November 25th, 2016

C M Y K

www.morungexpress.com

FriDAY • November 25• 2016

DIMAPUR • Vol. XI • Issue 324 • 12 PAGes • 5

T H e

ESTD. 2005

P o W e R

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I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind Urban sprawl threatens Thailand’s Ayutthaya world heritage site PAGE 09

State PMGSY Projects incomplete due to delay in release of fund

T R u T H — Albert Einstein

Liverpool great Gerrard retires

PAGE 02

PAGE 12

nlA paves way for UlB elections Demonetisation No more exchange of with 33% women’s reservation `500 & Rs 1000 notes Our Correspondent

place for many years.

Kohima | November 24

Nagaland Municipal (3rd Amendment) Bill, 2016 passed

The Nagaland Legislative Assembly (NLA) today revoked a September 22 assembly resolution which had exempted Nagaland from the application of Article 243T of Part IX A of the Constitution of India.

This move has paved the way for the holding of elections to town and municipal councils in Nagaland with 33% women reservation. The elections are reported to be held in a couple of month’s time.

The motion to revoke the 2012 resolution was moved by Parliamentary Secretary for Municipal Affairs, Economics & Statistics, R Tohanba and the House adopted the resolution today. Although no amendment was received by the Assembly, the members of the House voiced their opinions before the adoption of this resolution.

MLA Thomas Ngullie stages walkout

Opposing the government’s move revoking this resolution, MLA Thomas Ngullie staged a walk out from the session. He said that this move would go against the wishes of the Nagas.

Thomas added that if the house had committed a mistake in 2012 “we should go back to the people and explain to them.”

Parliamentary Secretary for Higher & Technical Education , Deo Nukhu, Minister for School Education & SCERT, Yitachu, Parliamentary Secretary for Jails, Science & Technology, Hukavi

reflections

By Sandemo Ngullie

NLA Speaker, Chotisuh Sazo presides over the Fourteenth Session of the Twelfth Nagaland Legislative Assembly on November 24. (DIPR Photo)

Zhimomi, MLA Kaito Aye, MLA Mmhonlumo Kikon also voiced their opinions regarding the resolution passed by the House.

We are not doing any U turn: Tohanba

Meanwhile, Parliamentary Secretary, Tohanba stated that if the resolution was not revoked: “we will be giving an impression that we are against the Constitution when we ourselves incorporated all Constitutional provisions.” He added that “we will have difficult times in convincing the Courts in regard to the validity of our resolution dated 22.9.2012; we will deny ourselves the advantage of getting out of the protracted court case by making the case before the Supreme Court in fructuous by extinguishing the resolution by ourselves by revocation; we will have technical hurdles to conduct polls to the municipal

Dimapur | November 24

NPCC protest on November 28

C M Y K

DIMAPUR, NOVEMBER 24 (MExN): The Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC) has decided to protest against the central government’s demonetization move on November 28 along with all opposition parties in the country. A press note from the NPCC President, K Therie informed that the protest’s demand include monetization of Rs 500 and 1000 notes till new notes are sufficiently inducted; and opening of banking services in rural areas to facilitate the rural people.

The protest rally meeting in Dimapur will be held at City Tower at 11:00am. The NPCC appealed to all opposition parties, citizens, Chamber of Commerce & Industries & Trade Unions to “show your solidarity to the demands by downing shutters between 11:00am to 12 noon on November 28 and also participate in flag marching to respective Deputy Commissioners to submit the demands.

It meanwhile asked those who wish to join the protest to bring their own flags.

the U-turn we made in 2012 and by this revocation; we are not doing any U-turn.”

We will go ahead with elections: CM

“We will go ahead with elections,” Chief Minister, TR Zeliang said adding that people should get the benefit out of it and hoped that town councils would derive the facilities and go ahead with developmental activities.

On questions as to whether the absence of women candidates will allow male candidates to fill the vacancy, the CM clarified that in such cases, the government will issue fresh notifications and as such, men cannot represent the reserved seats.

He said that Nagaland was deprived of many developmental packages in urban local bodies as election could not take

NLA speaker adjourns session sine- die

After completing all the business listed, NLA speaker Chotisuh Sazo adjourned the session sine-die.

The assembly started on Tuesday. Apart from passing the government resolutions/ bills, the House also witnessed laying of papers/rules and presentation of assembly committee reports.

rs 3.5 crore case: it sleuths PSAN wants govt depts to have clear-cut service rules recover cash, account frozen Morung Express News

hmm...He must be a farmer, a very, very successful farmer!

and town council with women reservation when the resolution that denies women reservation is operative; and we will be denied precious resources from the Centre for local urban development if we do not conduct polls within the framework of Part IX A of the Constitution of India read with the State Act.” Informing that the Constitution of India and the State Act are now intertwined and interdependent, Tohanba said: “We made a U-turn on this when we passed the Resolution on 22.9.2012. Now we are not doing any U-turn by aligning ourselves with the Constitution and the State Act as we have decided to conduct polls in accordance with provisions in the Court ordered State Act and thereby in accordance with Article 243T of the Constitution of India.

By revoking the resolution of 22.9.2012, we are undoing only

The House also passed the Nagaland Municipal (Third Amendment) Bill, 2016 which was moved byChief Minister, TR Zeliang.

The statement of objects and reasons stated that after nearly a decade of debate and discussion on women reservation in municipal and town councils, the state government has finally decided to conduct polls to the municipalities in accordance with the provisions in the Nagaland Municipal Act, 2001 that includes one-third reservation for women.

It meanwhile acknowledged the concerns and discrepancies pointed out by tribe bodies with respect to non-compliance of the Act with Article 371 A (1) (a) of the Constitution of India in regard to levy and recovery process of taxes on land and buildings.

“Amendments have been accordingly proposed to the Act through this Bill,” informed Parliamentary Secretary for Municipal Affairs, R Tohanba.

NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER riod up to December 15,” it said.

The government demon24 (IANS): The government on Thursday extended the last etised Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 date for use of the denotified notes on November 8 but Rs 500 notes till December 15, provided a number of exdoing away with the over-the- emptions where they could counter exchange of cash with be used till November 24.

The statement on Thursimmediate effect.

According to the Minis- day also expanded the extry of Finance, Rs 1,000 notes emptions to include payment of fees up to Rs would no longer be allowed to be Government 2,000 per student in central and used for the list extends state government of exemptions as well as the government ` 500 use till colleges central governhad announced.

These notes can, December 15 ment, state government, munichowever, be deipality and local body schools. posited in bank accounts.

Pre-paid mobile top-up “It has been observed that over-the-counter exchange of to a limit of Rs 500 per top has the old currency notes of Rs 500 been allowed with the old Rs and Rs 1,000 denomination 500 notes. has shown a declining trend. It has further been felt that peo- MHA alerts airports ple may be encouraged and fa- against cash transfer cilitated to deposit their old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes in their NEW DELHI, NOVEMBER bank accounts,” the Ministry 24 (PTI): The Home Ministry has directed strengthening said in a statement.

“This will encourage peo- of security in all airports and ple who are still unbanked airstrips across the country to to open new bank accounts. check movement of domonConsequently, there will be no etised Rs 1,000 and Rs 500 over-the-counter exchange of notes.“All airports have been old Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes alerted and directed to keep after midnight of November strict vigil on illegal transportation of cash,” an official said.

24,” it added.

Central Industrial SecuThe government had earlier permitted various exemptions rity Force (CISF), which profor certain transactions and ac- tects nearly all 98 airports in tivities wherein payment could the country, and Central Rebe made through the old Rs 500 serve Police Force (CRPF) have been given clear inand Rs 1,000 notes.

“It has been decided that all structions to be on high alert these exemptions, with the ad- against any such attempt to ditions and modifications, may convert black money into the be continued for a further pe- banking system.

The case of the Rs 3.5 crore in denotified notes of Rs 500 and Rs 1000, which was seized at the Dimapur airport on November 22, continued to remain shrouded in a haze even two days after the incident grabbed national attention. As Income Tax (IT) officials remained tight-lipped on the status of the cash linked to Naga businessman, Anato Zhimomi, speculation was rife while several news agencies carried varying versions of the incident.

While the version of how the cash was discovered and seized by airport security and released appeared uniform, no conclusive reports emerged to clear the air as to what happened subsequently.

IT officials based in the North East Region, including the public relations officer, when contacted for information declined to make any comment in relation to the

case. “The case is under the purview of the IT investigation wing” was the common refrain maintained, while the regional head of the IT investigation wing could not be reached.

Official sources in Nagaland confirmed on Wednesday the recovery of the cash in Dimapur on the evening of November 23. The sources informed that the amount of Rs 3.5 crore in demonetised denominations was recovered at a fuel outlet owned by Anato Zhimomi in a raid conducted by a team of IT officials from Guwahati.

As regards the status of Zhimomi and the Haryana-based businessman, who reportedly brought the cash, the sources disclosed they were intercepted by IT sleuths after they landed at Delhi on November 22. As per the sources, they were being “examined” and under the scrutiny of IT officials in Delhi. A bank account with over Rs 4 crores belonging to Zhimomi was also “frozen”,it was added.

DIMAPUR, NOVEMBER 24 (MExN): With a view to discuss problems and hardships faced by aspiring candidates in exams, especially conducted by Nagaland Public Service Commission (NPSC), a meeting between members of Public Service Aspirants of Nagaland (PSAN) and “executives of various associations from technical backgrounds” on November 23, 2016.

According to a press release issued by PSAN media cell, dur-

ing the meeting, issues relating to contractual appointments, non-abeyance of service rules by various departments, advertisement of very few vacancies for recruitment through NPSC, lack of transparency in exams, etc were discussed in detail.

Taking serious note of such discrepancies, the PSAN has demanded that all the Government departments should set up clear-cut service rules and strictly implement them with efficiency and transparency for

the good of all.

The PSAN pointed out that as a result of RTIs filed by its members, several anomalies have been discovered in the manner in which appointments are made by the State Government, a press statement received from media cell, PSAN stated.

Also, a lot of incomplete or false information have been provided by many departments, which is a complete disregard of the noble concept to

Right To Information (RTI), the press release stated while adding, “PSAN has taken a strong view of this discrepancy and will fight harder and stronger against the offending departments.” Furthermore, the PSAN also viewed that the NPSC should become more transparent and declare the answer keys for technical exams as well as make public the marks of every candidate till the last stage of the exam, i.e. the mains and oral interview marks.

Go ahead with promotion of GTs: ACAUT urges DoSE

DIMAPUR, NOVEMBER 24 (MExN): The Against Corruption and Unabated Taxation (ACAUT) Nagaland has urged the Nagaland State Department of School Education (DoSE) to go ahead with the promotion of Graduate Teachers (GT), 1983-89 batch, as Asst.

Head Masters (AHMs) and Junior Education Officers (JEOs)

by December 2016 “as prom-

ised by the Commissioner and Secretary.”

A press note from the ACAUT stated that the department “has taken the right decision since there is no question of junior batch (1992) superseding the 1983-89 batches and this decision will hopefully result in all the schools functioning in full strength with the required head masters.”

Meanwhile, it condemned the “discriminatory tactics of the Finance department wherein lower cadres such as constables, etc., are denied TA entitlement after retirement despite the Office Memorandum issued on 25th November 2013.”

“These lower cadre police personnel are the backbone of any police force and it’s shock-

ing to learn that hundreds if not thousands of these jawans have been denied their TAs whereas the high ranked officers do not face such problem after retirement,” it added.

The ACAUT cautioned that if this problem persists, “insubordination and gross indiscipline in the ranks cannot be ruled out in the near future having dire consequences.”

Violence against naga women in the guise of tradition Morung Express News Kohima | November 24

The fortnight observation on elimination of violence against women was launched on November 24 at De Oriental Grand. Under the theme ‘From Peace in the Home to Peace in the world: Make education safe for all,’ the event was organized by the Nagaland State Commission for Women (NSCW).

While violence is usually understood in empirical terms of physical abuse, Dr. Temsula Ao, Chairperson NSCW in her introductory speech pointed out the new concept of violence that is perpetrated on the women’s psyche in the guise of tradition. In Naga society, Dr Temsula viewed that customs and practices are still in the oral form only and have never been reviewed or amended in keeping with the changing lifestyle of the people.

“The unwritten laws are therefore often interpreted arbitrarily by the male custodians of these laws and more often than not, the judgments are tilted against women. The truth remains that all these old practices have little considerations for women’s rights in Naga society,” she said. Dr Temsula further said that these forms of existential discrimination must be seen as violence to women’s intrinsic rights, and must be acknowledged by all right thinking Naga men, so that together a solution can be found. Subtle intimidation and psychological subjugation persist in Naga society which Dr. Temsula viewed, is because of “male intransigence in their attitude towards women whom they consider as inferior to them in the patriarchal system.’

“We must admit there are many crippling features against women in our customary laws and tradition

which have to be seriously and honestly re-evaluated by men in the context of our evolved society in the 21st Century,” she added.

Stressing on the normalcy of discrimination against women which was considered a ‘way of life’ in Naga society, Mezivolu T. Therieh, NJS, Chief Judicial Magistrate, Kohima & Secretary, KDLSA lamented that such structural discrimination against women and children are still noticed today.

“Excluding women and girls in our structures and policies is actually excluding progressive development. Women are the heart of any progressive development agenda; inclusion of women and their cooperation is the key to a functional and just society. We here in Nagaland have held ourselves hostage by holding women back at a time their efforts would have alleviated us from the chasm we helplessly stumble in today as the world

progress ahead,” she stated.

Despite achieving 50 years of our statehood, Nagaland does not have any elected women representatives in the decision making bodies. This, Therieh viewed as a massive political injustice in Nagaland. Drawing attention to the one third seats reserved for women in the municipalities, a constitutional mandate under Art 243T (3), Therieh pointed out that the demand for reservation is not a fight between men and women but to empower women in uplifting them, and enabling them to contribute towards the development and progress of the society. “Women’s role in the decision making position is indispensible and without reservation, even in another 50 years, we may not have any women representation. Not holding municipal elections with 33 percent reservation for women is discriminatory and impinges upon the

rights of the women,” stated Therieh adding that if Nagaland is to have municipalities, then reservation of seats for women is binding.

Sharing the activities of the Police department in empowering women and prevention of crime against women, S. Saravanan, IPS, IG (Crime) stated that women police in Nagaland comprised of 6.87 per cent. Saravanan also informed that in 2013, there were 76 cases of violence against women reported; in 2014, 66 cases reported; in 2015, 66 cases were reported and in 2016 (till October) 37 cases have been registered.

Many reports also go unregistered.

“Centuries have come and centuries have gone but the plight of women has not changed much. Time has helplessly watched women suffering in the form of discrimination, oppression, exploitation, degradation, aggression and humiliation,” Saravanan lamented.

2

friDAY 25•11•2016

NAGALAND

THE MORUNG EXPRESS

Nagaland State Disaster Response Force created State PMGSY Projects incomplete

Kohima, November 24 (mexN): The Government of Nagaland has notified the creation of a dedicated State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) with 240 personnel drawn from the Civil Defence & Home Guards for providing timely and effective response to any Disaster which may affect the state.

The 240 personnel would be posted in groups of thirty each at eight strategic locations across the state, informed a DIPR report.

The dedicated Nagaland State Disaster Response Force shall carry out community awareness and training programmes on Disaster Management during peace/normal times.

The SDRF shall be placed under the control of the Commandant General of Civil Defence &Home Guards at the State level and District Commandant of Home Guards & Civil Defence at the District level.

The Nagaland State Disaster Management Authority (NSDMA) shall in co-ordination with Commandant General of Home Guards & Civil Defence requisition and utilise the services of SDRF at the State level.

At the district level, the Chairman of District Disaster Management Authority (DDMA) shall requisition the services of SDRF as and when required with due intimation to the NSDMA. In an event of emergency the SDRF

shall act as a first call of response in the search & rescue operations.

The Civil Defence & Home Guards shall co-ordinate with NSDMA in developing annual community awareness program and familiarization exercise (FAMEX) for SDRF and submit the same for approval of State Executive Committee (SEC).

At the district level the District Commandant, Civil Defence & Home Guards shall co-ordinate with the Chairman of DDMA to carry out community awareness program and familiarization exercise (FAMEX) approved by State Executive Committee (SEC) during normal times and Search & Rescue operation in the event of Emergency.

24 dental clinics under Kohima dist declared ‘tobacco free’

Kohima, November 24 (mexN): An advocacy workshop on tobacco control for all dental surgeons of Kohima district and declaration of tobacco free dental clinics was held at De Oriental Grand Hotel, Kohima, on November 24.

During the workshop, Dr. N Saving declared the tobacco free dental clinic in Kohima district and read out the guidelines for tobacco free dental clinics.

Deputy Commissioner, Kohima, Rovilatuo Mor encouraged the enforcement authority to revitalized their effort and achieving the targets for the betterment of the society. He also gave away the certificate of tobacco free dental clinic to 24 clinics in under Kohima district.

State Nodal Officer NTCP and Joint Director of DHFW, Dr. H Chishi while delivering on the role of

dental surgeons in tobacco control said tobacco use is a leading cause of preventable deaths all over the world. Tobacco is also one of the major causes of deaths and diseases in India, accounting for almost a million deaths ever year.

He urged the doctor presents to give their best effort to convince their patients by disseminating about the harmful of tobacco. He urged the doctors to sacri-

fice their time for the noble cause of social responsibility by given counselling about the adverse effects of tobacco and it’s consequence to the health.

A press release said that the workshop was chaired by president of Indian Dental Association Nagaland State Branch, Dr. P Koza and the vote of thanks was delivered by the District Nodal Officer, NTCP, Dr. Arenla Walling.

due to delay in release of fund

Participants after the review meeting for ongoing Phase-VIII PMGSY Projects of Nagaland held on November 23 at the NPWD Conference Hall Kohima.

Kohima, November 24 (mexN): A review meeting for ongoing Phase-VIII PMGSY Projects of Nagaland was held on November 23 at the NPWD Conference Hall Kohima which was attended by Y. Vikheho Swu, Minister R&B. PMGSY Cell, O/o Chief Engineer, PWD (R&B) Kohima in a press release informed that the house highlighted that PMGSY Projects of Phase-VIII could not be completed

due to the “delay in the timely releases of fund from the State Finance Department to the implementing agency.”

During the meeting, it was found that most of the projects were delayed due to the bad condition of link routes and want of bridges on the project sites which amounts to improper or defective DPR preparation.

It discussed about taking up of PMGSY PH–IX consisting of 16 upgradation works in eight districts

and 13 new connectivity road projects in six districts as per the eligibility criteria from the core network.

Since its inception in the last 16 years, 4000 kms of rural roads has been constructed in Nagaland connecting 93 habitations under PMGSY. There is also proposal for taking up 50 steel bridges on the existing PMGSY roads.

Earlier, the Minister encouraged the engineers to update themselves with the latest procedures of

schemes and new technologies with sincerity. He deliberated on the fund constraint faced by the state for the development of infrastructure in the state.

The meeting was chaired by Er. Lopongol Angami, SE (Design) PWD (R&B) and welcome address was pronounced

by Er. Krosu Rhetso, Chief Engineer (R&B) and the resource persons in the technical session were deliberated by the PMGSY staff.

‘Love and compassion Medical certification health camp for MR & II Complaint Committee for State Level Committee reconstituted important for hospitals’

Former Chief Secretary, Lalhuma IAS (Retd) speaks at the Thanksgiving Day programme of CIHSR on November 24. (Morung Photo) Morung Express News Dimapur | November 24

Former Chief Secretary, Lalhuma IAS (Retd) has underscored the importance of exhibiting love and compassion towards patients by those in the healthcare profession especially hospitals.

Speaking as chief guest at the 9th Thanksgiving Day programme at Christian Institute of Health Sciences and Research (CIHSR), Dimapur on Thursday, Lalhuma urged upon the staff to

accompany love and compassion with prayers since faith is an important part of the healing process.

Lalhuma, whom the CIHSR management said was one of the key persons in establishing the hospital, appreciated the political will of the state government of the time for running the institute on a Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode.

He said CIHSR was of the fastest growing hospitals on PPP mode and lauded the management for achieving on many fronts during the last nine years.

Delivering a report, Director CIHSR, Dr. Sedevi Angami informed that during the current year, there was a total of 17,200 patients from the state while another 13,115 patients came from neighbouring Assam.

He also revealed that 4117 surgeries have been performed at the hospital in 2016 while 305 maternity deliveries were done. The hospital is manned by a total of 467 staff, he added.

During the programme, the management felicitated their staffs who have completed five years of service to the hospital.

Khar, November 24 (mexN): A medical certification health camp for MR (Mental Retardation) and II (Intellectual Impairment) was held on November 23 at Khar Village under Mangkolemba Block of Mokokchung District of Nagaland.

The Medical camp was conducted as a part of District Mental Health Programme, Mokokchung in collaboration with Khar Village Council and assisted

by Grace Society CBR Forum (Community Based Rehabilitation Forum) Changtongya for certification and Disability ID. It was conducted by Dr. Temsuyanger, DPO (UIP/RCH) Nodal Officer, District Mental Health Programme, Mokokchung. Altogether, 18 people

Clean Election movement is a common property: NBCC

Kohima, November 24 (mexN): The Convener of the Clean Election Campaign (CEC) Core Committee, Rev. Dr. Mar Atsongchanger reiterated that the “Clean Election movement is a common property.”

The NBCC Clean Election Campaign movement which started years ago,

1st Death Anniversary

of Lt. T Sentichuba Ozukum

2nd May 1935 - 25th Nov 2015

Dearest Oba, You went to heaven one year ago, today. Even though you us, your memory grows stronger. Remembering you is easy, we do it every day. Missing you is heartache that never goes away. You are loved beyond words.

We miss your consistency, your simplicity and your honesty. We miss your work ethic, your common sense, the glint in your eyes and your laughter.

You were brave enough to stand up for what you believed and were followed it through. You rarely complained when the and let your faith alone sustain. You touched lives everywhere and no the storm, to God you would always yield your highest praise.

Oba, you will always be a part of us and we will forever feel your strength. You’re gone for now, gone but never We miss you beyond measure and realize even more how blessed we are to have had a Dad like you in our lives. Our hearts are relieved knowing one day we will be re-united in eternity.

Your life was a blessing. Your memory a treasure. You a legacy behind. One that will on.

Loving wife, children, in-laws and grand children

with Mental Retardation and Intellectual Impairment were examined and provided free medicine and recommended for Disability certificate according to the severity of their disability. This Certification camp was carried out so that Peoples with Disabilities (PWDs) in the area would be able to get medical facilities and avail their entitlements under various Government Schemes.

The Medical authority in a press release has thanked the stakeholder, Khar Village Council and public of the area for coming forward and helping them in making the health camp a successful one and further encouraged them Volunteers assist the medical team during the medical to help them in future for the certification health camp for MR and II held on November 23 at Khar Village. cause of the PWDs.

lauded village communities and press fraternity alike for publicly supporting and taking bold initiatives in their own capacities to clean up the mess in our election system.

“The Langpangkong Range, Mokokchung for coming up with a strong resolution, the Diezephe Village, Dimapur cleaning

up the Electoral Rolls and the press fraternity of Nagaland refraining themselves from publishing support to individual political party candidate are all laudable moves in the CEC movement,” NBCC office stated in a press release.

The Committee expressed hope that such positive move will go a long

DCs appointed as Appellate Authority

Kohima, November 24 (DiPr): In pursuance to sub rule (3) of Rule-9 of the Nagaland Municipal Election Rules-2003, the State Election Commissioner, Nagaland in exercise of the power conferred under Section 30 (1) of the Nagaland Municipal Act, 2001 hereby designate and appoint the Deputy Commissioner's of the following Districts as the Appellate Authority on behalf of the State Election Commission for disposing appeals during the period of preparation of Fresh Electoral Roll for the newly created Town Councils.

Following are the list of Appellate Authority against their respective District: DC Dimapur - East Dimapur Town Council; DC Mokokchung - Mangkolemba Town Council; DC Peren- Tening Town Council; DC Wokha - Bhandari Town Council; DC Mon - Aboi Town Council, Tobu Town Council, Tizit Town Council; DC Tuensang - Longkhim Town Council, Shamator Town Council, Noklak Town Council; DC Kiphire - Pungro Town Council; DC Phek - Chozuba Town Council and Meluri Town Council.

way in encouraging not only villages and communities but also individuals and in making our state election process work better and make Clean Election Campaign movement a success.

The Committee also called upon all stakeholders, communities and individuals to rise up to the occasion and join the movement.

woman who is a victim of Kohima, November sexual harassment at her 24 (mexN): In superseswork place and cause an sion of the Department's enquiry into the complinotification of even number ant and suggest measures dated 27th February, 2014, to redress the compliant. the Government of Nagaland has re-constituted the 2. The Committee will take measures to create Complaint Committee for awareness of the rights of the State Level Committee female employees in this for the redress of complaints regard by prominently relating to sexual harassnotifying the guidelines ment of women employees in a suitable manner and of the State Government at other suitable awareness their work place. campaigns.

A DIPR report informed that the Committee con- 3. Complaint Committee will be deemed to sists of N. Hushili Sema, be an inquiry authority Secretary, Industries & for the purposes of CenCommerce and Chairpertral/State Civil Services son with members includ(Conduct) Rules and the ing Dellirose M. Sakhrie, report of the Complaint Secretary, Social Welfare; Committee shall be Ngamjok Konyak, Addideemed to be an inquiry tional Secretary, Justice & report under the Rules.

Law; Temsunaro, AdditionThereafter the disciplinal Secretary, Vety & AH; Sotary authority will act on sula, Joint Secretary, I≺ the report in accordance Abeiu Meru, President, with the rules.

Naga Mother's Association and Renboni Mozhui, Joint 4. The Complaint Committee shall submit an annuSecretary, P&AR and Memal report to the Departber Secretary. ment of Personnel and Administrative Reforms Terms and conditions of with details of the comthe Complaint Committee plaints, if any made to it 1. The Committee shall reand the action thereof. ceive compliant from any

Unity College organises career awareness

One of the resource persons speaks at the programme held in Unity College on November 22.

DimaPur, November 24 (mexN): The Career Counseling Cell of Unity College organized a career awareness programme in association with Institute of Company Secretaries of India (ICSI) on November 22 with Chiranjeeb Sarma Roy, officer-in-charge, North Eastern Chapter of ICSI

and Gautam Goswami, CS & Faculty member of NE Chapter of ICSI. Roy and Goswami spoke at length about the Company Secretary (CS) degree, how and when to take admission, the courses and modules involved etc. He also made the students aware about the huge demand

for CS in India and how the present supply of CS is unable to meet the huge demand.

The College informed in a press release that it is planning to start a study center to offer CS course so that students need not go out of Nagaland and “if Unity College does so it will be the first of its kind in Nagaland.”

Link road in Lower L. Khel Kohima inaugurated Our Correspondent

Kohima | November 24

Parliamentary Secretary for Youth Resources & Sports, State Lotteries and Music Task Force Khriehu Liezietsu on Wednesday inaugurated a link road in Lower L. Khel that connects with VDB road which runs from Kenuozou to Christ King Higher Secondary School.

Speaking on the occasion, Liezietsu acknowledged past and present community leaders under whose initiative the link road was constructed.

He expressed hope that the road will serve as a convenient alternative for many people and that more similar projects will come up in the coming days.

Earlier, Tsieramia Youth Organisation president Ketouvizo Tseikha highlighted the contributions made by the parliamentary secretary and the Department of RD towards the construction of this link road.

He thanked the Baptist Revival Church Kohima Village, individual land donors, and others who made con- Khriehu Liezietsu and others during the inauguration of link road held on November tributions in different capacities.

23. (Morung Photo)

Friday 25•11•2016

Regional 3

THE MORUNG EXPRESS

Dubbed witch by relatives, this Assam woman is now worst enemy of witch-hunters

GuwahaTI, November 24 (aGeNcIeS): Dubbing women as witches is a social menace that refuses to go from rural India, especially in eastern states of the country. However, there is one woman who has been relentlessly fighting against the menace for the last 16 years.

A social activist from Assam, Birubala Rabha (67) had her first encounter with witch-hunting in 2000 when five women of her village Thakurvila, near the AssamMeghalaya border, and nearby villages were declared witches. In a bid to find a social solution to this problem, a meeting was called by the convenor of Assam Mahila Samata Society, Mamani Saikia.

During the meet, all women were asked if they believed that the five women were witches. However, Birubala was the only woman who said she didn’t believe that the five women were witches. Birubala’s relatives didn’t appreciate her stand and even started calling her a witch.

But Birubala didn’t give-up to the shame-game and instead launched a crusade against witch hunting and other superstitions. She has so far saved scores of women from witch-hunters. In 2011, Bi-

rubala set up Mission Birubala to take forward her crusade against the practice of branding women as `dayans’ (witches), torturing and even killing them. According to the website of Mission Birubala, Birubala was also nominated for Noble Peace Prize.

For her good work, Birubala has so far received numerous prizes. On Tuesday, she was honoured with Our North East (ONE) India Award instituted by My Home India, a Mumbai-based NGO. The award honours people from North East who has contributed to India’s glory, integrity and development. Rabha received a trophy and Rs 1 lakh. The amount was transferred to her account through RGTS at a ceremony in Mumbai. Birubala is the seventh receipt of ONE India award. The past recipients included legendary boxer Mary Kom. “It’s very sad that in this age of technological advancement, social evils like witch-hunting still exist in the country, especially in remote areas,” PTI quoted her as saying during the ceremony. Main reasons for branding women as witches are the lack of education, quality health services and absence of a strong law against the practice, she added.

Over 32,000 Bru people to be repatriated to Mizoram aIzawl, November 24 (pTI): 32,857 people belonging to 5,413 families have been identified for repatriation after the completion of identification of bona fide residents of Mizoram in six Bru relief camps in North Tripura.

The Brus identified as residents of Mizoram were those enrolled in the Mizoram Voter's lists in 1995 and their descendants, Mizoram-Tripura border Mamit district deputy commissioner Lalbiaksangi told PTI today. The identification of Brus was completed last night. Meanwhile, the meeting of Joint Monitoring Group, chaired by Special Secretary of the Ministry of Home Affairs (Internal Security) Mahesk Kumar Singla, today in Delhi decided to go ahead with the proposed Bru repatriation scheduled to begin from November 30. Mizoram Additional Secretary for Home Lalbiakzama said that the MHA agreed to make final decisions on the proposed enhancement of resettlement and rehabilitation package after a few days. Problem for payment of rehabilitation package to the repatriated Brus in the face of acute scarcity of cash in the wake of the demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes was also deliberated in the meeting, Lalbiakzama said.

Demonetisation casts shadow over Manipur tourism festival

Imphal, November 24 (IaNS): Will the 10-day International Sangai Tourism Festival which began here on Monday prove to be a damp squib due to demonetisation and other problems? That the question is haunting both officials and participants.

Officials said on Thursday that only a few visitors have come to the festival so far in contrast to heavy rush every year. Indian entrepreneurs as well as those coming from Myanmar, Thailand and Indonesia said this time their sales will be slashed by 50 per cent as compared to last year.

"This may be the adverse impact of the demonetisation. Some of us had announced that demonetised Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes will be accepted. But this failed to impress the people since in the absence of Rs 100 notes and lesser value currencies, they have to

Imphal | November 24

“The premier hospital of the state run by the Centre would be elevated to a world class institute,” assured Union Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare Faggan Singh Kulaste referring to the Re-

gional Institute of Medical Sciences (RIMS) where he inaugurated a Multi-Disciplinary Research Unit and a Research and Diagnostic Laboratory on Thursday.

He also inspected all infrastructures and medical equipment of the hospital after the event which was also attended by BJP MLA

SeNapaTI, November 24 (NNN): The United Naga Council (UNC) has directed the Nagas "not to harm non locals" in Naga areas.

UNC president Gaidon Kamei said that such directive has become a matter of urgency as Nagas have been provoked from certain quarters in the valley districts of Manipur, and that, "there can be a reaction in the Naga areas".

"We are not against any community," said Kamei while adding, "Ours is a movement to defend our land and we are demanding from the government

for a concrete assurance on the Sadar Hills and the Jiribam district creation issue".

The UNC president further said that "our directive not to harm the non locals in Naga areas should not be interpreted as weakness". Kamei then cautioned that "no one should fall in the trap of Chief Minister O Ibobi whose policy is hatred."

The UNC president expressed anger over the poor handling of the situation by the Central Government. "The Government of India should not remain a fence sitter when

Khumukcham Joykishan Singh and RIMS Director Prof Ch Arunkumar Singh.

Stating that promotion of rural health sector is his important vision, the Union Minister assured all issues pertaining to RIMS would be taken up.

Faggan Singh also interacted with the strik-

ing interns of Dental College, RIMS. The interns launched a protest from yesterday demanding their stipend be raised at par with MBBS students at the hospital. He assured the protesting students of addressing their issue at the earliest and appealed for withdrawing the protest.

IISF outreach program at CSIR-NEIST

JorhaT, November 24 (aGeNcIeS): A one day outreach program as a precursor to the Second India International of Science Festival was organized at CSIR-NEIST, Jorhat on November 22.

The participants included entrepreneurs, NGOs and students from the different educational institutions in and around Jorhat including Kend-

riya Vidyalaya, Kaziranga University, Army Public School etc.

According to a press release, the participants were fascinated by the display of achievements of Indian scientists particularly CSIR and CSIRNEIST and to learn of the forthcoming 2nd IISF to be held at CSIR-NPL, New Delhi from December 7 to 11. They visited the labs

and interacted with scientists. The face to face program with scientists was a lively affair with interactions over wide range of topics and stretched way beyond the scheduled time and continued during lunch.

A technical session was held where Director Dr D. Ramaiah presided over the session. Dr Uddhab Kumar Bharali and

Dr Sunil Rai, Vice Chancellor of Kaziranga University attended the event as guest of honour and chief guest respectively.

Child scientists who have represented the state in national level and the country in International level - Bidisha Gogoi, Dimpi Deori, Debojit Gogoi and Prudom Priyangsa Dutta were also felicitated on the occasion.

Bharalu listed amongst most polluted rivers Dhruva Saikia Guwahati | November 24

One of the most polluted river lie in the gateway city of North East India – Guwahati.

A tributary of the mighty Brahmaputra which traverses across Guwahati, Bharalu comes to public attention whenever the capital city of Assam faces an artificial flood, a recurring hitch in the city.

Not content with that, Bharalu has now earned the dubious distinction of being one of the 4 most polluted rivers and water bodies in Assam – the other three being Deepor Bil, a water body in the outskirts of Guwahati, Burhidihing River from Margherita to Tinsukia in upper Assam, and the stretch of Brahmaputra from Kherghat to Dhubri in western Assam.

This distinction is stated in a report published by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) which monitors the water quality of acquatic resources under a three tier programmeGlobal Environmental Monitoring System, Monitoring of Indian National Acquatic Resources System, and Yamuna Action Plan. The network covers

aIzawl, November 24 (pTI): Mizoram was gradually limping back to normalcy on day 16 after demonetisation of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes by the Centre as long-queues before ATMs and banks were no longer there. It was business as usual today and no long-queues were seen in banks or ATM booths, Assistant General Manager of the State Bank of India Aizawl Branch, Pradeep Kumar Sen, told PTI. Sen said that the last consignment of cash from the Reserved Bank of India was received on Sunday and another consignment was expected to arrive any day. "We have confirmation that the new Rs 500 note would be there in the next consignment which would further ease the problem of transactions," Sen said. spend the entire amounts," said one of the Indian participants.

Besides demonetisation, there was a boycott of the festival by some armed rebel groups. One stall-holder said: "The indefinite

economic blockade imposed by the Nagas from November 1 has paralysed the state economy. This has deterred the people from visiting the tourism festival."

Union Home Minister Rajnath

Do not to harm non locals: UNC 'Efforts on to improve connectivity, infrastructure in NE'

‘RIMS will be elevated to world class institute’ Newmai News Network

Demonetisation: Mizoram limping back to normalcy

a volatile situation such as this prevails," he stated.

Kamei warned that in the event of catastrophe occurring in the state Ibobi Singh Government and the Government of India should be held responsible.

The UNC further strongly condemned the IRB personnel and commandos for "harassing" villagers in Sibilong and Nungba headquarter today. It claimed that villagers in these two places were made to stand in the sun for several hours after blockade supporters torched a truck.

IIMC to focus on journalism courses in regional languages aIzawl, November 24 (pTI): Emphasising the importance of journalism courses in regional and local languages, Director General of Indian Institute of Mass Communication (IIMC) K G Suresh today said the premier institute will also have journalism course in local vernacular.

Inaugurating a two-day national seminar on "Media, Technology and Power of Politics : The Indian Conventicle," Suresh said "It is utmost important to bring back objectivity to the media in the country".

He said substitution of good old field reporting by panel discussion in the television is a great loss to the nation.

Technology shift in journalism had come around as social media had become fodder for the news, he said, adding that while he does not believe in any regulation of media by the state, there should be self-regulation.

The seminar, organised by the Department of Mass Communication, Mizoram University, was attended by academicians from the Mizoram University and other states.

Newmai News Network Imphal | November 24

The Union Tourism Ministry is putting efforts to improve connectivity and infrastructures in the North East with the primary aim to attract more tourists in the region, Vinod Zutshi, Secretary (Tourism) said here on Thursday.

Addressing the media at the City Convention Centre in Imphal, Zutshi further said “efforts are on to make NE region a proper tourism destination not only at the national level but also at the international level.” The press meet was held on the sidelines of the three-day long 5th International Tourism Mart-2016 being organised by the Ministry of Tourism at the City Convention Centre.

Zutshi urged for providing appropriate accommodation for tourists coming to Manipur and ensuring they do not face hurdles.

He said with the law and order improving in the state, tourist arrival is growing here. Participating in the 5th International Tourism

MISSING

Name: Markus Ekka F/Name: James Ekka Age: 16 Yrs Complexion: Dark Height: 4.5 Ft Date of Missing: 18th Sept. 2016 From Zakiesatuo Road Dimapur If Found Please Contact: 09476665946

Date: 24.11.2016

MITHUN MEAT (Mitton) AVAILABLE Beat fatigue with Mitton

A rickshaw puller navigates past a flooded locality by the bank of Bharalu in Guwahati.

hya Pradesh -7 per cent.

The other two northeastern states to figure in this list are Manipur – 4 per cent and Meghalaya -3 percent.

It is worth recalling that for the beautification of Bharalu, the then mayor of Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) Abir Patra laid the foundation of

a project on May 25, 2014, but only 25 per cent of the project’s work has so far been completed.

The Bharalu had once provided potable water to thousands of people living on its banks. It was also a source for a variety of fish and other aquatic flora and fauna.

problems,” Ibobi further said.

Manipur Chief Secretary Oinam Nabakishore Singh, Ministry of Tourism’s Additional Director General Dr RK Bhatnagar and a host of officials and mediapersons from across the country attended the opening day of the international tourism mart, a part of the ongoing 10-day long Manipur Sangai Festival.

The annual Sangai Festival organised by the Manipur Tourism Department is being held at Hapta Kangjeibung and Bheigyachandra Open Air Theatre (BOAT), in Palace Compound.

The tourism mart is being held with the main objective to highlight the tourism potentials of the North East by gathering the tourism fraternity of the region and West Bengal together.

Regd. No. 137 I, Kawidinliu NK D/o Shri.

Namdatbou NK of Jalukie Town, Peren Dist. Nagaland hereby declare that the name Kawidinliu NK and Widinliu is of same person. I hereby declare that my correct name is Kawidinliu NK and shall be used for all official purposes in the future.

Deponent 1st Class Magistrate

MEDZIPHEMA-797106, NAGALAND

NRCM-02/2016

Mart-2016, Vinod Zutshi also informed that the Centre is taking up as many as 46 projects to provide a good and congenial atmosphere to tourists across the country.

Out of these projects, he said, 12 are being undertaken in the North East states. Okram Ibobi Singh assured to make Manipur a world class tourism destination at the event participated by more than 50 delegates from different countries.

Ibobi, Chief Minister of Manipur, stated that developmental works are being taken up in various places of the state under the Ministry of Tourism towards that end.

“The rich heritage of Manipur attracts tourists to the state. The tourism sector can solve our unemployment and economic

AFFIDAVIT

ICAR-NRC ON MITHUN

28 states and 6 Union Territories.

275 rivers out of 445 rivers monitored under the National Water Monitoring System are identified as polluted. Maximum percentage of polluted river stretches are in the states of Maharashtra- 16 per cent, Assam-9 per cent and Mad-

Singh has stated that Manipur Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh has not put forth any concrete proposals to end the blockade, but Ibobi Singh has denied the claim.

Talks between the representatives of the United Naga Council and the central government did not yield any results.

Meanwhile, at least two loaded trucks were torched by the UNC activists along the National Highway Nos. 2 and 37. Hundreds of loaded trucks were stranded along the highways. Armed paramilitary personnel have been able to escort trucks and oil tankers thrice from Assam so far.

Fuel, consumer items and life saving drugs are at low stock in the state. Deputy Chief Minister Gaikhangam asked the people to be prepared to face the blockade and shortages for some more time.

ICAR-NRC on Mithun, Medziphema announces availability of Mithun Meat (Mitton) to the public at its centre @Rs. 210/- and Rs. 150/- per kg respectively for dressed meat and viscera.

• We take advance booking for bulk quantity.

• Monday- Saturday except 2nd Saturday.

Nature’s best source of Protein, Iron and Zinc.

Director, ICAR-NRC on Mithun

AFFIDAVIT

Reg. No. 14724/2016

Dt. 24/11/2016

I, Smti. SAKUZUNGLA alias K AZUNGLA LKR alias AZUNGLA LKR, wife of Shri. Shiluyimkum, of Salulamang Village, Dist.- Mokokchung, Nagaland, do hereby solemnly declare that my full name is SAKUZUNGLA which is entered in my husband’s Service Records, whereas in our Joint Bank Account of SBI, Sitamarhi Court Compound Branch, Bihar, bearing A/C. No. 20375350981 and Birth Certificate, my name is entered as K AZUNGLA LKR and in my Aadhaar Card, bearing No. 9923 0651 7497, my name is entered as AZUNGLA LKR. That henceforth my name shall be used as SAKUZUNGLA for all official records and documents.

Notary Public, Dimapur; Nagaland.

OKING HOSPITAL KOHIMA

NEUROLOGY/CARDIOTHORACIC CAMP

On 1st & 2nd December 2016 • Patients who are suffering from Headache, epilepsy, stroke, sleeping problems, neck pain, back pain, neuropathy difficulty in walking, shaking hands & legs, to & fro nodding of head, frequent falling on ground, slow monotonous voice, difficulty in memorizing can consult Dr. A. R. Baruah, Neurologist from GNRC Guwahati.

• Patients with chest pain, breathing difficulty, Bypass surgery, Valve surgery, heart problems and thoracic vascular problems can consult Dr. Bikash Rai Das, (CTVS) Cardiothoracic from GNRC Guwahati.

For appointment contact- 0370-2290080/2290146 SAINIK SCHOOL PUNGLWA, DIST – PEREN TENDER - NOTICE: SL NO. SSPN/QM/311/TDR-04/2016-17 DATED 23 Nov. 16 Sainik School Punglwa invites sealed bids for the sale of Maruti Van at Sainik School Punglwa, Punglwa BPO Medziphema SO, Peren- 797106 Make / Model No. of Car: Maruti Van, 2007 1. The bids should be submitted on the prescribed Tender Form, available at a cost of Rs. 100/- at location. 2. The school Van is in good running condition and bidders can inspect the Vehicle on any working day between 12 PM to 4PM till 12 Dec. 16. 3. Terms and Conditions, printed on Tender Form, shall apply. 4. Last date of receiving tender is 14 Dec. 16 and Tender will be opened on the same day at 1000hrs.

5. Sainik School Punglwa reserves the right to accept/reject or cancel any or all offers without assigning any reason.

Principal

4

friDAY 25•11•2016

business

THE MORUNG EXPRESS

Rupee hits record low as emerging market rout intensifies MUMBAI, NoveMBer 24 (reUters): The rupee fell to a record low of 68.86 on Thursday, pressured by a rallying U.S. dollar, capital outflows from emerging markets, and worries about the country’s demonetisation drive.

Despite repeated interventions by the central bank to slow the slide, the rupee breached its previous low of 68.85 to the dollar set in August 2013, when the country was mired in its worst currency crisis in more than two decades.

The Reserve Bank of India intervened again in the afternoon, after spending around $500 million in the morning, but the rupee was able to claw back only a fraction of its losses. It was trading at 68.82 as of 0826 GMT, down about 0.4 percent on the day.

The rupee has fallen around 3 percent so far this month, its biggest fall against the dollar since August 2015, though it has fared better than many other emerging market currencies since Donald Trump’s shock win in the U.S. presidential election.

Analyst said they expected the rupee to remain under pressure, with the RBI continuing to intervene to smoothen volatility but without defending a specific level.

“It is frankly difficult to say where the rupee will be in the

near-term,” said Pramod Patil, Vice President, Global Markets at United Overseas Bank.

“We will have to wait and watch Trump’s actions once he is in the White House, only then will we have some certainty.”

In 2013, pressure on the current account triggered heavy rupee selling, but this time India is seen as being far better positioned to resist outflows from investors attracted by higher U.S. interest rates.

Expectations that Presidentelect Trump will pursue an expansionary fiscal policy that will drive inflation higher and lead to higher U.S. interest rates are behind rising U.S. yields that have attracted investors to the dollar.

Since the U.S. election on Nov. 8, foreign investors have sold a net $1.59 billion from equity markets and $2.02 billion in debt.

Although foreign investors are pulling money away from India’s capital markets, analysts say its strong economic growth should lend some support to the currency. Foreign exchange reserves also are at a near record high and inflation remains low.

A woman holds 20 Indian rupees banknotes after exchanging them with old high denomination banknotes at a bank in Allahabad. (REUTERS Photo)

Modi’s shock move this month to ditch higher-denominated banknotes could dent growth.

The move, announced on the eve of U.S. elections, has sparked widespread frustration among Indians struggling to get new notes, and is expected to dent the consumer demand that powers the economy.

MODI’S GAMBLE India is also still seeing outThere are worries, however, that Prime Minister Narendra flows tied to the redemptions of

dollar deposits, expected to total around $28 billion, that were raised from Indians living abroad to help pull the rupee out its crisis three years ago.

The fall in the rupee could provide a test of leadership for RBI Governor Urjit Patel, who as deputy to predecessor Raghuram Rajan helped steer the country away from the depths of the 2013 crisis through actions such as the

deposit scheme.

Over the past several years, the RBI has steadily accumulated foreign exchange reserves, which hit a record high of $371.99 billion at the end of September.

The government has also taken strong action to keep its fiscal and current account deficits under control, including by keeping a lid on spending and curbing imports of gold.

Know why banned notes are flying off to NE part of country Among those who are exempted from paying tax are members of scheduled tribe communities in Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh New DelhI, NoveMBer 24 (FINANcIAl express): Even as money being flown from Haryana to Nagaland looks like an unusual way of trying to convert black notes into white, it may not be illogical as the income tax department has allowed exemptions for few categories of incomes or individuals. Apparently, these exemptions are being misused.

Among those who are exempted from paying tax are members of scheduled tribe communities in Manipur, Nagaland, Tripura, Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh. Also scheduled tribes in Mikir Hills and North Cachar Hills, the Khasi Hills, Garo Hills and Jaintia Hills in Meghalaya and Ladakh in Jammu & Kashmir are free from paying income tax. The exemption is given to income from any source in these areas or from dividends or interest on securities from anywhere, a ‘The times of India’ report has said.

A similar exemption is also available for those defined as “Sikkimese” in the Income Tax Act. This is for any income from the state itself and for income from dividend or interest on securities generated anywhere. The main aim behind these exceptions is to provide fiscal concessions to backward communities and areas.

Apart from these, there is also the exemption for the income in agricultural sector, which includes any revenue garnered from agricultural land. There are several institutions that are tax-exempt under the IT Act. The report further said that it is also not difficult to see why the lawmakers would have decided not bring them under income tax slab. For example, income of a public charitable trust or not for profit society established for development of khadi and village industries is kept away from the tax. Same way, educational institutions including universities existing for educational purposes only and not for profit are exempt from paying tax on their incomes under sections of the act.

Only sixteen of every 250 fake notes detected in India devanik saha

Rs 1,000 notes that made up 86 percent of money in circulation. On November 9, in response to Telugu filmstar Nagarjuna’s tweet praising “demonetisation” -- Modi tweeted: “Dear @iamnagarjuna, this step will check corruption, black money and fake currency rackets that slow our progress.” Of the 90.26 billion Indian currency notes in circulation in 2015-16, no more than 0.63 million -- that is 0.0007%, or seven-millionths of 1 per cent, seven in every million -- were detected as fake, according to Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data. The value

of these fake notes in 201516 was Rs 29.64 crore, which IANS is 0.0018 per cent of the Rs Is India doing enough to de16.41 lakh crore currency in tect fake notes, cited by the circulation.

Prime Minister Narendra In 2015, 0.88 million Modi as a significant reason fake notes worth Rs 43.8 for withdrawing 86 per cent crore were seized, accordof India’s currency, a proing to data from the National cess popularly known as Crime Records Bureau ta“demonetisation”? Apparbled in the Lok Sabha on Noently not. In 2015-16, only vember 18. Rs 27.8 crore was 16 of every 250 fake notes seized until September 30, were detected, according to 2016, the data further reveal. an IndiaSpend analysis of The value of fake currency in government data. circulation at any given time Modi cited terrorism fiis Rs 400 crore, and 250 in evnanced by fake Indian curery million notes are fake, acrency as a major reason for cording to a 2015 joint study invalidating the Rs 500 and by the Indian Statistical Institute and National Investigation Agency, to analyse fakecurrency trends, especially those originating across India’s borders.

Dearest Princess, The study estimated that As you turn 7 today, may our Almighty God bless & grant fake currency worth Rs 70 u all the life’s best wishes and may He continue to mould crore enters circulation every year,withagenciesonlybeing & shape u in da way He wants u to be. able to intercept one-third of Happy Birthday! it. The detection of fake curLoving bro, Mom, Dad & relatives rency is carried out primar-

BIRTHDAY GREETING

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ily by commercial banks, but such reporting is irregular: Only 3 banks -- Axis, HDFC andICICI--reportabout80% of fake currency detected.

In 2012, the then Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee wrote a white paper on black money in India, which revealed that the cash component of undisclosed incomes ranged from 3.7 per cent to 7.4 per cent, based on searches conducted by the Central Board of Direct Taxes.

For instance, in financial year 2011-12, of undisclosed admitted income of Rs 9,289 crore, no more than Rs 499 crore (5.4%) was found in cash, according to the white paper. On November 17, Sitaram Yechury, General Secretary, Communist Party of India (Marxist), tweeted: “Black economy is only 6% Cash, rest wired. Counterfeit currency 0.025% of total currency. So what is the Demonetisation move targeting?” taHaMZaM (formerly senapati) Police station Fire Brigade

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KOHiMa Fire Brigade naga Hospital oking Hospital Bethel nursing Home northeast shuttles

Yechury’s claim was based on a Hindustan Times analysis of data from tax raids for the financial year 2012-13 onwards. Cash recovered was less than 6% of the undisclosed income seized from tax evaders, said the newspaper.

Data from income-tax investigations between April 1 and October 31, 2016, revealed that blackmoney holders accepted having Rs 7,700 crore worth of unaccounted assets; of this, Rs 408 crore, or 5%, was cash. The rest was invested in business, stocks, real estate and benami bank accounts, the data showed. In 2015-16, a year that reported the largest detection of black-money, 6% was cash.

“While, in the public eye, piles of cash are synonymous with corruption, we should be careful about distinguishing between the three components of black economy. The first is the underlying source of cor-

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(In arrangement with IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, non-profit, public interest journalism platform.

Devanik Saha is an MA Gender and Development student at Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex. The views expressed are those of IndiaSpend.

Feedback at respond@indiaspend.org)

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CURRenCY nOteS

Us dollars sterling Pound Hong Kong dollar Australian dollar singapore dollar Canadian dollar Japanese Yen euro thai Baht Korean won UAe dirham (Aed) Chinese Yuan

BUY (rs) 66.58 82.05 8.31 48.61 46.55 49.28 59.64 70.46 1.81 0.0543 17.54 9.32

seLL (rs) 69.58 86.00 9.25 51.04 48.83 51.69 63.01 73.86 2.02 0.0606 19.54 10.38

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ruption. An example of this would be the high stamp duties on real estate transactions that lead to payments in cash. The second is the methods adopted for storing unaccounted wealth.

An example of this would be holding assets in gold. The third element is the method through which transactions are affected. This could involve cash,” Vijay Kelkar and Ajay Shah wrote in the Mint.

“The black economy involves all three elements.

Targeting unaccounted cash on one particular day is only a small part of the story.”

CROSSWORD # 3784

H

SUDOKU

Simple Rules - Fill in the grid so that every row, every column, and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9.

Game Number # 3769

Answer Number # 3768

ACROSS 1. Footnote note 5. Rectum 9. Henhouse 13. Hindu princess 14. Javelin 16. Large 17. Sets of articles 18. Related to tides 19. Small island 20. Napped 22. Hard liquor 24. Pierce 26. A type of small mammal 27. Crane 30. Casual eatery 33. Cantata 35. Portion 37. Protrude 38. Hungry 41. Faster than light 42. A drama set to music 45. Pre-teens 48. Sleeping sickness carrier 51. Accord 52. Confined 54. Alike 55. A cockpit instrument 59. Lure 62. Casket 63. Stories 65. Char 66. At one time (archaic) 67. Locations 68. Ancient Peruvian 69. Strip of wood 70. Body of water 71. Flower stalk DOWN 1.Bothers 2. Lade 3. Merges 4. Cavort 5. Altitude (abbrev.)

6. Childlike

7. Reversed 8. Dung beetle 9. Red wine 10. Dethrone 11. Leer at 12. Equal 15. Lacquer ingredient 21. Threesome 23. Stinging insect 25. Beige 27. Karate school 28. Blow up 29. Family 31. Purification 32. Group of 8 34. Frequently, in poetry 36. If not 39. Female sheep 40. Lairs 43. Revival 44. “Smallest” particle 46. French for “State” 47. Goddess of divine retribution 49. Hard fats 50. Necessitate 53. Greek letter 55. Cain’s brother 56. Former Italian currency 57. Exam 58. Stink 60. Rate 61. Streetcar 64. South southeast Answer to Crossword 3783

Friday 25•11•2016

NAGALAND

Pb acharya lauds initiative Zunheboto youth met President of India DDADU informs for North east girls in Delhi

Kohima, November 24 (mexN): The Governor of Nagaland, PB Acharya today lauded the Central Government authorities for taking right step to involve North East young girls to tackle law and order problem of Delhi.

Altogether 137 girls trainees from the region recently recruited by Delhi Police are undergoing rigorous training at Police Training School , New Delhi.

“The Governor heartily congratulates the Central Government, Lieutenant Governor of Delhi, Chief Minister Delhi and Inspector General of Police of Delhi Police Robin Hibu, who is hailing from Arunachal

Pradesh of North East area for the prompt action for recruiting 137 girls,” Acharya said in message received here.

These 137 girls from the region will be able to protect all the citizens of Delhi and especially take care of the NE people,” it said.

While Delhi is an important hub for employment and higher studies and young people including the region have also settled and trying their destiny for better economic prospects, there were stray incidents of attacks and molestation cases on helpless North East youths, it added.

In this regard, Acharya had met the Lt. Governor of Delhi

Najeeb Jung as well as the Chief Minister of Delhi Arvind Kejriwal early this year “requesting to take strong steps against the wrong doers as well as steps for emotional integration for the people,” it informed.

He further suggested “Fellowship Link Families” wherein North East people including students settled in Delhi to have some local guardians as well as opening women Hostels for those who are coming from far away strategic border areas of our country.

We have to think more and more preventive methods to strengthen emotional integration, Acharya also stressed in his message.

Dimapur, November 25 (mexN): A group of 15 youth from remote areas of Zunheboto district interacted today with the President of India, Pranab Mukherjee at Rashtrapati Bhavan, New Delhi. The youth were part

of National Integration Tour organized by 5 Assam Rifles of Headquarters 7 Sector Assam Rifles under its ‘Operation Sadbhavna’ initiatives, a press note from AR informed.

The group had departed for Delhi on November 17 and

reached New Delhi on 19 November.

The youth also visited Air Force Museum, Delhi Metro and Cannaught place beside visiting monuments and experiencing street life in New Delhi, it added.

KMC appeal Kma citizens CSWO Meghalaya condemns assault by stepmother Kohima, November 24 (mexN): The Kohima Municipal Council along with the Kohima Village Youth Organization (KVYO) has started installing Pole Mounted Paired Litter Bins across Kohima town. In connection, KMC administrator Kovi Meyase reminded that the general public that the litter bin sites should not be treated as additional garbage collection sites and appealed them to render cooperation towards its continued attempts to keep the town sanitized and litter free.

ShilloNg, November 24 (mexN): The Civil Society Women Organisation, (CSWO) Meghalaya today strongly condemned the alleged “brutal assault” of a child by her stepmother in Wokha on November 21. She had also assaulted the other siblings earlier this month for which she apologised after an intervention by Child Welfare Committee, the organisa-

tion said in a statement. The CSWO has been informed that the child may be suffering from internal injuries and doctor has referred a CT Scan, added the statement issued by CSWO President Agnes Kharshiing.

These cases of assaults on children should be taken seriously as “Such acts” against minor children and will not be tolerated in the society, it said adding

that no bail should not be “easily granted” to the accused as she may “intimidate the minor children more and put them under fear.” Further maintaining that children are assets which needs to be well cared and not be assaulted or used, trafficked, raped, or abused,” CSWO said that acts against them “should be brought immediately to notice of authorities and should

not be hidden and hushed up.”

“Society should rise up to defend children at all cost.”

The organisation also cautioned media against bringing out or publishing sensitive pictures of children.

CSWO also lauded the bold step taken by the colony residents who reported the matter to the Police leading to the arrest of the alleged assaulter.

conduct Nagaland college students interact with Alia Bhatt SJC German PR &

Dimapur, November 24 (mexN): Building on their brand promise of a Digital Life, Jio has been arranging interactive events for students of colleges across India with interesting, inspiring and talented personalities. On November 24, the students of Pranabananda Women’s College Dimapur interacted with renowned actress Alia Bhatt.

An official release from Jio stated that it has started a digital revolution in North East by providing live interactive events. 40 Different institutions across India were connected and ad-

Mezhuvi Seyie after interacting with Alia Bhatt via Digital Life Jio on November 24.

dressed by Alia Bhatt, seated in Jio’s Headquarter in Mumbai. She started the session with sharing his experiences and motivat-

ing the students, she talked about her own tryst with destiny and how unconventional choices based on one’s gut instinct make for

a better and more fulfilled life.

Two questions from Pranabananda Women’s College Dimapur were se-

lected and addressed by Alia Bhat. Mezhuvi Seyie interacted with Alia Bhatt and asked the questions.

Alia Bhatt was very happy interacting to the girls and she appreciated the pink color of their uniform and said that North East is very beautiful and she will come soon.

The immensely talented actor is starring in the upcoming movie Dear Zindagi, directed by the critically acclaimed Gauri Shinde of English Vinglish fame. Alia talked about her movie Dear Zindagi and how it helped her find new perspective towards life.

Dimapur, November 24 (mexN): With regard to the news item ‘DDADU informs’ published on November 23, the Dimapur District Autorickshaw Drivers’ Union has informed that the registration number should be corrected as NL07 f- 1517. DDADU Judicial Secretary Tovikhe Achumi in a press release has requested the owner to claim by producing original documents within 7 days from the date of publication from the head office at Super Market, Dimapur. The Union added that no claim will be entertained after the given period. Meanwhile, the Union also requests the passengers to take care of their belongings while travelling in Autorickshaw. For the careless lost of passenger’s belongings, no Autorickshaw drivers will be liable and also the drivers concerned are reminded to submit any items found to the office.

Meetings & AppointMents Electoral meeting in Zunheboto Nagaland Commissioner, Abhijit Sinha IAS will be visiting the Zunheboto district as Electoral Roll Observer and will hold a meeting with all the district legislators, administration officers /AEROs, recognized Political parties, Supervisors and BLOs on November 26 at DC'S Conference Hall. All the above are requested to attend the meeting positively.

AHoDS/HoDS Meeting The administrative Heads of Department and Heads of Departments meeting shall be held on November 28, 1PM at the Secretariat Conference hall. All AHoDs and HoDs are informed to make it convenient to attend the meeting positively.

language classes YSUK meeting

JaKhama, November 24 (mexN): St. Joseph’s College, Jakhama invited Marie Theresa Junkers-Begerau, member of SES (Senior Expert Service) from Germany to enlighten the students of the college on German language and Public Relation.

She also had an interactive session with the members of the Women’s Forum Association of St. Joseph’s College, Jakhama and the youths of Phesema and Khuzama villages, a press release informed.

Yimchunger Students Union Kohima (YSUK) will hold an executive meeting on November 26, 10AM at Union treasure (near state museum). All the officials, executives and college in-charge (under YSUK) are asked to attend without fail.

Prayer Programme at Sovima Healing Prayer Centre, Sovima, along with 24/7 Chain of Prayer Ministry will be organizing a church dedication cum fasting and prayer day on December 1 near the cricket stadium. The speaker of the programme will be Pastor Kuvotsu Nyenu of Ceylon Pentecostal Mission and Rev. V Khamo E.S. of CCCRC. The church dedication will be graced by Rev. Bulechu Koza, Sr. Pastor, CRC, Sodzhulho.

The intercessors registered with Chain of Prayer Ministry are requested to attend the meeting positively.

Public SPace

Women’s Reservation : A suggestion

W

ith all the furore created by the Women’s Reservation Bill, it takes a foolhardy person to enter into an argument which has such vocal proponents, both for and against the bill. I dislike sticking my nose into issues which affect certain sections of the population but I feel it is the duty of every right thinking citizen to offer opinions which he/she believes to be in the best interests of all; so I’ll take the risk of getting a bloody nose and stick said nose into the issue.

I’ll begin by stating that I’m against the bill, not because I believe that women should be second class citizens but because it is another illegitimate child of the Congress(I) party and their vote bank politics.

I have always supported the Congress party but I believe that the Nehru/Gandhi(not the Mahatma) family is responsible for nearly all the ills that affect Modern India.

Mr. Jonah Achumi has rightly pointed out that if the aim of the Bill was really social justice, women should have been given 50% reservation. But no, the Congress party wanted to have their cake and eat it, i.e. they wanted to capture the female vote and, at the same time, try to keep the males from going up in arms. But as with all such ill-conceived attempts, they have managed to anger all.

Various suggestions have been put forward to overcome the impasse and all have the have been noteworthy. The one that I feel has been gaining ground is the proposal for 1/3 of the councillers to be nominated, with the nominated members having full voting rights. Theoritically, this seems the best way to overcome the various objections, both for and against the bill; but I beg to disagree, for we all know what the political class

in Nagaland is like and we wil see a massive surge in the population of CHAMCHAS (sychophants) and a widening of the scope for nepotism, cronyism and favoritism.

I know that my opinion doesn't matter and that I'm just howling into the wind but I'd like to suggest the following:1. Elections to all the wards in the councils should be held, as in the past, with both men and women being free to run for office.

2. Every 3(three) wards should be combined to form a super ward(for lack of a better term) wherein only women candidates will be eligible to run for office. So, in a council of 30(thirty) wards, you would have 10(ten) wards reserved for women.

I know the math does not add up(for you eggheads and nitpickers, in a constituency of 30 the percentage works out to 25% of the total councillers), but it will benefit all because the elected will have no cause for resentment, as would be the case if the women were nominated, and the women cannot complain because they are free to contest against the men. And at the same time, it will eliminate the scope for the sickening culture of nepotism, cronyism, sychophancy and favoritism that has pervaded the naga body politic.

I would advise all concerned, especially the women, to come to an understanding one way or the other, as early as possible because we all know that the present government hasn't suddenly developed a conscience and decided to empower women. No, they want to hold the polls, willy nilly, so that they can get their greedy paws on the blocked central funds allocated to the municipalities.

Kahuto Chishi Sumi G.B. Hevishe Village Dimapur

The Journey of Amur Falcon in Nagaland Amur falcon (Falco amurensis) Description: The Amur falcon (Falco amurensis) is a small raptor of the falcon family. It breeds in south-eastern Siberia and Northern China before migrating in large flocks across India and over the Arabian Sea to winter in Southern Africa.

Diets: Their diet consists mainly of insects, such as termites; during migration over the sea, they are thought to feed on migrating dragonflies.

The Amur falcon feeds mainly late in the evening or early in the morning capturing a wide range of insects in the air or on the ground.

Migration route: The Amur falcon breeds in East Asia from the Transbaikalia, Amurland, and northern Mongolian region to parts of North Korea. They migrate in a broad front through India, sometimes further east over Thailand and Cambodia and then over the Arabian Sea, sometimes in passage on the Maldives and other islands to reach southern Africa.

Status & Conservation Efforts in Nagaland: The Amur Falcon migration and roosting in Nagaland is not new. Our elders use to tell us that this migratory bird (Molulem in Ao dialect) used to see every winter but not in many numbers.

It was during late part of 1980s when large numbers of this bird migrated and roosted at Changtongya and neighbouring villages (Merangkong, Yaongyimsen and Akhoya) in abundant jhum land. One particular location called Kanglatu at Changtongya was the main areas where millions of Amur falcon roosted during the winter season from last week of October to first week of December. The villagers started killing since 1996 in thousands every year for food

hours from Nagaland to South Africa covering approximately a distance of 5400 km

and sell in the markets. Since the birds are very docile and roost in low branches of trees, it can be easily shoot by the hunters. Every year one hunter may get upto Rs 40,000.00 by selling this bird. This killing continues for few years.

The undersigned is being from this Changtongya village, started awareness campaign from 1989 while I was posted as range-in-charge, Mokokchung range to protect the wild animals and birds particularly this migratory birds in the areas. There was steep resistance from the hunting community in the village as their income from killing and selling of this bird will stop completely. It was easy for them to get huge money by selling this bird. After many years of hurtles and campaign, the villager decided to have a general council meeting during 2001 to discussed the issues. During the meeting there was steep resistance from many villagers. Another resistance for conservation this bird is from land owning villagers. The roosting area stretches thousands of hectares. These areas are very fertile and best land for jhum cultivation. After a long discussion, the village council decided to protect the birds and keep moratorium on hunting for 5 years. It is also suggested and agreed to declare the birds roasting area (Kanglatu) as Community Conserva-

tion Reserve. An area of 760 ha was earmarked as Community Conservation Area (CCA). In the meeting it was also decided that if anybody kill and sell the birds, a fine of Rs.5000.00 will be imposed on the person. A dedicated young vigilant group was formed and guard the areas.

It was big success and moral boaster to the conservationist especially for me as the initiator. The Forest Department has come forward to fund for development and protection of this CCA. Now this is one of the best conservation areas in the State and was an eye opener to other villages all over the State.

The food (termites) which was aplenty in the areas at that time was slowly diminished and by around 2010, the birds slowly migrated to other roosting sites.

Major roosting concentration was noticed in and around Doyang river dam (Pangti village jhumland area). However, the location became notoriously famous for killing thousands of this bird. A team of naturalist visited the area and highlighted in the newspapers about the killing of the birds during 2012.

There was hue and cry from all corner of the world to protect and conserve this migratory bird. The State Forest Department has taken concrete initiative immediately to conserve the birds from next roasting season.

It was a big success and the Pangti Village Amur Roosting As-

sociation was formed; who are mostly responsible in conserving the birds.

Satellite tracking: The first satellite tracking of Amur falcon from Nagaland was initiated during 2013. At the Doyang roost site, after several attempts over three days, 30 Amurs were finally trapped using mist nets on the night of November 6, 2013. Three of them in good feather condition, and appearing to be in good health were selected for the satellite tagging. One male was named Naga in short for Nagaland; one female was named Wokha after the name of the district which is globally important for its roost site; and a second female was named Pangti after the village located in Wokha district and in recognition of the efforts made by the people of Pangti to protect these falcons. The birds were fitted with the state-ofthe-art 5 gram Solar-Powered PTT (Microwave Telemetry Inc.), like a backpack using a specially made teflon harness, and released in the morning of November 7. All the birds were ringed with a BNHS metal ring on the left leg and a colourcoded plastic ring on the right.

Presently Pangti and Wokha are deactivated but the Naga is still active and is completed its 3rd cycle covering more than 60,000 km. The small raptors can fly non-stop 5 days and 10

Awards received: It was during 2014, awards were given in recognition of the Amur Falcon conservation efforts by the Department and especially by the Pangti villagers. Royal Bank Scotland Earth Heroes Award 2014 to Pangti Village Council Balipara Foundation Award 2014 to Forest Department & Pangti Village Council.

Today, the birds are roosting in several places – Pangti and surrounding villages, Wokha District, Yaongyimchen, Longleng District, Intanki National Park, Peren District, Niuland, Dimapur District and Changtongya original roasting place, Mokokchung District.

This year, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change, Govt. of India has approved and sanctioned 5 nos. satellite tracking SolarPowered PTT (Microwave Telemetry Inc.) for Amur falcon tagging. Presently scientists from Hungary and Wildlife Institute of India have came to tag the satellite in the birds and release for tracking the moment of these birds.

Present location of Amur Falcon This year (Oct. to Nov. 2016) a total 5 numbers Satellite Tracking solar-powered PTT Amur Falcon was tagged and released from Nagaland, India. They are all active including the Naga and started flying to South Africa.

Sl. No 1 2 3 4 5 6

Name Naga Hakhizhe Intangki Longleng Eninum Phom

Present Location Arabian Sea Niuland Meghalaya Mizoram Arabian Sea Arabian Sea (Somalia)

I Panger Jamir PCCF & Head of Forest Force Kohima, Nagaland

The Morung Express “Public Space” is to provide space for diverse opinions to be expressed and heard. The opinions in the “Public Space” do not reflect the views and position of the newspaper nor the editor.

6

Friday 25•11•2016

IN FOCUS

THE MORUNG EXPRESS

The Power of Truth

The Morung Express volume Xi issue 324

By Witoubou Newmai

Clean Election Campaign: Lessons from Mizoram

T

he Clean Election Campaign (CEC) under the banner of the Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) has gained momentum in the past few months. The endorsement from the civil society organizations, the common people and most recently from the media houses have given the virtual legitimacy to the campaign. It also serves as an ample supplement to the strategies of the Election Commission of India (ECI) for ‘free and fair elections’ campaign which over the years have become an inspiration for many states in India.

In this regard, the campaign carried out by Mizoram People’s Forum (MPF), a forum constituted by the influential Mizoram Presbyterian Synod, can be taken as an ideal understudy. The 2013 assembly election of Mizoram, under the close scrutiny of MPF, was considered as the most peaceful and markedly ‘free and fair’ Assembly elections in the state by most observers.

Incidentally, the NBCC’s ‘Nagaland Clean Election Campaign team had carried out a study tour to Mizoram during the 2013 Mizoram Assembly elections. Thus, it is pertinent to know how the church sponsored forum undertook the campaign and was comparatively successful in carrying out its mandate.

During the 2013 election, the MPF practically assumed the role of an official poll watchdog, by signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with major political parties in the state.

The MoU was nothing but ‘rules’ for co-operation by the political parties with the MPF – a concrete elaboration and expansion of ‘Dos and Don’ts’ directive issued to the political parties and the general public by the MPF in the 2008 assembly polls. Among other things, the 2008 directive asked the different stakeholders to refrain from grand feasting, distributing of money, and wild parties et al during the assembly elections.

The 2013 MoU expanded and fortified it by including 27 ‘points/rules’ to be observed by different entities as a ‘Code of Conduct’ during the state election. One of the point stipulated that the political parties should only make an election manifesto which they could implement. Any political party that violates any points in the MoU was to be “invalidated” by the MPF. Besides it included other stringent rules including the assurance from every political parties that should try their best to have free and fair election; the condition that only the citizens of India should cast their votes; prohibiting political party from dropping the voters to their polling stations by means of a vehicle; and checking whether any person indulging in demanding money from the candidates and political parties.

House to house campaign was allowed till 10 days before the election and "selling and buying" of votes were strictly prohibited and no candidate allowed from distributing materials. It further stated that no protest rally should be organised 10 days before the election and the number of banners, flags, posters by the political parties were fixed and limited.

Mizoram Pradesh Congress Committee (MPCC), Mizo Peoples Convention (MPC), Zoram National Party (ZNP), Mizo National Front (MNF) and the BJP signed the MoU with Mizoram People’s Forum for co-operation at Synod Committee Hall in Aizawl in 2013.

Here in Nagaland, as the NBCC’s Clean Election Campaign gains momentum, a reflection on some of these points would hopefully ensure a comparatively different 2018 assembly election in the state.

lEfT wiNg |

Joe Penney Reuters

With rap & poetry, Cape Town tries to bridge racial divides

A

city surrounded by ocean and divided in two by the naked rock of Table Mountain, Cape Town's incredible natural beauty belies a past of hundreds of years of slavery and racial oppression. Now a generation of artists, musicians, poets, and filmmakers is trying to overcome this legacy, and in South Africa, a country with 11 official languages, it is not just significant what they say, but how they say it.

Quintin Goliath, who goes by the stage name Jitsvinger, meaning 'The Dope One', is a rapper of mixed ethnic origin from Cape Town. He performs in Afrikaans, a language spoken by 7 million South Africans that is derived from Dutch and draws on Malay, Portuguese, English, Xhosa, Chinese and Khoi influences. Goliath, who raps about topics including politics, identity and love, said Afrikaans was becoming more popular, especially among the young.

"Afrikaans has become more edgy and loose lately in the last decade and a half," he said. In the neighborhood Kimberley, up to six different languages are spoken in one sentence, he added. "As a result, my vernacular can reach the broader collective consciousness and that's where the future lies for Afrikaans: inclusivity and the acceptance of one another's expression."

While some see the future of Afrikaans as promising, its past is contested. Afrikaans developed in the Cape Town region among slaves from West Africa, the indigenous Khoi and San tribes and Indonesia who adapted the Dutch spoken by slave owners and colonial settlers into a common language.

Today only around 40 percent of those who speak Afrikaans at home are white South Africans, according to the South Africa Race Relations Institute.

"Many today will still refer to the ‘white’ Afrikaans as beautiful, pure and proper but their version has a negative or lower form reflecting an internalized self-hatred left behind through slavery, colonialism and apartheid," Goliath said. "There’s a lot of repair work needed within the broader Afrikaans community," he said.

Cape Town poet Jethro Louw also performs in Afrikaans.

He is a descendant of indigenous Khoisan and Mozambican slaves and includes indigenous stories and myths of Cape Town in his poetry. He plays the musical bow, traditionally used for poetry, music, and communication. "I try to popularize the First Nation Culture and its symbols such as the bow in the public domain," he said.

After Zulu, Xhosa, and Afrikaans, English is the fourthmost spoken language in South Africa, but its role in public life is far more influential. Bheki Pilot Biller is a 24-year-old film student from Limpopo who speaks Zulu and English, and chooses the latter in his work which focuses on social issues.

Pilot said Cape Town remains racially divided and that he had experienced job discrimination because he does not speak Afrikaans.

"I can't take this situation whereby for you to get a job you need to have a specific skin color. There are some opportunities where they note that you must know how to read and write Afrikaans fluently. What kind of job is that?"

It seems there are voices clamoring for a more inclusive South Africa in every community in Cape Town: At a recent concert, well-known rock musician Jeremy De Tolly, a white, native English speaker from Cape Town, said the country's

C O M M E N T A R Y

Pablo Bejar Fair Observer

Amid Uncertainty, Latin America is Looking Up Despite a recession, the Latin America and Caribbean region is looking ahead

F

or the first time since 1982-83, the Latin America and Caribbean region is expected to be in recession for two consecutive years (2015-16). According to World Economic Outlook forecasts, growth is expected to be -0.6% this year following growth of -0.03% last year. The fall in commodity prices, lower global trade and continued weakness in advanced economies, combined with a set of internal factors in some of the larger regional economies, have driven growth lower.

However, there is considerable heterogeneity in the region. The simple average growth rate across the 26 regional economies is expected to be 1.6% this year, and while six countries are expected to have negative growth, 12 are expected to grow at more than 2.5% and five at 4% and higher. In addition, the baseline prospects for 2017 indicate a recovery for the region, with a growth rate of 1.6% and only two economies continuing in recession (Ecuador and Venezuela). Nineteen countries are expected to have growth rates of at least 2.5% and eight with at least 3.5% growth. The simple average growth rate of the region is expected to be 2.5%.

But there are significant risks to these projections. Currently, there is considerable uncertainty regarding the posture of advanced economies toward trade and immigration policies (important for remittances), particularly in the US. This could have significant effects particularly on Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean.

The impending rise in US interest rates may also impact capital flows into the region, bring back inflationary pressures, which would reduce monetary policy space via exchange rate depreciations, and thus influence lower economic activity.

Moreover, while the Chinese economy has slowed somewhat, there remains uncertainty regarding its transition to a more domestic demand- and consumption-driven economy and the potential impacts on commodity prices for importer and exporter regional economies.

Recession in Latin America and the Caribbean At the end of the third quarter, the forecast for Latin America and the Caribbean indicates a recession for a second consecutive year. However, looking beyond the numbers, there is some good news amid the current uncertainty.

To begin with, things looked considerably worse earlier in the year due to internal balance sheet and monetary adjustments, a hostile external environment dragged down by low world growth, high financial volatility prompted by foreign exchange instability, and the continuing slump in commodity prices, which fueled capital outflows from the region.

In macroeconomic terms, the region currently looks decidedly brighter as external shocks appear to have become less intense. Commodity prices

Aerial view of Rio De Janeiro. Corcovado mountain with statue of Christ the Redeemer, urban areas of Botafogo and Centro, Sugarloaf mountain.

are no longer in free fall, long-term interest rates in developed countries have remained ultra-low in response to continued proactive monetary policies, and access to global capital markets remains open thanks to the relative risk tolerance of international investors.

Given these trends, Latin American EMBI spreads have declined by approximately 30%, capital inflows into the region have picked up, and exchange rates have stabilized in most regional economies.

Although there have been worsening perspectives during 2016 for four out of six regional economies in recession, as well as Mexico due to the weaker than expected investment in the US and other risks associated to the presidential elections, major fiscal and institutional adjustments in Argentina and, most importantly, Brazil brightened the medium-term growth prospects for these two economies as well as for the entire region.

The adjustments prompted markets to both validate improvements in regional country risk and stock market conditions.

Resilience Clearly, the Latin America and Caribbean region is not a monolith, and the weight of some countries can skew regional trends. The Inter-America Development Bank’s (IDB) latest Macroeconomic Report documents 2014-20 as the region’s lowest average growth period of the last 20 years, but not all countries have suffered equally. Although the region will contract for a second consecutive year, the six fastest growing economies will average growth rates of around 4.5%.

Indeed, given the intensity of the external shocks that have affected the region in the last few years, a strong argument can be made that the Latin America and Caribbean region has shown considerable resilience, and there has not been a repetition of the banking and currency crises that have been so problematic for the region

especially in the 1980s and 1990s. Indeed, most of the larger economies in Latin America and the Caribbean have floating exchange rates and have allowed considerable depreciations in their currencies, which are now helping in the adjustment processes. These depreciations have been effected without causing a large increase in debt or widespread bankruptcies due to currency mismatches—another significant achievement since the 1990s.

There has been some pass through to domestic inflation in some cases, but given the size of the currency depreciations, this pass through has been relatively limited and inflation expectations in general indicate that inflation is likely to fall in the future back toward inflation targets. Figure 3 plots the extent of currency depreciation and inflation for a number of selected countries.

The imbalances in current accounts are also being corrected, and evidence exists that most of the large economies in the region will again be able to finance the deficit with foreign direct investment (FDI).

Regarding budgetary imbalances, 15 countries have announced explicit adjustment programs that are expected to cut spending by an average 1.7% of gross domestic product (GDP) and boost revenue by 1.1% of GDP in the next five years. For most countries, these corrections in a context of greater growth guarantee sustainable levels of public debt to GDP. Before breathing too deep a sigh of relief, some important caveats to this outlook are in order. The results of the US presidential election and other external developments will undoubtedly play an important role in shaping the regional economic environment going forward. Most importantly, however, countries in the region face two fundamental challenges in the coming years.

First, they must stay on track with the policies that have been announced to address their imbalances. Second, they must return to a path of sustainable and inclusive growth.

Beyond what happens to “actual”

growth rates in the short term, the region desperately needs to boost its “potential GDP growth rates,” which have steadily fallen from 4.25% in 2008 to 3.1% in 2016—equivalent to a 25% reduction. imPRovement in WelfaRe Moreover, after 20 years of progress in social indicators such as infant mortality, access to drinking water, elementary school enrollment and life expectancy, Latin American society has come to expect a steady improvement in its welfare. More specifically, the slowdown during the 2010-16 period has not dampened the legitimate desire of citizens across the region for more prosperous economies and personal prospects.

Returning to “actual” growth rates in the neighborhood of 3%, which is about twice the rate expected for 2017, is the first step. But this is only one step.

In order to satisfy citizens’ expectations for improved well-being, it is essential to both increase the growth potential of economies—which in turn requires a complete restoration of macroeconomic imbalances—and undertake reforms to improve the underlying productivity of economies.

Of course, political economy, rather than pure economics, may be what ultimately determines whether countries reach their goals and how their economies evolve in the coming quarters.

Governments must further strengthen their political institutions to be able to develop better, more targeted, more transparent and more accountable public policies. But they can’t do it alone. The private sector, specifically the technology sector, must also chip in to take on the challenge of cementing a sustainable growth model that addresses real regional problems, such as growing unemployment and inequality.

This article is being republished with the permission of Fair Observer. The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.

Modi in Japan: Why China Should Be Worried Japan and India are expected to advance defense, economic, and even nuclear cooperation varun Tomar

I

The Diplomat

n August 1977, Japanese Prime Minister Takeo Fukuda emphasized on the “three main pillars” of his trip to Manila. Those “pillars” went on to become the major principles of Japan’s foreign policy toward Asia, known as the Fukuda Doctrine of “Heart to Heart Relations.” In particular, Fukuda pledged that Japan, while possessing the means and capability, would never walk the path of militarization ever again. This policy guided Japanese foreign policy toward the rest of Asia until very recently. The growing aggressive stance of China in the region and the coming to power of a revisionist prime-minister, Shinzo Abe, has marked a clear shift in Tokyo’s regional security policy.

When Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visits Japan on November 11, on a 48-hour trip for the Third Annual Summit meeting, Tokyo is expected to sign its first major defense deal in the last 50 years, the sale of US-2 Amphibious aircraft to India. Sources also say that the aircraft will bear the name US-2i, which clearly indicates how serious Modi is about promoting the “Make in India” campaign. The US-2 aircraft will enable India to better survey its Exclusive Economic Zone in the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean region. This will in turn speed up an Indian Navy response to incidents near the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, major strategic holdings from a geopolitical viewpoint.

Apart from in-depth exchanges on bilateral, regional, and global issues to further deepen the broad-

based and action-oriented partnership between India and Japan, Modi’s visit will also reportedly see a civil nuclear deal. Such a deal, if concluded between New Delhi and Tokyo, would definitely antagonize Beijing. China has continuously tried to stop India’s entry into the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) citing as a reason that India is not a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). New Delhi should understand that China wants to penalize it for growing closer to the United States and engaging with Japan in the pacific region. Beijing also does not want to let down its all-weather ally Pakistan by accepting India’s global role as a responsible nuclear power. By convincing Tokyo to sign the civil nuclear deal, New Delhi has played a major trump card. Reports suggest that the deal between India and Japan would

wRiTE-wiNg

only viable solution to ensure a clean and sufficient supply of energy for India. Meanwhile, with Japan trying to phase out nuclear power after the Fukushima disaster in 2011, Tokyo is now looking for new markets in which to sell its nuclear technology.

This is true in other fields as well –with Korea and China giving stiff competition to Japanese consumer goods, Japan is desperately looking for new markets for its products. High-speed rail is one such example, with Japan having agreed to develop a 505 km corridor for India between Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

This move came straight after Japan lost a high-speed railway bid to China in Indonesia earlier in 2015. Today, the Chinese economy stands on the massive Japanese investment made during 1970s, and now Japan needs to similarly support India in its development in order to have a strong and reliable partner in Asia.

On the strategic and geopolitical front, with Donald Trump having been elected as the new U.S. president, Japan’s military clout in East Asia is poised to grow stronger amid uncertainty about Trump’s commitment to U.S. allies. If Trump decides to reframe the U.S.-Japan security pact, Tokyo would have to look for new partners to counter the growing Chinese presence in the Asia-Pacific region. It is in both India and Japan’s favor to mutually cooperate and benefit from the idea of a “special strategic and global partnership.”

be concluded along the lines of the NPT, and Tokyo would walk out of the deal of India carries out a nuclear test, which it is highly unlikely to do considering its past record.

From an economic viewpoint, also, the civil nuclear deal is highly lucrative for both India and Japan.

For India, the burgeoning demand for electricity to feed its mushrooming industry since the liberalization of economy in 1991 has emerged as a major problem. With increasing levels of pollution in In(Varun Tomar is PhD Scholar at International dian cities and the catastrophic rise of pollutants in Christian University, Tokyo, Japan, working on InNew Delhi this week, nuclear energy seems to be the dia-Japan relations and Asia-Pacific security)

Letters to the Editor should be sent to: The morung express, House No. 4, Duncan Bosti, Dimapur - 797112, Or –email: morung@gmail.com

Friday 25•11•2016

PERSPECTIVE

THE MORUNG EXPRESS

7

Assad will Talk, but he won’t Negotiate My discussions with Syrian officials confirmed they're unable to change. But it increasingly seems they may not need to Sam Heller

Y

Foreign Policy

ou can only assume the Syrian government feels pretty great right now.

The government and its allies have encircled rebels in the eastern half of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and the country’s prewar economic center. It has almost entirely consolidated its control over Syria’s strategically vital west, including the area surrounding the capital of Damascus. It enjoys the reliable backing of its Iranian and Russian allies.

And as of Nov. 8, the United States has a president-elect who has made it explicitly clear that he is uninterested in regime change in Damascus.

Dialogue between Syria and the West, suddenly, is a live possibility.

Whether it will be productive is another question entirely.

In October, back when the leader of the free world was only implicitly uninterested in overthrowing Bashar al-Assad, I traveled to Damascus to attend a Syrian government-backed conference. The conference organizers hailed the event as a chance for Syrians to present another side of the war and to open a new dialogue with the West. They invited journalists from top American and British news outlets, as well as political analysts like myself.

But there was a disconnect at play. The medium — the conference itself, the contact with the top echelons of Syrian officialdom, and the opportunity for attendees to stay on and report from inside Syria — signaled an attempt by the Syrian government to appeal to Western opinion and demonstrate its openness.

But the substance was quite different. From the combative, uncompromising tone of the conference’s official speakers to the elite, clubby atmosphere surrounding the event, the impression given was of a defiant regime that, even after five years of war, remains unchanged.

Instead of putting a reasonable, sympathetic face forward, it was as if the Syrian government had invited us in to tell us: “Oh, no. We are exactly who you think we are.”

In between panel discussions on topics such as “The Media War During the Syrian Crisis” and “The Effects of Sanctions on the Lives of Ordinary Syrians,” the conference afforded attendees access to senior Syrian officials, commercial elites, and representatives of government-approved Syrian civil society. Conference organizers also separately arranged an extended question-and-answer session with Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem and a set of smaller audiences with President Bashar alAssad himself.

But for all the talk about dialogue, the conference speakers took a proudly unrepentant tone. In the very first panel discussion, “The Background of the War in Syria,” panelists such as presidential advisor Dr. Bouthaina Shaaban and senior intelligence officer Col. Samer Breidi described how Syria had fallen victim to an international conspiracy of Islamist extremists, enemy states, and their media lackeys. They denied any errors or culpability by the Syrian government, stretching back to the very start of the country’s crisis in 2011. The Syrian government itself, in their telling, was largely blameless and misunderstood.

Shaaban complained that the last time she had spoken to the U.K.’s Channel 4 — whose reporters were present in the conference audience — they had asked only accusatory questions. “They asked, ‘How can you support such a regime?’” she

said. “There was no effort to try to understand.”

(The conference was conducted under Chatham House rules, but an organizer assured me I could identify and quote the Syrian officials who presented.)

In the question-and-answer session following the first panel discussion, a Syrian audience member asked earnestly for the state’s version of events in southern Daraa province in March 2011. In an incident widely considered the spark for the country’s uprising, regime security services detained and tortured 15 children for painting anti-government graffiti, spurring local protests that met with state violence and eventually spread nationwide.

“We want the real story on the Daraa children,” she said. “We want to know what our story is, the correct story. At least we can give our local media this story, and they can mention it so people know.”

Breidi, the senior intelligence officer, told her the government had hastened at the time to form a committee to investigate the alleged detention and torture. “It reached the conclusion that the issue didn’t exist,” he said.

In the next session, “Syrian Foreign Relations During the Crisis,” Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal alMiqdad spoke of how he had been on hand for Eastern Europe’s anticommunist revolutions in 1989. As a representative of the International Union of Students, he said, he had witnessed how false reports of a student demonstrator’s death had galvanized protests in Czechoslovakia.

“I’ve seen how a few lies can bring down governments and change millions of lives,” he said.

According to the Syrian government, Syria has been targeted because it refuses to comply with the West’s pro-Israel agenda. Syria’s terrorist enemies are largely foreign extremists introduced by a neo-Ottoman Turkish government, and backed by Saudi Arabia, a font of regressive Wahhabism. The United States is mostly unserious about fighting the self-proclaimed Islamic State, and it is in fact relying on terrorist proxies to attack the Syrian government.

The Syrian government has already attempted to resolve the crisis politically, the state representatives at the conference said, with a roadmap for reform laid out by Assad in January 2013. (The 2013 plan entails the formation of a unity government, the drafting of a new constitution to be affirmed in a referendum, and then new parliamentary elections.) The government remains determined to recapture the entirety of Syria and, in the meantime, has tried to demonstrate its resilience and legitimacy through the ongoing, mostly normal function of state institutions. The government readily highlights the relative normality of life in Damascus and elsewhere, how it has kept the country’s utilities running, and how it has continued to pay public sector salaries, even to residents of areas that have fallen into insurgent hands.

And although the government claims to want international security cooperation and economic normalization, it is clear that change is incumbent on everyone else — not the Syrian state and certainly not in response to foreign dictates.

Some younger Syrians in attendance — not themselves of the government but within its orbit — were able to articulate pro-government

concerns in more appealing, introspective terms. But when it came to the more senior official class, including Assad himself, there seemed to be little effort to tailor their arguments to a Western audience.

It’s hard to know why the government took such a hard line. It may have been meant as a show of strength, a demonstration to Western elites that their attempts to bend or break Syria have failed. And it’s possible the government was more interested in convincing a Western delegation to attend than actually winning it over, if only to demonstrate its international legitimacy to its local, Syrian constituency. (Syrian media were excluded, but it’s not as if the event was a state secret.)

Or maybe some officials just didn’t care. Foreign Minister Moallem, for one. Conference organizers had been emphatic that the event was not a government propaganda exercise. But when the New Yorker’s Dexter Filkins asked Moallem how Syria could make its case to governments that had cut all diplomatic ties, the minister suggested he understood things otherwise. “We don’t need to convince governments; we need to convince public opinion,” Moallem said.

“But that’s why you’re here. Say the truth. Your role is to do your part to help us.”

Moallem proceeded to nonchalantly bat away journalists’ questions, including ones about regime brutality against rebel-held areas.

Asked by the New York Times’s Anne Barnard about the government’s harsh tactics in Aleppo, he replied, deadpan, “I am not Jesus Christ. You hit me in my,” gesturing to his cheek, “and I …” He didn’t bother to finish the sentence.

But my sense from the conference was that the Syrian government was sincerely trying to win us over.

We were given the red-carpet treatment, from our reception at the VIP hall at the border crossing with Lebanon, where our passports were collected and stamped at our leisure, to a sumptuous dinner alongside Damascus’s power elite at the Sheraton. And so, when officials adopted a particularly jarring line of argument, it sometimes seemed as if they just didn’t understand how to talk to outsiders.

When Western conference attendees visited President Assad in his home, he was gracious and welcoming, and, even under some tough questioning, he remained engaged and personable. But the actual content of what he told the assembled journalists and analysts wasn’t new.

It was mostly a friendlier, more articulate version of the government’s standard lines.

In what I thought was inadvertently revealing, President Assad closed our group sit-down by dis-

cussing the “very dangerous” media game being played against Syria and giving the example, unprompted, of coverage of the Syria Civil Defence, also known as the “White Helmets.”

“They’re al Qaeda, Jabhat al-Nusra,” he said. “They just changed shape.”

That the White Helmets are the humanitarian arm of al Qaeda is something he’s said before to friendlier journalists — he said essentially the same thing to Russian newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda several weeks previous — and it’s a meme that has gained currency in government-sympathetic media.

Now, disclosure: Several years ago, I held a research job with a contractor that trained Civil Defense teams. So I knew that while Civil Defense operations in Syria’s rebelheld areas sometimes oblige it to engage with military actors, its firstresponder work is independent of local armed groups and basically a pure humanitarian good. A handful of local teams have done dubious things, but the case against Civil Defense mostly amounts to pointing out the fact that they are pro-opposition Syrians who pull civilians from bombed-out rubble in rebel-held areas where jihadis also happen to live.

I think that for the mass Western audience that has seen video of Civil Defense teams rescuing children from buildings flattened by the Syrian air force, Assad’s argument is obviously unsympathetic. That Assad would raise this talking point unbidden raises serious questions about the extent to which he understands the debate on Syria outside a progovernment echo chamber.

Syrian officials’ unapologetic rhetoric and the atmosphere in and around the conference — coffee breaks populated by Damascus’s public-private upper crust, interjections from some Syrian attendees that seemed less like questions than florid demonstrations of party loyalty — suggested a system that has not learned or adapted during the last five years.

But such intransigence isn’t necessarily delusional — in fact, there’s reason to think that continuity is itself the point, part of a deliberate domestic political strategy. On the streets of Damascus, the government seems to have successfully maintained the prewar authoritarian order. The only difference is that now Damascenes have also been traumatized by years of deprivation and war.

The cult of personality around Assad is still powerful. Sometimes it can seem even more potent than before the war, if only because his portrait is seemingly hung on every one of the checkpoints blanketing the city.

Assad himself emphasized the constitutional and institutional limits on his authority in his meeting

with me and my colleagues, leaving it to others to make the case for his personal centrality to the Syrian state. Miqdad, for instance, told conference attendees that “without [Assad], there is no Syria.” Billboards and signs across the city feature Assad’s picture next to slogans like, “A nation in one man,” or sometimes, “For you, Assad” and “Assad’s Syria.”

A refrigerator repairman in the Damascus suburb of Jeremana told me how Bashar’s father, Hafez al-Assad, “is our father, and we’re his children.”

And doing man-on-the-street interviews in Damascus — watching gracious, welcoming locals go blank when I told them I was a journalist — was a reminder that there has been no weakening of the city’s old limits on speech or its security-state paranoia.

I felt a little queasy trying to convince polite but obviously uncomfortable Damascenes to talk to me about the economy and conditions in their area or watching them squirm as my Ministry of Information minder showed them an official letter and assured them they were allowed to speak.

Not everyone declined to talk, though. And even as the in-and-out presence of the minder and the generally repressive atmosphere made it impossible to accept everything people said at face value, it’s not as if all of it was false. And these ordinary Syrians on the streets of Damascus made many of the government’s points more cogently than any conference panel.

The conference’s session on the Syrian economy — “The Effects of Sanctions on the Lives of Ordinary Syrians” — was populated almost exclusively by members of the merchant class that has been assimilated into the regime. But outside the conference auditorium, it was possible to talk to ordinary people trying to get by in a broken economy cut off from the broader world. They could tell you how they had to work two or three jobs to provide for their children or how the collapse of the Syrian lira had made everyone poor.

“They calculate everything on the dollar,” said a man working in a menswear store in Damascus’s Saroujeh neighborhood. He pointed out everything he had to buy that had gotten more expensive, from shirt fabric to cardboard shirt stays. “It’s regular people who get it in the end.”

The toll of the violence on loyalist communities is visible everywhere, from a hastily rebuilt school that was destroyed by a car bomb to locals who will tell you about their friends and family who’ve died fighting rebels or been killed by indiscriminate shelling.

A teenager working at a translation office in Jeremana told me he had spent nearly all of 2014 at home because of shelling from the rebel-

held suburbs of eastern Ghouta. “Every day the [shells] would fall, one after another,” his co-worker said.

An electrician working across the hall told me how local children had, disconcertingly, acclimated to war.

“They hear a noise, and they can tell you what it is,” he said. “They’ll say, ‘A rocket hit the army.’ ‘That’s Dushka fire.’ How do you know that? Aren’t you in the third grade?”

And even as the Syrian government has reinforced a fundamentally oppressive political order, it is impossible to walk around Damascus and not notice the active participation of women in social and economic life, as well as the obvious diversity by sect and religiosity. These aspects of Damascus life are not everything — but they’re not nothing, either. And they cast a harsh, unfavorable light on the elements of the Syrian opposition that have embraced explicit sectarian chauvinism.

The Assad regime’s accomplishments in governance during the civil war have mainly been defensive, but they should not be underestimated.

It has maintained monopoly control over the Syrian state’s still-functioning institutions, and it has also managed to keep for itself a Syrian national identity that is cross-confessional, multiethnic, and inclusive.

The regime has a core of active supporters, but it has also enlisted the passive or active support of many Syrians who want to preserve what’s left of the state, who are exhausted by the war, or who fear what they see as an opposition overtaken by extremism and anarchic warlordism.

Ilya Samman, a businessman and member of the tolerated opposition Syrian Social Nationalist Party, has helped organize “local reconciliations” in towns near Damascus that have entailed rebel surrenders and the restoration of government control. Samman, who told me he had been detained and tortured before the war for his membership in an illegal political party, acknowledged that he was serving the interests of the Assad government. “We thought, fine, if they want to use us,” he said.

“So long as it’s useful to resolve the crisis.” His work might complement the government’s brutal military campaign, he told me, but it also allowed civilians to return to their homes and saved lives. “To me, it’s worth it,” he said.

The capital city’s exhausted public, meanwhile, seems uninterested in holding its own government to account. An apparently unreformed Syrian regime has offered to restore the old, predictable political order, albeit in substantially worse material circumstances. Many Syrians seem willing to accept that bargain.

And maybe the rest of the world will, too. Throughout the conference, speakers floated the possibility of renewed ties with Europe, but normalization with the United States seems to have been considered a bridge too far.

Yet when I asked Foreign Minister Moallem, more than a week before the U.S. presidential election, if he would consider cooperation with a President Donald Trump against the Islamic State, he said yes, unequivocally. “Through airstrikes, you cannot defeat ISIS. You need ground forces,” he said. “Our main goal is to defeat ISIS, not to defeat the United States.”

Since Trump’s election, Syrian officials have expressed cautious optimism about a thaw with the United States. Trump, for his part, has made clear that he is interested in fighting the Islamic State, not the Syrian government. And if Trump seriously pursues cooperation with Russia, it doesn’t seem impossible that the United States could begin coordinating with Moscow’s ally in Damascus. left the Syrian capital thinking that the Assad regime was unable to change. But if everyone is changing around it, maybe it won’t have to.

Why climate justice must also be a struggle for sovereignty Morgan Curtis New Internationalist

T

he Dakota access pipeline is ver y much on the minds of indigenous delegates at the UN summit in Morocco ‘What would you die for?’

The question isn’t heard often at the UN Climate Negotiations, but it did break into the halls of power on Thursday 17 November. It was posed by indigenous youth delegate Niria Alicia Garcia Torres.’ Tell me, what is it you would die for?

And what do you stand for?’

These same questions are guiding the hearts of protestors on the treaty lands of the Standing Rock Sioux in North Dakota, USA. Members of over 200 tribes and thousands

of allies have gathered over the past seven months to oppose the Dakota Access pipeline, facing off militarized police, sound cannons, rubber bullets, pepper spray and attack dogs to defend their lives, land and water from a 1,172mile oil pipeline, which they call the ‘black snake’.

The pipeline is threatening the Missouri River, surrounding land, and Lakota cultural and burial sites. A group of Standing Rock Lakota youth ran to Washington, DC to deliver a message to President Obama in April. Their act of prayer kicked off camps that have captured the world’s attention, bringing to light issues of indigenous sovereignty and improper consultation after centuries of silence.

The struggle in Dakota

is uppermost in delegate’s minds at the COP22 climate summit in Morocco. On Sunday 13 November, the International Indigenous Peoples’ Forum on Climate Change released a solidarity statement.

First peoples from six continents condemned the pipeline and stood with the Standing Rock Sioux and allies in their resistance.

The common sentiment here among indigenous representatives is that all struggles are connected. Solidarity crystallized around the international day of action ‘#NoDAPL’ (North Dakota Access Pipeline) on Tuesday.

Youth delegate Garcia Torres stood with fellow members of the Indigenous Youth Caucus and hundreds of others by the 193 flags of the United Na-

tions.

As protestors shut down banks funding the Dakota Access, the climate-justice community at COP22 took a moment’s pause from negotiations in Marrakesh to honour the courage of those on the frontlines.

Later, at sunset, a circle of nearly 200 people joined hands to encircle a smaller group of indigenous leaders.

Prayer began with the soft words of Elder Francois Paulette of Dene Nation, thanking the Amazigh ancestors on whose ground we stood, calling in the four directions and permission of Mother Earth.

Sage invited in each participant as Kayla DeVault, SustainUS delegate from Navajo Nation, walked the inner circumference, carrying

a smudge stick. In a stark departure from conventional protest actions at the UN, several ‘no camera’ signs surrounded the circle, and each passer-by who lifted a phone for a selfie was firmly stopped.

‘You are welcome to join us, but please don’t take photos. This is a ceremonial space,’ they were told.

Just 300 kilometres south of the conference centre another indigenous community faces a fight to Standing Rock.

The Amazigh Ait Atta people of Imider have occupied the land around a valve to an industrial well that has drained their water for a Managem silver mine – run by a corporation owned by the King – for the last six years.

‘Five years on,’ said Moroccan activist Nadir Bouh-

mouch as he joined the prayer circle, ‘the tents of our protest camp have become permanent clay and stone dwellings as we continue to stand, sleep, eat and sing in the way of a mining corporation that has polluted our water and soil.

‘We should say that we hope your camp will flourish like ours, but it seems it already has,’ he added. ‘We wish you victory.’

The struggle at Standing Rock is a shining light in a dark time for climate action in the United States. But we should remember that this fight is not just about climate change, or fossil fuels, or even clean water. This is a struggle for sovereignty, for the rights of tribes to determine their own destiny.

As COP22 draws to a close,

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

one solution to Standing Rock’s struggle would be to see their eight-tipi flag flying among thousands of others at a more inclusive United Nations.

It is also clear that with an incoming President Trump, the possibility of the US abandoning the Paris Agreement entirely, and the third consecutive warmest year on record, climate justice is ever more likely to be in the hands of the people, not the policymakers.

For those digging in for a North Dakota winter, the question of sovereignty, of the sacredness of life, runs much deeper than politics and negotiations. It boils down to two simple questions: ‘Do we stand for life?

Would we die for?’

8

friDAY 25•11•2016

INDIA

THE MORUNG EXPRESS

Demonetisation is "organised loot, legalised plunder": Manmohan Singh NEW dElHi, NovEmBER 24 (iANS): Former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a globally respected economist, on Thursday called the demonetisation drive a case of "organised loot and legalised plunder", warning that it will drag India's GDP by 2 percentage points.

The scathing criticism from the Congress leader, who opened up India's economy in 1991, invited a rebuke from Finance Minister Arun Jaitley who alleged that most black money was accumulated in India from 2004-14 when Manmohan Singh headed a coalition government.

The former Prime Minister, a front bencher in the Rajya Sabha, made a rare speech in the House to talk on the government's move of spiking 500 and 1,000 rupee notes and how it was going to impact India's economy.

"The national income, that is the GDP of the country, can decline by about 2 percentage points as a result of what has been done.

This is an underestimate, not an overestimate," said the Oxford- and Cambridge-educated economist. "What has been done can also weaken and erode our people's confidence in the currency system and in the banking system.

"It is no good that every day the banking system comes up with new rules. It reflects very poorly on the Prime Minister's Office, the Finance Minister's Office

The former Prime Minister warned that the ‘monumental mismanagement’ will hurt agricultural growth, drag GDP by 2%

and the Reserve Bank of India," said the economist who has also served as an RBI Governor.

As the man of few words spoke for about seven minutes, a hushed Rajya Sabha listened quietly with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Jaitley also present.

There were loud cheers from the Opposition benches and some from the treasury nodded their heads.

"In the process of demonetisation, monumental mismanagement has been undertaken about which there are no two opinions in country as a whole," he said.

"It is a case of organised loot and legalised plunder.

It is not my intention to pick holes. I sincerely hope the

Railways review safety preparedness in 6 zones NEW dElHi, NovEmBER 24 (pTi): Against the backdrop of the recent Indore-Patna Express derailment which left 150 people dead, the Railways today reviewed its safety preparedness at six vulnerable zones.

The officials and gang-men from East-Central, Eastern, South-East-Central, East Coast, North-East Frontier and Southern zones participated in the meeting in presence of Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain, a senior Railway Ministry official said.

He said the zones as of late have been identified as vulnerable for mishaps. "There has been some concern about safety issues in these zones. More such reviews will follow," the official said. Besides senior Railway officials, grassroot workers like track maintainers also participated in the review meeting. Gohain called upon the Zonal Railways to continue to give top priority to safety in rail operations.

Mayawati dares PM to seek fresh mandate NEW dElHi, NovEmBER 24 (pTi): BSP supremo Mayawati today dared Prime Minister Narendra Modi to hold fresh elections to know the people's view on demonetisation.

"I want to tell Prime Minister Narendra Modi that if you really are an honest man and want a correct survey and if you have guts, then dissolve Parliament and hold fresh elections," she said over the demonetisation issue.

Her remarks came a day after the PMO said that more than 93 per cent of the five lakh people who participated in a survey on Narendra Modi App have supported demonetisation. The issue of demonetisation has rocked both the Houses since the commencement of the winter session. Blaming BJP for the disruption, Mayawati said the entire Opposition is seeking PM's presence in Parliament.

Panama papers probe going on 'very seriously', govt tells SC NEW dElHi, NovEmBER 24 (iANS): The Union government on Thursday told the Supreme Court that it has set-up a Multi-Agency Group (MAG) to investigate people whose names surfaced in Panama Papers leaks as having overseas accounts and was taking the entire matter "very seriously".

Additional Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the bench of Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Amitava Roy that the MAG has already submitted five reports to the court-appointed SIT probing the black money stashed abroad.

The MAG consists of officers of Central Board of Direct Taxes, including its Member, Investigation, the Reserve Bank of India, the Enforcement Directorate and the Financial Intelligence Unit.

The court was told that the SIT headed by former apex court judge Justice M.B.Shah in turn has submitted a report to the court in a sealed cover. Besides Justice Shah, another former top court judge, Justice Arijit Pasayat is its Vice-Chairman.

The SIT set up under the July 4, 2011 apex court order, has been mandated to undertake the investigations into the unaccounted money stashed away outside the country to tax havens and foreign bank and take steps to bring it back.

Prime Minister, even at this late hour, will find a solution."

Manmohan Singh's worries come against the backdrop of a host of economists, experts and think tanks revising downward their growth outlook for India, with the most pessimistic forecast being a mere 0.5 per cent growth by Ambit Capital for the six-month period ending March 31, 2017. The Indian economy had expanded by 7.2 percent during the third quarter ended December 31 of last fiscal year and by 7.6 per cent for the year as a whole.

The former Prime Minister wondered if the government was aware of the extent of hardship that demonetisation had caused to small businesses, the

common man and the rural economy.

He reminded the government that 90% of the work force was in the informal sector and 55 per cent of those in the agriculture sector were in distress now.

"The cooperative banking sector, which is serving a large number of people in the rural sector, is not operational. The way in which demonetisation has been implemented will hurt agriculture and small industries."

He also quoted John Maynard Keynes to counter Modi's appeal to the people to bear with him for 50 days. "Those who say demonetisation is good in long run should recall the quote: 'In the

Carried 30 km by father for want of cash, ailing boy dies JAmmU, NovEmBER 24 (iNdiAN ExpRESS): Carried on his father’s shoulders for 30 km through hills and forests from Doonga village in Samba district of Jammu & Kashmir, an ailing nine-year-old died before they could reach the nearest medical facility in Mansar. Mohammad Haroon, 28, who belongs to the nomadic Bakerwal community, said he had to walk because he had no currency notes to pay travel fare. He had Rs 29,000 in old notes but failed to exchange them in two J&K Bank branches — the managers of both branches said they would have given him the exchange had he approached them and told them of his urgency.

Along the way with his son, Haroon negotiated a ride but the driver eventually refused to accept his old notes, forcing Haroon to discard the highway for a shorter route through forests.

Haroon’s son Muneer, a class II student, died Friday night. Samba district magistrate Sheetal Nanda has sought a report on what he went though.

Sumb naib tehsildar Kuldeep Raj Goran police post in-charge Nanak Chand visited Haroon Monday and recorded his statement. Nanda told The Indian Express she is yet to see their report but felt Haroon’s visits to the bank are not the reason for his child’s death.

Haroon said Muneer fell ill on

long run we are all dead'." he had moved a contempt notice against Prime MinBJP defend move ister Narendra Modi in the The government re- Rajya Sabha for his continturned the criticism and ued absence from the uptargeted Manmohan Singh per house. and his tenure as the head "I have submitted the of a multi-party govern- text of the notice to the Rament led by the Congress. jya Sabha Secretary Gen"It is disappointing to hear eral. If it is accepted, I will from people who were in seek a discussion tomorcharge of the government row (Friday). If not, we will when the most black mon- seek reasons for the notice's ey was generated, most rejection," the Communist corruption scandals came Party of India-Marxist leadto the fore," Jaitley said, er told reporters. referring to the financial He said four lakh peoscams that emerged during ple have lost their jobs in Manmohan Singh's rule the last few days and millions of daily wagers were CPI-m, Cong not getting paid because mP fIle notICes of the November 8 demonMeanwhile, CPI-M etisation of Rs 500 and Rs General Secretary Sitaram 1,000 currency.

Yechury on Thursday said "Why doesn't the gov-

November 14. On the first day, they tried giving him black tea mixed with local herbs. When they decided to take him to Mansar, Haroon found he had only Rs 100 or Rs 150 in smaller notes besides the Rs 29,000 in Rs 500s and Rs 1,000s. He said over the next three days, he first trekked 8 km to J&K Bank in Khoon, then spent his change travelling to J&K Branch in Ramkote and back, but his turn never came in either branch. He has an account in both.

On November 18 afternoon, Haroon lifted Muneer on his shoulders and, along with his wife Rafiqa, began the walk. They trekked 9 km on hilly terrain before reaching the road at Khoon around 8 pm.

ernment allow all white transactions through old notes or make alternate arrangements?" he said.

Congress Rajya Sabha MP from Goa Shantaram Naik filed a breach of privilege notice against Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday, for making statements on demonetisation outside Parliament, even when both the Houses are in session.

According to a statement issued by Naik, the notice has been filed under Rule 187 and 188 of Rules Of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Council of States (Rajya Sabha). "It was improper for the Prime Minister to make a statement on demonetisation outside Par-

liament when both the Houses of Parliament were in session," Naik said.

The lone Rajya Sabha MP from Goa also said that Modi's address at the public rally in Agra on November 19, where he commented on the demonetisation decision, violated the rules of parliamentary business.

"The Prime Minister did not think it necessary to come and attend the Rajya Sabha and intervene in the debate, thereby committing another breach of privilege of the House," he said. The Opposition has been demanding a statement from Modi on the demonetisation issue and the Prime Minister is expected to make a statement in Parliament soon.

Class 5 & 8 students likely to face annual exams Protests flare in Jharkhand after NEW dElHi, NovEmBER 24 (iANS): With a survey indicating the need for significant improvement in their learning levels, the government on Thursday indicated that students of Classes 5 and 8 may have to appear for annual examinations.

"According to an annual survey by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) on the learning achievement of children in Classes 3, 5, 8 and 10, there is a need for significant improvement in learning levels," Minister of State for Human Resource Development Upendra Kushwaha told the Rajya Sabha.

"The survey also noted that the learning level of children depends on several factors, including socio-economic, socio-geographic, the educational background of the students, availability of basic infrastructure/amenities in schools, availability of trained and competent teachers in the schools and so on," the Minister said in a written reply.

Citing section 29 of the Right to Education (RTE) Act 2009, Kushwaha said the schools and respective governments are free to conduct periodic examinations for children of all levels.

Section 29 stipulates that there should be Continuous and Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) of every child to assess their learning levels and provide additional instruction accordingly.

NITI Aayog to revamp UGC for better quality education NEW dElHi, NovEmBER 24 (iANS): The regulatory framework of the University Grants Commission (UGC) will undergo revamp to enhance the quality of higher education in India, the government said on Thursday.

The NITI Aayog has been assigned to recommend measures for improvement in the regulatory framework of the UGC, Minister of State for Human Resource Development Mahendra Nath Pandey informed the Rajya Sabha.

"The objectives of this task are to examine and improve the existing higher education regulatory framework in line with contemporary national and global requirements and to enhance the quality of higher education in India," Pandey said in a written reply to the house.

The minister said NITI Aayog along with the Department of Higher Education, Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and the UGC were assigned the task of finalising a regulatory framework for setting up of 20 world-class institutions.

The guidelines will suggest the roadmap for implementation of the regulatory framework. The identification/selection of the institutes for world class institutions will be made only after the guidelines and regulations are finalised and notified," he said.

"The draft regulations and guidelines for the same have been placed in the public domain for comments," Pandey added.

"Under the CCE framework, schools and respective governments are free to conduct periodic examinations for children of all levels," said the Minister.

Earlier in October, the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) had agreed for amending the 'no detention policy' under the RTE Act and allow the state governments to decide on introducing annual examinations for students of Classes 5 and 8.

Under the 'no detention policy', students up to Class 8 are automatically promoted to the next class without being held back even if they do not get a passing grade.

Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar, earlier in the month had said that the government will reintroduce compulsory Class 10 board examination for CBSE schools from the 2017-18 academic year.

changes to decades-old land laws

BHUBANESWAR, NovEmBER 24 (THomSoN REUTERS FoUNdATioN): Protests over land rights flared for a second day in Jharkhand, as activists and indigenous people took to the streets after the state assembly approved amendments to colonial-era land laws despite strong opposition.

The state assembly on Wednesday approved changes to two laws that will allow the state to buy protected tribal land to lease to investors, as well as use agricultural land for nonagricultural purposes.

Unruly scenes unfolded in the assembly in state capital Ranchi, with an opposition member hurling a shoe at the speaker, while police used teargas and water cannons to disperse protesters outside.

State government officials say amendments to the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act and the Santhal Pargana Tenancy Act will help lure investment to one of the country's poorest states.

Easier access to land in the resource-rich state will also help create critical infrastructure including roads, hospitals and schools, state officials said.

"The changes to the laws will help people use the land for commercial purposes; it will benefit them," Revenue Minister Amar Kumar Bauri told the

Thomson Reuters Foundation.

"We did it after wide consultations," he said, denying the opposition parties' charge that consultations were not held.

Conflicts over land in India have increased as the economy expands and more land is sought for industrial use and development projects.

While several laws have been introduced in the past decade to protect the rights of farmers and indigenous people, some laws have been diluted in their implementation and not always helped the most vulnerable, activists say.

Those opposed to the changes to the Jharkhand laws say they will deprive tribal people of their rights and leave them with fewer resources. More than a quarter of the state's population belong to indigenous, tribal communities, and protests have raged for months, with one person killed in Saiko last month in clashes with police.

Former chief minister Babulal Marandi, head of the Jharkhand Vikas Morcha party, said opposition parties have called for a state-wide strike on Friday, and that protests will continue.

"There was no demand for a change in these laws from the people. A large number of industries were set up even with the old laws," he said.

Premature babies can become healthy with specialised care NEW dElHi, NovEmBER 24 (iANS): Most premature babies can become perfectly healthy and evolve normally in both body and mind -- but only if they get specialised medical care after birth, health experts suggest.

Premature babies are those born before 37 weeks of gestation. Although some premature babies show normal growth, some may have continuing problems that adversely effect their growth and development.

"The organs of premature babies are not fully developed and they face different problems. These can be related to breathing, blood circulation, di-

gestion, feeding, issues concerning the brain and other challenges," Nupur Gupta, Gynecologist and Obstetrician and Director of Gurgaon's Well Woman Clinic, told IANS. These babies may also be prone to the risk of developing hypothermia infection, brain hemorrhage and retinopathy of prematurity.

However, timely intervention can help the baby to be healthy both physically and mentally.

The care of such babies depends upon the condition and level of prematurity at the time of birth.

More than three-quarters of premature babies can be saved with feasible and

cost-effective care.

"A premature baby needs special care in the form of incubator care, special intravenous nutrition (TPN - total parental nutrition), ventilator for supporting breathing problems, facility to screen fora hole in the heart and retina check-ups," Kumar Ankur, Associate Consultant, Pediatric and Neonatalogy Department, BLK Super Speciality Hospital, New Delhi, told IANS. The survival rate of the premature babies depends upon the gestation at birth.

The prematurity is categorised as mild prematurity, moderate prematurity and severe prematurity.

"The rate of survival of

the premature babies is approximately 75 per cent if they are mild premature plus have best medical care with a skilled neonatal care team," Ankur added.

The treatment and type of medical interventions of premature babies also depend on their breathing. They are supported to regulate their breathing, manage body temperature, monitor feeding or if they require any specific treatment.

"The Kangaroo care and breastfeeding also play an important part in the treatment as the mother's skin to skin contact and the nutrients present in breast milk have a great impact on the betterment

of the baby's health," Ankur added.

The parents are also involved in this specific requirement to promote the health and outcome of the babies.

"Caring for a premature baby takes lots of care and attention. Some premature babies may require fluids given intravenously or through a feeding tube (initial stages)," Rashmi Sammi, Consultant Gynaecologist and Obstetrician, Amandeep Hospital, added.

According to experts, it is better to shift where NICU care is available once one is clear that it would lead to premature delivery as the baby may

need special care.

Parents of premature babies also go through a lot of emotional ups and downs.

"For parents, a premature baby takes a big toll on their emotions and can cause significant psychological trauma and even post-partum depression in some mothers. Parents who take help in coping during such situations are able to nurture their preterm newborns more efficiently," Gupta explained.

"Make sure that as parents, your relationship with the child is close, connected and mutually enjoyable; a little bit of help will make all the difference," Gupta concluded.

fridAY 25•11•2016

WORLD

THE MORUNG EXPRESS

9

Iraqi Christians revisit ghost town abandoned by IS bARTELLA, NovEmbER 24 (REuTERs): A damaged picture of Jesus and a CD from his daughter’s wedding were pretty much all Iraqi Christian Said Shaba found when he returned to the ransacked house he had to flee when Islamic State arrived two and a half years ago.

The militants stole a safe with his savings and set the two-storey house ablaze before Iraqi forces pushed them out a month ago from the northern town of Bartella as part of a campaign to retake nearby Mosul, the group’s last stronghold in Iraq.

With the jihadists using suicide car bombers to stop an army advance on Mosul located just 20 km (12 miles) away, Bartella remains a tense ghost town.

Black army Humvees patrol the potholed streets where Islamic State fighters set homes on fire, while rows of shops and restaurants have been flattened during fighting.

But tired of living with his seven-member family in a rented house in nearby Erbil, Shaba and other Christians came to check on their houses for the first time since fleeing Bartella in 2014 when Islamic State seized Mosul and much of Iraq’s north.

“They destroyed and stole everything. They even took away our safe,” the 59-year-old said, pointing to a wardrobe in his bedroom where a safe containing $1,400 in local currency and dollars once stood.

When rumours of an

Risking flames and mines, Iraq oil workers battle to cap burning wells

A Christian woman inspects a home in the town of Bartella east of Mosul, Iraq, after it was liberated from Islamic State militants on November 23. (REUTERS Photo)

Islamic State offensive in August 2014 spread, Shaba drove his family to the safety of Erbil one morning, planning to return to take cash and documents. But he never made it back as the jihadists were already in control of Bartella by the afternoon.

His petrol storage facility, the family’s main source of income, a few blocks from his modest house, was destroyed during fighting, he said.

Luckily, among the debris on the house’s floor a picture of Jesus survived though militants tore out parts of the face. His wife Nidhal kissed the painting and put it on a wall in the ransacked reception room.

A CD containing pictures of their daughter’s wedding also made it through the occupation.

“They have left nothing intact including windows, doors and walls,” said Milano Yousuf, the daughter.

“This CD is more important to me than all the furniture.

It is irreplaceable.”

SHI’ITES Returning for good to Bartella and other nearby towns is not option for now for thousands of civilians -- Christians and Muslims alike -- as the battle for Mosul drags on.

The army has closed Bartella and other towns and villages, using them as forward base. Special forces commanders and U.S. officers, who have been backing the army campaign, met in the town on Wednesday.

The Iraqis and the Americans arriving in Hum-

vees declined to discuss the meeting, which took place amid heightened security.

Dozens of army vehicles with mounted guns were parked on an unpaved square in the town.

The army only lets in civilians selectively to inspect their houses and take some belongings, officers say. Still, many hope they can stay.

Hundreds were queuing at a checkpoint, where officers sent many back for lack of paperwork. Shaba, the Christian entrepreneur, said he got his army permit to go home only through “wasta”, or personal connections.

“We need to make sure the places are safe, that Daesh left no bombs,” said an Iraqi officer, using a derogatory Arabic term for Islamic State.

Apart from Christians, there were also many Shi’ites, seen by Islamic State as heretics, trying to head home.

“We are trying to see our house for the first time since we fled in August 2014,” said 28-year-old Ahmed Ali, a Shi’ite who escaped with his 17-member family from their Bartella home when the militants approached. His cousin was killed by the Sunni fighters, he said.

“Life has become very difficult, paying rents in Erbil with very little work,” he said, standing with a veiled relative near the checkpoint where soldiers told civilians without permits go back. “We don’t know whether our house still stands but we hope to go back soon, God willing.”

QAYYARA, NovEmbER 24 (REuTERs): His face blackened and helmet coated in soot, Hussein Saleh watched the oil fields of his home town in northern Iraq burn, belching up thick smoke that blotted out the sun.

Dozens of fellow workers and engineers from Iraq’s North Oil Company, wearing dirty jackets and overalls with scarves wrapped around their faces, started up their water tankers and bulldozers for the day’s work.

Their job: to extinguish and cap another oil well that Islamic State militants set ablaze when U.S.-backed Iraqi forces drove them out of Qayyara in August.

“I’ve worked in oil for 30 years and I’ve never seen anything like this,” 57-year-old Saleh said, standing close enough to the flames to feel the heat.

“Daesh (Islamic State) just put explosives on the wellheads and blew them up,” he said.

The men work in large teams to reduce the blaze, contain the fire and then cap the well. Each fire can take days to put out, Saleh said. Since October they have capped at least seven or eight wells, with more than a dozen more to go.

But the work has been dangerous. On top of the fires and the potential for inhaling toxic smoke, the area is still being cleared of Islamic State booby traps and landmines.

Qayyara’s burning oil fields vividly depict the destruction the group wrought on northern Iraq, as Iraqi forces backed by a U.S.-led coalition battle to drive the jihadists out of their stronghold in nearby Mosul.

Islamic State has made hundreds of millions of dollars through sale on the black market of oil from the fields it captured in Iraq and Syria when took over swathes of both countries in 2014, according to U.S. government estimates.

OIL SMUGGLING It has suffered a near collapse in oil smuggling revenue, however, since losing control of a series of oil fields in 2015 and 2016.

In Qayyara, the job of cleaning up the mess has just begun, and is slow and challenging.

“We use water, earth, everything we can to control and reduce the blaze, and it’s a big team -- perhaps 150 people working on one well,” supervisor Ahmed Hidayat, 54, said.

“Earth is bulldozed over the burning oil surrounding the well so we can get close to it, and then when we’re close enough we cap the well.

“We try to plug it with a new wellhead instead of cementing it over, because then we’d have to drill through again.”

On Wednesday the men prepared to cap another well, spraying water onto the fire that turned the black smoke white.

As they did so, an explosion rang out close to the well - a controlled detonation

by Iraqi sappers of an Islamic State IED. “There were mines laid around the wells,” Saleh explained.

“A policeman was wounded five days ago. He put one foot off the road and stepped on a mine. It’s a bit scary, you don’t know where they might be.”

Sabah Ali, a worker from another oilproducing town northwest of Mosul, said he was worried for his health because of prolonged exposure to the fumes.

“It’s hard work. The fires are massive and you breathe in so much smoke,” he said. “Someone choked on it recently and had to be treated by our medical team.”

But the men, some of whom haven’t worked for two years because they lived in areas under Islamic State control, say they are happy to be receiving their wages again, plus danger money of around $50 a day.

At least 67 killed in China power plant mishap Urban sprawl threatens Thailand’s Ayutthaya world bEIJING, NovEmbER 24 (REuTERs): Rescuers in China were battling on Thursday to free a worker trapped after the collapse of a platform under construction at a power plant killed at least 67 people, state media said.

Deadly accidents are relatively common at industrial sites in China, where anger over lax standards is growing. Three decades of swift economic growth have been marred by incidents ranging from mining disasters to factory fires.

Five injured workers were taken to hospital soon after Thursday morning’s accident at the plant in Fengcheng in the eastern province of Jiangxi, the official Xinhua news

agency said.

State television, which put the death toll at 67, said rescuers were trying to free one trapped worker.

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has ordered an investigation, demanding that those responsible for the accident should be held accountable, the central government said.

“Strengthen supervision and preventive measures, prevent such a major accident from happening again,” it cited Li as saying in a statement on its website. Xinhua did not identify the type of power plant, but previous state media reports have said it was coal-powered.

China has vowed to improve safety at such facilities. President Xi

Jinping has said authorities would learn the lessons paid for with blood after chemical blasts in the port city of Tianjin killed more than 170 people last year.

Shortly after those explosions, Yang Dongliang was removed from his post as director of the State Administration of Work Safety, and later charged with corruption.

During his trial, which ended on Thursday, he admitted to taking bribes and gifts worth 28.5 million yuan ($4.12 million), state television reported. He will be sentenced later, it added.

It was not immediately possible to reach Yang’s legal representative for comment.

Malaysia in pilot scheme to allow Rohingya refugees to work KuALA LumPuR, NovEmbER 24 (THomsoN REuTERs FouNdATIoN): The U.N. refugee agency said on Thursday it was working with Malaysia on a pilot scheme to allow refugees from Myanmar’s persecuted Rohingya minority to work in the country, in a move that it described as a “win-win” solution.

Rights advocates have long urged Malaysia, which hosts some 150,000 refugees and asylum-seekers including about 55,000 Rohingya,

to extend right of employment to the group as a way to ensure they enjoy greater protection and self-reliance.

Many refugees are trapped in a limbo in Malaysia as they are not allowed to work legally while resettlement to a third country remains a slow process. Malaysia is not a signatory to the U.N. Refugee Convention.

Under the pilot scheme, a group of 300 Rohingya would be allowed to work legally in the plantation and manufacturing sec-

tors, according to Malaysian officials. The UNHCR office in Kuala Lumpur said the trial could pave the way for a broader work scheme for refugees in Malaysia.

“A regulated scheme for refugees is a ‘win-win’ all round,” spokeswoman Yante Ismail said in a statement to the Thomson Reuters Foundation. She said refugees could be a valuable labour source for Malaysia’s economy and that by allowing them to work legally, it would help the government to better man-

age the group.

Malaysian authorities have said in the past they would consider allowing refugees to work but details had been sketchy. Some officials feared a relaxation of the policy would lead to an influx of migrant workers. Malaysia’s deputy home minister told the Thomson Reuters Foundation in August that it was making a fresh push on the issue of access to work following the formation of a joint task force comprising several ministries as well as UNHCR.

heritage site

bANGKoK, NovEmbER 24 (REuTERs): Sprawling urban growth and water management problems are threatening conservation efforts at Thailand’s ancient city of Ayutthaya, experts say.

The UNESCO World Heritage site located some 80 kms (50 miles) north of the capital, Bangkok, was once among the world’s wealthiest cities and a major trading port from the 14th to 18th centuries.

Today, the city attracts tourists from around the world who come to admire the ruins and stone Buddha statues at Ayutthaya, once the ancient capital of Thailand, then known as Siam.

However, poor urban planning and its impact on water management in the low-lying area pose a threat to the historic park, said Montira Horayangura Unakul, National Professional Officer with UNESCO’s Culture Unit.

“Half the island is protected as a historic park and is also a world heritage site and the eastern half is where a lot of the modern

A combination picture shows a Buddha head entwined within the roots of a tree (C) and the remains of Buddha statues in the ruins of the ancient city of Ayutthaya, Thailand on July 14, 2016. (REUTERS File Photo)

development has taken place,” Montira told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Rapid development has fuelled concern over the area’s capacity to defend against floods.

Devastating floods in Thailand in 2011, which killed more than 900 people and cost billions of dollars, hit Ayutthaya. Dozens of temples were inundated for weeks, although most

suffered little damage.

“Once the waters receded there didn’t seem to be too much damage,” said Montira.

“However, after that we found residual effects for example to mural paintings.”

A lack of knowledge about traditional materials used at some sites is another problem that besets Ayutthaya and other heritage sites, including the

awe-inspiring Angkor Wat temple complex in neighbouring Cambodia.

“An issue we are trying to address now is knowing what the ancient materials used in Ayutthaya were and what the composition of them was,” Montira said.

Thailand held an international conference, in collaboration with UNESCO, last month to discuss conservation of brick monuments at the site.

Spice of life: Saffron harvest offers jobs & opportunity in Afghanistan HERAT, NovEmbER 24 (REuTERs): It is early morning in a saffron field outside the western Afghan city of Herat and dozens of women are harvesting the delicate purple flowers, working quickly to gather as many as they can before the sun gets too hot.

Saffron is the most expensive spice in the world, selling for as much as $1,200-$1,800 a kilogram, and has long been seen as an alternative crop to opium poppies for poor farmers in a country struggling with the legacy of decades of war and lawlessness.

So far, it has had little impact on the opium trade which the United Nations estimates is worth some $3 billion a year in Afghanistan, source of most of the world’s opium, from which heroin is produced.

mand for Afghan saffron,” said Bashir Ahmad Rashidi, head of the Ariana Saffron Company, which exports to countries from France to Turkey, India and the United States.

Just as importantly, it offers work for women whose employment opportunities are otherwise limited.

“We are very happy about saffron cultivation because it has paved the way for women to find jobs,” said Khanum Rassoli, who leads a team picking flowers for Ariana Saffron. “...It’s mostly women doing the harvesting and processing.”

Known to have been cultivated in what is now Afghan women collect saffron flowers in the Karukh district of Herat, Afghanistan on Afghanistan at least 2,000 November 5. (REUTERS File Photo) years ago, saffron is well Even so, the Afghan saf- utation for quality in a accounts for almost 90 per- suited to the dry climate, fron industry has grown market still dominated by cent of global production. heavily labour intensive and is establishing a rep- neighbouring Iran, which “There is a huge de- but requiring little so-

phisticated machinery or capital.

The harvest is a tricky operation that begins in October and lasts just three weeks before the flowers begin to die. Workers pick about 10 kg of flowers a day, earning some 25 afghani ($0.38) per kilo.

BRIGHT SPOT Once the flowers are picked, tiny orange stigmas are separated by hand for drying with about 450,000 stigmas needed to produce just one kilogram of the sharp and fragrant spice, used for seasoning and colouring from southern Europe to South Asia.

Afghanistan produces around four tons a year, a figure dwarfed by the more than 200 tons Iran produces, but it is a rare bright spot in an economy struggling to get to its feet.

“Over the past two years, we’ve seen saffron having a good impact on the economy of families and our country,” said Rashidi from his office in the ancient city of Herat.

The industry was revived by refugees returning from Iran in the 1990s and much work has gone into establishing Afghan saffron as an international brand.

However competition from Iran is fierce, reflecting the experience in other sectors where cheap imports pose a threat to the emergence of a strong local industry.

“We can find Iranian saffron in Herat saffron markets and I hope those who import Iranian saffron into Afghanistan think about the quality of Afghan saffron compared to Iranian saffron,” Rashidi said.

The other challenge is

opium, far and away Afghanistan’s biggest export.

Government programmes and Western donors provide assistance but loosening the grip of drugs networks, including those run

by Taliban militants, is a distant target.

However the World Bank estimates more than 6,000 farmers in Herat already produce saffron and the latest U.N. figures indicate that opium cultivation decreased in both Herat and neighbouring Farah province last year.

Gul Ahmad, a farmer, said with more help, the industry will develop further.

“Saffron is better than poppy because poppy cultivation caused negative impacts on society and the young generation,” he said.

“Saffron is a legal business and it produces a good income.”

10

FriDAY 25•11•2016

SPORTS

THE MORUNG EXPRESS

Jenson Button says Abu Dhabi will be his last race

Abu DHAbI, november 24 (reuters): Jenson Button says he has no plans to race again in Formula One after Sunday's season-ending Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, even though McLaren are keeping the door open for a possible return in 2018.

"I go into this weekend thinking it is going to be my last race. I think that is the best way to be," the 2009 world champion told reporters on Thursday.

"At this moment in time I do not want to be racing in Formula One past this race.

I think of this as my last race and hopefully everybody else does as well." The 36-yearold Briton will be replaced at McLaren by Belgian rookie

Brazil close gap on Argentina at top of FIFA World rankings ZurIcH, november 24 (reuters): Brazil have leapfrogged World Cup holders Germany into second place in the latest FIFA world rankings released on Thursday, narrowing the gap on their traditional rivals Argentina, who are still the world's top-ranked team.

Brazil have won their last six World Cup qualifiers, and beat Argentina 3-0 earlier this month.

Chile have climbed above Belgium and Colombia into fourth place in the rankings, while Wales and England have dropped a place each into 12th and 13th, respectively, with Ireland climbing 10 places to break into the top-25.

Armenia are the biggest movers, jumping 38 places to 87th-place, while Chad have fared the worst, plunging 49 places to 152nd.

Iran are still Asia's highest-ranked team despite falling three place down to 30th, while the Netherlands have fallen two places and are currently in 22nd place, one behind Euro 2016 surprise package Iceland.

The next set of FIFA World Rankings will be released on Dec. 22.

Stoffel Vandoorne next season but the team have presented the veteran's departure as a year's sabbatical.

That was seen by many as more of an insurance policy in case Spaniard Fernando Alonso decided to walk away at the end of 2017, as well as strengthening McLaren's hand in contract negotiations.

Asked what had changed since September, when the announcement was made, Button said there was nothing in particular. "I don’t want to go into this race and think it’s not my last.

And it is my last," he said. "It is true that I have a contract for 2018 but at this moment in time I don’t want to be racing in 2018.

"The whole idea about having a contract was that in three months’ time, when I’ve eaten myself stupid and am thinking of things to do in the future and maybe feel I need Formula One back in my life...

"But at this moment in time that isn’t the case.

So this is my last race and that’s the way I think about it at the moment. But who knows? That could change in six months, eight months, one year."

Button is the most experienced Formula One driver on the grid, and Sunday's race will be the 305th start of a career that started with Williams in 2000. He won the title with Brawn, the team that emerged from the embers of Honda and became Mercedes.

Formula One has been his life's focus since he started out in karting.

"It has been a long journey," he said. "You get to Formula One with many dreams and you aspire to be something. You hope to leave the sport with memories and that is something I definitely do have. "I raced with two of the teams I dreamt of racing for as a kid, Williams and McLaren, and when I did win the championship it was with a privateer team which I think is also pretty special."

love's powers cavaliers over portland Los AngeLes, no vember 24 (AFP): Kevin Love scored 34 firstquarter points, the second-most in any quarter in NBA history, on his way to a season-high 40 points Wednesday as the Cleveland Cavaliers beat Portland 137-125.

The 28-year-old power forward made eight 3-point shots in the opening quarter, joining his first-quarter point total as a club record, and he hit his first seven shots, six of them 3-pointers.

"I had a good rhythm, made my first couple shots," Love said. "And it was on from there."

The NBA record for points in any quarter remains the 37 points

by Golden State's Klay Thompson in the third period against Sacramento two seasons ago.

LeBron James contributed 31 points, 13 assists and 10 rebounds for his 44th career triple double as Cleveland improved to 11-2.

The reigning NBA champion Cavaliers set NBA records for 3-pointers in a half with 16 in the first half and matched club records for points in a quarter with 46 and 3-pointers in a regularseason contest with 21.

Love could have matched Thompson for the quarter-scoring mark but clanked a 3-point shot off the rim with 75 seconds remaining in the opening

Cleveland Cavaliers forward Kevin Love dribbles the ball while Indiana Pacers forward Thaddeus Young defends. (USA TODAY Sports)

period.

"I kept trying to go to him.

I wanted him to continue to touch it," Cavaliers coach Tyronn Lue said. "I thought we did a good job trying to find him. I knew the record was 37. We kept looking for Kevin and he kept making shots, but we weren't able to get him to 37."

Love hit 8 of 10 shots from beyond the arc in the first quarter and 11 of 14 overall. He broke the prior Cavaliers one-quarter record of 24 points set by James but fell short of his one-game career-high 51 points.

James assisted on seven

Du Plessis hits defiant ton to silence Adelaide boos

ADeLAIDe, november 24 (reuters): South Africa skipper Faf du Plessis silenced the boos of the Adelaide crowd with a defiant century before declaring on 259-9 and giving his bowlers a crack at Australia in the final hour of the opening day of the day-night third test on Thursday.

Australia got through the final 12 overs without loss but the declaration prevented Dave Warner from opening the batting as he was off the field towards the end of the South African innings.

Matt Renshaw, one of three new caps in the Australia side, and Usman Khawaja faced the new pink ball instead but they were only able to put 14 runs on the board and will resume on eight and three respectively on Friday.

Du Plessis's timely declaration capped what must have been an extremely satisfying first day for the South African, who came to the crease to catcalls with his side tottering at 44-3 but departed to an ovation after hitting 118 not out.

Top 10 (last month's posiTwo days after being tions in brackets) fined for ball-tampering 1. Argentina (1) during the second test vic2. Brazil (3) tory that sealed the series 3. Germany (2) with a match to spare, du 4. Chile (6) Plessis showed just the 5. Belgium (4) sort of grit and determi6. Colombia (5) nation that Australia have 7. France (7) been looking for from their 8. Portugal (8) batsmen.

9. Uruguay (9) The hosts have far fewer 10. Spain (10) concerns about their pace

of Love's eight 3-pointers.

"I've always loved seeing my teammates catch one of those moments right there and just try to keep him in that zone as much as possible," James said.

"I went over and told him, 'Whatever you're doing, wherever you're at right now, just stay right there.

Stay even keel. Whatever you're thinking about right there, just stay there because we're going to keep coming to you.'"

Damian Lillard had 40 points, 11 assists and seven rebounds to lead Portland.

- Davis scores 45 in win New Orleans forward

Anthony Davis scored a club-record 21 points in the first quarter and finished with a game-high 45 points and 10 rebounds to lift the Pelicans to their fourth consecutive victory, a 117-96 triumph over visiting Minnesota.

Austin Rivers scored a team-high 22 points and the Los Angeles Clippers, off to their best start in club history at 14-2, began a six-game road trip by routing Dallas 124-104 as the Mavericks fell to a league-worst 2-12.

Kawhi Leonard scored 30 points and the San Antonio Spurs ripped host

Leicester's Drinkwater banned for three matches

LonDon, november 24 (reuters): Champions Leicester City will be without midfielder Danny Drinkwater for three games after he accepted a Football Association charge of violent misconduct, the club said on Thursday.

Drinkwater appeared to elbow Watford's Valon Behrami during his side's 2-1 Premier League defeat on Saturday.

It was missed at the time by the match officials but after watching video evidence

the FA charged the 26-year-old.

The automatic three-match ban starts with immediate effect meaning Drinkwater will miss the matches against Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Manchester City.

Leicester are 14th in the Premier League, two points above the relegation zone, although they have qualified for the last 16 of the Champions League as group winners following Tuesday's 2-1 victory over Club Bruges.

FIFA faces lawsuit over rules banning transfer of minors

South Africa's captain Faf du Plessis celebrates his century 100 runs during the first day of the Third Test cricket match in Adelaide. (REUTERS)

attack and Josh Hazlewood, Mitchell Starc and the recalled Jackson Bird earlier showed why with a fine display of fast bowling that had the first seven batsmen caught behind the wickets.

Hazlewood took 4-68, while Starc and Bird pitched in with two wickets each as the Australian quicks bowled disciplined lines with the pink ball on the Adelaide track.

Du Plessis had won the toss and decided to bat first but the first session went decisively to the hosts.

Dean Elgar, Hashim Amla and JP Duminy were despatched for five runs apiece after opener Ste-

phen Cook had earned a reprieve when Starc trapped him lbw only for the TV replay to show the left-armer had overstepped the mark.

Cook was unable to add to his series-best tally of 40 after the tea break before edging Starc to Steve Smith in the cordon and when Temba Bavuma (8) got an outside edge to a Bird delivery, the tourists were 117-5.

As on his test debut at the same ground in 2013, when he hit 110 not out to help South Africa bat out four and a half sessions for a draw, it was left to du Plessis to frustrate the Australians.

He put on 32 with Quin-

ton de Kock for the sixth wicket before Hazlewood served up another peach of a delivery to send the wicketkeeper back for 24, with Vernon Philander (4) following soon afterwards.

It was just after the end of his 54-run partnership with Kyle Abbott (17) that he secured his sixth test hundred with two runs to fine leg off the 147th ball he faced.

As South Africa entered unfamiliar territory in their first night session in test cricket, du Plessis put on another 39 runs with debutant left-arm finger spinner Tabraiz Shamsi (18 not out) before bringing an end to the innings.

Charlotte 119-114, improving to 12-3 overall and 8-0 on the road.

Dwight Howard had 23 points and 20 rebounds while Paul Millsap added 18 points and 11 rebounds as Atlanta downed Indiana 96-85.

Marc Gasol scored 27 points and Mike Conley added 25 points, nine rebounds and nine assists as Memphis defeated Philadelphia 104-99 in double overtime while Phoenix downed Orlando 92-87.

- Curry, Durant spark victory Stephen Curry scored 31 points while Kevin Durant added 28 to lead Golden State over the visiting Los Angeles Lakers 149-106 while DeMarcus Cousins scored 36 points to lead Sacramento over Oklahoma City 116-101.

Isaiah Thomas scored 23 points and Avery Bradley added 22 as the Boston Celtics downed host Brooklyn 111-92, while Kentavious Caldwell-Pope scored 22 points and Andre Drummond added 18 points, 15 rebounds, four blocks and four steals for Detroit in a 107-84 victory over visiting Miami.

DeMar DeRozan scored 24 points to lead Toronto over Houston 115102 while George Hill and Gordon Hayward each scored 22 points to spark Utah over Denver 108-83.

ZurIcH, november 24 (reuters): FIFA is facing a lawsuit in a Zurich court over regulations that ban the transfer of players under the age of 18. The case was been filed at the Zurich Commercial Court on Wednesday on behalf of a 17-year-old African player and his parents, who say that the rules make FIFA's transfer regulations unlawful.

A spokesman for Zurich law firm Nater Dallafior Rechtsanwaelte, which has brought the case, said in a statement that the player, who had represented his country at youth level, was unable to move to a club in the European Union because of the rules. "Thereby, he and his family miss the probably unique chance of a professional and social advancement," said the statement issued on Thursday.

FIFA bans the international transfers of players under the age of 18 unless their parents have emigrated for reasons not connected to football or both the player and club are based within 50 kilometers of a national border.

The only other excep-

tion is for transfers within either the EU or European Economic Area (EEA), where the minimum age is 16. In those cases, clubs must still ensure that the player continues his education and studies for an alternative career, as well as making sure he has a high living standard.

"FIFA implemented these regulations on the pretext that young football players such as the claimant must be protected," said the statement.

"In reality, however, these regulations lead to a discrimination of football players from third countries outside the European Union." This, it said, made them unlawful.

The statement said the rules also infringed EU law, which allowed for unrestricted free movement of students and employees.

FIFA could not immediately be reached for comment but has argued in the past that the rules go back to an agreement signed in 2001 between FIFA, UEFA and the European Commission and these had been further developed over the years.

Bale to undergo ankle surgery in London mADrID, november 24 (reuters): Gareth Bale will undergo ankle surgery next week to repair damaged tendons, Real Madrid said on Thursday.

The Wales international picked up the injury during Tuesday's 2-1 Champions League victory at Sporting Lisbon. "Real Madrid Sanitas Medical Services have decided that Gareth Bale will undergo an operation following the traumatic dislocation of the peroneal tendons of his right ankle," La Liga leaders Real said in a statement. "The operation will take place at King Edward VII Hospital in London on Tuesday 29th November by doctor James Calder, under the supervision of the club doctors Jesus Olmo and Mikel Aramberri." The 27-year-old winger has scored seven goals and set up three more in 16 starts for Real in all competitions this season. No time frame was given for his return to action. Zinedine Zidane's team are four points ahead of Barcelona at the top of La Liga and play Sporting Gijon on Saturday.

public discourse

Relative Economics: An alternative to modern economic development Prof. Mithilesh Kumar Sinha Finance Officer Nagaland University, Lumami

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he present economic development module that has been manifested by so called modern developed countries clearly gives a message of catastrophe rather than promoting the sustainable development of the world. The overall sufferings and miseries of mankind proves that existing economic policies are not for the betterment of society but for the destruction of our planet. Isn’t a big question on our survival? Is human being doom to suffer just for the cause of

power, money and politics of few? Are we sacrificing our life by purchasing the unwanted products made at the cost of nature? Many burning questions that are unresolved and still we are punished by globalized open market and exploitive consumerism.

Modern economic development has opened opportunities of rapid growth for human being in the universe. But it appears that it has given rise to complex problems of unbridled and uncontrolled exploitation of nature and mankind, with the result that we find extreme inequality, poverty, hunger and destruction around us.

Due to modern economic development, the world is passing through a

great turbulence. Today what we see happening in different parts of the world is most unexpected. Man has lost his mental peace due to extreme consumerism. Since economics is not concerned with ethics, it aims at fulfilment of desire, but does not care for the innate moral instinct of human beings.

We forget that there are problems of physical, social, ethical and spiritual that cannot be solved by money. If no check is put on the accumulation of money by individuals, the social problem of inequality is bound to become acute dissatisfaction in the society making rich more richer, poor more poorer. Natural resources being limited, we have to put a check on utilization

of them for sustainable development.

So time has come to give a u-turn to the prevalent economic thinking so that mankind may find lasting peace, solace, safety and security.

What is desirable is striking a balance between the two which means acquiring wealth without being dishonest and cruel in economic behaviour.

Morality, spirituality and humanity cannot be separated. Economics of nonviolence can only be practiced if economics of morality exists. This gives the birth of the idea of Relative Economics which can be considered a branch of economics which studies money with the relation of compassion and charity.

The father of theory of relative, Albert Einstein, gave the famous formula in the field of physical sciences in form of E = MC2 to show that energy and matter are interchangeable. This formula can be explained in the field of stress-management in the form of E = MC2 i.e. Equanimity = Money x Compassion x Charity.

90 per cent of stress arises from a blind race for acquiring money.

There is a cut-throat competition in this race leading to cruelty, violence and exploitation throwing away all moral values. This has to be combated with compassion, the mother of all human virtues. The second cause of trouble is the tendency to hoard and

possess and not to give and distribute. This has to be combated through the virtue of charity which means joy of giving which is the anti-dot of the choking situation of a miserly person.

Charity pre-supposes an attitude of detachment towards money.

Money is the basic need of life lent cruelty and together with miserliness is not only anti-life but lent anti-social also. Money when related to compassion and charity forms the foundation-stone of that holistic approach to life which provides remedy for not only physical but psychological diseases also, or to be more accurate, to all psychomatic diseases, because all diseases are psychomatic.

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.

FRiday 25•11•2016

‘Culturally Yours’ at Hornbill Festival 2016

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he Department of Art & Culture under the theme ‘Culturally Yours’ is all set for the Hornbill Festival 2016 to present: 1. Daily Cultural Performances at the main arena.

Cultural troupes from all tribes will be arriving soon to showcase their traditional attires, their lively songs and dances.

2. The Archival Exhibition will showcase a rare collection of original documents from public records, private records, rare historical and geographical maps, news paper clippings and rare books and sale of Departmental publications etc. with reading facilities for interested students, scholars and researchers.

‘State Final Audition of Ne Body Can Sing 2016’ LIVE in AIR

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ll India Radio Kohima is broadcasting LIVE the ‘State Final Audition of NE Body can Sing 2016, Season 2” to be held at the State Academy Hall, Kohima on November 26. The LIVE programme will begin from 4 PM onwards. A total of 12 contestants drawn in from across the State will participate in the contest. Further, the DK Entertainment group from Kohima will also perform apart from other entertainers and artists’. All India Radio Kohima invites all citizens to witness the show LIVE. Entry to the venue is free. Listeners can also tune into AIR, Kohima at FM 103 MHz and also on 100.9 MHz on mobile phones and on car tapes from 4:00 PM onwards.

Midland Youth Organization puts Christmas decoration at TCP Gate in Kohima. (Morung Photo)

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Marriage or not, Mariah Carey goes ahead with reality TV show

EntErtainmEnt

ariah Carey's new reality show sees the largerthan-life singer trying on wedding dresses and wrestling with a decision to postpone her marriage to Australian businessman James Packer. Nine months on, as "Mariah's World" prepares to air in December, Carey is dodging questions about the sudden breakdown in October of her engagement to the billionaire.

Asked if the eight-part series would show what really went on to cause the split, Carey told Reuters. "Do we ever know what's really real?... I hope we learn a lesson of being good people."

Packer, 49, and twice-married Carey, 46, started a highly-publicized relationship in June 2015, and in January, the Australian proposed with a massive 35-carat diamond engagement ring. Last month, the engagement was suddenly off, sparking conflicting rumors about who backed out, and why.

Packer appears briefly in the first episode of "Mariah's World," when the couple enjoyed happier times in the spring vacationing on yachts. Carey is seen lounging in lingerie, trying on a wedding dress, and debating whether to wear a tiara.

Filming started while the "We Belong

Together" singer was preparing for her European tour that began in March and the first episode shows her reluctantly deciding to postpone her wedding to Packer because of her work commitments.

Carey, the world's best-selling female singer, says she wants the show to capture "behind the scenes and the moments... when you are getting ready to go on stage and putting on a tour." "I don't think people really know who I am, or the different sides of my personality, so I am excited about it," Carey told Reuters.

Although the show was first promoted as showing Carey planning her wedding, it remains to be seen how much Packer will now appear. On Wednesday, Carey told Ellen DeGeneres in an appearance on her talk show that her relationship with Packer was "kind of difficult to talk about" and described the split as "a whole friggin' thing."

"Mariah's World" shows Carey to be heavily involved in planning and rehearsing for her European tour, as well as flirting with her back-up dancers. "There is a lot to get stressed out about and you do go through a lot of angst," she told Reuters.

But "if I'm able to have my music... it's my saving grace." "Mariah's World" premieres on cable network E! on Dec.4 Source: Reuters

The Spice Girls reunion song leaks online

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he Spice Girls GEM reunion song "Song for her" has leaked online. Under the new name of GEM taken from the names of the bandmates Geri Horner, Emma Bunton and Melanie Brown, the members have come together once again to work on new material including the track "Song for her" which has been leaked on YouTube, reports femalefirst.co.uk.

"Song for her" is a chorus-heavy track about female empowerment, with the girls repeatedly singing in harmony: "This is a song for her, You know you light it

up, You know who you are, Stand up, stand up, She's got that boom-boom pop, That's something they can't stop, She's got that song for her."

Bunton, 40, insisted earlier this year that "Song For Her", which has appeared on Facebook and YouTube, was "not a single" and was instead the result of the girls just having fun in the studio. The girls were originally tipped to reunite this year, which would have marked the release of their breakthrough hit "Wannabe", but Mel B admitted they are still finalising the details of their comeback.

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C M Y K

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and marine life.

The 25-year old was adjudged the winner from among 16 other finalists of the competition, held at a resort in Kota Kinabalu in Malaysia over the weekend.

Rajkhowa is the first In-

dian to represent the country at the pageant since its inception in 2011.

On being asked "what is the most important lesson you've learnt during the competition?", Varsha said: "United we stand and divided we fall. We must

come together to save our oceans and to [preserve] beautiful marine life."

That answer earned Varsha the coveted title.

Meryl Angeline King, 27, from the Philippines was the first runner-up while China's Sun Zitong, 24,

Fantastic beasts (englisH)

(11:40 AM) (04:30 PM)

Force 2 (Hindi)

Store sale, and the engagement ring Swan received from Edward Cullen, played by Kristen's real-life ex Robert Pattinson, was one of the weekend's hottest items. Other popular props include E d w a rd' s j o u rnal, which sold for $7,800, and a meadow costume Kristen wore onscreen, which went for $8,400.

For Twilight fans, this auction offered an amazing opportunity to own a piece of the phenomenon and we were proud to partner with Lionsgate (production studio) on the project.

(02:00 PM) (07:00 PM) 03862-237226 Ticket Counter (09:00 AM - 09:00 PM)

WWW.BooKMYsHoW.CoM (ID: PLAYBox DIMAPur)

Ward 5 (6) Burma Camp, Landmark - Near J.K Hospital Dimapur.

Power House.

Source: PTI

Pune girl wins international scuba diving pageant

i t y - b re d g i r l Varsha Rajkhowa has been crowned the new Miss Scuba International 2016 — a global beauty pageant held with the purpose of spreading awareness on ocean protection

revIseD TICKeT rATes (silver) : `.120 (Gold) : `. 200 (recliner) : `. 400

Source: IANS

Fan shells out $16,800 for ‘Twilight’ engagement ring at prop auction! part from the ring, Edward Cullen's journal and Bella Swan's blue dress, after turning vampire, garnered good amount. The engagement ring which actress Kristen Stewart wore in the Twilight movie franchise has been snapped up for an impressive $16,800.

The actress portrayed Bella Swan in the film adaptation of the vampire book series, and one devotee dug deep to win the romantic movie prop during a two-day auction at the Hollywood Chinese Theater, reported E! online.

Imli Lee and Mengu Suokhrie perform “Rest in Peace” – a soon-to-be released original, during the Charity Show in aid of construction of an Old Age Home in Dimapur at the IMC Hall, Dimapur More than 900 pieces of on Thursday. Besides music, the Charity Show, organized by Silver Lining Society and co-spon- memorabilia went under the hammer in the Prop sored by World of Titan, witnessed dance, drama and fashion extravaganza. (Morung Photo)

Now ShowiNg

took the second runnerup title.

Varsha, who was born in Assam and brought up in different parts of the country, comes from a defence background. She has several feathers in her hat, being an environmentalist by profession as well as a model, international-grade dancer and choreographer of Latin and Ballroom-style dancing, national-level swimmer and a certified scuba diver. Varsha, who has been living in Vimannagar for more than a decade, is an alumnus of Fergusson College.

Va rs ha ha s a l s o achieved excellence in athletics. She is a national-level swimmer. In school, she was a state-level runner and national-level khokho player. She also loves to pen poems — a trait, she says, she inherited from her father.

The pageant is aimed at protecting oceans and now, as an ambassador for the cause, Rajkhowa has plans for global promotion of the diving industry and marine conservation.

"Once back, I want to work closely with the Indian government and non-governmental organizations to stop shark finning in the country," Varsha said.

Source: TNN

Bruno Mars' world tour sells over 1 mn tickets in 24 hours

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rammy award winning singer Bruno Mars's 24K Magic World Tour sold more than one million tickets in a single day. Tickets for Mars' Europe and North America tour dates went on sale Monday, following a night of television for the pop star that included a performance at the American Music Awards and a 60 Minutes profile that marked his first on-camera

interview in four years, reports billboard.com.

Now the 24K Magic World Tour has added 15 shows for a total of 100, including five shows in the New York City area, four nights at London's O2 Arena and four Los Angeles shows at the Forum in Inglewood, California. The "Uptown funk" hitmaker's tour starts on March 28 next year and ends on November 11.

Source: IANS

Hillstar NOW SHOWING Fantastic beasts

11:00 am | 02:00 PM 05:00 PM | 08:00 PM

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FriDAY 25•11•2016

SPORTS

THE MORUNG EXPRESS

Classic Cup: Naga FC enters semifinal Our Correspondent

Kohima | November 24

Naga Football Club today defeated a resolute Mt Youth Club via tie-breaker in the third quarterfinal match to book its berth in the semifinals of the ongoing 22nd Classic Cup here at the Kohima Local Ground. The match had ended 1-1 at the end of regulation time. Blisto Sote grabbed the lead for Mt. Youth Club in the 41st minute while Chaba scored the equalizer for Naga FC in the 59th minute.

Extra time ensued but the winning goal remained elusive for both teams. The match was decided through a tie-breaker in which Naga FC edged Mt Youth Club in sudden death.

November 25 | 4th quarterfinal

Kuki United FC vs Street Hawk’s FC @ 2:00 pm

Players in action between Mt. Youth Club and Naga FC on November 24. (Morung Photo)

Kumble rubbishes ball tampering allegations against Kohli

mohali, November 24 (PTi): India coach Anil Kumble today categorically dismissed allegations of ball tampering levelled against skipper Virat Kohli by the British media, stating that he does not believe in "giving wind to such stories".

A British tabloid published footages of Kohli applying saliva to the ball during the first Test against England at Rajkot. However, there were no complains made by the visiting team or the match referee to the ICC within

Liverpool great Gerrard retires

a window of five days, which is a must as per world cricket's governing body's clause. The ICC has already said that it will not make any investigations as per rules.

"First of all, I don't want to react to any report that is there in the media. As far as I am concerned, neither the umpire nor the match referee ever came to us talking about it. We would certainly not like to give too much wind to the story," Kumble told mediapersons today.

The legendary spinner said

that he was not at all perturbed by what the British media has reported. "There is nothing to worry about. People can allege and write whatever they want in the media. As far as we are concerned, none of our players were a part of such activity."

But in a veiled dig, Kumble also drew comparisons with the Faf du Plessis incident in Hobart which has led to the South African skipper being fined 100 per cent of his match fees, terming it a "mountain being made out of molehill".

C M Y K

Imtimeren Memorial Trophy in January mokokchuNg, November 24 (mexN): The 41st edition of Imtimeren Memorial Open Volleyball tournament will be held on January 6 and 7, 2017 at Longsa village under Mokokchung district under the theme “To foster the young generation”. Organized by the Longsa Sports Association, the champions will win a cash prize of Rs.50,000 while the runners-up will receive Rs.30,000. Attractive rewards for individual prizes have also been set aside. Organizers of the tournament have informed that minimum travelling allowances will be provided to participating teams. Entry fee for the tournament will be Rs.2000. Interested teams may contact 9612391996 or 8974325113 for more details.

Vincent CC lift first Sashikokba Cricket Memorial Trophy

Students of Immanuel College, Dimapur in action during their Annual Sports Meet at the State Stadium, Dimapur on Wednesday. The Meet will conclude on November 25.

Players in action during the Under-19 volleyball selection camp at the State Stadium Dimapur on Wednesday.

12 selected players will represent the state in the 62nd National School Volleyball U-19 Boys Championship 2016-17 at Paonta Sahib District Sirmour, Himachal Pradesh to be held in the first week of December. The Championship is being organsied by School Games Federation of India (SGFI).

mokokchuNg, November 24 (mexN): In an exciting final match at the Imkongmeren Sports Complex, Mokokchung, Vincent CC edged Titans CC by 7 wickets to win the 1st Sashikokba Memorial Cricket tournament.

Opting to bat first having won the toss, Titans set a target of 96 runs losing all the wickets in 20 overs. Daniel Rai contributed the highest score of 31 runs while Yongzamong scored 16 runs for the Titans. Vincent bowler Sahid claimed 3 rival wickets.

In the run chase, Vincent CC openers managed to take the match away from the Titans in the Power Play overs but some tight bowling from the spinners dragged the game for the Titans. However, it was too little too late as Vincent CC overcame the target in just the 13th over.

Thejasol with 39 runs was the highest run scorer while Vickey contributed 21 runs for Vincent CC. Titans bowler Ato Chang, who claimed 2 wickets conceding 14 runs in 4 overs, was the pick of the bowlers. Merenkaba also scalped 1 wicket for the Titans. Sahid was adjudged Man of the Final Match for his performance with the ball. Chubaodang was named the Player of the Tournament while ‘Highest Wicket Taker’ award went to Imliwati of Vincent CC. Lozi Hyundai was adjudged the Best Disciplined Team.

Barca, City into last 16 as PSG control fate

Paris, November 24 (aFP): Lionel Messi fired Barcelona into the last 16 of the Champions League on Wednesday after a 2-0 win at Celtic as they were joined in the knockout rounds by Pep Guardiola's Manchester City.

The Argentine star returned from illness to score both goals at Celtic Park -- the second from the penalty spot -- to send the five-time European champions through as winners of Group C. City recovered from a goal down in Germany to earn a 1-1 draw at Borussia Moenchengladbach as both sides finished with 10 men.

Raffael grabbed the opening goal for Gladbach on 23 minutes, but David Silva poked in Kevin De Bruyne's cross just prior to the break before Lars Stindl and Fernandinho saw red in the second half.

"We controlled the game but it wasn’t enough to win. We’re just happy that we’re through to the last 16," said Belgian international De Bruyne.

French champions Paris Saint-Germain seized control of their own destiny in Group A with a 2-2 draw away to Arsenal.

Edinson Cavani turned in Blaise Matuidi's cross at the far post to hand PSG an 18th-minute lead at the Emirates Stadium.

But the Gunners hit

Barcelona's striker Lionel Messi (R) shoots to score against Celtic on November 23. (AFP Photo)

back on the stroke of halftime as Alexis Sanchez was brought down by Grzegorz Krychowiak and Olivier Giroud rolled home the resulting spot-kick.

Arsenal looked to be in pole position to finish top of the group when an attempted clearance from Marquinhos ricocheted off an unfortunate Marco Verratti and squirmed past Alphonse Areola for a fluke own goal.

But Lucas ensured Unai Emery's side departed with a point as his header from Hatem Ben Arfa's corner flicked off Alex Iwobi and

flashed past David Ospina 13 minutes from the end.

"We had good spells in the game but we could not dominate. Tonight my concern is that we were 2-1 up and allowed them to come back at us. It's difficult to understand how easy we gave away a goal at a corner," said Arsenal coach Arsene Wenger.

Both PSG and Arsenal have 11 points with one match to play, but the French outfit own the headto-head edge on away goals after the reverse fixture at the Parc des Princes in September finished 1-1.

- Bayern stunned in Russia Bayern Munich crashed to a shock 3-2 defeat in Rostov and could face a daunting draw in the next round after Atletico Madrid's 2-0 victory over PSV Eindhoven guaranteed Diego Simeone's men first place in Group D. Douglas Costa rifled Bayern ahead on 35 minutes in Russia, but Rostov equalised through Sardar Azmoun on the stroke of half-time before going ahead courtesy of a Dmitri Poloz penalty.

Juan Bernat swiftly

levelled for the Germans, but Ecuador international Christian Noboa fired competition debutants Rostov to a first group stage victory with the winner on 67 minutes.

In Madrid, French duo Kevin Gameiro and Antoine Griezmann netted second-half goals as Atletico -- runners-up twice in the past three seasons -- registered their fifth win in as many matches in the Champions League.

Besiktas launched a remarkable second-half recovery as they fought back from three goals down against Benfica to draw 3-3 in Istanbul.

Benfica, champions of Europe in 1961 and 1962, appeared to be sailing through to the last 16 after cruising 3-0 ahead inside barely half an hour through goals from Goncalo Guedes, Nelson Semedo and Ljubomir Fejsa.

But the Turks pulled one back on the hour courtesy of Cenk Tosun before two goals in the final seven minutes from Ricardo Quaresma and Vincent Aboubakar revived their qualification hopes. Napoli were held 0-0 at home by Dynamo Kiev and must take at least a point from their trip to Benfica in a fortnight, while Besiktas will punch their ticket to the knockout stages if they win in Ukraine.

Steven Gerrard lifts the Champions League trophy after beating Milan in Istanbul, in. (File Photo)

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London, November 24 | AFP

ormer Liverpool and England captain Steven Gerrard announced his retirement from professional football on Thursday at the age of 36, calling time on an emblematic career. Gerrard spent 17 years at his home-town club Liverpool, 12 as captain, and won nine honours including the 2005 Champions League before finishing his career with an 18-month stint at LA Galaxy.

"Following recent media speculation surrounding my future, I can confirm my retirement from playing professional football," Gerrard said in a statement.

"I have had an incredible career and am thankful for each and every moment of my time at Liverpool, England and LA Galaxy."

Although the Premier League title famously eluded him, Gerrard did win two FA Cups, three League Cups, the UEFA Cup, the UEFA Super Cup and the Community Shield.

His finest hour came in Istanbul in May 2005, when he inspired Liverpool to come from 3-0 down against AC Milan at half-time of the Champions League final to win the club's fifth European Cup in a penalty shootout.

In total he made 710 appearances for Liverpool, the third-highest total behind Ian Callaghan and former team-mate Jamie Carragher, scoring 186 goals.

Gerrard made 114 appearances for England, a tally bettered only by Peter Shilton, Wayne Rooney and David Beckham, and scored 21 international goals.

He appeared at six major tournaments, captaining England at the 2010 World Cup, Euro 2012 and the 2014 World Cup. "I feel lucky to have experienced so many wonderful highlights over the course of my career," Gerrard said.

"I am proud to have played over 700 games for Liverpool, many of which as captain, and to have played my part in helping the club to bring major honours back to Anfield, none more so than that famous night in Istanbul.

"At an international level, I feel privileged to have won 114 England caps and to have had the honour of captaining my country. I will always look back with

great pride at every time I pulled on the England shirt."

Gerrard has been linked with a coaching role at Liverpool, as well as Celtic and Newcastle United, where former Liverpool managers Brendan Rodgers and Rafael Benitez respectively work.

Liverpool's current manager, Jurgen Klopp, said the club would welcome him back with open arms.

"If he wants to return, it's an open door," the German told a press conference. "We want to help him."

Gerrard, who is reported to have turned down an approach from English third-tier side Milton Keynes Dons, said he would take his time before announcing his next move.

"I am excited about the future and feel I still have a lot to offer the game, in whatever capacity that may be," he said.

"I am currently taking my time to consider a number of options and will make an announcement with regards to the next stage of my career very soon."

Born in Whiston, Merseyside, Gerrard joined Liverpool's academy at the age of nine and made his first-team debut aged 18 as a substitute against Blackburn Rovers in November 1998.

After quickly establishing himself as a dominant force in Liverpool's midfield, he made his England debut against Ukraine in May 2000.

He got his first taste of silverware under Gerard Houllier in the 2000-01 season, when Liverpool won a treble of FA Cup, League Cup and UEFA Cup honours. He launched Liverpool's fightback against Istanbul with a glancing header and scored a 35-yard thunderbolt the following season to inspire his side to victory over West Ham United in the FA Cup final.

Twice strongly linked with moves to Chelsea, he elected to stay with Liverpool, but apart from a third League Cup crown in 2012, the rest of his career proved fallow.

Liverpool looked to be on course for the Premier League title under Rodgers in 2014, only for a calamitous slip by Gerrard in a match against Chelsea to clear Manchester City's path to the title.

He followed in Beckham's footsteps with a late-career stint in Major League Soccer with LA Galaxy.

"Ability-wise, he was the best midfielder I've ever seen," said former Liverpool midfielder Danny Murphy.

Liverpool tweeted simply: "Legend."

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