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H I M A L AYA N M I R R O R
DDMA forms new team and Committees
Gangtok, Nov 5: A Review
programme of Disaster
Management Teams and
Committees of the Village
and Gram Panchayat Level
of the East District under
capacity
building
programme for disaster
management was held
here at Janta Bhawan on
Tuesday. The training
programme was organized
by District Disaster Management
Authority
(DDMA) East with the objective to revive the existing committee and to form
new teams and committees at ward and GPU level
in east district.
Zilla
Panchyat
Adhakshya, East, Bimal
Dabari articulated the roles
and responsibilities of
panchayats on disaster
management. He suggested participants to
share the knowledge imparted during the training
programme with the public as a part of awareness
to bring confidence
amongst people against
natural disaster. He also
instructed panchayats to
place the tools and kits of
disaster programme at the
Gram panchayat centre in
order to ensure the availability of benefit for the
villagers.
District Collector, East,
Tshewang Gyachho urged
panchyats to sensitize and
mobilize community in risk
reduction part of disaster
and also to make them
aware of strengthening
man-made structures to
mitigate the impact of natural disaster. He urged
panchayats to conduct
ward sabhas and Gram
sabhas on organic mission
before November 15, and
to submit their report to
the concerned authority
accordingly.
Resource
Person,
Deputy Secretary-cumState Project Officer,
United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)
Prabhakar Rai gave an
overview presentation on
Disaster Management. He
also informed on acts &
policies, terminologies,
norms and expenditures
with regard to Disaster
Management. District
Programme Officer Sonam
Wangyal Lepcha highlighted on theme of the
programme
capacity
building on disaster management.
Training Officer Bijeta
Kharel spoke on the structure of the six committees
to be formed at each ward
level, viz. Awareness &
Early warning team,
Evacuation team, Search
& Rescue team, Coordination team, First Aid Team
and Livestock Management Team.
32 schools gets training on Disaster
Management under NSSP
HM Correspondent
Darjeeling, Nov 5: Schools
from Darjeeling hills will
soon be equipped on Disaster
Management.
Thirty-two schools from
Darjeeling on Wednesday
participated in a training
programme imparted by the
National School Safety
Programme (NSSP).
Darjeeling district in one
among some of the districts
earmarked by the NSSP
along with Cooch Behar
and Jalpaiguri in West Bengal for which, trainers were
sent to the National Capital. Five Master trainers
and two teachers have
been roped in.
Priti Gurung, an expert
from the NSSP said in the
first phase teachers are being trained. “In the Second
phase mock drills, disaster
management plans and
formation of various teams
will be held in schools,”
she added.
After receiving training
the teachers will have to
disseminate the same in
their respective schools.
“The schools will have to
form Disaster Management
Committees within 15
days. The school committees will be headed by respective head master or
head mistress and will
comprise of members from
the disaster management
department and civil defence along with teachers.
They will also prepare a disaster management plan”
added Gurung.
The schools will form
various teams including
earthquake evacuation
team, awareness team and
fire safety team. “Under this
programme funds will be
provided to the schools to
conduct mock earthquake
drills at regular intervals,”
said Gurung. The mock drill
will practice safe and
speedy evacuation.
“A detailed study revealed that schools, hospitals, shopping malls where
footfalls are high are the
most vulnerable and where
casualties could be very
high” stated Asha Mukhia
Lama, Sub Divisional Disaster Management Officer
and Master Trainer. She remarked that there has been
a paradigm shift from crisis
management to disaster
management.
“Children spend most
hours of the day in schools
hence the programme also
addresses the structural
and non-structural hazards
present in the school buildings.” added Lama.
Similar training of school
teachers will take place in the
Sukhia block on November
7; Tukdah block on November 11 and Bijanbari Block
on November 14.
Medica Cancer Hospital, Rangapani to organize
‘community-based Cancer Screening free camps’
First camp in Darjeeling on Nov 7
HM Report
Siliguri, Nov 5: The Medica
Cancer Hospital, Rangapani
(formerly known as North
Bengal Oncology Centre), organized a media interaction
meet today at a private hotel
in Siliguri. Announcing the
centre’s ‘community-based
Cancer Screening free camps’
to be held across North Bengal as a part of the unit’s social responsibility initiative,
Soma Ghosh, the centre’s General Manager informed that the
first camp will be held in
Darjeeling on November 7.
The hospital will be conducting 8 camps a month at different places across North Bengal and people can walk into
the camp where specialist
doctors will screen those
deemed to be found in need of
it. Speaking to reporters, Dr.
Pankaj Chowdhary, Medical
Director and Chief Oncologist
said that there is a need to bring
down the taboo that is prevalent with Cancer. People immediately associate “pain and
death” with cancer which in fact
is a wrong notion, he added. “It
is the lack of awareness among
people about cancer screening.
There is no symptom for
1st stage cancer. Screening is a
procedure where few simple
tests are done on a normal person to figure out if there exists
any future threat or possibility of cancer and preventive
treatment is initiated accordingly. Common cancers such
as those of cervical and breast
as well as head and neck cancers are screen-able and curable with early detection,” said
Dr. Chowdhary. He further
suggested that after crossing
the threshold of 40 years of
age, every person should make
it a practice of undergoing cancer screening once annually
and in case of women, those
above 35 years should have
their mammography done routinely, every year. The cost of
getting the mammography and
CT scan at the Rangapani centre has been kept very minimal at Rs.200 and 500 respectively-comparatively cheaper
to any other test labs in NB.
Dr. Chowdhary also made
startling revelations about the
increase of cancer patients stating that the Rangapani unit
registers around 2000 new additional cases of throat and
neck cancer annually-all due to
the use of tobacco, be that in
the form of chewing tobacco,
gutkha or smoking. There has
been almost 25% increase of
such cancer cases in last few
years in North Bengal.
As far as lung cancer is concerned, the lack of proper
implementation of banning
smoking in public places in
West Bengal and high rate of
smokers in Sikkim has made
the two border sharing states
stand on the threshold of being crowned the leading states
in India with maximum number of patients effected with
lung cancer, added Dr.
Chowdhury. Dr. Salil Dutta, a
senior doctor also present at
the meet appealed the media
to play a pro-active role in
making people aware of cancer screening and the existence
of the Medical Cancer Hospital in Rangapani so that people
don’t waste their time going
to other big cities for treatment which he said only adds
up to the loss of vital time
thus resulting in getting their
cancer reach advanced stages.
Burdwan blast: NIA gets custody of injured militant
Kolkata, Nov 5: Abdul
Hakim, a key accused and injured in the Oct 2 Burdwan
blast, was Wednesday remanded to 10 days’ NIA custody by a city court, which
also extended the judicial remand of three other accused.
Hakim was presented before
8
GANGTOK, THURSDAY 06 NOVEMBER 2014
the court after he was discharged from SSKM Hospital where he underwent treatment for splinter injuries,
which he sustained during the
blast at a house in Khagragarh
in which two other militants
were killed.
“Hakim has been remanded to
our custody till Nov 14 while
the judicial custody of three
other accused - Hasem
Mollah, Rajia Bibi and Alima
Bibi - has been extended till
Nov 20,” a counsel for the
National Investigation
Agency (NIA) said.
Probing the blast in which
militant group Jamaat-ulMujahideen suspected to be
involved, the NIA has announced cash awards for information helping in the arrest of 12 absconding accused,
including Sajid described as
the “Chief of the Burdwan
Module”. (IANS)
Sikkim Police to
participate in BN
Malik Football
Championship
2014
Gangtok, Nov 5: The
Sikkim Police team is all set
to take part in the 63rd All
India BN Malik Football
Championship at Barakpur
in Kolkata. A 24 member
squad of Sikkim Police has
also been selected for the
tournament scheduled to
be held from November 12
to 21. Informing about the
participation, Sikkim Police
Sports in-charge Dr. MS
Tuli said the team has been
doing well in the
tournament in its last few
outings. “During the 2009
edition of the tournament
in Deharadoon, the team
had reached the semi final
and has made it to the
quarter finals since then,”
he informed.
The DIG claimed Sikkim
Police have always taken
its duties seriously and
with honesty and in the
same way the team has
fared well in the field of
sports as well. The team
consists of players from
IRB, Sikkim Armed Police
(SAP), Sikkim Police and
civil police departments,
he informed. Thupden
Rapgyal Bhutia will be the
chief coach of the team,
while Singh Bahadur
Gurung
has
been
appointed the assistant
coach and DSP Tulshi
Chettri as the manager.
The team will be led by the
experienced young striker
Bimal Bagdas.
ICAR Strengthens Tribal
Farmers of North Sikkim
Gangtok, Nov 5: To
strengthen the tribal community of North Sikkim,
ICAR Research Complex,
Sikkim Centre organized
five days training of progressive farmers with
t e c h n o l o g i c a l
backstopping and input
support system at Singhik,
Lachung, Chungthang,
Lachen and Naga.
The training under ‘National Initiative on Climate
Resilient
Agriculture
(NICRA)’ and Tribal Sub
Plan (TSP) project was held
from October 28, to November 1, which was attended
by more than 198 remote
located tribal farmers.
The farmers were provided with improved garden pea, Spinach (Palak),
Coriander and Fenugreek.
Apart from the seed materials, organic nutrient
sources, organic plant nutrient tonic and bio-pesticides (neem-based bio formulations and copper oxy
chloride) were also distributed during the programme.
In addition, six pig farming
units under deep litter system have been established
and 18 numbers of piglets
were also distributed
among Self Help Groups
and individual tribal farmers to empower women
farmers in the region.
The program was attended by Nim Tshering
Lepcha, Upadhakshya,
North District Zilla
Panchayata and Dr. R.K.
Avasthe, Joint Director,
ICAR Research Complex for
NEH Region, Sikkim Centre.
Nim Tshering Lepcha
motivated the farmers of
Tung and Naga GPU for
production of large cardamom as leading cash crop
in the region. He also emphasized that rural youth
should take agriculture
and allied sectors as agripreneures to sustain their
livelihood. Joint Director,
ICAR Sikkim Centre suggested the farmers to opt
organic farming based
agri-tourism as venture for
their livelihood. He also ensured the technological intervention in agriculture
and allied sectors to boost
their production in the
near future. Expressing
satisfaction over the overwhelming response of the
farmers towards organic
cultivation, he encouraged
them to place extra effort
in cultivation of various
cash crops which can fetch
Opinion Leaders from Odisha
visit Sikkim for skill upgradation
HM Report
Gangtok, Nov 5: A team of
opinion leaders from Odisha
are on three day visit to
Sikkim to acquire more information on income generation, rural development,
Panchayati Raj System and
other development works.
The tour is being organized by Directorate of Field
Publicity, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.
The team consists of
twelve selected female
opinion leaders who are
working in social sectors,
Three arrested
with two rare
Indian Red
Sand Boas
Jalpaiguri,
Nov
5:
Baikunthapur Forest Department officials last night arrested three wildlife smugglers with two rare species
of Boa snakes from
Phoolbari in Jalpaiguri. Acting on a tipoff, the forest officials conducted an undercover mission posing as potential buyers and arrested
the three accused with the
snakes. The three were produced at Jalpaiguri District
Court today and have been
ordered additional remand
for questioning. The rare Indian Red Sand Boa is an endangered species and is protected under section 4 of Indian Wildlife Protection Act.
The snake has a huge demand in both national and
international illegal wildlife
markets. In the international
markets Indian Red Sand
Boas fetch lakhs of rupees.
This species has a peculiar
physical feature, growing
only up to a meter long and
are commonly known as two
headed snake as its head
and tail look alike. Although, it is a non-venous
snake, the Indian Red Sand
Boas have medical utilities
as well and is found in Iran,
Pakistan and Western,
Southern, and North Eastern parts of India. (HS)
ICDS, NRHM, NGO’s and
Education department.
The main objective of this
tour is to facilitate these
members in acquiring vital
information and new methods which are practiced in
different
welfare
programmes in Sikkim so
that they could replicate
the same in their area of
work and motivate the public in rural Odisha to incorporate the same for the development of the country.
During their visit in the
state the opinion leaders
visited North Eastern Region Rural Marketing Corporation at Rangpo, Sikkim
Sparkle, Lamha centre and
acquired important information on food processing,
methods of food preservation, organic farming, cardamom cultivation and exchanged cultural values.
During the next two days
the members would visit
AIDS control society,
ICDS/ health projects,
Schools and other important areas in Sikkim.
The team would proceed
to Darjeeling and New
Jalpaiguri tomorrow for acquiring more information
after completion of their
field visit in Sikkim.
The Opinion Leaders
are accompanied by M.P
Jena, Conducting Officer
and B.C. Sahu, Conducting Assistant, Directorate
of field Publicity, Government of India, Odisha Region. (PIB)
Edited, Published, Printed and Owned by Anjan Upadhyaya from Gairi Gaon, Tadong, Gangtok, Printed at Pabi Publication House, Ranipool, Gangtok.
Telephone: 98512-22787, Email: [email protected] / [email protected].
them better market price and
bring a paradigm shift in
agricultural growth of the
region.
Farmers were trained on
Good Agricultural Practices, Production of
Quality Vegetable Seedlings, Off-season Vegetable Cultivation under
Low Cost Plastic Rain
Shelters, Organic Management of Pests and
Diseases, Acid Soil Management,
Organic
Sources of Crop Nutrition for Soil Health and
Scientific Management of
Livestock by the concerned scientists Dr. H.
Kalita, Dr. Ashish Yadav,
Dr. Raghavendra Singh,
Dr. R. Gopi, S. K. Das, Dr.
Brijesh Kumar, B. Lepcha
of the institute during the
programme.
A day long survey
programme on Yak and Tibetan Sheep was also conducted by the team of
ICAR Sikkim Centre during
the tour programme.(PIB)