Border, trade deficit figure in Modi-Xi summit talks

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VOL 9 No 241 RNI No: SIKENG/2006/18384
GANGTOK, FRIDAY 15 MAY 2015
Border, trade deficit figure
in Modi-Xi summit talks
Justice
Sengupta
appointed
Sikkim
Lokayukta
Bimal shelves ffelicit
elicit
ation ffor
or pos
17
elicitation
postt 20
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GTA chief Bimal Gurung at a school function in Kalimpong. HM Pic.
HM Correspondent
HM Correspondent
Gangtok, May 14: Justice
Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta has
been appointed as the
Chairperson of Sikkim
Lokayukta. Govenor
Shriniwas Patil issued a
warrant of Justice Sengupta’s appointment as
Lokayukta last week. Raj
Bhawan sources here said
Patil will administer the oath
of his office to Lokayukta
on 18 May, and will assume
his office from the same
day. Justice retired last
week as Chief Justice of
Andhra Pradesh and
Telangana High Court.
The office of the Sikkim
Lokayukta had fallen
vacant following the
passing away of
former Chairman Justice
A N Ray following a cardiac
arrest in Kolkata on 30
January. He was appointed
as Sikkim Lokayukta on 2
March 2014.
Governor of Sikkim by
Section 6 of the Sikkim
Lokayukta Act, 2014,
Governor appointed Justice
Kalyan Jyoti Sengupta as
the Chairperson of the
Sikkim Lokayukta with
effect
from the date he
assumes charge of his
office, reads the warrant.
Kalimpong, May 14: After
refusing to inaugurate a solid waste management plant
at Bhalukhop yesterday, the
man with power in the hills
vis-à-vis the GTA chief Bimal
Gurung yet again denied receiving felicitation by
Saptashree Gyanpith, a reputed school in the town.
Gurung who has been camping in the subdivision since
the past 3-4 days though did
not disheartened the students by attending the 20th
award ceremony of the 10
ICSE schools as chief guest.
“Please keep the felicitation for 2017. I will accept
such honours only after I
accomplish my mission,”
said the Gorkha leader who
rebelled against Subash
Ghisingh and GNLF in 2007
to fight for a separate Gorkha
homeland. It is however
quite understood that his
mission categorically is
Gorkhaland but the deadline 2017 should throws a
spotlight in the hill political
circles raising eyebrows.
Gurung ironically though
did not clarify why he
asked to keep such felicitations for after 2017.
Sources in the GJM camp
opined that the 2017 mark
could be another deadline
for creation of Gorkhaland
unlike the 2010 deadline
when he had clearly stated
that separate state would be
achieved by then. However, incidentally, Gurung’s
denial for doing things on
the spot happened for the
second consecutive day
today. The leader had denied to inaugurate the Rs 1
crore solid waste management plant constructed by
the Kalimpong municipality yesterday suddenly on
the spot. Gurung was unhappy with the construction of the road leading to
the plant to which he said
was badly constructed.
Meanwhile, addressing
the students at the school
Gurung said he was impressed with the performances from the students.
“The performances were of
international standard like
we see in television these
days. Kalimpong is far better than Darjeeling in every
aspect be it the school brass
band to extra circular activi-
university for a decade,the
government is yet to regularize them hence their constant fear of losing job as they
remain to be temporary workers till date. This has also
curtailed their right to receive
other government benefits in
par with the permanent employees. The protesting organisation members have
also urged the administration
to provide them the University Grant Commission (UGC)
pay scale given to the teaching staff.
ties. Darjeeling certainly
needs to learn from this place
where competition is stiff,”
said Gurung, who announced to provide water
harvesting plant for the
school as a gift in the name
of his mother.
The ceremony themed as
‘the colours of India’ perfectly justified the performances
that enthralled the audience
as well. The heads of the
school said such contest
helps in shaping students'
career and develop confidence in them. “We just do
not organize functions to
wind up the annual event.
The programs organized by
the schools encourage the
students to face their fear,”
said Tapan Pradhan, the director of the school.
Siliguri Police Commissionerate
Building Needs Urgent Repair
WB Police officials inspect the cracked Siliguri Police Commissionerate on Thursday.
Pic: L. Saha.
HM Correspondent
Siliguri, May 14: Ranvir
Kumar the additional director general of Armed Police
on Thursday inspected the
damaged structures of Siliguri Police Commissionerate
while many say that the most
affected old building housing barracks and conference
hall need to be dismantled
immediately.
Kumar’s visit came a day
after Sivaji Ghosh the ADG
of police housing department
took stock of the situation.
The visit of two senior
police officers to take stock
of the damages caused by
series of earthquakes came
after media reported that
some building structures of
the Commissionerate have
NBU ssttaf
afffs ssttage dharna demanding job regularization
Siliguri, May 14: More than
300 Group C and D employees of North Bengal University staged a dharna in the
varsity yesterday for over 10
hours demanding job regularization.
The dharna observed under the aegis of Sara Bangla
Trinamul Siksha Bandhu
Samiti - a Trinamul-backed
association, started around
9am on the ground floor of
the administrative building.
The association members
rued that despite serving the
bandhgala suit, spoke in Hindi, while Xi spoke in
Chinese.The Chinese president recalled his visit to
Ahmedabad in September
last year, during which Modi
received him and also presented a colourful event for
Xi and his wife at the Sabarmati river front, in a break from
usual practice.
"You received me very
warmly in your hometown. I
am very glad to receive you
in my hometown," Xi said.
"That left me with deep
and good impression," the
Chinese president said.
Foreign Secretary S. Jaishankar, briefing the media on
the talks, said the two leaders spoke of the need to
strengthen cooperation on
countering terrorism and
strengthening mutual trust.
The talks were on
“The contract and outsourcing employees have
been working for 10 years
and were undergoing financial stringency and mental
torture due to the government's failure to regularize
their services. Hence, we call
upon the government to fulfill their demands immediately,” said a central committee
member of the association.
He further pointed out
that though the outsourcing
employees were working
since 10-12 years, they were
being paid a paltry monthly
salary of Rs 6700 only. Under the circumstances, how
can they educate their children and maintain family in
these days of inflation, he
questioned. Adding further,
he also pointed out these
temporary employees get no
salary increment, promotions
and have been working like
bonded labours. At present,
the NBU has 300 casual
workers who are paid on a
daily wage basis and 130 contractual employees. (HS)
suffered serious damages.
The damages got intensified
by more tremors the last being on the Tuesday afternoon. Today Kumar inspected the premises and took
stock of the situation. On
Wednesday Ghosh inspected the site and took consolidated reports of the damage.
O G Pal the deputy commissioner of police said the
damages and cracks need to
be fixed up at the earliest.
Amongst the worst affected is the old building housing barracks and conference
hall. The barracks can accommodate 60 policemen.
Though many opined that
the cracks can be repaired,
senior police officers said the
building has suffered some
structural damages. Instead
the building needs to be dismantled. Otherwise risk factor would always be there,
they opined. The protection
wall of the staff quarters behind the newly constructed
Commissionerate building
has also been damaged.
"strengthening trust and increasing convergences",
Jaishankar said.
The border issue, especially maintaining peace and
tranquillity on the border,
were also discussed, he said.
The trade deficit and the
investment climate came up,
as well as connectivity issues, the foreign secretary
said.Xi said it was the first
time he was meeting a foreign
leader outside Beijing.
Jaishankar said the two
leaders also discussed sharing information on trans-border rivers.
"The talks were wide ranging, and regional, global issues came up. The talks were
very substantive and the atmosphere was very comfortable. Both leaders built on the
chemistry that started last
September during the visit of
Xi to India," he said.He said
the Chinese president spoke
of the "miracle of Gujarat"
under Modi and said the
prime minister was "trying to
do it at the national level".
"Terrorism naturally came
up," Jaishankar said, and
added that both discussed
the need to strengthen antiterror cooperation.
He said there was reference to the terror attack in
Kabul and Karachi.
Four Indians were among
14 people killed in a Taliban
attack at a guest house in
Afghanistan's capital city of
Kabul overnight on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, at least
45 people were killed and 20
injured in a terror attack in
Karachi.
"There was talk of Nepal.
How India and China re-
sponded (to the earthquake)," he said.
"UNSC reforms came up
and India's membership of
NSG (Nuclear Suppliers
Group) came up," he added.
Later, Modi and Xi visited the Wild Goose Pagoda, a
sacred Buddhist place for
worship.
Xi took Modi around the
pagoda, which was built in
652 A.D. during the Tang
dynasty and originally had
five storeys.
Modi handed over a Bodhi sapling to a priest and lit
incense at the Buddhist temple.
One of the pagoda's many
functions was to hold sutras
and figurines of the Buddha
that were brought to China
from India by Buddhist translator and traveller Xuan Zang
or Hieun Tsang. (IANS)
HC orders regularization of
contract workers within 4 months
HM Correspondent
Darjeeling, May 14: A sigh
of relief should obviously
come for the 6500 odd contractual workers of the
Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) finally.
Recruited on contract basis
during the late Subash Ghisingh era, the Kolkata High
Court Thursday in an order
has asked both the state
government and the GTA to
start regularization of the
employees within four
months.
The court hearing a writ
petition filed by the Janmukti Asthai Karmachari Sangathan (JAKS) – an affiliate
of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) has also asked
both the parties to immediate work out modalities. The
JAKS had filed the petition
seeking justice in the form of
regularization.
A single division bench of
Justice Sandeep Bannerjee
said meetings between the
GTA and state should be
held within the stipulated
time while the JAKS should
also be a party in the meet.
“Justice has prevailed and
our long fought battle has
paid off,” said Machendra
Subba, the president of
JAKS.
These contractual staffs
initially had been recruited to
work in various departments,
then under the erstwhile Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council
(DGHC) of which Late Ghisingh, the GNLF chief served
as the chairman for 20 odd
years before he was appointed as the Administrator by
the State. However, with no
JAKS president Machendra Subba. File Pic.
sign of regularization step
taken by the DGHC or the
State, they staged a series of
agitation demanding justice.
The contractual workers
held gheroas, shut down
DGHC offices and also held
fast onto death stir.
When JAKS realized that
the fast onto death was the
only means for them to seek
justice, a mass fast onto
death stir was staged all
across the hills in September
2009. The government then
assured to immediately regularize 3472 workers. The
government had also promised to hike salaries. The
DGHC had proposed 100 per
cent hike in the salaries ranging from Rs 2,000 to Rs 5,000.
The workers’ body had demanded that the hike should
make their salaries at par with
the state government employees. However, the assurance turned to be futile with
the government not taking
any initiative.
Later when the new hill
body in the form of GTA
came into force in 2011,
these contractual staff was
absorbed in the same post
under GTA. The GTA is
ready to comply with the
court order. “They are expected to be regularized as
per the West Bengal Service Rules but most importantly we are ready to comply with the court order.
The required steps for the
regularization will be taken
at the earliest,” said Binay
Tamang, the GTA member
in-charge of Personnel and
Administrative Department.
City development plan panel
constituted for Gangtok
HM Report
Gangtok, May 14: The state
Urban Development & Housing Department has constituted the City Development
Plan Policy Committee for
Gangtok Municipal Corporation (CDP Policy Committee)
as per the Revised Toolkit for
preparation of City Development Plan under JnNURM.
The committee is headed
by the Mayor, Gangtok Municipal Corporation as Chairman, Deputy Mayor, Gangtok Municipal Corporation
as Vice-Chairman, Municipal
Commissioner, Gangtok Municipal Corporation and Additional Chief Engineer, Water Security &Public Health
and Engineering Department
as Members and Additional
Chief Town Planner, UD&HD
as Member Secretary.
A notification to this effect was published on 9 May,
just three days before the
tenure of the outgoing members of the urban bodies, as
main two members including
the committee's Chairman
and Vice Chairman have
completed their tenure and
will wait till the new urban
bodies are being elected.
As per the terms of reference of the Committee,
the committee shall ensure
compliance to the CDP preparation process as per the
guidelines and also ensure
participatory approach in
CDP preparation and inclusive planning, by appropriately addressing the concerns of stakeholders with
special focus on inclusive
planning and balanced de-
velopment of all groups, especially the urban poor and
other socially disadvantaged.
The committee have also
take feedback received from
the stakeholders are duly
taken care of and properly
addressed in the CDP adding that be responsible for
project prioritization according to the resource commitment or availability and timelines drawn as per the City
Investment Plan ensuing
the implementation and revision of CDP as per the agreed
timelines.
The committee will also
have to approve the CDP prior to approval by the State
level authorities and provide
any other policy guidance
necessary for preparation of
the CDP.
CMYK
Prime Minister Narendra Modi with the President of China Xi Jinping, at Shaanxi
Guest House, in Xi'an, China on Thursday. Pic: PIB
Xi'an (China), May 14: Prime
Minister Narendra Modi and
Chinese President Xi Jinping
held "substantive" summit
level talks here on Thursday
during which the border issue, trade deficit and connectivity issues were discussed.
The two leaders, who
held talks at the Shaanxi Guest
House for about 90 minutes,
later visited the Wild Goose
Pagoda together.
Modi, who arrived here in
the morning, was warmly
welcomed by Xi at the guest
house and the two leaders
shook hands for photographs.
The prime minister said
he was humbled by the welcome he received at Xi'an
and termed it an honour for
1.25 crore Indians he was representing.
Modi, attired in a black