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Assam
News In
Brief
Highlights of the month:
MARCH, 2010
Hridayananda Gogoi Filed Criminal &
Defamation suit against Amar
Asom
Guwahati, 4 March: In the Court of Chief
Judicial Magistrate Kamrup (Metro) and in the Court of Civil Judge Kamrup
(Metro) two cases were filed by Hridayananda Gogoi, writer & journalist,
against the vernacular Assamese daily Amar Asom for publishing highly
defamatory news items intending to harm his reputation position &
status in the society. It is mentionable that the daily published several
news items for a couple of days following a Book Controversy raised upon
publication of the English translation of an anthology of Assamese short
story by Sahitya Akademi. The original Assamese anthology was edited by
Gobinda Prasad Sarma, Sailen Bharali & Hridayananda Gogoi and published
in 2008 and the English translation was released in 2010. Mr. Gogoi while
registering the Defamation Cases against the newspaper and eight others as
accused demanded Rs. Ten Cores from the newspaper as compensation. The
cases were registered under Indian Penal Code section 499/500/501/502 and
numbered 600/10 and 60/10. In the meantime the court had sent notices to
the accused newspaper.
.
REPORTS OF THE WEEK
MAGAZINE REGARDING THE 1000 CR SCAM IN THE N C HILLS DISTRICT OF ASSAM CREATED
PANIC IN THE STATE GOVT. THE ACUSED INVOLVEMENT OF THE TEN MINISTERS OF THE
STATE YET ANOTHER HEADCHE OF THE CHIEF MINISTER.
.
CONTROVERCIES NOT ENDED
TILL REGARDING CAKE CUTTING BY CM AND GOVERNOR.
Internal exercises
increased to select a favorable
President of the Assam
Pradesh Congress Committee.
.
The Gauhati High Court
passed a historical
order to the Govt. of
Assam to take steps for the
groups, parties etc. who
declare any kind of Bandh.
.
 Eminent scholar Dr Hiren
Gohain released the book DR INDIRA GOSWAMI: IN SEARCH OF MODERNITY by
Hridayananda Gogoi in presence of
Dr Indira Goswami & Mr. T G Baruah, Chairman of the Assam Tribune . Mr
Gogoi looks on the right side.
Hridayananda Gogoi presented his paper
Labyrinth of
Discontentment in Dr Indira Goswamis Fictions on the occasion of three
days  National Seminar at Dept of MIL&LS in Delhi University
during 12-14 Nov,09
.
The Govt. of Assam has
taken adequate steps to hold the One Day Cricket peacefully. Security
forces deployed in serious zones.
The concerned authorities
are alerted by the State Govt. regarding by elections.
..
The Govt. of Assam has taken
strong measures to restore peace and harmony in the Bhimajuli areas of
Sonitpur district. Several Ministers, Leader of the Oppositions visited the
affected areas and made an on the spot study of the area following the
Sunday nights gruesome killing of of 12 villagers of the area by the NDFB militants.
..
Assam Govt. initiatives to
solve out 5 years old hill district issue appreciated by all sections.
Tension not yet ended with
NDFB.
..
High tension still prevails
due to frequent earthquake that hits around the North East. The partial
damage of several high rise buildings including State Secretariat Buildings
also creates reactions.
Govt. appeals to all to take
utmost care regarding this natural calamity.
The ASIAN VIEWS DOT NET RECEIVED
OVERWHELMED RESPONSE FROM THE stage of two days Drama Festival in memory of
Chandra Prasad Saikia on 29-30th Aug at Rabindra Bhawan, Guwahati. The
Assamese adaptation of Oliver Goldsmith's SHE STOOPS TO CONQUER as
Prem...aru Prem by Hridayananda Gogoi satisfied everybody and was enjoyed
performances of the celebrity artists.
(Details in Home Page)
.................................................
The much awaited
expectations and prospects of the Solar Eclipse ended. Thousands of people
got this unique opportunity witnessing the rare scene of this century. In
several parts of the state this rare scene was visible. Hundreds of people
from different parts of the country took this chance and witnessed
this. The Dibrugarh University became hub for many scientists came from
several parts.
...............................................................................................
New areas affected
by fresh flood in upper Assam. Govt. directed District Administration to
take up necessary actions.
...............................................................................................
People expressed
dissatisfaction over the position of Kaziranga National Park as it came out
of the fray in the finalists list of 7 wonders in the world. According to
sources the empathy of the Govt. made it out.
.....................................................................................
Most surprisingly
the much awaited final verdict of the eminent Journalist cum human right
activist Parag Kumar Das murder case postponed till 28th of July. He was
killed 13 years back in broad day light in Guwahati while moved to pick up
his son from a city primary school.
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Dry Weather
affected Tea Production in Assam, informed sources in the capital.
.....................................
The Chief Minister
ordered the authorities not to demolish the heritage old hostels in Cotton
College.
.........................
People concerned
over the inclusion of Majuli as world heritage site.
....................................................
THE OVERALL FLOOD
SITUATION IN NORTH LAKHIMPUR IN ASSAM STILL IN DANGER MARK.
......................................................................................
GOVT. READY TO FACE
ANY SERIOUS STAGE.
..................................................
State assembly
witnessed noisy scenes as Opposition walked out.
........................................................................................................
PEOPLE EXPRESSED SATISFACTION
ON MAMATA'S NE PLAN. RAILWAY SOURCES .
................................................................................................................
Government of India
puts serious eyes on the development of NC Hills District in Assam and the
MoHA is harvesting all agencies to restore normalcy.
.......................................................................
The Regional
Parties in Assam are trying to find out new ways for revival.
......................................
The State Govt. has
intensified the all round security and asked the District administrations
to keep strict watch on each and everything that might cause threat
to the lives and properties.
............................
The Principal
Scientist of Chandrayan I, Dr Jitendranath Goswami, who was felicitated in
Guwahati, said that the first credit should go to those who built the spacecraft
and his job was the last bit getting the scientific results. He added that
his team at ISSRO are now trying to explore the space as the new frontier
for the country.
...............................................
.............................................................................................
People remembered
the last Thursday(30th Oct) was a black day to the people of Assam as
serial Bomb blast took place in several districts including Guwahati city
claiming nearly 100 lives and injured not less than 250.
...........................................................................................
The Chief Minister
announced formation of a committee to institute rehabilitation package in
violent affected districts.
...................................................................................
The Bogibeel Bridge
will be completed by 2012.
........................................................
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Vision plan For North East
The vision document for the North East Region (NER) for 2020
indicates an additional investment of Rs 13,29, 891 crore, for a period of
15 years. The Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh released the document
in New Delhi.
The projection covered structural changes in the economy of the region,
poverty eradication, maximizing self-governance, harnessing resources for
peoples benefit, capacity building in people and institutions,
strengthening infrastructure, creation of a centre for trade and commerce
and effective governance as the outcome of the initiatives suggested by it.
................................................
Green Chemistry
The application of Green Chemistry in industrial and research
areas could help mankind to use renewable bi-products and non-volatile
substances which will give an alternative source such as bio-diesel,
bio-gas, non-hazardous solvent that will reduce pollution from our
environment, said Dr B.K. Das, Prof in Chemistry, Gauhati University.
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Borders As Bridges
Chandra Prasad Saikia Memorial Lecture
(First in the Series)
By Dr Dileep Padgaonkar
Former Editor, The Times of India
I am pleased and honoured to be asked to pay tribute to an
exceptionally gifted son of Assam on the occasion of his first death
anniversary. The contributions of Chandra Prasad Saikia to the republic
of letters, and to the Republic of India as a whole, are remarkable by
any reckoning. During his life time he was acknowledged and admired for
his participation in the freedom struggle, for his stimulating fiction
and non-fiction and for his endeavours to spread relevant information
and knowledge through books, newspapers and magazines. This corpus of
work continues to provide much joy to those who lead what is known as
the `life examined.
Chandra Prasad Saikias insights into the existential woes that
afflict individuals and communities in this country have lost none of
their shine. They illuminate the path each one of us is called upon to
traverse to reach our chosen destination. The last statement, I
suspect, would have brought a wry yet benign smile on the face of
Chandra Prasad Saikia. The reason is simply this; he seems to have
preferred the rigours of the journey to the smug satisfaction of
reaching his destination. He revelled in the good fight a fight for
freedom, for justice, for knowledge that leads to emancipation from
fear and want, regardless of its outcome.
It is therefore no surprise that for his majestic novel Maharathi,
Saikia derived inspiration from the Mahabharata. The greatness of this
epic lies of course in the fact that it vividly depicts the incessant clashes
of ideas and desires, of reason and emotion, of virtue and the
debilitating effect of power. Nor is it a surprise that the main
character of Maharathi is Karna, arguably the most tragic, and
hence the most moving, complex and interesting protagonist of the epic.
Karna, you will recall, suffered a traumatic crisis of identity
from his very birth until his violent end on the battle-field of
Kurukshetra. An illegitimate child of Kuntee and the son god Surya
before she married Pandu, he was brought up by the charioteer Nandana
(or adhirathi) and his wife Radha. When Kuntee finally told him that
she was his real mother it was only to extract a promise from him that
he should not slay his half-brother Arjuna in war. By this time Karna
had already pledged his services to the Kaurvas, a pledge he was
honour-bound to respect even if this meant causing offence to his real
mother.
long the way, he suffered two other mortifying set-backs. He
wanted to be tutored in the use of arms by the great teacher Parshurama.
But he knew that Parshurama would never consent to impart training to a
Kshatriya. So he tried to pass off as a Brahmin. Only after he had
completed his training did Parshurama discover the deception. In his
rage he pronounced a curse: Karna, for all his formidable skills as a
warrior, would meet his death during an encounter with Arjuna on the
field of battle.
The third set-back was no less serious. Karna had appeared at
the swayamvara of Draupadi. Other warrior suitors who preceded him had
been unable to lift the giant bow. He not only lifted it but easily
bent it and fixed the bow string. This is when Draupadi intervened to
say that she could not marry the son of a lowly charioteer. This was
humiliation enough for Karna. To add to the humiliation was what
followed next: another warrior bent the bow and won Draupadis hand.
The lucky suitor was none other than Arjuna.
For Chandra Prasad Saikia, Karna was of course a potent metaphor
of what Indians in general, and the people of the north-east in
particular, have been reduced to: individuals braving every conceivable
odd to safeguard their honour and dignity, their peace of mind, their
identity. The threat to the individual comes from various sources:
ethnic strife, communal tensions, lack of economic and social
development, negligence by the central government, corrupt and mediocre
governance in the states comprising the north-east. Though they are
talented individuals in this part of the country find themselves, much
like Karna, at the mercy of malevolent forces which they are unable to
tame.
In this encompassing darkness the insights that Saikia offered
through his voluminous writings provide beacons of light. He stressed,
for instance, that peace would not reign in the north-east until there
was greater connectivity between the region and the rest of India. Such
connectivity was required first and foremost within the region itself
between the seven sisters and between villages in each one of these
states.
But connectivity, we now realize, would be of little avail
unless efforts are made to develop sectors like tourism, to train
people in entrepreneurship, to create opportunities to process the
regions raw materials and produce in order to add value to them. Over
the years efforts have been deployed by the Central government, and by
civil society groups, to bring peace between warring state and
non-state actors. If these efforts have not always met with success it
is because to be effective peace must be perceived to be just. It
cannot be imposed through the suppression of democratic rights. Indeed,
peace-making will prove to be a chimera if the troubles in the region
are approached uniquely from the angle of
`security.
In any event, the endeavours witnessed in this part of the
nation over many decades to end endemic strife were rooted in the
belief that peace alone can lead to development. This is of course a
truism. The time has come to look beyond it. This has become an
imperative in the face of the sea-change in the mind-set of the rest of
India. Across the country there is a burgeoning mood of optimism that
poverty can be rolled back and internal conflicts can be settled
through quality education, real empowerment and growing opportunities
for entrepreneurship. Nowhere is this more valid than here in the
north-east. The physical and social infrastructure in this region has
suffered from neglect. The lack of adequate roads, air-links and other
components of transport and communications has meant that citizens of
the north-eastern states have not been able to develop strong market
linkages with the rest of India.
Tariffs, taxes, interest rates and economic policies and the
rules and procedures governing them have come in the way of creating
adequate job opportunities. This explains the high number of educated
unemployed which, in turn, accounts for the ease with which they
succumb to the lure of religious extremism and separatism.
Massive state investments are therefore urgently needed to
develop infrastructure in such a way that the north-east becomes a
destination for capital, both Indian and foreign, and, by and by,
spearheads Indias economic integration with ASEAN and south-west
China.
Indeed, it is the north-eastern states that can, and must, take
the lead to ensure that borders with the neighbouring countries are
construed as bridges, not as barriers. What is required for the good
of the north-east and for the good of India as a whole is a seamless
to-and-fro movement of goods and services, of people and ideas across
borders.
It is in this context that External Affairs Minister Pranab
Mukherjees speech, delivered in Shillong on 16 June 2007, assumes all
its significance. Mr Mukherjee emphasized the critical importance of
the north-eastern states in the promotion of Indias `Look East
policy. The immediate neighbours of these states are China, Nepal,
Bhutan, Myanmar and Bangladesh. The region, along with the rest of
India, shares strong civilisational ties with its neighbours. These
bonds can only facilitate synergies in all areas of economic endeavour
which, in turn, can prove beneficial to the well-being of populations
on both sides of a border.
Minister Mukherjee gave examples of projects undertaken by the
Central government to increase connectivity between the north-east and
the countries in the neighbourhood. I shall not enumerate them here for
his speech has been extensively covered in the press. It is to his
credit however that he acknowledged the futility of such projects
unless the problems facing the north-east are addressed on an urgent basis.
In other words, even while attempting to turn borders with our
neighbours into bridges, what is also needed is to bring down the
barriers of religion, ethnicity, language, culture and class that
pit one section of the people in this region against another.
Thus, it is a matter of great satisfaction to me that the lords
and masters in Delhi now seek to use the north-east as a launching pad
for Indias economic and foreign policies. And they seek to do so
bearing in mind that the launching pad can be robust only if the
legitimate aspirations of the people of this region are effectively
addressed. I know this is a tall order if only because no consensus
exists about determining the legitimacy of a given set of aspirations.
Indeed, the way diverse groups define legitimate aspirations seems to
suggest that a meeting of minds and hearts may well be a mirage.
But I do not despair. I am convinced that the one sure method to
blunt divergences, to reconcile differences, is to follow the path of
education, empowerment and entrepreneurship within the north-east
region and, alongside, open up channels of communication and trade with
the neighbouring countries.
It is in such an environment of economic and social uplift that
the quest dear to the heart of Chandra Prasad Saikia the quest for
identity will acquire a different impetus. As people within the
north-east engage with one another, as they reach out to people in the
rest of India, as they seek to interact with people in the neighbouring
countries, they will realize that in todays world it is possible, even
necessary, for every Indian to be a bearer of multiple identities. Or,
if you will, he or she must cultivate an identity by drawing freely
from cultures of other peoples. An identity which refuses to engage in
such a give and take -- in order to remain pure and pristine, so to
speak is fated to shrivel up, to turn bigoted and aggressive, and to
threaten others to no good effect. What drives this obsessive yearning
for a single, monochromatic identity is often greed for power. And on
this count we can do no better than to recall what Karna in Chandra
Prasad Saikias Maharathi has to say on the subject.
`Power blinds people. It makes man heartless and inconsiderate.
The thirst for power can really turn people inhuman. It turns friends
into foes
. I would rather I were gone before I witness the
temptation of power, its misuse, and its naked form. Would someone
throw me into the sea.
So let me conclude by saying: Let our democracy check the abuse
of power. Let our knowledge destroy the barriers of prejudice and hate
in our minds. Let our people be empowered to lead a life of
dignity. Let their entrepreneurship enrich them. In a resurgent
Asia all this is within our grasp. I am convinced that Chandra Prasad
Saikia would have said much the same thing had he been in our midst
today. And he would have said it with far greater eloquence than I can
possibly command. Thank you for your attention.
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