C M Y K
www.morungexpress.com
Dimapur VOL. IX ISSUE 272
The Morung Express “
www.morungexpress.com
Our actions are the results of our intentions and our intelligence
Sahara chief Subrata Roy back in jail cell, hotel deal uncertain
[ PAGE 2]
Hong Kong warns democracy protesters [ PAGE 09]
[ PAGE 11]
[ PAGE 8]
”
Acharya leads cleanliness drive at Nagaland House New Delhi
Cheryl Cole Named As The Most Dangerous Celebrity
C M Y K
Friday, October 3, 2014 12 pages Rs. 4 –E. Stanley Jones
India beats Pakistan to win hockey gold, qualifies for Rio Olympics [ PAGE 12]
ClEAN INDIA CAMPAIGN Do public consultations work? Modi aims to shake up sanitation Morung Express News Dimapur | October 2
Public Consultations on issues, for mandate, or mandate on issues, are not new to the Nagas—over the past couple of years the State of Nagaland has also adopted the model. In November 2013, then chief minister of Nagaland Neiphiu Rio, and this team, called a public consultation on the issue of exploration of oil and natural gas, as well as amendment to the Rules of Executive Business, Industrialization and Urbanization. We saw how that turned out. In September this year, current chief minister TR Zeliang, and his team, held a public consultation on the Nagaland Special Development Zones (NSDZs) and Nagaland Liquor Total Prohibition Act. Do consultations work as a model to get the free, prior and informed consent of the citizens of Nagaland on development projects due to affect their land and identity? “Holding such public consultations is a good decision in the right direction,” acknowledges social activist, Niketu Iralu, but only if they rise above being “public shows.” Lezo Putsure of the YouthNet agrees. “They are very important and the Government should always invite groups to keep talks open—it is a great step to involve the civil society in decision making,” says Putsure, happy to note that the Government has been “assertive” about development in the State. According to rights ac-
Public Information Dear Readers, The Morung Express will remain closed on October 3, 2014 on the occasion of Dussehra and will re-open on October 4, 2014. The next issue of the newspaper will be available in the market on October 5, 2014. Thank you for your continued support and understanding. Happy Holidays! The Morung Express
Thai scientists discover antibody to cure Ebola
C M Y K
Bangkok, octoBer 2 (IanS/eFe): Thai scientists Thursday announced the discovery of a new antibody against the Ebola virus and claimed that it is “more effective” than those that now exist. However, the new cure is still awaiting animal and human trials. “We are proud to have created a new antibody treatment for Ebola fever,” Udom Kachintorn, dean of the Faculty of Medicine at Siriraj Hospital, said at a press conference in Bangkok. “It is a new antibody structure, a new mechanism to kill the Ebola fever in the most effective manner,” said Udom, adding that he expected positive results when trials are conducted on animals in the laboratory and on humans. The researchers indicated that it would take a year for an experimental vaccine to be developed, although this period could be shortened with the availability of more funding and better facilities.
A public consultation was organized by the Nagaland State Government in Kohima on September 26, 2014. It deliberated the Nagaland Special Development Zones resolution passed in the NLA, as well as the Nagaland Liquor Total Prohibition Act. (Morung Photo)
tivist, Rosemary Dzüvichü, the Government (of Nagaland) has picked up a thing or two between the last year’s consultation and this one. This year, it had already requested civilbased organizations, said Dzüvichü, to consult within their units, and bring their ‘final decision.’ “The Naga Mothers’ Association took the resolution on the NSDZs very seriously— we consulted with all tribe units as well as legal experts,” she informs. Unlike in the last public consultation, according to Dzüvichü, the chief minister was “patient, jotting down people’s views and actually listening.” Representatives could also present written suggestions to the Government for further review. Meanwhile, there are organizations still “in the process” of studying what is on offer. “Everyone gave their own views but there
was no real consultation,” says president of Eastern Naga Peoples’ Organisation (ENPO), Chingmak Chang. “We are still in the process of studying the things—we have to consult the landowners without the intent to stop development activities. Many people do not understand the implications of such projects and we need to have our own consultations,” he notes, adding, however, “The Government should be equally keen to take the people’s views—as in Wokha, it should not use force on such issues.” With such a process underway, it is all the more significant to “keep the process clean” so that “no hidden motives can decide the outcome” of such consultations. “Details for such technical projects (as being consulted on) should be sufficiently understood—enough time should be given to think and
decide stage-by-stage,” asserts Iralu, wondering what the big rush is to push development schemes that could infringe upon the rights of the indigenous peoples, and have serious legal and constitutional repercussions. Time given for any actual consultation and discussion to happen, say commentators, was too less. And were people’s views genuinely sought? The primary organization to highlight the problem clauses of the NSDZ resolution, the Nagaland Tribes Council (NTC), remained uninvited to the consultation on the issue. “We have been raising the concerns of the people—we are opposing the issue, not the Government,” says NTC representative, Theja Therieh, who also feels that apart from just “opinion sharing,” expertise on the matter should be sought by the Government, and these presented to the people. The
Government of Nagaland did not have a single meeting with the NTC, calling to its consultation only “like minded” organizations (even they objected to clauses of the NSDZ resolution!). On the issue of the NSDZs, for instance, the ‘free, prior and informed consent’ of the landowners was far from taken, according to commentators. One laughs at the mere mention of the tall order, another explains, “DCs of the respective districts were instructed by the Government to take NOCs from the landowners concerned for the project—all they were given were high promises of a lucrative future instead of the implications of the project as well as the resolution’s clauses. Following the media attention on the issue, some of them have even withdrawn their NOCs!” Such information remained unavailable at the consultation. And then there are darker variables at play. “Who are the real landowners in the foothills of Nagaland today?” asks another commentator. If they are rich politicians and bureaucrats, he says, one can see why the push to rush through a problem resolution—these people will happily sell off the lands to huge private buyers from outside Nagaland. It benefits this class of people, and anyone who ‘does not want this development,’ as the chief minister stated at the consultation, ‘does not love Nagaland.’ Are the land loving people of Nagaland aware of all this through a public consultation?
A man walks on a railway track past piles of dumped garbage in Mumbai on Thursday.Millions of schoolchildren, officials and ordinary people picked up brooms and dustpans Thursday to join a countrywide campaign to clean parks, public buildings and streets. (AP Photo)
neW DeLHI, octoBer 2 (reuterS): His hands protected by torn orange gloves, Dalbira Singh has a grim job scraping waste from train toilets from the tracks at New Delhi’s Hazrat Nizamuddin station, a few minutes from Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s office. Like an estimated 1 million other Indians, Singh does the work because he was born into a low caste. His parents did the same work before him. “This is a disgusting job but no one will give me another. I am destined to be a toilet-cleaning man,” Singh said this week, picking up soiled sanitary towels and diapers before wiping the tracks with a cloth soaked in cleaning chemicals. But Modi, like Mahatma Gandhi, wants to change things so not only those born to a low caste work to keep India clean. On Thursday, a holiday for Gandhi’s birthday, Modi launched the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, or Clean India Mission, to modernise sanitation within five years. He
starting by trying to change attitudes and he set an example by taking a broom and sweeping up rubbish in a Delhi neighbourhood occupied by members of the Valmiki caste, whose lot in life is traditionally “manual scavenging”, a euphemism for clearing other people’s faeces. “Often we assume the job of cleaning up belongs to safai karmacharis and don’t bother to clean,” Modi said referring to cleaners. “Don’t we all of have a duty to clean the country?” To drive home his point, he ordered government workers including his ministers came to work on Thursday to sweep offices and clean toilets. ‘SOCIETY’S FAILURE’ Education will be vital if Modi is to change age-old attitudes towards hygiene and purity, and he will have to finish Gandhi’s bid to free India’s “untouchable” low castes. “Modi will have to deal with society’s failure to liberate the Dalits from the demeaning pro-
fession if he wants India to be as clean as Singapore,” said Pravin Panchal, a researcher at the Environmental Sanitation Institute think-tank. Less than a third of India’s 1.2 billion people have access to sanitation and more than 186,000 children under five die every year from diarrhoeal diseases caused by unsafe water and poor sanitation, according to the charity WaterAid. The United Nations said in May half of India’s people defecate outside - putting people at risk of cholera, diarrhoea, dysentery, hepatitis A and typhoid. The resulting diseases and deaths, mostly among the poor, cause major losses. Modi wants every home and school to have access to a toilet by 2019, in time for the 150th anniversary of Gandhi’s birth. To be successful, he will have to banish the widespread belief in the countryside that it is unclean to defecate inside and that only Dalits should deal with excrement. Related news on page 8
Nagaland prepares for ‘special guests’
(File Photo) Amur Falcons are seen perched on a tree in Wokha, Nagaland. The Amur Falcon would arrive from Mongolia, Siberia Northern China and Japan, would stay in Wokha district and adjoining areas for about two months, and then take off for South Africa.
Four lakh Amur falcons on the way guWaHatI, octoBer 2 (tHe InDIan expreSS): Nagaland – more particularly the people of Wokha district – are getting ready to receive some special guests; anywhere between four to five lakh Amur falcons are expected to arrive any time in the next couple of weeks. Amur Falcons would arrive from Mongolia, Siberia Northern China and Japan, would stay in Wokha district and adjoining areas for about two months, and then take off for South Africa, a wonderful journey – including a three-and-a-half-day non-stop flight across the Arabian Sea – that was satellite-tracked and documented for the first time in 2013. “While the arrival of the Amur falcons for roosting in Nagaland itself is a new phenomenon, the people of the district have on their part earned international accolades for having ensured, through community effort, that the birds are not disturbed during their two-month stay here,” said Satya Prakash
Tripathi, Chief Wildlife Warden of Nagaland, over the telephone from Kohima today. Nagas, known for their love for meat, had initially considered these birds as god-sent when they had first arrived about eight or nine years ago. But, even as several thousand birds were caught and consumed in the first few years, a tremendous effort to protect them had resulted in nearzerocasualty in 2013. “In 2012, we estimated that nothing less than 1.40 lakh birds were killed. But, thanks to the community’s positive response to a concerted joint initiative of the forest department and NGOs, we managed to save most of the birds last year,” said Bano Haralu, a journalist who is also managing trustee of Nagaland Wildlife & Biodiversity Conservation Trust (NWBCT). The Trust, Haralu said, carried out an awareness campaign involving teachers and school children, to whom the community responded very well. This conservation effort fetched the village council of Pangti, a village in Wokha, the prestigious Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) Earth Heroes Award, 2014 in “Save
the species award” category. “It was only last week that the village council of Pangti, the largest village in the district, took pledge to ensure not one bird would be harmed,” she added. The state forest department on its part is roping in village councils, student and women’s groups, gaon-burras, educational institutions, government officials, and even the army and para-military companies posted there to ensure a safe passage to the birds through Nagaland. “The government has also issued order by any village council will invite appropriate necessary action from the government including non-release of developmental funds,” said Chief Wildlife Warden Tripathi. Twenty-six to 30 cms in length, with an average weight of about 260 grams, the Amur falcon – Falco amurensis – is a small raptor of the falcon family that breeds in southeastern Siberia and Northern China before migrating in large flocks across India and and then onwards acoss the Arabian Sea to winter in Southern Africa. While the forest department has identified the existence of large number of termites and other insects in the area around Doyang hydro-electric project as an attraction for the birds, NWBCT is roping in Shashank Dalvi of the Bangalore-based National Centre for Biological Studies to conduct a proper scientific study this year. Wildlife Trust of India on the other hand has tied up with a local NGO called Natural Nagas to conduct a scientific study there. Amur falcons are now also being projected as an important economc proposition. The Nagaland Wildlife & Biodiversity Conservation Trust (NWBCT). for instance is planning to help villagers start home-stay facilities for tourists. “Tourists have already started flowing in. Last year Wokha had at least 2,000 tourists, including several foreigners, who came to watch the falcons,” said district tourist officer Toka Tuccumi.
C M Y K