September 13th 2014

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Dimapur VOL. IX ISSUE 252

The Morung Express “

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If society fits you comfortably enough, you call it freedom

Katie Eying Holmes Scotland, set to Catalans seek direct her secession first film vote [ PAGE 8]

[ PAGE 11]

Entrepreneurial foodies introduce “Dosa Mahal” [ PAGE 2]

42% of Indian girls are sexually abused before 19: Unicef

My nerves are shot. Let`s take a little yoga break.

3 rd Nagaland Spelling

Bee Championship 2014 Prizes: Champion : ` 60,000/Second : ` 40,000/Third : ` 20,000/Fourth : ` 15,000/Quarter Finalist : ` 5,000/each

Along with citations & trophies.

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Man not evolving fast enough: study

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WellINgtoN, September 12 (IANS): Humanity is at an evolutionary paradox -- neither able to keep pace with man-made changes to the environment nor able to control constantly evolving pests and diseases, said a study on Friday.

“On the one hand some pathogens, cancers and pests are evolving faster than our ability to treat or control them; on the other, valued species including humans are evolving too slowly to keep pace with the man-made changes to their environments,” said Peter Gluckman, head of the Centre for Human Evolution, Adaptation and Disease at the University of Auckland’s Liggins Institute and chief science advisor to the New Zealand Prime Minister. Gluckman was speaking as one of nine authors of an international study published Friday calling for evolutionary thinking to address societal challenges in food security, emerging diseases and biodiversity loss.

The authors argued in that inattention to evolutionary principles would lead to greater challenges such as short-lived medicines and agricultural treatments, problems that may ultimately hinder sustainable development. Gluckman cited rising obesity, Type 2 diabetes and other noncommunicable diseases that had been attributed to the growing gap between modern diets and lifestyle and those of the evolutionary past. The most promising approaches were likely to involve large-scale public health-education initiatives promoting increased activity and diets that were lower in refined carbohydrates, he added.

–Robert Frost

Pistorius found guilty of ‘negligent’ killing of girlfriend [ PAGE 12]

IPFT affirms demand for separate state in Tripura

By Sandemo Ngullie

Email: fountainclubkma@

Saturday, September 13, 2014 12 pages Rs. 4

[ PAGE 8]

reflections

Venue: Capital Convention Centre (CCC) Date: 25th & 26th Sept’14 Time: 9:00 am Last Date of submission: 15/09/14 Eligibility: 2 (two) students from one educational institute Forms available in all SCERT (DIET) Centres: • Mokokchung • Wokha • Phek • Mon • Tuensang • Zunheboto & • Dimapur • The Cornerstone Belho Complex Kohima • The Graffiti Peren • CYN Store Longleng & • SK Enterprises Kiphire Website: www.fountainclub.in

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Kashmiri volunteers deliver relief material to flood victims who have taken shelter in a hotel in the city center of Srinagar, Friday, September 12. Officials said the flooding has killed 200 people in India, where anger and resentment was mounting over what victims described as a slow rescue and relief effort. (AP Photo)

Court stays disqualification of 3 MLAs

KohImA, September 12 (NepS): The Kohima Bench of the Gauhati High Court on Friday stayed the Nagaland Legislative Assembly Speaker, Chotisuh Sazo’s order disqualifying erstwhile 3 NCP legislators – Imtilemba Sangtam, Dr TM Lotha and Mmhonlumo Kikon – on August 25 last.

The three NCP MLAs had formally merged with the BJP in Nagaland on June 16 and had claimed to have fulfilled all the laid down provisions under the Tenth Schedule of the AntiDefection Law of the Constitution of India.

Meanwhile, the NLA Speaker in his disqualifica-

tion order issued on August 25, 2014 said prior to giving his decision, he had examined all the provisions under Anti-Defection Law and issued the order for disqualification of the three MLAs, as per the powers empowered on him.

Talking to NEPS outside the court after Friday’s Court hearing was over, counsel of the aggrieved legislators, SS Dey said the disqualification order of the Assembly Speaker issued on August 25, 2014 was challenged on the ground that he had misinterpreted the provision of the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution of India.

The counsel explained that inasmuch as the petitioner – the 3 MLAs – of the erstwhile NCP legislature party of Nagaland out of their total 4 MLAs had constituted even more than two-thirds marginally of the legislature party, which was above the two-third margin of the majority fixed by the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution of India as a valid merger.

Dey further said the 3 MLAs, Imtilemba Sangtam, Dr TM Lotha and Mmhonlumo Kikon had constituted a valid merger as provided by the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution of India and therefore, they could not be

GPRN/NSCN censures AR raids DImApur, September 12 (mexN): The GPRN/NSCN today censured the Assam Rifles for raiding its members’ residences.

The GPRN/NSCN through its MIP informed that on September 10, around 3:00 am, AR personnel ransacked the residence of one Yetoi at 4th Mile, Diphupar, but that no “incriminating materials” were found.

The personnel also raided the residence of one Atoka at Midland Colony, Dimapur on September 11 at 2:30 am, but no “incriminating materials” were found, it added. It further alleged that on September 12, around 3:30 am, the AR raided the residence of Hosheto, Jt. Secretary, at Naga Cemetery, Dimapur during his absence and took away family stored goods.

Over the years, the GPRN/NSCN stat-

ed, the AR “have evolved as a hydra-headed monster for the peace loving Nagas who will have no other option but to fight tooth and nail…” “Whatever has been laid down in the ceasefire ground rules hold no meaning for the rowdy Assam Rifles who go on rampaging houses of our members causing immense physical and mental pain to the children and family,” it lamented It further cited the statement of CFSB chairman, Lt. Gen (Retd) NK Singh, which according to the GPRN/NSCN “clearly stated that it amounts to harassment if no incriminating materials are found during house raids…” It cautioned that if AR ignores the Ceasefire Rules, “the GPRN/ NSCN will be compelled to brush aside the ceasefire rules and confront head on.”

Don’t mislead people: Naga Hoho

KohImA, September 12 (mexN): The Naga Hoho today appealed to all stakeholders and negotiators in the Indo-Naga peace process “not to mislead the people in regards to ceasefire coverage” and asserted that the “same spirit should be maintained even with other Naga political groups so long the ceasefire remains.”

A press note from the Naga Hoho Naga stated that the people “are quite contented with the present ceasefire between the Government of India (GoI) and various Naga political groups since 1997, albeit, the political negotiation/ dialogue is under process

between the GoI and NSCN (IM).” It stated it “fully depends on the negotiators of both the entities whether the political settlement would be acceptable to the Naga people or not.”

The Naga Hoho recalled that former GoI interlocutor Swaraj Kaushal had told the media during the Indo-Naga peace talks held in Paris in 1998 that the “Ceasefire covered not only Assam, Nagaland and Manipur but “even Delhi up to Paris.” It further cited the “joint statement signed by former GoI interlocutor, K Padnamabhaiah and NSCN (IM) General Secretary, Th. Muivah in Bangkok on June

14, 2001, wherein it was mutually agreed upon that the cease-fire agreement is between the Government of India and the NSCN as two entities without territorial limits.” It further recalled that “when the NSCN (IM) collective leadership met former Indian Prime Minister, AB Vajpayee, in Osaka, Japan, on December 8, 2002, Vajpayee had assured the NSCN leaders that where there is fighting there will be ceasefire.”

The Naga Hoho cautioned that “failing to uphold the mutual Agreement by both the entities, political ramification would be irreparable.”

disqualified by the Speaker in any manner.

After hearing both petitioner and respondents of about two hours today, the Court granted a stayed order suspending the disqualification of the Speaker issued on August 25, 2014 till the next date of hearing fixed on October 28, 2014.

Legal sources informed that by virtue of today’s stayed order passed by the Gauhati High Court, Kohima Bench, the 3 MLAs would continue as fullfledged members of the Nagaland Legislative Assembly representing their respective constituencies till further order from the Court.

AgArtAlA, September 12 (IANS): A tribalbased political party has stepped up its agitation for a separate state to be carved out of Tripura. The Indigenous People’s Front of Tripura (IPFT), which launched a stir for the division of the state Aug 23 last year, held a massive rally here last month. It has now announced that the party members would go to Delhi to meet union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram to press for the demand.

The IPFT organised a 72-hour hunger strike in Delhi Dec 10-13, 2013. It also held a meeting with officials of the union home ministry Dec 13 on the issue. The IPFT has been for many years demanding a separate state, to be carved out of Tripura, by upgrading the Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC). The state’s ruling Left Front led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) is now at the helm of affairs of the TTAADC, which was formed by amending the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution in 1985.

IPFT president Narandra Chandra Debbarma accused the Left Front government of creating the TTAADC only as a “lameduck institution” - having no real powers - for the development of the backward indigenous people. “The fundamental problems of the people have not been solved. Tribals continue to lose their lands. Even the state of affairs of the Kokborok language of the indigenous tribal people is miserable,” Debbarma told IANS. He said the tribals were

once a majority in Tripura and are said to have been living in the state for more than 5,000 years, but their situation is now precarious.

“We submitted an eight-page memorandum to the (union) home ministry last year. The ministry officials said our demand would be considered positively. Talks between the leaders of IPFT and the central government would continue,” IPFT chief said.

The Left Front, the main opposition Congress, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and other political parties have strongly opposed the IPFT’s demand.

They said the demand would encourage outlawed militant groups to further revive their strength in the state. The CPI-M’s two tribal youth wings - Tribal Youth Federation (TYF) and Tribal Students Union (TSU) - organised a mammoth colourful rally here Wednesday strongly denouncing the separate state demand.

CPI-M spokesman and senior party leader Gautam Das said: “A small state like Tripura cannot be divided further. They (IPFT) are merely trying to regain relevance in the state politics by raising such an impractical demand.” “The IPFT’s demand would only encourage the demands of the extremists and inimical forces,” he told IANS. “Tripura’s tribals are much better off than the tribals living elsewhere in the country. It was evident from the central government assessment and official documents and also the opinion of many scholars.” Chief Minister Manik Sarkar has categorically re-

jected the demand, saying that the Left Front government would not allow any attempt to divide the state.

He also said that he would resist any such move with all his might. Congress leader Ashish Saha said his party strongly opposed the demand. “Tribals in Tripura are deprived in many vital segments... Some political parties are exploiting the sentiment of the tribals,” Saha told IANS. The Congress, the BJP and the Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT) - also a tribal based party - while opposing the demand for a separate state said more powers should be given to the TTAADC and development of the tribal areas should be stepped up. State BJP president Sudhindra Dasgupta said: “Our party strongly opposed the separate state demand in Tripura, but we want more development of the remote and hilly areas and allround development of the tribals.”

Tripura’s two militant groups - National Liberation Front of Tripura and All Tripura Tiger Force have been seeking secession of Tripura from India.

Both the banned groups have their bases in neighbouring Bangladesh and Myanmar. The TTAADC, which has been playing a key role in the socio-economic development of tribals, has jurisdiction over two-thirds of Tripura’s geographical area of 10,491.69 sq km. Over 12.16 lakh people, more than 90 percent of whom are tribals, reside in the areas administered by the council.

Notably, tribals constitute a third of Tripura’s total of 3.7 million people.

NU accredited grade B by NAAC

KohImA, September 12 (mexN): A peer team from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) has recommended various quality enhancement measures for Nagaland University (NU). According to a DIPR report, the NAAC team had visited the university from May 6 to 7, 2014 and accredited NU with Grade B during their visit.

In the certification issued by Prof AN Rai, Director of NAAC, dated July 11, NU was “re-accredited with a CGPA of 2.58 on four points at B Grade valid for a period of five years from 10/07/2014.” The assessment, according to the report, was done on the criteria of curricular aspects; teaching learning and evaluation, research, consultancy and extension, infrastructure and learning resources, student support and progression, governance, leadership & management, innovation and best Practices. The University was in Grade B and described as good, stated the report.

The NAAC peer team recommended that a separate university, preferably a state university, be established to take over affiliation of all the colleges of

• Peer team recommends quality enhancement measures for NU • Recommends that a community college be established

the state and thereby enable the central university to concentrate on high-end teaching and research.

While commending the multi-campus and multifaculty character of NU, it however advised that a perspective plan be developed and the same be systematically adhered to develop the chosen fields/special thrust in each of the subcampuses, “as they happen to be at present.” The team further stated that the main campus could be a hub of basic sciences and social sciences especially at cutting-edge areas.

The NAAC peer team further recommended that permanent campus and infrastructural facilities be established without further delay and stated that it would be better to cluster hostels and other facilities such as library within the campus.

It also called for campus roads, high capacity generators, water supply and connectivity, among others to be given due priority.

It added that Corporate Social Responsibility funds of corporate houses could also be availed for this purpose.

The team noted that the library, e-learning facility and resources can be strengthened and updated.

It added that ICT thrust in teaching-learning should be strengthened further and that more seminar halls with better equipment be provided.

The NAAC team further called for hastening the automation of examination system, finance and administration wings, which are underway.Personnelbesuitably trained and motivated for the sustained adoption, stated the team, according to the DIPR report.

It stated that taking due advantage of the subcampuses, an extension counter of the University Administration, especially for examination/issues and submission of applications/ certificates etc. could be operated for the benefit of students of subcampuses as well as affili-

ated colleges.

It further urged that the research profile of the faculty should be strengthened by providing the necessary incentives and facilities; and that interdisciplinary teaching and research be encouraged.

The team also advised strengthening of student support services, sports facilities, provision for extracurricular and extension activities, adequate internet access, career guidance and placement services.

It then recommended that a community college be established in order to provide skill-based programmes of short term duration and also facilitate vertical mobility in higher education through integration of Vocational Diploma/Certificate programmes with the academic stream.

The NAAC team observed that the university, despite almost completing a 20 year period, “is still in the formative stage of campus establishment and provision of some basic infrastructure.” “A sizeable special funding as in the case of new universities would be needed and the funding agencies may have to accord top priority for the same,” it stated.

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Dimapur

Saturday

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Special North Indian Thali

Chicken Keema Dosa

Entrepreneurial foodies introduce “Dosa Mahal”

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(Left to Right): Avisto Meru and Walu Meru, proprietors of restaurant “Dosa Mahal” in Dimapur. (Morung Photo) Morung Express Feature Dimapur | September 12

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LocaL

13 September 2014

It’s hardly been two years, entrepreneurs and passionate foodies Walu and Avitso Meru had made their entry into the slow but growing restaurant scene in Dimapur. In 2012, the husband and wife entrepreneur duo launched their first restaurant “Dosa Plaza” a 100 % vegetarian restaurant offering a multitude of Dosa variations.

Soon the demand for non-vegetarian items could not be ignored any longer. Taking this to notice, they decided to in-

clude non-vegetarian fares, renamed the restaurant to “Dosa Mahal” and extended the menu to include a variety of cuisines.

Entering the restaurant scene for Walu and Avitso seemed ‘meant to be’. Because both are avid foodies and knew that they wanted to work in the restaurant business. “Even before getting married,” they cheekily add.

In a tête-à-tête with The Morung Express, Walu and Avitso share that the concept of “Dosa Mahal” is neither to be a fast food joint or fine dining but to offer the best of both. Avis-

to comments that there are several other Dosa eateries available in Dimapur, but none where one can relax and enjoy in a clean environment. He also adds that Dosa Mahal chefs are recruited for their high level of experience and even the kitchen is equipped with state of the art facilities.

These, he says, are why the prices are slightly higher than regular Dosas found everywhere else.

According to Avitso, the real draw from Dosa Mahal’s extensive new menu is from the Chinese cuisine.

Feedback from the people, he says, has been positive with comments that the fare is more authentic Chinese and not ‘oily Naga Chinese’ as found in many eateries. The “Special Chicken Keema Dosa” and “Chilli Chicken Dosa” are already said to be crowd favorites.

For Walu, it is the “Special North Indian Thali” which she would recommend to customers. The Thali offers Tandoori chicken, chicken curry, mutton rogan josh, prawn malai, naan, daal makhani, plain rice/jeera rice, tawa roti, mix veg, peela daal fry, dahi, papad, chutney, achaar, ghee and a sweet dish. “A sample of the whole Dosa Mahal menu,” she gleefully smiles.

Walu and Avitso also announce that they will be launching a second eatery in Dimapur, in a month’s time. This time, the plan is to introduce a takeaway counter where people can also have a quick bite. The menu will feature tandoori rolls, kababs and tikkas.

For now, Dosa Mahal provides free delivery to Church Road-Dobhinala Junction-City Tower. Feeling the demand for home delivery system, the restaurateurs also intend to launch home delivery soon. Currently they have outsourced it to “the Delivery Co.” a home delivery service provider.

Dosa Mahal is the perfect place to meet up with friends or relax with family if you particularly have a craving for Dosas. North Indian, South Indian, Chinese, vegetarian, Non-vegetarian, Thai and MexicanDosa Mahal has it all.

Dosa Mahal is located at Peseyie Complex, Near Christian Higher Secondary School, Church Road, Dimapur.

The Morung Express C

DGC organizes data analysis workshop from Sept 15-19 Morung Express News

Dimapur | September 12

In an attempt to build research capacity in the region, the Dimapur Government College (DGC) has organized a workshop on techniques of data analysis.

The ‘North East Workshop On Techniques Of Data Analysis’ will be hosted at the AIDA, Don Bosco, from September 15-19, 2014.

It is jointly organized by the DGC, Bayesian & Interdisciplinary Research Unit and the Indian Statistical Institute (Kolkata).

“This is the first time that this workshop will be hosted in Nagaland,” informed the convenor of the Workshop. “Main objective of the workshop is to build the capacities of prospective researchers.” The DGC aims to turn

the image of Dimapur as an “academic desert” around and make it a place where researchers can find the required resource and expertise to deal with the mass of quantitative data available in today’s age. Building on basic computer knowledge, the Workshop will help participants from varied disciplines to analyse large quantity of (numerical) data with the help of softwares, which can then be appropriately, and with added ease, interpreted by the researcher. The Workshop will build upon an earlier workshop organized by the College on research methodology, in collaboration with the ICSSR, Shillong.

While 66 participants from all over the North East applied for the Workshop, 32 applications were accepted. They will flock from diverse

backgrounds like philosophy, economics, management, commerce, agriculture economics, animal health, biotechnology, computer science and the life sciences— ICAR, tea plantation, Assam University (Silchar), National Institute of Technology (Agartala and Silchar), Government of Nagaland’s Department of Economics & Statistics and Nagaland University are some of the institutes that are sending participants to the Workshop.

The Workshop has been organized by the Indian Statistical Institute (Kolkata) for many years all over the North East, and is being done for the first time in Nagaland. It will go into Basic Probability Theory and Distributions, Introduction to Regression, Introduction to Basic Inference, Analysis of Variance, Design of Expecta-

Tourism Department launches Convention Centre in Dimapur

Parliamentary secretary for Justice & Law, Jacob Zhimomi (5th right) along with officers of the state Tourism Department at the inauguration of the convention centre near Agri Expo site on Friday. (Morung Photo)

DIMAPUR, SEPTEMBER 12 (MExN): Nagaland parliamentary secretary for Justice & Law, Jacob Zhimomi, on Friday inaugurated the Department of Tourism’s ‘Convention Centre’ located near the entrance gate of Agri Expo site, Dimapur.

Congratulating the Tourism Department for construction of the convention centre, the parliamentary secretary said Agri Expo site being a main tourist attraction and where major events and programmes are being held throughout the year, the addition of a convention hall near the site would be an added bonus both to tourists and local people.

Jacob also expressed opti-

mism that the convention centre would foster unity and oneness among the Naga people.

“People will come here to hold meetings and discuss various issues including political, social and religious. It is my prayer and hope that the centre would go a long way is fostering better understanding and unity amongst the various tribes and communities,” Jacob said.

Stating that Nagas are very casual in their approach when it comes to maintaining government or public property, the parliamentary secretary appealed to the general public to make best use of the facility and also to protect it for the common

good. He said the Diphupar village council and elders have the added responsibility to protect the property since the centre falls under their jurisdiction.

Executive engineer, Tourism Department, Er. Toba Angami, who presented the technical report said the project was sanctioned in 2012 and the land for the centre was given by the Agriculture Department. Toba also informed that the centre has a restaurant and kitchen attached with it.

Additional director, Tourism, KT Thomas, chaired the programme and deputy director, Tourism, Akhale Vizol, proposed vote of thanks.

Patkai Christian College holds its 40th Annual Social Morung Express News Dimapur | September 12

Patkai Christian College (Autonomous) held its 40th Annual Social today at the Bundrock Auditorium in the college premises with Thungjamo Khuvung, Joint Director, DRDA as the chief guest. The annual social is held to welcome new students and at the same time bid farewell to students in their final year.

The Chief Guest in his speech speaking on the theme of the event “Quest Zenith” asked students to revere God Students of Patkai Christian College (Autonomous) dressed in Naga traditional attires, and speakers in order to reach the zenith.

Khuvung calling the Israepresent speech at the 40th Annual Social of the College on September 12.

lis as the “chosen people” stated, “Whenever they were challenged, the Jews always emerged victorious.” “Their secret is the Almighty God,” he added, and urged the gathering to learn from the Jewish people.

Vice Principal, Dr. Jyoti George Roy, in a short speech called the college “a proud repository of higher education” and stated that since its inception the college has played a crucial role in shaping higher education. “Be excited about your dreams and follow your goals,” Dr. Jyoti told the incoming students.

Highlighting the problems facing the nation today, Dr. Roy called upon students to

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tion, Basic Multivariate Analysis, Introduction to R (a quantitative data analysis software), Time Series Analysis, R for Time Series, Multiple Linear Regression, R for Regression & ANOVA, Categorical Data Analysis, Cluster Analysis, Discriminant Analysis, R for Classification and Clustering, Principal Component Analysis, Factor Analysis, and R for PCA & CDA. Resource persons will include Ayanendranath Basu, Amita Pal, Kiranmoy Das, Nilotpal Sanyal, Smarajit Bose and Sourabh Ghosh.

The DGC aims to set a “good benchmark” for academic excellence by 2015-16, for which it has taken up various outside-classrooms academic activities like starting a Community College in August this year and a certificate program in floriculture.

Azo to grace TPGSU (KC) fresher’s meet KohIMA, SEPTEMBER 12 (MExN): The 12th Freshers’ Meet of the Tenyimia Post Graduate Students’ Union (TPGSU) Kohima Campus (KC) Meriema is scheduled to he held at Ura Academy Hall, on September 15 by 10:00 AM onwards.

Minister for PWD (Roads & Bridges), Parliamentary Affairs, Government of Nagaland, Kuzholuzo (Azo) Nienu will grace the Meet as the chief guest while Neichüte Doulo, Coordinator, Entrepreneur Associates would be the guest of honour of the day long function.

Meanwhile, the day long function would be led by Veralu Vero, Chikhungo Puro, Associate Pastor, CBCK will invoke God’s blessing, TPGSU President Vechivo Rhakho will deliver Presidential address, greetings and freshers’ word will be tendered by Kegwahyun Tep, President PGSU and Wewa-u Mero respectively. Ruovikuonuo Zumvu and Dziesetuolie will propose words of gratitude and closing prayer respectively followed by a luncheon.

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AACMA welcome new DC of Phek KohIMA, SEPTEMBER 12 (MExN): The Chakhesang Mothers’ Association (CMA) has bade adieu to outgoing Deputy Commissioner (DC) of Phek C. Tsanglao (IAS) and welcomed the incoming DC Murohu Chotso on behalf of the entire Chakhesang womenfolk. A press communiqué issued by CMA President Zaposhelu Venuh termed the outgoing DC as an officer of dedication, honesty, sincerity and reasonable administrator, and under his administratorship, people of the district benefited a lot despite his short stay. Expressing its gratefulness to Tsanglao for his hard work and vast experienced knowledge in dealing with the NGOs and the public, the CMA also wished him prosperity in all his upcoming endeavours. "The CMA would always cherished the good deeds of Tsanglao even in the near future," the communiqué added.

Welcoming the incoming DC, the CMA further expressed its high hope that, the public of the district will be observing a new facelift in all aspects of life under his administration. The CMA while assuring to extend its fullest cooperation with the incoming DC also sought his support for the joint eradication of social evils in the society.

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strive in order to meet the challenges. She further urged upon the students to transform their thoughts and bring a radical change in the new generation.

Earlier, SUPCC President Sensuthung Odyuo in his welcome address called Patkai “a place of opportunities” where “dreams can come true.” He quoted the words of the Founder Principal Emeritus of the College, Rev. Dr. T.A. Shishak, saying “Patkai strives for a better future of everyone.”

Manngai H. Phom delivered a speech on behalf of the freshers, while Viseneinuo Siria spoke on behalf of the outgoing KohIMA, SEPTEMBER 12 (MExN): students.

The Kohima Bazar Puja Committee will be celebrating the Durga Puja near Head Post Office, Kohima from September 30 to October 4. Kohima Bazar Puja Committee convenor has sought the support and cooperation from each and every individual for the success of the celebration.

Kohima Bazar Durga Puja Committee

‘State lacking in vocational training’ NBCC organizes conference for heads of schools

Parliamentary Secretary, Deo Nukhu addressing the gathering at Immanuel College, Dimapur on Friday. (Morung Photo)

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DIMAPUR, SEPTEMBER 12 (MExN): Parliamentary Secretary for Higher Education and SCERT, Deo Nukhu on Friday pointed out that the state was lacking in many areas of vocational training.

Speaking as chief guest during the 21st Annual Social cum Cultural Day celebration at Immanuel College Dimapur, Nukhu underscored the importance of vocational courses and said that one can also achieve things in life through such courses apart from the regular educational degrees. He also revealed the acute

shortage of teachers particularly in Mathematics and Science subjects in schools and encouraged the students to take up courses in these areas to fill the gap. However, Nukhu advised the students not to be pressurized into choosing subjects because of what others say. “Rather, choose a subject of your interest,” he said and added that no subject was inferior to the other.

The chief guest urged the students to make good use of modern technology as inappropriate use of it leads to undesirable situations in the society.

Nukhu also spoke about the evils of ragging in educational institutions across the country and asked the seniors of the college to guide the junior students by creating conducive atmosphere in the campus.

The first session of the programme saw various renditions of songs by the Immanuel College Choir and other students.

Principal, Immanuel College, Th. Sharatchandra Singh and Chairman Immanuel College, Dr. A. Loso Chalai also spoke briefly during the programme.

KohIMA, SEPTEMBER 12 (MExN): The Heads of School Conference under the School Ministry of NBCC was held on September 10 and 11 at the Platinum Hall, NBCC Headquarter Office, Bayavü Hill Kohima.

The conference started with a presentation of report and proposal for school ministry by Rev. Dr. Mechiehol Savi, School Coordinator, NBCC. Welcome addressed was brought by Rev. Dr. L. Anjo Keikung, General Secretary, NBCC. Resources persons for the program were Dr. Ratsamee Dangsuwon, Chairperson of the Educational Board Committee, Church of Christ in Thailand, Parinya Tawinno, Director of Padoongrasdra School, Church of Christ in Thailand, Kesonyü Yhome IAS, Principal Director, School Education, Government of

CMO Kohima informs

Participants, resource persons and others during the Heads of School Conference under the School Ministry of NBCC held in Kohima.

Nagaland and Wasenmo Apon, Principal Baptist Higher Secondary School, Tseminyu.

Topics on System of Education Ministry under CCT (Vision, Administration and Management), Mission Opportunities in School, System of Education Ministry under CCT (Co-ordination, Finance, Curriculum etc) and Changing Trends in Ed-

ucation System were dealt during the program. Moderators for the program were Nyamto Konyak, Principal, Konjong Higher Secondary School Mon Town, Xutoshe Phucho, Headmaster, Mission School Phughoboto and M. Toshi Jamir, Headmaster, KG School Mangmetong.

There was a worship service in the first eve-

ning of the conference where Lipokbenla, Principal, Christian Standard Higher Secondary School Changtongya chaired the program while Iluiheing Nsarangbe, Board Member of the school ministry, NBCC offered the invocation prayer. A special song was presented by the Khedi Baptist School, L. Khel, Kohima Village.

KohIMA, SEPTEMBER 12 (MExN): The Chief Medical Officer & Designated Officer, Kohima has stated that there are many Food Business Operators (FBO) who have not obtained Food Safety Licence/Food Safety Registration Certificate from the office of the CMO, Kohima.

In this regard, a notice was served to the unregistered FBOs to obtain food security registration certificate. However, inspite of the notice served, there are still many who have not complied and for violations of the Food Safety & Standard Act, Rules and regulations, the Food Safety Officer Kohima has prosecuted 48 FBOs from Kohima Bible College area, New Secretariat Road and High School Colony Kohima for adjudication in the court of the Adjudicating Officer (Additional Deputy Commissioner, Kohima). The defaulters from different colonies of Kohima town will also be prosecuted, according to a release by Dr. Avinuo Motha, CMO & Designated Officer, Kohima.

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REgional 3 Invisible 9/11: 56 Years Need for ILP felt by state government: Gaikhangam NIA to handle ADC member murder and ambush cases of AFSPA in the North East Saturday

The Morung Express

13 September 2014

Dimapur

Newmai News Network Imphal | September 12

Guwahati, September 12 (mexN): Civil Society groups from the North East India assembled in Guwahati on September 11 and deliberated on the various aspects of the imposition and continuance of Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958.

The organisations that participated included Centre for Research and Advocacy, Human Rights Alert, Manab Adhikar Sangram Samiti, WinG-India, North East Dialogue Forum, Borok People Human Rights Organisation, Barak Human Rights Protection Committee, People’s Right to Information and Development Implementing Society of Mizoram.

It also included eminent personalities of the region like Prof. Apurba Kr. Baruah, Advocate Bijon Mahajan, writer and social activist Kaka Iralu, Dr. Prasenjit Biswas, Professor of Philosophy in NEHU, Babloo Loitongbam, Executive Director, Human Rights Alert, Anjuman Ara Begum, member, WinG-India and Prof. Akhil Ranjan Dutta. A press release received here informed.

During the meet, the groups passed a series of resolution. The

resolution noted that it was on September 11, 1958 that the President of India signed the Act, and the same day September 11 (9/11) is observed as ‘anti-terrorism day’ around the world. “The struggle against state terrorism started on the same day for the inalienable civil, political and cultural rights of the peoples of Northeast India with the imposition of AFSPA 56 years ago,” the release stated.

The groups expressed outrage at the horrendous stories of atrocities committed by the armed forces of the Union, “including aerial bombing, forced grouping and re grouping of villages, burning down of villages, enforced disappearances, extrajudicial executions, rape and other forms of sexual violence, torture and inhumane degrading treatment etc.,” under the impunity provided by the AFSPA. It also expressed outrage by the fact that “rape and other forms of sexual violence has been used as a weapon” under the impunity provided by AFSPA. It “deeply felt” the need to liberate the upcoming generations from the inter-generational trauma inflicted by a militarized

state of exception; The release added that the civil society groups were encouraged by the fact that the various official Commissions and Committees set up by the Government of India has also unanimously recommend the repeal of AFSPA. “Having established that AFSPA violates not only the international human rights standards but even the international humanitarian law, India should uphold its international obligations to emerge as a major power on the world stage,” the release stated.

The groups resolved to take up intensive mobilization of masses of the northeast to oppose the draconian law and also stated that it would constitute a NE platform for a broader coordination and coalition of various human rights groups, civil society groups, peoples’ movements at both regional as well as all-India level. It added that it would lobby with MPs from the northeast region as well as other sympathetic parliamentarians to facilitate “procedural and substantive actions” to repeal AFPSA at the earliest.

Manipur deputy chief minister Gaikhangam has said that the need and urgency for protecting the indigenous people of the state by the implementation of Inner Line Permit (ILP) System in the state is felt by all sections of the people including the state government, civil organizations, students’ organizations and women associations.

"As such, it is necessary to eliminate the differences of opinion which exist among the various sections of the people regarding the issue and bring a proper solution through peaceful talks and measures”, the deputy CM said while interacting with reporters after attending the function of the “XIX Freshers meet cum Annual Get-Together” of D.M. College of Arts at Imphal.

Gaikhangam said that people should not resort to violence while protesting or try to take law into their

GNLA video shows brutal caning of villagers in Meghalaya ShilloNG, September 12 (pti): Outlawed Garo National Liberation Army (GNLA) militants in Meghalaya's Garo Hills region have resorted to a brutal caning at suspected police informers in several villages as a mechanism to deter others from providing information to the police, an official said today.

The matter came to light after police recovered a mobile phone from the possession of one of the cadres of the outlawed GNLA militants who was gunned down by police in an encounter earlier this week, they said. "We found out that the GNLA has adopted this strategy (brutally caning suspected informers) to threaten villagers with an intention to deter any of them getting close with the police," Inspector General of Police G H P Raju told PTI. The video clip has exposed the brutality of the militants as it showed several villagers suspected to be police informers being thrashed brutally by a group of GNLA cadres, he said. Police suspect that the militants had resorted to caning at innocent villagers to ensure that they have a safe place to

hide from the police.

Insurgency Operation 'Hill Storm' launched in the first week of July is yielding results with at least 11–12 camps of the GNLA busted, Raju said. In the opera-

tion which would continue for another month or two, 25 militants belonging to GNLA, ULFA, ASAK, and other militant groups were arrested from various hideouts.

FAIR LOOK GOLD It’s not only about face, it’s all about body. If you are not happy with your look start using Fair Look Gold from today to get your complexion fair and beauty.

Time : 9.30 am Venue : G.Rio School Date : 13/09/14.

Moderator : Mr. Daniel Thong Seb, Chairman, Jo Foundation, Kohima.

Time Topics 9.30 – 10.30am Intellectual and Development Disabilities 10.30 – 11.30am Teaching techniques 11.30 – 12.00 noon Tea Break 12.00 – 1.00pm Behaviour Modification Techniques 1.00 – 1.45pm Lunch Break 1.45 – 2.45pm Case discussions 2.45 – 4.00pm Question hour & coffee Vote Of Thanks : Mrs. Neikule Doulo, Chairperson, Enable, Kohima.

ROBOTRYST 2014-2015, an International Robotics Championship government Polytechnic Kohima (gPK) in association with robosapiens Technologies Pvt Ltd, India’s biggest robotics education company and IIT (Indian Institute of Technology) Delhi is organising roBoTrYST 2014-2015, an international robotics championship.

Time:10am onwards

The event will comprise of a robotics workshop to be conducted by Robosapiens Technologies Pvt Ltd. Participants will be provided with robotic toolkits. A robotics competition will be held just after the workshop.

Winners will be invited to the finals to be held in March 2015 at New Delhi.

Benefits: • IIT Delhi and Robosapiens Technologies Pvt Ltd will provide a certificate to each participation and certificates of merit to the Registration fee: `500/- per head Last date of registration: 18/09/2014 winners.

Registrations forms are available at • Hands on practical oriented experience in autonomous robotics Government Polytechnic Kohima • Industry recognised certificates during office hours • Improves job prospects and advantage over counterparts.

• Interaction with reputed leaders in the field of robotics All interested schools, colleges and individuals are invited to participate. Limited seats .

Dimapur- 08253830150/ 07670005697

Contact faculty coordinator: Hangkum Sao Chang 9615264772, hangkum_chang@yahoo.co.in

N.B. Last date for registration: 19th Sept. 2014

GOVERNMENT OF NAGALAND

OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY COMMISSIONER PEREN: NAGALAND

No. gEN/rECrUIT-1/10-11/ Dated Peren the 9th Sep’2014

POST OF DOBASHI GR-II VACANT AT PEREN

Applications are invited from Indigenous inhabitants of Peren District, Nagaland for 3 vacant posts of Dobashi Grade II under the establishment of Deputy Commissioner Peren.

50% of the vacant posts are reserved for inservice candidates as per Govt. OM NO. CNE1/8/2011/DMR(DLRB), Dated Kohima the 4th Nov’2013.

The applications should be submitted to the DC Office, Peren during Office hours on or before the 9th of Oct’2014.

Sd/PETEr LICHamo Deputy Commissioner Peren, Nagaland.

people in the state by implementing ILP or a similar law. For this, a 15-member committee has also been constituted and 'all political party' meeting is being organised to discuss the issue of ILP where experts and legal authorities have been invited, he added.

WANTED TEACHERS…. maPLE TrEE SCHooL, supporting a collaborative team environment, is seeking enthusiastic and well qualified teachers to further enhance its staff team as per the positions given below.  All applicants must have good academic record, excellent communication skills, teamwork and a presentable personality.  Successful applicants must demonstrate a passion for their subjects and inculcate this in each student.  All teachers are required to make a significant contribution to our extensive co-curricular activities.

All applicants must send a detailed resume, mentioning the position applied for, along with passport photograph by email to mapletreedimapur@gmail.com or by post to Maple Tree School, 208 Kashiram, Rangapahar Cantonment Road, Dimapur 797112, Nagaland. Last date for receiving applications will be 15th October 2014. Selection process will happen in November 2014. Selected candidates will undergo training during February & March 2015 to gear up for new academic session starting April 2015.

Experience the difference…. maKE THE DIFFErENCE!

Program

Date: 22nd and 23rd September,2014

tions in the state, Gaikhangam said that this was done to prevent untoward happenings "because there is a strong apprehension that students will be forced to join the movement." He added that the government is constantly thriving to protect the indigenous

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Venue: Government Polytechnic Kohima

hands as this in turn makes people more miserable. He added that it was the duty of the government to maintain law and order by taking various measures.

On the decision made by the state government of declaring indefinite holiday for academic institu-

Pre-primary Teacher Primary Teachers Science Teachers

WORKSHOP on INFORMATION DISSEMINATION on PWD Resource Person: Dr Y. Simpson Special Educator, Dept. Of Paediatrics, CIHSR, Dimapur.

imphal, September 12 (NNN): The Manipur Government in its cabinet meeting today has decided to hand over the ADC member murder case and the Manipur police convoy ambush case to the National Investigation Agency (NIA).

On July 12, Ngalangzar Malue, 60 years, was killed on the way by suspected militants when he was heading to his home to attend his ailing mother in Ukhrul district.

Again, on September 9, two Manipur police convoys were attacked by suspected militants in two spots between Imphal and Ukhrul killing one police personnel and injuring two others.

The cabinet meeting chaired by chief minister O Ibobi Singh has decided to urge the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) so that NIA can take charge of the two cases.

NIA operates under the MHA. Meanwhile, the cabinet meeting also approved to compensate Rs 5 lakhs to the slain police personnel KS Thotyo and Rs 1 lakh each to the two injured policemen.

GOVERNMENT OF NAGALAND OFFICE OF THE DIRECTOR STATE ENVIRONMENT AND FORESTRY TRAINING INSTITUTE DIMAPUR No. JICa/SEFTI/01/ 79

Dated Dimapur, the 10th Sept, 2014

INVITaTIoN For BIDS (IFB) NaTIoNaL ComPETITIVE BIDDINg Notice for Inviting Bids for construction of new buildings and renovation of existing building at the State Environment and Forestry Training Institute (SEFTI), Dimapur (Nagaland).

1. The Department of Forests, Ecology, Environment and Wildlife, Government of Nagaland is implementing a Japan International Co-operation Agency (JICA) assisted project titled “Capacity Development for Forest Management and Training of Personnel” (IDP-199) and intends a part of the fund to cover eligible payments under contracts for construction/renovation of works as detailed below. Bidding is open to all eligible bidders from the country. Bidders/firms should be registered with Government of Nagaland or other State Government/ Government of India or State/Central Government undertaking. Bidders are advised to note the minimum qualification criteria specified in clause 4 of the Instructions to Bidders to qualify for the award of the contract.

2. The Director, SEFTI, Dimapur, and Member Secretary SPMU Nagaland invites bids for the construction of new buildings and renovation of the existing buildings and for that details can be obtained from the office of the Director, State Environment and Forestry Training Institute (SEFTI), Dimapur.

The details of construction of new buildings and renovation of existing buildings are posted on the website of the Government of Nagaland, (i) www.nagaland. nic.in (ii) www.nagaland.gov.in.

3. Bidding documents may be purchased from the office of the Director, SEFTI, Dimapur, Nagaland from 10:00 am of 16/09/2014 to 12:00 Noon of 09/10/2014, for a non-refundable fee , in the form of Cash or Demand Draft on any Scheduled bank payable at Dimapur in favor of the Director SEFTI on payment of Rs 3000/- (Three thousand ) only. The Director will not be held responsible for the postal delay if any, in the delivery of the documents or nonreceipt of the same if the request is made by dispatch of Bidding Documents by post. An additional amount of Rs. 300/ (Rupees three hundred only) will have to be paid in Demand Draft or in cash along with the application for meeting postal expanses.

4. Bids must be accompanied by the security of the amount specified for the work in the table above, drawn in favour of The Director, SEFTI, Dimapur, Nagaland. Bid security will have to be in any one of the forms as specified in the bidding document and shall have to be valid for 45 days beyond the validity of the bid.

5. Bids should be valid for 90 days after the deadline date specified for submission.

6. Bids in sealed cover must be submitted to “The Director, SEFTI, Dimapur and member Secretary, SPmU, Nagaland” as the case may be on or before 14:00 hours on 09/10/2014 and will be opened on the same day at 14:30 hours, in the presence of the bidders who wish to attend. If the office happens to be closed on the date of receipt of the bids as specified, the bids will be received and opened on the next working day at the same time and venue.

7. Other details can be seen in the bidding documents.

8. Mere submission of bids will not confer applicant’s any right for receiving or carrying out the tendered job. Forests Department, Nagaland reserves the right to accept/reject one or all bids or stop the process of approval at any stage, at its sole discretion without assigning any reasons and shall bear no liability whatsoever consequent upon such a decision. address:

The Director, State Environment and Forestry Training Institute, Near Sub-Urban Police Station, Lhomithi Colony Dimapur – 797 112, Nagaland.

(K. Hukato Chishi) Director, SEFTI and member Secretary, SPmU, Nagaland, Dimapur on behalf of the governor of Nagaland.

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Dimapur

public discoursE

Saturday 13 September 2014

The Morung Express

Why NSF supported AASU? Brief profile of Pughoboto

I

nitially Naga Students’ Union, Shillong led by its President Timikha Koza developed diplomatic friendship with All Assam Students’ Union(AASU) and supported its movement against illegal Bangladeshi immigrants in Assam in the middle 70s. Then NSF entered into scene to extend its wholehearted support to massive AASU movement on foreigners issue which shook the State of Assam. The reasons for NSF to lend its support to AASU were humane and legal. It was the realization that illegal Bangladeshi immigrants mostly used Assam as its base and passage through which foreigners used to come to the foothills of Nagaland.

It was therefore felt that those illegal citizens were better warded off at source in Assam which would then indirectly and ultimately ease the burden of Nagaland in the long run. Had it been not so, it would then become a menace to Nagaland despite the existing restrictive laws.

The other reason was that to Nagaland, Assam will remain an important neighbour as it is the gateway of Northeast. Therefore, it was most imperative for NSF to show its solidarity with AASU as it was in need of such support. Supporting AASU’s

town to the SBI authorities

movement against foreigners was one of the top agenda of NSF which ultimately brought the two organisations to closer ties.

In the light of the importance of the friendship between the two entities, and to enter into a formal pact, NSF invited AASU to Kohima in connection with its historical cultural event. My counterpart Mr. Prafula Kumar Mahanta, President, AASU and myself signed the ‘Joint Declaration’ on 4.12.1981 at Kohima. I believed the document is maintained

by NSF. Out of AASU, a regional political party called Asssam Gana Parishad (AGP) was born, and ultimately my counterpart became the Chief Minister of Assam. Initially the AGP Govt. took up the foreigners issue with zeal, but as time went by the tempo receded. And as AGP was reduced to opposition change of guards came with new policies in respect of Assam-Nagaland border issue. Intervention of Centre Govt. is always found to be to our disadvantage.

What NTC has suggested to sort out the issue outside the court and through mutual respect is the better option, I believe.

I

write this brief profile of Pughoboto Sub-Divisional Headquarter for better understanding of the State Bank of India authorities and administrator to realize the urgent need to open an SBI branch at Pughoboto Town in the larger interest of the people inhabiting this part of land under Zunheboto District who calls ourselves as “Sumi Aphuyemi- meaning the first settlers from where Sumi Naga migrated to various part of Zunheboto and Dimapur areas”.

The Sumi Aphuyemi’s are very traditional in outlook, social practices, generally soft spoken and reserved in nature. This Sub-Divisional headquarter was established in the year 1948, in 1949 it was upgraded to Area Superintendent, 1960 to Circle Officer, 1973 to EAC, 1982 it became SDO (Civil) headquarter which was ultimately upgraded to a full-fledged Sub-Division with the ADC Z. Lohe in 1986 and then became an

Bharti Airtel launches 3G network in African nation Tchad

make the country become a technology hub in Africa.

The private sector contributes a lot to the access of internet and we wish Airtel success with its new 3G network project,” Tchadian President Idriss Deby said.

With this launch, Tchad has become 16th 3G market of Airtel in Africa. The company operates in 17 African countries.

The company is left with Nigeria where it has to launch its 3G service.

“With a licence already granted in Niger, services will also be launched within the fiscal year,” the statement said.

“Our 3G platform will allow our customers to combine the enormous potential of the internet with the convenience of cellular phones and other mobile devices,” Airtel Tchad, Managing Director Salia Gbane said.

According to data from McKinsey & Co, there are currently about 400 million mobile subscribers in Africa.

by Tchadian President Idriss Deby, the Mauritanian Head of State, Mohamed Ould Abdelaziz and Goodluck Jonathan, the President of the Republic of Nigeria, Airtel said in a statement released here.

“The launch of the 3G network in the country goes in line with the Government commitment to Chadians to

birThday grEETing Hi Sashi,

A very Fresh N blessed Morning to U.....

As U celebrate your Birthday I just wanna wish U to achieve all Good things in Life.May Success, Joy and Happiness always Smile at U.Have a Great Day.God Bless.

With lots of Good Luck N Best Wishes!!!!!

From Fren Mark Nok’s

I

was one among the others in the crowd at the Watchman Rally and never was me and my friends so mesmerized and awed by the speech of our leader Rev. Vitoshe Swu, ES WSBAK. A bold, fearless, and a true leader who minced no words, a leader who is not afraid to call spade a spade, and someone who is the likes of Martin Luther. Under his initiative, he was the first church leader in our land to openly declare support to ACAUT when many other church leaders were murmuring in fear and apprehensive even to show their indirect solidarity for a just cause. It is learnt that in some churches when some church youths were vocal in supporting ACAUT, some elderly deacons reprimanded and even rebuked them that they will not take any risks whatsoever if anything happens in case. Is this the way to teach the young minds the principles of truth and justice which the very basic tenets and principles of which Christianity is based upon? Is serving in the church just for pleasing the congregation or some people? If you fear people over God what service is for the Glory of His Kingdom?

Even in the Bible Jesus said, you will be mocked, tortured and even killed when you stand for me and from these instances we know those who are ready to go any distance and those who will fall midway. The Rev-

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LEISURE

Simple Rules - There is just one simple rule: “Fill in the grid so that every row, every column, and every 3x3 box contains the digits 1 through 9.”

SUDOKU Game Number # 2994

Prime Minister Jan Dhan Yojana’, the people of this subdivision will continue to face the problem of opening Bank Account, as the sub-division has only one Rural Bank.

Therefore based on this facts and the circumstances faced by the people of this one among few oldest SubDivisional Headquarter in Nagaland, I as a concern citizen of this town urged all the Nationalized Bankers operating in our state to come forward for establishment of their Bank Branches in Pughoboto Town, particularly the State Bank of India, for the welfare of the general public of this Sub-Division.

The administrative authority and the general public assures full co-operation to the SBI or any other Banking Company willing to open their Branches here in this small town.

Toniho Sheqi Concern Citizen Pughoboto Town

A Salute to Rev S Vitoshe Swu, ES WSBAK

businEss

New Delhi, September 12 (pti): Telecom major Bharti Airtel today announced the launch of its 3G service in African country Tchad following recent award of licence for high speed internet services by the Tchadian government.

The company announced the launch at an event which was attended

independent charge Sub-Division with a separate SDPDB in 2012. This Sub-Divisional headquarter is 56 kms away from state capital Kohima and 11 (Eleven) kms from NH.61 with 3 (Three) daily NST Bus services playing between Kohima and Pughoboto. The sub-division now has the strength of 25 Govt.

Offices, 5 Govt. High Schools, 10 Govt. Middle School, 30 GPS, 3 Private High Schools and 3 (Three) Christian Mission institutions. The SubDivision has a total population of 22,000 (Twenty Two Thousand), 15,000 (Fifteen Thousand) electorates in 24 villages, 32 polling stations and a fully fledged Election District.

The need of the hour for the people of this sub-division is an SBI Branch Office at Pughoboto Town for all round development purposes. It may also be made known to the banking authorities that with the Govt. of India’s introduction of the

Open letter to Secretary, NPSC

W

ith utmost concern, we are deeply constrained to bring to your notice the following points for your kind perusal with regards to NPSC Civil Service (Main) 2014, Paper I (MCQ).

1. Out of 200 questions, atleast 120 questions are copy paste from Tata McGraw 2013 model questions. In this regard the exam becomes heavily tilted in favour of some people (those who read the said book) only and the matter of level playing field stands compromised.

2. The current affairs questions has been fully copy paste from the same book (page 99 to 103, Current Events) wherein within five pages of that single book, 50 marks questions has been copy paste. But the main issue here is that, the so called current affairs are no more current affairs because the current events of 2011 & 2012 are no more current affairs of 2014 but has rather become part of General Knowledge (GK is not part of the syllabus).

It then becomes very unfair and unjustifiable because in such a situation, exam becomes more a matter of luck & less of hard work or intelligence. Speculation also be-

comes rift when in premiere exam like NPSC, there are some people who knows almost 100% of the answers. Last year the court has issued a stay order for Manipur Civil Service Prelims exam as the questions were fully copy paste from one single website. It’s unfortunate that NPSC is making similar mistake.

We therefore, earnestly appeal to your concern authority to rectify this grievous flaw by allotting equal marks in the current affairs section or re-conduct exam for Paper I (MCQ). Copy paste is one thing, but setting question out of context is everything. Also, do set questions in original in future without copy paste from any book or website so as to maintain the standard & quality of exam. NPSC has come a long way in gaining the confidence of the people & we believe that it would uphold & even enhance its credibility by doing the needful allowing the aspirants to repose faith in the system.

With regards, Zhoku, Aho, David Konyak, Mar, Yanllupa, Tali, Thsarise, Vire, Khamlong, Aimong, Haiso, Ate Kohima

erend boldly spoke out during the rally that today in our land many of the children of our national workers are the ones running all those bars, pubs and nightclubs and also many anti-social elements being protected under their shield. Also amongst the church leaders, he is the first one to stand up and speak openly against the impending dangers of illegal immigrants that if we don’t not control their anti-social acts and put a check on their growth we are going to become their slaves soon.

Reverend, you are a true shepherd, a true watchman, and true guardian and one true custodian of truth and justice which many fails to stand up and when many compromise with the ways of the world fearing a backlash from humans. May others learn to emulate you and learn from your exemplary personality. The land is truly blessed having a leader like you. Yes, the real battle-field is the in the social evils of this world that where the devils great wide-open fields is. A grand salute and a standing ovation to you on behalf of all the young intellectuals. May the likes of you increase and your tribe increase because Nagaland needs more like you. May God always guide and protect you. God bless!

s I stood beneath the tree in a green park filled with children. Suddenly a glimpse of happy memories with mixed feeling ran through me; May be for the things long cherished, and others for the good things that is left unknown and forgotten. There was a time when I played marbles with friends; accompanied by them we ventured the trenches and meadows; nature was closed to us, and picnic were integral part of our gathering. I could not help but thinks of those memories. Parents and children were together most of the time. To lure a child to sleep, mother sang lullabies with child at their back. Community living in the form of sharing sweets and vegetables were at large.

We never talk about God much, but we wander and believe that there is a God behind every marvelous creation.

At present, the discovery of nature as a child grows up has being replaced by video games. In bare minimum are they forced to learn about the nature through Environmental Studies in academic curriculum. The innocence of the childhood is now diluted with wrong longings of salacious imageries. Parental care is much being duplicated by artificial care and materialism. Religion is now dismissed as myth by atheist. Science which attempts to solve the mysteries has brought more wars. With advent of modernity are we educating ourselves to imbecility?

We need to pause, reflect and think. Sustained by our culture and tradition we need to embrace technology with the thought of eternity and accountability. Taking risks we need to inculcate that goodness back to the society again: the goodness of childhood, friendships and parental care. And God need to be reintroduce for the good of humanity otherwise we become man or woman devoid of moral conscience.

Jonah Achumi Dimapur

Huka V Awomi, Satoi Town, Zunheboto

Long Cherished Memories against Background of Modernity

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DAILY CROSS WORD

CROSSWORD # 3001

DIMAPUR Civil Hospital:

STD CODE: 03862

Metro Hospital: Faith Hospital: Shamrock Hospital Zion Hospital: Police Control Room Police Traffic Control East Police Station West Police Station CIHSR (Referral Hospital) Dimapur hospital Apollo Hospital Info Centre: Railway: Indian Airlines Chumukedima Fire Brigade Nikos Hospital and Research Centre Nagaland Multispecialty Health & Research Centre

Answer Number # 2993

KOHIMA

Police Control Room: North Police Station: South Police Station: Fire Brigade: Naga Hospital: Oking Hospital: Bethel Nursing Home:

232224; Emergency229529, 229474 227930, 231081 228846 228254 231864, 224117, 227337 228400 232106 227607 232181 242555/ 242533 224041, 248011 230695/9402435652 131/228404 229366 282777 232032, 231031 248302, 09856006026

STD CODE: 0370

Northeast Shuttles

100/2244279 2222222 2222111 2222952 2222916 2243339 2224202

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ACROSS 1. Enumerate 5. Place 10. God of love 14. Savvy about 15. Oblivion 16. Fabricated 17. Alteration 19. Biblical garden 20. Do it yourself 21. Warning signal 22. Hand joint 23. Conference 25. Insect stage 27. A high alpine meadow 28. Grumbler 31. Iniquities 34. Leprose 35. Mineral rock 36. General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade 37. Clobbered 38. Auspices 39. Former boxing champ 40. Appearance 41. Secret meeting 42. Make unfit for drinking 44. Neither ___ 45. What’s happening 46. Spouse 50. Seraglio 52. Wear away

54. Caviar 55. Winglike 56. Showy bloom 58. Canvas dwelling 59. Feel 60. Back talk 61. Collections 62. Nosed (out) 63. Initial wager

DOWN 1. A lot 2. An independent film company 3. Remains 4. Not bottom 5. Ski race 6. Moon of Saturn 7. Arab chieftain 8. Find repugnant 9. Put clothing on 10. Come forth 11. The medical use of X-rays 12. Poems 13. Dispatched 18. Most dogs have them 22. Not straight 24. Sodium chloride 26. 5280 feet 28. Range 29. Goddess of discord 30. A musical pause

31. Quaint outburst 32. Sheltered spot 33. A travelling laborer 34. Anagram of “Tradesmen” 37. Cold-shoulder 38. Makes a mistake 40. Flower stalk 41. Laser printer powder 43. Turns away 44. Gestured the affirmative 46. Thicket 47. Keyboard instrument 48. Perch 49. Anxious 50. Derbies or berets 51. Away from the wind 53. Telephoned 56. South southeast 57. An Old Testament king Ans to CrossWord 3000

DIMAPUR: 03862 232201/101 (O) 9436017479 (OC) CHUMUKEDIMA: 03862 282777/101 (O) 9856158740 (OC) WOKHA: 03860 242215/101 (O) 9862039399 (OC) MOKOKCHUNG: 0369 2226225/101 (O) 9436012949 (OC) PHEK: 8414853765 (O) 9862130954(OC) ZUNHEBOTO: 03867 280304/101 (O) 9856156876 (OC)

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LOCAL

The Morung Express

Saturday 13 September 2014

'I see huge marketable commodity in music' Our Correspondent

Kohima | September 12

Adding asset to the fast growing music industry in Nagaland, Lok Sabha MP Neiphiu Rio today inaugurated Music Academy Kohima near Kohima Bible College. Rio maintained that Nagas have enormous talent in the field of music and stressed on the need to nurture the young talents to perfection.

Stating that Nagas have inborn talent in music, he said this raw talent needs to be polished.

“I see huge marketable commodity in music,” he

said adding that professional musicians can represent the state and the country in any part of the world.

He also looked forward to producing many more musicians in the state. He called upon the people not to take music lightly stating that a lot of musicians are needed in churches, the hospitality sector and various functions.

Complimenting the duo Khyochano TCK Ngully and Ajen Longchari for establishing MAK in the state capital, Rio also called upon the people to put an effort together to support the Academy, saying that supporting the institution

Nagaland MP, Neiphiu Rio addressing the gathering during the inauguration of Music Academy Kohima on September 12. (Morung Photo)

means supporting our children. “We have to put our strength together to promote music,” he said.

Stating that an inter-

Dimapur police arrests seven Dimapur, September 12 (mexN): Dimapur Police has apprehended four persons on charges of extortion in three separate incidents.

Two persons identified as Kughato Achumi (32) and Tokaho Awomi (28) were apprehended on September 11 while they were collecting “illegal taxes” in Bamunpukhri, informed a press release issued by Addl. Superintendent of Police/ PRO, Dimapur.

“Illegal tax coupons bearing NSCN (IM) Vehicle Tax, FGN Bricks Challan and (NSCN- U) Gate Pass and cash amounting to Rs.790/- were seized from their possession,” it

added. In another case, one Talisupo Longkumer (19) was apprehended on September 9 for collecting illegal tax from footpath vendors in New Market.

Meanwhile, one person identified as Inakhu (28) was apprehended when “he was in the process of collecting illegal taxes” from the fish market in New Market. Cases have been registered against the arrested persons, who have been forwarded to court, the release informed, adding the investigation is ongoing.

Meanwhile, Dimapur police also arrested three persons for illegal possession of arms in two sepa-

rate incidents. One person reportedly a Sgt Major in the NSCN (K) identified as Mughakhe Zhimomi (24) was apprehended below the Flyover here. The accused was found in possession of a .22 pistol with four live ammunitions in the magazine, the release informed. In another incident on September 12, two persons were arrested from Blue Hill Station. The accused identified as Bamang Taming (25) and Kon Lingum (20) were found in possession of one .32 pistol with two magazines and one live round and one .22 pistol with one magazine.

Cases have been registered and investigation is ongoing, the release added.

national standard institution has finally come to our doorstep, Rio was optimistic that many music lovers would excel through it.

Music Task Force director Gugs Chishi advocated that musicians can shine anywhere in the world.

Acknowledging the tremendous talent of the Nagas in music, he called for polishing and grooming to bring maturity of all the talents. He also called upon the people to evolve a common journey of promoting music in Nagaland.

MAK director Khyochano TCK Ngully expressed the desire to make MAK a

centre of music for musical development in Nagaland and beyond. She said the Academy wants to achieve this by providing quality training, equipping talented individuals and supporting the next generation of musicians for the market and the church.

Ngully said the mission of the MAK is to educate, train and develop students to excel in music through quality training based on international curriculum and developed contextual methods.

This is an institution for all music lovers who have a desire to pursue music professionally or as a hobby.

Our students will derive from the lessons and training- the self-discipline needed for excellence, the empathy required of music-making and the openness and inquisitiveness essential to creativity which is a bedrock for the success of any pursuit, she added.

All the certificates issued for students that appear exams will be under the international music exams board, Trinity College, London.

Earlier, MAK administrator Ajen Longchari acknowledged various dignitaries and well wishers present on the occasion.

ZWOK demands justice for Sept 4 victim Submits memorandum to DC Kohima Our Correspondent Kohima | September 12

The Zeliang Women Organization Kohima (ZWOK) today submitted a memorandum to Deputy Commissioner Kohima demanding justice for the woman, whose husband brutally assaulted her on September 4 in Kohima.

All the frontal tribe women organizations in Kohima also joined the ZWOK team during the submission of the memorandum.

“As per accounts given by the victims’ family the victim was verbally abused, stripped naked and dragged outside their home and a

knife twisted in her private parts cutting areas below her abdomen,” stated ZWOK in the memorandum.

It added that the woman could providentially escape death as she managed to run to a neighbor’s house and was rushed to Naga Hospital Kohima where she is still recuperating.

The memorandum stated that according to family sources this was not the first incident of physical abuse by the husband on his wife.

The Organization condemned the act of “attempted murder” on the life of its member and demanded that bail should not be granted at any cost to the perpe-

trator of the crime. It also demanded for the law to take its own course of action and award the most stringent and exemplary punishment befitting the nature of the crime, which the organization termed “barbaric, inhuman and unthinkable” in a civilized society.

The ZWOK also requested the DC Kohima to take necessary action to ensure that bail is not granted to the accused “so that the law may take its due course of action and deliver justice to the victim.”

A copy of the memorandum was also addressed to Nagaland State Commission for Women.

West PS seize liquor All India Naga Christian Fellowship Conclave ends

The arrested in West PS custody on September 12. (Morung Photo)

Dimapur, September 12 (mexN): West Police Station raided a number of illicit liquor outlets located at Duncan Basti and Midland in Dimapur on Friday. According to West PS, the raid at Duncan Basti was carried out with assistance from the Duncan Village Council. During

the raid, a total of 649 bottles of assorted IMFL was confiscated, while three persons were arrested. The arrested were identified as Nzanbemo, Tamong Kichu and Raju Rai. West PS stated that two cases were registered and the arrested were forwarded to judicial custody.

Dimapur, September 12 (mexN): A threeday All India Naga Christian Fellowship (NCF) Conclave was held from September 5 to 7, 2014 hosted by NCF Kolkata.

The conclave held once in every two years is organised by Nagaland Missions Movement (NMM), the Missions Department of Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) to have fellowship, encourage, strengthen and learn from one another.

Pastors and key leaders from fourteen (14) NCFs attended the conclave with sixty (60) delegates.

Rev. John Amalraj, Executive Secretary, Interserve, Pune, took two sessions

registering their firms under CTC. The release cautioned that defaulters will be penalized with a fine as under: Category A: Mill/ petrol pump/ factory/ gas agency and alike – Rs. 10,000/-; Category B: Hardware/ grocery/ wholesale/ readymade garments/ bakery/ restaurants/ lodging/ any private agencies/ pharmacies and alike – Rs. 5,000/-; Category C: Hotels/ bakery items/ pan shops/ barber/ vegetables/

fish/ butchers/ poultry/ garage/ automobile parts shops and alike – Rs. 2,000/-.

Meanwhile, considering the numerous complaints from general public with regard to rampant parking of vehicles along the stretch of National Highway, Town roads, causing risk to public lives and properties as well as inconveniences to motorists and pedestrians, the CTC Administrator has directed

Conclave held from September 5 to 7 in Kolkata.

on “Urban Missions”. Rev. Dr. Anjo Keikung, General Secretary, NBCC spoke on Sunday worship service and Rev. Andrew Semp,

Director, NMM shared on the first night.

NMM in a press release has extended gratitude to NCF Kolkata led by Rev. Dr.

S. Nungsang, Pastor and his entire team for hosting the Conclave 2014. NCF Shillong will host the next conclave in 2016.

sures to mitigate the adverse impacts of motor vehicle use, the air quality will continue to deteriorate.

According to the release, several vehicles, both private

wheeler category, twenty were tested and 17 passed.

Meanwhile, among the four wheelers, all five passed the test. The vehicles tested were all petrol-driven.

Science exhibition held at DBS Tseminyu tSemiNyu, September 12 (mexN): One-day Science Exhibition was organized at Don Bosco School (DBS), Tseminyu on September 11. The theme of the exhibition was, “I read, I forget,” “I see, I remember,” and “I do, I understand.” Students of the school exhibited 44 items.

Vikhweno (Weno) Magdalene, Additional Deputy Commissioner, Tseminyu, inaugurated the exhibition.

She, accompanied by Watilo Mac, Sub-divisional Education Officer, Nzanbemo Tsopoe, Treasury Officer,

Gwani, Sub-divisional Information Officer, DBs and Village Chairman spent over two hours inspecting the exhibition.

Addressing the gathering, Vikhweno lauded the school management, staff and students of Don Bosco School for the hard work put in to organize the exhibition in a creative way. “I have learned something which I haven’t even learned. I have seen something, which I have not seen. You have given me an opportunity to learn something,” she

said. She also appreciated the Catholic Schools for giving opportunity to the students to bring out their talents in the field of science and all the other areas. She recalled with gratitude the knowledge and skills her Catholic School imparted to her while she was a student.

Students of Govt. Hr. Sec. School, parents and others, witnessed the exhibition. Earlier Fr. Richard Fernandes, welcomed the chief guest, dignitaries and others, and the students of DBS expressed it through

JYO condemns ‘unruly’ act of NSCN (IM) cadres Dimapur, September 12 (mexN): The Japukong Youth Organisation (JYO) has condemned the “boisterous act of firing and harassment of innocent villagers of Yajang ‘C’ village by some unruly NSCM (IM) cadres.” The organisation through a press statement issued by its president, Daniel Longchar and secretary, Tinu Imchen has appealed to all right thinking citizens and organisations to denounce such attitude of “our national workers”.

Mon DPDB meeting postponed Kohima, September 12 (mexN): The monthly meeting of Mon District Planning & Development Board (DPDB) for the month of September has been postponed to September 16 at 11:00 am at the Conference Hall of the Deputy Commissioner, Mon. Those Angami, Assistant Development Commissioner, Mon stated that the Mon district Annual Plan program for 2014-15 will be discussed for recommendation to the government and necessary approval thereof. All the board members have been requested to attend the meeting without fail.

NBCC Students Meet 2014 Kohima, September 12 (mexN): The Students’ Ministry of the Youth Department of Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) is organizing Students Meet on the theme ‘Alive and Awake’ on September 13 and 14 at the NBCC Convention Centre, near Nagaland Civil Secretariat Kohima, Nagaland. The opening service will be at 10:00 am on September 13. The program is mainly for the student community and especially for young scholars staying in different hostels and rent in Kohima Town. Therefore, all the wardens and proprietors of the hostels in Kohima have been encouraged to send their hostellers to be part of the program. The highlights of the program are worship service, seminars on different topics, dance and drama competition. The speakers for the programs are Nuklu Phom, Executive Secretary, PBCA and Dr. Imotemsu, Senior Specialist, Department of Obs and Gynae, (NHAK).

Sand Stockists & Supply Union mourns Dimapur, September 12 (mexN): Sand Stockists & Supply Union Dimapur has expressed shock at the demise of its finance secretary, Vihoshe Chophy on September 12. “Late Vihoshe has been a sincere and hardworking member, who always stood for the welfare of the Union. His demise is a great loss to the Union and the Sumi community,” stated a condolence message issued by the Union president Viniho Shohe. The Union has requested all sand stockists and suppliers in Dimapur and Chumukedima to keep their business closed on September 13 from 6:00 am to 12 noon as mark of respect to the departed member of the Union. His funeral services will be held at 8:00 am on September 13.

a beautiful song. Sr. Lucy MSMHC, the headmistress of the school, proposed vote of thanks.

Fr. Toretkiu in a press release stated that earlier on September 6, 8 and 9, a literary competition was held in the school, which included Solo, Duet, Choir, Dance, Flute, Kank, Folk Songs, prepared speech, extempore speech, quiz, spelling bee, creativity show, debate, creativity advertisement, drawing, essay writing, brain game, choral, storytelling and word game etc.

Unity College informs Dimapur, September 12 (mexN): Principal of Unity College, Dimapur has informed the students of the college having internal back-logs in B.A/ B.Com 1st Semester & 3rd Semester to appear exams in the respective Subject. Mid-term exam will be held from September 15 to 20.

NIDA general meeting on Sept 19

all vehicle owners to park their vehicles in the demarcated parking zone only.

Defaulters, he cautioned, will be fined a sum of Rs. 1,000/-. Further, all auto rickshaws have been directed to possess proper and valid driving license and uniform. Defaulters will be penalized with a fine of Rs. 2,000/- and their autos will be seized, it was warned, adding the order comes into immediate effect.

Kohima, September 12 (mexN): All Nagaland In-Service Doctors' Association (NIDA) members have been informed that an emergency General Board Meeting will be held on September 19, 11:00 am at the Directorate of Health and Family Welfare conference hall, Kohima, to discuss some urgent issues. In this regard, each district has been asked to send at least five members - CMOs and MS positively.

Nagaland & Arunachal governors hold video conference

A book of Ao Naga folktales titled ‘Tar Nunger Otsü’ authored by Talitemjen Imchen was released in Mokokchung on September 12 at AKM Conference Hall by the presinized as one of the main slow moving traffic are all and commercial were tested dent of Ao Senden, Prof. Sangyu Yaden. The book consources of urban air pol- adding to the air pollution on September 12. Among tains thirty-one fables of yore and is the second book of lution and has noticeable problem, it stated. Without ten two wheelers tested, nine the author. Priced at Rs.250/-, the book will be available at impact on air quality. Ill- timely and effective mea- "failed" the test. In the three Christian Literature Centre, Dimapur, Western Book Depot, Kohima and Student Book Centre, Mokokchung.

maintained vehicles, use of adulterated fuel, outdated engine designs, defective road networks, erratic driving patterns and congestion due to mixed and

MEx FILE

Kohima, September 12 (Dipr): The monthly Kohima District Planning & Development Board (DPDB) meeting will be held on September 15 at 12:30 noon at DC’s conference hall, Kohima. The meeting will be the entry conference for the DPDB members where the yearlong activities of the DPDB will be presented and deliberated upon. Therefore, all members have Participants and others during the three-day All India Naga Christian Fellowship (NCF) been requested to attend the meeting without fail.

Two wheelers 'fail' Vehicular Emission Test in Dimapur Dimapur, September 12 (mexN): Nagaland Pollution Control Board (NPCB) conducted a free Vehicular Emission Test on September 12 at DC Court Junction, Dimapur. A press release received here highlighted that vehicular emission has been recog-

5

Kohima DPDB meeting on Sept 15

Chumukedima Town Council informs on trade license Dimapur, September 12 (mexN): All business establishments under Chumukedima Town Council (CTC) have been directed to renew their trade license or register their firms on or before September 16 without fail. EAC cum Administrator of CTC, Thungbemo Patton in a press release informed that many business establishments are running their businesses without renewing their trade license or

Dimapur

Watchman supports Survival Nagaland Dimapur, September 12 (mexN): The Watchman has stated it stands with the resolution made by the newly formed Survival Nagaland. The Watchman in a press statement decried the activities of illegal Bangladeshi immigrants (IBI) taking place in Nagaland. “We decry the actions of some Nagas who are harbouring and encouraging illegal immigrants to get fake documents and voting rights from various offices,” it stated. “We condemn this unlawful and devious collaboration with foreigners who bring disharmony and threat to Naga society.”

The Watchman further encouraged all “young and old original Nagas” to be vigilant against IBIs “who threatens our local economy, our lives and our faith.”

It also observed that “our very identity as Nagas is being threatened by marrying our Naga girls and buying our precious land.”

Asserting its support to Survival Nagaland, the Watchman stated, “We observe that IBIs have entered our land by deceit and their intent is to possess the land at any cost.

We are calling all Nagas to be awake and alert as our better tomorrow will be what we do today.”

Kohima, September 12 (mexN): The Governors of Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh had a video conference on September 11. A press release from PRO to Governor of Nagaland, Dominic Yazokie informed that the topics of discussions pertained to Law & Order, Roads, Air connectivity, Power, Small and Short Landing strips, Global Warming, System study to make an inventory of total Biodiversity of the North East Region, Financial assistance for North East Zone Cultural Centre and for Education. The Governor of Nagaland is scheduled to commence his travel from September 12 to Mumbai, Delhi and Tripura, and then return to the State, the release added.

SBAK-Aizuto mourns Dimapur, September 12 (mexN): The Sumi Baptist Churches Association (SBAK-Aizuto) has mourned the demise of Rev. Sukhalu Shohe, Chaplain, SABAK Mission Centre and former Executive Secretary on September 6. A condolence message from Media & Communication, Literature In-charge, SBAK-Aizuto acknowledged that “Rev. Sukhalu was a man of God, who served Him in different capacities with sincerity and dedication till his last breath.” It further stated that his demise is a great loss to SABAK and Aphuyemi in particular, Sumi and Nagas in general. The SBAK has conveyed condolences to the bereaved family members.

31 Assam Rifles seizes illicit liqour tuli, September 12 (mexN): Troops of 31 Assam Rifles recovered 428 bottles of MC Dowell Rum at Tuli check post on September 6. The liqour was being transported in a Mahindra Pick-up by two persons idendified as Bijay Tati and Atul Mach, informed a press release from Assam Rifles. The two were detained along with the vehicle and were handed over to Tuli Police Station, including the liquor.

6

People, life, etc...

Saturday | 13 September, 2014

Apple's smArtwAtch: Timely idea or clocked out?

REVIEW: Apple Watch looks to be another winner

Mae Anderson

ap technology Writer

A

pple is a habitual party crasher, but can the company's history of arriving late and making a big splash in various gadget categories continue with the Apple Watch?

The technology company was a late entrant into many of its most prominent product categories: the iPod wasn't the first digital music player and the iPad wasn't the first tablet. But in most cases, the innovation the company infused into its devices ignited previously dormant markets __and Apple products became "must haves."

Smartwatches have been around for a few years, but makers such as Samsung and Sony have failed to make them a runaway hit.

Apple's stated entry into the smartwatch arena this week with a gadget that won't go on sale until early 2015 raises questions: Can the company work its magic as it has in the past and convince people that they really need a smartwatch —or will this time be different?

Experts say Apple is likely to stimulate interest in smartwatches, but they contend that the company must overcome a few hitches before its device can succeed.

Wearable devices is a small but growing area that technology companies are hoping to capitalize on as the smartphone and tablet usage grows.

Citi Investment Research estimates the market for smartwatches will be $1.4 billion to $1.8 billion this year and could grow to $10 billion by 2018.

But no company has cracked the formula for a mass-market success. The entire "wearables" category includes sport fitness bands, watches and other apparel —everything from Fitbit's $99 Flex fitness tracker and Nike's $99 Fuelband fitness monitors to Samsung's $199 Galaxy Gear smart watch. Experts say the Apple Watch's real test will come when developers begin to develop apps for the gadget, which Hamza Hendawi associated press

P

alestinian filmmaker Khalil Mozayen's latest work was already complexly layered — a movie within a movie about a director and screenwriter producing a film about an honor killing in the Gaza Strip.

Then the latest Gaza war burst in to add yet another layer: An Israeli airstrike levelled the 13-story apartment tower where Mozayen's office, studio and archive were located.

So he filmed the mountain of rubble and used it for the final scene of his movie, "Sarah 2014."

Mozayen had hoped to create a film not connected to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But he and his screenwriter Naim al-Khatib said they decided they couldn't avoid addressing the war.

"It is like, as a Palestinian, you don't have the right to have your own dream, that everything in your life has to have something to do with war and (Israeli) occupation," said al-Khatib, who also plays the fictional screenwriter in the movie.

"The occupation crashed our privacy ... and the war became an integral part of the film's ending," he said.

The themes and reality of war impose themselves on Gaza's small but vibrant arts scene, and the latest war has been a pow-

Anick Jesdanun

A

Apple CEO Tim Cook discusses the new Apple Watch on Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2014, in Cupertino, Calif. (AP Photo/Marcio Jose Sanchez)

is Apple's first brand-new product introduction in four years.

"What separates Apple from the others is partially the design itself —it's a lot more elegant than other offerings— as well as the Apple ecosystem and (software) developer opportunity," said Susquehanna Research analyst Chris Caso.

Forrester analyst James McQuivey said some Apple Watch features, like the controller knob on the side and the emphasis on different watch sizes and style options for watch bands and clasps, could help the watch stand out.

"Apple has unique strengths to make something elegant and attractive," McQuivey said. He compared the Apple Watch to Apple's earlier innovations like the iPod and its trademark white earbuds.

"They made it something you wanted to be seen carrying," he said. "You have (an iPod) just to make people see that you have it.

Even people who didn't buy it knew what it was."

McQuivey predicts a successful launch but not quite as big a launch as Apple's iPad. He believes the company will ship 10 million units by the end of 2016.

"You only need 10 million to hit that tipping point, then millions of more people will want one suddenly, he said.

By comparison, research firm IDC forecasts that about 4 million smartwatches will be sold

this year, more than double the 1.7 million sold in 2013. The top brands are Samsung and Pebble.

Canaccord Genuity analyst Michael Walkley gives an even rosier outlook, forecasting 14 million will sell during fiscal 2015 and 25 million in fiscal 2016.

"We believe our estimates could prove conservative, as we were impressed with the design, user interface, and features included in Apple watches," he said in a client note. "We believe the fitness and health features are the most compelling in terms of driving sales of the new product category for Apple and could also drive stronger demand than our initial estimates."

Even so, there are a few sticking points that could keep the device from being a success. The first is its price tag, which starts at $349. Several analysts said that's more than they were expecting.

"There may be consumer concern about the price," said eMarketer senior analyst Cathy Boyle. "It's going to catch a lot of people's attention, but adoption is going to be gradual."

A slow build won't necessarily doom the product. iPhone sales started slow in the device's first year on the market. Apple sold just 5.4 million iPhones between mid-2007 and the summer of 2008. More than 550 million have been sold as of June. With

the iPad, Apple sold 19.5 million tablets in the first year on the market. More than 225 million iPads have been sold.

The Apple Watch faces a few other problems: lt's unclear how long the battery lasts and the watch won't ship until early 2015, disappointing those who were hoping to get or give one as a holiday gift. It also has to be tethered to an iPhone via Bluetooth for some functions, including GPS. "The lack of GPS or WiFi natively on the device will require an iPhone to be nearby for most tasks, which both limits some near-term use cases," said Raymond James analyst Tavis McCourt. "But it provides ample fodder for upgrade opportunities in the future."

The long lead time before the product ships could mean the device will be more functional once it's released, since app developers have more time to create apps specifically for the watch. And Apple is loading the device with fitness apps and an Apple Pay digital wallet service that might appeal to some consumers who are on the fence.

"The intention (of showing the watch months before it ships) is to show the developer community they have an elegant industrial design, but to make it really useable and exciting you have to have apps for it," said Susquehanna Research analyst Caso. "Apple is playing the long game here for sure."

ap technology Writer

s computerized wristwatches go, the upcoming Apple Watch looks impressive.

I like that it will come in two sizes, so the watch won't feel giant on smaller hands, as some competing watches do.

I also like that Apple will offer a variety of straps and materials, so fitness buffs can get a strap that's stronger and sweat-proof, while those seeking a fashion accessory can opt for an 18-karat gold edition.

Beyond looks, it's great that the Apple Watch isn't simply adopting the smartphone way of doing things. The operating system, Watch OS, was designed specifically for the watch, and its interface relies heavily on the dial to the right, known as the digital crown. Competing watches tend to emphasize the voice and touch controls found on phones.

Of course, it's premature to conclude that you need an Apple Watch. I had only about 45 minutes with the Apple Watch and other new products announced Tuesday. The watch I was allowed to try on was running in a demonstration mode.

It'll take more time with the watch — beyond a controlled environment — to make a solid conclusion.

What I'm seeing so far, however, points to another winner for Apple.

The home screen has all your apps, arranged in rows like a honeycomb. You use the dial to zoom in and choose one. The touch screen lets you slide the honeycomb around to see different portions of your app collection. I find this easier than swiping on a small screen to scroll through pages and pages of apps. With the Apple Watch, you can even rearrange apps so that your favorite ones are toward the middle.

App developers will be able to decide what types of notifications appear on the watch and let you take actions such as replying to messages. That's an improvement over existing smartwatches, which largely replicate the notifications sent to your phone. To be compelling, the watch shouldn't duplicate your phone. It should enhance it. Apple seems to get it.

As for using the dial to zoom in and out, Apple says that improves usability because you're not blocking maps and other content on the screen the way pinching in and out would. That makes sense, though I'll need more time with the watch to assess how well the dial works on its own. With your home screen, for instance, you still need to slide apps around.

Another question mark is what

kinds of apps will be available for it.

Apple announced a few useful ones, including the ability to unlock your Starwood hotel room with a tap of your watch. That's easier than pulling out your room key from your wallet. BMW also promises one to help you find your parked car in a crowded lot. If it works, that beats walking around in circles.

Apple does have a good track record in getting software developers to make good apps for its systems.

Many apps come to iPhones and iPads first, and some have bonus features unavailable on Android. If that trend continues with the Apple Watch, I have no doubt customers will find more useful things to do with it than the smartwatches already out.

Apple Watch will require an iPhone 5 or later and will have a starting price tag of $349, higher than rival watches. Expect to pay even more for the 18-karat gold edition and other premium models.

You'll also have to wait until early next year, as Apple won't have Apple Watch available in time for the holidays.

As for products and services that will be available sooner: IPHONE 6 and IPHONE 6 PLUS Apple's new 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus are both larger than the current 4-inch models. They neutralize a key advantage Android phones have had: size.

And Apple managed to make its new phones thinner, with edges that are curved and fit nicely in the hands. Gone is the glass back, reducing the chances of breakage. The back will now be made of aluminum and feel more like an iPad. To improve one-handed use, both new models will have a feature called reachability. With two light taps of the home screen button, the icons, controls and content on the top half of the screen snap to the bottom, so you can reach them with the same hand. Once you make your selection, everything snaps back to the top.

The iPhone 6 Plus also has new horizontal layouts to take advantage of the larger size.

Of course, apps have long worked either horizontally and vertically. On the Plus, horizontal viewing extends to the home screen, and apps will be able to arrange content in two columns.

When texting, for instance, contacts appear on the left and messages appear on the right. On smaller phones, including the regular iPhone 6, you get one or the other, not both side by side.

It's a small touch, but it shows

that larger doesn't necessarily mean making everything bigger. Windows phones also make use of larger screens by squeezing in more content, but with Android phones, text and images just get blown up.

MOBILE PAYMENTS Few people use their phones to pay for goods and services at retail stores. That's because it's not difficult to pull out a plastic credit card, however insecure that technology might be. Apple is trying to change that with Apple Pay, which will come to the new iPhones in October and the upcoming Apple Watch when it's out.

Apple improves over existing systems in a few ways: • Apple already has your credit card information from iTunes, so setting Apple Pay up with your first credit card is easy. To add additional cards, you can either enter the details or snap a photo.

In my brief tests, the phone grabbed my credit card numbers correctly, though I sometimes had to enter my name and expiration date myself because of poor lighting conditions. But grabbing those numbers is a good start, as I'm prone to make typos with 16-digit numbers otherwise.

• Apple uses the phone's fingerprint identification system to authorize purchases. Other wallet apps require passcodes, which can make mobile payments take longer than simply pulling out your credit card.

• Apple stores card information on a secure chip on your device, not on its servers. And it's not even your real card number.

Rather, Apple verifies your card information with your bank and then stores an alternative card number.

That way, if a merchant's system gets hacked, only the alternative number is compromised, and that number would require one-time security codes available only with the physical possession of your phone.

• The system works with credit cards issued by a variety of banks, including all three of mine. A payment system called Softcard, formerly known as ISIS, doesn't support any of my three banks. Amazon's Fire phone has a wallet app, too, but it doesn't even do credit cards, which is surprising for a retailer.

It works only with gift cards.

Apple Pay's usefulness will be limited until more merchants install the necessarily equipment, but many chains already do and more are coming.

War gives inspiration to Gaza's artists erful inspiration for its artists in their new work. The 50 days of fighting, which ended with an indefinite truce on Aug. 26, was the deadliest and most ruinous of three such conflicts between Israel and Gaza's Hamas militant rulers since late 2008. More than 2,143 Palestinians were killed and 100,000 left homeless.

The artists also incorporate the death and destruction into themes drawn from the other realities of life in the tiny Mediterranean coastal strip — a seven-year blockade enforced

by Israel and Egypt and the restrictions on freedoms imposed by Hamas on a society that is already deeply conservative.

Manal Miqdad, a 27-year-old poet, has lived through all those restrictions.

She wanted to study music, but there was no place to teach her that, so she joined the information technology department in the Hamas-run Islamic University, where a flowing robe and a headscarf are obligatory for women.

When she fell in love with a colleague and a fellow music buff, she could not be alone with him except on a handful of occasions. Once, plainclothes Hamas security men stopped the couple as they walked together, demand-

ing to know if they were married or related.

After seeing each other for four years, his family prevented them from marrying. His mother, a native of Gaza, objected to her son marrying into a "refugee" family. Miqdad's family hails from the village of Hamamah, now in Israel, just outside Gaza.

Thrown into depression, Miqdad said she didn't leave her home for 243 days and attempted suicide twice. Her boyfriend eventually left Gaza.

"You cannot love in Gaza, it's a crime," she lamented.

She recalled how during the Hamas-Israel war in the winter of 2008-2009, her family fled their home and discovered when

they returned that Hamas fighters had stayed in their house during their absence. The fighters left an apologetic note, saying they had taken some honey and eggs.

The house was undamaged except for one item: a piano the family had received as a gift only a month earlier. Miqdad has been playing it just before the family fled. Now the keyboard and strings were ripped apart.

"It was obvious who did that," she said. Miqdad didn't elaborate, but music is generally frowned on by hard-line Islamists.

The pain and frustration came out in poetry Miqdad wrote in the latest war. She posted it on social media during the fighting

and it quickly spread as online volunteers translated it into English, French and, significantly, Hebrew.

She was so terrified by the bombardment that she hardly left home, cooped up in a hall between the bathroom and the kitchen that the family deemed the safest place.

"Security in Gaza is to look for the safest spot in a dangerous place," she bitterly mused in one of her poems.

"In Gaza, how many times must we die to convince life that we deserve one?" she wrote. "And how many miracles do we need to defend our dreams and dignity?"

During the war, painter Basel al-Maqosui wanted

to show the world something beyond the death and destruction.

"People outside will look at the gruesome images of Gaza's dead and wounded for a day, maybe two, but not longer," he said. "I wanted to give the world something they can look at day after day for as long as the war lasted."

Al-Maqosui normally paints with oil on canvas, but he needed a quicker medium. There was also the question of how to deliver his work to an outside audience amid war and blockade.

The answer: Photo collage and social media.

The artist, a 42-year-old father of five, took advantage of the brief reprieves in the fighting to photograph

some of the most devastated parts of Gaza. He then paired them with images of some of the world's most famous paintings by Monet, Cezanne and Picasso and posted them on social media.

His work, along with similar production by other artists, attracted much attention in Gaza and abroad.

Al-Maqosui and other artists are partners in Windows From Gaza, a cultural center used as an art gallery and for art courses for children — one of only a handful of galleries in the territory. He and others point to the challenges of being an artist under rule by Hamas.

They recall the suspension for three months in 2010 of a project to give children cameras to take photographs while they investigated it. Eventually, Hamas allowed the project to go on.

"We have learned to be our own censors," said Shareef Sarhan, a photographer and artist associated with Windows from Gaza. "We set our own ceilings rather than, as artists, push the boundaries of artistic expression."

The filmmaker Mozayen said he intended for "Sarah 2014" to be a look at women's rights in a deeply patriarchal society and more universal issues

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.

of human suffering — to tell the world "that we are human and have human issues like everyone else."

Made on a shoestring budget of $220,000, "Sarah 2014" tells the story of a film director, played by actor Jamal Abu Komsan, and a script writer, played by alKhatib, cooperating on a movie about a Gaza woman who disappeared, most likely killed by her family for entering at relationship with a married man.

When the strike, only hours before the Aug. 26 truce, flattened the apartment tower, Mozayen went to film the site. Last week, he climbed up the rubble on a ridge-like section 20 meters (yards) up.

"This is a godsend.

Hollywood producers would pay millions for a location like this and I got it for free," he quipped.

The final scene twists the movie within a movie and reality versus fiction.

The director and screenwriter stand in front of the huge pile of wreckage, arguing over whether to include the images of the war's destruction in the final scene of their movie. The screenwriter argues against it, complaining the film is being pulled away from its intended subject.

"Man, I wish I could be an ordinary human being for once. Someone whose pain is caused by normal causes," he tells the director. "I am fed up with being a Palestinian."

Saturday

THE MORUNG EXPRESS

13 September, 2014

Morung Youth Express

7

The Afghan Girls Who Live as Boys

Mehran, age 7, plays with her twin 11-year-old sisters outside their home in Badghis province, Afghanistan, in September 2010. (File Photo) Jenny Nordberg | The Atlantic

M

ehran, age 6, first arrived at her kindergarten in Kabul as Mahnoush, in pigtails and a pistachio dress.

When school shut down for a break, Mahnoush left and never returned.

Instead a short-haired, tie-wearing child with the more masculinesounding name of Mehran began first grade with the other children.

Nothing else changed much.

Some teachers were surprised but did not comment except to one another. When the male Koran teacher demanded Mehran cover her head in his class, a baseball cap solved the problem. Miss Momand, a teacher who started her job after Mehran’s change, remembers being startled when a boy was brought into the girls’ room for afternoon nap time but realizing, as she helped Mehran undress, that she was a girl. Mehran’s mother Azita later explained to Miss Momand that she had only daughters, and that Mehran went as the family’s son. Miss Momand understood perfectly. She herself used to have a friend at school who was a family’s only child and had assumed the role of a son.

Officially, girls like Mehran do not exist in Afghanistan, where the system of gender segregation is among the strictest in the world. But many other Afghans, too, can recall a former neighbor, a relative, a colleague, or someone in their extended family raising a daughter as a son. These children even have their own colloquialism, bacha posh, which literally translates from Dari to “dressed like a boy.” Midwives, doctors, and nurses I’ve met from all over the provinces are more familiar with the practice than most; they have all known bacha posh to appear at clinics, escorting a mother or a sister, or as a patient who has proven to be of another birth sex than first presumed.

The health workers say that families who disguise their daughters in this way can be rich, poor, educated, or uneducated, or belong to any of Afghanistan’s many ethnic groups. The only thing that binds the bacha posh girls together is their families’ need for a son in a society that undervalues daughters and demands sons at almost any cost. They disguised their girls as boys because the family needed another income through a child who worked and girls aren’t allowed to, because the road to school was dangerous and a boy’s disguise provided some safety, or because the family lacked sons and needed to present as a complete family to the village. Often, as in Kabul, it is a combination of factors. A poor family may need a son for different reasons than a rich family, but no ethnic or geographical reasons set them apart.

And to most of them, the health workers told me, having a bacha posh in the family is an accepted and uncontroversial practice, provided the girl is turned back to a woman before she enters puberty, when she must marry and have children of her own. Waiting too long to turn someone back could have consequences for a girl’s reputation. A teenage girl should not be anywhere near teenage boys, even in disguise.

She could mistakenly touch them or be touched by them, and be seen as a loose and impure girl by those who know her secret. It could ruin her chances of getting married, and she would be seen as a tarnished offering. The entire family’s reputation could be sullied. For that reason, and because the bacha posh I spoke to were minors, some names and details have been changed in the story that follows.

Mehran seems to have adapted well to her new role. She takes every opportunity to tell those around her that she is a boy. She will refuse sewing and doll play in favor of cycling, soccer, and running. According to Miss Momand, Mehran has fully become a boy, and neither her exterior nor her behavior is distinguishable from another boy’s. All the teachers play along and help protect her secret by letting her change clothes in a separate room when necessary.

“So is this all normal to you? Common, even?” I ask Miss Momand.

“Not exactly. But it is not a problem.”

The rules are clear: dresses for girls, pants for boys. There are no other cross-dressers attending school.

But the school has other things to worry about, such as how many armed guards are needed by the front gate. The teacher expresses some solidarity with Azita: “Mehran’s mother is in parliament. She is a good woman.

We do what we must.”

“We women, or we Afghans?”

“Both.”

As for academic skills, Mehran is “intelligent, but a little lazy,” according to her teacher. A few years after leaving Mahnoush behind, Mehran’s personality has grown louder. She spends breaks floating in and out of the boys’ soccer games and other outdoor activities, depending on where the action seems to be at the moment.

Mehran is well aware she is a girl, according to the teachers. Since Mehran was a girl for several years before she was remade into a boy, there should be little confusion for her in that regard. But she always introduces herself as a boy to newcomers.

Sigmund Freud claimed that children are not even aware of genital differences until around the age of 4 or 5, but in the 1980s, the psychoanalysts Eleanor Galenson and Herman Roiphe proved that children’s understanding of a sexual identity begins much earlier. According to their findings, a child can be aware of his or her birth sex as early as 15 months.

Yet in Afghanistan, there is a certain interest in keeping children in the dark, or at least blurring the lines about boys and girls. Specifics about anatomical differences are purposely not explained by many parents, in order to keep the minds of children—and especially those of little girls—“pure” for as long as possible before they marry.

At Mehran’s school, children are absolutely forbidden from seeing the opposite sex naked. The headmaster tells me that at this stage, she is certain that to most students, what sets little boys and girls apart is all exterior: pants versus skirts.

That, and the knowledge that those with pants always come first.

It is simple math—if she is caught, no one eats. And every day she fears discovery. All that Niima is ordered to do, she does very quickly. She climbs to fetch store offerings from the top shelf. She dives under stacked crates of imported Pakistani oranges to pull out boxes of tea. She squeezes her small, flexible body between tightly packed bags of flour behind the counter. She tries never to look directly at customers. If they looked into her eyes, she imagines, they would see she is not a real boy.

With her short hair and gray tunic, 10-year-old Niima plays her part perfectly. But her soft voice gives her away.

That’s why she rarely speaks when she is Abdul Mateen, as she is mostly known outside the mud wall of her home in one of Kabul’s poorest neighborhoods, where an open sewer runs alongside cinder-block houses. Niima attends school for two hours each morning in a dress and a head scarf. Then she returns to the house, changes into work clothes, and goes to work as a shop assistant in a small grocery store near the family’s house. On an average day, she brings home the equivalent of $1.30. It supports her Pashtun family of eight sisters and their mother.

Niima poses as a boy purely for the survival of her family. Niima’s father is an unemployed mason who is often away and spends most of his money on drugs, says Niima’s mother.

Niima could never work in the store as a girl, nor could her mother, even if she wanted to. It would be impossible for a Pashtun woman, according to the family’s rules.

Their daughter displays no enthusiasm for being a boy. To her, it is hard work, with little upside. She would rather look like a girl. Her mother consoles her, saying it will only be a few more years before she can change back into being a girl again.

The family’s future survival is already mapped out: When Niima gets too old for working in the shop, her younger sister will take her place.

And after that, the next sister.

Shubnum’s too-early transition to become a girl has already begun. The eight-year-old’s hair is being allowed to grow out. It was not supposed to happen until she turned 13, but her manner, her fits of giggles, and her long, fluttery lashes made it impossible for her to pass any longer. When she was found out in the boys’ school she attended together with her older brother, the teachers did not object.

But Shubnum had to endure plenty of teasing in class after the others guessed she was a girl.

When I visit her mother, Nahid, in her two-room apartment close to Kabul University, Jack Bauer of 24 is torturing a suspected Muslim terrorist with the electrical current from a broken lamp on the grainy television. Shubnum and her brother watch intently. Their older sister, in a head scarf with a shy smile, stays in a corner, mostly looking down at her hands.

Although Nahid has one son, circumstances dictated that she needed another one. When her abusive husband of 17 years asked her to cover herself completely and stay at home, Nahid chose to walk away with nothing. Her father struck a very unusual and costly deal with her husband at the time of the separation: Their family money would go to him in exchange for the children. Husbands otherwise have an absolute right to the children, which is why the divorce rate is close to zero in Afghanistan. With support from her family, Nahid moved to another part of the city and began her life anew.

She found a job and an apartment. But as a single mother of three—which is almost unheard of in Kabul—she had to balance her family with an extra son, in order for them all to feel safer.

As a divorcée, she was seen as a loose, available woman, risking threats and violent approaches by men, as well as plenty of direct and indirect condemnation by other women. As a woman with two sons, however, she is considered a slightly more respectable creature.

It would have worked out well had Shubnum not been so reluctant and not so terminally girly. Each time she was taken to the barber for a haircut, she cried. Afterward, she would tug at her short hair to make it grow out faster, and at home, she would obsessively try on her older sister’s dresses.

Eventually, Nahid gave up. She blames herself—perhaps she did not make being a boy alluring enough for Shubnum.

When asked which gender she prefers, Shubnum is unhesitant. “A girl,” she responds, with a big smile and cocked head. She glances over at the television, now showing an intense performance of Indian bhangra dance. “So I can wear jewelry and dance.”

No one knows how many bacha posh children there are in Afghanistan.

They are a minority, but it is not uncommon to see them in the villages throughout the country. There are usually one or two in a school, and often one as a helper in a small store. The health workers I’ve spoken to have all witnessed the practice and agree that every family with only daughters will consider switching one to a boy.

In their view, it is mostly to the girl’s advantage to live a few years as a boy, before her other, more difficult life of childrearing of her own begins.

In neighboring countries such as India, where sons are similarly much preferred over daughters, ultrasound machines are among the most soughtafter equipment by doctors and patients. According to the author Mara Hvistendahl in Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men, 160 million female fetuses have already been aborted throughout Asia, skewing the demographic for generations to come and creating acute problems for societies lacking women. Although both ultrasound screenings and secret late-term abortions are available in Kabul for those who can pay, most rural parts of Afghanistan are not there yet. Women in these areas just hope to avoid bringing too many daughters into this world.

Both Western and Eastern history are filled with Mehrans and Niimas and Shubnums. In almost every era, there have been women who took on the role of men when being a woman was made impossible. Many of those whose existences are remembered were warriors, since wars are a manly business deemed worthy of recording.

In the first century, Triaria of Rome joined her emperor husband in war, wearing men’s armor. Zenobia was a third-century queen in Syria who grew up as a boy and went on to fight the Roman Empire on horseback. Around the same time in China, Hua Mulan took her father’s place in battle, wearing his clothes. Joan of Arc was famously said to have seen an archangel in 1424, causing her to

adopt the look of a male soldier and help fight France’s war against England.

The Catholic Church seemed to not only accept women dressing as men but also to admire and reward those who showed bravery and displayed other male traits. In a study of medieval Europe, professor Valerie Hotchkiss of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign described the phenomenon of cross-dressing women as revolving around avoiding marriage, renouncing sexuality, and forever remaining virgins. Both Scivias, a 12th-century collection of religious texts by Hildegard von Bingen, and Summa Theologica by Thomas Aquinas mention how women dressing in male clothing may be permitted in circumstances of necessity. In other words: war.

Dutch historians Lotte C. van de Pol and Rudolf M. Dekker also documented more than a hundred women who lived as men between the 16th and 19th centuries. Many were discovered to be women only when their bodies were carried off the battlefield. These women “existed throughout Europe,” mostly as sailors and soldiers, and likely there were many more who will never be known.

They took on a male identity for reasons similar to the bacha posh in Afghanistan today: Some needed to support themselves and their families. Others needed to disguise themselves to travel or to escape a forced marriage. Some managed to disguise themselves to study, since higher education was closed to women. A few who were found out faced prosecution, but there is evidence indicating some leniency was given to those who had fought for their countries.

By the 19th century in Europe, the frequency of women who dressed as men seemed to diminish. Historians attribute it to an increasingly organized society where various forms of civil registration such as border controls and mandatory medical examinations for soldiers made it more difficult for women to pass as men. A more dysfunctional, primitive society works in favor of those who want to disguise themselves; the fewer papers or checks of any kind, the better—circumstances still true for much of Afghanistan today.

Perhaps this decline also speaks to how much women pretending to be men really is one of the clearest symptoms of a segregated society so dysfunctional that it inevitably must change.

That practices very similar to bacha posh have existed over the centuries in countries around the world speaks to the universal and historical need for them in strict, patriarchal societies.

When I asked Afghans to describe to me the difference between men and women, over the years interesting responses came back. While Afghan men often begin to describe women as more sensitive, caring, and less physically capable than men, Afghan women, whether rich or poor, educated or illiterate, often describe the difference between men and women in just one word: freedom.

As in: Men have it, women do not.

The Western definition of “freedom” may be different, and it changes with each generation. The current war in Afghanistan, for instance, is named “Operation Enduring Freedom” to indicate something worth fighting a 13-year war over. But freedom as we know it today is yet another evolutionary luxury, American author Robin Morgan says when I tell her about the bacha posh. “[Birth] sex is a reality; gender and freedom are ideas.”

The Afghan women I have met, some of whom have little education but a lifetime of experience of being counted as less than a full human being, have a distinct view of what exactly freedom is. To them, freedom would be to avoid an unwanted marriage and to be able to leave the house.

It would be to have some control over one’s own body and to have a choice of when and how to become pregnant.

Or to study and have a profession.

Given this, who would not walk out the door in disguise—if the alternative was to live as a prisoner or slave? Who would really care about long hair or short, pants or skirt, feminine or masculine, if renouncing one’s gender gave one access to the world? A great many people in this world would be willing to throw out their gender in a second if it could be traded for freedom.

The real story of Mehran, Shubnum, Niima, and other women who live as men in Afghanistan is not so much about how they break gender norms or what they have become by doing that. Rather, it is about this: Between gender and freedom, freedom is the bigger and more important idea—in Afghanistan as well as globally. Defining one’s gender becomes a concern only after freedom is achieved. Then a person can begin to fill the word "freedom" with new meaning.

The Naga Blog is a forum on facebook where Nagas from Nagaland and around the world network, share ideas and discuss a wide range of topics from politics and philosophy to music and current events in Nagaland and beyond. The blog is not owned by any individual, nor is it affiliated to or associated with any political party or religion. The only movement it hopes to stir is the one raised by the voices of the Nagas every step of the way, amassing perhaps to mass consciousness one day. www.facebook.com/groups/thenagablog

I believe in the power of Entrepreneurs & Innovators

Yanpvuo Kikon: Corporations and Enterprises will bring Progress and Development in Nagaland, NOT Politicians and Bureaucrats!!!

Have given up hope on them to revive the miserable condition of our State. Just look at the condition of our National Highway, National Highway in Nagaland is a disgrace to the Nation!

Parents in our State need to start encouraging your children to pursue more rewarding, interesting, innovative career options without pressurizing them to always sit for NPSC, UPSC and become Govt servants whose earning potential is limited only to a few thousand Rupees but forced to live a lavish life because our society demands it.

We need to re-evaluate our collective mindset, which has gone totally WRONG. Need to start giving the same PRESTIGE and VALUE to Entrepreneurs and Innovators, instead of worshiping Government servants like a bunch of fools headed to our downfall.

Our economy is in a miserable condition and if we continue this trend where the best brains in Nagaland only focus on becoming a Babu (Govt Servant) then be rest assured, we are all marching behind the Pipe Piper who will lead us to the edge of the cliff and fall off to perish beyond redemption.

Almost 15,000 young Nagas sat for NPSC this year, for just around 40 posts!!!!!!! While we complain about Unemployment, people from as far as Gujarat and Rajasthan, not forgetting IBI's (Entire population of Karimganj seem to be migrating to Nagaland) are coming to Nagaland because they know they can earn CRORES of Rupees doing business while we are content with earning 20-30,000 in a month and driving around in a rattling Govt car because we have been blinded by a big blunder of linking ‘SUCCESS’ only to Govt jobs, a recipe for cooking socio-economic disaster waiting to explode like a stink bomb in the near future. Is fake Pride and Prestige more important to us than having a good bank balance?

Our State is already 50 years old and our top Ministers and Bureaucrats are still going around with a begging bowl carrying a heavy burden, a massive deficit of more than Rs.1200 CRORES! Shame on them? NO! Shame on us, because it is our own making! Like Richard Belho said, instead of becoming fishermen, we have eaten all the fishes; instead of planting seeds, we have eaten all the fruits!!! And now we are no less than beggars.

A perfect metaphor of our current situation - Compare Nagaland to a 50 Year Old Spoiled Brat who still depends on his parents for pocket money. It is UNBELIEVABLE and UTTER SHAME for a 50 fifty year old man to depend on his parents for pocket money!!!!! We have become nothing less than a mere spoiled brat who doesn't want to earn our own livelihood but depend on the Government for everything.

A 50 year old man should be self sufficient and should have surplus wealth, not only to provide for his family but also contribute to the welfare of his society! Don't simply blame the Government, we are all a part of this making. The Government is a reflection of you and me, we elect them to power!

TIME FOR A REVOLUTION to re-evaluate our career choices and start sensitizing our older generation, if necessary rebelling against the pressure from parents towards OPENING our minds to other amazing career choices, the IMMENSE potential to earn CRORES in our own land without depending on the Government. But are you ready to struggle, work hard and be persistent to achieve our collective task? Or will you follow the pipe piper to the end of the cliff? The Choice is yours and not mine.

Akavi N Zhimomi Naga: This post is Inspiring me more to continue with my small shop. I have a friend of mine who is a Naga, he gets a huge profit in delivering Morning Newspaper in different colonies.

We Nagas should encourage such act of our own Naga people by buying from them and hope that those brothers who are just staying idly, doing nothing, to take such part time profession and earn your pocket money thereby building your own career without depending on our parents.

Tia O Jingru: I should say, to get encouragement from customers to local entrepreneurs and vice-versa, two things are necessary.

1. Avoid non-locals by the customers. Thereby, their (non-locals) business will hamper slowly and opt to shut down.

2. Our local entrepreneurs should not take the advantage of being local and should not try to become rich overnight with higher rates.

Vekuzo Lohe: I'm a reluctant entrepreneur, but I've experienced much satisfaction in the last few months, which I might not have experienced in a Govt. setup. I come home tired in the evening, but I'm happy knowing that whatever little I earned is from the sweat of my brows. All said and done, I believe we Nagas can be a little more helpful and positive. I've experienced much difficulty with Naga suppliers and wholesalers. We don't deliver goods on time and most of the time, we are out of stock. And there's always the excuse of not knowing where the shops are located. However, the non-locals make no such excuses. They are ready to deliver even a small box and that too, in credit. So, naturally we turn to the non-local suppliers and wholesalers. I think we need to be more professional in our approach and look at entrepreneurship as a calling.

Zuboni Humtsoe: Let me testify, almost all elders discourage me vehemently for wasting my education and doing business. They love me and I know they mean well and I love them too but it’s so discouraging sometimes, they fill me with self-doubt, which is one of the most horrible things that you can do to someone who wants to work really hard and be different. I've had instances when I have been told I'm a woman and for how long can I work so hard?, Or 'Why work so hard when you can get a govt job and not go to work and just get your salary'. It is appalling that I get ridiculed for working hard.

If there are any elders reading this it would be a humble plea if someone wants to work hard or do something different, encourage them, support them and let them not lose faith in themselves. Becoming an officer is wonderful, but it is more important to become an 'honest and good officer', let your children choose their own path to be better people and not to get 'govt jobs' just for the power and money but to serve, protect and help. I chose to be an entrepreneur because I wanted to do something different and work really hard and see my dreams come true and I realized that would have never been possible if I get a govt job, because I believe in honesty and the meager fixed salary wouldn't make my dreams come true. It’s wonderful following your own dreams, to work hard and see it grow day by day, to be your own boss, to help people, to inspire, to learn, to make a change. At the end of the day I love my job, everyday.

(The Naga Blog was created in 2008 by Yanpvuo Kikon. This column in The Morung Express will be a weekly feature every Saturday)

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.

8

Dimapur

Saturday 13 September 2014

NATIONAL

The Morung Express

PM appeals for donations as Kashmir reels under floods

new Delhi, September 12 (ianS): Prime Minister Narendra Modi Friday appealed to the nation to contribute generously and to “stand shoulder to shoulder” with the distressed people of flood-ravaged Jammu and Kashmir, from where 130,000 people were rescued.

Srinagar is battling the worst floods in 60 years. While hundreds have been rendered homeless, the main city of Srinagar has been partially submerged under water. In an emotional appeal to the nation, Modi urged people “to stand in solidarity with distressed, flood-affected people in Jammu and Kashmir and be part of the national effort to support them in this hour of crisis”.

Describing the floods as unprecedented, Modi said that a large number of people have died or have been temporarily displaced. “Property and infrastructure worth crores of rupees have been damaged. Our fellow countrymen in Jammu and Kashmir need our help at this critical hour to tide over the calamity and to rebuild their lives,” a statement cited Modi as saying.

He said that the central government is “extending full cooperation to the Jammu and Kashmir government in the measures for rescue, relief and rehabilitation besides, direct assistance to the affected people”. “I request all fellow countrymen to stand shoulder to shoulder with our distressed brothers and sisters in Jammu and Kashmir and be part of the national effort to support them in this hour of crisis.”

“I appeal to all citizens to donate generously to the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund,” it added. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh told the media here: “Approximately 200 are dead and 130,000 people have been rescued from the state.” Around 1,200 villages in Srinagar and 1,100 in Jammu have been affected, he said.

“Around 400 villages have been totally submerged (in flood water). It is a national calamity,” he added. “We will be able to assess the damage only after the water recedes,” the home minister said when asked about the total damage due to the floods. Asked about separatists instigating protests, Rajnath Singh said: “We have closed our eyes to the separatists.” Stating that the central government has taken “immediate and proactive” action, he said Prime Minister Narendra Modi has announced Rs.1,000 crore for flood relief and rehabilitation. In a separate statement in Jammu, the defence ministry said 10 bodies have been recovered from Udhampur district, while a search is on for 31 others who got reportedly buried in the Sep 5-6

Kashmiri men help others cross a flooded street on a makeshift raft in Srinagar, Indian-controlled Kashmir on September 12. Officials said the flooding has killed 200 people in India, where anger and resentment was mounting over what victims described as a slow rescue and relief effort. (AP Photo)

landslide that followed heavy rain in Punjar Sadda village.

The ministry statement said around 30,000 soldiers have been deployed for rescue and relief operations 21,000 in Srinagar region and 9,000 in Jammu region. So far, 298,000 litres of water, 31,500 packets of food and over 533 tonnes cooked food have already been airdropped and distributed in the flood-affected areas.

To provide speedy medical aid to the affected populace, 80 medical teams of the Armed Forces Medical Services are operating in full swing. Four field hospitals have also been established. “Till now they have treated more than 21,500 patients and 19 tonnes medicines and other health care materials are also being transported from Delhi to the flood affected area,” the statement said.

According to the union health ministry, a 30-member team of doctors, including pediatricians and gynecologists, has been dispatched to the state. Two teams of psycho-social specialists are also being sent to assess the mental state of the traumatised people evacuated by the rescue teams. So far, 1,379 sorties were undertaken by

the helicopters and aircraft of the armed forces and 1,799 tonnes of relief materials were dropped. Keeping in view of urgent requirement for rescue operation, the army has deployed 90 more boats in Srinagar and adjoining areas.

A total of 224 army boats and 148 inflatable boats of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) are actively involved in the rescue operation. Besides, the armed forces have established 19 relief camps in Srinagar and Jammu regions. “Communication equipments of department of telecommunication, army, BSNL and some of private companies have been dispatched to restore the communication systems in the state,” the ministry statement added.

To restore the road connectivity, five task forces of the Border Roads Organisation, which include 5,700 personnel, have been pressed into service. As drinking water has also become scarce in the Kashmir Valley, the health ministry said they are dispatching Friday two water purification plants with a capacity to purify around 50,000 litres per day and six small water purification units along with operators.

Outbreak of Epidemic Feared in Flood-Hit Kashmir

Srinagar, September 12 (pti): With the water level receding in river Jhelum, the threat of an outbreak of epidemic in Kashmir is increasing as there is massive shortage of medicines and vaccines in the flood affected areas of the Valley. “We only have basic drugs available at this camp. There are no chlorine tablets or vaccines required for protection against waterborne diseases available with us,” Mudassir Ahmad Bhat, who is operating a medical camp at Barzulla on Airport road, told PTI. The situation is no different at the medical camps being operated by the army at Hyderpora and Rambagh.

“Most of the people are asking for chlorine tablets as water coming through taps is contaminated but right now we do not have enough stock,” an official at Hyderpora camp said. Water level in river Jhelum has receded by several feet in the past two days but many areas of the Srinagar city are still under flood water, which has increased the threat of outbreak of epidemic. Hundreds of animal carcasses are floating in residential areas. Doctors say there is an urgent need of vaccines to protect the people, especially children under the age of 12 years, against water-borne diseases. “Vaccines are urgently needed especially for the children. There have been many cases of children suffering from an upset stomach over the past couple of days,” Dr Reyaz Ahmad, a pediatrician, said.

Shahid Bhat, who is working as a volunteer, said he visited several private hospitals and and medical camps in search of vaccines in view of rising cases of gastro-enterological problems. “All the hospitals said they did not have the vaccines due to lack of electricity. A vaccine needs to be refrigerated or it will get destroyed,” Bhat said. He said he has sent out messages to his friends, who wanted to help, across the country and abroad to send vaccines and chlorine tablets on priority to prevent outbreak of epidemic.

3% quota must for disabled Tibetan parliament asks India to raise Tibet with Xi Law Commission recommends DharamSala, September 12 (ianS): The Ti- ment to visit Tibet.” repeal of 72 archaic laws in all govt jobs including “However, we are yet to receive any response. We bebetan parliament-in-exile Friday urged Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is scheduled to visit India next week, lieve Tibetans have the right to visit Tibet and investigate new Delhi, September 12 (pti): As the govIAS: Supreme Court to resolve the issue of Tibet through the mutually ben- the cause of the Tibetan people’s suffering and confirm ernment prepares to bring a fresh bill in Parliament to new Delhi, September 12 (pti): The Supreme Court on Friday held that three percent reservation for differently-abled persons be given in all category of government jobs including in appointments and promotions to IAS while pulling up the Centre for “frustrating” the very purpose of empowering legislation by opposing it. A bench headed by Chief Justice R M Lodha said the disabled persons have not got their due in the last 19 years after framing of the Persons with Disabilities (Equal Opportunities, Protection of Rights and Full Participation) Act, which was passed in 1995.

Additional Solicitor General Pinky Anand, appearing for the Centre, contended that reservation cannot be given in case of promotion to Group A and Group B officers category as it is not a case of appointment. The bench, however, observed that appointment is a broader concept and the Centre is giving a narrow interpretation of it. “You are frustating the very reservation policy and cause of class for which Parliament passed the law,” the bench said. “For the last 19 years it is not being implemented and the class, for which the legislation was made, had not got benefited as it should have,” the bench said.m The court dismissed the petition of Centre challenging order of Bombay High Court which had directed the Centre and the Union Public Service Commission to implement a 3 percent quota in direct recruitments and promotions for the disabled in the IAS.

eficial policy of the ‘middle way’ approach. It also asked India to raise the Tibet issue with the visiting dignitary.

“We are grateful to India for all the support and assistance that it has provided to the Tibetan people. We urge the government of India to raise the Tibet issue with Chinese President Xi Jinping,” parliament-in-exile speaker Penpa Tsering said in the house. The eighth session of the 15th parliament-in-exile began Friday.

Tsering expressed hope in Xi’s positive initiative to improve governance in China. He urged Xi to focus more on Tibet and look into the real cause of the Tibetan people’s grievances and find a solution to the Tibet issue through the “middle way approach”. The “middle way approach” favours “genuine autonomy” for Tibetans within the framework of the Chinese constitution and does not speak of independence. The speaker also urged Jinping to respect the rights of minorities and grant them equal rights and privileges as per the provisions of the Chinese constitution. Recalling that the parliament-in-exile has appealed, through the Chinese embassy in New Delhi, to allow a Tibetan parliamentary delegation to visit Tibet, he said: “We have requested the Chinese government to allow a fact-finding delegation from the Tibetan parlia-

‘India has healthcare vision for the world’

new Delhi, September 12 (pti): Reaching out to people for his ambitious project for a clean India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday sought their views on the contours of ‘Mission Swachh Bharat’ to be launched on October 2, the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

Modi linked cleanliness to tourism and global interest in India and stressed that world-class levels of hygiene and sanitation are required in the top 50 tourist destinations to bring about a “paradigm shift” in the global perception about the country.

Dhaka, September 12 (pti): India has a healthcare vision for the world supported by its ancient system of holistic medication and is committed to extending cooperation and expertise to its neighbours, Health Minister Harsh Vardhan said here on Friday. “We have a (healthcare) vision not only for India but for the entire world…while we will work for the people of the region,” Vardhan told PTI on the sidelines of a four-day conference of World Health Organisation (WHO). Vardhan, a doctor by training, said India was willing to enter into a comprehensive partnership with Bangladesh and expanded cooperation in healthcare as his Bangladeshi counterpart Mohammad Nasim wanted expanded cooperation in this sector.

“We have developed good relations…and I am fully committed to him (Nasim)…we are going to help them (Bangladesh health ministry) in a big way,” he said. Vardhan earlier witnessed the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) for enhanced cooperation in the fields of traditional medicines like Ayurveda and Unani, as WHO decided to lay an extra focus on the issue as an “important part of healthcare” in the region. Under the deal, the two countries agreed to exchange traditional medicines, and experts and physicians for conducting training, officials said.

Vardhan said despite being an allopathic doctor “my heart goes to traditional medicine”. He also stressed the need for extensive researches and training in the healthcare system.

“We are aware that Ayurveda today needs more research, and drugs need better manufacturing practices…(but) we would like this ancient system to be used for effective healing of mind and body and to be restored to its old glory by making it a holistic part of our healthcare,” he said.

When asked wheather the huge pharmaceutical industry have blocked the progress of traditional medicine systems, he said: “Neither the modern medicine nor the traditional medicine systems want to replace each other.”

Vardhan stressed the need for a change in lifestyle and outlook through a social movement for a healthy mind and body. “Health is not physical (issue) alone…it is related to mind and soul. Preventive and positive health is my passion and this occupy 80 per cent of the health space.” He said the objective of a heathcare system should be to ensure physical, mental, social and spiritual well-being of people. “We are in the process to launch massive offensive against non-communicable diseases…we are going to work against malnutrition, obesity, and tuberculosis,” he said. Vardhan said the Narendra Modi-led government In India was in a process of overhauling the healthcare system through review of procurements, plugging deficiencies and upgrading district hospitals into medical colleges to tackle shortage of doctors and medical personnel.

whether Tibet is actually a ‘socialist paradise’ as proclaimed by the Chinese state media,” he said.

Expressing solidarity with all those Tibetans who have sacrificed their lives for the cause of Tibet, he said: “Our main duty is to alleviate the suffering of the Tibetan people inside Tibet.” The speaker condemned the Chinese government for its cultural assimilation policies conducted under the guise of economic development in Tibet. Tsering expressed condolences over the loss of lives and property in the recent floods in Jammu and Kashmir and urged Tibetans to contribute to the relief fund. The Tibetan parliament also passed three resolutions in its inaugural session.

They included te resolve to urge the new Chinese leadership to investigate the situation inside Tibet and expressed solidarity with those who continue to suffer Chinese atrocities in Tibet. The session of the parliament will discuss Xi’s visit to India at a special full-day session Sep 16, Tsering announced in the house. The session, which can also be viewed online, will conclude Sep 24. The Dalai Lama - the Tibetan spiritual leader - has lived in India since fleeing his homeland in 1959. The Tibetan administrationin-exile is based in this northern Indian hill town.

repeal archaic laws, the Law Commission on Friday recommended revoking 72 obsolete statutes, saying there is an “urgent need” to ensure that the legal structures are responsive to challenges of changing times. One of the laws—Bengal District Act— recommended for repeal dates back to 1836. Several other laws recommended for revoking belong to period dating from 1838 to 1898. In its “interim” report to Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad, the Commission said it will further study 261 more statutes “with a view to providing a firm recommendation for repeal of obsolete statutes and those inconsonant with modern times”.

The law panel said it would complete its study in “instalments” and submit a number of volumes to the government for necessary action. “The government is keen to repeal obsolete laws,” Prasad said.

The panel said there is a need to identify laws which have become obsolete “and as such keeping them on statute books is causing unwarranted burden on the system”.

It said while studying the issue, the Commission found that a large number of Appropriation Acts passed during the past several years in reality have lost meaning but continue to be part of the statute books.

PM seeks people’s views on his ‘Clean India’ mission “Mission Swacch Bharat aspires to realise Gandhiji’s dream of a Clean India through Jan Bhagidari (people’s participation). Together we can make a big difference.

“Please share your inputs in making Mission Swacch Bharat a success and laying the foundations of a ‘Clean India’ on mygov.nic.in/group_info/swachh-bharatclean-india,” he said, according to a PMO statement. He mentioned about his vision of solid waste management and waste water management through the PPP model in 500 towns and cities across India.

Chairing a high-level meeting here yesterday, Modi had called for turning ‘Swacch Bharat’ into a mass movement and linking it to economic activity to ensure greater participation. He said the meeting was “very fruitful”.

Government offices up to panchayat level will be involved in a cleanliness drive that shall be carried out from September 25 till Diwali which falls on October 23. Modi had earlier invited ideas from people on the new institution to replace the Planning Commission which, he had announced on August 15, will soon be scrapped.

Supreme Court extends stay on Koli’s execution

new Delhi, September 12 (agencieS): The Supreme Court today extended till October 29 the stay on execution of death sentence of Nithari rapist-cum-serial killer Surinder Koli. A bench headed by justice H L Dattu posted the case for hearing on October 29, on Koli’s plea seeking review of apex court’s verdict upholding his conviction and death sentence in one of the murder cases.

Opening its door to usher in transparency in disposing off death penalty cases, a three-judge Bench led by Justice H.L. Dattu on Friday heard afresh the review petition of Nithari serial killings convict Surinder Koli on Friday. This is the first time in the court’s history, that a threejudge Bench heard the counsel for a death row convict present oral arguments for exactly 30 minutes in a review petition against death penalty.

Koli will also be the first condemned man to benefit from a September 3 majority judgment authored by Justice Rohinton Nariman for a Constitution Bench. The

judgment held that Supreme Court judges should review the question of life and death of a condemned man in public glare rather in the privacy of their chambers without affording him a chance for oral arguments.

The Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice of India R.M. Lodha had observed that “the fundamental right to life and the irreversibility of a death sentence mandate that oral hearing be given at the review stage in death sentence cases, as a just, fair and reasonable procedure under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution”. Of the three judges, Justices Dattu and Anil R. Dave were on the original review Bench which had dismissed Koli’s review petition on July 25, this year. The September 3 verdict declared that the Supreme Court would hear afresh dismissed and pending review petitions of death row convicts, provided they are filed in a month’s time from the date of the judgment.

Justice S.A. Bobde joined his two fellow judges on the review Bench as required by the September 3 verdict. The pres-

ence of a third judge was required by the verdict to represent an independent and fresh opinion in a death row review. The revised Supreme Court Rules also requires review petitions of death row convicts to be heard by a Bench of minimum three judges. Friday’s ruling comes five days after Justices Dattu and Dave stayed the execution of Koli for a week in a midnight order, just hours before he was to be hanged at Chaudhary Charan Singh jail. The stay order was passed by Justices Dattu andDaveintheweehoursofMondaymorningattheformer’s official residence, where a team of lawyer led by senior advocate Indira Jaising approached him.

Koli, 42, was found guilty of serial rapes and murders between 2005 and 2006 at his employer, businessman Moninder Singh Pandher’s house in Nithari. Remains of several missing children were found near the house. Koli was sentenced to death in four cases and his death sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court in 2011, which described him as a serial killer who deserves no mercy.

Haryana, Maharashtra go for elections Oct 15

new Delhi, September 12 (ianS): In the biggest electoral test after the Lok Sabha battle, Congress-ruled Haryana and Maharashtra will go to the polls Oct 15 and the results will be declared Oct 19. Chief Election Commissioner V.S. Sampath said by-elections will also be held Oct 15 for the Lok Sabha seats of Beed (Maharashtra) and Kandhamal (Odisha) following death of incumbent MPs and the assembly seats of Kanubari (Arunachal Pradesh), Hiyanglam (Manipur), Northern Angami-II (Nagaland), Kairana (Uttar Pradesh) and Rajkot West (Gujarat).

Sampath said the poll panel was “watching closely” the situation in flood-ravaged Jammu and Kashmir, and voting dates for Kashmir and Jharkhand would be announced later. Sampath said the model code of conduct would come into immediate effect, involving both Haryana and Maharashtra governments as well as the central government vis-a-vis decisions linked to the two states.

Asked about the Narendra Modi’s governments announcements regarding its 100 days in office, he said the government was free to go ahead with it as long as the

election-bound states were kept out. The last day for filing nominations is Sep 27, and candidates can withdraw from the contest by Oct 1. Haryana will have 16,244 polling stations and Maharashtra 90,403.

Haryana has 90 assembly seats and Maharashtra 288.

Ever since Modi led it to a sweeping win in the Lok Sabha, leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party have vowed to seize power in Haryana and Maharashtra. In the Lok Sabha elections, BJP bagged seven seats of the 10 parliamentary seats in Haryana. The Congress got only one. Out of Maharashtra’s 48 seats, the saffron party won 23, while its ally Shiv Sena bagged 18. The Congress could get only two seats, while its ally the Nationalist Congress Party bagged four seats.

In both states, the BJP is already flexing its muscles.

The BJP has dumped its Lok Sabha ally, the Haryana Janhit Congress. Its leaders in Maharashtra do not want to play second fiddle any more to the Shiv Sena. The BJP is keen to unseat the Congress in both the states to overcome the embarrassing setbacks it has faced in by-elections in some states since the Lok Sabha victory.

Sampath put the number of voters in Haryana at 16 million and in Maharashtra at 82 million. He promised to ensure free and fair polls apart from creating a proper atmosphere for the conduct of the elections. The poll panel chief had a word of caution for officials who will be involved in the electoral process.

“The (Election) Commission expects all officials engaged in the conduct of elections to discharge their duties in an impartial manner without any fear or favour,” he said.

He said comprehensive instructions had been issued to effectively monitor the election expenditure of the candidates. This would involve deploying flying squads, static surveillance and video surveillance teams, as well as the income tax department and state excise departments.

General observers “have been asked to keep a close watch at every stage of the electoral process to ensure free and fair elections”,Sampath said. Asked about the political impasse in Delhi, now under President’s Rule, Sampath said: “We are only concerned when elections are held. Government formation is not in our purview.”

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the morung express

Saturday 13 September 2014

Dimapur

9

Eying Scotland, Catalans seek secession vote BARCELONA, SEptEmBER 12 (Ap): Hundreds of thousands of Catalans energized by Scotland’s upcoming independence referendum protested Thursday for a secession vote aimed at carving out a new Mediterranean nation in what is now northeastern Spain.

The events illustrated how the Scottish vote in just one week is captivating breakaway minded Europeans in several countries.

Sporting bright yellow and red shirts representing the colors of the Catalonian flag emblazoned with the phrase “Now is the time,” protesters in Barcelona shouted “Independencia!”

They crowded into two avenues that look like a “V’’ from the air to signal their desire for a Catalonia independence referendum that the central government in Madrid insists would be illegal. Just how many showed up was in dispute after the protest ended Thursday evening. Barcelona police said 1.8 million people participated but the Spanish Interior Ministry’s regional office in Catalonia put the number at no more than 525,000, among them retired hospital director and economist Lluis Enric Florenca.

“If the Yes wins in Scotland, and it looks like it will be close, and Europe accepts it, they will accept

Catalonia, which is bigger and in relation to Spain stronger than Scotland in relation to England,” said Florenca, 65. “Catalonia is potentially much more powerful.”

Catalonia regional leader Artur Mas said his government is not wavering from plans to hold a Nov. 9 referendum in the region of 7.6 million people, even though experts say any attempt is sure to be blocked by Spain’s Constitutional Court. Mas has repeatedly said he won’t call an illegal vote.

“This is a very powerful message we are sending to Europe and the world,” Mas said. “Now is the moment to sit down and negotiate the terms for the Catalan people to be able to express themselves at the polls.”

Polls have suggested that Scotland’s independence vote on Sept. 18 is too close to call and that has captivated a wide variety of groups in addition to Catalan separatists. They include pro-independence Basques in northern Spain; Corsicans who want to break away from France; Italians from several northern regions; and Flemish speakers in Belgium demanding more autonomy, independence or union with the Netherlands.

“The dynamics at this point are with the Yes side, and if the Yes side actu-

People wave “estelada” flags, that symbolize Catalonia's independence, in Barcelona, Spain on September 11. A week before Scotland votes on whether to break away from the United Kingdom, separatists in northeastern Spain were trying to convince hundreds of thousands to protest across Catalonia to demand a secession sentiment vote that the central government in Madrid insists would be illegal. (AP Photo)

ally wins it creates a strong precedent,” said Hugh O’Donnell, a professor of cultural politics at Glasgow Caledonian University.

Unlike the Scottish ballot, a vote in Catalonia wouldn’t result in secession. Mas’ proposed referendum would ask Catalans whether they favor secession. If the answer is Yes, Mas says, that would give him a political mandate to negotiate a path toward independence.

Spanish Prime Min-

ister Mariano Rajoy has vowed to block the vote because Spain’s constitution doesn’t allow referendums that don’t include all Spaniards, but Mas told reporters that would be a mistake.

“The Catalan issue is one of the biggest issues the Spanish government is facing,” Mas said. “It is an error to try and solve this through legal means. Political problems are solved through politics, not with legal threats.”

If Madrid refuses to al-

low an independence vote, a go-ahead by Mas could put him in perilous legal terrain. When the northern Basque region failed to obtain permission for a similar referendum in 2005, Spain said Basque leaders could face jail if they went ahead.

The next step for Mas comes the day after Scotland’s vote, when the Catalan parliament is expected to approve a measure giving him the power to call a referendum. Rajoy’s gov-

ernment is then expected to ask Spain’s Constitutional Court to rule the vote illegal and experts believe the court will do so.

If that happens and Mas decides to obey the ruling, he could hold Catalan regional elections as an unofficial referendum, with parties obliged to state where they stand on independence.

Despite sharing cultural traits with the rest of Spain, many Catalans take pride in the deep differenc-

es based on their language, which is spoken side-byside with Spanish in the wealthy region that is key to helping Spain emerge from its financial crisis.

Polls indicate Catalans are roughly evenly split on independence — but that figure drops significantly when people are asked if they favor an independent Catalonia outside the European Union.

Call center administrator Monica Casares, 43, from the Catalan city of Badalona, wants to be able to vote in a referendum but is undecided about independence. She says that’s because of uncertainty about whether her small children would be better off in an independent Catalonia or as Spanish citizens in the 28-nation EU. Her husband, an independence supporter, is energized. “He’s thrilled because he thinks a Yes vote in Scotland would give more legitimacy to the independence drive in Catalonia,” Casares said.

Catalonia’s attempt to hold a referendum and the vote in Scotland have strong support from the Basque pro-independence coalition Bildu, which won 25 percent of the Basque region’s vote in the 2012 regional election.

“Catalonia and Scotland have again put the issue of the peoples’ right

to decide on the political stage, showing that this is an open question in Europe,” said Pello Urizar, leader of one party in the Bildu coalition.

In Italy, the leader of the Northern League party that supports independence or greater autonomy for several northern regions said his supporters “are rooting for the separatists” because independence for Scotland would send a message to the EU that other European separatists deserve the right to vote on their future.

“We are hoping that (Scotland) goes through, because it would give a breath of fresh air to a campaign that doesn’t end in Scotland but continues in Catalonia and will arrive in Veneto,” he said, referring to Italy’s northern Veneto region.

Despite the euphoria, political scientists have found that separatism in one country doesn’t promote separatism in another, said Jason Sorens, a government professor at Dartmouth College.

“If Scotland votes Yes and the negotiation process goes smoothly, and Scotland gets into the EU quickly, that might boost secessionist support because it would show the risks of independence are lower,” he said. “It could go the other way, if the transition involves a lot of cost.”

Empowerment of women vital for global recovery ‘Milk drinking during pregnancy

tOKYO, SEptEmBER 12 (Ap): Empowerment of women and equal opportunities are crucial for driving a stronger global economic recovery, and for revitalizing Japan, the head of the International Monetary Fund said Friday.

The global recovery is too tepid and too turbulent, IMF chief Christine Lagarde told a gathering organized by the Japanese government and business groups to support Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s campaign to promote a stronger role for women in the economy. “Even after the crisis abates, we will face grave challenges to growth,” Lagarde said.

The global economy is not utilizing women effectively and is “tossing away economic growth at a time

when it cannot afford such but tend to put their ca- dren get older, which most wanton waste,” she said. reers on hold to raise their do, they generally can only Abe has made greater families. Long working get part-time, lower paying gender equality a prior- hours and limited access work. ity in his “Abenomics” to affordable child and elWhile the gender gap program aimed at propel- der care are obstacles for for wages is almost univerling the world’s thirdsal, Japan’s is on largest economy out ‘Long working hours and the high side at of a long deflationary a 29 percent gap limited access to slump. As its workforce even with equal ages and shrinks, Jaaffordable child and el- educations and pan needs women to Lader care are obstacles for occupations, help fill labor shortaggarde said. es and drive economic Globally, since working mothers, while growth. women account employment and tax Last week, Abe apfor 70 percent of pointed five women as systems are structured to consumer spendministers in a Cabinet ing, it makes sense favor families with reshuffle, matching to “put women in the previous record set stay-at-home mothers.’ the driver’s seat,” by former Prime Minisshe said. ter Junichiro Koizumi. But working mothers, while Countries such as Jaoverall, few women hold employment and tax sys- pan need to change polipolitical office or executive tems are structured to favor cies and laws, but also inpositions in business. families with stay-at-home stitutions, attitudes and Japanese women rank mothers. When women do culture in order to boost high in terms of education, return to work as their chil- their growth potential by

better using their female talent.

In some cases, countries have effectively used quotas to bring more women into leadership roles in business and government. Such quotas helped increase the proportion of women lawmakers in Rwanda’s parliament to over 50 percent.

Setting targets is another good option, said Catherine M. Russell, the U.S. ambassador-at-large for Global Women’s Issues.

“Having a goal in mind is best. It makes it clear where you are and are trying to get to,” she said.

Politics are only a start, though, and businesses need to understand that it is in their own interest to have greater gender equality, she said.

linked to infant iron deficiency’

WELLiNGtON, SEptEmBER 12 (iANS): Pregnant women who drink a lot of milk put their babies at risk of having an iron deficiency during an important phase of development, New Zealand researchers said Friday.

Iron is essential for healthy brain development, and a deficiency in babies and toddlers, when the brain is developing rapidly, is associated with small, but important differences in brain function, behaviour and learning, Xinhua reported citing a study from the University of Auckland.

It found that 7 percent of New Zealand newborns were iron deficient and established that iron stores

Freed Fijian troops call home and then celebrate

SUVA, SEptEmBER 12 (Ap): First came the emotional calls home and then the celebrations Friday as 45 Fijian peacekeepers held captive for two weeks

by Syrian militants made it to safety.

Fiji’s military chief described how his troops were released across the border at about midnight Fijian time, and were immediately given access to telephones to call their loved ones. By 2 a.m. ev-

ery affected family in Fiji knew the good news, Brig.

Gen. Mosese Tikoitoga told reporters. Then, he said, came the grog ceremony.

In Fiji, at least, that would mean drinking a potent local brew, kava, although the chief didn’t say if that was the case.

“We could see the singing and drinking in the background, all the laughter, so they are all back to Fijian moods,” said Tikoitoga, describing a video call he

had with his troops. “And so I assume that all is well with them, at least emotionally.”

The Fijians had been held captive by the al-Qaida linked Nusra Front since Aug. 28. They were part of a 1,200-strong U.N. force that had been stationed in the Golan Heights, the disputed buffer zone between Syria and Israel.

Fiji’s prime minister hailed the troops as “heroes.” “They kept their cool and showed restraint un-

der the most extreme circumstances imaginable,” Voreqe Bainimarama said.

“Because of their discipline, not one militant was killed and none of our soldiers were harmed.”

Still, the capture of the troops has raised questions both about the preparedness of the Fijian troops and of the future of the U.N.’s four decade-long monitoring mission in the Golan Heights. Tikoitoga said his troops had to make a deci-

sion to surrender Aug. 28, in consultation with U.N. commanders, based on their position and the firepower of the militants. He said they did so only after receiving reassurances from the Nusra Front that they would not be harmed.

He said his soldiers felt no hostility toward Filipino troops, who were also surrounded by the Nusra Front but who refused to surrender and later escaped. “They made the

choices they made in concurrence with their own government, and we respect that,” Tikoitoga said.

“For us, we’ve done what we needed to do for the safety of our people.”

The chief said the released soldiers would go through medical and psychological testing before a decision was made about whether they would remain on duty in the region.

“The general feeling is that they want to stay,” he said.

Myanmar: 1 march, 11 sentences for rights activist YANGON, SEptEmBER 12 (Ap): By marching through the traffic-choked streets of Myanmar’s busiest city, handing out leaflets that lambasted the new nominally civilian government, Htin Kyaw showed how much the country has changed since emerging from military rule. With charges filed in all townships he wound through as he made his way to city hall, he has become a symbol, too, of how has much stayed the same.

The rights activist was found guilty Thursday of disturbing public order — the 11th sentence he has faced from that days-long march through Yangon in late April and early May. Township court by township court, his sentence has

In this photo taken on August 4, activist Htin Kyaw, left, shouts as he is escorted by Myanmar polices after his trial at a district court in Yangon, Myanmar. A Myanmar court has sentenced the prominent human rights activist to two years in prison for marching through its biggest city and handing out leaflets that questioned the legitimacy of the country's new, nominally civilian government. (AP File Photo)

grown. He is now slated to spend the next 12 years and four months behind bars, according to his wife, Than Than Maw. “The relentless efforts of the Myanmar authorities to silence a critical voice must end immediately,” said Rupert Abbott of rights group Amnesty International.

“The charges ... are farcical.

He has done nothing but express his opinions.”

Myanmar has been grappling with political reforms since 2011, when the repressive junta ceded power to a government headed by President Thein Sein. It released thousands of political prisoners and eased media restrictions, but once again is prosecuting people for expressing themselves or peacefully protesting.

Most have been charged under a law that bars protests without a permit, or another that prohibits spreading statements

that cause alarm or inflame others to act against the state. Scores of human rights defenders and activists have faced multiple trials on the same charges.

The minister of information defended that Thursday. “Like other democracy countries, Myanmar township courts are responsible for their concerned townships,” Ye Htut said. “If a person broke the law in different townships, courts have to take different decisions on each case.”

Kyaw, currently being held in notorious Insein prison, is no stranger to jail time. In 2007, when the country was still under dictatorship, he received a few months for staging a demonstration against the military regime over the country’s dire economy and commodity hikes.

In late 2013, during the trumpeted period of reform, he was sentenced to 33 months for holding

other peaceful protests.

He benefited then from Thein Sein’s amnesty order, which released him and dozens of other political prisoners in December.

Htin Kyaw continued to stage protests on land rights issues, and called for justice after a crackdown on a copper-mine protest left several Buddhist monks injured.

He’s been in jail, this time around, since May 5, when he was arrested for his long demonstration through Yangon’s streets, calling on Myanmar’s government to resign.

The Shwe Pyi Thar Township court on Thursday slapped Kyaw with two years, the maximum permitted. Charges are still expected in the 12th and final township he marched through. “What the courts are doing is a blatant human rights violation,” said his lawyer, Robert San Aung.

were lower in babies whose mothers consumed higher quantities of milk during pregnancy. “While milk is an important source of calcium, it is a poor source of iron. Milk is also quite filling and so can reduce the appetite for other foods that are better sources of iron,” paediatrician Cameron Grant said in a statement.

“Pregnant women with iron deficiency are more likely to go into premature labour or deliver a baby with low birth weight. They are also more likely to be iron deficient while they are breastfeeding. “ Iron deficiency is the most common micronutrient deficiency worldwide, with pregnant women and children under five years of

age most at risk. The condition is twice as common in New Zealand children aged six months to two years than in children of the same age living in Australia, Europe or the US. The frequency of iron deficiency among women of childbearing age had risen from 3 percent in 1997 to 7 percent in the most recent survey, conducted in 20082009. To prevent negative effects on their child’s early development, Grant recommended that pregnant women who drank large amounts of milk take iron supplements. “An alternative would be to increase the nutrient content of milk consumed by mothers-tobe to keep both the mother and child healthy,” he said.

CIA triples estimate of Islamic State strength WAShiNGtON, SEptEmBER 12 (iANS): A day after President Barack Obama vowed to strike the Islamic State (IS) terrorists “wherever they exist” to “degrade and ultimately destroy” the militant group, a CIA assessment increased its strength over three times to 31,500. CNN cited a CIA spokesman as saying Thursday that the Sunni terror group that calls itself the Islamic State “can muster between 20,000 and 31,500 fighters across Iraq and Syria” as against 10,000 fighters earlier estimated by US officials.

These included those who were freed from prisons by Sunni militants and Sunni loyalists who have joined the fight as the group advanced across Iraq. “This new total reflects an increase in members because of stronger recruitment since June following battlefield successes and the declaration of a caliphate, greater battlefield activity and additional intelligence,” the CIA spokesman was quoted as saying. CNN said it was unclear how the ranks of the IS, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria or ISIS, swelled, and whether the increased numbers included recruits from within Iraq.

More than 15,000 foreign fighters, including 2,000 Westerners, have gone to Syria, CNN cited a CIA source as saying. The fighters came from more than 80 countries, the source told the channel. Obama has been reviewing options and targets with his national security team, according to White House officials. “These targets have been exposed because of the president’s early decision to ramp up our intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance assets that were operating in the region,” White House spokesman Josh Earnest was quoted as saying.

While officials work to develop targets in Syria, the US military is flying about 60 surveillance and reconnaissance flights a day over Iraq, a US official said. Meanwhile, House Speaker John Boehner blasted Obama Thursday for saying no US combat troops would be placed on the ground in the fight against the IS in Syria. “An F-16 is not a strategy. Airstrikes alone will not accomplish what we’re trying to accomplish,” Boehner told reporters.

Commenting on Obama’s strategy to combat the IS with US airstrikes in Syria as well as more attacks in Iraq, the Council on Foreign Relations’ Col. Stephen Liszewski said m“US combat power can play a critical role against ISIS”. “In order to be effective, this combat power will have to be applied in a patient and deliberate manner-it cannot be done in a way that is driven by the emotion of the moment,” he said. “Leading such a campaign will present a challenge to Mr. Obama perhaps unlike that confronted by any of his predecessors,” wrote Peter Baker for the New York Times. “By limiting US goals in Iraq and Syria, the president makes less likely the exit he so desperately wants,” wrote David Rothkopf, CEO and Editor of the Foreign Policy Group.

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SPORTS

Saturday 13 September 2014

The Bundesliga is back: Some things to know

berLiN, September 12 (ap): With defending champion Bayern Munich and runner-up Borussia Dortmund already dropping points, Bayer Leverkusen is setting the early season pace in the Bundesliga.

Here are some things to know about this weekend's Bundesliga games:

INJURY CURSE Borussia Dortmund's injury worries deepened during the break with Marco Reus the biggest casualty.

The attacking midfielder was ruled out for four weeks with a left ankle injury sustained in Germany's European Championship qualifier against Scotland. A similar injury had ruled Reus out of Germany's World Cup-winning campaign.

New signing Ciro Immobile was stretchered off at the end of Italy's win over Norway, though the Italian striker's injury is not as serious as initially feared. A muscle injury picked up in training will rule Jakub Blaszczykowski out for a further four weeks. The Poland midfielder already missed the second half of last season after damaging cruciate knee ligaments.

Midfielders Ilkay Gundogan and Nuri Sahin are also on Dortmund's injury list, meaning Japan star Shinji Kagawa is likely to make his first start for the club since his return after two frustrating seasons at Manchester United. "He'll get playing time, but I don't want to say whether he'll start," Dortmund coach Juergen Klopp said on Thursday. Dortmund hosts Freiburg on Saturday.

Ribery is sticking by his decision to retire from international duty despite criticism from UEFA President Michel Platini. Xabi Alonso, who impressed on his Bayern debut in the 1-1 draw with Schalke, is laboring with a foot injury. Javi Martinez, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Thiago Alcantara are all still out, meaning Philipp Lahm is likely to start in midfield again.

Leverkusen's Sebastian Boenisch from Poland, Hakan Calhanoglu from Turkey and Son Heungmin from South Korea, from left, celebrate the opening goal after ten seconds by Leverkusen's Karim Bellarabi, right, during the German Bundesliga soccer match between Borussia Dortmund and Bayer Leverkusen in Dortmund, Germany on August 23, 2014.. (AP Photo)

this weekend. Mehdi Benatia should start for Bayern Munich against Stuttgart.

The Moroccan defender was signed from Roma for a reported 26 million euros ($34 million) to fill the gap after Javi Martinez tore knee ligaments.

Benatia was rejected five years ago by Freiburg.

Lewis Holtby is likely to make his first appearance for Hamburger SV at Hannover on Sunday. The former Schalke attacking midfielder endured a frustrating one and a half seasons in the Premier League at Tottenham and Fulham.

Experienced Ivory Coast striker Salomon Kalou could start for new club DEBUTANTS' DAY Kagawa isn't the only Hertha Berlin against Mainz player likely to make his on Saturday. Kalou won the season debut for a new club Champions League with

Bundesliga's quickest ever goal in the opening match.

However, club captain Simon Rolfes and forward Julian Brandt are both out several weeks with ankle injuries. Rolfes had started each of Leverkusen's five wins.

Midfielder Lars Bender's return from a thigh injury is a timely one. Leverkusen hosts LIGHTNING LEVERKUSEN Werder Bremen on Friday.

No Bundesliga side has made a better start to the RIBERY RETURNS season than Leverkusen.

Franck Ribery's declaThe team has won all five ration of health has come games across all compe- at the right time for Bayern, titions under new coach which has seven games Roger Schmidt, while it is in 22 days coming up. "I on a seven-game winning feel good and I'm ready run altogether. for Saturday," said the Part of the side's success Frenchman, who had been is down to attacking straight plagued by a knee problem from kickoff. Karim Bellarabi and looks set to make his scored in the ninth second season debut against Stuttagainst Dortmund for the gart.

Chelsea in 2012, beating Bayern in its own stadium in the final. Mainz will also have debuts, including Sami Allagui, who returned to his previous club from Hertha due to Kalou's arrival. Mainz made five signings in the last three days of the transfer period.

FALTERING FOUR Hamburg, Wolfsburg, Schalke and Stuttgart each have only one point from their opening two matches, and all face tough away games this weekend. Hamburg coach Mirko Slomka brings his side to face former club Hannover, Wolfsburg travels to Hoffenheim, Schalke visits Borussia Moenchengladbach and Stuttgart faces Bayern in Munich.

Stuttgart coach Armin Veh is already under pressure on his return to the club he led to the Bundesliga title in 2007. Defeat at home to promoted Cologne has reopened old debates about leading figures, character and commitment. Another poor showing on Saturday would prompt talk of crisis at the club.

Slomka has been under pressure since he took over and barely steered Hamburg away from relegation last season. In 16 away games with Slomka in charge, Hamburg has claimed only one point. Schalke coach Jens Keller has had to endure perpetual speculation over his future, while Wolfsburg's Dieter Hecking is supposed to be leading his expensively assembled side toward Champions League qualification.

All need improvement, and quickly.

Falcao stays cool under Manchester glare

maNCheSter, September 12 (reUterS): A composed and measured Radamel Falcao made his media bow at Manchester United on Thursday, showing few signs of the weight of goalscoring expectation on his shoulders.

United, who have managed only two points in three league games under new coach Louis van Gaal so far this season, paraded Falcao and fellow new signing Daley Blind to the press and cameras before their expected debuts against Queens Park Rangers this weekend.

The club signed the Colombian striker, who has spent most of 2014 out injured, on a year's loan from Monaco just before the transfer market closed last week with an option to buy at the end of the season, in a deal that some commentators said smacked of desperation. But Falcao, 28, speaking in careful English, said what the fans wanted to hear - that he was looking long-term.

"I hope to stay many years at Manchester United and make history at this club." Falcao sidestepped questions about his short stays at Porto, Atletico Madrid and Monaco - three

Manchester United's new players Radamel Falcao, left, and Daley Blind, right, pose for photographs with manager Louis van Gaal at Old Trafford Stadium, Manchester, England, Thursday September 11. (AP Photo)

clubs in four years - and about talk of a transfer to Real Madrid before his last-minute move to Manchester.

He said all the right things. "I feel good. I have had a great welcome. Any settling in period is easy when the quality of players is so good," the Colombian, who joins Robin van Persie and Wayne Rooney in United's attacking line-up, said.

Falcao's anterior cruciate ligament injury kept him out of the World Cup. He played some pre-season friendlies with Monaco and some 15 minutes of

Colombia's defeat by Brazil last Friday.

"I feel well," said Falcao, who scored seven goals in his first seven games for Monaco last season. "I started to play two months ago with Monaco. I've improved in the last month.

I've scored goals which is important to a striker.

"I'm confident with my physical form and I'm comfortable with my knee."

Van Gaal, appointed after United finished in an unaccustomed seventh last season under David Moyes, has been criticised for splashing out 150 million

pounds on new players.

Former United defender Gary Neville said in a radio interview: "Falcao tipped them over the edge, it surprised and shocked everyone. How (Van Gaal) gets them (all) in that team I don't know." "It's not the way I would expect United to go about their business.

I thought it would be more controlled," Neville, now an England assistant coach and television commentator, said. Van Gaal also broke the English transfer record in buying Argentine Angel Di Maria from Real Madrid. The Dutch coach

sharply answered his critics on Thursday, saying the club had bought five players and taken Falcao on loan but they had shed 14, including striker Danny Welbeck who left for Arsenal. "So how to fit in these players is not so difficult," he said. Van Gaal added that youth players would also get their chance. That had always been the club's policy, he said.

"The eight vacancies left by the departures can be filled by the youths but they must know they have to step up," he said.

He added that Welbeck had had his chance.

"He did not have the same record as Van Persie or Rooney. That's why we let him go. Because of Falcao and also the youngsters we have to come in."

And he acknowledged the pressure the Colombian was under.

"When you can hire a player like Falcao, I don't have doubts because he is one of the best strikers in the world. Today in training he gave one ball and it was in the goal.

"But when I say this I know I put too much pressure on him...it's very difficult to come from another club to Manchester United in a new process."

The Morung Express

LOCAL NEWS...

GHS PWD Kohima undertakes educational tour

Students of GHS PWD Kohima during educational tour.

Kohima, September 12 (mexN): The Government High School PWD Colony, Kohima undertook an educational tour to Guwahati and Dimapur from September 2 to 6 last. The objective of the tour was to give first-hand experience of what the students learn in their lessons and to broaden their mindset. During the tour, the students visited Guwahati Planetarium, Assam Zoo, Regional Sci-

ence Centre, the Brahmaputra river, Don Bosco Institute, movie theatre, boating etc. The students interacted with several people from different background. The school head teacher Kezhalezo Solo stated that the group was led by Philip Khale and Agnes Keyho.

The accommodations were provided

by Bishop’s House, Dimapur and St. Joseph’s Church, Guwahati.

Consultative meet of council chairman, VDB secretaries at Lotsu

Council chairman, VDB secretaries and others during consultative meeting at Lotsu.

Kohima, September 12 (mexN): A consultative meeting of the Council Chairman and VDB Secretaries of the nine villages of Potinakup (Wokha) was held at Lotsu village on September 4. The meeting was initiated by R Thechamo Ovung, PS to Parliamentary Secretary for Women Resource Development & Parliamentary Secretary , Border Affairs, N Thomas Lotha and discussed on the matters concerning the needs of the general public of Potinakup (Wokha).

Appreciating the efforts of the government in carrying out various developmental activities in the area, the signatories of the meeting appealed to the government and concerned departments to intervene and expedite the ongoing NLCPR road construction from Sanis to Woroku which has been stopped for a while.

A release received here stated that, the nine villages of Potinakup have been facing untold hardship due to lack of proper water supply and it requested PHED department to look into the matter and arrange any possible means/ways to provide

sustainable water supply to the area.

It also lamented that the area comprises of nine villages has been denied proper medical facilities so far. In this, it requested the concerned department to deploy required medical staff and doctors so as to give necessary assistance during medical emergencies. The signatories also resolved to extend full cooperation to the government for any development activities under the leadership of Parliamentary Secretary, N Thomas Lotha.

SDO (C) Sanis also appealed the chairman and the VDB secretaries to be an agent of the government in executing various activities of the government including utilization of funds with transparency and accountability. He also visited the Government High School, Lotsu and dwelled on the matters concerning the functioning of the lone GHS of the area and appealed them to be stakeholders in the activities for improvement and upliftment of the school. He assured to hold a meeting with the managing board members of the school very soon.

Inter-school literary competition marks World Literacy Day meDZiphema, September 12 (mexN): In commemoration with the ‘World Literacy Day’ on September 8, the Medziphema Town Students’ Union organised an inter-school literary competition on quiz, essay and drawing. All together, around 80 participants from eight schools took part in the competition. The closing progamme and prize distribution ceremony was graced by Rokomeno Krose, Headmistress, Government Higher Secondary School, Medziphema.

The results of the competition were as follows: - Quiz: 1st prize- Kevisenuo, Rahul, Kulo (SFS Hr. Sec. School); Essay: 1st prize, Rovizhakho (Modern Christian School); Drawing (junior) - 1st prize- Zevolho-ü (SFS Hr. Sec. School), Sub-Junior First prize Mezhüsieno (King David School). SFS Hr. Sec. School bagged the overall champion of the competition. This was stated in a press release issued by Medziphema Town Students’ Union President.

NLSF new team elected

Former NZ cricketer Cairns expects perjury charge WeLLiNGtoN, September 12 (reUterS): Former New Zealand cricketer Chris Cairns expects to be charged with perjury this month by British authorities and will travel to Britain to defend himself, the player said on Friday. The charges stem from a 2012 libel action he brought against Lalit Modi, the former boss of the Indian Premier League.

The court ruled in Cairns' favour and ordered Modi to pay damages.

Cairns said the Crown Prosecution Service had told him they intended to lay charges on Sept. 25. He said he would cooperate with British authorities.

"I have nothing to hide and I will do whatever it

takes to once again prove my innocence," he said.

"There will now be an opportunity to face my accusers in an open forum, with some rigour and proper process around that, so that I can clear my name once and for all. "I hope that, through this forum, significant additional information will be flushed out that will help people to better assess the situation, as well as the character and motives of the parties involved.

"I wish this wasn't the situation - having been to Court before, I know what lies ahead and how gruelling it will be and how tough it is on my family but I have nothing to hide and I will do whatever it takes to once again prove

my innocence."

New Zealand Cricket issued a statement acknowledging the move by British authorities but declined to elaborate. "These charges will now be tested in a British court of law and be subject to the normal processes of a criminal trial," NZC said. Cairns flew to Britain in May to be interviewed

by British police and the sport's anti-corruption officials in a separate investigation into allegations of matchfixing.

The former all-rounder has consistently denied any wrongdoing. Former New Zealand batsman Lou Vincent was banned for life in July from all cricket after admitting to matchfixing in games in England.

Newly elected executives of NLSF along with the outgoing officials.

Kohima, September 12 (mexN): The handing and taking over ceremony of the Nagaland Law Students’ Federation (NLSF) took place on September 11 last at NLSF office chamber, Kohima.

The new team of the NLSF is as follows; President - Lanusowa, vice president Wekhrope Marhu, Oponrhoni, general secretary - Khemvü Mekru, assistant general

secretary - Akummeren Tzüdir, finance secretary - Sentilong Ozükum, assistant finance secretary - Shihoto Yepthomi, secretary information & publicity – Xepe, social & culture secretary - Keyigabuing Ndang, women co-ordinator - Nungshikala Lkr, Asenla Lkr. Union assembly: Speaker - Thungbeni Kikon, deputy speaker - Nungshimeren Jamir, assembly secretary - Vitoka V. Awomi.

Entertainment

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Katie Holmes set to direct her first film S

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NOC & Sky Entertainment informs of updates concerning the rules, schedule and registration for national and international bands that wish to compete in the Hornbill International Rock Contest 2014.

Audition details for bands/ artistes from Nagaland

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or this year, the last date of submission of registration forms for Nagaland bands is October 15, 2014.

The live auditions for bands from Nagaland will be on October 18, 2014, at the Regional Centre of Excellence for Music & Performing Arts (RCEMPA) in Jotsoma, Kohima.

Bands are to note that the organizers will reject songs / music that have themes glorifying Satanism, anti-religion, and / or have antisocial contents. Bands will be

given 20 minutes (inclusive of time for set-up) to present their songs.

“We will inform the selected bands through email or phone. However, as we will be giving information through the media regularly from now on, we encourage you all to watch this space,” inform a press release issued

by Al Ngullie, Publicity & Media Manager, NOC & Sky Incorporated, Hornbill International Rock Contest 2014.

Audition details for national & international bands

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or national and international bands, October 30 is the last date for submission of registration forms as well as audio / visual materials.

National and International bands must submit two demos (one in WAV or MP3 format, and the other, a YouTube link demonstrating live performance).

The quality of sound will not be judged but the audio must be clear enough for one to identify or differentiate instruments, vocals, and general make-up of the music.

The selected bands will be informed through email or phone. However, as we will be giving information through the media regularly from now on, we encourage you all to watch this space. You can also get updates from our page on Facebook: www.facebook.com/hirc National / international bands are also required to submit

Nagaland are Christian Higher Secondary School, Little Star Higher Secondary School, Mission High-

er Secondary School, VJS Coaching Centre, S.M. College, Cornerstone Higher Secondary School, Green-

Hrithik Roshan raises funds for Jammu and Kashmir flood victims

wood Higher Secondary School, and St. John Higher Secondary Residential School.

ollywood superstar Hrithik Roshan has joined hands with an NGO to help raise funds for the victims of floods in Jammu and Kashmir. The 40-year-old ‘Krrish 3 star has taken to crowd-funding site Ketto foundation to raise funds for 200 survival kits.

The proceeds will go to Care India who will be utilising the same to disperse amenities to the affected families and individuals in J&K. The kits would include basic amenities for survival such as tarpaulin, mats, hygiene kit (Soap, toothbrush, toothpaste, sanitary napkins & disinfectants soaps) and blankets. In an open letter, Hrithik, who played a Kashmiri boy in 2000 film ‘Mission Kashmir’, pledged his support to the cause and also requested people to be a part of the endeavour. “Having been to J&K multiple times and having shot numerous films there I know the challenges the people will be facing given this devastation. I want to do something to help them. And I know there are people just like me, who want to help too. “Let us raise funds for the people of Kashmir together. Let us stand by our countrymen and do whatever we can to help them deal with their losses. We can help them gradually rebuild their homes and their lives. We can make a difference together,” Hrithik said. Actor Kunal Kapoor has earlier partnered with the NGO for the same.

a band profile, band logo, and band photograph (in JPEG).

The organizers will reject submissions that do not fulfill the required particulars. They are to email all the stated materials, including registration forms, to hircnagaland@ gmail.com International bands are take care of their Visas, travel expenses and all expenses related to entering India and traveling to Nagaland.

The organizers will provide only accommodation (dormitory). Subsistence expenses such as food will have to be borne by the bands themselves.

All interested bands can download the registration forms from www.skygroup.org.in For clarification and further information, please contact A & R Manager Khriesazo Liezie at the number +91 961 5 170 264 or email him at hircnagaland@gmail.com

Lady Gaga

close to quitting music six months ago

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ady Gaga nearly quit music earlier this year. The singer confesses that after her third album ‘ARTPOP’ received mixed reviews from critics, she considered dropping out of the industry. Speaking in Parade magazine, Gaga said: “Six months ago I didn’t even want to sing any more. I was so sad. I couldn’t sleep. I felt dead. “I’m not going to say any names, but people get irrational when it comes to money.

If you help an artist, it doesn’t give you the right, once the artist is big, to take advantage of them.” However after teaming up with Tony Bennett for new jazz album ‘Cheek To Cheek’, Gaga says the music legend saved her “life” and career.

She said: “I tell Tony every day that he saved my life.

He wanted nothing but my friendship and my voice.”

Tony has recently stated how he hopes to work with Gaga again in the future, because he adores her talent.

He commented: “There were no moments of craziness or eccentricity when I was with her. She said that when she was 13 and singing jazz, ‘Nobody ever paid any attention to me.’ “We get along great and she’s just such a good improvised jazz singer. I think the public are going to say, ‘I knew she could sing well but I didn’t know she could sing THAT well’. “I just love her and want to work with her as many times as possible in the future.”

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Nicole Kidman’s father killed after ‘fall’ in Singapore while visiting daughter Antonia

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Dimapur

Slight changes in the schedule, rules and registration for competing bands

LifeJam back in Dimapur for BreakFree Tour 2014

homes; each of which challenges notions of identity, and denies young people the agency to live free lives.

It may be mentioned that LiveJam Foundation was started with the intent to contribute to society through its educational, social and media initiatives.

The target audience for LiveJam activities is teenagers and youth. LiveJam’s primary impetus is towards providing value based education and entertainment, equipping students with the preliminary soft skills necessary to build confidence and identify their unique passions. And BFT 2014 is one such project of LifeJam Foundation towards that goal.

Some of the educational institutions that LiveJam has included in its tour to

13 September 2014

Hornbill International Rock Contest 2014

he optioned the rights to Annie Weatherwax’s first novel in July. Now Katie Holmes is set to step behind the camera for the first time to direct and star in All We Had, according to Variety. Meanwhile, ex-husband Tom Cruise is getting closer to reprising his role as Maverick in Top Gun 2 after The Hollywood Reporter revealed that Paramount and Skydance are in talks with Justin Marks to write the long-awaited sequel to the 1986 classic. Katie’s project follows a povertystricken mother and daughter who find a home in a quirky small town. The 35-year-old Dawson’s Creek alum has signed up Josh Boone to adapt the novel, which was published on August 5. Josh directed The Fault in Our Stars and wrote and directed Stuck in Love. About A Boy’s Jane Rosenthal will produce Katie’s movie.

The beautiful brunette said: ‘I am very excited and honored to be collaborating with Jane and Josh on this project and look so forward to bringing Annie’s incredible characters to the screen.’ Katie will next be seen on the big screen as a teacher who moonlights as a vigilante in dark comedy Miss Meadows,” which premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival in April and will be released in November. Meanwhile, Tom, 52, may soon be ‘feeling the need for speed’ again in Top Gun 2 now that executives have started negotiations with Justin. He wrote Disney’s upcoming live-action version of The Jungle Book. The original Top Gun was set in the Navy’s elite fighter flying school and the new plot will reportedly emphasize the relevance of pilots in the modern age of drone warfare. ‘I would love to fly those jets, the newer ones,’ Tom told a reporter in Paris in May when asked about a sequel. ‘That would be so much fun. It would be insane.’ Tom and Katie, who were married from 2006 to 20012, share an eight-year-old daughter, Suri.

ifeJam featuring Jordan Johnson is here in Dimapur for the week on its ‘BreakFree Tour 2014’, which has been scheduled from September 7-13, 2014.

The BreakFree tour is conducted in schools across India and UAE, and it is LiveJam’s vision that through this tour, it would see the transformation of urban teens through music in schools across India and the world.

The theme for BFT 2014 is centered on freedom and identity. With over 7 years of experience in conducting BreakFree Tours across India, LiveJam has recognized that teens and youth struggle with peer pressure, substance abuse, identity crisis, broken relationships, bullying, and broken

Saturday

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icole Kidman’s father has died after falling in his hotel room while in Singapore visiting his youngest daughter Antonia, according to reports.

Singapore police said that a man in his 80s was taken to Tan Tock Seng Hospital about 10am local time and was pronounced dead a short time later, Channel News Asia reported. Dr Kidman was visiting his daughter, Antonia, and his grandchildren and had a fall in his hotel room after breakfast, the Australian Woman’s Weekly reported. Dr Kidman was a clinical psychologist at Royal North Shore Hospital and a director of health psychology at the University of Technology Sydney. The Royal North Shore Hospital was not immediately commenting on Dr Kidman’s death, while a woman at the Kidmans’ home declined to comment when approached by Daily Mail Australia. She said she didn’t feel ‘comfortable’ saying anything to the media yet. Network Ten reported earlier that Dr Kidman was visiting Nicole’s younger sister Antonia who lives in Singapore with her husband Craig Marran and her six children.

As well as his work as a clinical psychologist, he has done research into the psycho-social impact of diseases, including breast cancer. He was also ran community service seminars on aspects of mental health, was a regular

speaker on radio and television and wrote for academic journals and the general public. He was awarded an Order of Australia in 2005 for his contributions to clinical psychology. The family was last seen together in Sydney back in January for Dr Kidman and his wife, Janelle’s 50th wedding anniversary.

In June this year, a beaming Nicole Kidman, 46 walked the red carpet with her father and husband Keith Urban at the Swisse Celebrate Life Ball in Melbourne. In one of his last public statements, Dr Kidman wrote of the pointless pursuit of happiness.

In the article titled ‘Forget happiness, search for meaning’, Dr Kidman wrote about the importance of striving for achievable goals in life, with a focus on being contented with what you have rather than on a life of material wealth. Nicole Kidman was born in Honolulu, Hawaii in 1967, while her parents were studying abroad., The family moved to Sydney’s North Shore when the actress was four. Nicole Kidman has previously been quoted describing her father as a ‘great’ man that she could rely on at any time of the day. ,‘He’s a great father, I can call him at three in the morning and he’s there for me,’ she said.

‘By the time I was a teenager, I had developed skills as a writer, and my father encouraged me to think about a career in journalism.’ ,‘I began keeping a diary, which I maintain to this day. I used to fill whole notebooks with my writings.’ ,‘My parents thought it was nice to develop my imagination, but they never seriously thought that anything would ever come of it.’ ,She said her family once told her that she couldn’t become an actress because of her height. ‘They said that I couldn’t be an actress because I would be taller than all my leading men, so I thought I would be a writer instead.’ ,But despite this she said her parents have always been supportive of her career in acting.

‘They allowed me any artistic outlet I wanted.’ ,‘Each weekend I’d go to the theatre at Phillip Street. I used to just lock myself in there for the whole weekend. I thought it was fantastic. I’d be teased a lot though, because I’d be going off to the theatre instead of going to the beach with the boys and all the girls. I felt like an outsider because of that.’

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Pretoria | September 12 Associated Press

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South African judge on Friday found Oscar Pistorius guilty of culpable homicide in the shooting death of girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp and declared him not guilty of murder.

Prosecutors said they were disappointed by the ruling but would decide on whether to appeal only after sentencing.

Judge Thokozile Masipa said there was not enough evidence to support the contention that Pistorius knew Steenkamp was behind a locked toilet door in his home when he shot through the door in the predawn hours of Valentine's Day last year. Masipa said prosecutors had not proven beyond a reasonable doubt that Pistorius intended to kill Steenkamp.

"Well I think the verdict is shocking to say the least," said Leonard Gray in Port Elizabeth, Steenkamp's home town. "I think there is clear evidence and indications that he committed murder in this case. ... I feel sorry for Reeva Steenkamp's family because they not going to get any closure because this guy is basically getting away with murder in my opinion."

However Shrina Padayachy, also in Port Elizabeth, called the judge's verdict "fair and just be-

'Blade RunneR'

Oscar Pistorius found guilty of 'negligent' killing of girlfriend cause it's the prosecution that must prove beyond a reasonable doubt and from what I gather and seen they haven't."

The red-robed judge ordered Pistorius, 27, to stand before she delivered the formal verdict on the multiple counts against him, and said it was a unanimous verdict, meaning she and her two legal assessors agreed on the findings. The conviction of culpable homicide, or neg-

ligent killing, can bring a maximum prison sentence of 15 years.

Unlike many other times during the trial that began in March, Pistorius showed no emotion as he stood in his dark suit with his hands crossed in front of him. The double-amputee Olympian was hugged by relatives when the judge ordered a recess soon after announcing her verdicts.

The judge later ruled that Pistorius be granted bail

with the same terms as before.

Masipa said Pistorius' sentencing hearing would begin on Oct. 13. Both sides will be able to call witnesses to argue ahead of the judge's ruling on if, or for how long, Pistorius is sent to prison for negligently killing Steenkamp.

Some legal analysts said they understood why Pistorius was found not guilty of premeditated murder but were surprised

that the runner was not convicted of murder.

After the verdict, Pistorius sat with his sister Aimee on the wooden bench where he has spent most of his six-month murder trial.

She put an arm around his shoulders and spoke to him.

Members of Steenkamp's family, including her mother June and father Barry, were in court to hear the verdict in the 29-yearold model's killing. The judge ruled that the athlete was guilty of unlawfully firing a gun in a public place when a friend's pistol he was handling discharged under a table in a restaurant in Johannesburg in early 2013 — weeks before Steenkamp's killing.

Pistorius was acquitted on two other weapons charges, including a count of firing a gun in public and a count of illegal possession of ammunition in the Pretoria home where he killed Steenkamp.

Pistorius fatally shot Steenkamp in his home in the pre-dawn hours of Feb. 14, 2013. He said he mistook her for an intruder, while the prosecution said he killed her intentionally after an argument.

On Friday, armed security officers stood at each of the three entrances to the courtroom, while others stood near the red-robed judge as she explained her verdicts from her dais overlooking the court. There were also paramedics in the courtroom.

Indian athlete Swapna Barman, who has a foot deformity, works out during a practice session at the National Institute of Sports in Patiala, in the Indian state of Punjab, Friday, Sept.

12, 2014. Barman, a budding heptathlete, is not letting the fact she has six toes on each foot be a barrier as she tries to qualify for the upcoming Asian Games. Having extra digits on a foot, a congenital malformation called Polydactyly, is considered lucky in some parts of India. The 18-year-old is hoping for some luck. (AP Photo)

Pollard named Mumbai Indians captain

MuMbai, SepteMber 12 (agencieS): Kieron Pollard has been named Mumbai Indians captain for the Champions League Twenty20 after Rohit Sharma was ruled out with injuries. Pollard has been with Mumbai since 2010, but has not led the team before this tournament.

He had been captain of Barbados Tridents, winners of the Caribbean Premier League this season.

Anil Kumble, the Mumbai team mentor, welcomed the appointment. "I am confident that Kieron with his varied experience and impressive track record, will rise to the oc-

casion, and align the Mumbai Indians for a competitive performance," he said.

Mumbai's squad also includes Harbhajan Singh, who led them to the 2012 Champions League title, and Lasith Malinga, who was Sri Lanka's captain when they won the World T20 four months ago, but a press release sent out by the franchise said Pollard was the "automatic choice" to lead in Rohit's absence.

Pollard has played 96 games for Mumbai, in which he has scored 1778 runs at a strike rate of 144.31, and taken 53 wickets. Rohit has been replaced

by Sushant Marathe in the squad.

Ravi Shastri to stay as director of Indian team till World Cup 2015

Christian Higher Secondary School (yellow jersey) takes on St. Stephen’s Higher Secondary School during the 1st ANPSA Volleyball & Basketball Tournament at the Don Bosco Higher Secondary School ground in Dimapur Friday. The tournament organised and hosted by the Dimapur unit of the All Nagaland Private Schools’ Association, under the theme ‘Unity through Sports’, began on September 12 and will conclude on September 13. (Morung Photo)

CM lauds Nagaland NE United FC sign English striker Keene Sepak Takraw players guwaHati, SepteMber 12 (ianS): NorthEast United FC have brought on board yet another international player, to add more experience to the Indian Super League (ISL) franchise with the signing of English striker James Keene, a Portsmouth youth scheme product.

Keene debuted for Portsmouth in the 2005 in

the English Premier League under then manager Harry Redknapp, the current manager of Queens Park Rangers, before spending six seasons at Swedish top tier club Elfsborg.

"I am very proud to be part of NorthEast United FC and it's great to know that the North East is the power house of Indian football and that the peo-

ple here are very educated about the game as well," said Keene.

"All of us are training very hard at the moment and the training is fantastic; especially working under an experienced coach, Ricki Herbert. We are excited for the matches to start and hope that this new league will take Indian football to the global stage.”

MuMbai, SepteMber 12 (agencieS): Named as Indian team’s director after a forgettable Test series in England, former Test cricketer Ravi Shastri played a key role, acknowledged by several players, in the following ODI series.

India badly lost the Test rubber 3-1 but clinched the five-match ODI series 3-1 and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI)

reportedly wants Shatri to continue the good work till the 2015 World Cup. According to a sourcebased report in the Times of India, BCCI officials regard Shastri as a crucial reason for India’s turnaround in England and that his communication skills and expertise as coaching director is invaluable. “He [Shastri] took charge at a very short notice and made a huge

difference. If he stays on, it will be a big boost for our team. We will sit with him and discuss how to take it forward,” the report says.

Interestingly though, the report says coach Duncan Fletcher is also likely to remain. Shastri has previously supported Fletcher and had indicated that he would speak positively about the Zimbabwean in his report to the BCCI.

Sania to play Asian Games: AITA C M Y K

The selected players and the coach.

KOHiMa, SepteMber 12 (Mexn): Nagaland state Chief Minister, TR Zeliang has congratulated Veseyie Koso, Keneileno Nakhro and coach, Holshe Khrieo, who have been selected from Nagaland state to represent the Indian men and women Sepak Takraw teams at the 17th Asian Games Incheon 2014 in Korea. A press note from the Nagaland CM stated the

selection of the said players is “a clear indication of their excellence in the sport.”

While expressing hope that they would do their best to shine in the forthcoming games, Zeliang assured that the state government would extend all possible support. He further lauded the entire Nagaland Sepak Takraw team in promoting the game and harnessing the talent of the youth.

bangaLOre, SepteMber 12 (pti): In a significant development, Sania Mirza has agreed to play in the upcoming Asian Games, two days after AITA announced that they would allow top players to miss the Incheon event, keeping in mind their requirements on the professional circuit.

Sania's decision means that the Hyderabadi has put on line 900 ranking points, which she had to defend on the tour during the period of the Asian games, to be held from September 20-30.

Sania will miss the Wuhan WTA event which has 900 points on offer. She though will play in Tokyo, where she is defending champion but now points in that tournament have been reduced to 475 from 900.

After the Games, Sania will compete in China Open, starting September 29. Sania and Cara Black are fourth in the Race to Singapore, the year-end championship but the Indian hoped that she will be able to earn enough points in Tokyo and Beijing to remain in top-8. Asked if there was any pressure on her, the US Open mixed doubles champion replied in a negative. "No there was nothing like that. I hope we come back with a medal, I know the chances are less in both mixed and women's doubles but I will give my best shot," the 27-year-old said.

Asked if Indian team's participation

C M Y K

was in jeopardy in the wake of mass pull outs of top players and that forced them to convince Sania to play, AITA President Anil Khanna said there was no pressure on them from the government. "I can only say that government did not say anything to us. Yes, she is playing. It's a good news," Khanna said.

Leander Paes, Rohan Bopanna and Somdev Devvarman have all been allowed by AITA to play on the professional circuit instead of the Asian Games to defend points in the next few weeks.

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