The Vice Chancellor of the North-East Hill University Dr B D Sharma is expected to take up a new assignment shortly. According to sources, Dr. Sharma is likely to be appointed Commissioner of the Scheduled Castes & Scheduled Tribes Commission under the Home Ministry.

https://www.zoomproperty.com/en/rent/residential/dubai/apartment-for-rent-in-meydan-area

It is not known who is going to replace Dr Sharma.

All the doctors of the Khasi Jaintia Presbyterian Hospital are being relieved of their duties from June 2.

Stating this a spokesman of the Synod has said that all the nine doctors, including the Medical Superintendent, had submitted resignation and since they had refused to change their stand, the Synod had no choice but to accept their resignation.

The spokesman said that it was “not correct” to stat ethat a clergyman had been put in charge of the Hospital. In actual fact, Rev C Jyrwa was appointed as administrative officer as a stop-gap arrangement. Meanwhile, Dr (Ms) R. Ropmay has been appointed as officiating Medical Superintendent of the Hospital.

The State Govt has appealed to the Centre to transfer to the civil administration all untulised plots and land leased for commercial purposes within Shillong Cantonment and other Defence Holdings.

In an official Note on the necessity to transfer some plots of cantonment land in Shillong for civilian use, the State Govt has pointed out that the Defence authorities have been willy nilly dragging its feet on some of the long pending demands of the State Govt in this regard.

The Note said: “The Shillong Cantonment is in an enviable position because, with the heavy pressure on land in the city, it has a large area lying unused. Some of the plots of land have been kept vacant for a number of years and are not likely to be needed for defence purposes in future.”

The State Govt has demanded release of the following plots plot of land opposite Anjalee Cinema, plot of land Anjalee Cinema, Garrison ground, abandoned firing range at Kench’s Trace, Cantonment land north of Umshyrpi river, right of way for civilian through the Cantonment to the villagers of Umlyngka, Nongkseh and Lummawbah.

A two-member delegation of the Zomi National Congress, a non-descript regional party of Manipur is reported to have recently visited New Delhi to demand a separate Union Territory for the hill people of that State residing in the three districts bordering Burma. A memorandum in this behalf was also submitted to the Prime Minister last January, but we have no illusion about New Delhi’s reaction to it. It should bear mention in this connection that hill people constitute a substantial portion of Manipur and hence the hill people thereof have an effective representation in the State Assembly as also an equally effective share in its government. The meandering course of Manipur’s history, in particular of recent years of its nascent Statehood, bears ample testimony to this unmistakable political feature.

If there still is even a though of bifurcating this small, heterogeneous border unit, it must have sprung from considerations other than the general good of the people at large, taking the composite population in view as a whole or even its component elements in all their ethnic and linguistic diversity. The three border districts, more over, because of their proximity to an unsettled and perturbed international border, need all the more on this score a closer integration with the parent State and the country rather than separation from the former. The Zomi leadership should rather find a more worthwhile cause to represent for their people by taking up the case of containing the “endemic famine” in the area which is the other demand the delegation has put forward to New Delhi’s consideration.

The Supreme Court stayed last week two Gauhati High Court order releasing on bail three accused allegedly involved in a bomb explosion at Gauhati Railway Station last July. The vacation Judge ordered interim stay of the April 12 and May 11, 1984 order of the High Court and directed that the accused remain in custody until final orders of the Court. The cases went up to the Supreme Court on appeal by the Assam Government, but what must have lent additional weight to the appeal and the Supreme Court’s favourable response to it is that as many s eleven innocent lives were lost in this particular tragedy which, therefore, need a deeper judicial probe if it can also help finding a general guide-line in such cases.

Considering the threat which such misconceived and misdirected urge of terrorist violence hold to the peace and tranquility of a whole community in a given area, it is important and urgent that such cases are given even more importance than are normally deserving in their disposal in law courts. Apart from interpretation of the letter of law, a general guide-line about such disposal in areas where these incident seem to have assumed an endemic character would seem called for during the final judicial proceedings in the instant cases. The large-scale release on bail of accused arrested is recalled in this context. Also relevant are the earlier comments in the Press on large number of such cases remaining unheard for years in Manipur in particular.

The District Magistrate, East Khasi Hills District Mr J Tayeng, has prohibited importing of fish from areas bordering Bangladesh, Nagaon, Kamrup and Cachar districts of Assam and their sale in East Khasi Hills District with immediate effect and until further orders.

The order, under Section 144 Cr P.C., was issued here on May 16 following reports that Nagon and Cachar districts of Assam had been declared as “epidemic affected districts” and that gastroenteritis had spread to other areas of Assam which adjoin East Khasi Hills District of Meghalaya.

The Meghalaya Chief Minister, Capt W.A. Sangma, has underscored the need for introducing a mobile legal aid unit in the State.

He was of the view that legal and committees should be created not only in district headquarters but also in all sub-divisional headquarters.

Capt. Sangma was speaking as Chief guest at the fourth legal aid camp of the stte at Mendipathar in East Garo Hills District on May 5 last. The function was presided over by the Law Minister, Mr G Mylliemngap.

Capt Sangma said that legal aid in the state was a continuous process for providing legal assistance to the people especially the weaker sections of society, he stated.

The Speaker of the Meghalaya Assembly, Mr E K Mawlong has called upon the engineers and technical experts to engage attention to the pressing need for developing Shillong on a modern footing.

He was inaugurating a seminar on “the development amenities in Greater Shillong” here on May 25.

Mr Mawlong said “no time should be lost if the city is to be save from going the same way as others in the Third World. A challenging task before us therefore is to make Shillong once again a city worthy of the name Scotland of the East.”

Shillong, the Speaker he said had undergone “unprecedented and phenomenal growth” especially during the last decade. It was about time attention was given to the task of identifying the major problems and arrive at certain guidelines for present and future action plans.

Noted engineers and experts from various disciplines presented valuable papers projecting different facets of development of basic amenities in Greater Shillong areas. The seminar was organized by the Shillong Sub-Centre of the Institute of Engineers.

The dismissal of Nar Bahadur Bhandari’s Ministry in the tiny Himalayan State of Sikkim has not come too soon, nor too much unexpectedly either. Conditions of a political crisis, ending up in such a drastic move, were brewing for quite sometime, some inkling of which was available in the prolonged tussle between tho Chief Minister and the Governor. Sikkim had problems for itself and for New Delhi even from the days of its royal regime; if its formal absorption into Indian Statehood solved some, many of those born of its multi-racial demographic composition lingered. Some were even accentuated, with the Chief Minister’s suspected preference. for one of the major ethnic groups.

The evil day for him last week could have probably been deferred yet a while if Mr. Bhandari had not chosen to be as adamant on some at least of the issues over which the Governor, acting on his own and for New Delhi, could not any longer afford to be compromising. On the other hand, the parting of the ways would have come much earlier had it not been for the fact that it was not quite a pleasant job for the Congress(I) Government at the Centre to persuade itself to dismiss a state government run in the name of the same political party. In any case, the timing of the dismissal would appear to lead it the character of a gamble: Bhandari would surely mobilise all his resources to get his points okayed by the verdict of the general election hardly four months away. New Delhi, on its part, has probably ensured that the benefits of his high office are not among his other resources.

Land sale by poor tribals

A national seminar held recently at Gauhati recommended inter alia the formation of study teams, both at the State levels and the national, to go deep into the loopholes of the existing laws relating to tribal land and indebtedness, and suggest measures to protect tribal interests. The seminar expressed particular concern at the Increasing number of transfer of land belonging to the poor tribal people to the richer section of the tribal community. This is an aspect on which not much attention has been rivetted so far in dealing generally with what is regarded as the problem of alienation of tribal land.

So much emphasis in fact has been laid in recent times on preventing transfer of tribal land to non-tribals that in the whole process the case of deprivation of land of the poor among the tribals by the comparatively richer sections of the tribals themselves have largely been lost-sight of. In this connection, the seminar has made a novel suggestion that the State Gevernment or a cooperative society may purchase the land offered by a distressed tribal on condition that the land would be returned to the orginal owner on repayment of the value of the land. This option, however, can be allowed only for a reasonable period of time and not indefinitely.

The dismissal of Nar Bahadur Bhandari’s Ministry in the tiny Himalayan State of Sikkim has not come too soon, nor too much unexpectedly either. Conditions of a political crisis, ending up in such a drastic move, were brewing for quite sometime, some inkling of which was available in the prolonged tussle between the Chief Minister and the Governor, Sikkim had problems for itself and for New Delhi even from the days of its royal regime; if its formal absorption into Indian Statehood solved some, many of those born of its multi-racial demographic composition lingered. Some were even accentuated with the Chief Minister’s suspected preference for one of the major ethnic groups.

The evil day for him last week could have probably been deferred yet a while if Mr Bhandari had not chosen to be as adamant on some at least of the issues over which the Governor, acting on his own and for New Delhi, could not any longer afford to be compromising. On the other hand, the parting of the ways would have come much earlier had it not been for the fact that it was not quite a pleasant job for the Congress (I) Government at the Centre to persuade itself to dismiss a state government run in the name of the same political party. In any case, the timing of the dismissal would appear to lend it the character of a gamble: Bhandari would surely mobilize all his resources to get his points okayed by the verdict of the general election hardly four months away. New Delhi, on its part, has probably ensured that the benefits of his high office are not among his other resources.