May 16
Cash reward stands
The cash reward of Rs 10 lakhs announced by the Arunachal Pradesh Police for giving information or clue leading to arrest of the assailant/s of Tongam Rina, Associate Editor of The Arunachal Times still stands. The identity of the informer/s will be kept secret. The informer/s may contact Capital SP at tele. numbers : 09436040006
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Social activist Binny Yanga calls on CM
ITANAGAR, May 15: Padmashri Binny Yanga today called on Chief Minister Nabum Tuki and discussed various matters related to welfare of women and children in the State.
Yanga informed the chief minister about her Infant Home where the children are being
trained to become self-
Yanga further informed of marketing fusion products of modern and ethnic handloom designs and artificial ornaments and thus promoting the rich heritage of our State in the country and abroad.
While appreciating Yanga, who is also the chairperson of Oju Welfare Association (OWA) for her noble and selfless services for the welfare of poor and destitute, Tuki assured her of all possible support and cooperation to continue her social service.
Dwelling house gutted in fire
ANINI, May 15: A dwelling house was gutted and properties worth lakhs of rupees, including, domestic animals and some important files were lost in a devastating fire accident here yesterday night.
The fire was doused after three hours of efforts by ITBP personnel and public as there is no fire tender in the district headquarters here. However, there was no report of loss of life. The cause of the fire is not yet known.
The district disaster management department has provided immediate relief to the victim, who is working in DC’s office here as ‘dak runner’. DIPRO
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304 days have passed. The culprits involved in the July 15 attack on The Arunachal Times associate editor Tongam Rina are still at large.
News Impact
Arunachal goes for Panchayat & Municipal elections
ITANAGAR, May 15: The Arunachal Pradesh is all set for panchayat and municipal elections on May 16. This is the first time that Municipal elections are being held in Arunachal. Two municipal segments, Itanagar and Pasighat will go for the polls along with the voting for the panchayat segments across Arunachal.
According to official sources around 90 percent polling booths under Itanagar Municipal
elections are hyper-
Ballot boxes will be used in the panchayat polls while EVMs in the municipal elections and the counting will be held on May 21.
For Itanagar municipal elections, polling will be held in 55 booths as one councilor has been elected unopposed. Itanagar Municipality has 30 wards while Pasighat has 12. Two councilors have already been elected unopposed in Pasighat municipality.
While announcing the Panchayat and Municipal elections on April 1 last, the State Election Commission revealed that a total number of 5,83,409 voters will exercise their franchise in 1841 polling stations to choose a total number of 9365 members of panchayat institutes from village to district level. There are 7403 seats for Gram Panchayat Members, 1785 for Anchal Samity Members, 177 seats for Zilla Parishad Members.
However, unconfirmed sources revealed that in some of the districts a good number of candidates for panchayat elections have already been elected unopposed. In Upper Subansiri district 4 ZPMs, 62 ASMs and 421 GPMs have already been elected uncontested, sources said. In Changlang district, out of eleven ZPMs, the Miao and Kharsang ZPM got elected unopposed. Being disturbed area twenty four polling stations has been declared hyper sensitive and forty as sensitive in the district.
It is worth mentioning here that the SEC had banned slaughter of Mithuns and other animals in relation to campaign for PR elections.
Capital complex DIPRO adds: As the day of voting being tomorrow, the Presiding and Polling officers of the 55 Polling Stations under Itanagar Municipality Election were issued the Polling materials today here at Siddhartha hall. Further, the names of the Sector Magistrates and Police Personnel deployed for the same were also announced so that proper coordination could be carried out among them. The MROs of both Itanagar and Naharlagun appealed all to work in unison so that election process takes place in a free and fair manner.
Check gates sealed:
To ensure peaceful, free and fair elections (PR & Municipal) in East Siang district,
the Deputy Commissioner Rajesh Kumar Mishra today ordered to seal all the entry check
gates during polling hours (600 hrs to 1600 hrs) on May-
To avoid public in convenience it has been broadcasted several times through Pasighat All India Radio and local Town Broadcasting system in and around the township. Mishra sought full cooperation from the political party representatives, village elders, NGOs and other organizations and common citizens in maintaining peace and harmony during the voting hours. The DC, who is personally supervising and monitoring all the activities informed elaborate security arrangement has been made and reassured that voters will be able participate fearlessly in the elections.
Ruksin ready to conduct panchayat poll
Ruksin Correspondent adds: The Sub-
As many as 143 polling personnel including the presiding and polling officers are
engaged to conduct the panchayat poll. As such, eight Sector Magistrates and three
Sector Officers (Police) are deputed to observe the polling activities and report
the situation. There are eight Sensitive and five Hyper-
Watch election live on internet
KHONSA, May 15: In view of conducting free and fair elections in insurgency-
For watching the live feed one should have internet connectivity and Mozilla Firefox browser with flash player. Live telecast of counting will also be available on the website on the day of counting.
DEO, Dr Sachin Shinde and DIO, Ajay Kr Singh had worked round-
Arunachal 'missing' from textbooks!
MUMBAI, May 15: For lakhs of 10th class students in Maharashtra, Arunachal Pradesh
is not a part of the country, as the north-
Taking a serious note of the lapse, the state government today sought clarification
from the chairman of the Maharashtra State Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary
Education, asking him to explain the factors contributing to the goof-
"I have sought a clarification from the Board chairman and asked him to explain (the printing mistake)," Minister for School Education Rajendra Darda told PTI.
The minister's statement came after reports about the north-
"The SSC Board is an autonomous body," the minister said. The geography textbooks are meant for Class 10th students affiliated to the Maharashtra state board.
Board chairman S Jadhav was unavailable for comment on how the wrong map made its way into the textbook and who vetted the controversial content.
The Maharashtra state board is now on the back foot after this major embarrassment has come to light. No answers have been offered as to how wrong maps made its way to the textbook and those responsible for vetting this controversial content.
Meanwhile, the state press, Balbharti has taken responsibility for this blunder.
Though it has refused to come on record, it says these textbooks will continue to
be on circulation -
What's more, these books are being used by nearly 17 lakh students across the state. Agencies
The glitches that accompany RTE
Appu Gapak
The Indian government has time and again come up with programmes and policies that pledge to work for the less privileged. Many programmes like PMGSY, MGNREGA, RGVY, NRHM, IAY have claimed to have secured many lives living in the rural India.
However, in a tribal state like Arunachal, where every welfare scheme takes a back seat, it has seldom done its job and helped the needy.
Latest in the bandwagon is the ambitious Right to Education (RTE) Act that came into force in the year 2009. It was started to provide free and a compulsory education to all children in the age group of six to fourteen years as a Fundamental Right in such a manner as the State may, by law, determine.
It was started with a novel idea that envisaged to provide free education to many deprived children and has several clauses which ensure that the number of school dropouts are also reduced and hence taking care of the literary scene of the country where everyone becomes literate.
On one hand, where the Act has garnered many praises for making education accessible to all, the various provisions given in the Act has also received criticisms from all corners.
In the clause II of the Act it was mentioned that ‘no child shall be liable to pay any kind of fee or charges or expenses which may prevent him or her from pursuing and completing elementary education, but in reality only 10 per cent of the schools are implementing the Act depriving many students of the free education that the government so envisages to give.
Students are still made to pay admission fees in the form of application forms and infrastructure fees.
“Since 2010, when RTE had come into force, we have been managing through the teacher grant and the school maintenance only that we get which is never enough. There is no separate grant,” informed a staff of a school in Capital Complex.
The Act makes it mandatory that the teachers have to be appropriately trained, i.e.
teachers with the requisite know-
“Some of my colleagues cannot even write their names properly. How can we even expect them to teach?,” shared a teacher who teaches in a school in Upper Siang district on condition of anonymity.
And yes not to forget the absentee teachers. Most of the teachers after fighting tooth and nail for the recruitment find it cumbersome to stay in their positing places and instead prefers to stay in the Capital to prepare for their better avenue.
“For most of the teachers, this profession is only a stepping stone for better avenue. They will just draw the salary and not do their job,” said the teacher which is also one of the reasons why RTE is still distant dream in the state.
The no detention policy is another thing to be concerned with, which in a way has discouraged the students to put in hard work.
“This no-
And because of the no corporal punishments clause in the RTE, many of the students are taking it in their stride to harass the teachers instead.
“We cannot even ask the students to do their studies well because if we insist, they use the ‘no corporal punishment’ clause to complain against us,” she said revealing another wrong facet of the Act.
And many of the teachers have been making the students for their personal chores
in place of the curricular activities that have been made mandatory for all-
“Some of the teachers in my school make the students work in their field at the time when they have to be in the schools for study,” the teacher further said.
Copyright © 2008, The Arunachal Times Publications Pvt. Ltd., Siang House, Sector
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All rights reserved.
Declare result of PGT, TGT
Dear Editor,
Though the column of your esteemed daily we wish to draw the kind attention of education Director to declare the result of recent interview of PGT, TGT, etc. for the greater interest of the needy student studying in various school of the state. It is understood that in the first week of June schools across the state reopens after vacation. And due to non availability of subject teacher in backward districts like Upper Subansiri the pass percentage of students always remains poor. To fulfill the long felt demands of the students crying for subject teacher must be addressed this academic year concern authority should immediately declare result of the written interview. The teacher appointed can be posted to needy school during the time of school reopening. Through the medium of Arunachal times we are writing to draw attention of authority regarding real problems of students of Upper Subansiri district in particular and state in general. The parent are passing through challenging task to give good education to their children for bright future. Education is best investment in life, what we need is qualified and visionary teacher having firm determination and sprit of true builder of nation. Lastly we sincerely request the director school education to declare the written result before school reopening to match the academic calendar of teacher and student in one academic year.
Yours
Atil Dasi
Taru Natum
Jida Natam
DNG, Collage Itanagar
Save girl child, save the nation’s bright future
Dear Editor,
In the progress of a society girls play an important role in its advancement. In today’s world along with boys’, girls also play a more similar important role in the development of not only a society but an entire nation, still there are some societies or communities where girl child is not free to live. The girl child is being killed before its birth or after it is being born. The parents think girl child to be a liability on them but they don’t realize the fact that even girls if given proper education can lessen the burden of the parents and can prosper better than a boy. In the present scenario what to speak about uneducated parents even the highly educated parents still prefer a boy more than a girl. They don’t really understand the mistake they make by killing their girl child, the parents somewhat become lunatic in the want of a boy child.
The doctors too can play an important role in saving the girl child. They can stop the process of gender discrimination test and make the parents aware of how illegal is to practice female foeticide. The government plays an equally significant role in highlighting the negative impacts of female foeticide and infanticide.
The government should increase the number of scholarships to promote education of girls so that their parents sent their girl child to schools and colleges and provide education. The highly educated parents should be punished for such a criminal offence and awareness programmes should be launched to show the right path to the illiterate parents who are still in the world where boys have the only priority. Even the uneducated ones also should not be spared for committing such crimes. Campaigns should be conducted in all the villages and a careful scrutiny is necessary against such offence. Now need of the hour is to fight cohesively against the killing of girl child and provide them the right to live.
Yours,
Paulomi Bhattacharjee,
P-
Still hopeful that Rina’s attacker will be nabbed
Dear Editor,
The entire Arunachalee including myself is really very proud about the steps taken by the press fraternities of state to remind the Chief Minister of his assurance to solve the Tongam Rina attack case. We are really thankful to the press team who has highlighted the Rina case. After waiting for 304 days we are still hopeful that the Rina case would be solved. The release of the Documentary, titled “Justice delayed is Justice denied” has stunned all of us. I think we all were losing our hope about the solving of Rina case. Every day I use to pick up newspaper to find any new information about the Rina case but there was always a similar print "This many days have passed. The culprits involved in the July 15 attack on the Arunachal Times Editor Tongam Rina are still at large.” I never hoped that the case would ever be solved. But now my views have changed and I think the views of all the Arunachalee have changed. The Arunachal Police are sure to nab the culprits involved in the attack as stated by SP Capital. I wish that the team of Arunachal Pradesh Police may have their victory. I wish them on behalf of all the Arunachalee's. Long Live APP, Long Live Arunachal
Yours
Kalen Darang
Ruksin, East Siang
Bring changes
Dear Editor,
Through your esteemed daily I would like to appeal the concern authority to modify the systems in order to make our state better tourist place. It has been observed that the cabs and auto rickshaw plying in our twin capital do not have any colour recognition and uniformity. Even old and unfit vehicles are allowed to ply ignoring the threat to life of commuters.
Therefore, I would like to request the authority to make uniform colour for each and every vehicles used as cabs just like it is done in other states. The drivers name/and address with driving license no. should be prominently displayed in each and every vehicles.
Yours
Tagru Tari, Itanagar
Why our stipend has not been released?
Dear Editor,
Through your esteemed daily, I would like to express my concern over the non release of stipend for student of government higher secondary school hija, ziro. The student of government higher secondary school Ziro already got their stipend month ago. So I request the authorities of our school to release our stipend as soon as possible.
Yours,
Radhe Becktino
Warming eats up Everest ice
A study reveals some chilling environmental facts around the world's highest peak.
Global warming is stripping Mount Everest of its frozen cloak faster than ever. According to a study carried out by a team of researchers the glaciers of the world’s loftiest mountain have shrunk at a rate of 13 per cent over the last 50 years.
Glaciers smaller than one-
With the glaciers melting faster than being replenished by ice and snow, large patches
of rocks and debris, previously hidden deep under the ice, are showing up. These
debris-
Alongside taking a new look at the snow and ice covering of Mount Everest the team
has also been studying temperature and precipitation trends in the area. The findings
are alarming: the Everest region has undergone a 0.6 degree Celsius increase in
temperature and 100 mm decrease in precipitation during the pre-