In recent times, the state government has created as many as nine posts of additional directors and three posts of commissioner & secretary.

In April, the government created two posts of additional director general (ADG) of police. Senior IAS officers HK Deka and K Lalchhunga have been placed in the new posts as the ADGs of Assam Police - Special Branch and Border respectively.

On May 17, the government promoted 183 officers of different categories in the health and family welfare department. This includes the promotion of four officers to the rank of additional director. Earlier, the department had just two additional directors.

On June 1, the government promoted three IPS officers to the rank of additional director generals (ADG) of Assam police. This time, it was the turn of IGP (ops) GM Srivastava, IGP (OSD) DN Dutta and IGP (adm) RN Mathur. Though the three officers will hold their existing responsibilities, each of them will enjoy the status of an ADG.

The state government on June 2 promoted three IAS officers to the rank of commissioner & secretary. Rajib Bora, secretary finance, was promoted as the commissioner & secretary finance. Interestingly with Bora’s promotion, the state finance department now has two persons in the post of commissioner & secretary. Senior IAS officer Subhash Chandra Das has been serving the department as commissioner & secretary since long.

Besides Bora, secretary to the governor Saraswati Prasad and erstwhile commissioner of Guwahati Municipal Corporation – Sumit Joyrath – also have been promoted to the rank of commissioner and secretary in the same government order

Mentionably, on April 7 chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta announced in the Assam Assembly that the state government had accepted the fiscal reforms programme suggested by the Centre. The reforms programme includes ban on creation or upgradation of posts, cuts on government expenditure by 25 per cent, downsizing bureaucracy among other austerity measures. As per these norms, the state government suspended all fresh recruitments and promotions. It even sacked 131 casual Grade-IV employees of the Assam secretariat.

GUWAHATI, JUNE 11: Census work in 25-30 per cent of the city’s municipal areas is yet to be completed despite the lapse of 10 days from the scheduled date of completion of the first phase of census operation in Assam.

Due to this, the Kamrup district administration has failed to submit its completion report to the census directorate, unlike other districts of the state where the census operation is almost complete.

The areas within the city where the census operation is yet to be completed are Khanapara, Dakhingaon, Kahilipara besides others.

Speaking to The Northeast Daily, an official of census directorate said that improper demarcation of the municipality wards has been cited as one of the primary reasons for the delay by the district administration.

This has happened despite the deputy commissioner’s instruction to the GMC to properly demarcate the wards before the commencement of the operation, the official pointed out.

"Moreover, as proper maps were not provided to the personnel, some enumerators did not visit certain areas thinking that these wards fell in somebody else’s jurisdiction," he added.

Interestingly, a senior state census officer’s house in Khanapara area of the city was till Sunday left out of the purview of the census operations.

Drawing comparisons with the operations carried out in the hill district of Karbi Anglong, the official said that "even in such a district where 2,000 villages are located in far-flung areas, the first phase of census operations was completed in May 27."

Work in only certain flood affected areas of Hailakandi and Karimganj districts are not complete due to the rains, but it too would be completed soon and it hardly constitutes 10 per cent of the operation, he added. Meanwhile, the district administration has assured the directorate that it would expedite the matter and submit the completion report soon, the official added.

He was suffering from cardiac and kidney ailments and was undergoing treatment in Mumbai for the past 15 days. He is survived by his wife, a son and four daughters.

His body will be flown into his town, Badarpur via Guwahati, on Monday for burial. Namaj-E-Janaza will be held at Badarpur on Monday. Late Maulana’s demise has cast a pall of gloom over Assam.

Assam chief minister PK Mahanta said that whenever there was any threat to the sovereignty and integrity of the country, Maulana took lead to defend the nation. UMF president HRA Choudhury said that in his death Assam has lost a great leader.

Assam rural development minister Sahidul Alam Choudhury and state cooperation minister Nurul Hussain will be representing the Assam government in his ‘janaja’ at Badarpur. Both of them in separate messages have condoled his death and termed it a loss to national integration.

All of them unequivocally admitted that he was a political stalwart of the country, a good friend of the northeastern region and one of the few politicians from outside the region who could better understand the problems of the north-east.

AGP president and chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta has termed Pilot’s death as a great loss to the region. "He was a good friend of the northeast, especially of Assam, and was actively associated in solving various problems of the region," Mahanta said in a statement.

President of the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee Tarun Gogoi said that Pilotji’s death was a big blow to the Congress party and for its workers, especially of the region. "He always inspired the workers to devote their life for national integration and for the betterment of the society. He was an able, dynamic and bold leader of India," Gogoi said.

Our Kokrajhar correspondent adds: The president of the All Bodo Students’ Union, UG Brahma, has also expressed deep sorrow over the pre-mature demise of Pilot. "Pilot was always very sympathetic towards the Bodo issue and made his best efforts to settle the Bodo problem through peaceful political negotiations culminating in signing of the Bodo Accord on February 20, 1993," Brahma added.

Kokrajhar MP SK Bwiswmuthiary has expressed shock over the untimely death of Pilot. "Pilot’s death has caused an irreparable loss to the nation and also to the downtrodden and deprived section of the society," he said.

President of the Bodo Sahitya Sabha, Bineswar Brahma, also expressed his deep condolences over the death of Pilot. "We convey our heart-felt condolences to the bereaved family and pray to the almighty for eternal peace and heavenly abode for the departed soul," Brahma said.

Controversy over Kokborok Script

Kokborok is the second official language of the state.

It is the mother-tongue of 90 per cent of about one million tribal people of the state which has a total population of around three million.

The age-old controversy, which reached a flash point on the use of Bengali or the Roman script for the language, continued with the ruling CPI(M)-led Left Front favouring the use of Bengali script, while the IPFT, the Tripura Upajati Juba Samity (TUJS), the Tripura National Volunteers (TNV) and all other tribal-based political parties, preferring the Roman script.

The newly constituted TTAADC under the IPFT, in its first Council meeting recently decided to introduce the Roman script instead of Bengali, which was introduced in 1995.

Senior IPFT leader and chief executive member of the TTAADC Debabrata Koloi has said measures had been taken to amend TTAADC’s primary school (language amendment) regulations, 1996 for introduction of the Roman script.

The TUJS-Congress alliance enacted a regulation in 1992 to teach the tribal students the Kokborok language with the Roman script.

New books in Kokborok with the Roman script will have to be printed now to replace the existing books in Kokborok with the Bengali script, and teachers would be imparted training in this regard, the TTAADC chief said.

The regulation, which was amended by the CPI(M), said the tribal children of the district council areas after completing their primary education would have to go to other educational institutions in different parts of the state for higher studies where the medium of instruction was Bengali.

Hence, if the students were well acquainted with Bengali, it would be easier for them to pursue further studies.

A selection of tribal intellectuals said a group of extremists having strong anti-Bengali feelings and indoctrinated by some outside forces had threatened that they would not allow tribal students in any school to learn Kokborok written in the Bengali script.

If this was done, it would kick off widespread chaos hampering the progress of Kokborok language and literature, they said, adding that in the days of princely rule (former princely state, Tripura, merged with the Indian Union on October 15, 1949) neither jhum cultivation (shifting cultivation) nor Kokborok language had any place of honour.

They said the ‘Lokayat’ culture of the people was neglected during the princely rule. But the scenario changed after 1978, when Kokborok was given due recognition by the then Left Front government, led by former chief minister Nripen Chakraborty, as the second official language.

They said recently the Kokborok literature in the Bengali script had flourished to a great extent.

Former Tripura chief minister Dasaratha Deb, regarded as the godfather of the Tripura tribals and a father figure of the Communist movement in the state, wrote many books justifying the need for the Bengali script in the Kokborok language. Deb had played a pioneering role in spreading literacy among the tribals.

The then district council, controlled by the TUJS-Congress alliance, had also constituted an eight-member committee under the chairmanship of senior tribal leader Rabindra Kishore Debbarma for composing school textbooks in the Roman script for standard-two students.

The controversy continued forcing the erstwhile Congress-TUJS coalition government to appoint a five-member script selection committee, headed by veteran tribal leader and educationist Shyamacharan Tripura.

The committee after holding a series of meetings, seminars and discussions submitted a report to the government recommending the Roman script for the tribal Kokborok language.

Research scholar on tribal language Kumud Kundu Chowdhury and renowned poet Ratul Debbarman said the tribal students were in a disadvantageous position because they were forced to learn Kokborok, Bengali and English.

However, other tribal leaders said adoption of the Roman script would free the tribal students from the trilingual burden and help in the growth of English education as in neighboring states of Mizoram and Nagaland. He said some tribal leaders, backed by church, had been periodically raising demand for Roman script since 1967.

Tripura education minister Anil Sarkar said some political parties were instigating communal and ethnic tension. Quoting renowned educationist Dr Suniti Chatterjee, Sarkar said the Tripura tribals had been learning in Bengali scripts for several hundred years. Chowdhury, now teaching Kokborok in Tripura University, said the language would suffer because of the controversy. At present tribal students studied Kokborok at the primary level as their first language, but has to switch over to Bengali from standard-six. This is also responsible for the large-scale dropouts, he added. (UNI)

This has been caused by the Brahmaputra river waters joining and consequently enlarging a man made channel called Ananta nullah, a phenomenon experts call avulsion. The Ananta nullah merges with the Dangri and Dibru rivers and the combined flow of all three waterways have caused severe erosion in the 60 km stretch from Dholla-Hathigooli to Dibrugarh town.

Lok Sabha MP Pawan Singh Ghatowar on May16, 2000 wrote to the prime minister saying that 14 villages and 10 tea gardens are expected to be eroded unless a check dam is constructed at Dholla-Hatighooli-Saikhowa to close the wayward offshoot channel of the Brahmaputra.The Dibrugarh district Banpani and Gorakhohania Pratirodh Samity in a memorandum to the prime minister expressed fears that the Assam Medical College, Dinjan defence areas, Dibrugarh airport at Mohanbari, Dibrugarh Polytechnic, etc. will be washed away. The Assam Company Limited which has suffered a yearly erosion of around 38 hectares of tea garden land, has written to the union ministry of water resources.

According to a December 4, 1999 report by the additional chief engineer of the flood control department, upper Assam zone, so far 49 villages with a population of 45,000 people have been "eroded away" and "a good number of tea gardens of the Assam Tea Company and others are very badly affected by the active erosion." The additional engineer’s report said that the department is awaiting the release of a morphological study by the Central Water and Power Research Station (CWPRS) based in Pune, without which it cannot propose any measures.

Like Nero fiddling away when Rome burnt, all this while the state government has been waffling over these calamitous developments. Sources told The Northeast Daily that although the CWPRS study was commissioned in 1998, Dispur made the payment for the study only October 1999. Sources added that it is only after this that the agency begin work on the study, which is expected to be out in June-July 2000.

The proposal will then be processed, evaluated, modified, approved and forwarded by one government authority to another, the sources pointed out.Nature does not patiently wait for these lengthy and cumbersome procedures of officialdom often taking 3-4 years to be completed, said sources.

In this context reference may be made to the Rs 3.453 crore scheme to reinforce the Saikhowa protection bund phase-iii, that was mooted in 1998 but has remained on paper. The expert committee on Rohmoria and Ananta nullah offtake set up by the flood control department on January 8, 2000 suggested modifications in the scheme clearly indicating that the scheme had become redundant.

Sources said that the special body of the college had appointed Radheshyam Agarwalla as the acting principal but the director of public instruction did not approve his appointment. The genesis of the crisis can be traced back to May 31 when a senior professor Anjana Chaliha was appointed as principal by the special body following the retirement of acting principal Joy Bora. Chaliha was selected by the selection panel after interviewing three candidates including Noni Goswami and Arun Chakraborty, the vice-principal of the college.

However, the situation took a worse turn when Chakraborty moved the Gauhati High Court, alleging that the selection panel was biased by favouring Chaliha. After Chakraborty’s plea the HC stayed Chaliha’s appointment until further order. Chakraborty in his petition also stated that the selection panel constituted by the special body was not proper as the panel had eight members instead of seven and it had only one member from the special body instead of two. A senior lecturer of the college said that the crisis had tarnished image of the college.

Due to the stalemate all financial transactions of college have come to a stand still. Sources further said that the teachers on last Thursday submitted a memorandum to the concerned authorities stating that they would be forced to go on strike if their salaries were not paid before June 10 .

When this correspondent visited the villages of Kalikhoh, Nagrijuli, Gobari, Suagpur, Matanga, Ghogra chowk, the people of the villages apprised him about the Public Health Engineering (PHE) department’s apathy towards this acute problem.

The Nagrijuli water supply project, which has been inactive since long has not yet been repaired. But surprising enough, the working staff of the authority in charge of the project have been drawing regular salaries. Interestingly, the workers themselves have been consuming the unhygienic water.

It is to be noted that the village of these remote areas have no option but to use the "black water" flowing in the near by rivers.

Local people here alleged that the officials of the department are showing complete lack of concern towards the whole matter. People of these area cannot rely on the service provided by the department and are forced from time to time to search for other sources of potable water.

At a time when government is shouting the slogan ‘Health for all" the service of the PHE department at Nagrijuli has exposed the futility of government promises

The present government or the local MLA, Derhagra Mushahari, who has completed four years in office has also failed to improve the condition of the people.

The executive members of NYC, which met at Dimapur recently, said the senseless acts of vandalism like the burning of churches and the holy Bible, raping of Nuns and killing of missionaries in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa and Haryana had shattered the faith of the people on the present government.

NYC president N Thomas Ngullie, MLA, said as the largest political youth organisation in the state it has resolved to fight the communal forces.

He said the NYC was determined to meet the RSS, Bajrang Dal any time, anywhere.

Nugglie said the whole world was watching the alarming situation in India.

He called for the intervention of the united nations and the friendly mission to help mitigate the sufferings of the minorities at the hands of the communal forces.

The NYC also requested a few senior leaders to throw their weight in fighting the communal forces.

It said the Nagas could not be won over by cheap political Gimmick and propagandas and added that the attempt to falsely project Jamir ministry as corrupt was acry in the wilderness by those parties who were without any political base. (UNI)

Tripura Upajati Juba Samity (TUJS), the only recognised tribal party of Tripura has responded to the move and has appealed other tribal parties to join a common platform.

The present move is considered as a significant development in view of new equation in tribal politics with the emergence of IPFT with the alleged backing of outlawed NLFT. The IPFT registered an overwhelming victory in recent elections to the Tripura Tribal Areas District Council (TTAADC).

Rabindra Debbarma TUJS general secretary and MLA urged the All Tribal base political parties and organisations to share a joint platform for the sake of tribal interest.

According to him, a fractured tribal politics is not desirable as it creates serious complications.

Informed sources however said the TUJS has been under tremendous pressure as far as its existence is concerned.

Fast spreading influence of IPFT has jolted the party which had secured four seats in sixty member Assembly in the last elections held in 1998.

Amid wide spread speculation on TUJS’s future position in the view of presence of the IPFT with strong NLFT backing, new developments are taking place.

Former rebel group turned political party TNV has decided to merge with IPFT.The former merger is all set to take place on June 13 next.

Mentionably, TNV president Bijay Kumar Hrangkhanl was elected in last Assembly polls.

With formal merger of TNV with IPFT, TUJS will be the only tribal party which will have two options before it. First follow the suit of TNV and second, remain with separate identity.

But possibility of merger is also not in sight as most of TUJS leaders do not want to join IPFT in its present form.

The whole project is the brain child of Dr NN Dutta, chairman and managing director of Down Town Hospital Ltd. His brother died after being struck by a medical emergency. The family could not rush him (the brother) to hospital in time. Incidentally the service has been named after Dr Dutta’s late brother.

Speaking to the The Northeast Daily, Dr Atanu Borthakur who is in charge of the service said, "Every day we receive 1-2 calls a day. On any given day 15-20 road accident patients are brought to different hospitals all over the city, of which Down Town alone receives 7-9 patients." He pointed out, "With a growing automobile population the city requires at least 11 such ambulances stationed in different parts of the city backed up by a central communication post." With such a system in place, he felt that "whenever a road accident or emergency occurs in anywhere in the city, an ambulance would be on the spot in no time." He stressed that it was imperative victims received some on-the-spot treatment such as "IV drip, oxygen and careful handling of cervical injuries." He added, "This could spell the difference between life and death." According to Dr Borthakur, "Traffic congestion on the city roads is a horrendous problem for medical emergencies–sometimes it takes as much as 45 minutes to get to Down Town hospital from Bhanagarh!"

Dr Borthakur said that most road accident patients in Guwahati are transported to hospitals in autorickshaws and police vehicles. "The lack of medical care during this critical period and the bumpy ride is often a primary cause of death," he added.

The ambulances of the emergency service at the moment have a folding stretchers, resuscitation equipment, hand held suctions, etc. Later he said other medical instruments like defribilators, vital signs monitor, ECG would be installed in the ambulances. Critically ill patients, burn victims, bomb blast and firearm casualties and even expecting mothers could avail this service, informed Dr Borthakur. He said that he hoped to provide facilities whereby it would be possible to deliver babies in the ambulance should such a contingency arise.

An important scheme under implementation in the urban local bodies is Swarna Jayanti Sahari Rojgar Yojana (SJSRY), which was introduced in 1997-98 by amalgamating three earlier poverty eradication programmes, viz., UBSP, PMIUPEP and NRY. Aiming at providing gainful employment to the urban unemployed or under employed poor by encouraging them to set up self-employment ventures, the programme consists of two components–a) urban self-employment programme and b) urban wage employment programme.

A total amount of Rs 1414.15 lakh has been received by the municipal administration department under the programme from the year 1997-98 to 1999-2000. Of the amount, Rs 1172.66 lakh has already been released to 23 district urban development agencies (DUDAS) headed by the deputy commissioners of the districts.

As per information received from the districts, 637 proposals have already been submitted to different banks for release of loans and subsidy under self-employment programme, out of which 43 cases have already been sanctioned by the banks while the remaining 594 proposals are under process.

Meanwhile the state government has prepared a time-bound masterplan and submitted it to the centre for self-employment generation scheme at a cost of Rs 290 crore. Chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta would soon take up the matter with the centre to approve the scheme, a government release here stated. The scheme, which would enable to provide self-employment to 62,000 youth, includes bank loan component of Rs 164 crore while state government is to arrange the remaining 126 crore.

The world of books throughout the libraries of the world can be shown to have hypertext links through non-linear exploration by a process technically called Xanadu. Virtual reality may also ultimately lead us to a new alphabet system of the human behavioural pattern. Even if we do not discount these possibilities, the threats to a man’s psyche, his socio-cultural adaptation and adjustments are not abating. Decoding passwords for crimes ranging from swindling to murder and diverse cyber crimes are committed now with the impersonality of professionable. India is one of the very few countries to legislate on information technology, but Mr Mahajan’s proposed means of tackling cyber-crime is not only grossly inadequate but thoroughly unimaginative as well. It is also a challenge to the freedom and dignity of the fourth estate. But the already monitored consequence is that of turning sensitive humans into inveterate escapists.

Another bandh came on May 11, 2000 and passed off peacefully without much of hindrance. For observing a bandh anywhere in the country one does not have to belong to any political party, religious group or to have any other affiliation. A bandh is a god-sent "privilege" to be welcomed with open arms. Specially in our state a bandh announced by any organisation is, more often than not, met with enormous success, because it gives the much needed opportunity to take a paid leave without any qualms of conscience. Yet people who work in the public sector and those who work in the private sector do not always exude the same kind of yardsticks. The overwhelming majority of these working people in the public sector go by the privileges of trade unionism. But those working in the private and even multinational companies operating in our country do have a different outlook towards work and discharge of duties assigned to them. Unlike the public sector employees, they do not just while away their time and expect rewards in the process. No employees working in the private sector or engaged in any of the multinational companies, can ever expect to go up the ladder of better employment avenues by shirking off duties or being totally lackadaisical in his day to day performance at his office/work place. He has to sustain himself by his better and greater efficiency and performance and by having a positive, workmanlike attitude towards the duties earmarked and assigned to him.

It is also true that a good work environment, a demanding top echelon and an effective system of suitable rewards are prerequisites and are determining factors in the private sector. But sadly and unfortunately in the public sector, as one notices, one can take up the process of trade unionism with real earnestness and one can be cock-sure of getting promotion, throwing to the winds all factors like merit and efficiency and a proven work standard. In the public sector, unlike in the private sector, there is no healthy work rivalry, no spirit of competition, of trying to outdo and outperform each other. On the contrary, the opposite often holds the key towards promotion or better emoluments. The public sector employees take things for granted and know that in case they are in any kind of problem relating to their actual discharge of duties and responsibilities, trade unionism will set the wrongs right, without any personal effort to improve their own duties. Such obnoxious ethics, if it can be called ethics at all, are at the root of gross inefficiency, incapacity and incapability and things are moving from bad to worse as the days are going on. Is there any employee working in the public sector who maintains a log of the work done and the time consumed to perform such work? The answer is too obvious and self-revealing to warrant elaboration. The bandh culture is but an extension of the "work culture" that the employees in the public sector have developed assiduously.

It will be a travesty of justice and truth if it is asserted that in the public sector no one has the capacity to work hard. It is not possible to assort that everybody can be tarred with the same brush. But better examples are few and far between. But most unfortunately, the microscopic minority of such employees find themselves at the wrong end of the line, and such performers can rest assured that one day the tables will be turned on them by the machinations of the non-performers and do-nothing courtiers. This, prima-facie, looks absurd and unbelievable but it is true as day follows night.

Now, to come back to the bandh called by the opposition parties specially the Left Front and their allies, it did no great service to the nation at large except that the large majority of employees have earned a rest, most undeserving, to say the least. The Left Front government in West Bengal has shown to the nation at large how the Bengalis have fallen from their earlier impregnable position and standard – the saying that was once heard very often that what Bengal thinks today, India thinks tomorrow – no longer holds good as the work culture under the Left ploys, tactics and devices has fallen from the high pedestal and lying in ruins now. What can you expect when the West Bengal advocate general toys with the idea of making bandhs, strikes and casework to be made legal and he is reportedly engaged in doing so in consultation and connivance with his counterparts in the adjoining states. There could not be a more repugnant example of work culture running haywire. West Bengal, predictably, no longer is the beckoning light of India. Kerala, like West Bengal, is under the rule of the Communists, but there the Kerala High Court passed a judgement that strikes, bandhs and ceasework were illegal and this momentous judgement was upheld by the ruling of a three-judge bench in the Supreme Court. It is sad to note that due to the "skillful" psychological tactics of the Left Front in West Bengal, the party in power there has created for the people at large a sense of defeatism even among the intellectuals, students, businessmen et al. And yet the Communists still propagate the theme that things are better under the Communists in West Bengal.

The bandh on May 11 was presumably against the rise in prices of essential commodities, attacks against Dalits and minorities, disinvestment of public sector units without suitable evaluation and the like. It is absolutely right and legitimate to voice protests by raising issues of national concerns, but this should be done within the Parliament and debated – but the standards of debates in Parliament has fallen to such an abysmal depth that it is easier for the political parties to remain out of them or to take to the streets in order to focus attention and to attract attention. It is, perhaps, pertinent to point out that almost all the states in India have now resorted to deficit financing which is an outstanding feature of state budgets. And a very large chunk of non-plan expenditures are made by them for the payment of employees for services not rendered or when rendered, rendered poorly and incompetently. And all political parties often talk about finding suitable avenues of employment for the unemployed, but when it comes to the crunch it boils down to this: that we give employment for the sake of employment in the public sector and as yet there is no useful, unrelaxable standards laid for proper utilisation of services from the large majority of the employed. Thus, a vicious circle is growing unabated. No party in power, not to speak of political parties around the country, cares too hoots about such misgovernance. If all of them had acted differently in this crucial historical moment, the outcome might have been different.