NORTH-EASTERN STATES

The Tripura Tea Development Corporation (TTDC) will engage more workforce in the coming season for quality plucking of green leaf from tea estates to ensure better price for all the stakeholders associated with the state’s century-old .

For the past few years, poor plucking has hit the state’s tea industry the most, fetching an Average price of Rs 200 plus per kg in the auction markets – Kolkata and Guwahati. Now, the TTDC wants to increase the average tea price to more than Rs 300 per kg.

For the past few years, the tea industry has been gaining momentum due to proactive initiatives taken by the TTDC. “Despite the Corona pandemic, the state produced 4.45 lakh kg of tea in the year 2020 whereas it was only 1.72 lakh kg in 2017 and 2.98 lakh kg in 2018. It shows a lot of good works were put in place in the past few years”, he pointed out.

Naturally, overall turnover has gone up significantly in the state. The turnover has enhanced to Rs 10.50 crore in 2020-21 from Rs 5.46 crore in the year 2019-20.

As part of the state governments ongoing War on Drugs campaign, a combined team of Kangpokpi district Police, forest officials andAssam Rifles(AR) on Friday destroyed 35 acres of illegal poppy cultivation along the Koubru hill range in the district.

On the same day and in the same district, another joint team of police and the paramilitary force confiscated 2.89kg of brown sugar.

A suo moto case has been taken up for further investigation under Section 18(b) of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (ND&PS) Act, the police officer said.

The proposal to create a new district called Eastern West Khasi Hills has been approved by the Meghalaya Cabinet.

Highlights:

The Mairang civil sub-division was upgraded to create the new district. Mairang will now be part of the West Khasi Hills district as a sub-division.

Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma will launch the new district on November 10, 2021. This will bring the state’s total number of districts to 12.

The proposal to create a new district called Eastern West Khasi Hills has been approved by the Meghalaya Cabinet.

The Mairang civil sub-division was upgraded to create the new district. Mairang will now be part of the West Khasi Hills district as a sub-division.

Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma will launch the new district on November 10, 2021. This will bring the state’s total number of districts to 12.

A house-to-house survey would be conducted soon to check influx of illegal immigrants in the state and legal action could be taken against anyhouseowner found renting out or housing illegal foreigners, CM NBiren Singhhas said.

Saying the has also already announced 1961 as the Base Year for the ILP Act, the CM said the government will soon launch its mechanism to trace foreigners, including face recognition cameras, apps, to regulate entry and exit.

Earlier,the government had identified and arrested around 613 illegal violators and they have been booked accordingly. The main worry is that most of these violators are fromBangladeshwhile some are from Myanmar.

Meghalaya’s whistling village Kongthong in East Khasi Hills district has been selected as one of three India entries for the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) ‘Best Tourism Village’, Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma said.

Kongthong a small village is nestled in the Khat-ar Shnong area on way to Sohra in East Khasi Hills, about 60 km to the south from Shillong. It is famous for its panoramic view, unique culture and virgin beauty.

The UNWTO is looking for the best examples of rural villages harnessing the power of tourism to provide opportunity and safeguard their communities, local traditions and heritage.

Best Tourism Villages by UNWTO’ aims to maximise the contribution of the sector to reducing regional inequalities and fighting against rural depopulation.

Himachal Pradesh led the relatively aged list, while Uttarakhand and Haryana were ranked second and third, respectively. Chandigarh and Mizoram were the top scorers in union territory and north-east states categories. On the other hand, and Gujarat scored the least in the aged and relatively aged states categories. Jammu and Kashmir and Arunachal Pradesh were placed at the bottom in union territory and north-east states segments.

It also includes eight sub-pillars — economic Empowerment, educational attainment and EMPLOYMENT, social status, physical security, basic Health, psychological well being, social security and enabling Environment.

Mizoramchief minister Zoramthanga reiterated that unification of all the Mizo inhabited areas into a single administration has been the political objective of the ruling Mizo National Front (MNF) for more than 60 years.

On the demand for a separate administration by the Kuki-Zo people in strife-torn Manipur, which included the possible formation of Greater Mizoram, Zoramthanga said when the Late Laldenga formed the MNF on October 22, 1962, unification of all Mizo inhabited contiguous areas into a single administration was one of its ambitions. The Kuki-Zo leaders, including 10 tribal legislators of Manipur, during their meeting in Aizawl on May 17 resolved that a separate administration is the only solution for bringing peace while the possibility of joining a Greater Mizoram also featured in their discussions.

The Mizo people had lived together before the British colonial government trifucated British India into India, Burma and Pakistan, the CM said, adding that the partition of British India into Pakistan, India and Burma resulted in the division of Mizo-inhabited lands in the three countries.

The unification of Mizoinhabited areas in the Indian states of Mizoram, Manipur from the Assam state as Article 3 of the Constitution has Assam and Tripuracontinued to be a political ambition of theMNF party, he said, while Mizo inhabited areas in Myanmar and Bangladesh are labelled as iredenta.

Rated as one of the three fast moving states with the highest gains by 12 points in development scores from 56 in 2019,Mizorams journey towards delivering onsustainable goalsas assessed by theSDGIndex 2020-21 clearly reflects steps taken to achieve a moresustainableand energy efficient way of life.

Haryanawith a 10 point improvement from 57 to 67 andUttarakhandthat moved up 8 points from 64 to 72 have also been classified as fast moving states, based on initiatives to do better across goals. In both these states, steps towards sustainable cities have evidently contributed to their scores. Also all three states have been rated as achievers under affordable and clean energy with a 100% score for electrification of households and access to gas connections – LPG and PNG.

The SDG Index released byNiti Aayogcategorises performance based on indicators over a score that ranges from aspirants at the bottom with a score of 0-49 followed by performers (50-64), front runners (65-99) and achiever (100).

The performance chart also shows that all wards in the hill state have 100% door-to- door waste collection (up from 95.14% in 2019). However, individual household toilets constructed against the target declined from 90.27% to 75%. Also installed sewage treatment capacity to sewage generated declined from 31% to 26.88%.

Meghalayachief minister Conrad K Sangma on Sunday said the under-construction Meghalaya at Umtrew in Ri Bhoi district will be ready to be opened to the public by Independence Day.

The announcement came a day afterhis visit to the site on Saturday to review the progress of work.

Once ready, the zoo is expected to attract more tourists, both domestic and overseas. The first modern zoo in the state is coming up on approximately 72 hectares of land at an estimated cost of Rs 35 crore.

The north-east could be poised to become the next target of the ongoing second wave of Covid, according to a forecasting tool based on data.

Development Data Lab, a research organisation working on open data, and a team led by University of Chicagos Prof Anup Malani calculates the reproductive rate (Rt) for the Covid-19 outbreak each day. This is a measure of how many people an infected person is likely to infect in a community. The calculations show that the Rt value is greater than 1 for allnortheastern states.

The data shows that there are 15 states and UTs where this value was more than 1 on May 21. At 1.36, the value is the highest for Tripura followed by Meghalaya at 1.31 and Arunachal Pradesh at 1.26. Apart from the eight northeastern states.