Meghalaya: Mother Unable to Repay Loan, Children Confiscated

Shillong, Sep 18 : Police today nabbed a woman who confiscated two kids after their parent was unable to repay loan amount. The incident took place at the suburban regions of Shillong in Meghalaya.

Few months ago, the debtor Meryline Gatpoh borrowed over Rs. 3 lacs from Rosa Mawrie, a woman who lives in that area. Rosa asked Meryline to repay the sum along with the interest, the rate of which was set to 20 percent.

Meryline managed to repay Rs 1 lakh but was unable to arrange the remaining sum of money. Rosa first seized Meryline's vehicle in lieu of the sum that was not repaid to her. But this didn't satisfy her demands. On Sep 8, she took away Meryline's minor daughter and later on Sep 15, she confiscated Rosa’s son.

Unable to tolerate any more, Meryline lodged a complaint at the nearest police station on Thursday night against Rosa Mawrie for confiscating her kids along with her vehicle illegally. The kids were rescued by the police today and were handed over to Rosa.

Naga Students Condemn Police Action on AASU

Kohima, Sep 17 : An apex Naga students' body today expressed serious concern over the action of Nagaland police personnel on demonstrators of All Assam Students' Union (AASU) in Golaghat district of the neighboring state.

Outrightly condemning the police brutality, Naga Students' Federation (NSF) asserted that such attitude towards the peaceful demonstrators was totally "an act of disrespect".

"The federation, therefore, invokes the conscious of the authority concerned and the police personnel to restrain from such unwanted situation especially towards our neighbouring state in order to avoid creating any misunderstanding as we are living in peaceful co-existence," a statement issued by NSF said.

While extending its solidarity to the injured protesters and support towards the demand of the AASU, the NSF also urged upon the Nagaland government to seriously examine the incident and take up necessary action.

Twenty people were injured, some of them seriously, when IRB personnel of Nagaland police passing through Golaghat district unleashed baton charge on demonstrators who blocked the NH-39 on Wednesday demanding improvement of a link road near Rangajan Tinali.

Aged 120, Living on Boiled Food, Rice Beer - And Loving it!

Rongmowe (Assam): At 120, she is one of India's oldest women and Kareng Teronpi is still going strong, thanks to a daily diet of bland boiled rice, vegetables, and, of course, a regular bottle of moonshine to keep her spirits high!

She looks frail and emaciated, is weak in the knees and almost bedridden for the past year. But Kareng is very agile - with near perfect eyesight and a voice still chirpy.

"I don't know when I was born... maybe many years ago," Kareng said with a coy smile.

Incidentally, her eldest daughter is around 90 years old and stays nearby.

A resident of village Rongmongwe Sorpokathar in Karbi Anglong district, about 280 km east of Assam's main city of Guwahati, Kareng, a tribal Karbi woman, is believed to have completed her 120th birthday.
"Based on details from our uncles and aunts and grandparents we have calculated her age, although we don't have any birth records as such," Docsingh Kathar, one of the many grandsons of Kareng, told IANS.

Kareng loves eating good food - rice, boiled vegetables, soup being her staple menu, besides a passion for rice beer.

"She requires at least two glasses of Hor (fermented rice beer). She relishes the drink. She is a vegetarian and never eats spicy food," Kathar said.

The mother of four children, Kareng has seen four generations and the entire family consists of more than 60 people. Two of her children - a son and a daughter - are alive, while two others expired.

"She can recognise us from a distance as he still has very good eyesight," a grandson said with a cheeky smile.

Kareng's husband died some six decades ago.

Interestingly, the village is home to about a dozen odd people who are in their 90s. Some even claim to have crossed the century mark.

"I am nearing 100 and the key to my longevity is that I never ate tobacco or tobacco products, always ate boiled food with no spices, besides maintaining a disciplined life all along," said Jon Kathar.
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Nagaland to Confer Honorary Naga Citizenship to Hamid Ansari

Kohima, Sep 17 : Vice President Mohammed Hamid Ansari will be conferred honorary Naga citizenship when he arrives here at Kisama on Sunday to inaugurate the World Bamboo Day.

The choice to confer the honorary citizenship upon Dr Ansari was adopted by the Naga Heritage Village, Kisama, about 12 Kms east of capital Kohima, Nagaland Chief Minster Neiphiu Rio announced this to local media recently. He also informed that Dr Ansari will accompanied by wife Salma Ansari.

Dr Ansari, accompanied by Nagaland Governor Nikhil Kumar and Mr Rio, will also visit Tuensang on September 19th where he will be honoured by a civic reception.

The Vice President will also visit Tuensang village as he wanted to visit some interior villages to acquaint himself about the Naga village life.

New System to Monitor Seismic Activity in Northeast

Agartala, Sep 17 : An ambitious project to modernize the seismic monitoring system in India's northeast -- said to be the sixth most quake-prone belt in the world -- has been taken up by the union ministry of earth sciences (MoES), officials said here Friday.

"A VSAT-based real time seismic monitoring network (RTSMN) over the northeast consisting of two central receiving stations (CRS) -- one in Shillong and the other in New Delhi -- is under commissioning," meteorological department director Dilip Saha told IANS.

He said the RTSMN would be a satellite based system and it would have 21 stations across eight northeastern states. Approximately Rs.25 lakh would be spent on each station for commissioning the equipment and developing necessary infrastructure.

The RTSMN stations are Guwahati, Tezpur, Dibrugarh, Dhubri, Silchar, Jorhat and Lekhapani in Assam, Yupia, Tawang, Pashighat and Zero in Arunachal Pradesh, Tura and Shillong in Meghalaya, Mokokchung and Kohima in Nagaland, Agartala and Belonia in Tripura, Aizawl and Saiha in Mizoram, Imphal in Manipur and Tadong in Sikkim.

"After commissioning of the RTSMN, more accurate seismic activities relating to earthquake would be known," Saha stated.

The Geological Survey of India (GSI) earlier notified that the mountainous northeast comprising eight states could experience a devastating earthquake as the region is considered by seismologists to be the sixth worst quake-prone belt in the world.

Assam experienced a massive tremor measuring 8.5 on the Richter scale Aug 15, 1950, that claimed some 1,500 lives. The worst quake, measuring 8.7 on the Richter scale, was felt in the region in 1897. It killed 1,600 people.

Burgeoning Voters List in Assam Evokes Controversy

By Syed Zarir Hussain

Guwahati, Sep 17 : Assam has witnessed an increase of about 600,000 voters in the final electoral rolls 2010 published by the state election commission, triggering doubts that names of illegal Bangladeshis could have entered the rolls.

There has been an increase of 3.29 percent in the number of voters compared to the draft rolls for the 2009 parliamentary elections - the number of voters has swelled to 17,953,112, an increase of about 571,445.

According to commission sources, names of an estimated 315,943 voters were deleted in the final electoral rolls - some of them doubtful citizens and others who might have died or on some technical grounds.

But the publication of the electoral rolls has already triggered a debate with the politics of citizenship taking centre stage ahead of next year’s assembly elections.

“We have to carefully go through the voters list, but prima facie it appears the increase in the number of electors seems very high,” Chandra Mohan Patowary, president of Assam’s main opposition Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), told IANS.

The issue of citizenship in Assam has always remained a controversial and sensitive issue with allegations that hordes of illegal migrants enter the state from Bangladesh by crossing over through stretches of the unfenced border.

“The increase in the number of voters by 3.29 percent is quite significant and we really need to analyse the whole issue in depth,” Assam unit president of the Bharatiya Janata Party Ranjit Dutta said.

But the Asom United Democratic Front (AUDF), a minority-based political party, is unfazed by the increase in the number of voters.

“There is nothing abnormal in the figures and we believe it is very much within the national average,” AUDF working president Hafiz Rashid Choudhury said.

There have always been doubts expressed and allegations that the voters list in Assam was never free from names of Bangladeshi nationals.

“The voters list is yet to be made public so far and hence it would be too early to comment. But then we want a voters list that is free from names of any Bangladeshi national,” an All Assam Students Union (AASU) leader said.

The AASU had led a six-year-long agitation against illegal Bangladeshi migrants between 1979 and 1985. The uprising ended with the signing of the Assam Accord in 1985 that fixed March 25, 1971 as the cut-off date for detection and expulsion of the illegal aliens.

(Syed Zarir Hussain can be contacted at zarir.h@ians.in

Graft Case Against Former Mizoram CM

Aizawl, Sep 17 : Cases under the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 were today filed against former Mizoram chief minister Zoramthanga for allegedly possessing wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income but the leader termed it as an attempt to malign his image.

A number of bank passbooks, land settlement certificates and periodical pattas for agricultural land were seized during a search of his residence, state Anti-Corruption Bureau officials said.
The raid was made following allegations against him by the Aizawl-based anti-corruption watchdog PRISM, they said.

Cases under the relevant sections of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 were registered against the two-term former chief minister for allegedly possessing wealth disproportionate to his known sources of income.

According to the FIR filed by PRISM, the Mizo National Front (MNF) chief allegedly received fencing material valued around Rs six lakh for his horticulture farm at 'Aiipuk Zau' near here from the agriculture department fraudulently when he was the chief minister.

He was also alleged to have collected three per cent of every government contract from contractors for his MNF party fund, the officials said.

SP of ACB Lalhuliana Fanai, when contacted by PTI, was tight-lipped about the search.
Zoramthanga said the search by the ACB was an attempt to malign him and was a politically motivated move by the Congress government led by Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla on the eve of the Aizawl Municipal Council polls.

"The PRISM submitted the FIR when I was in power and the vigilance department and the ACB then did not find any prima facie case," he said.

The case was revived recently by the Congress government with 'intention of revenge', he alleged.