83rd Basibiyalo held on Children's Day

Kalimnews, 14 Nov : On the occasion of Children's Day Hamro Bhavishya Bal Sanstha of 14th Mile, Echhey Busty, Kalimpong organised 83rd episode of monthly literary programme Basibiyalo. Tshering Bhutia, a young and energetic literature lover of the locality read out the code of conduct of the programme as usual and the new and old literary figures like Bishnu Bhujel, Samsher Ali, Jangey Tamang, Dr. Kamal Pokhrel, Gyan Sutar, Hira Chhetri, Capt (Retd) Bhumiraj Rai, Tulshi Ojha recited their creative poems and short stories. By presenting a self composed song about the beauty of Darjeeling Himalayan Railways, B.K. Shilal added the extra attraction to the programme.

 It was decided in the programme to organise the next 84th episode of the monthly programme on second saturday of December at Pudung Busty. In the programme Samsher Ali, who also happens to be the chief co-ordinator of the monthly litarary programme, viewed that now this literary programme should be organised at grass root level to make the shoolgoing children aware about their mother tongue, litarature and culture. Hira Chhetri distributed Nepali children magazines among the local students and requested them to contribute their articles in the magazine 'Bal Bagaicha' being published by the Khiroda Kharka Charitable Trust, Darjeeling in memory of children literary figure late Khiroda Kharka.

Mangpo-Latpanchar GJM unit protest over split by central leadership

SE, DARJEELING, November 13: Life at Mangpo-Latpanchar block came to a standstill today with the local people and local Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) unit of the area opposing the decision of the GJM centralexecutive committee to fragment the angpo-Latpanchar GJM unit. A protest rally was also taken to the GJM headquarters at Patleybash by the Mangpo-Latpanchar people and GJM supporters today. The Mangpo-Latpanchar GJM unit and local people have been demanding that the unit should not be divided. To reinforce their demand, hundreds of GJM supporters from the area packed in more than 100 vehicles rallied in Darjeeling and reached Patelybas, the GJM headquarters calling that the Mangpo-Latpanchar unit should be reconstituted as a single unit. They met the GJM chief Bimal Gurung and other central committee members to voice their single demand. The GJM Mangpo unit secretary Ratan Lama told media that the central committee will be meeting the Mangpo-Latpanchar unit soon to come to a solution. “We are satisfied with our talks with the GJM president and we have taken back our bandh call”, said Lama. He said that the people of Mangpo-Latpanchar were unsatisfied over the irrational splitting of the Mangpo-Latpanchar GJM unit and hence the people from the area had come to Darjeeling to understand the reason. On the other hand, GJM general secretary Roshan Giri said that the Mangpo-Latpanchar GJM unit was divided to streamline the party activities in the area. The GJM central leadership had divided the unit into two units on November 11.

Rain in City

TT, Kolkata 14 Nov: Surprise showers this afternoon did not cool Calcutta but more rain than that Met department expects after 48 hours may bring down the mercury level.

The drizzle, caused by a localised thundercloud formed because of abundance of moisture in the lower atmosphere, did not lower humidity either.

“More rain in 48 hours is unlikely. But chances of rain after 48 hours are bright. The rain should help lower the temperature,” said Gokul Debnath, director of the Regional Meteorological Centre in Alipore.

Tomorrow, said the weatherman, should be partly cloudy, with the temperatures ranging between 23 degrees Celsius and 32 degrees Celsius.

The city and its neighbourhood went through an unusually warm and sultry first half of November. The weatherman said the second half shouldn’t be as bad.

“What we experienced in the first half was really out of the ordinary. Factors like cyclone Phyan and the high pressure belt over the Bay of Bengal worsened things over the last few days,” said Debnath.

“The second half is unlikely to be as bad. Once the rains take place next week, the mercury would start climbing down steadily,” he added.

When is winter expected to set in?

“For Calcutta and south Bengal, what can be technically termed as winter is at least a fortnight away. We don’t expect its onset before late November or early December,” said an official from India Meteorological Department, Pune.

CPM agrees to Left meet on polls - Discussion on early election demand

Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee TT, Calcutta, Nov. 14: The CPM has decided to discuss with Left Front partners on Tuesday the drubbing in the bypolls and the allies’ demand for holding Assembly elections before 2011. The CPM, which did not win a single seat in the byelections, has faced criticism from its partners, some of whom have demanded that the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government call mid-term polls. The Left Front, unlike the CPM secretariat, does not meet at regular intervals. The partners assemble only if an issue requires discussion. On Thursday, Socialist Party leader and state fisheries minister Kiranmoy Nanda had demanded that the Assembly polls be brought forward. Kshiti Goswami, an RSP secretariat member and PWD minister, had joined him, saying the people had rejected the front by “giving a mandate against us in the recent elections”. Yesterday, Abdur Rezzak Mollah, a senior CPM leader and land and land reforms minister, too, said: “The people have rejected the CPM. They won’t vote for our party. That is the situation now and it will not change in the 2011 Assembly elections.” Goswami today said: “We have been pressing for an emergency front meeting to discuss the successive debacles, starting with last year’s panchayat elections. Something has to be worked out to stem the rot.” He said front chairman Biman Bose had informed him about Tuesday’s meeting. “A thorough discussion is necessary to identify the weaknesses that have crept into the front and the government.” A CPM secretariat member said Tuesday’s session would take note of the front partners’ opinion about the dos and don’ts the ruling coalition should implement. “People have voted us to power for over 32 years in an uninterrupted manner. But what is the reason for their sudden disenchantment with us?” he said. “We will have to repair the damage at any cost.” Some CPM functionaries and ministers today said the party’s continuous attack on the Opposition “merely because it is the Opposition” had not gone down well with the people. “We will have to take the Opposition into confidence for development work in a democratic system. Constant criticism of them will not help the government,” claimed junior panchayat minister Bankim Ghosh. Ghosh, who is from Nadia, was perhaps referring to Bhattacharjee’s allegation that Trinamul had links with the Maoists. A state committee member said Bhattacharjee should have “verified the facts before pointing fingers at the Opposition. We should not oppose them for opposition’s sake.” Home secretary Ardhendu Sen has said the government does not have any proof linking Trinamul to the Maoists. ‘Long March 2’ by Lepchas from Darjeeling to Dzongu ILTA approaches Centre, Sikkim authorities for pilgrimage to Dzongu from Nov 19 SE, GANGTOK, November 13: Though their maiden ‘Long March’ last year during the month of April was aborted due to politically laced hostilities, Lepchas from Kalimpong subdivision and other areas of Darjeeling district under the banner of ‘Indigenous Lepcha Tribal Association’ (ILTA) are determined to reach the holy land of Dzongu in North Sikkim this time. And this time, the pilgrims have taken a top down approach and have approached the Union Home Ministry, Tribals Affairs Ministry and All India Adivashi Vikash Parishad for the permission to take a three day ‘Pakram Takram’ (pilgrimage) to Dzongu, the last bastion of the indigenous Lepchas. The ILTA has expressed its desire to march from Kalimpong to Dzongu from November 19 to 21. We have also submitted our request and notified the Sikkim Government including the chief secretary, home secretary, North District administration and police along with the Kalimpong subdivision and Darjeeling district administration, said ILTA president Paval Shimik to media here. The ILTA president asserted that the proposed tour is purely religious and is a pilgrimage by the Lepchas from Darjeeling, Kurseong and Kalimpong. We want to reach to our holy place of Dzongu where we will perform our traditional prayers and other rituals, he said. Well wishers of the Lepcha community will also be participating in this pilgrimage, said Shimik. He reiterated that the pilgrimage is a ‘pilgrimage’ with no iota of political contours. Last time, the long march had several layers of political and activism colours and the marchers had themselves said that the pilgrimage was to ‘save their holy land’. Underlining the importance of Dzongu for the Lepchas, Shimik compared Dzongu as the ‘Kashi’ and ‘Jerusalem’ for the Lepcha community. We will return back after offering our prayers to our guardian deities, he said. The proposed pilgrimage is conducted under the umbrella of ILTA with participation and support of frontal organizations. The march towards Dzongu will begin from Rangpo, it is informed. The ILTA president expressed his hopes that the Lepchas of Sikkim will extend a warm welcome to their Lepchas brothers separated by geographical boundaries. ‘Welcome’ was missing during the 2008 bid by the Lepchas of Darjeeling region to pilgrimage to Dzongu and instead, the march of the 500 odd Lepchas had to be aborted at its midpoint in Dikchu in face of open hostilities. The Lepchas had marched from Triveni, Kalimpong right up to Dikchu on the evening hours of April 15. Dikchu is the entry point to Dzongu and around 40 kms away from Namprikdang, the place where the pilgrims had resolved to perform pujas. All along the way to Dikchu, the Lepchas had to face hostilities from the local people who termed their march as a politically sponsored march by the opposition political parties with the North Sikkim hydel debate reaching to a peak riding on the hunger strike by Affected Citizens of Teesta. The 'locals' also ensured that shops and accommodation facilities to the marchers were not made available. The marchers had been escorted to Dikchu by a huge contingent of Sikkim Armed Police where a huge number of people from North Sikkim were positioned on the other side of the bridge. At Dikchu, a huge number of people from North Sikkim were positioned on the other side of the bridge with an intention to stop the marchers Fearing a clash between the Darjeeling Lepchas and the local people, Sikkim police and administration managed to convince the marchers to retreat. After several discussions, the Lepchas were bundled into vehicles and escorted back to Rangpo border from where they left for their respective destinations. GODLY MUDDLE     The Telegraph, 15 Nov:What is religion? Is it a matter of faith and observance, or something that one is born with, like sex or race? At a more practical level, is religion supposed to make life less or more difficult? Does god exist to help or to hinder? How does he choose his people? Who decides whether he has chosen right or chosen at all, or whether the answers to these questions are right or wrong? In Britain, a child trying to get into school now finds itself at the centre of a theological and legal vortex involving religious leaders, supreme court judges, life peers, school authorities, guardians, the media, and possibly god looking serenely down on all this. “M”, his identity hidden because he is underage, had been refused admission to the Jewish Free School (a State-funded ‘faith school’) because his mother was converted to Judaism from Catholicism by a Progressive, rather than an Orthodox, synagogue. His father was born a Jew and the parents observe all the Jewish rituals. The school, predominantly Jewish, but supposed to take in children of all faiths as in other such schools in Britain, was flooded with applications and had to narrow down its cut-off criteria. So, it consulted the ‘modern Orthodox’ chief rabbi of the British United Synagogue, who came up with this principle of elimination. M’s parents went to court, which first judged in favour of the school. They appealed to the supreme court, for the child seems to have been discriminated against racially: according to the race laws in Britain, Jewishness is not just a religious identity but an ethnicity as well. The other community to be affected by the outcome of this case are the Sikhs, who also have faith schools in Britain and whose identity is not only religious but also tied up, in the race laws, with their being mostly South Asian. Like Hitler and the British Race Relations Act, Orthodox Jews believe that Jewishness is not just a religion but also a race. One can be a Jewish atheist, but never a Christian, Muslim or Hindu atheist. Having a ham sandwich on the afternoon of Yom Kippur does not de facto make one non-Jewish if one is born a Jew. But there is a more inclusive idea of religion in which what one believes in and practises matters more than birth and religious pedigree do. Going to the synagogue or church does not make one a Jew or Christian any more than standing in a garage makes one a car. M and his parents are caught between these two views of religion, and in religion’s complicated overlap with race. With the supreme court as much involved as the chief rabbi, temporal and spiritual authorities find themselves pitted against each other on a dubiously shared legal-theological platform, fighting over admissions to a school funded by taxpayers. What is most perverse is that at the heart of this godly muddle is a little boy’s education. It is an odd world, indeed, in which a child could well ask the pious and powerful adults about to decide the course of his life, “Is god racist?”