C M Y K
www.morungexpress.com
TuesDAY • December 29 • 2015
DIMAPUR • Vol. X • Issue 352 • 12 PAGes • 4
T H e
ESTD. 2005
You can’t help getting older, but you don’t have to get old Iraqi army declares major victory over IS in Ramadi
P o W e R
o F
T R u T H
— George Burns
NASU annual conference underway
Moeen spins trouble for South Africa
PAGE 02
PAGE 09
C M Y K
PAGE 12
India’s ‘environment stand’ in a fix
New Delhi, December 28 (iANS): Soaring pollution levels, crippling floods, quivering Richter notes to scores of environment laws awaiting their implementation - this, in short, was India's environmental standing this year. As alarming as the climatic challenges posed to the nation have been, India is still found struggling to find the right laws to fight climate change, experts say. India witnessed a challenging year in terms of its environmental conditions, starting the year with a title its capital city New Delhi earned last year -the world's most polluted city according to the World Health Organisation --- which it retained this year as well. Delhi and cities surrounding it have surpassed the pollution levels of Beijing, which was the most polluted in the world until Delhi took its spot. Pollution surfaced in unexpected ways -- like a lake in Bengaluru turning toxic and frothy with the industrial pollutants being mixed with the water. This incident caught not just national attention but that of the whole world. The country's northern part was known to have exceeded pollution levels at many times of the year, which should have triggered a 'red alert' had it been in another country, according to environment body Greenpeace. "If India had an air quality monitoring system as robust as that of
reflectioNs
By Sandemo Ngullie
Beijing, a large portion of north India would have been on red alert for as many as 33 days," the NGO said recently, pointing to the necessity to establish stronger air monitoring systems across the country. Even before the start of winter, which usually greets the northern states with hazy skies and smog covered days, the entire belt of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi and Chandigarh choked in smoke due to the paddy field fires -- the smoke which affected the country's climate even later for weeks, according to environmentalists. But, according to Delhibased environmentalist Vikrant Tongad, the year also saw the issue of air pollution being heard on a national and global level. "The year saw some initiatives which were much needed to be addressed: like methods of tackling air pollution, making clear India's stand to fight climate on a global level et al, but solutions for the issues still remain to be found," Tongad told IANS. Tongad said India never had such an "active" stance at the crucial UN Climate Change Conference, in standing up for the developing countries, as it had this year at the 21st Conference of Parties (CoP 21) held in Paris, he said. There are however some gaps in the deal signed, he added. India, which had committed to cut its greenhouse emis-
Imphal | December 28
Four villagers, including a mother and her son, were injured when police commandos opened fire to control an angry crowd inside the complex of the 3rd IRB posted at Kasom Khullen village under Ukhrul district, Manipur last night. According to reports, the incident took place around 7:00pm. S SimCompared to crackers, Me- reibul, 30, and her 13 year tallica songs sound like old son have been undersentimental hits. taking medical treatment at Shija Hospital here. The The Morung Express other two injured are being Poll QuEsTion treated at the Jawarharlal Vote on www.morungexpress.com Nehru Institute of Medical Sciences (JNIMS), Imphal. SMS your anSwer to 9862574165 The condition of the womCan Nagas overcome an is reported to be serious. our current victimEarlier, a skirmish enmentality and bring sued between some perabout positive change in 2016? Why? sonnel, including police no
others
Public Notice
C M Y K
Dear Readers, This is to inform you that the cover price of The Morung Express will be `5 beginning, January 1, 2016. The primary factors affecting the paper’s production costs are that all items related to printing the newspaper have steadily increased, in combination with the poor economy. Also, print materials are imported from outside Nagaland as they are not readily available here. Please know that this was a difficult decision to make and ask for your support offsetting these costs and greatly appreciate your committed readership throughout the years. We thank you for your support and understanding. The Morung Express
In this file photo, a rag-picker looks for recyclable material at a dumping site in Dimapur. Plagued by soaring pollution levels and crippling floods, India has struggled to find the right laws to fight climate change. (Morung File Photo)
sions up to 35 percent by 2030, also pioneered the alliance of 120-odd nations to form the grand solar alliance, a move to harness solar energy better. India also bore a stern face in saying that the developed nations must contribute their part to reducing emissions and raising $100 billion a year to help developing ones. Indian interlocutors, who have been holding pride for introducing the terms "sustainable lifestyle" and "climate justice" to the preamble through Prime Minister Narendra Modi, have received criticism
from the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) and other environment bodies for having no operational parts of these terms in the text, and hence no commitments. CSE also felt that India will be under constant pressure to take more of a burden for mitigating climate change by 2020 and beyond, especially when the next review of all the nationally-determined contributions of countries take place. As India made these commitments in Paris, the country's northern states remained fight-
ing smog, while a majority of southern ones battled extreme untimely torrential rains that led to huge floods. These rains, which lasted for over a week, lashed Chennai and other areas of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh. Union Minister for Forests, Environment and Climate Change Prakash Javadekar termed the floods as "not a part of climate change" and said that they were a "localised event" and a "natural calamity", which the environmental groups rejected. According to CSE, "un-
regulated urbanisation and climate change-induced extreme weather" were the reason behind the flood crisis in Tamil Nadu and other states. But this year it was quite commendable to see Indian courts taking active stand in pushing for cleaner air and to act against pollution, Tongad added, referring to the Delhi High Court asking the Delhi government to take stricter steps to battle the city's pollution. "It seems we are living in a gas chamber," the court had said, asking the Delhi government and the Centre to immediately act on reducing pollution in and around the capital. The Supreme Court's recent decision to ban diesel vehicle registrations in the National Capital Region for three months and surrounding towns is also a much needed move, to fight a large amount of pollution caused by diesel vehicles, environment groups said. This step has brought the whole nation's attention to fighting for a clean environment, he said. Following the Delhi High Court's orders, the Delhi government undertook the initiative in the capital to ration road space, allowing even and odd numbered vehicles to ply only on alternative days. But an initiative like this needs to be thought through, as it could lead to the people going for a second car, the National Green Tribunal said.
Instead of having laws which safeguard environment, the current government's attempt to amend the environment laws so as to allow better investments and bigger companies to be housed in the country is a scary move, environment activists said. According to Environment Support Group (ESG), a Bengaluru-based trust which works to safeguard environment, the Draft Environment Laws (Amendment) Bill 2015, dated October 7, 2015 (which could perhaps be presented before parliament in the budget session) allows the government to "relax environment laws for better investments". The draft, according to ESG, "pushes laws through the backdoor", and has been proposed by private firms Ernst and Young and Amarchand and Mangaldas and Company, whose interests are majorly "economical and environmental", said Bhargavi S. Rao, coordinator of the ESG. "The country has been regressive in the past few years in terms of environment law amendments taking away right to participation from the communities. We have brought down our standards in terms of pollution tackling. Amendments which are being proposed could bring a disaster to the country. The amendments itself are violating environment principles in the name of development," Rao told IANS.
4 villagers hurt in Ukhrul police firing Stolen bike meets with accident our Correspondent
Yes
Country plagued by soaring pollution, crippling floods, laws awaiting implementation
commandos attached with the India Reserve Battalion (IRB) post, and a group of people in Somarei village under Saikul constituency on the intervening night of December 25 -26. Reports informed that the commandos and IRB personnel misbehaved with some village girls during the Christmas celebration when the skirmish was taking place. A villager was picked up by the personnel from the post on December 27 and he was later allegedly thrown out of a police vehicle near the village area. Enraged, a large number of people from Somarei and its surrounding areas stormed the IRB post, resulting in a violent standoff over the incident. The angry protesters demanded that all per-
sonnel involved in the incident be punished. The post commander was injured when one of the protesters reportedly attacked him with a club during the confrontation. The IRB personnel then opened fire in their attempt to control the mob. Meanwhile, Somarei villagers blocked the Kasom Khullen road since early Monday morning in protest against the firing and the earlier incident. They demanded that the IRB personnel and commandos should be punished and their post also be removed immediately. Official sources said Saikul MLA Yamthong Haokip visited the village and took stock of the situation. A tense atmosphere still prevailed in the village, sources informed.
Morung Express news Dimapur | December 28
A stolen bike was recovered after it met with an accident in Dimapur on the night of December 27. According to the officer-in-charge, Traffic Control – I, LM Patton, the accident occurred in the space of a few hours after it was stolen. While no one was injured, the bike rider disappeared from the scene as soon as the traffic police arrived, Patton said. As per the account, the bike met with a minor collision with a car at the New Flyover at around midnight on December 27. Since it was a minor mishap, the two parties came to an understanding and settled the matter while the police reached the spot. But the bike rider disappeared as
The unclaimed Hero Honda Glamour, which was found abandoned at Murgi Patti in the month of November.
the policemen arrived. The car went on its way, while the bike was taken to the Traffic Control Room. Patton added that initially nothing suspicious was assumed. Later, in the
morning on December 28, a report was received of a bike missing from Burma Camp on December 27 and an FIR about which had been registered at East Police Station. The descrip-
tion of the missing bike matched with that of the one abandoned at the New Flyover following the accident. East Police Station was informed after which the bike was handed over to the owner, who had registered the FIR. In an unrelated incident, an abandoned bike (Hero Honda Glamour) was recovered by the Traffic police at Murgi Patti, Dimapur in the month of November. According to ABSI (Traffic), Tatong, it was recovered during Diwali and has gone unclaimed since. The rightful owner of the bike – bearing registration no. NL 07J 4925, engine no. JA06EFBGM15294, chassis no. MBLJA06EZBGM01637 – has been informed to claim it after producing the necessary documents.
Big data & online security to become Norms relaxed for small, mainstream in 2016: Oracle predicts isolated gas fields in NE New Delhi, December 28 (iANS): The new year will see more banks, insurers and credit-rating firms across the globe turning to enhanced security measures to guard against online fraud more effectively, global software and cloud major Oracle has predicted. “(The year) 2016 will witness an increase in the proliferation of experiments default risk, policy underwriting, and fraud detection as firms try to identify hotspots for algorithmic advantage faster than the competition,” the leading US-based cloud service provider said in its outlook for 2016 on Monday. The professional data scientists will see increasing demand for their skills from established companies including in India, it added. Oracle has 12 develop-
ment centres in India, including facilities in many emerging cities like Vijayawada, Thiruvananthapuram, Noida and Ahmedabad. “(The year) 2016 will be the year when big data becomes more mainstream and is adopted across various sectors to drive innovation and capture digitization opportunities,” said Neil Mendelson, vice president, Oracle’s big data product management, in a statement. “We will also see the emergence of dataflow programming which provides simpler reusability of functional operators and gives pluggable support for statistical and machine learning functions,” the 2016 outlook added. In 2016, simpler big data discovery tools will let business analysts shop for datasets in enterprise “Hadoop” clusters, reshape them into
new mashup combinations and even analyse them with exploratory machine learning technique. “This will improve both self-service access to big data and provide richer hypotheses and experiments that drive the next level of innovation,” the company said. In 2016, organisations will witness technologies mature and become more mainstream thanks to cloud services and appliances with pre-configured automation and standardisation. “Companies will not only capture a greater variety of data in 2016, they use this in a variety of algorithms, analytics and apps,” it noted. 2016 will be the year where Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies such as Machine Learning (ML), Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Property Graphs (PG)
will be applied to ordinary data processing challenges. “The new shift will include widespread applications of these technologies in IT tools that support applications, real-time analytics and data science,” the outlook stated. Increasing consumer awareness of the ways data can be collected, shared, stored and stolen will amplify calls for regulatory protections of personal information in next year. “The continuous threat of ever more sophisticated hackers will prompt companies to both tighten security, as well as audit access and use of data,” the outlook report predicted. India is home to Oracle's second largest workforce of developers and engineers and accounts for its largest research and development investment outside the US.
New Delhi, December 28 (iANS): Rules for selling natural gas produced from small, isolated fields in northeast India have been further relaxed to extend the time stipulation for offtake by customers to one year from the date of readiness, an official statement said on Monday. "The national oil companies (NOCs) have brought to the notice of the ministry that customers of northeast region are facing various difficulties in utilising the gas within 90 days and have been requesting for longer lead time for monetisation of gas from small and isolated fields," said a petroleum ministry release here said. "Considering the difficulties of Northeast customers, the government has decided to increase the period of 90 days for off-take of gas from the date or readiness indicated by the NOCs to one year in respect of small and isolated fields located in the Northeast region," it added.
The petroleum ministry had in July 2013 permitted pricing freedom for gas produced from small, isolated fields and given marketing freedom by imposing no obligation of seeking customers only from the fertiliser and power sectors, with a stipulation, however, that only those customers who can take supply within 90 days be sold the gas. The policy permits producers from such fields to sell gas at market rates by inviting competitive bids from prospective consumers. The government has effected an 18-percent cut in domestic prices of natural gas, from $4.66 per unit to $3.82 per unit for six months starting October 1. Natural gas prices in India are set by taking a volume-weighted annual average of that prevailing in the US, Britain, Canada and Russia. Prices are calculated on the trailing 12 month data with a lag of one quarter.
C M Y K