Document 6595481

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B A L A N C E D
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C R E D I B L E
VOL 9 No 55 RNI No: SIKENG/2006/18384
Sikkim mourns Prince
at Royal funeral
Suman Agrawal
Gangtok, Nov 5: Thousands paid their last respects to Prince Jigdal
Tsewang Namgyal, the
youngest son of Late
Chogyal Tashi Namgyal
and Maharani Kunzang
Dechhen
Tshomo
Namgyal. A sea of humanity had turned up for the last
royal funeral of the Late
Prince who breathed his
last at his residence at Development Area here on 30
October. He was 86 and is
survived by his wife
Lhacham Kusho Soyangla
, Son Jigmee Namgyal and
daughter Gawa Yangchenla
and five grandchildren. He
was the youngest brother
of last king Chogyal P.T.
Namgyal.
The funeral procession
started early Wednesday
morning from his residence
at Tashi Gartsel and traversed through Zero Point
and White Hall on its way
to Luk Shyama, the Royal
Funeral Ground, 3 kilometer above the town.
It was a tearful adieu
thousands as they joined
the procession on foot all
along the way in reverence
for the Chogyals, the erstwhile King of Sikkim. They
offered Khadas and prayers
on the royal Kubur, specially prepared by Buddhist
monks.
Chief Minister Pawan
Chamling, his cabinet colleagues, opposition MLAs,
and state bureaucrats
Foresters recover 2 Boa
Snakes, 3 arrested
HM Correspondent
Jalpaiguri, Nov 5: Guised
as potential buyers the
Baikunthapur forest division of the forest department
recovered two Indian Red
Sand Boa snakes protected
under schedule IV of wild life
act. The department arrested
three persons – Zaheer
Khan, Abdul Gaffar and
Amzad Khan – for trying to
smuggle the snakes to
Nepal.
On October 29 foresters
had arrested four persons
with two Geckos commonly
known as Takshak in local
dialect. Interrogating the
four guys, foresters came to
learn about another group
of smugglers involved in
smuggling Indian Red Sand
Boa snakes into Nepal.
On getting the information the forest department,
on Tuesday evening, deployed few of their men
guised as potential buyers
at Fulbari on the outskirts
of Siliguri. They offered
Rs.15 lakh to the smugglers
and also paid Rs.5000 in advance so that they could allure the smugglers to come
to Fulbari with the snakes.
It is learnt that the Indian
Red Sand Boa snake is
found in dessert areas of
Iran, Pakistan and India. It
draws smugglers as it is believed that the scales of the
snake contain Iridium and
that its body parts are required to prepare medicine
for AIDS. These two
snakes were brought from
Rajasthan and were supposed to be ferried to
Nepal.
State sponsored UPSC
coaching in limbo
Sujal Pradhan
Gangtok, Nov 5: The state
sponsored
coaching
classes for UPSC Civil Services Examinations for
Sikkimese student this year
in various coaching centres
in Delhi as well as other part
of India have been left in
the dark as the state is yet
to allocate the money earmarked for the same.
According to information from senior official of
the HRD department, they
have proposed the plan to
the planning wing of the
department but funds for
the same is yet to be released citing reasons that
less number of students
have showed interest in the
matter. It has been reported
that this year too, only 5-6
candidates have applied for
the same. According to the
source the output of the
scheme has not been good
from the onset as hardly
very few manage to crack
the prelims. “And the lack
of interest from the side of
the aspirant also does not
favor carrying out the
scheme,” he added. In 2012,
the state government released a sum of Rs. 2 crore
under the scheme which
was used for providing
coaching, training and reimbursement for students
who join the classes separately on their own, the official informed. The scheme
was launched with the objective to reduce dependency on employment opportunities within the state
and enable Sikkimese stu-
dents to strengthen themselves in national level
competitions like the UPSC
exams which is tough to
crack. Now it seems that
Sikkim’s UPSC aspirants
have lost this golden opportunity. Few student’s
though spoke on the negative saying that they
wanted to avail the facility
but failed to find any advertisement of the state government declaring the availability of the said scheme
this year. One of the student
said “I visited the HRD department to find out if the
scheme was afloat this year
too but the officials cited
that they have not received
any such orders over the
availability of scheme at
present from the concerned
department”.
joined the last royal funeral.
A large number of officials,
school students, and
people from all walks of life
had gathered at the funeral
ground where the pyre was
readied by 10.30 am.
Monks from four monasteries namely Pemayangtse
, Enchay, Chorten and
Zurmang Gompas offered
prayers during the final rite
which was performed by
the members of the Royal
Family. The body was set
on fire at 12 noon.
Bollywood
actors
Danny Denzongpa and
Kelly Dorjee, filmmaker
Ugen Choppel and a host
of dignitaries attended the
funeral
procession.
Denzongpa, happens to be
the son-in-law of the royal
family of Sikkim.
The state government
had declared an official holiday today in honor of the
Late Prince. Business establishments and institutions also remained closed
throughout the day.
CPRM lament over
Railway booking in hills
GANGTOK, THURSDAY 06 NOVEMBER 2014
With SMC on mind, BJP
bigwigs to address on Friday
HM Correspondent
Siliguri, Nov 5: The
Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP)
has become the first political outfit here to give the
ruling Trinamool Congress
a run for the money. Announcing its first ever rally
in the city, S.S. Ahluwalia,
the Darjeeling MP today
said party bigwigs like
Siddarth nath Singh, a BJP
National Secretary and In
charge of west Bengal,
Rahul Sinha, the BJP state
president, Amitava Roy,
the youth president and
Ahluwalia himself address
a rally on Friday.
The BJP would be the
first party to launch a campaign to the ensuing SMC
polls. The SMC currently is
being run by board of Administrators.
Speaking to scribes at
Siliguri Journalist’s Club
here Ahluwalia lambasted
against the TMC saying
that the party in reality has
looted the people on Bengal in the name of chit fund.
“People in the state are disillusioned with the TMC that
came to power with a slogan
of change,” he added. The
MP however did not mention
the SMC election behind the
rally, but party sources said
the BJP is eyeing to grab the
SMC with full vigor.
The BJP according to
Ahluwalia would ensure that
the hard earned money of the
investors in chit fund companies get their money back.
“The BJP would also protect
the state people from the ‘terror tactics’ of the TMC,” said
the Lok Sabha MP.
In 2009 the Congress and
the TMC were jointly voted
to power in the SMC but the
fight for the post of the
mayor resulted in the Congress forming the board with
the outside support of the
Left Front. Though the two
alliance partners patched up
their differences and later
formed the board jointly, the
going was never smooth as
they kept on criticizing each
other. This had largely affected the civic facilities.
He said the party is committed to honour the aspiration of people of North Bengal for the constitutional
recognition of their languages. In fact, Ahluwalia
has already raised the issue
of recognition of Kamtapuri
language in the Lok Sabha.
Ahluwalia blamed the state
government for the lack of
safety and security of
women in the state.
Speaking on the Burdwan
issue, The Darjeeling MP
said, “The state government
claims that it supports
around 10,000 madrasas
across Bengal, but the government website has only
listed 6,000 of them. This
means it is running the remaining madrasas illegally.”
He also said the state government has not taken up the
Jann Dhan Yozna and
Swacha Bharat Yozna, but
the people have come out on
their own to participate on
the two central government
initiatives. “I congratulate
the general public and the
Gorkha Territorial Administration for taking up the two
initiatives,”
added
Ahluwalia. (With Agency
inputs)
Morcha braced for Delhi agitation
HM Report
Kalimpong, Nov 5: The
Communist Party of Revolutionary Marxist (CPRM)
has protested the removal
of non-computerized railway booking from the hills.
The party held a meeting
here today to discuss on the
matter.
The CPRM is of the opinion that introduction of
computerized booking
counters in the hills have
lessened the possibility of
people getting tickets.
“When the non-computerized reservation was available almost all the places
like Kurseong, Ghoom,
Darjeeling, Kalimpong and
Bijanbari had quotas which
made things easier and tickets could be booked easily,” said Mohan Poudyal,
the secretary of the party.
“But now with introduction new booking system
all the quota system has
been vanished and people
are suffering,” he added.
Chicken shop sealed
Kalimpong, Nov 5: A chicken shop running without a license was sealed by the civic body here on Wednesday
at Thakurbari. The shop belonged to one Md. Shamiuddin
and shop was shut following high court order.
“We have just followed the order of the High Court
and similar to Shamiuddin many shops might be running
without a license which will be sealed after a thorough
inspection,” said Zion Lepcha, the civic vice chairman.
HM Correspondent
Kurseong, Nov 5: The GJM
is preparing in full swing
to successfully hold their
proposed programme in
the National Capital in
support of Gorkhaland said
the GJM leadership on
Wednesday.
The
programme is to be held on
December 18, 19 and 20.
A senior leader from
Kurseong said the party
has already chalked out different strategies and plans
for their proposed Delhi
based Gorkhaland agitation
to pressurize the central
government for the immediate formation of a separate state of Gorkhaland.
The party had earlier announced that they would
assemble over ten thousand
people from different places
in the country. The party
according to leaders is in
constant touch with its different units and representatives in Darjeeling hills,
Terai-Dooars and other
states of the country.
Not only this, the party
high command has already
underlined the different re-
sponsibilities and guidelines for its different
elected members for their
contribution and participation in the proposed programs in Delhi. Even, the
GJM supported GTA members have already taken
decisions to contribute a
few months of their respective salaries for the Delhi
programs.
Sources said that BJP
party and its leadership are
likely to guide their alliance GJM party in their
proposed Delhi program,
on different ways.
Rs 8 Cr to GTA for country’s oldest hydel project revamp
Darjeeling,
Nov
5:
Sidrapong Hydel Power
Station, the oldest hydroelectric power plant in India is set to undergo renovation soon. The power
station established on
November 10, 1897 and located at the foothills of
Arya Tea Estate at an altitude of 3,600 ft (1,100 m)
and 12 km from Darjeeling
town via Bloomfield Tea
Estate is in poor condition.
The power station which
is fed by three streams,
such as Barbatay, Hospital, and Kotwali generates
only 0.6 megawatt of electricity per day. The production is lower as the
plant produces power erratically due to rusty old
turbines which do not
function properly. Besides, the dam and the
powerhouse are in a rundown condition.
According to GTA
sources, the administration has received Rs 8
crore from the central government to renovate the
Heritage Power Station,
which the hill body wants
to turn into a major tourist
attraction once the revamp
is over. Binay Tamang, the
executive GTA Sabha
member in charge of Information and Cultural Department said that the administration had demanded for the restoration
of Sidrapong
hydel
project in the memorandum of agreement signed
with the Centre and the state
government. The Union Finance Department has allocated Rs 8 crore for its restoration from the annual central package of Rs 200 crore
to the GTA. “A meeting
would be convened with the
officials on Friday to draw
up a blueprint of the renovation. Once the renova-
tion is done, we will promote the facility as a major
tourism attraction,” Tamang
added. (HS)
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