Nagaland Post www.nagalandpost.com
Vol XXVIII No. 29
SATURDAY, JANUARY 6, 2018 Pages 12 ` 5.00
Action against all involved in chit fund scams: Jailtey
Real win; Barcelona held in Copa Del Rey
Erdogan accuses US, Israel of ‘meddling’ in Iran, Pakistan
business, Page 8
sports, Page 12
international, Page 9
STATES fear influx of NRC rejects from Assam
Security beefed up along borders
GUWAHATI, JAN 5 (PTI/ AGENCIES): With the first draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) published in Assam, neighbouring states such as Manipur, Nagaland and Meghalaya fear that suspected illegal immigrants, who could not make it to the list, will sneak into their territories. Taking note of this, the North Eastern states are keeping a strict vigil to check a possible influx of illegal migrants into their territories following the publication of the first draft of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, administration and police officials have said. The NRC, first prepared in 1951, is being updated in Assam under the supervision of the Supreme Court to weed out illegal migrants. The first draft of the updated version was published on December 31. Arunachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Manipur have taken measures to prevent illegal migrants from entering their territories. Nagaland Home Com-
missioner Abhishek Singh was confident of preventing possible spillover of illegal migrants into the state. With the Inner Line Permit system in the state and police personnel manning check gates, illegal migrants cannot enter Nagaland, he said. State Home Minister Kuzholuzo Azo Nienu, however, said the matter had not yet been throughly discussed in his department. In Arunachal, SPs of all border districts have been directed to liaise with their Assam counterparts regarding the matter, according to an official release. Arunachal Pradesh chief minister, Pema Khandu had sought information from the state director general of police on the situation in the border areas in the wake of the publication of the NRC first draft. He also directed the DGP to maintain strict vigil at border outposts to check the possible influx of illegal immigrants, the release read. Meghalaya Police tightened surveillance along the
Sumi Hoho reaffirms solution before polls
‘Worst ever’ CPU bugs affect virtually all PCs
DIMAPUR, JAN 5 (NPN): Sumi Hoho (SH), in its executive meeting held at Sumi Hoho Ki, Zunheboto, on January 3 unanimously reaffirmed point no. 4 of the representation submitted to the Interlocutor for Naga talks, R.N Ravi. In a statement, SH media affairs cell said that the term of the current legislative assembly was nearing completion, while the ongoing talks for a permanent solution was at an advanced stage. SH opined that the general elections, if not deferred, may impact the ongoing talks and the smooth transition to any alternative arrangement. SH further stressed on the need for solution and not election, saying people were earnestly anticipating permanent solution. Imposing elections at this juncture may lead to differences of opinion, derailing the peace talks and prolonging the whole process, SH stated.
Amit Shah to visit state
DIMAPUR, JAN 5: BJP president, Amit Shah is setting out a tour of three northeastern States, which are among the eight States going to the polls in 2018, reports The Hindu. Senior party sources said Shah would arrive at Nagaland on January 8 after visiting Meghalaya and Tripura on January 6 & 7.
This is it!
“It will be five years in March when half a decade of monkey politics ends.” K Y M C
LONDON, JAN 5 (AGENCIES): Serious security flaws that could let attackers steal sensitive data, including passwords and banking information, have been found in processors designed by Intel, AMD and ARM. T h e f l aw s, n a m e d Meltdown and Spectre, were discovered by security researchers at Google’s Project Zero in conjunction with academic and industry researchers from several countries. Combined they affect virtually every mod-
border with Assam following publication of the NRC first draft, state Director General of Police SB Singh said today. “We have taken precautions to check any infiltration of anti-national elements right from December last week,” DGP S.B. Singh told PTI. The home department had on December 22 directed the state police to step up vigil and conduct checks in the border areas, he said. Special police teams have been deployed at the Jiribam Babupara Bazar in Manipur and along the Barak river bordering Mizoram, Manipur Police said in a statement. The Barak originates in Manipur, flows through Mizoram and Assam and enters Bangladesh, where it forks into the Surma and Kushiyara rivers. Police teams have been deployed at Mao Gate in Senapati district bordering Nagaland and the TameiHaflong road in Tamenglong district bordering Assam to check the entry of migrants into the state, the release read.
ern computer, including smartphones, tablets and PCs from all vendors and running almost any operating system. Meltdown is “probably one of the worst CPU bugs ever found”, said Daniel Gruss, one of the researchers at Graz University of Technology who discovered the flaw. Meltdown is currently thought to primarily affect Intel processors manufactured since 1995, excluding the company’s Itanium server chips and Atom processors before 2013. It could
Some political groups and civil society organisations claim that the northeast has seen a rise in the number of immigrants from Bangladesh since its creation in 1971. The process of updating the NRC with March 24, 1971 as the cut-off date was initiated following a Supreme Court order. While the Narendra Modi government is yet to announce a concrete plan on the future of those who do not qualify in the citizenship test, the Assam government has said illegal immigrants will lose their voting rights. “Those failing to make it to the list will lose their fundamental and electoral rights and will only be retained on humanitarian grounds,” Assam CM Sarbananda Sonowal said Wednesday. Implementation of the inner line permit (ILP) has been a long standing demand in states such as Manipur and Meghalaya to check what is seen as unrestricted entry of ‘outsiders’, especially illegal immigrants.
allow hackers to bypass the hardware barrier between applications the computer’s core memory. Meltdown, therefore, requires a change to the way the operating system handles memory to fix, which could affect the speed of the machine in certain tasks by as much as 30%. The Spectre flaw affects most modern processors, including Intel, AMD and those designed by ARM. Spectre is harder for hackers to take advantage of but is also harder to fix and would be a bigger problem in the long term, according to Gruss. Intel and ARM insisted that the issue was not a design flaw, although it will require users to download a patch and update their operating system to fix. Google said it informed the affected companies about the Spectre flaw on June 1, 2017 and later reported the Meltdown flaw before July 28, 2017.
India’s Aadhaar open for abuse: Edward Snowden NEW DELHI, JAN 5 (AGENCIES): A day after the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) denied that there was any breach of the Aadhaar database, American whistleblower Edward Snowden said on Friday that the Aadhaar database, conceived and introduced by the Indian government, can also be misused and abused. Re-tweeting CBS journalist Zack Whittaker’s response on a BuzzFeed report on the breach of Aadhaar database in India, Snowden said, “It is the natural tendency of government to desire perfect records of private lives. History shows that no matter the laws, the result is abuse.” Whittaker had earlier said, “ICYMI. India has a national ID database with the private information of nearly 1.2 billion nationals. It’s reportedly been breached. Admin accounts can be made and access can be sold to the database, reports BuzzFeed.” The UIDAI on Thursday said the Aadhaar data including biometric information is fully safe and secure.
ESH reacts DIMAPUR, JAN 5 (NPN): Eastern Sumi Hoho (ESH) has reacted to the usage of the word “Singti” by United Sangtam Likhum Pumji (USLP) in a statement published on January 5, 2018. In a press release, ESH president, L Kahuvi Sumi, and secretary, Isac Sumi, said “Sitimi” cannot be substituted by “Singti” since the official recognition of the village by the state government was Sitimi village. ESH said the conflict between the two communities of Sitimi village was because of the misuse of the nomenclature of Sitimi. ESH has, therefore, appealed to USLP “to be very clear and wise” on the issue and “to reconstruct their statement especially on the nomenclature before publishing in local media in order to restrain the situation.” Further, ESH urged the state government to immediately intervene and settle the matter before the situation worsened.
State spent Rs 650 crore in 2017 on procurement of sub-standard meat up cultivation of cash crops like rubber, tea and coffee for economic progress as Nagaland had huge potential to boost its economy and generate employment for young people through these. Highlighting the potential of rubber plantation in Nagaland, Kikheto said out of 70 lakh standing trees, 16 lakh trees had already been harvested, yielding nearly Rs. 103 crore in rural areas in 2016-17. On tea plantation, he said it would not be feasible to set up tea factories in Nagaland as neighbouring Assam was the biggest tea growing State. He however opined that tea growers could send tea leaves in bulk to factories in Assam for processing in order to generate more income. Sema said Nagaland’s coffee was considered one of the best in the world at present and added that, since production was low in African countries due to climatic changes, the State government had tied up with South African government for trading coffee for the next 30 years. Keeping in mind the huge potential,
he said the Land Resources department had proposed to bring 50,000 hectares of land under coffee plantation, with 2,000 hectares in 2017-18. Kikheto said this would provide employment opportunities to 4,000 persons per year at the rate of two persons per hectare. He pointed out that as coffee was harvested every four years, this would continue for 40 to 50 years and that taking up its plantation would thus ensure economic development for four to five decades. Referring to the 12th Nagaland Legislative Assembly (NLA), Kikheto said legislators had been in conflict from the beginning and that time had come for people to rethink and decide their future. On illegal immigrant issue, Kikheto suggested that, instead of making a hue and cry, Nagas should take up entrepreneurship and throw the illegal immigrants out of business stating that it was due to a general abhorrence towards hard labour in Naga society that made room for them to come in and become a menace.
Dist demand: RSZ, RSU warn of resuming bandh
SRSU slams dist administration
Correspondent
KOHIMA, JAN 5 (NPN): Nagaland spent around Rs 650 crore during 2017 for import of live meat from outside the state but which were mostly of sub-standard quality which indicated that there is a huge market for meat and allied products in the state. The huge import bill on meat which had been stated in the past was echoed by Secretary, Finance and Land Resources departments, Y. Kikheto Sema who was speaking as guest of honour at the valedictory session of the silver jubilee celebration of the Niuland Area Students’ Union hosted by Kuhoxu Kiphimi Küqhakulu Friday. While propounding livestock and poultry business, Kikheto urged the educated unemployed youths to take up piggery, poultry, dairy and goat farming in hygienic ways to ensure quality meat was provided to the people and enable circulation of money within the local community. He also encouraged students to explore taking
DIMAPUR, JAN 5 (NPN): Rengma Selo Zi (RSZ) and the Rengma Students’ Union (RSU) said that they would lift the temporary suspension of the bandh at any time and resort to further courses of action should the government show unsatisfactory action or complete inaction. A joint statement from RSZ president, Kenneth Kath and RSU president, R.N. David Magh said that while the two unions continue to be firmly committed to their resolution for an indefinite bandh until their demand is met, they harkened to the call of the Rengma Hoho (RH) for a temporary suspension on humanitarian grounds. This resulted in them putting into the effect the RH’s decision and the bandh was temporarily
Parliamentary panel raps airlines for ‘rude’ conduct NEW DELHI, JAN 5 (AGENCIES): Expressing concern over the ‘rude’ behaviour of domestic airlines’ employees towards passengers, a parliamentary panel said in a report that air carriers should train their staff in soft skills in order to improve ‘consumer satisfaction’. The Parliamentar y Standing Committee on transport, tourism and culture, in its draft report titled ‘Issues Related to Improving Consumers’ Satisfaction of Airlines’, particularly singled out Indigo airlines for its employees’ ‘misbehaviour’. The airline has been shrouded in a controversy after its staff manhandled a passenger last year. “While narrating some of the incidents of misbehaviour in airlines, especially in Indigo, majority of the members opined that the attitude of the airlines’ staff is very condescending, often uncooperative and on many
occasions, downright rude,” the report said. The panel has asked the government to frame a standardised training programme “suitable to Indian conditions, emphasising courteous behaviour to the passengers”. The panel’s draft report said the “problems affecting airlines are not personal but institutional”. It recommended that employees of airlines should be trained to effectively manage crises such as delays and diversion. The panel has asked the gov-
ernment to make arrangements so that passengers don’t need to spend more than 10 minutes at check-in counters. Aviation experts, however, pointed out that the responsibility to reduce long queues is also that of airport operators. They will have to provide more space to airlines to increase the number of counters and hence reduce delays while checking in, they added. Airfares: The parliamentary panel has recommended fixing an upper
limit on airline fares, saying the pricing mechanism used in western countries cannot be applied to India. The cap, it said, should be fixed by the Civil Aviation Ministry depending on the sector. The panel also accused carriers of not passing on the reduction in aviation turbine fuel (ATF) to customers. Other recommendations of the panel included restraining airlines from charging more than 50% of the base fare on cancellation. The passenger should be refunded the tax and fuel surcharge as well, the panel said, terming the current system as “arbritrary”. Better quality food: The panel also raised complaints of non-availability of food and water onboard low-cost airlines and asked airlines that fall in this category to make food available “on demand”. The committee suggested that Airlines should offer better quality
food as well as change menus periodically. It also flayed Indigo for not providing food to diabetic passengers. In a strongly worded 26-page report, the panel said: “In Indigo, the food has to be pre-booked and on board, if someone demands food, they refuse to provide the food even to those who are diabetic and suffering from other medical conditions. A passenger has to report to the counter 2 hours before the departure time and one has to spend a few more hours in the flight without food and water and it is a horrible thing to face.” “It is unacceptable for airlines to serve unsatisfactory food after having charged customers for it. Every airline should maintain the highest quality of food and they should also change the menu occasionally instead of keeping a cold sandwich in their menu throughout the year.
called off on January 5, 8 a.m. they said. The two organizations said they dispersed the volunteers after a brief gathering at the RH office complex, which resulted in displeasure and disappointment among the hundreds of protesting volunteers. They reiterated their resolution to not stop agitating until their demand for Tseminyu district was met. They also extended heartfelt appreciation for the various tribal hohos, students’ organizations and civil societies for their support and solidarity for the cause of the Rengmas. RSZ and RSU also expressed their gratitude to the Naga public for the cooperation and support rendered towards their demand for upgradation of Tseminyu sub-division to a district.
Union Budget 2018 on Feb 1 NEW DELHI, JAN 5 (AGENCIES): Union Budget 2018 will be presented on February 1, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Ananth Kumar said on Friday. He said budget session of the parliament will be conducted from January 29 to April 6, 2018. Phase 1 of the session will be held from January 29 to February 9 and phase 2 will be from March 5 to April 6, Kumar said. Budget 2018 will be presented by the finance minister Arun Jaitley for the fiscal year 2018-19. President Ramnath Kovind will address the joint sitting of the two Houses on January 29 and the Economic Survey will be tabled on the same day. This year’s budget holds special significance as this will be the first budget in the post- GST era. Also, this will be Jaitley’s last full budget ahead of the general election in 2019.
(Cont’d on p-7)
DIMAPUR, JAN 5 (NPN): Singti Ruhsah Students Union (SRSU) has criticized the Kiphire district administration for its failure to prevent the January 3 incident at Sitimi village. In a press note, SRSU president, Atingse said the incident was a direct result of the complete failure on the part of the district administration. SRSU claimed that the administration was made aware of the prevailing situation but no elaborate security measures were taken to safeguard life or property. SRSU also questioned the administration as to why it failed to initiate action against certain persons for inciting tension through social media. Had the administration been sensitive and conducted inquiries, the situation would not have spiralled out of control, it said. However, SRSU alleged that the total breakdown of law and order was facilitated by the “inability and inefficiency” of the district administration. In this regard, SRSU has called for immediate replacement of the deputy commissioner from a sensitive place like Kiphire. The union asked the government to immediately rehabilitate the affected families and provide adequate security in Sitimi village.
CEO notifies
DIMAPUR, JAN 5 (NPN): For the conduct of the upcoming general election to Nagaland Legislative Assembly (NLA), 2018, the chief electoral officer (CEO) Nagaland has notified all deputy commissioners (DCs) and district election officers (DEOs) of Nagaland to act on behalf of the state government for requisitioning of vehicles, premises etc. In a notification, CEO Nagaland stated that any vehicle, premises etc. belonging to private persons or institution/organization would be entitled for compensation under Section 161 of the R.P. Act of 1951. K Y M C