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The Telegraph

Chuikhim (Kalimpong), Sept. 28: Nar Bahadur Bhandari and his team from Pemling Basti were all in smiles. They had lifted the Share Cup for the second year running, this time beating 31 teams who had been playing soccer from September 1 to reach the final.

The organisers, Support Himalayan Agro-Rural Enterprises (Share), were also happy. The final, held every year to coincide with World Tourism Day (September 27), had gone off well, despite the torrential rain that hit this mountain village, 54km northeast of Siliguri in the Kalimpong subdivision, yesterday.

When the tournament first started four years ago, there were only 18 teams. Since then, a junior-level competition has also been added, in which 16 teams — from 26 villages in the area — took part this year. “All this is part of an effort to involve the communities here in healthy pastimes,” said Prasanta Mallik, the Share group leader. (more…)

www.telegraphindia.com

Sakya at the police station on Sunday.
Picture by Chinlop Fudong Lepcha

Kalimpong, Sept. 28: A Nepalese citizen was arrested here today on charges of cheating, a day after one of the victims from his home country who claimed to have lost over Rs 20 lakh arrived in town hunting for him.

Police, however, said they picked up Naresh Man Sakya from 10th Mile after a tip-off, refusing to disclose the source. They have seized a Cheverolet Optra Magnum owned by Sakya’s “wife” Soni Sewa and even the passbook of her account, which he confessed he used for his operations. Sakya said he had married Soni, a local woman, three years ago and has a wife in Nepal too.

A formal complaint was lodged by Kapil Dahal, who said he had given Rs 50,000 to Sakya as loan after the latter promised to give it back to him on his return from Nepal. (more…)

The Statesman

SILIGURI, Sept. 24: The CPI state leadership is likely to expel the former Kalimpong MLA Mr Mohan Singh Rai for his pro- Gorkhaland stand. The decision is likely to come at the state secretariat meeting scheduled on 26 September. According to party sources, Mr Rai has already been suspended and served a show cause notice on the issue.

Mr Rai, a veteran CPI leader of the Hills, seems to have embarrassed the party leadership by continuously challenging the CPI’s anti-Gorkhaland stand. (more…)

The Telegraph

Kalimpong, Sept. 23: Dawa Sangpo Dorjee today iterated his claim of being the genuine 17th Gyalwang Karmapa and challenged the other two claimants to the seat to undergo “scientific tests” to establish the truth and settle the matter once and for all.

Addressing a news conference at Deolo Hill, about 5km from here, Sangpo Dorjee accused the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, of being instrumental in creating a controversy around the Karmapa. “The biggest game is being played by the Dalai Lama…I have made several attempts to meet him to clear the air, but on every occasion he has refused to meet me.” (more…)

The Story of Darjeeling
Author: Basant B. Lama
Pages: 364
Price: Rs 150.00

On 7 September 2008 The Story of Darjeeling: The Land of the Indian Gorkha by Basant B. Lama was released in Kurseong. Some of you know Basant Lama as the man whose house and land at Siliguri was acquired, i.e. legally taken against his free will, by the government for the Sikkim Nationalized Transport complex. That, of course, has nothing to do with the book but it is being put in as just by way of an introduction.

The 364-page book is a pleasant read. It is spread over 24 chapters most of which are less than 15 pages in length making each chapter a compact unit. This trimness has the advantage that before one realizes a chapter is through one is already on to the next one. It appears that modesty and conscious caution prevented Lama from titling the book as The History… instead of The Story… but history it definitely is. Most history books are of staid pages, dull and laborious to read. The Story…is a pleasant surprise. History writing follows a chronological order and the language is as a rule cold, direct, and detached. Lama’s account is, however, from the guts and so it is often emotive, the language colloquial, it rejects sequential order, and at times it even gets humorous. The combination of these unusual features makes this book immensely readable.

Almost all books on history are generally a rehash of what has been written before and neither Lama, nor anybody else for that matter, can claim full immunity from this phenomenon. However, what puts him apart from the rest is that he has surprises in store. Consider for example his claim that it was the Gorkhas, and Gorkhas alone, who were responsible for the escape of Subhas Chandra Bose to Germany. For the Sikkimeses reader I might add here that amongst these Gorkhas one was a certain Yonzone, personal servant of Subhas Chandra Bose, and he hailed from Sikkim. Another revelation is that the book claims that Netaji spoke fluent Nepali.

It is not my intention lay bare the whole book but let me just say that it is not a text book stuff. The emotive nature of the writing gives a soul to the book and the occasional sprinkling of humour adds a zest and combined they bring about a vivacity which is rare in a topic as dreary as history. Lama traces the birth of the Bengali bhadrolog and its subsequent effects on Bengal, India and the Gorkhas. Events as distant in time and space as the partition of Bengal is recalled and woven into the fabric of Darjeeling’s history.
In conclusion I can safely claim that this book is ‘raw stuff’ and yet it is one of the easiest to read. If you want to read a book with a heart and a bit of humour, and still feel you are reading history then this is the book. For those of you who are interested to know about the circumstances that Darjeeling and the Dooars are currently placed in, how it came about, and possibly what the future holds, this book is an absolute must.

-Dr. Sonam B. Wangyal

Kalimpong, 21st September

Himalayan Darpan
(Translated, with date corrections)

A meeting was held today in the Ram Krishna Ranga Manch to discuss the registration of “Save the Hills” (STH), a year-old NGO that had been established to work for the safety and protection of the environment.

To facilitate the registration process an executive committee was also established with Retd, Wind Cdr. Praful Rao as President, Mr. Bharat Mani Pradhan as General Secretary, and Mr. A. K. Pradhan as Treasurer. The current state of the organization’s efforts in environmental protection, specifically landslide protection and mitigation, was also discussed in the meeting.

Further discussions were held regarding the participation of STH in the upcoming visit of the eminent Polish geomorphologist Dr. Leszek Starkel, who will be studying the Ambootia T. E. landslide in Kurseong, and will also be addressing a workshop in Darjeeling on the 24th of November. Since this workshop will have attendees from Darjeeling, Kurseong and Sikkim, it was decided that the venue would be an opportunity to setup branches of STH in these locations.

The Telegraph

Kalimpong, Sept. 21: The subscribers to the BSNL’s telephone and Internet services have been caught in a Gorkha Janmukti Morcha-induced dilemma following a pay-up notice served on them by the government-owned telecom major.

The Morcha has urged residents of the Darjeeling hills not to pay any central or state revenue as part of their “civil disobedience” movement in their agitation for the separate state of Gorkhaland. (more…)

Mendra Dorjey / CNN-IBN
Fri, Sep 19, 2008 at 17:43

New Delhi: Subroto Cup, currently being played at New Delhi’s Ambedkar Stadium, is India’s most prestigious football tournament for schools.

At this year’s Subroto Cup a team from Kalimpong is representing West Bengal. The team trained hard to play against and beat the best school teams in their zone, their district and emerge as champions of West Bengal- a feat that made them heroes in their small town. (more…)

The Telegraph

Darjeeling, Sept. 18: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha today clarified that students need not wear traditional dresses during school hours.

There had been much confusion over the dress code for school students, with the Morcha earlier maintaining that children above 13 would have to wear the traditional dress for a month starting from October 7.

Some schools had asked the students to sport traditional dresses. Till a few days ago, even Morcha leaders were saying those in classes above Standard X should wear traditional dresses even on campus.

Binay Tamang, the media and publicity secretary of the Morcha, however, clarified the party’s stand today. “There should not be any confusion. Students can attend schools in their respective uniforms. However, those students who are above 13 years old have to wear traditional dress during non-school hours.”

This means that college goers will have to wear traditional dresses while attending their classes. While many of them have already started sporting Nepali caps, others are looking at coming up with designer traditional dresses that could look fashionable.

Many school students are also wearing the Nepali caps along with their uniforms. “We are allowing the students to wear the Nepali caps even though it is not part of the uniform. It is the tradition that has to be respected,” said a school principal.

The Telegraph

Siliguri, Sept. 15: Very few tourists from Bengal are planning to travel to the Darjeeling hills during this year’s Puja vacation, if the lack of enquiries and bookings are any indication, say tour operators.

Observers said unpleasant memories from the summer, when tourists were caught in the middle of a Gorkha Janmukti Morcha strike, had contributed to their decision to stay away from the hills.

“We have no problem with high-end tourists who visit Darjeeling from abroad or from other states of the country,” Catherine Pradhan Lobo, a tour operator from Kalimpong, said here yesterday. “But from budget tourists, who arrive in thousands from different parts of the state during Puja, the enquiries and bookings have been quite low.” (more…)

The Telegraph

Kalimpong, Sept. 15: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha’s dress code diktat has enthused a few enterprising businessmen here to make a killing by selling daura surals.

Soon after Morcha president Bimal Gurung decreed that all Gorkha men and women in the hills and the Dooars should wear daura sural and choubandi cholo respectively for one month beginning October 7 as part of the party’s “cultural movement”, some cloth merchants wasted no time in making arrangements to sell the dresses. And as the D-Day draws nearer, their enterprise has started paying dividends.

“The demand for the traditional dress has been going up with every passing day,” said Ajay Pakhrin, who owns a shop at Super Market. The trader, who is among the first to seize the opportunity provided by the Morcha diktat, has been selling about 10 pieces of duara sural every day. (more…)

The Telegraph

Kurseong Sept. 14: Gorkha Janmukti Morcha leaders today said they might relax some parts of their ongoing non-cooperation movement against the Bengal government and the Centre, but did not divulge any details.

Urged by the Morcha, people in the hills have not been paying electricity and telephone bills since April 1 to strengthen the demand for Gorkhaland.

“We are thinking of relaxing some sections of the non-cooperation movement. A central committee meeting will be held very soon to decide on the relaxation details,” said Amar Lama, a central committee member of the Morcha, while addressing a public meeting in Kurseong this afternoon. (more…)