GJMM to form disciplinary action committee to tame workers SNS, KURSEONG, 10 JAN: Having taken a serious note of the growing lack of discipline within the rank and file of the party, the GJMM leadership has decided to constitute a Disciplinary Action Committee. Informing this, the party general secretary, Mr Roshan Giri said in Darjeeling today that his organization would not brook anything that was contrary to its avowed principles. “Our party came into being at the crucial crossroads of the Gorkhaland history. It is more a movement than a political party in the widely used sense of the term. Those associated with the GJMM must conform to its ideology of self- effacement for the paramount collective cause keeping in the background the petty personal interests,” he added. This aside, Mr. Giri informed that they would stage dharnas and rallies in New Delhi three days before the next round of the tripartite talks to press the Centre and the state government to do something tangible in the direction of evolving an enduring solution to the long suppressed statehood aspirations of the common people in the Darjeeling hills. “We would observe the Netaji birth anniversary and the Republic Day this year across the hills with the appropriate grandeur these occasions deserve,"Mr Giri stated. Netaji homage in hills

TT, Darjeeling, Jan 10: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha has decided to celebrate Subash Chandra Bose’s birth anniversary at the Netaji Museum in Giddapahar unlike last year when no programmes could be held on January 23 because of the strike in government offices. This year, too, the Morcha announced a strike in all government offices from January 8. Morcha general secretary Roshan Giri said: “This year our ex-servicemen’s association will organise a function to mark Netaji’s birth anniversary at Giddapahar and at Buxa Fort in the Dooars. The Republic Day celebrations will also be organised by the ex-servicemen in Darjeeling and Kalimpong.” In the 1930s, Netaji was confined by the British to the house in Giddapahar (2km from Kurseong) owned by Netaji’s brother Sarat Chandra Bose. In 2001, the government converted the house into a museum. Netaji was also kept for a while at the Buxa Fort. Last year, the subdivisional officer of Kurseong and a few government employees could only hoist the national flag and offer khadas to the statue in front of the museum. Eighty-two-year old Moti Maya Lepcha, a gardener who was nine years old when Netaji was kept under house arrest, still lives on the premises of the museum. On January 23 every year, she usually recollects her association with Netaji and his nieces, Mira, Gita, Roma and Chitra during a programme. Lepcha’s father Kalu Singh Lama used to work for Netaji. The Morcha, which held its central committee meeting here today, has decided to destroy illicit liquor that the Gorkhaland Personnel have seized till date following the party’s ban on the movement of “illicit” liquor from Sikkim and also the subsequent ban on the sale of alcohol in the Darjeeling hills. “We will destroy the bottles at Jamuni, about 12km from Darjeeling, on January 13,” said Giri. The decision to form a six-member internal disciplinary committee, which will include Taranaga Pandit from Darjeeling and Moti Prasad Sharma from among others, was also taken at the central committee meeting. The party has also decided to hold dharnas and rallies in Delhi when the fifth round of talks take place. The date of the talks has not yet been announced. Adivasi demands TT, Jaigaon, Jan. 10: The Akhil Bharatiya Adivasi Vikas Parishad announced a series of agitation programmes today to press for demands like increase in wages and benefits of tea garden workers. Parishad president John Barla said from January 18 to 23 NH31, NH31A and NH31C that pass through the Terai and the Dooars will be blocked for three hours starting from 9am. “Our members will also sit in a continuous dharna in the subdivisional offices at Mal, Alipurduar and Siliguri from tomorrow till January 17,” he said. “We had placed our demands before the divisional commissioner on January 4, and he wanted a week’s time to respond. The week ends tomorrow and we have heard nothing from the administration,” Barla said.

2 POSTERS WERE SEEN IN THE TOWN OF KALIMPONG TOWN THROUGHOUT THE DAY: Pix: Mani Tamang

Parted from cellphone, girl kills self

SNS, MALDA, 10 JAN: Mani-sha Singh, a student of (15) Shyamsukhi Girls’ School committed suic-ide by hanging herself at Shankarpur under Gaz-ole police station last evening after her father took away her cellphone, police said. Manisha’s father, Mr Manik Singh asked her not to ignore her studies wasting time over the phone and took away the cellphone. She was supposed to appear for the Madhyamik examination this year. Mr Manik Singh had noticed that she spent a lot of time talking over the phone, so he asked her to hand over her phone until her board examinations are over. According to police, Manisha recently got romantically involved with a local boy. Today she wanted to attend a function at her school. Her parents, both health workers, did not permit her and had left for work. When Mr and Mrs Singh came back home they found Manisha talking over her cellphone. She got a bad bashing and was asked not to use her cellphone. Later, Manisha was found hanging in her bedroom.