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SaturDaY • JanuarY 09 • 2016
DIMAPUR • Vol. XI • Issue 7 • 12 PAGes • 5
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Show me your garden and I shall tell you what you are — Alfred Austin MPs, health officials spar over tobacco warnings PaGE 08
reflections
By Sandemo Ngullie
Kiphire | January 8
Kiphire is considered as the largest maize grower and producing district in the State. For nearly a decade now, farmers from this remote district of Nagaland produce at least 10-12 lakh kilos of surplus maize from one jhum cycle. Across India, maize production is growing faster than that of all other cereals, thanks to its growing demand as poultry feed, as well as for human and inForget the earth quake, if dustrial consumption. our corrupt leaders don’t Farmers here grow turn to God, next time naga two varieties of maize- the people will get tsunami. indigenous one which is white in color and the yelThe Morung Express low variety provided by Poll QuEsTion the agriculture department. Even though the Vote on www.morungexpress.com indigenous maize variety sMs your answer to 9862574165 is known for being pest reWill 2016 be the year sistant and can be stored of the great Change (preserved) for a couple in Nagaland? Why? of years, it fetches lesser amount. Yes no others The farmers therefore grow the variety provided by the department which however cannot be stored
NEW DELHI, JANUARY 8 (IANS): A film inspired by the incidents of racism against northeast Indians in their own country will go on floors this summer. To be helmed by Sidhant Saheb and produced by BKT Academy & Films Pvt. Ltd., a media house of films, events and training, the film will be shot here, in Mumbai and Punjab. The film’s shooting will also take place in Arunachal Pradesh - hometown of Nido Tania, a student who died following his injuries in an assault in a market here in 2014. “We are working on a number of subjects and racial discrimination faced by people of northeast India is one of them. We will start shooting from May or June. We are still working on the story. The title and the cast are yet to be finalised,” Saheb told IANS. According to a 2014 survey, over 50 percent people from the region feel that discrimination is a reality in the national capital.
WHO approves 3rd cholera vaccine producer
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GENEVA, JANUARY 8 (REUTERS): A third producer of oral cholera vaccine has been approved that is expected to provide 3 million doses in 2016, the World Health Organization said on Friday, doubling the world’s stockpile against a disease that can kill within hours. EuBiologics, a South Korea-based producer, joins Shantha Biotechnics of Sanofi Pasteur as a pre-qualified supplier, WHO expert Stephen Martin told a news briefing. The third producer, which currently does not have doses in the stockpile, is Sweden’s Crucell, he said. “It has future potential in the next 3-4 years for a much greater increase in vaccine production,” he said. A vaccine campaign will begin in Haiti this month, targeting some 240,000 people, he added.
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Kiphire maize opens up carbon footprint debate lipichem
Film on racism against NE people in offing
Barcelona dominate UEFA’s 2015 Team of the Year
‘Develop sense of belongingness’
even for a few months.
Not even a single processing unit With not even a single processing unit in the district, the harvested crops are sold to local traders at a giveaway price, who then transport it to the commercial hub Dimapur. The harvests have been so bountiful over the years that traders are willing to shell out advance payment to farmers and book the produce well ahead of harvest time to make sure that they get the required share for consignment. Traders are known to buy the corn at Rs 10-11 per kilo from the field and then sell it at Rs 12-13 per kilo in Dimapur. The maize of Kiphire is purely organic since farmers shy away from pesticides or fertilizers. Besides the sad irony that a district in Nagaland producing such large volume of maize would not even have a small processing unit, this is a bit of good news for the State which is not able to stand on its own
cessed in different factories, exported to neighboring states and back home (Kiphire) in the form of livestock feeds or for human consumption, eg flour-which also burns around 500-600 liters of fuel in a year. These activities creating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere could be avoided if the State government is industrious or enterprising enough to set up small corn processing units which are environmentally friendly and at the same time train local youth to run these units, environmentalists suggest. Not only will it help in reducing the carbon emisPost harvest of Maize in Kiphire. sion but it will also boost the economy of the locals, feet despite rich natural re- to be transported outside. the maize. sources handed on a plate. Asserting on how maize Agricultural practices the district and the State, production was leaving along with domestic fos- they added. Is Kiphire maize leaving carbon footprints, environ- sil fuel combustion have carbon footprints? mentalists have calculated a major impact on the Maize produces oxygen, From an environmen- that in the course of 315 global C and nitrogen (N) absorbs carbon gas If the footprints of talist’s perspective, there kilometers of journey be- cycles, possible leading to is a major side-effect over tween Kiphire and Dima- the global temperature in- maize produce from Kipsuch large production of pur, traders burn around crease of up to 0.17 C per hire district is carbon maize in a district where 3500-4000 liters of fossil decade since 1950, studies emission, it also cannot be overlooked that maize is more than 80% of the pro- fuel (petrol or diesel) in one have revealed. duce are surplus and have season while transporting This maize is then pro- deemed as the ”air purifier”
and much more efficient than forestland, the timehonoured “green lung”. Maize produces a great deal of oxygen, absorbs large quantities of carbon gas and scavenges carbon from carbon gas in the soil, stopping air pollution having a negative impact on the greenhouse effect. As maize grows, it absorbs substantial quantities of nitrates absorbed from the soil. Studies have found that one hectare of maize provides four times more oxygen than a hectare of forestland. At the same time it absorbs four times more carbon gas, i.e. between 20 and 30 tonnes per hectare. Even after the plant has “died” and decomposes after harvest, it still has a positive effect, keeping the carbon captive in the soil. Some key points here for the Nagaland government would be to assess the feasibility of maize processing in the State, identify suitable technology and promote processing of this crop in to value added products.
After forty years, India set to re-open Pakistan pledges to cooperate commercial coal mining to private firms with Indian attack investigation
NEW DELHI, JANUARY 8 (REUTERS): India is getting ready to open up commercial coal mining to private companies for the first time in four decades, with the aim of shifting the world’s third-biggest coal importer towards energy self-sufficiency. Anil Swarup, the country’s top coal bureaucrat, told Reuters on Friday the government has identified mines it plans to auction, and is now finalising other terms such as eligibility criteria for companies to take part and whether and how to set up revenue sharing. He said a plan should be ready in the 2-3 months, setting a clear timeline on a plan that has previously only been vaguely marked out. India has an ambitious plan to double its coal production to 1.5 billion tonnes a year by 2020, as part of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s push to bring power to 300 million people who live without electricity, and give a boost to
manufacturing. It would also support the government’s efforts to develop eastern parts of the country, which are resource-rich and hold most of India’s coal reserves but have lagged the western states in development. State-owned Coal India is on track to produce 1 billion tonnes a year by the end of this decade, and India is counting on private firms to produce the remaining 500 million tones - which may prove a tough target to achieve. As of now, only Coal India and a small governmentowned company are allowed to mine and sell coal in India. “It’s imperative that India opens up the sector so that private companies can bring in new technologies and the efficiencies that we keep talking about,” said Dipesh Dipu at energy-focused Jenissi Management Consultants. “But I don’t think private companies will be able to produce more than 100 million tonnes this decade as the process has
yet to start.” The move is likely to attract coal block bids from Indian conglomerates such as the Adani Group and GVK, but the government may find it harder to lure big multinational miners such as Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton, Anglo American and Peabody Energy. Rio Tinto did not respond to requests for comment. Coal prices are at multiyear lows amid global oversupply, and foreign companies have faced obstacles to investing in India, such as problems in getting land and environmental approvals. Some private companies also worry that the best quality mines would be left for Coal India. FINALISING TERMS Swarup was handpicked by Modi to lead a turnaround in the coal sector soon after the prime minister came to power in 2014. Under Swarup’s watch, Coal India has seen record production growth, and the
government auctioned off a series of coal blocks successfully. Coal imports fell for a sixth straight month in December. Until last year, India spent around $16 billion a year importing foreign coal, even though it sits on the world’s fifth-biggest reserves of more than 300 billion tonnes. Swarup said there were still some aspects of the plan to bring in private players that needed to be examined carefully. The government, for example, has to make sure that companies do not under-report sales if a revenue-sharing model is adopted, he said. Companies can do that by selling coal to their units at discounted rates, and by calculating the government’s share based on that instead of the market price. Swarup declined to say where the identified mines were located. Most of India’s coal is in the eastern states of Jharkhand, Odisha and Chhattisgarh.
ISLAMABAD, JANUARY 8 (REUTERS): Pakistan’s prime minister and army chief pledged on Friday to cooperate fully with India on investigations into an attack on an Indian air base last week, as the fate of scheduled talks between the nuclear-armed neighbours remains uncertain. The comments come a day after India called on Pakistani authorities for “prompt and decisive” action against militants it blames for the weekend attack that killed seven Indian military personnel and wounded 22. Participants at a high-level meeting in Islamabad “reiterated Pakistan’s commitment to cooperate with India to completely eradicate the menace of terrorism,” Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s office said in a statement. The meeting was also attended by Army Chief Raheel Sharif, the head of the military’s powerful InterServices Intelligence (ISI) Rizwan Akhtar, and several top civilian and military officials. India says it gave Pakistan “specific and actionable information”
regarding the Pathankot air base attack on Tuesday. In its statement, Sharif’s office said the meeting had reviewed the progress on the information received from India and would stay in touch with the Indian government. A meeting between the two countries’ foreign secretaries was scheduled for January 15, but it is unclear if it will go ahead. The fate of the talks rested on Pakistan’s response to the information, Indian government spokesman Vikas Swarup said on Thursday. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Sharif have been struggling to keep their renewed dialogue, announced last month, on track in the wake of the attack. Attempts to restart talks between India and Pakistan, who have fought three wars since becoming separate countries in 1947, have often been derailed by similar past attacks. Pakistan’s leadership on Friday said it hoped “the two countries would remain committed to a sustained, meaningful and comprehensive dialogue process” in the wake of the attack.
Human imprint has thrust Earth Chopper tail landing at Kiphire helipad into new geological epoch successful; service set to resume OSLO, JANUARY 8 (REUTERS): The indelible imprint left by human beings on Earth has become so clear that it justifies naming a new geological epoch after mankind, experts said on Thursday. The dawn of the “Anthropocene” would signal the end of the Holocene epoch, considered to have begun 11,700 years ago at the end of the Ice Age. The new term, suggested in 2000, is based on the Greek word “anthropos”, meaning “man”. “Human activity is leaving a pervasive and persistent signature on Earth,” said a report in the journal Science by an international team led by Colin Waters of the British Geological Survey. “We are becoming a geological agent in ourselves,” Waters told Reuters. The start date could be around the mid-20th century, the authors wrote. They said the atomic age, starting with a bomb test in New Mexico in the United States on July 16, 1945, and the post-war leap in mining, industry, farming and use of manmade materials such as concrete or plastics all left geological traces. Concrete, invented by the Romans, was now so ubiquitous that it would amount to one kg (2.2 lbs) for every
square metre (11 sq feet) of the planet’s surface if spread out evenly, they said. Any formal recommendation to adopt the Anthropocene as a new geological epoch would require years of extra research, partly to pin down a start date, Waters said. Some experts reckon the Anthropocene began with Europe’s Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. Others would give it a more widespread origin, dating it from the spread of agriculture several thousand years ago. “Any definition will inform the stories that we tell about human development,” said Professor Simon Lewis of University College London, who was not involved in the study. He favours 1610 as a start date, marking the spread of colonialism, disease and trade to the Americas from Europe. Erle Ellis of the University of Maryland, a co-author of the study released on Thursday, said pinning down the Anthropocene would transform understanding of humanity’s role on the planet. He said it was a “challenge no smaller than a second Copernican revolution”. In the 16th century, Nicolaus Copernicus helped show the Earth rotates around the sun.
our Correspondent Kiphire | January 8
A Pawan Hans chopper successfully carried out a trial landing at the freshly cemented Kiphire helipad on Friday. Following the crash-landing of a chopper at Meluri on November 24, 2015, chopper service to Kiphire district was suspended for more than a month because the helipad was not cemented. Nine people were injured during the crash-landing at Meluri helipad. After a thick cloud of dust kicked up by the rotor from the un-cemented surface of the helipad, the pilot had reportedly lost control of the chopper. Friday’s the trial landing was witnessed by the district administration, DBs, NGOs and the NST department officials. The cementing of the 20 sq meter helipad was financed by power minister Kipili Sangtam and work supervised by Likhumse, PS to the minister along with party workers. NST department officials said chopper service could have been suspended for more days had the power minister not taken personal initiative. With the successful trial landing, choppers service is expected to resume without delay. Since the suspension of
The Pawan Hans chopper after a successful trial landing at Kiphire helipad.
the chopper service, Kiphire citizens have been facing a lot of inconveniences for need of a quicker transport, particularly in times of emergency. A number of patients who were required to undergo treatment outside of the district were compelled to suffer
untold miseries due to the suspension of the chopper service, department officials said. Mention may be made that it takes 10-12 hours by-road to reach Kiphire from Dimapur. It takes only 45 minutes in a chopper.