Higher & Technical Education Nagaland: Kohima

Compere

: Dr. Kevileno Sakhrie Associate Professor

PROGRAMME DETAILS Arrival of Dr. Ashwani Kumar, the Honourable Governor of Nagaland

Singing of Nagaland Anthem Invocation Prayer

: Rev. Moa Longchari Pastor, BMC, Kohima

Welcome Address

: Chairperson

Special Music

: Chieli Music Academy, Kohima

Speech

: Mr. Deo Nukhu, Honourable Parliamentary Secretary Higher Education & SCERT

Solo

: Pezet Newme

Presentation of Meritorious Awards by Dr. Ashwani Kumar, the Honourable Governor of Nagaland Address by

: Dr. Ashwani Kumar The Honourable Governor of Nagaland

Vote of Thanks

: Ms. Megono Liegise Joint Director, Higher Education

I Ngangshikokla Longchar am applying for a duplicate copy of HSLC marksheet as I have lost it.

Name: Ngangshikokla Longchar F/Name: I. Mar Longchar M/Name: Meyatola Tzudir D.O.B.: 27/10/63 Name of School/Centre: Govt.

High School, Mokokchung Name of Examination: HSLC Roll No: 407 MKG Year: 1979 Result: Pass

ADMISSION GOING ON The following courses are offered

1) Coaching for Class 10(ten) Repeaters in all subjects.

2) Coaching for Class 12 (Arts &Commerce) repeaters in all subjects 3) Coaching for N.P.S.C(Prelim),UPSC, S.S.C, and other Competitive Exams.

4) Spoken English 5) Computer courses 6) Typewriting 7) Stenography 8) Cutting &Tailoring 9) Embroidery 10) Knitting Contact 

NAGALAND

Capital Training Institute Near T.C.P.Gate, Kohima Mob:No 9402831939/ 9436201083

UNIVERSITY

(A Central University established by an Act of Parliament 1989)

School of Management Studies MBA Admission Notification (2014-16)

Applications in prescribed format are invited from eligible candidates for Admission into the MBA Degree Programme of Nagaland University for the session 2014-16 at the School of Management Studies, Nagaland University, Dimapur, Nagaland.

Eligibility criteria for admission: Bachelor degree in any discipline with 50% (45% for SC & ST) marks. Students appearing/have appeared in final year degree examination may also apply, subject to fulfillment of the eligibility criteria on declaration of the result.

1. A valid MAT/CMAT/CAT/XAT/ATMA score.

2. Admission will be based on Performance in Written Test (MAT/CMAT/CAT/XAT/ATMA) Group Discussion (GD) and Personal Interview (PI).

3. Application form and Admission Brochure can be collected from the Admission Counter, School of Management Studies, Nagaland University, D.C. Court Junction, Dimapur, Nagaland from 3rd June 2014 onwards on payment of Rs 500/- (Rs 400/- for SC & ST).

4. The form can also be downloaded from the website www.nagauniv.org.in. A counter foil of the deposit slip of the fee paid through any branch of the State Bank of India, Account No. 30351467507, Account Name: NU Fees/Revenue, along with filled in Application Form should be sent by Post to the address mentioned below: Important Dates: Issue of Application forms and Admission Brochure : 3rd June 2014.

Last Date for submission of filled-up Application form : 1st July 2014.

Date of GD and PI : 14th & 15th July 2014.

Declaration of Result : 18th July 2014 Date of Admission : 21st -28th July 2014.

Date of Admission for waiting list : 30th July 2014 Starting of Classes : 1st August 2014 Contact/Communication address: Admission Convener, School of Management Studies, NU, D.C.Court Junction, Dimapur-797112, Tel: 234555 (O), +91 9436275461, 9436896150, 9402830063 Email: dmsnudim@rediffmail.com, website: www.nagauniv.org.in

Dean SMS Nagaland University, DIMAPUR

4

public discoursE

Tuesday

Dimapur

3 June 2014

The consequences of political compromise in Naga society today

I

n the world of philosophy, with the coming of Hegel (17701831) and his idea of thesis and anti-thesis leading to synthesis, the world’s thinking process was changed. Prior to the coming of Hegel and his thoughts, philosophers as well as religious thinkers had always thought in terms of absolutes and their opposites. In other words, man had always thought in terms of absolutes which mean that if something is right (Thesis), then its opposite is wrong (Antithesis).

For example-if not stealing is right, then its opposite- stealing is wrong.

But Hegel’s idea was that truth is not to be found in absolutes (Thesis) and their opposite (Anti- thesis) but in synthesis which is a combination of the two. This idea of Hegel opened the door to pragmatic relativism. Pragmatic relativism is a position where one does not stick to absolute right or absolute wrong but choose the pragmatic relative alternative. (Pragmatic is here related to the word practical and relative is here related to the word compromise)The consequence of this new way of thinking was: Truth or Right, as absolutes, disappeared and man was subjected into thinking and acting in a compromised relative manner in all areas of morals and ethics. This meant not sticking to absolute right or wrong but going for the practical alternative.

Commenting on the invasion of this new way of thinking that had swept across the world, late, Dr. Francis Schaeffer wrote like this: “Wherever you look today, the new concept of thinking holds the field. The consensus around us is almost monolithic; whether you review the arts, literature or simply read the newspapers and magazines…on every side you can feel the stranglehold of this new methodology… It is like suffocating in a particularly bad London fog. And just as fog cannot be kept out by walls or doors, so this consensus comes in around us, until the room we live in is no longer unpolluted…

The tragedy of our situation today is that men and women are being fundamentally affected by the new way of looking at truth, and yet they have never even analyzed the drift which has taken place.”(The Francis A. Schaeffer Trilogy. p. 5) I am afraid that many Nagas are not aware of how this new way of thinking is also affecting our religious, political and social lives today. But in this article, I would like to draw the reader’s attention to the political synthesis and relativism

that has overtaken almost all Nagas.

It is like the London fog that Schaeffer had mentioned. I for one feel suffocated by the invasion of this new way of thinking that have overtaken Naga society like a stranglehold threatening to strangle Naga society to death. So let us examine how this new way of thinking is affecting our politics and in turn affecting our religion, culture and even our economy today.

To bring out the glaring contrast, let us first examine our former political stand and the present stands. Our former political stand was quite simple. It was URRA UVIE which means our land belongs to us or Nagaland belongs to the Nagas. It was an absolute truth and right (Thesis) that all Nagas defended. The opposite (Antithesis) was that Nagaland belongs to India and Burma. But under the banner of URRA UVIE, all Nagas rallied together under the NNC/FGN and defended our lands against the invasion of India and Burma from 1946 to 1960. But under the Naga People’s Convention (NPC) the first step towards (Synthesis) was undertaken by some Nagas and Nagaland became a part of India as a State under the Constitution of India. This first step towards synthesis was undertaken for” pragmatically relative” reasons of economic development which came in the form of MONEY. And as the money factor took the central stage, more and more compromises were added to the synthesis.

Very soon, synthetic Naga Civil servants started issuing arrest orders for the detention of their own fellow Nagas who stood for the Thesis that Nagaland belongs to the Nagas. Many of these arrested Nagas were beaten to death by the Police, Paramilitary and Indian Army.

They were of course first branded as secessionist, hostiles and even gangsters and dacoits before they were tortured to death.

Now over the years, what shape and language has this synthesis adopted? Of course it is paraded in presentable language and terms which can easily fool the naïve and the credulous into thinking that the proponents of this synthesis are even Naga patriots. After all, are they not saying that they are willing to step down en-mass if a settlement takes place? In the meantime, their official stand is one of “Equi-distance” from all Naga national groups! (While they go on harvesting the Central Indian Government’s lavish funds that

is). Equi-distance is a nice way of not taking an absolute stand and also not offending this group or that group by sticking to a neutral stand. Do not such words reek of compromise and exploitation?

However, a more disgusting picture is emerging from some of our own so called national workers. They too are now going for synthetic solutions like Federal relationships with India, integration of all Naga territories under the Constitution of India minus all our brothers and sisters in the East etc. And on top of this, many of them are also reaching their hands into the Indian money bag to build their own mansions and properties- all in the name of Naga nationalism and Nagaland for Christ. Their exorbitant taxes are also strangulating Naga economy and the poor man’s income is being squeezed like a wet towel.

But most importantly, how has this synthetic political ideology affected the rest of the overwhelming majority of the Naga civilian population? In one sentence-under this compromised and synthetic influence, they have all run away from their political duty and obligation.

They are also all engaged in this business of money making for their own benefits. Many of them cling on to their political Ministers, MLA’s and Bureaucratic Lords like leeches. From time to time, they also of course, give a patriotic statement here and there; but come election time, and they all become NPC, BJP, and Congress fanatics ready to even kill their opponents in the rival Indian political parties.

As far as I am concerned, today this political synthetic cloud has enveloped most Naga citizens like a thick London Fog. I have also seen this fog in London and it is so thick one can hardly see a few feet in front of one’s path.

Today this synthetic fog has started to affect even our religion, culture and economy. Under the cloud of this thick fog, our religious sense of right and wrong, truth and falsehood are rapidly becoming blurred and compromised. There is of course a lot of “Holy Spirit Noise” in our lands today; but what of the Holy Spirit’s fruits and works which are Love, Joy and PEACE? (Gal.5:22).Under the shadow of this fog, where money has seemingly become the only value in life, our cultural values of honesty, integrity and its opposites like shame and dishonor are fast disappearing from our culture. As for

our economy, the classless Naga society of yesterday is fast disappearing and in its place, classes of multi-millionaires, millionaires and the struggling masses who are desperately trying to eke out a living for their family’s survival have appeared.

Now, God’s moral and ethical truths, whether it applies to our spiritual wellbeing or our political and social wellbeing, are all absolute truths that cannot be compromised or synthesized. These absolute truths are to be obeyed in every facet of our lives whether it is in our religious affairs or political, social and economic affairs. The compromise or disregarding of one command in one dimension, can lead to the compromise of others in other dimensions. After all, God did not give us His commandments and then give us a choice of either obeying them or disregarding them. His command is to obey them and have life (Thesis) or to disobey them and perish (Antithesis). The word of God had clearly stated thus: “I call heaven and earth to record this day against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessings and cursing; therefore, choose life that both thou and thy seed may live.”

(Dt.13:19)From such verses we can clearly see there is no synthesis involved in God’s commandments. In the history of mankind as recorded in the scriptures, this truth has been clearly demonstrated again and again. In this context, in Is. 3:9, God, lamenting on the judgment that had befallen Jerusalem and Judah because of their disobedience and sins says: “…woe unto their soul! For they have rewarded evil unto themselves.” Note that, it is not God who had rewarded evil unto them, but it is their own disobedience and sins, that have brought evil upon themselves. (The whole of Isaiah chapter 3 is very relevant for Nagas today) Let me end by asking a simple question: What will be the choice of the present upcoming generation of Nagas today?

“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ…Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved. To be steady on the entire battlefield besides is mere flight and disgrace, if he flinches at that point.” (Martin Luther) Kaka D. Iralu

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

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 # 2896

W

O

R

ADAM

NORA

BOY

OCEAN

CHARLES

PAUL

DAVID

QUEEN

EDWARD

ROBERT

FRANK

SAM

GEORGE

TOM

HENRY

UNION

IDA

VICTOR

JOHN

WILLIAM

KING

XRAY

LINCOLN

YOUNG

MARY

ZEBRA

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C J N F P K D X N F P I L Q Z J F K Q Y

V L D V N F V K L A E J E K S T T Y T H

Save The Trees, Our Natural Guardians

ave you noticed the marked decrease in the amount of rainfall and the subsequent increase in the ambient atmospheric temperature around you lately? One simple fact has led to this rather inconvenient condition- rampant deforestation and destruction of trees, mostly attributable to the lucrative timber industry and indiscriminate burning of jungles by the stubborn lot. It is sad or rather horrifying to see endless pile of trees, big and small, old and young, felled mercilessly and put on display in our timber mills. Some of these must be at least a couple of centuries old, previously standing with a great deal of foliage and vegetation on them, breathing in (absorbing) huge quantity of Carbondioxide and giving us Oxygen in return for free.

And by the look of things, it seems like we are bent on cutting off this Oxygen supply permanently. Sigh!

Trees are indeed God’s best gift to us, our main source of oxygen besides giving us a great area of shade! But sadly, over the years we have taken this wonderful creation for granted. The rate at which they are destroyed and discarded from our towns and villages is alarming.

Trees are the lungs of our planet, and if we go on destroying them, we’ll be left choking one fine day, and at this rate, we are nowhere far from perdition.

The only hope of reversing the situation will be to minimize these eco-unfriendly activities immediately if we are to breathe cleaner air, drink cleaner water and live longer.

Think about this, one matured tree can absorb carbon dioxide at a rate of 48 lbs/year and release enough oxygen back into the atmosphere to support 2 human beings. Isn’t that amazing enough to protect them? Moreover, it is proven that a healthy tree stores about 13 pounds of carbon annually or 2.6 tons per acre each year. An acre of trees absorbs enough Carbondioxide over one year to equal the amount produced by driving a car 26,000 miles! I wonder what in the world can beat that.

DAILY CROSS WORD

CROSSWORD # 2903

Answer Number # 2895

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E U Z P P A U Q P J I Z Z M A S Y L E E

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D N I Z P R J U O A A Q P N D A V I D J

I I X G N H X E O P U Q N G A F X T W R

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G O R S L J H E N R Y R Z A M U R L A W

L N A E C O F N L I M O T B O B O J R O

P E Y L J H Z V O G X T J I I W X A D I

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Y A A R O N L P C O P C K L G I P R A Z

R A M A R Y O U N G N I K H K R T F F L

Z W H H E R U W I L Z V O Q R X O I R H

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I U C C G G O I L U D N J O X I Y O M U

K R R Y R V Y L F S H B N Q Q M L S Q G

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T F O O O X G L F G A K W B A Y L V Y T

K R O B E R T I S S D G J Z Y Y H U S N

P A U L G T Y A R B E Z R U E U F M H Y

G K G F H D N R A B Y D I P I X B S Z V

V V M C G P E N B I J J A H S N H D V P

At the outset, my attention is drawn to the century old trees that once silently stood as landmarks along our highways, street corners and neighbourhood; most of them have vanished. To add woe to the already diminishing fate of the standing few, they will become the first victims of any infrastructural development and with no system backing up them up, their survival seem to become irrelevant. Back in June, 2012 many of us saw a gigantic Peepal tree fall to its death and lying by the National Highway.

It once stood as the biggest natural landmark in Naharbari, Dimapur. But as a result of utter negligence and uncontrolled dumping of non-bio degradable wastes around it, this majestic tree ultimately gave way to rough wind and fell after being uprooted. It was so big it took the concerted effort of the department of Forests, Purana Bazaar Ad-hoc Town Council and the Border Roads Organisation assisted by the traffic police and the district administration to remove the fallen mammoth. A bit of pruning, trimming and care would have saved this tree for another century or so to give the residents of Dimapur a cleaner air.

Imagine how much Carbon it must have absorbed over the decades, standing majestically by the busy dusty highway. And it will take at least a century to have another tree of that size and calibre in that particular place, which most of us won’t be around to see it!

These trees are at our mercy and civic intervention seems to be the only way in saving and replenishing them. Instead of cutting and clearing them, smart living practices like building our houses and offices around them, building roads avoiding them wherever possible, etc. And the other important measure is planting more trees. Our God given land is so fertile; all types of trees can grow, both indigenous and exotic. Even bamboo makes an excellent option. Along with planting new ones, proper care and management of the older trees is of the essence. Usually, when trees gets too big or bulky and seem pose some threat to its surrounding, all they need is some trimming to make them lighter, and need not be cut down as a whole to serve the purpose.

Or, wherever necessary some of these big trees need to be given an artificial support mechanism. The bottom line is, we need them for our survival, as much as they need our intervention for their survival.

And most of the big trees in our towns are facing the risk of being destroyed any given day as there is yet to be any regulation to protect them. Regular deforestation is been carried out on a large scale in our hills and mountains, highly attributable to the

lucrative timber business.

Hundreds of tonnes of timber leave our State on a daily basis through carriers and train wagons, a dozen times more than our domestic requirement. For a moment I am somehow reminded of that scene from the award winning sci-fi movie ‘Avatar’ where human beings went on to the extent of destroying the ‘biggest’ tree in a different planet which was considered sacred by the inhabitants there, in search of wealth!

Unless we start protecting them and planting more trees now, the monsoon pattern which is visibly changing will not be in our favour. The bulk of our rural population, who survive on agriculture for sustenance and survival, will be the most severely affected. Yes, because trees and rain are directly related. Trees are the most effective evapo-transpirers.

A single tree breathes out almost 400 gallons of water per day through its leaves, thus making them quintessential in our planet’s water cycle. Moreover, they humidify the air which causes it to form clouds above the forests resulting in rain.

Trees on the other end require rain water to manufacture their food. Rain is absorbed by the tree roots and released back to the air through transpiration. This is a relationship which requires our utmost respect and attention. Sadly, all along we have been disturbing this through our extensive logging, burning of jungles and other activities.

Before the situation becomes irreversible, we need to act now. A legislation to protect the forested mountains and hills surrounding our towns need to be put in place. The existing trees lining our highways need our protection as well. In the event of widening these highways, a bold arrangement needs to be arrived at, where the trees can be spared and be made to exist as road dividers, wherever possible. This will also give a totally new outlook to our future highways.

The wheels of global warming are already set in motion, and soon enough we will find ourselves as stakeholders in this universal crime for generations to come unless we do something about it. Think on this: 1. It did not rain on Good Friday this year in most parts of the State.

2. Our river basins are drying up, and it is supposed to be already monsoon.

3. Timber mills are growing both in number and size, throughout the State.

4. The climate is becoming unbearably hot even in hilly areas.

Dr. Tolto Metha Dimapur, Nagaland (Join the cause on Facebook @ Save The Trees In Nagaland)

businEss

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O N O D E B D M A D I I F A Q Y R T A X

The Morung Express

G W F K R Q V W Y V J K O A X N N H L Q

ACROSS 1. Pause 5. Ranch 9. Sodium chloride 13. Dwarf buffalo 14. A religion based on sorcery 16. Hodgepodge 17. Territory 18. Tubular pasta 19. Numerous 20. Run away to wed 22. Points of reference 24. Kind of bean 26. On the up and up 27. Pitiable 30. Really enjoy 33. Stickiness 35. Toward the outside 37. Foot digit 38. A grasp of something 41. Regret 42. Binge 45. Friendliness 48. Bank employee 51. Gallivant 52. Paths 54. Fog 55. Ponders 59. Drive 62. At the peak of

63. Manages 65. Portuguese folksong 66. Friends 67. Attempts 68. Utilized 69. You (archaic) 70. Container weight 71. Focusing glass

DOWN 1. Welt 2. A Freudian stage 3. The outer region of the atmosphere 4. Pollywog 5. Dandy 6. Cain’s brother 7. Kidney-related 8. Bearing 9. Physical 10. Winglike 11. Connection 12. Playthings 15. Row of shrubs 21. Visual organs 23. 5280 feet 25. Largest continent 27. Derbies or berets 28. Take as one’s own 29. Comes after Mi and Fah 31. Exotic dancer 32. Drags

34. Holiday drink 36. Expunge 39. A parcel of land 40. Residence hall 43. Oval 44. Distinctive flair 46. Speaker’s platform 47. Pensive 49. Make into law 50. Comeback 53. Old photo color 55. Awestruck 56. Salt Lake state 57. Infiltrator 58. Clairvoyant 60. Biblical garden 61. Fishing poles 64. South southeast Ans to CrossWord 2902

‘Oneworld’ alliance eyeing Indian airline partner

Doha, june 2 (PTI): As Air India is slated to join Star Alliance in a few weeks, its competing global airlines grouping ‘oneworld’ today said that it was looking at plans to have an Indian partner. “May be, but we have no announcements to make to you today. We are looking at it,” ‘oneworld’ CEO Bruce Ashby told PTI on the sidelines of the annual meet of the International Air Transport Association here.

He was asked about speculation that ‘oneworld’ was in talks with no-frill carrier IndiGo, which Ashby himself headed till some years ago. “In India, we are actually the largest alliance in terms of revenue from the Indian market. That is because of (the operations of) British Airways, Qatar Airways, Cathay Pacific and SriLankan Airlines.

People do ask me are you going to add an Indian airline (in the alliance) and I say may be,”he said.

Air India is in a very advanced stage of formally joining Star Alliance and an announcement is likely to be made

by July. SriLankan Airlines joined ‘oneworld’ on May 1, becoming the first carrier from Indian subcontinent to enter any global alliance. Ashby said the ‘oneworld’ alliance had grown at “a very rapid pace” in the past three years since he took over as the grouping’s CEO and was continuing to grow.

“There has been an amazing progress in our membership. Over 50% growth is most amazing... The biggest expansion than in the past. Our membership now ranges across the world - from North and South Americas to Europe and Southeast Asia,” Ashby said.

Tuesday

LOCAL

The Morung Express

3 June 2014

Dimapur

5

Public SPace

World environment Day 2014 - What’s in it for me?

Amba Jamir, Founder Executive Secretary, SDFN

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f late, celebrating World Environment Day every year on the 5th June is something that has become ‘just another event’ for many organizations and institutions across the world. Is that the way it should be? Should it be just a one-off event to show that one is environmentally conscious and that one cares for our Planet Earth? Doing that may be easy but what about personal commitments and actions in your daily life? It is time that we all care to learn more about such environmental issues and become a conscious and responsible global citizen. After all, we are all stewards for our one and only Planet Earth. We owe it not just to ourselves but to our future generation to ensure that the Earth they inherit is as wonderful as it is supposed to be.

This year’s World Environment Day theme may be about Island Nation States. One might even think, “What has it got to do with someone like me living almost 1500 meters above mean sea level here in Nagaland?” The theme proclaims “Raise your Voice… Not the Sea Level”, does it strike anything in your mind? Let us try and make the connections.

Imagine that your family, your house, school, church, locality, community, village, town, state or even you is an island.

Now let us imagine that all the garbage, pollution and negative environmental activities around us are melting ice and glaciers threatening your very existence. They are all melting and we are about to drown because the sea level is rising.

Isn’t that a scary scene, even in your imagination?

What would you do? You can’t just jump off the island and swim away. That’s all you have because everywhere else is water or hostile lands where out-

siders or ‘environmental refugees’ are not welcome.

Or worse still, imagine that our Planet Earth is an island about to be inundated by the rising sea level? Where else can we go? This is exactly what small island nations are faced with? Their very existence is being threatened not just because of their actions but due to the negative impacts of global warming which is being accelerated by unsustainable practices across nations. They are the victims of actions committed hundreds and thousands of miles away. Maybe each one of us, sitting pretty in Nagaland is also contributing to it. World Environment Day provides us that opportunity for us to reflect on our actions and commitments. It is a day of reckoning - to realise that our ‘mother’ is ill and we need to take care of her.

The solution lies in ‘collective action and responsibility’.

What each one of does every day has a direct impact on our environment. The impacts can be negative or positive. Which would you choose? I’d rather that we all choose the ‘positive’ and one of the easiest and simplest positive action is to simply ‘raise your voice’.

1. Observe, learn and talk about your concerns with friends, relatives, colleagues, strangers or whoever.

2. Try and positively influence others for positive change and action.

3. See if there are others who share the same concerns and responsibilities and maybe, you can even start to collaborate.

4. If you have information, knowledge or skills that might facilitate or promote positive thinking and action, share it.

Information they say is knowledge, and knowledge may be power; but what’s the use of all the power if you do not use it?

On the other hand, every time one commits a negative

action it contributes to the garbage, pollution, destruction or unsustainable use of environmental resources. Such actions add to the ‘raising sea level’.

We do not want that to happen. Let us stop it and realise that simple actions are all that is required to arrest the ‘raising the sea level’.

1. It begins with small things at home, school or even offices. Switching off unnecessary light/fan switches; closing dripping/running taps, reducing waste (for example, carry your own shopping bag to begin with and stop taking those polythene bags that not just clog up our drains but kill our rivers and streams); 2. Reusing stuff you just might have thrown away (of course, the first challenge is to even try and avoid buying things that are not really necessary); 3. Adopt simple principles like zero waste principles both at work and home; 4. Share available resources with friends and family (e.g., organise car pools to drop and pick-up kids from school or to go to offices or simply put – just learn to share, even knowledge); 5. Adopt good and sustainable practices to conserve resources (make use of water harvesting systems or build homes that make use of natural light and energy, adopt good farming practices).

We are just kids! We are too old! We don’t have the resources! Is it really that hopeless?

Isn’t that something we say or hear very often? It’s never too soon or too late for good things to happen. And good things don’t necessarily happen because resources are available. All that matters is interest, conviction and commitment. This will however happen only if one is aware – not necessarily educated. Do not confuse education with aware-

ness. Educated people are necessarily people that are aware.

To be aware, one must be willing to learn with a sense of discovery, empathy and curiosity.

To be aware, one must use all of one’s senses so that one can learn, feel, sense, smell, see and even hear. One must also try and make the connections and see the larger picture.

Once you are aware and have garnered the courage, commitment and sense of responsibility, ‘Raise Your Voice’ and communicate what it is that you wish to do or say.

Even if you do not have the resources, do not worry… people usually ‘buy’ good ideas and purposes. Problem with most people – young or old – is that too often we are too comfortable in our own spaces and in the process we allow the ‘water level to go above our heads’.

Do not let your own thoughts drown you or your ideas. Often many battles in life are lost not because the opposition is strong or opportunities bad but because we refuse to believe that we can do it. Margaret Mead said “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it is the only thing that ever does” Let 2014 be the year that you do something positive not just for you, your future generation for also for your one and only planet. Research, Organise, Network and Activate your thoughts and ideas. Here are some activities that you might want to try: 1. Organise your family, friends or community to discuss and deliberate upon the issue of “Raise your voice and not the sea level”; 2. Write articles or stories for your local papers, church bulletins or organizational newsletters; 3. Raise awareness of people by organizing events such as community workshops, fairs, concerts or even street plays;

4. Take advantage of and participate in church programmes and highlight the issues of “Raising your voice and not the sea level”. It could be a sermon, a song, a drama or even a poster display; 5. Write to your politicians, public leaders, government officials ‘raising your voice’ against the ‘raising sea level’ – remember to make the local connections (issues); 6. Visit schools, colleges and universities to ‘raise your voice’ and get people on board to be responsible citizens; 7. Organise essay competitions, painting competitions, collage making competitions, photography exhibitions or competitions; or whatever you think is possible to highlight the issue of “Raise Your Voice, Not the Sea Level”; 8. Look for collaborators – government agencies, private entrepreneurs, willing sponsors, village councils or even Sunday school groups – to help put into action your ideas; 9. Apply the Zero Waste Principles in all that you do.

[If you are not sure of this, just google it for the information] 10. Even if you cannot do anything with others, at least, make a personal commitment to be a responsible and committed citizen and become an example for others.

This world is our only island and unless each one of us contribute to the collective goodness and actions, nothing much can be achieved to save it.

Let us be responsible and committed to a lifestyle that is sustainable and waste-free. After all, “in acting together…people can accomplish things that no individual alone can ever hope to accomplish” (Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1822-1945). If you are in need of information or network support, connect with organizations like the Sustainable Development Forum Nagaland (SDFN) based in Kohima. www.sdfnagaland.org

‘Voluntary blood donation will save a life’ Temjenkaba IA DIPR Feature | June 2

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oting is comparable to the preciousness of human blood. In spite of the rapid and remarkable conquests of medical science today, there is no factory that manufactures blood. It is only in human body that blood is made and circulated. For those who require blood for saving their lives, receiving from other fellows is the only means. Hence, donation and voluntary donation is the only way of accumulating blood at safe storage to meet emergency requirements for saving human lives which is the greatest gift one can do for the mankind. Voluntary blood donors are saviours of mankind. Donating blood means giving life to someone and it is believed that voluntary blood donors command the highest respect for their sacrifice.

In our state, to increase voluntary blood donation, initiatives has been made by some likeminded donors who has come together to form voluntary blood donors associations. Till date, the districts of Kohima, Dimapur, Mokokchung, Tuensang, Zunheboto & Peren has formed the district association, with the objectives to donate blood and to facilitate those who are in need of blood. These associations are actively involved in assisting many patients in times of need, creation of awareness, organizing voluntary blood donation camp, celebration, observations of special events like the World Blood Donors day on 14th JUNE, and National Voluntary Blood Donation Day on 1st October all over the State. Such events are supported by the Nagaland State Blood Transfusion Council (NSBTC) and the

Nagaland State AIDS Control Society (NSACS) with technical support from the respective district blood banks. It is the result of such activities, that there is a significant increase in voluntary blood donation across the State. However, this momentum needs to be maintained with the active support from the general mass.

Through Voluntary Blood donation many lives were save and many are still waiting for wanting of blood for operation, some children are waiting for operation till they attain the age of 12 years, before they reach the age for operation they require 3 to 4 units of blood every month which is very difficult for the parents and relatives to manage. Many people whose life were saved have thanked voluntary blood donors association for which the real credit goes to the voluntary blood donors. Service to man is, service to God As the whole world observe the world observe the world blood donor day on the 14th of June 2014, the Voluntary Blood Donors Associations Kohima (VBDAK) would like to appeal one and all to come forward with your altruistic initiatives by contributing with cast & kind, your prayer and moral support, which will go a long way in motivating more donors for the noble cause in our society. It is also an opportunity to sincerely thank and show our appreciation to all the voluntary blood donors for their ‘GIFT OF LIFE’ voluntary blood donors associations Kohima. The VBDAK sincerely appeals to all people to donate blood voluntarily on 14th June 2014 and those who want to donate can contact the following phone numbers 9436435422/9862618932, 9436062823.

The Morung Express is introducing “Public Space” as part of our intention to provide deliberate space for the opinions of the people to be expressed and heard through this newspaper.

Nonetheless, The Morung Express points out that the opinions expressed in the contents published in the “Public Space” do not reflect the views and position of the newspaper or the editor.

MSDCCU to uphold Ao Senden pledge Mokokchung, June 2 (Mexn): The Mangkolemba Sub Division Coal Contractors’ Union (MSDCCU) has decided to withhold “any payment whatsoever” to the NSCN (K) till further notice/information from the Ao Senden. This was stated in a press release from MSDCCU president, Temjenwati, and secretary, Tinukaba. The MSDCCU informed that it received a “tax demand letter from one Capt.

Tongpang, Commander, Ao Region, Naga/Army, NSCN/ GPRN, Ref. No. NIL, Dated 23rd May, 2014, wherein he

has demanded Rs. 50,000/(rupees fifty thousand only) from each coal contractor in Mangkolemba Sub Division for the year 2013-14 latest by 30th May, 2014 failing which he will be obliged to initiate stern action at any cost.” The MSDCCU further noted that “without any disrespect and disregard to any individual/organization, would like to refer to and support the Ao Senden (Ao Hoho) Pledge No. 4 made on 29th August, 2003 at the Ao Senden General Emergency Session at Town Hall (New), Mokokchung.”

Spasmo seized at railway station DiMapur, June 2 (Mexn): GRPS personnel confiscated around 50, 000 capsules of restricted spasmo proxyvon at the Dimapur railway station on June 2. According to the officer-in-charge of GRPS, Salie Nagi, the contraband was seized from the possession of one Mithilesh Kumar (27 years), who is “serving as security guard in CISF presently posted at Wokha.” Hailing from Bihar, the arrested had brought the drug from Kolkata to be disposed in Dimapur, the

The accused alongwith the seized contraband in the custody of the GRPS.

OC stated. A case was registered and investigation was on, the OC added.

WCH president’s assault ‘conspired and deliberate,’ asserts WCYO DiMapur, June 2 (Mexn): The Western Chakhesang Youth Organization (WCYO) has termed the “life attempt” on the president of Western Chakhesang Hoho (WCH) on May 24 at Aoyimkum village as “a conspired and deliberate action by the villagers which is evident from desperate attempt of multiple justifications in the media by the villagers.”

A statement appended by WCYO president Shelepa Rhakho and general secretary Lhikhro Kreo stated

that “the attempt on his life even after proper identification and goodwill approach is a matter of insult and direct challenge to every tribe member which can never be compromised.” The WCYO said it neither sought government intervention nor negotiated solutions and added it resolved not to accept Tenyimi Union Dimapur’s memorandum. It further urged the authority to “immediately release the culprits unconditionally for failing to comply justice by the administration.”

DPS Dimapur celebrates annual day

MEx FILE ASU ILP verification starts today kohiMa, June 2 (Mexn): As per the usual norm of monitoring and detecting illegal immigrants, the Angami Students Union (ASU) will start its first phase of ILP verification process from June 3 for a period of one week. ASU vice president Visako Rino has directed all verification card holders to report to the union office with their cards and receive confirmation. Fresh applicants have been informed to bring along all necessary documents with two passport size photos. Government officials are exempted from the verification.

The office will remain open from 8:30 am to 3:30 pm.

DPC general body meeting on June 4

GOC 3 Corps, Lt. Gen. SL Narasimhan (4th left) along with school authorities and AISSCE 2014 toppers from DPS Dimapur at the annual day–cum–award giving ceremony 2014 of DPS Dimapur, Monday.

Morung Express News Stressing on the im- that there is no short cut to cash prizes and certificates Dimapur, June 2

Delhi Public School (DPS) Dimapur held its annual day–cum–award giving ceremony 2014 (seniors) here at the school ground with GOC 3 Corps, Lt. Gen. SL Narasimhan gracing the occasion as chief guest.

Congratulating the meritorious students, the general in his address said it was a privilege to meet “future citizens” (students) of India and said every citizen has a vital role to play in society and nation building.

portance of overall development of a person, Narasimhan said that while the primary responsibility of students is to pursue academic excellence, they should at the same time not neglect other cocurricular activities like sports, debates, quiz and other facets of education.

He said only when a student develops overall personality, he or she would be able to face life in the real world.

He also exhorted the students on importance of hard work and reminded

success. “Once you have really put in hard work, you will find that the rewards exceed the efforts,” he added.

Narasimhan also emphasized that students should always have “helpful attitude” and encouraged each person to try to at least help another fellow being. Summing up his speech, the general reminded the students of JK Kennedy’s famous line “Ask not what your country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country.”

The GOC also gave way

to DPS students who had excelled in the AISSCE 2014 (Class XII). Pro-vice chairman, DPS Dimapur, Dr. Ao Toshi and treasurer of DPS Dimapur also gave away awards to meritorious students in the junior classes.

Earlier, principal, DPS Dimapur, read out the annual report of the school and the pro-vice chairman delivered welcome address. The award ceremony was followed by cultural presentations, dances, songs and skits by students of DPS Dimapur.

Training centre opens for cooperative sector DiMapur, June 2 (Mexn): A training centre of Manpower Development & Management Institute (MDMI), Shillong has been opened in Nagaland.

It was inaugurated on June 2 in Dimapur, 5th floor of Nagaland State Co-operative Bank (NSCB) building

by Velasa Nakro, RCS, Nagaland.

In his inaugural address, Nakro appreciated the role played by NSCB for the development of rural economy of Nagaland, informed a press release.

He advised the officers and staff of the Bank to be transparent in the works and travel extra length to be customer friendly and to come out with innovative schemes. The RCS also lauded the role of MDMI in providing skill and capacity building to the Cooperative banks and other stakeholders since its establishment in 1998. With the opening of Nagaland Training Centre of MDMI in Dimapur, the cooperatives will get a boost and march towards progress with trained

manpower, he added.

BK Thadani, ViceChairman, MDMI and Special Officer, NSCB in his welcome address spoke highly of Dr. JB Dutta, Director, MDMI who dedicated his entire career to the cause of the cooperatives of the North East Region and called him the Vaikunth Metha of North East. V Chelladurai, GM (OIC), NABARD Nagaland also stressed on the importance of HRD and need for skill and competence building in

the cooperative sector.

Meanwhile, Dr. Dutta delivered keynote address and informed that two back to back training programmes will be conducted in the centre for the bank personnel from June 2 to 7 as well as one workshop for the members of Self Help Groups, JLGs, Farmers Club and PACS on June 5 and 6. S Atovi Sema, Managing Director, NSCB, chaired the programme and Imtilemba Longkumer, General Manager, NSCB offered vote of thanks.

DiMapur, June 2 (Mexn): The general body meeting of Dimapur Press Club will be held on June 4 (Wednesday), 11 am at the premises of Rotary Club of Dimapur. During the meeting, identity cards of DPC members would be distributed. ID cards would be issued to those who attend the meeting, informed DPC in a press release. All bonafide members have been requested to attend the meeting.

DC Kohima informs reserved polling personnel kohiMa, June 2 (Dipr): Deputy Commissioner & District Election Officer, Kohima, W.Honje Konyak has informed all the Kohima district polling personnel who were kept in group reserved (polling group reserved) during conduct of Lok Sabha Election to collect their remuneration on production of appointment order from Deputy Commissioner & District Election Officer Office Election branch from June 2 to 4, 2014.

KDCC meeting on June 4 kohiMa, June 2 (Mexn): The Kohima District Congress Committee has convened an executive meeting on June 4, 11:00 am at the residence of KV Pusa, former NPCC president. Therefore, all the DCC office bearers, NPCC members, ACCC president and general secretaries, frontal chief and Committee Cell members have been requested to attend the meeting positively.

MDACC commemorates 25 years Mokokchung, June 2 (Dipr): In commemoration of the Silver Jubilee Celebration of Mokokchung District Art & Culture (MDACC), a programme was held at Cosmos Entertainment hall, Mokokchung on May 31. Former Chief Secretary, Nagaland, Alemtemshi Jamir, founding member of MDACC speaking during the celebration programme mentioned that though advancing technology may lead to new emergence of culture, he was optimistic that the goodness in men given by the present Art & Culture would sustain. He also said that MDACC has survived for the last 25 years because of few individuals who have dedicated and put their efforts together. He thanked every individual involved for their selfless effort in bringing MDACC through thick and thin.

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IN-FOCUS

The Power of Truth

The Morung Express TuEsDAy 3 JunE 2014 volumE IX IssuE 150

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Values

s participants of this global evolution, Nagas are in need of values which teach us that we are the products of many cultures, traditions and memories having overlapping identities that unites our shared humanity. This requires the need for values of mutual respect to allows us to study and learn from other cultures; and that, we do indeed gain strength by combining and adjusting the unfamiliar with the familiar. As a people, Nagas have the right to take fulfillment and ownership in our particular faith, heritage and destinies, and learn to love what we are, without hating what and who we are not.

Nagas are in need of values that enable us to prosper in our own tradition, even as we learn from others, and come to respect their teachings.

It is at this particular point that Nagas, like any other young society in this world needs to engage with the dilemmas of truth and the truth about dilemmas. Today, real borders are not between divided states. The real borders are between human hearts and human values. They are between the powerful and the powerless, the free and the bonded, the privileged and the unprivileged, the rich and the poor, and the equal and unequal. Today, no one can claim ignorance of the cost that this divide imposes on those who are no less deserving of human dignity, fundamental freedoms, security, food and education. The values of inclusiveness are therefore a natural imperative of human life.

However, to be raised in an environment of degenerating values - where the most basic value to respect human dignity and human worth is being challenged - is the defining factor. These are the issues posed by the history of our times. Invariably, the manner in which our values and our culture collectively address these challenges will define and shape the future of our collective destinies. Which values are Nagas pursuing and nurturing? Are we feeding and nurturing the forces that will consolidate a humanity of respect, dignity, justice, freedom and hope. Or are we only fueling the forces of prejudice, hatred, oppression and the ‘isms’ that destroys human dreams and hopes? The reality remains that one cannot begin building a future founded on ‘fear’ ‘hate’ and ‘exclusivity?’

This period of human crisis should be a time for Nagas to engage in self-criticism and to truthfully examine our present values. The idea that there is one group, tribe or organization in possession of the truth, one answer to our tribulations, or one solution to our needs, has caused more harm. Today, we are in need of values - the ethos that understands that human diversity is both the reality that makes dialogue necessary, and the very basis for that dialogue. The respect and dignity of each one of us is essential to a shared humanity.

Nagas are in need values that teaches us that the humansecurity and well-being of any one tribe, community, or group is connected and interdependent with the well being of others, requiring mutual respect, understanding, cooperation, and investment in our mutual destiny. A value-based future invariably means, defining our own destinies.

lEfT wiNg |

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Anne Aikio

Youth, Talk to your Elders

ndigenous youth face many issues when they decide to move to cities. Often they choose to move to urban areas seeking access to education or jobs, but many times it might not even be a choice.

Dali Angel (Zapotec) from Mexico explains: “It’s not just the immigration issue that we are facing, or that young people want to move to cities. In Mexico, Indigenous youth are forced into cities because of the industrial activities happening on Indigenous Peoples’ own lands.” Angel spoke in depth about her government’s failure to support local economies, and how the type of labor that Indigenous youth are engaging in in their villages, such as traditional agriculture, is neither officially recognized nor subsidized. She also pointed out that when Indigenous youth arrive in cities they frequently become victims of discrimination and racism, which leads them to reject their own culture, language, and traditional dress. For example, one stereotype that ladino Mexicans hold about Indigenous people involves their use of modern technology. “If a non-Indigenous person sees an Indigenous youth using tablets or new technology, they’ll say that they are stepping out of their culture, that they shouldn’t have access to these new technologies if they want to maintain their culture,” Angel says. Yet, it is often true that Indigenous youth in Mexico might not speak Spanish and have limited access to new technology, making it hard to find jobs. Many times they even don’t have access to drinkable water, she adds.

In Peru, Indigenous groups are urging young people not to forget their heritage. Tania Pariona Tarqui is a Quechua from the region of Ayacucho, Peru. She says that young people have difficulty understanding how to link academic higher education and traditional knowledge; Tarqui, however, believes that she can complement her higher education with traditional knowledge. Andrea Landry, an Anishinaabe from Canada, shares the same kind of difficult experience of living between two worlds. She says she has stayed up nights thinking, “Why am I doing my master thesis in a western university when I even can’t speak my own language?”

Angel, Tarqui, and Landry all find that education is problematic. Some families cannot afford higher education for their kids. But it can also be true that elder people disagree with Indigenous youths’ choice to seek a western education. Tarqui says, “Usually there are two ways of thinking: some families agree that education is important, but with it there is a kind of sadness. They are afraid that children will lose connection to [their] homelands.”

Although the attitudes in local communities toward pursuing a western education can be negative, Landry advises young people to look for guidance at home. “Go talk to your elders and go to ceremonies,” she says, “because there you find people who have been fighting this fight for generations. And they know how to survive it.

That’s the way I found my way on [the] right path.”

Anne Aikio is Sami from Finland and was a participant at the World Conference of Indigneous Women

THE EDIT PAGE

C O M M E N T A R Y

Julie Pace AP White House Correspondent

Susan Rice helping Obama juggle foreign policy crises

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nce seemingly destined to become secretary of state, Susan Rice now holds a lower profile job at the White House, juggling one global crisis after another for President Barack Obama and trying to insure that his broad list of foreign policy priorities does not fall by the wayside in the widening storm of problems overseas.

She shows no bitterness about the turn of events that short circuited her diplomatic trajectory. As Obama's national security adviser, she commands a suite of offices steps from the Oval Office and has more daily access to the president than Secretary of State John Kerry. Kerry travels the world and gets the headlines; Rice quietly orchestrates the foreign policy issues put on Obama's desk.

These days, Rice has been keeping a list of issues at risk of being ignored: A trade agreement with AsiaPacific nations. Development projects in Africa. Protecting gay rights overseas. She's sent the list around to some of those on the 400-person National Security Council staff she oversees and holds weekend meetings when necessary to keep tabs on issues that may have gotten overshadowed by Mideast instability or Russia's threatening moves in Ukraine.

The approach underscores the degree to which Rice, who is nearing the end of her first year in the White House, sees herself as the point guard in a game that is rapidly nearing the final buzzer. "It is a very important part of my job, particularly at this stage in the president's tenure, to not just be fighting fires and the headlines, which to some extent is unavoidable, but to make sure that the things he cares about — his legacy interests, issues, accomplishments — are nurtured and carried into the end zone," Rice said in an interview. "We are trying to put points on the board."

Yet the fires have come fast and furious, even on the very day Obama announced he was shifting Rice from United Nations ambassador to national security adviser. Hours after her Rose Garden ceremony, the first leaks from Edward Snowden were published online, sparking a months-long review of the government's spy practices and angering U.S. allies caught up in the sweeping surveillance operations.

There's been little respite since, often throwing the White House into a reactive posture. The week Rice officially took over as national security adviser, Egypt's military ousted the country's first democratically elected president. That crisis was quickly overshadowed by a Syrian chemical weapons attack and the White House's rush toward a military strike that was ultimately scuttled. Now it's the instability in Ukraine that has consumed much of the foreign policy bandwidth in the White House. "I don't have the luxury of saying, I'm going to do these three things and I'm going to put most of my eggs in these baskets," Rice said, adding that when it comes to the foreign policy decision-making process, "I've got to run the whole show."

For many Americans, Rice remains best known for her role in the controversy surrounding the deadly 2012 attack on Americans in Benghazi, Libya.

Days after the assault, Rice was dispatched to five Sunday talk shows to make the case that the onslaught on a U.S. compound was spontaneous and spurred by anger over an anti-Islam video — a CIAcrafted talking point that turned out to be wrong.

Rice quickly became the prime target for Republicans who accused the Obama administration of covering up the truth about the attack in order to protect the president's re-election prospects.

People close to Rice say the experience was a searing one for the hard-charging diplomat who had led the push for the international bombing campaign that led to longtime Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi's ouster. A year before the attack on the U.S. compound, Rice had received a hero's welcome during a visit to the Libyan city, where crowds held signs that read "Thank You Susan Rice" and a huge banner flew in the city's Freedom Square bearing a photograph of Rice voting in favor of the bombing campaign at the U.N. Rice's success in securing support for the Libya mission had helped put her on a glide path toward a nomination for Obama's second-term secretary of state. But the Benghazi attack derailed those plans,

D

espite Sonia Gandhi's advice to Congressmen to avoid "public acrimony", rumbling of discontent about the party's miserable performance in the recent elections have continued. It will be a mistake, however, if the party tries to brush aside the prevailing sense of helpless anger within the organization as an apparently transient "expression of frustration arising out of defeat", as senior general secretary Digvijay Singh has done.

His observation deserves serious attention since he is believed to convey the family's views. Taken together, Sonia Gandhi's and Digvijay Singh's comments suggest an attempt to paper over the cracks that have appeared in the party. The ploy is understandable because, for the first time, the dynasty has come under direct attack. Moreover, the person facing the flak is none other than the party president's choice to be the next leader, Rahul Gandhi.

So far, the criticism of the heir apparent has been relatively muted, except for a Kerala Congressman who called Rahul Gandhi a "joker" and paid for his candour by being suspended from the party.

Others have either been more polite or sought refuge in anonymity or directed their fire on Rahul Gandhi's advisers or confined themselves to lambasting unnamed "rootless wonders and spineless creepers". There have also been attempts to pass the buck by blaming Manmohan Singh since his government was not a "good product" and, therefore, unsalable to the electorate.

But the unambiguous upshot of the comments is the belief within the party

This July 27, 2013 file photo shows National Security Adviser Susan Rice throwing out the ceremonial first pitch before a baseball game between the New York Mets and the Washington Nationals at Nationals Park in Washington.

Once seemingly destined to become secretary of state, Rice now holds a lower profile job at the White House, juggling one global crises after another for President Barack Obama and trying to insure that his broad list of foreign policy priorities doesn’t fall by the wayside in the widening storm of problems overseas. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, File)

with Republican senators threatening to block her nomination and Rice eventually withdrawing her name from consideration.

Rice's consolation prize was an appointment as national security adviser, a job that doesn't require Senate confirmation but still carries enormous influence. The 49-year-old is at the helm of the administration's foreign policy decision-making, overseeing meetings with Cabinet secretaries and other top officials, then winnowing down which recommendations land on the president's desk.

For Rice, it's a far different role than her post as U.N. ambassador. During four years in New York, she earned a reputation as an outspoken and competitive diplomat who may have bruised some egos on the U.N. Security Council but also had a noticeable impact on Obama's foreign policy, from pushing the Libya campaign to successfully securing tough sanctions against Iran and North Korea.

Rice's influence on Obama's foreign policy has become harder to discern since she moved into the West Wing. She's rarely the administration's chief public advocate for policy decisions, a role she leaves to Kerry or even her deputy, Ben Rhodes. While she does some media interviews, her public comments are often limited to the occasional speech or posts on Twitter, where she has one of the administration's most widely viewed accounts with more than 377,000 followers.

Rice says her lower profile is by design. Turning as she often does to a sports analogy, Rice compared her current role to that of a basketball point guard — the position she played on her high school basketball team and the code name assigned to her by the Secret Service. "I'm setting up the play," Rice said. "I have to see the whole court. I'm usually running the play but passing it to somebody else." "In the U.N., I'm a shooting guard. I'm taking the three-pointer from the outside often," she continued. "And it's very evident whether I hit it or miss it."

When asked for examples of Rice's influence on Obama's foreign policy, administration officials cited her role in finalizing an interim nuclear deal with Iran, drawing on her expertise with the sanctions regime she helped craft at the UN. They also said that as the scope of Snowden's document trove became apparent, Rice pushed the White House to get more agile in responding to the leaks and correcting mischaracterizations. And officials said she's pressed to keep North Korea's nuclear provocations from becoming a back-burner issue.

Perhaps the biggest questions about Rice's im-

pact on Obama's foreign policy surround the administration's response to Syria's civil war.

Both liberal and conservative interventionists were hopeful that Rice's appointment, in conjunction with the nomination of former journalist and advocate Samantha Power as her successor at the U.N. signaled that Obama was ready to take a more proactive approach to solving that crisis.

Much attention was paid to a comment Rice had made in one of Powers' books, where she recalled her involvement in the Clinton administration's slow response to the Rwandan genocide. Rice is quoted as saying that if she ever faced such a crisis again, "I would come down on the side of dramatic action, going down in flames if that was required."

Rice did back Obama's plans last year to launch a targeted military strike on Syria and raised concerns when the president decided to instead seek congressional approval, a bid that floundered. But her presence in the West Wing appears to have done little to shift the overall trajectory of Obama's response to the civil war, which continues to focus on slow but steady humanitarian assistance and moderate military assistance to the vetted opposition.

Sarah Margon, the Washington director of the advocacy organization Human Rights Watch, said rather than become more proactive over the past year, "the administration has taken an increasingly cautious approach to foreign policy and human rights." And Republican Sen. John McCain, a frequent critic of the Obama administration's foreign policy, said he believes Rice is personally hawkish "but not terribly assertive."

Rice's supporters inside the West Wing say she has purposely tried to be less of an advocate for her own positions and more of an honest broker in representing to the president a range of available options. They also say she takes seriously her role as head of the National Security Council, where she first started her career in government during the Clinton administration.

In a symbolic but important move to many on her staff, she restored the council's name after Obama changed it to the National Security Staff.

She also plays host to happy hours and the occasional dance party, with Rice playing DJ with her iPod. Denis McDonough, the White House chief of staff, recently tried to get into the team-building mix, suggesting a basketball game between his office and Rice's staff. But McDonough said the competitive Rice has yet to accept his offer.

"She said she wanted some time to practice," he said.

Congress cannot paper over Rahul 's failures Amulya Ganguli IANS that, first, Rahul Gandhi has proved to be a failure as a leader and, secondly, that unless he makes way for someone else, the Congress will not be able to dig itself out of its present hole.

Since the party members cannot yet think beyond the family, it isn't surprising that some of them are calling for Priyanka Gandhi-Vadra to take charge. But such a move is fraught with difficulties. First, a change of guard in the top echelons will be a blow to Rahul Gandhi's prestige. So, his sister is unlikely to respond to the proposals.

Secondly, the move will not have Sonia Gandhi's blessings since she apparently still reposes faith in Rahul Gandhi's abilities. This assessment is substantiated by Digvijay Singh's appeal to Rahul Gandhi to be the leader of the opposition in the Lok Sabha because a leader "has to lead from the front".

There is little doubt, however, that the Congress is in a jam. Its purported leader has not only been derided by an anonymous former Madhya Pradesh minister as someone who arrives in a

helicopter, addresses a rally and then flies off without interacting with local Congressmen, but is also being increasingly seen as a person who is unlikely to attain enough maturity in the near future to fulfil Digvijay Singh's hopes.

To make matters worse, his aloofness and arrogance have become all too apparent, suggesting that the disconnect between him and the ordinary party worker will remain. Priyanka Gandhi is different for, as the former human resource development minister Pallam Raju has said, she has a "natural ability to connect with the people".

In this atmosphere of doom and gloom, it must have occurred to not a few Congressmen that in view of the dauphin's prolonged adolescence and with their ingrained servility preventing them from looking outside the family for a leader, the party's spell in the wilderness may not end any time soon.

Two possibilities arise from this scenario. One is that there will be a rupture of the kind when Sharad Pawar and Co broke away because they real-

wRiTE-wiNg

ized that the glass ceiling of the dynasty ruled out any upward mobility for them. But the Nationalist Congress Party's record does not inspire any confidence in such an adventurous step. Even then, since politics is a matter of bread and butter for politicians, the Congressmen cannot afford to wait indefinitely for the party to revive.

The other is that they will indeed wait for the party to come to life, not as a result of any special effort on its own but because of the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) missteps. If the Congress is dependent on the dynasty, the BJP at present is a one-man party with no one other than Narendra Modi to hold it together and lead it to success. If, by any chance, he stumbles, the Congress can hope to sneak back into the corridors of power.

However, as was evident from Rahul Gandhi's rather odd-looking smile at the press briefing after the results were announced, he doesn't seem to have been able to come to terms with the reality of the massive defeat. Having always lived a sheltered life, he appeared to think that he wouldn't be answerable for it. Had he really experienced the shock of the setback, he might have reacted in the way he did when he tore up the ordinance in favour of tainted politicians.

The least Rahul Gandhi can do is to resign from the vice-president's post.

That he hasn't is bad news for the Congress, for it shows that he remains the mama's boy to whom politics is a pastime and not serious business. If the party continues to protect him, it can only sink deeper into the quagmire.

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

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

7

TuEsday

THE MORUNG EXPRESS

3 June 2014

PERSPECTIVE NEWS ANALYSIS, FEATURE AND DISCOURSE

When is civil society a force for social transformation?

Michael Edwards hen you look at the numbers, the growth of civil society has been remarkable: 3.3 million charities in India and 1.5 million across the United States; NGOs like the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee that work with hundreds of millions of people; 81,000 international NGOs and networks, 90 per cent of them launched since 1975. That’s not counting all the street protests, social movements and informal community groups that are often omitted from the data. In the UK, for example, these latter outnumber registered charities by more than four to one.

These statistics are mightily impressive - except when compared to the problems that civil societies want to solve. You could argue that things would be worse without the involvement of these groups.

There’s also evidence to show that they’re making inroads around the edges of poverty and injustice.

But there’s no sign that the underlying structures of social, political and economic violence and oppression are being shaken to their roots.

As a result, fewer people in the world are dying young, and basic indicators of health and education, income and employment are getting slightly better at least for most people in most countries. However, economic inequality is rising, democracies are being hollowed out, climate change is worsening, and discrimination based on race, gender, ability and sexual orientation remains endemic.

Social movements have helped to challenge these underlying problems, and they’ve successfully unseated dictators in many parts of the world. But they haven’t been able to secure lasting gains in democracy, equality and freedom.

Expecting civil society groups to achieve these gains by themselves would be foolish. However, given the rapid growth of all these organizations, shouldn’t they be having at least some impact on the deep transformation of self and society? What is going wrong?

I’ve spent the last 30 years trying to figure out an answer to that question, and every so often I put some thoughts down in print. Of course, like the proverbial painter on the Forth Rail Bridge in Scotland, I have to start afresh as soon as I’ve finished each round of revisions, since civil societies are constantly mutating. But they don’t seem to be mutating in the direction of social transformation, despite the headline-grabbing protests of the Arab Spring and other ‘revolutions.’ In fact my conclusion this time around may be surprising: the strength of civil society is declining even as its size continues to expand.

I think there are two main reasons for this mismatch. The first is that civil society groups are increasingly divorced from the forces that drive deeper social change. When one looks at the few times in history when civil society has functioned as a powerful and lasting moral and political lever - like the civil rights and women’s movements of the 1960s and 1970s large numbers of people became active in translating ethical action into power structures at every level, from the family to the courts and corporations.

In this sense, civil society is like an iceberg, with the peaks of protest rising above the waterline and the great mass of everyday citizen action hidden underneath. When the two are connected - when street protests are backed up by long-term action in every community, bank, business, local government, church or mosque, temporary gains in equality and diversity have more chance of becoming permanent shifts in power and public norms. In that respect it’s not the Arab or any other ‘Spring’ that really makes the difference, but what happens in every other season, of every other year, across every generation.

Unfortunately these episodes of large-scale, joinedup action are quite rare, and the long-term trend has been the opposite, at least in Europe and North America. Traditional forms of participation - like voting and membership in labor unions and other mass organizations - have declined alarmingly over the last 50 years.

Other forms of participation have emerged in their stead, but they haven’t had the same effect in pulling large numbers of people into face-to-face, ongoing, and potentially transformative activities.

These new forms of participation are largely social media-based, but they also include social enter-

Challenges in Educational Policy in our present society

W

T

echnology alone did not win India’s general election for the Bharatiya Janata Party and Narendra Modi. But it played a huge part, and the surprisingly decisive results mark the country’s full-scale embrace of the digital age. Indian elections will never be the same.

Modi and his party used the spinal cord of India’s remarkable mobile phone network, with its more than 900 million connections, and added Facebook, Twitter, live 3D ‘hologram’ appearances in country towns and a troop of tech-savvy young enthusiasts. On top of this, they adopted a hard-edged strategy towards print and television, tacked onto the old-fashioned, irreplaceable asset of disciplined truebelievers—the tens of thousands of ideologically fired-up workers of the Hindu nationalist group, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

We forget how digitally switched on India has become. Of the country’s 250 million households, 60 per cent have a television. There is a working phone for every two Indians, from children to the elderly (if one accepts raw numbers, the ratio is lower still—900 million phone subscribers, but many are inactive—600 million is more likely accurate).

Even rural India is affected-there are an estimated 40 phone connections for every 100 people in the countryside. Ten years ago, messages came infrequently to rural India, usually as postcards, occasionally as a telegram delivered by a postman on a bicycle.

In the campaign that has just ended, however, Narendra Modi ap-

“Arena of Mind” portrays a space for idea germination, a field where ideas from multi-disciplinary viewpoints fertilize the world of intelligence. The writers aspire to envision a new future by exploring the mind, discovering new seeds of insights and unleashing them to enlightenment.

Ms. Vilavonuo Maria Kulnu Asst. Professor, Department of education St. Joseph’s College, Jakhama

T A novice Buddhist monk stands in front of a group of protesting people in Yangon, Myanmar on Tuesday, May 27, 2014. The small group of civil society activists staged a protest calling for an amendment to Myanmar's constitution that bans opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyia becoming the country's president. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)

prises and professional advocacy groups which have strong messages but much weaker memberships.

They may well attract large numbers of people to donate money, sign petitions, and consume less harmful products, but none of these actions have the same amount of purchase in the heartlands of politics and economics. They are too thin to have much effect on the transformation of society.

As an indicator of changing fashions, the number of Google searches for “civil society” fell by 70 per cent between 2004 and 2012. During the same period, searches for “social media” and “social entrepreneurs” rose by 90 per cent and 40 per cent respectively.

It isn’t that these new trends are bad in themselves - successful social movements have always made use of innovations in marketing, revenuegeneration and communications. The problems arrive when they displace other forms of civil society action that remain essential. In that respect, it’s significant that today’s most transformative civil society groups incorporate both online and offline activism around a strong ethos of democratic participation and accountability. “Making Change at Wal-Mart,” for example, uses Facebook to help employees identify which of their “friends” works for the company, to supply them with information about their rights, and then to connect them to ongoing campaigns and demonstrations on the ground.

But in terms of transformation, it does matter that a different ethos of competition and technocracy is increasingly influential in civil society itself.

In a classic case of cooptation, what was designed as a solidarity-based alternative is being turned into an integral component of the social capitalist economy.

The second reason for the decline in civil societies’ transformative potential is that structures that used to mediate between people of different views and backgrounds have largely disappeared. Getting large numbers of people to participate in politics and civic life is priority number one. But those people will likely disagree with each other on everything from gay marriage to student debt. That’s the reality of civil societies everywhere, which don’t belong to conservatives or progressives, or to anyone else in particular, but to everyone.

So priority number two is to find ways for people to come together across their differences and hammer out some common ground. That common ground then gets translated formally into laws and policies by voting in reforming governments, and informally into the norms of public opinion that help to set some sense of direction for society.

This was precisely the process that underpinned broad, public support for redistributive actions like the GI Bill of 1944, which made college education and other benefits accessible for all returning veterans in the USA. Many future leaders of the US Civil Rights movement were graduates of these programs. Something similar took place in Britain after the end of World War Two, when the newly elected

Labour Government introduced the Welfare State.

Greater social intermingling during the war years, and a sense of shared experience and responsibility, helped to draw in a wider range of support.

In both these examples, the ground was laid for potentially transformative changes in society, though much of it has since been eroded. By guaranteeing the conditions in which broad swathes of the population could participate in politics and public life, governments gave civil society a tremendous boost.

The problem is that most of the structures through which people participated have been destroyed or allowed to wither on the vine. They included labor unions (which declined by 43 per cent in the USA between 1950 and 2000), parent-teachers associations (which lost 60 per cent of their members during the same period), political parties, and national federations of women’s groups. As a result, the rich and diverse ecosystems of civil society that had brought different groups together, however imperfectly, began to resemble monocultures in which organizations looked alike or turned into single issue or constituency groups.

This process was most visible in the decline of particular kinds of civic institutions, but it also had a personal face. Coalition building, or simply arguing with eachother to create a sense of the public interest, require a willingness to engage, and to recognize that sustaining civil society is a shared responsibility, even if we disagree about the details of what civic groups should do.

At its core, civil society has always been a deeply human construction, a way of “rearranging the geometry of human relationships” and not just cementing the bricks and mortar of NGOs and other groups. That, too, is being lost to the tide of corporatization and technocratic management.

Reversing the decline of civil society as a force for transformation will be exceptionally difficult, because the processes of hollowing out and separation, of commercialization and muzzling have become so deeply embedded. Any group that bucks these trends will be isolated and undermined. Philanthropists will deny them funding, politicians will curb their rights to organize, corporations will co-opt their language and their tactics, and other, less radical groups will try to colonize their work and capture their supporters.

But since civil societies are ours to lose, they are also ours to reclaim, to refresh and re-energize against the background of a constantly shifting landscape of opportunities, tools and techniques - social media and social enterprise included.

The destruction of civil society is easy, and it’s happening around us now. Its re-creation is much more difficult, a task akin to accumulating all the ‘snow’ that eventually makes the ‘iceberg’ of everyday citizen action.

That may sound like too little, too late, or simply take too long, or be too much work in an era when instant gratification is demanded. But it will be worth it. After all, it was an iceberg that sank the Titanic.

he Right of Children to “Free and Compulsory Education Act” or “Right to Education Act” (RTE) is an Act of the Parliament of India enacted on 4 August 2009. This Act is an explanation of the Article 21a of the Indian Constitution. It came into force on 1 April 2010 making a fundamental right to every child.

Looking at it from its philosophical aspect, it assures reduction of tension and stress for the students. It is because the students are waved off from high tension terminal examinations.

One stroke of examination exerts enormous pressure on the learner and there is no room for diagnosis, remediation and improvement. Besides, this is to reduce the importance of Board/Public Examination and strengthen school-based examinations. So this Act provides a wide range of opportunities for the whole round development of the students. With this zeal the country’s leading educationists have framed the RTE and the Parliament had passed this bill.

The RTE Act promises free and compulsory education to all children within the age group of 6 – 14 years. The Act calls for a fixed pupil-teacher ratio, i.e., 30:1, etc. This system was brought about as the present system of education in the schools do the assessment based only on the academic achievements. Whereas the educational system should see the all round development of the child as quoted by M.K. Gandhiji who says that education is an “all round development of body, mind and spirit” But to my observation, the reality of this great law is a little different practically. At such a time our state has taken this RTE in ‘Toto’ into our educational system prior to most of the so called “advanced” states of India.

Life is full of choices, everyone selects between the good and the better. Likewise even in the implementation of this RTE Act, we may need to choose between the good and the better.

I remember with gratitude to my own teachers who molded and raised me up. It is because of their dedicated service, I am what I am today. Likewise, I see many good teachers who try hard to impart the knowledge to their students in spite of the students’ slightest eagerness to learn and unprepared attitude towards education. But I also see many well-trained and experienced teachers taking their teaching professions very unskillfully.

It is disheartening to see many of the students’ progress are not forward but backward. The degree of knowledge the students possess is not up to the level that they should know.

In this connection I blame largely on the educational system of ‘No Detention Policy’ which makes the students’ take their studies for granted that even without studying they would be promoted.

If the system of education goes on this way my worry for the future is, the finished products of our educational institutions will not able to compete with their counter parts in the competitive examinations with the rest of the world. Besides, our society would be filled with ‘half-baked educated citizens’ who will multiply anti-social activities in our society and will also increase the number of Certified Educated Unemployed.

The present system of education is affecting the discipline both in the school as well as at home. It kills the enthusiasm, creativity and aspiration of the children. In the long run the children will no longer have the interest in learning process. We are not yet prepared for this system, our society/ educational trend has not yet grown up to that height to implement the Act in practice. Our state is on the right track in the educational field and an attempt to change the system would be detrimental.

I have written this with hope that the new Ministry with new heads heading the Education Department in Nagaland will place the future betterment of our students over the Central Government’s fund. Besides this, I hope the New Ministry will also consider seriously the verdict passed by the Supreme Court on ‘Minority Schools exempted from RTE Act’ which was posted on May 7, 2014 and bring the necessary changes in our present educational systems.

Modi's extraordinary use of mobile technology peared in 700 localities in the state of Uttar Pradesh alone as a 3D hologram, beamed in by satellite. Modi spoke from a studio in Ahmedabad, the capital of Gujarat; outside broadcast vans set up the technology in the target towns. People came from far and wide to see the show and become part of the momentum that the Modi campaign was building.

Modi has a reputation for being a quick learner, a man who likes a new idea, especially if he discovers that he thought of it first. He is said to have had a three-month course in public relations in the US in the 1990s when he worked as a party spokesman in the New Delhi headquarters of the BJP. He has been Tweeting since 2009, and although there is disagreement over how many of his Twitter followers are active, he can claim more than four million.

This was not India’s first election with mobile phones. Former BJP Prime Minister, Atul Bihari Vajpayee, sent recorded messages to thousands of mobile phone subscribers during the 2004 campaign, but there were no more than 20 million connections then.

And that seemed to backfire.

People tried to reply to the Prime Minister, only to discover to their annoyance that the traffic was one way. In the current election, parties less imaginative than the BJP sent out streams of SMS messages, as many as five a day, and recipients were similarly irritated, not impressed. They were also concerned

Narendra Modi with his Bharatiya Janata Party has used technology in an Indian election campaign at an unprecedented level, campaigning digitally in nine languages and changing the election process forever assa doron and Robin Jeffrey

at how political parties got their numbers so easily.

Digital technology touched nearly every Indian in this campaign. A cheap 2G phone, available for as little as 10 USD with a cheap plan to match, are within the reach

of even the very poor. A labourer on an urban building site in some states can nearly earn that in a day. The lowly wage from a week’s work in guaranteed-employment schemes adds up to about the same.

Even cheap phones come load-

ed with eight of the eleven scripts in which Indian newspapers are published and children are educated.

If you want to send a SMS in Malayalam or Bengali, your 2G phone is ready to go. Modi and his helpers were well aware of this, campaigning digitally in nine languages.

Your phone also has a flashlight and an FM radio, and by spending only a little more, you can get one with a camera and start your own photo album. The cheap mobile is a marvellous device for poor people who may not be literate and who don’t have a lot in the way of safe storage space.

This omnipresence of the mobile helped to make this the highest-turnout election in Indian history. About two-thirds of the electorate voted—about 540 million people. With all their switched-on, energised electioneering, the BJP and their allies still got only about a third of the vote, but in a multi-party, first-past-thepost system, that translated into more than 60 per cent of the seats.

Discriminating use of the technology allowed the Modi campaign to connect with large segments of India’s hugely diverse electorate. Different levels of technology or ‘platforms’ connected with particular social classes; different appeals targeted varying wants, fears and aspirations.

Thousands of young computerliterate Modi workers had a splendid brand to project—Modi himself. Su-

premely confident in front of a camera or a microphone, happy to have tweets in his name sent throughout the day, he exuded energy and dynamism. His media-savvy personality enabled him to maintain a carefully cultivated image as a devout, vegetarian celibate, abstaining, as a spiritual man should, from indulgence, yet switched on to the latest solutions to the country’s problems.

The contrast with the languid efforts of Rahul Gandhi and his mother Sonia, and the public performances of the outgoing Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, were disastrous for the Congress Party.

In the future, nobody campaigning for political office in India will be able to ignore the ever-expanding array of media formats that reach masses of people. Their sophistication and availability will only grow as 3G and 4G devices fall in price and bring increasing information options, even to India’s poor.

The BJP’s india272.com website earned praise from web developers and political operators. As Obama’s campaigns have famously done, it enabled party workers to connect with sympathisers in the community and involve them in the campaign.

However, whether the backroom boys picked the right US president on whom to model their triumphant home page after the victory remains open to question. It showed a cream-clad Modi lifting his eyes and hands in prayerful thanks, proclaiming ‘Mission Accomplished!’

At least, some observed, he was not wearing the gear of a fighter pilot or the khaki shorts of the RSS.

8

Dimapur

NATIONAL

Tuesday 3 June 2014

The Morung Express

Grisly murders highlight social strains in India

KATRA SHAHADATGANJ, JuNe 2 (ReuTeRS): When a farm labourer in this hardscrabble village in Uttar Pradesh went to the police last week to report that his daughter and her cousin had gone missing, a constable slapped him in the face and sent him away.

Hours later he found the two girls, hanging by their necks from a mango tree.

A post-mortem found they had been raped.

Three men were arrested for the crime in Uttar Pradesh that underscored the enduring culture of sexual assault in India and the capacity for appalling violence between Hindu castes. Two policemen were held on suspicion of attempting to cover up the killings.

One of Modi’s biggest challenges will be making a break from the ineffectual responses of governments to heinous crimes like this and the gang rape and murder in December 2012 of a young woman in the capital, which provoked a rash of street protests, much of it over the authorities’ apparent indifference.

“When these incidents occur, like the one in Delhi in 2012, there is public outrage,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director of Human Rights Watch. “Then the state responds, but it gets left behind at the level of rhetoric.” On Monday, Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party sought to make political capital. Workers from the party accused the Uttar

Activists of various student and youth organizations walk shouting slogans as they protest against a rise in violence against women in the country and West Bengal state in particular in Kolkata on Monday, June 2. Banner in Bangla reads, “we condemn rape and molestation on women at Labhpur, Mohammed Bazar and other parts of state”. (AP Photo)

Pradesh state government, headed by Samajwadi Party, of negligence over the crimes and of being unfit to govern.

Police fired water cannon at the protesters, who were demanding the state government be dismissed and the imposition of direct, presidential rule.

Four of the five suspects arrested in last week’s case are from the powerful Yadav community, a land-owning Hindu caste that holds political sway in Uttar Pradesh. Police declined to confirm reports that three had con-

fessed. The victims were, like Modi, from a lowly caste. They were Shakyas, by tradition peasant farmers who are often vulnerable to exploitation by the Yadavs.

“The nature of it shouts out caste atrocity,” said Kavita Krishnan, a prominent women’s rights activist and left-wing politician. “It’s meant to have a terrorising effect.” Caste divisions, baked into society over generations despite official efforts to remove them, could be as much a problem for the prime minister as the tensions between

Hindus and minority Muslims that critics fear he could inflame.

Critics fault Modi, a Hindu nationalist, for pursuing a majoritarian agenda: More than twothirds of his cabinet ministers belong to a powerful Hindu grassroots movement, raising doubts that he can close social rifts and govern in the interests of all Indians. While intercaste violence is an ageold symptom of social oppression, it is also a sign of social change as marginalised groups seek democratic rights and a share in

India’s rising prosperity.

“There’s a sense of changing India,” said Krishnan, seeing in the violence “a need to reinforce caste hierarchies”. After the two young cousins were raped and strung up in Katra Shahadatganj, villagers refused to let their bodies be cut down until the men they accuse of the killings were arrested. Images of the girls - still roped to sturdy branches, a crowd gathered below - went around the world, transforming what would have become a forgotten crime into a symbol of sexual and

caste oppression in India’s a nearby district, said the most populous state.

Yadavs get protection from the police. “And it’s not just Police Protection police, but political parIt was just after 7 p.m. ties,” he said, complaining on Tuesday when an un- that Yadavs steal the crops cle of the girls heard their of many farmers. cries as he was coming in All five suspects were from the fields. He flashed being held in a jail in the a torch and spotted four nearby town of Budaun. A men, recognising one. He guard and three other officonfronted them, but fled cers said it was not possible after being threatened with to talk to the men. Officials a handgun, he told Reuters at the local magistrates on Saturday at the victims’ court said the suspects did family home. not yet have a lawyer. Their The uncle and the girls’ relatives had fled the vilfather went to the local lage, and it was not immepolice post to report the diately possible to contact girls missing. Indian law them. The grief-stricken does not allow rape vic- mother of one of the girls, tims and their relatives to veiled in a magenta sari, be identified by the media. was clear: “I want them There, they were asked hanged,” she said. their caste and told that the person the uncle had Boys Will Be Boys recognised by torchlight The chief minister of was an “honest man”. “I Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh fell to their feet,” said the Yadav, and his father, Mufather, pleading with them layam Singh Yadav, are - as to find his daughter and their family name implies niece. That’s when he was - also Yadavs. A nephew slapped. “They said the of Mulayam was elected girls will reach your home as member of parliament in a couple of hours,” said for Budaun in last month’s the father, lying outside election. Mulayam caused his cramped brick house, outrage by criticising his face a mask of grief and changes in the law that alexhaustion. lowed the death penalty Katra Shahadatganj is for gang rape. “Boys coma dirt-poor village like so mit mistakes. Will they be many in Uttar Pradesh, the hanged for rape?” he said northern state in the Gan- in a campaign speech. ges river basin that is home The law was tightened to one in every six of India’s after the 2012 New Delhi 1.2 billion people. Its roads rape case. In March, the are potholed, and green Delhi High Court upheld sludge courses through death sentences for four open sewers. Power sup- men convicted last Sepplies are sporadic, medi- tember. Around Katra Shacal facilities are feeble and hadatganj, local people say teachers rarely turn up at many such crimes against the local school. Suren- girls and women take der Sakhya, a farmer from place and go unpunished.

“What about my daughter?” asked Sukhdevi, a woman from a nearby village whose 13-year-old daughter disappeared in February and has not been heard of since. A couple of men were briefly held and then let go, she said.

“I held her in my womb, washed her clothes, cared for her,” Sukhdevi said, her voice trembling. “We are so poor. This happens.” Families of rape victims often face harassment in Uttar Pradesh when trying to report crimes. Last year, police locked up a 10-year-old girl after her family pressed rape charges.

Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav has come under fire for snapping “you’re not in danger, are you?” at a TV reporter who asked him a question about last week’s killings.

His state government has since sought to limit the damage by calling for the murders to be investigated by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), India’s counterpart to the U.S. FBI. No one from the BJP has visited the village where the two girls were murdered. A cabinet minister from an allied party on Monday became the first representative of Modi’s government to go to the scene. “The whole country is shaken, but neither the chief minister nor any minister who are there has come to this place,” said Ram Vilas Paswan, minister for consumer affairs, food and public distribution. “This means that either they are scared of the public or they are trying to protect the culprits.”

Sonia selects Kharge, not Rahul, Telangana erupts in joy; KCR takes over as 1st CM as leader of Congress in Lok Sabha

bANGAlORe, JuN 2 (PTI): Mallikarjuna Kharge, who was chosen leader of the Congress in Lok Sabha, on Monday said his party would not function as an “opposition for opposition sake” and its approach would be “issue-based”.

“We will not function as opposition for opposition sake. It (our functioning) will be issue based in the larger interest of the country and society,” Kharge said in his reaction to the new role assigned by his party before leaving for New Delhi.

The Congress as the opposition party would, at the same time, discharge its responsibility in highlighting the “mistakes” of the government, Kharge, a veteran Congress leader who has never tasted defeat in his more than 45 years of political life, said.

Profusely thanking Congress president Sonia Gandhi for reposing faith in him, he said, “I will do my utmost to measure up to the expectations of party president.”

“I will sincerely and honestly try to discharge the re-

sponsibility in the interest of the country. Whatever job has been entrusted to me by my party president, I will try to come up to her expectations,” he said. He said he would seek the guidance of Sonia Gandhi, Rahul Gandhi and other leaders and take all along in his new role.

Party general secretary Janardan Dwivedi told IANS that Kharge “has been appointed as the leader of the Congress parliamentary party in Lok Sabha”.

Dwivedi added that the it was up to the “Speaker

to decide (whether the) status of leader of opposition” would be granted in Kharge’s case as the party does not have enough numbers to claim the mantle of the main opposition party in Lok Sabha.

The Congress won 44 seats in the Lok Sabha in the polls. The main opposition party is required to have at least 55 MPs in the Lok Sabha or 10%t of it total strength of 545. However, the Speaker of Lok Sabha can confer the status on his or her discretion.

SC suspends Yakub Memon’s execution

New DelHI, JuNe 2 (IANS): The Supreme Court Monday suspended execution of the death sentence of 1993 Mumbai bomb blast death row convict Yakub Abdul Razak Memon as it issued notice to the central government on his petition challenging the apex court’s rules guiding the review of capital punishment order.

Suspending Yakub Mamon’s execution, a bench of Justice J.S. Khehar and Justice C. Nagappan tagged his plea with that of December 2000 Red Fort attack death row convict Mohamed Arif, who has contended that the review petition in death sentence cases should be heard in open court and not to be decided by circulation amongst the judges.

President Pranab Mukherjee May 21 rejected Memon’s mercy plea. He applied for presidential pardon in October 2013. Appearing for Memon, se-

nior counsel Upamanyu Hazarika told the court that the Law Commission in its report in 2003 said that the appeal in death sentence cases in the Supreme Court should be heard by a five-judge bench but noted this recommendation has not been acted upon so far.

He said the question whether a review petition in death sentence cases could be decided by the judges in chamber by circulating it as provided in the court’s rules is pending adjudication by a constitution bench by court’s order of 2011 and 2014 in two different cases. Hazarika told the court that Memon has already undergone 20 years of imprisonment following his arrest from Kathmandu airport in 1994 and could he now be sent to gallows? In the case of Arif, the court was told that he has already undergone 14 years of incarceration and now he could not be executed.

Holding that this involved the question of interpretation of constitutional provisions, a bench of Chief Justice R.M.Lodha, Justice Madan B. Lokur and Justice Kurian Joseph April 28 referred the matter to the constitution bench. The Supreme Court March 21 upheld the death sentence awarded to Memon by the special (now lapsed) TADA (Terrorism and Disruptive Activities Prevention Act) court and confirmed by the Bombay High Court.

Memon has been described as a mastermind of 1993 Mumbai bomb blasts - a series of 13 explosions March 12, 1993, claiming 257 lives and leaving 713 injured. On March 21, the apex court bench, while confirming his death sentence, said his “deeds can’t be viewed distinct from the act of Tiger Memon, hence, both owe an equivalent responsibility for the blasts”.

HyDeRAbAD, JuNe 2 (IANS): Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) chief K. Chandrasekhara Rao Monday took oath as the first chief minister of Telangana, a few hours after it took birth as the 29th state of India, triggering wild celebrations across the region.

On a historic day, Telangana witnessed series of events beginning with the lifting of president’s rule in the new state. This was followed by Andhra Pradesh Governor E.S.L. Narasimhan taking oath as the Telangana governor early in the morning.

Narasimhan later administered the oath of office and secrecy to 60-year-old Rao at a ceremony held at Raj Bhavan here. KCR, as Rao is popularly known, paid tributes to the martyrs of Telangana before taking oath.

Eleven cabinet ministers including two deputy chief minister also took the oath with him. Mohammed Mahmood Ali and T. Rajaiah have been made deputy chief ministers. Ali will hold revenue portfolio while Rajaiah will look after medical and health.

Senior TRS leader N. Narasimha Reddy will be home minister. Those who took the oath include KCR’s son K. Taraka Rama Rao and nephew Harish Rao. Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted: “India gets a new state! We wel-

telangana newly elected Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar rao greets people soon after his swearing in ceremony during the telangana formation Day celebrations at Parade ground in Hyderabad on Monday, June 2. (AP Photo)

come Telangana as our 29th state. Telangana will add strength to our development journey in the coming years.”

He said Centre assures complete support to the people and Telangana government in taking the state to newer heights of progress.

KCR later unfurled the national flag and reviewed a colourful parade at the main official celebrations held at the Parade Ground.

The TRS chief, who revived the Telangana movement 14 years ago, promised a corruption-free and transparent government with its top priority to work for the welfare of the poor and weaker sections of society.

Celebrations broke out across Telangana Monday.

‘Jai Telangana’ rent the air as the region comprising 10 districts erupted in celebrations to mark the fulfilment of nearly 60-year-old dream of the people. Hundreds gathered at Gun Park near the state assembly building to pay their tributes to the martyrs of Telangana.

Telugu Desam Party (TDP) chief N. Chandrababu Naidu, who is set to take oath as the chief minister of Andhra Pradesh, hoisted the national flag at NTR Trust Bhavan, the party headquarters. Similar functions were organised at offices of the Congress party, the BJP and other parties, non-political pro-Telangana groups and unions of government employees.

The formation of Telangana as a separate state followed passage of Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill in parliament in February this year. With this Andhra Pradesh has split into two states. Telangana comprises 10 districts while the residuary state of Andhra Pradesh comprises 13 districts of coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema.

Hyderabad, one of the 10 districts of Telangana, will serve as the common capital of both the states for 10 years. The bifurcation brought the curtains down on undivided Andhra Pradesh, which was formed Nov 1, 1956 with the merger of Telangana with the then Andhra State.

MiNiStry for MiNoritieS: toKeNiSM yet AgAiN? Saeed Naqvi

T

IANS

he appointment of a minister for minority affairs has been a huge let down.

During the election campaign, Modi had stated that he would be the prime minister of all 1.25 billion Indians. So demoralized has the Muslim been in recent years that a simple promise of equal rights was music to his ears.

What the Congress has done to him in six decades of independence is clear in the Sachar Committee Report of 2006. In it he saw his decomposing visage. So deep was the rot, that anything the Congress did to keep the pretense, was no more than a highly adver-

tised relief camp for administering palliatives - a Ministry for Minority Affairs here, a Minority Commission there and, if elections are nigh, call in the town criers to read out a hundred point programme for Muslims. And, yes, as a final act of electoral craft, call in the Imam of the grand apparel, always ready with his skates on.

Having been seduced early

by Jawaharlal Nehru who wore the Shervani with a rose in the button hole, spoke Urdu, visited Maulana Azad once a week and befriended left leaning Arab leaders the Muslim felt he was being led by one of his very own. Mahatma Gandhi secured the Muslim’s right flank: he supported Maulana Mohammad Ali’s call to save the “Khalifa” in Turkey.

And what were the gifts handed to the Muslims? The leadership banned Salman Rushdie’s “Satanic Verses”, reversed the Supreme Court judgement on Shah Bano, delayed upgradation of relations with Israel citing Muslim anxieties. In every instance, what profit for the Muslim? These steps, instead, further alienated him from the mainstream consensus.

As part of this variety of tokenism, came the Ministry for Minority Affairs, the Minority commission, and sundry steps which issued from the party’s transparently insincere commitment to secularism.

There were considerable expectations of the Congress.

The cumulative effect of disappointments resulted in an

irretrievable Muslim exodus from the party from 1989 to 2014.

The outcome of the 2014 elections has left him in a state of psychological bipolarity.

He is actually quite indifferent to the demolition of the Congress. Across the board he has the same lament. The Congress used him as a vote bank. But a satisfaction at Congress collapse has been balanced by the colossal scale of Modi’s ascendance.

In an outstanding film, “Queen”, the protagonist is shocked to her foundations by an unexpected turn of events. She resists the temptation to turn back. Instead she bravely proceeds on the path she would have traversed if the traumatic incident had

not taken place. It becomes a wholesome journey of discovery.

The Indian Muslim was rapidly preparing himself for the New Deal of equal rights.

Hence, acute disappointment at the unimaginative Congress style tokenism of a Ministry for Minority Affairs.

Such a ministry creates an impression of special facilities for minorities without delivering anything of consequence.

Let me introduce you to a handful of annoying tokenisms.

Visit the Indira Gandhi International Airport and watch the Haj Terminal. It creates an impression of privilege, one which irritates non Muslims, without being of substantial use to Indian Muslims. Haj takes place once a year. Does a

terminal round the year make any sense?

Likewise, what possible sense is there for the Ministry of External Affairs to keep one Ambassadorship reserved for Muslims? It is an unwritten rule that the Ambassador to Saudi Arabia must be a Muslim.

Is there a particular advantage in posting a Muslim ambassador to Riyadh? Ambassadors in Washington, Moscow, Beijing and hundreds of other countries are unlikely to be all Muslims.

The argument that Muslim pilgrims travelling to Mecca and Medina need consular help is only partly valid. For this purpose, the Consul General at Jeddah would suffice. Jeddah is not far from the two holy cities.

But must a full fledged ambassadorial post in Riyadh be out of bounds for non Muslims?

The convention of posting only Muslims to Saudi Arabia is flawed on the secular principle, ofcourse, but also for practical reasons.

In a pool of 800 IFS officers, barely one percent are Muslims. A result of the special dispensation is that Muslim officers end up with a series of Saudi postings. When MEA official spokesman Syed Akbaruddin was offered the Riyadh ambassadorship, he excused himself. He had already done two extended postings in Saudi Arabia. This turned out to be a boon for Ambassador Hamid Ali Rao who was to have retired. He has been given a year’s extension.

Tuesday

InternatIonal

the Morung express

Spain King Juan Carlos abdicates for his son

3 June 2014

Dimapur

9

INDIAN NAVY

INVITES APPLICATIONS FROM UNMARRIED MALE CANDIDATES FOR ENROLMENT AS SAILORS FOR SENIOR SECONDARY RECRUITS (SSR)-01/2015 BATCH

COURSE COMMENCING FEBRUARY 2015 ELIGIBILITY CONDITIONS 1. Online applications are invited from Unmarried Male Indian Citizens and subjects of Nepal and Bhutan.

2. Educational Qualifications. Qualified in 10+2/ equivalent examination with Maths & Physics and atleast one of these subjects; Chemistry/Biology/Computer science.

3. Age. Candidates should have been born between 01 Feb 1994 to 31 Jan 1998 (Both dates inclusive).

PAY AND PERQUISITES 4. Pay & Allowances (a) During the initial training period, stipend of Rs 5700 pm will be admissible on successful completion of initial training an amount equal to the minimum of scale as mentioned below, less stipend already paid, shall be admissible from the date of commencement of service. (b) On completion of initial training, they will be placed in the Pay Band Rs 5200-20200.

In addition they will be paid Grade Pay @ Rs 2000/- plus MSP @Rs 2000/- plus DA. 5. Promotion. Promotion prospects exist up to the rank of Master Chief Petty OfficerI (equivalent to Subedar Major) with pay scale of Rs 9300-34800 plus Grade Pay @Rs 4800/- Plus MSP @Rs 2000/- plus DA. Opportunities for promotion to commissioned officer also exist for those who perform well and qualify the prescribed examinations.

6. Perquisites.

In this Tuesday, Dec. 27, 2011, file photo, Spain’s King Juan Carlos, right, and Crown Prince Felipe, left, wait for their cars after the official opening of Parliament, in Madrid. Spain’s King Juan Carlos plans to abdicate and pave the way for his son, Crown Prince Felipe, to take over, Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy told the country Monday in an announcement broadcast nationwide. The 76-year-old Juan Carlos oversaw his country’s transition from dictatorship to democracy but has had repeated health problems in recent years. (AP File Photo)

MADRID, June 2 (AP): Spain’s King Juan Carlos, who led Spain’s transition from dictatorship to democracy but faced royal scandals amid the nation’s near financial meltdown, announced Monday he will abdicate in favor of his son, making way for a “new generation.”

The king told Spaniards in a nationwide address that he first started thinking seriously about giving up the throne when he turned 76 in January.

He said Monday that the 46-year-old Crown Prince Felipe is ready for the post and will “open a new era of hope combining his acquired experience and the drive of a new generation.”

The abdication was first announced by Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, who did not say when the handover would happen because the government must now craft a law creating a legal mechanism for the abdication and for Felipe’s assumption of power.

Juan Carlos has been on the throne for 39 years and was a hero to many for shepherding Spain’s democratic and economic transformation, but has had repeated health problems in recent years.

His longstanding popularity took a big blow following royal scandals, including an elephant-shooting trip he took in the middle of Spain’s financial crisis during which he broke his right hip and had to be flown from Botswana back to Spain aboard a private jet for medical treatment.

The king’s image was also tarnished by the investigation of his son-in-law, who is suspected of embezzling large amounts in public contracts.

His daughter Princess Cristina in January was forced to testify in the fraud and money-laundering case targeting her husband Inaki Urdangarin, an Olympic handball medalist turned businessman. She became the first Spanish royal to be questioned in court since Juan Carlos took the throne.

In his speech the king did not mention any of the scandals, and played down his health issues.

Felipe would presumably take the title King Felipe IV. He has a law degree from Madrid’s Autonomous University and obtained a masters in international relations from Georgetown University in the United States.

Felipe is married to Princess Letizia, a former television journalist, and they have two daughters.

Like his father, Felipe has traveled the globe trying to maintain Spain’s influence especially in former Latin American colonies, while seeking to promote the nation’s international business interests.

King Juan Carlos came to power in 1975, two days after the death of longtime dictator Francisco Franco. He endeared himself to many Spaniards, in large part by putting down an attempted military coup in 1981 when he was a young and largely untested head of state.

As Spain’s new democracy matured over the years and Spain transformed itself from a European economic laggard into the continent’s fourth largest economy, the king played a largely figurehead role, traveling the globe as an ambassador for the country. He was also a stabilizing force in a country with restive, independence-minded regions such as the Basque region and Catalonia.

“He has been a tireless defender of our interests,” Rajoy said.

Juan Carlos has melded the trappings of royalty with down-to-earth, regular-guy charm. The king is an avid sports fan and after the Madrid terror bombings of March 11, 2004, showed he could grieve like anyone else.

At an emotional state funeral for the 191 people killed in the train bombings by Islamic militants, Juan Carlos and Queen Sofia slowly went row-by-row through Madrid’s Almudena Cathedral, clasping the hands of sobbing mourners or kissing them on the cheek.

But his patient work nearly came undone during the financial crisis, with people questioning after the elephant-hunting trip whether a hereditary monarchy was needed.

The World Wildlife Fund’s branch in Spain ousted Juan Carlos as its honorary president — a title he’d held since 1968 — after deciding the hunt was incompatible with its goal of conserving endangered species. Juan Carlos took the unprecedented step of apologizing to Spaniards for his actions.

He recently said that he wanted to be remembered as “the king who has united all Spaniards.” King Juan Carlos goes down a path increasingly traveled by European royalty.

Last year Belgium’s King Albert handed over the throne of his fractious kingdom to his son, Crown Prince Philippe. Two months earlier, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands stepped down after a 33-year reign in favor of her eldest son, who was appointed King Willem-Alexander.

It was a break with tradition, but not as big as the decision early last year by Pope Benedict XVI to resign, a move that stunned Catholics around the world.

The two royal successions in Belgium and the Netherlands have been smooth and successful.

(h) The candidates who qualify in all respects will be short listed depending upon vacancies.

The select list will be available on website www.nausena-bharti.nic.in on 27 Dec 2014.

All candidates whose names appear in the Select list and have been declared medically fit in the Recruitment Medical would be required to report to INS Chilka. However, enrolment will be subject to Fitness in Enrolment Medical at INS Chilka (j) The candidate’s selection pertaining to a particular batch is valid for that batch only.

Qualified candidates whose names do not appear in the final select list cannot claim admission for the next batch. These candidates will have to undergo the selection procedure afresh provided that they meet the eligibility criteria for the fresh batch. (k) Call letter for Final Medical examination will be forwarded only to medically qualified candidates in the select list. Unsuccessful candidates will not be intimated separately. (l) All select listed candidates will also be forwarded Police Verification form alongwith the Call letter for final medical examination. The candidates will be required to submit the same to INS Chilka after getting their antecedents verified on this form from the concerned district police authorities. Candidates without the verified police verification reports/ reports with adverse comments will not be eligible for enrolment. The format for the police verification form can also be downloaded from the website www.nausenabharti.nic.in immediately after the declaration of select list, to ensure timely verification. (m) No enquiry will be entertained regarding recruitment / enrolment after a period of six months.

(a) During the entire period of training and thereafter, sailors are given books, reading material, uniform, food and accommodation etc. free of cost.

HOW TO APPLY

(b) Sailors are entitled to medical treatment, Leave Travel Concessions for self and dependents, Group Housing Benefits and other privileges. Sailors are also entitled to Annual and Casual Leave, Children education and house rent allowances. Post retirement benefits include pension, gratuity and Leave encashment. All perquisites are extended as per service conditions and their eligibility/admissibility is regulated as per government orders in force and amended from time to time.

(a) Online Application Form. Candidates are to apply online through website www.nausena-bharti.nic.in from 26 May 14.

SELECTION CRITERIA 7. Selection of recruits is based on the order of merit on their performance in Written Test, qualifying Physical Fitness Test (PFT) and fitness in the Medical Examinations.

8. Written Test (a) The question paper will be bilingual (Hindi & English) and objective type. (b) The question paper will comprise of four sections i.e. English, Science, Mathematics and General Knowledge. (c) The standard of the question paper will be that of 10+2 and the syllabus for the examination is available on website www.nausena-bharti.nic.in. (d) Duration of examination will be one hour. (e) The candidates are required to pass in all sections and in aggregate.

9. Physical Fitness Test (PFT). PFT will consist of 1.6 Km run to be completed in 7 minutes, 20 squat ups (Uthak Baithak) and 10 Push-ups. Candidates undergoing PFT will do so at their own risk.

10. Medical Standards.

17. For this entry the candidates can apply ONLINE ONLY , MANUALLY FILLED APPLICATIONS WILL BE REJECTED. The procedure for the same is as follows:-

(b) Before filling online application, keep matric certificate & 10+2 Mark sheet ready for reference. (c) Filling up of information like email id is compulsory. (d) Click on “Sailors Entry” button under apply online on the home page of website www.nausena-bharti.nic.in. (e) Fill up the form completely. Before clicking the ‘Submit’ button make sure all the details are correct. (f) Print two copies of the online application form. One copy duly signed, alongwith attested copies of matriculation certificate, 10+2 marksheet, domicile, NCC Certificate (if held) & one self addressed envelop of size 22x10 cms with Rs 10/- stamp affixed on envelope to be forwarded at the address given below.

Candidate’s Application to be Address(States) Addressed to

Candidate’s Address(States)

Application to be Addressed to

Delhi Post Box No 476 Assam, Arunachal Post Box No 11810 Himachal Pradesh Gole Dak Khana, GPO Pradesh, Meghalaya Delhi Cantt New Delhi -110 001 Mizoram, Nagaland New Delhi -110 010 West Bengal

Post Box No 02 Lodhi Road New Delhi -110 003

Orissa Karnataka

Post Box No 4921 J & K, Safdarjung Enclave PO Andaman Nicobar New Delhi -110 029 Islands, Carnicobar

Post Box No 11810 Delhi Cantt New Delhi -110 010

Kerala, UT of Lakshdeep & Minicoy

Post Box No 11810 Delhi Cantt New Delhi -110 010

Uttar Pradesh

Post Box No 5270 Chanakyapuri PO New Delhi -110 021

Andhra Pradesh Post Box No 488 Tamil Nadu Gole Dak Khana, GPO UT of Pondicherry New Delhi -110 001

Rajasthan

Post Box No 5011 RK Puram Sector V New Delhi -110 022

Note:- Candidates are advised to get their ears cleaned for wax and tartar removed from teeth prior to examination.

Maharashtra, Goa Post Box No 7001 Gujarat and UT of IPHO Daman, Diu and New Delhi -110 002 Nagar Haveli

Punjab / UT of Chandigarh & Uttarakhand

Post Box No 7215 IPHO New Delhi -110 002

11. Visual Standards

Haryana

Post Box No 4844 Sarojini Nagar PO New Delhi -110 023

Madhya Pradesh Chatisgarh

Post Box No. 8860 Vasant Vihar, New Delhi - 57

Bihar, Jharkhand

Post Box No 10925 RK Puram , Main PO, New Delhi - 110066

(a) Medical examination will be conducted by authorised military doctors as per medical standard prescribed in current regulations applicable to sailors on entry. (b) Minimum height 157 cms. Weight and Chest should be proportionate. Minimum Chest expansion of 5 cms. (c) The candidate must be in good physical and mental health, free from any defect likely to interfere with the efficient performance of duties both ashore and afloat under peace as well as war conditions as per Navy Order (Special) 01/2008. (d) Initial Medical Examination for recruitment will be considered only”Provisionally fit subject to fitness in the final medical examination”. Final Medical Examination of all selected candidate will be done at INS Chilka. Candidates who are found medically fit at final medical examination will be enrolled for training. No “Appeal” is permitted for review after the final enrolment medical examination at INS Chilka.

Without Glasses Better Eye 6/6

Worse Eye 6/9

With Glasses Better Eye

Worse Eye

6/6

6/6

Note:- Applicants declared Permanent medically unfit by any Armed Forces Hospital in previous recruitment for the same entry in Navy are advised not to apply.

12. Tattoos. Permanent body tattoos are only permitted on inner face of forearms i.e from inside of elbow to the wrist and on the reversed side of palm/ back (dorsal) side of hand. Permanent body tattoos on any other part of the body is not acceptable and candidate will be barred from recruitment.

TRAINING AND INITIAL ENGAGEMENT 13. Training. The training for the course will commence in Feb 2015, with 22 weeks Basic Training at INS Chilka followed by Professional training in the allotted trade in various Naval Training Establishments. Branch / Trade will be allocated as per the requirement of Service.

14. Discharge as Unsuitable. Sailors are liable to be discharged as UNSUITABLE due to unsatisfactory performance at any time during the training.

15. Initial Engagement: The initial engagement is subjected to successful completion of training and is for a period of 15 years.

SELECTION PROCEDURE 16. The applications are to be filled online on website www.nausena-bharti.nic.in.

The selection procedure is as follows:(a) Print out of online application will be received only through ORDINARY POST. Application received through speed post/ registered post or couriers willl be rejected. (b) Short-listing criteria will be based on percentage of marks scored in 10+2. (c) Call up letters cum admit card for eligible short listed candidates indicating date, time and place for recruitment tests, which are scheduled during Sep/Oct 2014 are required to be downloaded from internet site www.nausena-bharti.nic.in.

Candidates can be alloted any centre view administrative reasons. (d) All original certificates, mark sheets and NCC certificate (if held) are to be produced at the time of written examination. If the details provided in ‘online application’ are not matching with original documents, your cadidature will be cancelled. (e) Results of the Written Test will be announced on the same day and those who qualify Written test will undergo PFT and Recruitment Medical Examination (Preliminary), which may take 1-2 days. (f) Candidates declared Temporary Medically Unfit in the recruitment medical could avail specialist review from the specified Military Hospital within a maximum period of 21 days. No further review / appeal is permissible if declared unfit in the specialist review. (g) Candidates declared Permanent Medically unfit in the recruitment medical can appeal for specialist opinion in a Military Hospital on payment of Rs 40/- by Military Receivable Order (MRO) on Government Treasury within 21 days. Medical fitness certificate other than that of the specialist opinion in a Military Hospital will not be considered. No further review/apeal is permissible.

Sikkim, Tripura, Manipur

Post Box No11810 Delhi Cantt New Delhi -110 010

(g) Write on the envelop “Online SSR Application -01/15 batch & 10+2 percentage. (h) Last date for registration of online application is 08 Jun 2014. (j) Physical receipt of application at this office by 16 Jun 2014. Confirmation of an applicant would be on receipt of physical application by due date. (k) Online application will be further scruitinised for eligibility and may be rejected if found not eligible in any respect. (l) Photographs. THE PHOTOGRAPH SOULD BE CLEAR AND OF GOOD QUALITY WITH BLUE BACKGROUND. Application received without photographs will be rejected.

18. Attesting Officer’s name, signature with office address / seal should be clear and legible.

19. In case of any difficulty faced by potential candidates they may contact IHQ MoD on Tele : 011 -23793067.

Note:20. Navy will not be responsible for any postal delay/loss of any documents during transit.

LAST DATE OF RECEIPT OF APPLICATION - 16 JUN 2014. FOR CANDIDATES OF NORTH EAST, J&K, ANDAMAN & NICOBAR, LAKSHADEEP & MINICOY ISLAND - 23 JUN 2014 B E WA R E O F A G E N T S / C H E AT S Person claiming rapport with the officials of the Naval Recruitment Organisation may promise to get a candidate recruited and on the pretext may collect money. WE WOULD LIKE TO ASSERT THAT SUCH A THING IS NOT POSSIBLE. Application submitted by hand of any person is rejected. Only those applications which are received at the post boxes, as specified, are accepted for validation. All short-listed applicants are, thereafter, issued Call Up Letter cum Admit Card . Before succumbing to the promises of any agent think twice! If you think that you can get the things done unlawfully, you are bound to lose! You are advised to conduct yourself as a law abiding citizen of the country and refrain from using unfair means.

DISCLAIMER The terms and conditions given in the advertisement are guidelines only and orders issued by the Government as amended from time to time will apply for the selected candidates.

davp/10701/11/0008/1415

10

Dimapur

SPORTS

Tuesday 3 June 2014

The Morung Express

World Cup's most exotic city awaits tourist influx

A small monkey sits atop the head of a woman in the Tatuyo indigenous community near Manaus, Brazil on May 19, 2014. Manaus is one of the host cities for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. (AP Photo)

MANAUS, JUNe 2 (AP): Death by giant snakes, malarial mosquitoes or drug-addled, knife-wielding thieves: If the barrage of blood-soaked headlines in the British tabloids is to be believed, that's what awaits soccer fans travelling to the most exotic of Brazil's World Cup host cities, the Amazonian metropolis of Manaus.

Despite Manaus' far-flung location in the heart of the world's biggest rainforest, making it reachable only by plane or boat, the ills most likely to affect the 52,000 or so foreigners expected for soccer's premier tournament are disappointingly mundane. Visitors to this city of 2 million are far more likely to spend hours locked in bumperto-bumper gridlock than even cross paths with a python — let alone be strangled by one.

"People need to study ge-

ography," quipped Ketlen dos Santos Alves, a 20-year-old college student and Manaus native. "Yes, Manaus is in the Amazon, but it's also a huge city.

How do foreigners actually believe there are snakes hanging from every tree and caimans hiding in the gutters?"

While the forest fauna is largely absent from the city itself, nature makes itself felt in the hothouse climate and the blooms of mold that envelop the low-slung concrete buildings.

With humidity hovering around 80 percent year-round, even just sitting motionless, out of doors is a sweat-inducing activity.

To help acclimate its players, the England soccer squad is training in multiple layers of long-sleeved clothing as it prepares to face Italy on June 15 in the first of four World Cup matches being held in

In this May 23, 2014 photo, a waiter shows a large Tambaqui at the O Canto da Peixada In this May 19, 2014 photo, an Indian boy poses for a photo in the restaurant in Manaus, Brazil. (AP Photo) Tatuyo indigenous community near Manaus, Brazil. (AP Photo)

Manaus's new $229 million Arena Amazonas stadium.

"There are two seasons in Manaus — summer and hell," a local adage goes.

Clearly, the eight teams slated to play in the city, the U.S., England, Italy, Switzerland, Croatia, Cameroon, Portugal and Honduras, have their work cut out for them in dealing with the heat and humidity.

But for the adventurous tourists heading here, a unique city rich in tradition awaits.

Manaus got its start as a Portuguese fort, founded in the late 17th century on the spot where the Rio Negro and Solmoes rivers meet to form the immense Amazon, the planet's largest river by volume.

The city blossomed during the rubber boom of the late 1800s, briefly becoming one of the world's wealthiest cities.

During its heyday, extravagant rubber barons spared no expense on their vanity project, a stately opera house designed to rival Paris' Opera Garnier, made from the finest materials ferried in from Italy, Britain and France.

The stylish Adolfo Lisboa Municipal Market was modeled on Paris' Les Halles market.

In the early 1900s, competition from rubber plantations in Asia caused the price of the milky tree sap to plummet, sending Manaus into a decades-long spiral.

It wasn't until the 1960s that an immense industrial zone on the northern bank of the Amazon helped breathe new life into the city. Now, gas flares burn bright at a riverside oil refinery, while puffing smokestacks poke above the verdant tree line as Honda, Harley Davidson, Suzuki and other internation-

al companies churn out auto parts, assemble motorcycles and manufacture electronics.

While Manaus now suffers from the triumvirate of urban ills plaguing nearly every Brazilian city — chaotic planning, terrible traffic and iffy security — the upshot is that visitors can escape it all within minutes. The port area, with its cacophony of fishmongers flaying 40-kilo (88-pound)plus "pirurucus" and fruit sellers hauling giant banana bunches the size of chandeliers, is dotted with speedboats-for-hire that within a quarter of hour can carry visitors past the urban sprawl to emerald jungle as far as the eye can see.

It's in the throbbing forest that the British tabloids' reports on Manaus take on a semblance of truth. Here, there really are giant insects, from palmsized beetles with jaws mighty

enough to amputate the tip of a human finger to pencil-length "stick bugs," which look like twigs come to life atop impossibly spindly legs. Sleepy-eyed sloths inch through the canopy, while snapping caimans, razortoothed piranhas and lumpy, pink freshwater dolphins called "botos" ply the rivers.

Mosquitoes and other insects are so thick at dusk that malaria, yellow fever and leishmaniasis, which causes skin to break out in unsightly ulcers, represent a real threat in the jungle. There's also the "candiru," a narrow catfish that feeds off blood and is said to swim up any available human orifice. (Guides warn potential river swimmers not to urinate in the water.)

Indigenous peoples live in thatched-roof villages carved out of the forest, and the riverbanks are lined with floating

houses, restaurants, general stores and bars that rise and fall with the seasonal floodwaters.

Water is a way of life for the "ribeirinhos," as the river dwellers are known in Portuguese.

Kids backflip off the porches into the water to impress passengers in passing boats, while adults sip cans of beer as they lounge atop floating refrigerators and tend to fish ribs roasting on the barbecue. Some offer up the fresh water turtles they raise for meat.

Everyone waves and smiles.

"When I came here, I knew literally nothing about Manaus.

I knew there was a theater, I knew there was a river and I knew there was a forest," said Luis Malheiro, who heads the Manaus Philharmonic Orquestra. "I was completely ignorant. ... And I found an extremely rich culture. "Twenty years later, here I am," he said.

Germany show rustiness Rooney feeling the heat in draw with Cameroon

In this Sept. 6, 2013 file picture, England's Rickie Lambert celebrates after scoring a goal during the World Cup group H qualifier soccer match between England and Moldova at Wembley Stadium in London. Rickie Lambert Monday June 2 joined Liverpool from Southampton for a reported fee of 4 million pounds ($6.7 million). (AP File Photo)

FILE - In this Nov. 13, 2013 file picture Bayern Munich president, Uli Hoeness wipes his eye during a general meeting of the soccer club in Munich. Hoeness was convicted in March of tax evasion on a private bank account in Switzerland and sentenced to 3 ½ years in prison. His lawyers and Bavarian justice officials say he reported to the Lansdberg am Lech prison on Monday June 2 to start serving his prison sentence. Hoeness admitted evading taxes on at least €28.5 million (US $38.78 million). (AP Photo)

MOeNCHeNGLAD BACH, JUNe 2 (ReUteRS): World Cup contenders Germany came from a goal down to draw 2-2 with hard-working Cameroon on Sunday in their penultimate game before this month's tournament in Brazil, showing they still have work to do to fine-tune their title challenge. The Germans, who play Armenia on June 6 in their final warm-up, looked some way off top form as they seek to end an 18-year trophy drought, missing several key players including captain Philipp Lahm and first-choice keeper Manuel. Germany coach Joachim Loew, who on Monday will name his final 23-man squad, said the game highlighted the work they still need to do.

"This was a good opponent, a tough test against strong, physical players," Loew told reporters.

"One could see that we

lacked a bit of freshness but that's normal after our 10-day training camp. But we have seen that there are things we still need to do, that's clear." "We were not good in our passing game and that got us into trouble repeatedly. We had some chances but we lack the final finish. We need to find that efficiency we have been missing for some time. We currently take too many chances to score."

Cameroon's German coach Volker Finke was satisfied with his team's performance, saying eight or nine players from Sunday's game would be starting in their group match against Mexico. "There are still things to improve but the result was very good four our confidence," he said.

He also said he was happy to see leading striker Samuel Eto'o, who tapped in for the lead, perform well despite a knee prob-

lem. "I am happy Eto'o was able to play for as much as he did tonight," he said.

"We will wait for tomorrow to see how his knee has reacted to it." Loew's side almost got off to a perfect start when Mesut Ozil, completely unmarked in front of goal, somehow managed to shoot wide seconds after the kickoff.

The Germans, drawn with Ghana, the United States and Portugal in Group G, came close again as attacking midfielder Mario Goetze, playing as a lone striker, sent in a low drive which was turned on to the post by Cameroon keeper Charles Itandje.

Quick Pace Cameroon, playing hosts Brazil, Croatia and Mexico in Group A, had trouble containing their opponents' pace down the wings and needed to wait around 20 minutes before Samuel Eto'o got a shot on target.

Sabella's Mission: Make Messi shine at WCup

Karl Ritter

Associated Press

Argentina coach Alejandro Sabella's challenge at the World Cup is as simple as it is daunting: Make the world's best player play at his best. Lionel Messi has been brilliant for Barcelona, winning everything there is to win at club level. But he hasn't looked so good for Argentina's national team, failing to score a single goal in the last two major tournaments.

But that was before Sabella. The 59-year-old Sabella seems to click better with Argentina's superstar than national team coaches before him. Messi has performed consistently for Argentina since Sabella took charge in 2011, scoring 10 times in 14 matches during World Cup qualifying — more than quarter of his total tally since his Argentina debut in 2005.

Sabella immediately made Messi captain and placed him in the middle or

Argentina's coach Alejandro Sabella, left, gives instructions as player Lionel Messi walks behind during a team training session in Buenos Aires, Argentina on May 28. (AP Photo)

on the right flank of a threeman attack with Gonzalo Higuain and Sergio Aguero.

Now Sabella can only hope that his top player arrives free of the injuries that kept him sidelined during the end of 2013.

"Messi is the best player in the world and any team will feel the difference without such a player," Sabella said after a Messi-

less Argentina drew 0-0 with Ecuador in a Nov. 15 friendly. "When Messi is not there, the other players feel that, but they also know they must be strong and try to make up (for his absence)."

Sabella appears to have restored calm to a team that went through stormy times with Diego Maradona at the helm. Maradona's odd

coaching style, which included hugging and kissing his players, didn't seem to bring out the best in Messi.

"The Flea" left the 2010 World Cup scoreless and humiliated as Argentina lost to Germany 4-0 in the quarterfinals.

A year later, under coach Sergio Batista, Messi again failed to score in regulation time as Argentina

hosted the Copa America, though he had several assists and scored a penalty in a quarterfinal shootout that Argentina lost to Uruguay.

After a playing career that included stints with Sheffield United and Leeds, Sabella served as assistant to Daniel Pasarella at a number of clubs and national teams, including Argentina at the 1998 World Cup. Sabella took over Estudiantes in 2009 — his first job as head coach — and led the Argentine club to the Copa Libertadores title.

He had been expected to coach Al Jazira in the United Arab Emirates when he was suddenly tapped to replace Batista in 2011. Sabella told FIFA.com that Argentina's chances are good with the "best player in the world" on the team and the World Cup being played in Brazil, which he described as the "house" next door.

"The only problem," Sabella said, "is that that house is owned by the fivetime world champions."

England's Wayne Rooney shouts instructions to a teammate during the international friendly soccer match between England and Peru at Wembley Stadium in London on May 30. (AP Photo)

MIAMI, JUNe 2 (AP): Few England players will be feeling the heat as much as Wayne Rooney on the team's pre-World Cup stop in Miami. The closer it gets to the World Cup, the greater the pressure on the striker to produce the kind of performances for England that earned him the most lucrative contract in Manchester United history last season.

Rooney, who collects more than $20 million a year at United, has scored 38 goals in 89 England appearances since bursting onto the scene as a teenager. But he has now gone four matches on international duty without scoring.

No wonder the country is so concerned about its star striker's struggles with just two weeks before England opens its World Cup campaign against Italy in Brazil. England coach Roy Hodgson, though, is trying to ensure Rooney is not burdened by the expectations in a country which has not won the World Cup since 1966 — or even reached the semifinals in 24 years.

"I think it's a bit sad that the country is so Wayne Rooney-obsessed," Hodgson said ahead of the team's arrival on Sunday in Miami for two World Cup warm-

up matches. "I don't think Wayne sets himself up to be anything other than a very important member of the squad who tries his best at all times."

Is his best enough these days? The 28-year-old Rooney should be at his footballing peak, but some pundits are already questioning whether Hodgson should cast aside the country's most recognizable player. Paul Scholes, Rooney's former teammate for England and United, issued a plea to Hodgson through a blog to consider putting the forward on the bench against Italy if his "form doesn't get up to scratch."

While Rooney is likely to start at one of the two games in Miami — against Honduras on Saturday rather than Ecuador on Wednesday — his starting spot on June 14 against Italy no longer seems so certain. Hodgson didn't name Rooney as one of his guaranteed picks for the Manaus game when asked about his options this weekend.

"In the back positions we have a pretty clear idea of what we want," Hodgson said. "Once you get past Steven Gerrard in midfield,

there are five positions to fill. I think there are plenty of options there and we could do well with a number of those options."

Rooney will be traveling to Brazil next Saturday night from Miami still searching for his first World Cup goal, having failed to find the net in Germany in 2006 and four years later in South Africa. No other England striker has gone eight games at a World Cup without contributing a goal.

Rarely before, though, has Rooney's life away from the pitch seemed so tranquil. Whereas previously the Liverpool-born player was dogged by scandals in his private life that made front page news, Rooney now seems focused on bringing up his two children with wife Coleen.

"He's in a better frame of mind going into this tournament than he's had going into previous tournaments when he's had injuries," captain Steven Gerrard said. A groin injury, however, kept Rooney out of United's last three matches of a trophyless season. The appearance in Friday's 3-0 victory over Peru was his first since scoring twice for United on April 26 against Norwich.

Entertainment

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David Beckham reveals what it was like travelling through Brazil's Amazon

Gauri Khan launches her signature line in Dubai

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Dubai remains everyone's favourite city to flag off new ventures. While SRK's real estate enterprise took off here some time back, wife Gauri launched her signature line in the city the other day. We had also told you about NYC's Junoon launching its first Asian outpost there. Add to this list Honey Singh's new property, a professional fighting championship with four heavy-weight champs competing for the one-million dirham prize. Singh and his friends flagged off the debut fight on Friday with all the requisite tamasha. That's one astute bizman if you ask us.

'Gangnam Style' hits record breaking 2 billion views on YouTube ‘Gangnam Style’ has become the first YouTube video to get a record breaking 2 billion views. According to reports, Psy`s hit track surpassed Justin Bieber`s ` Baby `, which has half the number of views. The music video took three times longer time to get the 2 billion mark, as it had hit 1 billion in just 159 days since its release in July 2012.

Brad Pitt loves being a 'farmer' Brad Pitt, who bought French winery Miraval in 2012 loves being a farmer, according to reports. The Golden Globe Award winner said that he was a farmer now and he loved learning about the land and which field was most suitable for which grape, the drama of September and October, the Mirror reported. The 'Troy' star asserted that he enjoyed cleaning the forest and walking the land and it was the antithesis of the drive, the want, the need to get ahead indicative of life in Hollywood. Pitt and Angelina paid 60 million dollars for the winery and, after deciding to tackle their new business venture like a film, he couple saw the production growth from 5,800 cases in 2011 to 16,000 at present.

Raveena wants new government to focus on northeast India

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Actress Raveena Tandon, who is here for a store launch, says she loves the region and hopes the new government works for its development. Just landed in Guwahati!

Store opening. Just love northeast of our country. Lovely people. Has so much potential. Hope new government focuses on development, she posted on Twitter Sunday. Guwahati art deco on the walls! Welcoming you, at the airport, she further posted along with a photograph. According to reports, she is in the Assamese city for the showroom launch of PC Jewellers. On the work front, she recently shot for the reality show Entertainment Ke Liye Kuch Bhi Karega as a guest judge.

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avid Beckham has admitted he loved the anonymity of riding through Brazil's Amazing Rainforest on a motorbike, but his journey wasn't without its challenges. The football star, who explored the world's largest rainforest on two wheels earlier this year for a BBC documentary, admitted that the freedom he experienced was amazing, but he struggled with sleeping in a hammock and not being able to wash as often as he liked.

Speaking to comedian and adventurer Michael Palin in a special interview, the former England player said he realised that after decades as a footballing superstar he hadn't had a big adventure so decided to plan the Brazilian odyssey. 'I retired 12 months ago and my life has always been a schedule. I realised I'd never done anything like his with friends,' he

that was and the star joked that it was the first time he had to explain the game, except to Victoria. In the interview with Palin, himself famed for circumnavigating the globe for various BBC documentaries, Beckham admitted he had practised sleeping in a hammock at home before embarking on his trip. But despite testing it out with Victoria and his children, he said he only slept for 30 minutes on his first night under the jungle canopy.

It was only when someone 'taught' him how to sleep comfortably that he finally managed to get the hang of it. However, the star did admit that the lack of washing facilities did get him down. 'I am a clean person, so that was pretty tough for me,' he said.

Despite the hardships, the star admitted he was a dab hand at making a fire.

And he certainly seemed to bond well with the locals,

particularly when he met members of the remote Yanomami tribe, who have interacted with very few westerners. Photos show him carrying a young child on his back as well as a moody black and white image of him posing with his motorbike. Beckham said the team took quite a difficult route through the rainforest, admitting there were a few 'dodgy roads along the way'. But the star said the journey was 'exhilarating', and didn't ever regret the experience, even when he nearly fell off his bike after hitting some ridges in the road, following two solid days of rain. 'That was probably the worst that we came up against, but it was fun,' he told Palin. 'I'd do it all over again.' While some of the roads were dangerous, Beckham said he never felt that the situation was life-threatening, but said he wouldn't want his boys doing it.

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'Health Violations Did Not Justin Bieber Prompt Restaurant Closure'

has apologised for telling a racist joke in a leaked video, captured five years ago, and admits it was a ''childish and inexcusable mistake.''

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aty Perry is using crystals to heal her broken heart after pop icon Madonna recommended the bizarre therapy. Madonna introduced the Firework hitmaker to crystal healing, an alternative medicine technique that can supposedly mend a variety of health woes by changing a person's energy. Perry, who split from John Mayer earlier this year (14), now employs the practice to keep her in top shape while on tour and to help her find love.

She says, I'm a huge fan (of Madonna). I've got to know

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jungle, while wife Victoria jokes that he will need to wear a hat 'the whole time' to cover his messy hair.

The four friends set off to Brazil, just a few months ahead of the World Cup, to explore the wilds of the rainforest for a 90-minute BBC Documentary called 'David Beckham: Into the Unknown'.

Set to air at 8.30 on BBC1 on June 9, the programme will see the friends fly in to the rainforest city of Manaus - where England are set to play Italy - and racking up the miles as they head into the wilderness, bed down in hammocks and even catch and fillet their own fish, before cooking them on the open fire.

In one part of the remote jungle, young children asked the star what his forest back home was like and what his job was.

When he explained he was a footballer, the children didn't know what

Justin BieBer apologises for racist joke

Recommended Crystal Healing By Madonna

her recently and she's incredible... She had given me some advice on how to maintain my health throughout the tour. She had given me a number for a crystal healer.

Everything stems from people's energy so it makes sense.

I sleep with a rose quartz in my hand at night. It's supposed to help you find love and also heal your heart.

explained. 'I wanted to do something that we would all enjoy - I'm a big bike rider and it was a trip I really wanted to do.'

The star decided to travel with three of his closest friends, Anthony Mandler (a world-renowned photographer and video director) Derek White (an experienced motorbike rider) and best friend Dave Gardner who he's know since they were 14. The global star admitted that the anonymity riding the bike afforded him was amazing.

'When I have the helmet on nobody knows it's me.

When I'm on a bike it's one of the few times that I feel free - so bikes were a big part of it for me.' But while Beckham looked forward to his adventure, it seems some were worried about how he would cope.

Footage from the documentary shows Brooklyn predicting his dad will struggle with spiders in the

he 'Confident' hitmaker, 20, admits he was made an ''childish and inexcusable mistake'' by repeatedly using the N-word in a controversial leaked video, captured five years ago. After the footage was posted online today (01.06.14), he issued a statement to GossipCop. com saying: ''As a young man, I didn't understand the power of certain words and how they can hurt. I thought it was ok to repeat hurtful words and jokes, but didn't realise at the time

that it wasn't funny and that in fact my actions were continuing the ignorance.''

He added: ''Thanks to friends and family I learned from my mistakes and grew up and apologised for those wrongs. Now that these mistakes from the past have become public I need to apologise again to all those I have offended.

I'm very sorry.'' The Canadian star, whose friends say he is ''trying to be a person'' after displaying a string of bad behaviour in recent months, insists he isn't rac-

ist and respects all cultures.

He continued: ''I thought long and hard about what I wanted to say but telling the truth is always what's right. Five years ago I made a reckless and immature mistake and I'm grateful to those close to me who helped me learn those lessons as a young man. Once again....I'm sorry.'' A source previously claimed that Justin and his management had known about the video for a while and tried to pay for it to be kept out of the public eye.

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ctress Eva Longoria has dismissed reports suggesting her Las Vegas restaurant was closed after failing a health inspection. The former Desperate Housewives star partnered with bosses at U.S. restaurant chain Morton's The Steakhouse to open the SHe eaterie inside the Aria Resort and Casino in 2012. The restaurant closed for good last weekend (24-25May14), and subsequent speculation suggested its demise was

due to a brief shuttering in April (14) after receiving 21 demerits for health code violations from Southern Nevada Health District officials.

Now Longoria has blasted the rumours, taking to Twitter.com to write, Just to be clear, the steakhouse in Vegas Did Not close for health violations. We had an 'A' rating at time of closure. People should read more carefully. SHe Las Vegas was originally concepted as a nightlife enter-

tainment venue. Since the closing of the nightclub venue, we have been met with considerable resistance from our Landlord to re-concept the nightlife theme which impacted our ability to deliver on our guests' experience.

SHe restaurant offered smaller-portion dishes for weight-conscious female customers. The actress still runs one of Los Angeles' top restaurants - Beso has been a Hollywood hotspot since 2008.

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Nadal crushes Lajovic to set up Ferrer clash

Spain's Rafael Nadal shakes the sweat off his head after winning his fourth round match of the French Open tennis tournament against Serbia's Dusan Lajovic at the Roland Garros stadium, in Paris, France on June 2. (AP Photo)

PARIS, June 2 (AFP): Eight-time champion Rafael Nadal brushed aside outclassed Dusan Lajovic 6-1, 6-2, 6-1 on Monday to storm into the French Open quarterfinals.

World number one Nadal, who turns 28 on Tuesday, was at his ruthless, efficient best against the world number 83 who claimed a paltry 15 points off the champion's serve.

Watched by US rock star Prince, who played a concert in the French capital on Sunday night, Nadal, seeking to become the first man to win five French Opens in a row, needed just 93 minutes to go through to a last-eight showdown with compatriot David Ferrer.

The two men met in last year's final where Nadal allowed Ferrer just eight games. Despite his Philippe

Chatrier court mauling, Lajovic at least had the consolation of avoiding the worst Roland Garros rout handed out by Nadal.

That unwanted record belongs to Juan Monaco who won just two games in a fourth round loss in 2012.

"Dusan had a great tournament, he had three good wins," said Nadal, whose record in Paris now stands at 63 wins against just one defeat. "It's never easy playing on this Philippe Chatrier court for the first time. I controlled the points from the baseline and I am happy to be into another quarter-final."

Nadal holds a 21-6 advantage over Ferrer in their career meetings but it was his compatriot who won their most recent clash in the Monte Carlo quarterfinals in April.

Maria reaches French Open quarterfinals

PARIS, June 2 (AFP): Maria Sharapova stayed o n course for a second French Open title by reaching the quarterfinals at Roland Garros on Sunday, but two new-wave hopefuls are lining up to take her down. The Russian seventh seed, and tournament favourite since the top three seeds all lost, produced a typically battling performance to overcome Australian veteran Samantha Stosur 3-6, 6-4, 6-0 in a late finishing fourth round tie. Stosur, the losing finalist in Paris in 2010, the year before she won her only major to date at the US Open, dominated the first set with two breaks of serve.

But Sharapova steadied the ship to lead 2-0 at the start of the second before Stosur levelled at 2-2. The ninth game proved to be crucial as Sharapova fired down two stunning winners to break again and then held serve to level the match. The Russian, who won the French Open in 2012 to complete a sweep of all four Grand Slam titles, grabbed another break to open the decider and with the Stosur challenge visibly wilting, she turned on the power to reach her third straight quarterfinal in Paris. "I am so happy to be back in the quarterfinals as it is such a special tournament for me," she said. "I just hope I can raise my level and play even better in the second week." Waiting for her there in the last eight will be 20-year-old Spaniard Garbine Muguruza who had little difficulty seeing off the challenge of French wildcard Pauline Parmentier, winning 6-4, 6-2 in fading light on the Roland Garros centre court. Muguruzu it was who produced the shock of the tournament to date with a second round upset of top seed and defending champion Serena Williams.

And if she fails to get the better of Sharapova, the Russian could be facing another 20-year-old in the semifinals in the shape of fast-rising Eugenie Bouchard.

The Canadian from Montreal, who has stormed up the world rankings in the last year, crushed German eighth seed Angelique Kerber 6-1, 6-2 to reach her second Grand Slam quarterfinal. Her first came in Australia in January when she made it through to the semis.

The youngest player left in the draw, Bouchard, seeded 18, had made a slow start to her two previous matches, but she hit the deck running against the big-hitting Kerber, a Roland Garros quarterfinalist in 2012. The former world junior number one led 5-0 before allowing her opponent a game and despite some sterner resistance from Kerber at the start of the second set, it was mainly a case of one-way traffic.

Bouchard, who won her first career title in Nuremberg in the week before Roland Garros started, said that she was confident she could go deeper into the tournament.

"I mean, I'm confident, you know, and I really believe in my skills. I believe I can play with the best girls out there," she said. "She's top 10 (Kerber), so I respect her. She can play some really good tennis. I was really mentally prepared for anything, for a battle."

Standing in Bouchard's way for a potential matchup against Sharapova is Spain's Carla Suarez Navarro who proved too good for 21-year-old Croatian Ajla Tomljanovic, winning 6-3, 6-3. The 25-year Canary Islander, is through to her fourth Grand Slam quarterfinal, six years after playing in the last eight at Roland Garros on her debut in the competition. The quarterfinal spots for Bouchard, Muguruza and Suarez Navarro were symptomatic of a women's tournament full of surprises and new faces with the three top seeds -- Williams, Li Na and Agnieszka Radwanska -- all failing to make the fourth round, the first time that has happened in the Open era.

Russia's Maria Sharapova reacts as she defeats Australia's Samantha Stosur during their fourth round match of the French Open tennis tournament at the Roland Garros stadium, in Paris, France, Sunday, June 1. (AP Photo)

Gautam Gambhir the best IPL Ronaldo looks to avoid Ballon d'Or curse captain this season: Akram

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BAngAloRe, June 2 (PTI): Attributing Kolkata Knight Riders’ second Indian Premier League title triumph to Gautam Gambhir’s leadership skills, the team’s bowling coach Wasim Akram said he is the best among all the IPL captains this season.

“It means a lot to the team when the skipper is performing well. It adds to the security and the self belief. He has led his troops very well. I believe he was the best captain in this IPL,” Akram told the IPL’s official website.

Kings XI Punjab rode on an unbeaten 115 from Wriddhiman Saha to post 199 for 4 in 20 overs but Gambhir was never unnerved and backed his bowlers. Akram was all praise for his captain’s positivity. ”...from the 11th to the 15th over of the KXIP innings, instead of looking for dot balls — which most captains do during that phase of the innings —— he encouraged his bowlers to bowl for wickets.

That aggressive mindset and the belief he puts in his players makes him the best captain in the tournament,” the Sultan of Swing added.

KKR became only the second IPL team after Chennai Super Kings to win the tournament twice and Akram credits excellent teamwork for the outcome.

“Our job is to keep things simple. We talk to the point and don’t have long meetings.

We just try to keep them relaxed and lend any assistance they need. That is the mantra that Trevor Bayliss and I go by.

The credit goes to the captain and his team. We are here just to support them,” said Akram.

PARIS, June 2 (AFP): When Portugal star Cristiano Ronaldo was awarded last year's Ballon d'Or in recognition of his dazzling achievements over the course of 2013 he naturally had plenty of reason to celebrate although one could forgive him for feeling apprehensive about his country's hopes at the World Cup in Brazil. Portugal will go the tournament as dark horses heavily reliant on their captain and talisman Ronaldo, who will need to defy the odds if he is to avoid becoming another footnote in a cautionary tale. Since the inception of the Ballon d'Or, conceived

by France Football magazine in 1956 to recognise Europe, and then latterly, the world's most outstanding player each year, of the 14 players in possession of the prize heading into a World Cup none have achieved ultimate success on the global stage.

Granted the facts are skewed to an extent given only European players were eligible for the prize prior to

1995, ruling out the likes of three-time World Cup winner Pele and Diego Maradona, who was central to Argentina's 1986 triumph, but that still leaves some of the game's most decorated players who have fallen short. Take Barcelona star Lionel Messi, who won the first of his four consecutive Ballon d'Or awards in 2009, for example.

An Argentina side with an embarrassment of attacking riches breezed through to the quarterfinals at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa despite Messi not contributing a single goal. However, when they needed him most he was unable to deliver as Maradona's shell-shocked Argentine team were ruthlessly torn apart by Germany 4-0 in the last eight. That provided merely just the latest chapter of a World Cup campaign ending in disappointment for the world's leading player, a story that dates back to 1957 Ballon d'Or recipient and Real Madrid legend Alfredo Di Stefano. For Argentine-born Di Stefano, who acquired Spanish citizenship in time for the 1958 qualifiers despite previously representing his homeland as well as Colombia, his adopted nation fell short in their quest to reach the finals leaving one of the world's greatest players to ultimately finish his career without ever appearing at the World Cup.

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Mamata to attend felicitation of KKR

KolKATA, June 2 (AgencIeS): A packed schedule notwithstanding, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will be in Kolkata to attend the grand felicitation of IPL champions Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens on Tuesday. Banerjee, who has left for Jalpaiguri for review of welfare projects, will return on Monday night for the KKR programme being jointly organised by the state government and the Cricket Association of Bengal.

The state government will also invite Bengal wicketkeeper batsman Wriddhiman Saha whose 115 not out from 55 deliveries for Kings XI Punjab went in vain after KKR held their nerves to win by three wickets in a pulsating IPL-VII final in Bangalore last night.

"Heartiest congratulations to KKR,

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everybody played well... I also congratulate Wriddhiman Saha for his brilliant innings. I had already told (team coowner) Shah Rukh (Khan) to organise a reception for the team after they emerge champions. I also had a word with (CAB chief) Jagmohan Dalmiya regarding tomorrow's reception," she said.

"At the same time, I had a few meetings lined-up over next few days but I will return tonight (from North Bengal) to felicitate the side," she added.

After attending the felicitation that will begin at 2pm, Banerjee will leave for Alipurduar to attend a government programme. The state government had felicitated KKR grandly after their maiden IPL triumph in the fifth edition of the Indian Premier League two years ago.

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