C M Y K
www.morungexpress.com
sunDAY • MAY 22 • 2016
DIMAPUR • Vol. XI • Issue 139 • 12 PAGes • 5
T H e
ESTD. 2005
P o W e R
Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact Public notice
C M Y K
8:00 PM Deadline for submission of Press releases to the Morung express. effective from May 20, 2016
• The Morung Express wants to make the newspaper available in the early morning hours to readers in the districts of Nagaland, as well as, in towns and cities in the North East. In order to make this happen, the newspaper seeks the understanding, cooperation and support of our readers, this includes the Government, Civil Society organizations and the public.
• Effective May 20, 2016, The Morung Express will have a new publication deadline of 8:00 p.m., for all documents including press releases, articles and other news items. Any documents received after the new 8:00 p.m., deadline will be published in a later issue.
• This new deadline will make it possible for us to go to the printing press early and open opportunities for districts outside Dimapur and Kohima to receive the paper in the early morning. • We appreciate your continued support for making it possible for the news to be distributed more fully throughout Nagaland. Editor, The Morung Express
reflections
By Sandemo Ngullie
IANS and IndiaSpend
CITIZEN UMBRELLA Wholesalers may contact
CITIZEN UMBRELLA MANUFACTURER LTD. H.O.: 147, Mahatma Gandhi Road, Kolkata-7 Ph. No. 033-2268-1396, 2271-2152 Fax : (033) 2271-2151 E-mail : citizenkolkata@gmail.com
One held for firing Morung Express News Dimapur | May 21
A man reportedly a cadre in the GPRN/NSCN was arrested on Saturday evening for allegedly firing at Dimapur Police personnel. The shooting incident occurred around 3:30pm at Blue Hill area, Golaghat Road, Dimapur. According to Police, the accused, identified as one Kihuto Yeptho (32), said to be a sergeant major with the GPRN/ NSCN fired two rounds in the air after which a chase ensued. The accused then fired a round at the chasing Police personnel, which missed them, but hit an auto-rickshaw driver on the left thigh. The accused was later chased down and arrested. Police recovered one .32 pistol and three empty cases. The autorickshaw driver, identified as Gwahilo Sebü Rengma, is being treated at District Hospital, Dimapur at the time of filing this report.
Border with B’desh will be sealed in two-year time GUWAHATI, MAY 21 (PTI): Sealing of the borders with Bangladesh will be completed in two year’s time to put an end to infiltration, Assam’s Chief Minister-to-be Sarbananda Sonowal said on Saturday. A product of the student movement of the 80s during the anti-foreigners agitation, Sonowal, who steered the BJP to victory in the elections, has put the issue of infiltration and attempts to check them as his government’s priority. BJP had made infiltration one of the major issues in the poll campaign. “Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had given a two-year time frame for permanent sealing of the border. We will work towards finishing within that timeframe the border sealing work, including the riverine border,” he told PTI in an interview. Asked what method or law he intended to apply to stop infiltration from Bangladesh as he was against the now repealed IMDT Act, Sonowal said, “When the final draft of the (ongoing) updated National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam is published, it will be clear who are the citizens and infiltrators will get identified. “The problem will get solved and action will then be taken against infiltrators as per existing law.”
T R u T H
— William James
‘Smoke reported on EgyptAir jet before crash’ PAGE 09
350 people die every day on india’s roads Madurai | May 21
He needs spiritual care .. which prayer center is the best in Nagaland?
o F
About 350 people die every day on India’s roads - more than any other country with those under 18 and two-wheeler riders most vulnerable, according to various data. An Airbus A-320 carries roughly 180 passengers, so the daily death toll on India’s roads is almost double that figure. “If (two) planes full of people crashed every day, wouldn’t the situation get more attention,” asked Piyush Tiwari, founder and president of Save LIFE, an advocacy that has used Right-To-Information queries to disaggregate trafficdeath data. Indians under 18 years constitute 11.93 percent of traffic fatalities, according to a 2014 Save LIFE RTI query. The toll primarily stems from rash driving, below-global-standards roads and a shunning of safety - either deliberately or through ignorance. It was in February that Union Minister for Road Transport & Highways, Nitin Gadkari told parliament that 130,000 people die in 500,000 mishaps on Indian roads.
In 2015, a World Health Organization (WHO) study said India did not meet international standards of road safety, the areas of vulnerability being overspeeding, not using helmets, not using or misusing seat belts (mandatory for the last 28 years) and the lack of child restraints. The study rated India’s enforcements in these critical areas as 4/10. “Even those who strap themselves in, when seated in front often are not concerned when seat belts are not used by passengers at the back,” said Tiwari. “They overlook the fact that in case of an accident, people in the back seat are often deadly projectiles, hitting the windshield and harming those strapped in front too.”
Children suffer most in accidents, holding baby in arms is unsafe
A year-old baby was cradled in its mother’s arms, as most babies travelling in Indian cars are. When the driver slammed on the brakes, the child flew out of the window and died instantly. Mohammed Imran narrated the death of a
or 13 per 1,000 people, according to 2014 report from The Energy and Resource Institute. Overall, that is not a lot - Brazil had 249 cars per 1,000 people, Thailand 206, China 83 and the US 797, according to the data. However, the density of cars is higher in burgeoning metropolitan cities: Delhi had 157 cars per 1,000 people, Mumbai 35, Bangalore 85 and Chennai 127.
The rise of distracted driving makes things worse
File photo of an ill-fate bus, which met with an accident along National Highway-39, near Chumukedima check gate, around 17 kilometers away from Dimapur. According to research data, 350 people die on India’s roads every day. (Photo: Caisii Mao)
relative’s child to illustrate the widespread ignorance across India about using a car seat for children. “While it’s true that a car seat is expensive, (a basic model can cost Rs 4000, most are imported), I always feel that money is not the issue here,” said Imran, founder of the Safe Road Foundation, an advocacy. “When you can afford a car, why not a car seat?” Car seats, he said, are
not enough. You must know how to use one. For instance, infants should use rear-facing infant seats, toddlers front-facing seats and older children booster seats. “One must first challenge the attitude that a child is safer in his mother’s arms and make car seats readily available across the country instead of selling these only in select stores,” Imran said. Two-wheeler riders
most accident-prone, as the tide of vehicles grows Two-wheeler riders are clearly most vulnerable, according to 2013 WHO data. As many as 34 percent of two-wheeler users who died in accidents - nearly three times the number who died in car accidents did not wear a helmet. India’s rising, chaotic traffic makes them even more vulnerable. India had 15 million cars in 2014,
Apart from traffic density, distracted driving is becoming commonplace, despite the four-fold increase in crash risk when you drive while speaking on a mobile phone, Tiwari said. Distractions and overspeeding without police checks explains why India is rated 3/10 on enforcement, according to the 2015 WHO report. Controlling and setting speed limits requires a nationwide upgrade, now that roads are better and vehicles faster. “Many of the current speed limits are based on road parameters that existed in the 1960s and 1970s,” said Tiwari. “So, even if you do stick to the speed limits, often, these are impractical
and unviable.”
Battling addiction, a new challenge on highways
Harman Singh Sidhu has been battling the state governments of Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan and liquor vendors in these states - for three years in courts to prevent liquor sales on India’s national highways. “There is no specific law that prevents liquor vendors from selling along India’s highways,” said Sidhu, president, ArriveSAFE, an NGO based in Chandigarh. “And this is despite evidence that 40 percent of India’s accidents occur from drunk driving.” There were as many as 185 unauthorised liquor shops along a 291-km stretch of the Panipat-Jalandhar National Highway linking Haryana and Punjab, according to an RTI response filed by ArriveSAFE in 2012. Drivers along these highways battle other addictions too. In an effort to stay awake, many consume a stimulant called poppy husk, an issue that requires greater awareness and advocacy and which ArriveSAFE is engaged in addressing.
Rain & landslide in NE claim lives; disrupt road, rail traffic CBSE Class XII results, girls outshine boys
AGARTALA/SILCHAR, MAY 21 (IANS): Road and rail traffic was disrupted in southern Assam, Tripura, Mizoram and western Manipur by incessant rain and landslides, officials said here on Saturday. At least two children were killed and as many injured as an incessant downpour unleashed by cyclone ‘Roanu’ derailed normal life in the four North Eastern states. “A nine-year-old girl and a 12-year-old boy were killed and two children injured when their homes collapsed in Amarpur and Rajnagar in Tripura,” state disaster management division coordinator Sarat Das
told IANS. The injured were shifted to the district hospital in Udaipur, he said. According to Das, over 200 families were shifted to safer places in Dharmanagar in northern Tripura as floodwater entered houses in Tripura. “The cyclonic effect and rains will continue till Sunday before ‘Roanu’ hits Bangladesh,” Tripura Metrological Department director Dilip Saha told IANS. Tripura has been cut off from the rest of the country since Friday as its lifeline National Highway-8 (NH8) - was badly damaged in adjoining southern Assam. A Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) official said
in Silchar: “Due to torrential rain during the past several days, coupled with heavy landslides, rail services have been disrupted in southern Assam, Tripura, Mizoram and western Manipur.” He said that railway workers were working round-the-clock to clear the rubble in many places in Assam’s Dima Hasao district. The official however could not give the time by when the rail tracks will be cleared as the rain continued on Saturday as well. NFR chief public relations officer Pranav Jyoti Sharma said four major trains running between
Guwahati and Silchar, including Silchar-Sealdah Kanchanjunga Express and the Silchar-New Delhi via Guwahati- the Poorvottar Sampark Kranti Express, were cancelled till the tracks were cleared. The railway lines and the national highways, considered the lifelines for the region, from Guwahati pass through southern Assam to connect landlocked Tripura’s capital Agartala, Mizoram and western Manipur with the rest of India. These states are heavily dependent on the railways for the supply of food grain, fertilisers, petroleum products, construction material and other commodities.
NeW DeLHI, MAY 21 (IANS): Girls outclassed boys as Sukriti Gupta of Delhi and Palak Goyal of Haryana bagged the first and second positions in the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) class 12 results declared on Saturday. With an overall pass percentage of 88.58, girls performed better compared to the boys’ 78.85. The pass percentage for boys in 2015 was 81.59 percent, while it was 90.87 percent for girls. According to a CBSE press release, 83.05 percent students cleared the examination this year against 82 percent last year. Thiruvananthapuram
recorded the highest pass percentage of 97.61, followed by Chennai at 92.63 percent. Over 10 lakh students had appeared in the examinations that began on March 1 and concluded on April 22. Sukriti Gupta of Montfort School in west Delhi secured 99.4 percent marks to top the exams. Gupta, a science stream student, scored full marks in Physics and Chemistry and got 99 out of 100 in English, Mathematics and Computer Science each. She aggregated 497 out of 500. Palak Goyal of Tagore Public School, Kurukshetra, stood second in the allIndia ranking, securing just one mark less than Gupta.
She scored 99.2 percent. The third place was secured by Somya Uppal of St. Theresa’s Convent School, Karnal, and Ajish Sekar of P.S.B.B Senior Secondary, Chennai - both scoring 99 percent marks. In the differently-abled category, Mudita Jagota of DAV Public School, Faridabad, stood first with 97 percent marks, Siddhartha Biswas of Kendriya Vidyalaya School, R.K. Puram, Delhi, came second and Rakshit Malik of Amity International School, Noida, stood third. About 2.38 percent more candidates had registered for the examinations this year compared with the last year.
Kiran More impressed with SCS infrastructure Manipur nPf leaders in Delhi over three controversial bills Morung Express News Dimapur | May 21
Former India wicket keeper, Kiran More feels that Nagaland has the basic set-up for promotion and nurturing of cricketing talents. More, who donned the gloves for team India for nearly a decade before retiring from international cricket in 1993, is here in Dimapur on a 4-day visit to attend the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) supported coaching camp underway at the Sovima Cricket Stadium (SCS) with faculty from the National Cricket Academy, Bangalore. The controversy surrounding the Justice Lodha Committee’s report notwithstanding, More is the second international cricketer to visit the ongoing camp after Chetesewar Pujara. While wishing not to comment on any policy matters of the BCCI, More termed the month long coaching camp as “a fantastic initiative of the BCCI” for promoting the sport. “It’s a (good) initiative. It’s a start…this start is going to go a long way,” he said while speaking to The Morung Express today at the SCS. More said that he was surprised and “equally impressed to witness the level of cricket infrastructure” when he landed Dimapur on May 20. “You have super facilities here. You have a stadium here, you have a ground, and you have wickets (pitch). This is what you’d want for
Former India wicker-keeper, Kiran More at the NCA coaching camp underway at the SCS, Dimapur on May 21. Photo by Caisii Mao
cricket actually,” he said. Terming SCS as an ideal place for holding coaching camps, he added that it is conducive to even host camps for the entire East Zone. He however stopped short of stating it could house a North East zonal academy for cricket. A native of Baroda, Gujarat, More claimed SCS fares better in terms of logistics than that in his hometown. Still, More said that Baroda has consistently produced great cricketers, who has gone on to play for India. The SCS with its amenities like a pavilion, floodlights, conference and dining halls can have more pitches, he added. At present, the stadium has eight functional pitches. Asked to comment on the allegation that there is no presence of cricket in the North East, More
maintained he has no idea what it was about or who made the allegation. Commenting on the players attending the camp, More said it is a great platform for fine tuning raw talent. The camp has 25 players in total with 20 from Arunachal Pradesh, Meghlaya, Manipur, Sikkim and 5 from Nagaland. Head coach of the camp, Rajib Dutta felt that the visitation by More and Pujara has had a great motivational impact on the young players. According to him, infrastructure alone will not serve the purpose. “You need to have the attitude, you need to have the will and we need good wickets.” “(As coach) we feel the 22 yards is the most important. We may have ground which is not very good but we need the strips to be good.
NeW DeLHI, MAY 21 (AGeNCIeS): With the Manipur government forming an all-party committee to ensure central clearance of three contentious bills passed by the state assembly in August last year, four MLAs, who had given their resignation in protest against the bills, are in Delhi to voice out their grievances. “We met Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju on May 19 and Home Minister Rajnath Singh on May 21 and expressed our concerns over the three bills,” said Awangbou Newmai, President of the Manipur unit of the Naga People’s Front (NPF) who is accompanying the four MLAs. St. Victor Nunglung, L. Dikho, Samuel Risom and V. Alexander Pao - all from the NPF - had given their resignation from the state assembly on September 4 last year after it hurriedly passed the three bills on August 31 in a specially convened session. Their resignations were not accepted by the Manipur Legislative Assembly Speaker. Ostensibly to safeguard the rights of the ‘indigenous people,’ the Manipur government, bowing to pressure from agitators in Imphal valley, passed three controversial bills -- the
Protection of Manipur People Bill, the Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms Bill (Seventh Amendment) and the Manipur Shops and Establishments (Second Amendment) Bill. The very day, protestors, mainly comprising indigenous people of the hills, torched five houses of their Assembly representatives. The resultant police action left at least nine people dead. The nine bodies are still lying in a Churachandpur hospital mortuary with the families refusing to bury them till the hill peoples’ objections are registered and changes made. The state government had passed the bills following a three-month-long agitation spearheaded by the Joint Committee on Inner Line Permit System (JCILPS) demanding the enforcement of an inner line permit system to check the influx of migrants. The JCILPS says that according to the 2011 census, Manipur’s population is 2.7 million. Of this, only 1.7 million are indigenous people while the rest are people who have their roots outside the state. However, according to the indigenous peoples inhabiting
the hills of Manipur, the three bills would directly undermine their rights. The main objections pertain to the 1951 cut off for citizenry, matters related to land alienation and passing the bills as Money Bills. Manipur NPF president Newmai also said that the passing of the bills was against the constitutional provisions of Article 371-C. According to a Hills Areas Committee (HAC) order of 1972 and its General Statutory Rules (GSR), any bill pertaining to people of the hills of Manipur should be passed through the HAC in the state assembly. Newmai said that the four MLAs have come to Delhi after Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh convened a meeting and formed a multiparty committee to ensure that the three bills were cleared by the Centre. NPF is not part of the committee. He said that last year, under pressure from the JCILPS, the government formed a committee to frame the bills. “From the very beginning we said that the committee was one-sided and it would accommodate the interests of only one community,” Newmai said.