Pedong, March 31: The aborted ceremonial enthronement of a rimpoche at the Gaden Chholing Gumba almost led to a clash between two factions of Tibetan Buddhists here today.
Trouble began when about 300 followers of Lobsang Jigme Wangchuk, a four-and-half-year-old child monk, arrived here, about 22km from Kalimpong, from different parts of the hills and sought to enter the gumba (monastery) to enthrone him as the third incarnation of Domogeshi Rimpoche, the head of the Tharpacholing monasteries.
The rival faction of Domogeshi’s followers, who had sought a stay order from the Kalimpong court on March 25, put up a blockade and did not allow Wangchuk backers to enter the monastery. Bound by the court order, the administration, too, used its resources to stop their entry to the monastery. (more…)
Kalimpong, March 30: Six-hundred-and-forty households in and around Kalimpong have appealed to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to save them from landslides, a threat that looms large in the hills during monsoon.
Writing on behalf of the families, Save The Hills, an NGO, regretted that nothing had been done since the end of the last monsoon, which had caused widespread landslides and deaths in the subdivision, especially in early September.
“We have written and spoken to numerous government officials, urging them to identify critical landslide-prone areas and commence appropriate prevention measures on a war footing during the dry season. Regrettably, nothing has been done in this regard,” read the letter signed by one member each of the 640 households.
The signatures were collected by the NGO in eleven badly-hit areas like Bhalukhop, Alainchikhop, Pudung, Tirpai Bazar and Dungra Bustee.
The residents in their letter addressed to Singh in his capacity as the chairman of the National Disaster Management Authority said they run the risk of losing their lives and properties once the monsoon starts.
The NGO had last week written to B.L. Meena, the caretaker administrator of DGHC, in this regard.
With no government help forthcoming, some residents have dug deep into their pockets to construct walls near the houses to protect themselves against landslides. “We are left with no choice. Actually, the only option before us is either death or financial loss,” said Phup Tshering Bhutia, a resident of Alainchikhop.
There was no allocation for landslide prevention in the Rs 30 crore development projects announced by the DGHC yesterday.
Kalimpong, March 28: A section of HS candidates vandalised the exam centre here today. Their grouse against Scottish Universities’ Mission Institution (SUMI), one of the three centres for boys in the subdivision, was that the invigilators would not let them engage in malpractice in the exam hall.
According to the invigilators, soon after the exam was over, some boys went to the back of the school and started hurling stones at the building. Windowpanes of classrooms and the prayer hall were broken. The teachers alleged that a handful of policemen on duty remained mute spectators as the students went on the rampage. “The students also hurled filthy words at us,” said Bipin Syangden, a teacher of SUMI.
Even after the incident, the students allegedly approached the principal, Nava Ratna Pradhan, and urged him to let them copy at least in the last one hour of the remaining exams.
“There will be no change in our approach. We will continue to be strict with errant students for the remaining papers as well,” said Pradhan. The principal added that he had told 286 students attending today’s exams that no sort of malpractice would be allowed at the exam centre.
Some students had yesterday put up posters articulating the demand.
P.T. Sherpa, the subdivisional officer of Kalimpong, said action would be taken if the teachers filed a complaint.
Siliguri, March 26: The caretaker administrator of the DGHC, B.L. Meena, said today the security deposits of the contractors who had left without completing their work would be confiscated.
Meena, who inspected some roads — the construction or repair of which had been abandoned midway — in the past two days, said the contractors had even received the payment in full against the work awarded to them. He added that the security deposits lying with the council would be encashed and the work completed.
The interim head of the hills said the aggregate amount of all the deposits was yet to be ascertained. A contractor, who was assigned the task of developing the Rohini-Kurseong road, had deposited Rs 62 lakh as security. (more…)
Kalimpong, March 24: The Darjeeling district administration bowed to persistent demands of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha and allowed representatives of political parties to accompany inspection teams that visited DGHC offices in Kalimpong today to prepare an inventory of all files and official documents housed there.
Flouting government norms, district magistrate Rajesh Pandey gave in to the Morcha demand for the sake of “transparency”. After GNLF chief Subash Ghisingh agreed to step down as caretaker administrator of the council, the Morcha accused certain retired DGHC officers of smuggling out files. Morcha members had created quite a stir earlier this month by seizing files from the residences of some officers.
“Questions were being raised in certain quarters about transparency. The participation of political parties in the process is an attempt to eliminate all such doubts,” said Pandey over the phone from Darjeeling. The district magistrate is also the principal secretary of the council.
“We welcome the initiative of the principal secretary,” said Tara Sundas, the Kalimpong zonal secretariat member of the CPM, who was part of an inspection team.
There are five such teams, each headed by a deputy magistrate, and they will go through documents at 25 DGHC departments in town.
Anmole Prasad, a lawyer and member of the Morcha central committee, said: “The law enjoins citizens not only to prevent the commission of a crime, but also to prevent the disappearance of evidence that may be connected to it.”
Prasad and two other party colleagues had met Pandey and the current council administrator B.L. Meena last week and impressed upon them the urgent need to guard against the disappearance of files from DGHC offices.
“Apart from demanding the preparation of an inventory to secure all officials documents, we also said we wanted a three-member monitoring committee, comprising Morcha leaders, to oversee the exercise” Prasad said.
I must apologize for being so lax in posting more recent photographs. I have been sitting on a set of photographs that were taken in April 2007 and didn’t get around to posting them until now.
(edit: Album - Heroes. Presented by S.U.M.I. Alumni)
Lyrics: Tulsi Ghimirey
Composition: Sachin Singh
Unfortunately that’s all the information I have about this track. I would greatly appreciate any more information about the song and the artists. Please drop me a line, or leave a comment if you happen to know more.
p.s. Thanks to “Thuli” Di and “Rasta” Daju for the audio file and the information.
p.p.s. Thanks to Navin too..
———— Update (Mar 23, 11:52pm):
Thanks to Navin for providing us with the information about this song in the comments.
Vocalist: Sachin Singh
Chorus by “Heroes”
Live instruments-
Lead Guitar: Deepak Thapa,
Rhythm Guitar: Sachin Singh,
Bass Guitar: Anup Das,
Flute: JB Lama,
Saxophone: Amul Karki Dhali,
Tabla,Dholak & Madal: Kumar Singh aka “Maharaj”,
Group Violin: Norbu Tshering & Group
Sarangi: Shyam Nepali
Recorded and mixed by Mitra Lama
Recorded at Sangam Digital Recording Studio, Kathmandu, Nepal
When the Scottish Universities Mission (SUM) was formed it was decided that Sikkim would be its field of operation. Keeping that in perspective Reverent Macfarlane was sent to Kalimpong, as the first SUM missionary, to start a training school for teachers and catechists who would later go to Sikkim and spread the message of the Bible.
On 19 April 1886 the Training Institute was formally opened with twelve students. They lived in long low-roofed houses containing rooms that accommodated two to three students. The number of pupils gradually increased and in the turn of the century an English medium school run by Harkadhoj Pradhan was amalgamated to the Scottish Universities Mission’s Training Institute raising its numerical strength and also the associated problems that come with such a sudden increase. Rev. Dr. Sutherland, the first Principal, had recently left for Scotland having managed the school for over twelve years and the new incumbent must have found the job quite a hand full. Despite the sincerity of the mission and the historical importance of the institution the formative years were difficult and actual success was some distant years away.
In 1901 the school was in its fifteenth year and was still struggling to stand on its feet. The muster roll of 26 March showed a strength of a hundred pupils but the actual attendance was almost 50% less with only 53 students in the class rooms. The weak turnout would have, in a way, suited the new Principal, Rev. John Macara, for the school was short staffed with only one Pundit and three “chela” Pundits. The medium of instruction was in Hindi and you readers will be surprised to know that in the primary section the children were made to learn Latin and how that would be of use to the hill lads seems rather uncertain.
In 1907 Rev. Sutherland returned for his second stint as the Principal. The school had grown substantially but the facilities had not kept pace and that year Mr. N. Lambert, the Inspector of Schools, commented, “With the exception of Mr. Sutherland the members of the staff have poor qualifications and are poorly paid.” Rev. Sutherland was to change all that and set right whatever other shortcomings. The improvements were so rapid and substantial that the new Inspector of Schools, Mr. P. Chatterjee, when he visited the school in 1914 wrote, “The school is unquestionably doing excellent work and I would like some of our teachers in the plains to come and see the work done here.” A year later Lord Charmichael noted, “It seemed to me that the nature study in the school is the best which I have met with any school in Bengal.” The rickety old school was now standing on solid foundations and Sutherland could now look forward to heading home having given over 25 years (1887-1899 & 1907-1920) of his active life to the growth and development of the school. It was a time well spent and when he left Kalimpong in the beginning of 1920 he must have been a very satisfied man.
Today SUMI is one of the best schools in India. The nouveau riche may gauge the standard of a school by the fees charged but the proper method is to rate a school through its alumni. In the final count it is not the fancy buildings, heated swimming pools, grand parks with stadiums etc. etc. but how the finished products of the school have fared in life. This deciding factor in the case of SUMI’s is so impressive that it will easily put to shame many better endowed and more celebrated institutions. The SUMI gave Bhutan and Darjeeling their first doctors, produced a Chief of the Army, an Inspector General of Police, several Cabinet Ministers, Ambassadors, numerous educationists, top ranking bureaucrats, the first Nepali Judge in an Indian High Court and the list could go on endlessly. Suffice it to say that the young ones of SUMI have a wonderful legacy to uphold which sums up to a heavy but at the same time a delightful burden of making themselves successful SUMITES.
Kalimpong, March 18: The chairman of the Kalimpong Municipality, C.K. Kumai, is at the centre of a political drama even while he “bides” his time in the wings.
Kumai, a GNLF leader, has been out of town since the launch of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha’s successful agitation against the Sixth Schedule bill and its main architect, Subash Ghisingh. His house at Atisha Road here has been under lock and key for nearly two weeks now after his family, too, left Kalimpong.
Things took a dramatic turn yesterday when the civic chairman allegedly sent a text message to an acquaintance and claimed that he was being forcibly confined.
Kumai’s message to Prabin Man Tuladhar read: “i am surrounded n restrained n in helpless condition n being taken 2 unknown destination”. (more…)
