Indians lost Rs. 5.8 lakh crore due to inflation in last 3 years

Sujay Mehdudia

  

The Hindu Food items saw a sharper price hike, compared to non-food items during the three-year period. File Photo: Ashoke Chakrabarty

Even as inflation seems to be going out of control despite tough measures taken by the Government, global research company Crisil on Tuesday revealed that skyrocketing prices caused Indian households to incur additional expenses to the tune of a whopping Rs. 5.8 lakh crore during the last three years.

In a study titled “Inflation Hurts”, Crisil stated that rise in inflation to 8 per cent per during 2008-09 to 2010-11, from 5 per cent in the preceding three years eroded the purchasing power of money and inflated the consumption expenditure bill of Indian households by Rs 5.8 lakh crore.

Crisil said inflation was not uniform and food items saw a sharper price hike, compared to non-food items during the three-year period. “Food inflation was at 11.6 per cent during 2008-09 to 2010-11 as compared to non-food inflation of 5.7 per cent,’’ the study stated.

Headline inflation, which includes both food and non-food primary articles, besides manufactured items, has been above the 8 per cent mark since January 2010. It was 9.06 per cent for May this year.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has hiked its key-policy rates ten times since March 2010 to curb demand and tame inflation. In its annual monetary policy for 2011-12, RBI said that inflationary pressure is likely to continue during the first half of the current fiscal on account of high global commodity prices, particularly crude. The apex bank had exuded confidence that the pressure from high food prices would moderate in the days to come.

However, after a brief period of moderation, food inflation started surging again and stood at 9.13 per cent for the week ended June 11. “The surge in inflation was initially driven by supply shocks such as a rise in food and fuel prices, which then spread to manufacturing goods as well,’’ Crisil said.

Headline inflation for the whole of 2010-11 averaged 9.6 per cent as compared to a mere 3.8 per cent during the previous fiscal.

The study said that growth of private consumption expenditure in nominal terms increased to nearly 17 per cent per year during 2008-09 to 2010-11, as against 14 per cent in the preceding three years mainly due to rise in food inflation.

The price trends of commodities in the Wholesale Price Index favour the middle and higher income classes, rather than poor and vulnerable Indian households who spend large part of their income on food. Crisil said that food inflation is likely to remain high in the near future due to structural and supply side issues. “Higher food prices should be an incentive to enhance production of food items, but this has not happened so far. In addition to price signals, productivity improvement in food/agriculture categories would require better technology and improved investments in irrigation. In the absence of these measures, high food inflation is here to stay,’’ it said.

The study said that inflation in certain food items, especially eggs, meat, fish and milk, has surged to double-digit over the last two years after increasing moderately in the preceding period. “Rise in prices of these items has a greater impact on consumers, as they are purchased frequently and also account for a large share of a household's daily expenditure. Purchases of manufactured goods, especially durables, are not as frequent. Therefore, a decline in prices of these goods often goes unnoticed,” the study added.

source:The Hindu

Taliban's return and India's concerns

M. K. Bhadrakumar

  

 

 

While there is no evidence that Barack Obama consulted New Delhi about the impending shift in U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, India must now begin a 'dialogue' with the Taliban along with a policy to instil confidence in the Pakistani mind about our intentions.

While there is no evidence that Barack Obama consulted New Delhi about the impending shift in U.S. strategy in Afghanistan, India must now begin a ‘dialogue' with the Taliban along with a policy to instil confidence in the Pakistani mind about our intentions.

The United States President, Barack Obama's announcement regarding the drawdown of troops in Afghanistan was not India-specific, as compared to Washington's initiative in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to bar the transfer of enrichment and reprocessing equipment and technology to New Delhi. But it is more lethal, casting a shadow on India's regional strategies.

Why Mr. Obama took such a decision doesn't actually need much explaining. Put simply, his sharp political instincts prevailed. He had a pledge to redeem; he sensed the public mood; he heard “bipartisan” opinion in Capitol Hill that the soldiers be brought home; he faces an adverse budgetary environment and he understood that his priority should be to mend the U.S. economy rather than wage wars in foreign lands. The “surge” may have made gains, arguably, but gains are reversible; so, what is the point? Meanwhile, Afghan opinion is turning against foreign occupation and the killing of Osama bin Laden offers a defining moment.

On the diplomatic front, regional allies proved exasperatingly difficult, while European allies got impatient to quit. The regional opinion militates against a long-term U.S. military presence, while the contradictions in intra-regional relationships do not lend easily to reconciliation. The foreign policy priorities need vastly more attention: exports and investment, upheaval in West Asia, China's rise, etc.

There is no evidence that Mr. Obama consulted New Delhi about the impending shift in the U.S. strategy in India's immediate neighbourhood. We need to calmly ponder over what the U.S. means when Mr. Obama calls India its “indispensable partner in the 21st century.” In the period ahead, keeping the dialogue process with Pakistan on course; pursuing normalisation of ties with China; consolidating the gains of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's path-breaking visit to Kabul — all these templates of our regional policy assume great importance. Indeed, the raison d'être of a “new thinking” in policymaking cannot but be stressed.

The implications of Mr. Obama's drawdown decision are far-reaching. The U.S. has accepted the Taliban as being a part of the Afghan nation and concluded that it does not threaten America's “homeland security.” No segment of the Taliban movement that is willing for reconciliation will be excluded. Mr. Obama expressed optimism about the peace process. He estimated that al-Qaeda is a spent force and any residual “war on terror” will be by way of exercising vigilance that it doesn't rear its head again. The timeline for the drawdown — 10,000 troops by end-2011, 33,000 by mid-2012 and the bulk of the remaining 70,000 troops at a “steady pace” through 2013-14 — plus the change of command necessitated by David Petraeus's departure in September as the new head of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) hardly leaves scope for keeping a high tempo of security operations. Obviously, the Taliban has borne the brunt of the U.S. firepower and has survived.

The stunning geopolitical reality is that the U.S. is barely staving off defeat and is making its way out of the Hindu Kush in an orderly retreat. The Taliban responded to Mr. Obama's announcement saying, “The solution for the Afghan crisis lies in the full withdrawal of all foreign troops immediately. Until this happens, our armed struggle will increase from day to day.” Again, Mr. Obama appears to be optimistic about the Kabul government's ability to assume the responsibility of security by 2014.

Mr. Obama completely avoided mentioning an almost-forgotten pledge that the former U.S. President George W. Bush made in the halcyon days of the war, that the U.S. would someday consider a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan. He, instead, pleaded that this is “a time of rising debt and hard economic times at home” and he needs to concentrate on rebuilding America. The Afghans fear that western aid and projects would dry up. If that happens, Afghanistan will revert to the late 1990s when the Taliban regime first accepted the financial help offered by bin Laden. All hope now hinges on the international conference that Mr. Obama will be hosting in May next year in Chicago.

However, there is no need to press the panic button. A repetition of the civil war scenario of the 1990s appears a remote possibility. The Taliban's ascendancy in the 1990s was more an outright Pakistani conquest of Afghanistan in which the Pakistani air force, artillery, armoured corps, regular officers and intelligence agencies directly participated. The Taliban was a cohesive movement. Besides, there were regional powers determined to provide assistance to the non-Pashtun groups. In all these respects, the situation is radically different today. Pakistan hadn't yet known at that time the blowback of terrorism. The very fact that Pakistan learnt about the secret talks between the Taliban and U.S. representatives from news reports speaks volumes of its command and control of the Quetta Shura.

Pakistan cannot be so naïve as not to factor in the fact that a revitalised, triumphalist Taliban just across the Durand Line (which, by the way, has all but disappeared) could ultimately prove a headache for its own security. Pakistani commentators candidly admit that the Afghans deeply resent Pakistan's interference. There has been an overall political awakening among the Afghan people and a replay of the old Pakistani policies will be challenged. The gravitas of Afghan domestic politics has shifted. Thus, all things taken into consideration, Pakistan will see the wisdom of allowing a kind of intra-Afghan “equilibrium” to develop rather than try to prescribe what is good for that country.

Mr. Karzai has proved to be a remarkably shrewd politician gifted with a high acumen to network and forge alliances. He has emerged as a pan-Afghan leader who maintains working relationships with influential figures cutting across ethnicity and regions — Mohammed Fahim, Karim Khalili, Burhanuddin Rabbani, Rasul Sayyaf, etc. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-i-Islami, which is a Pashtun-dominated group antithetical to the Taliban, already forms a part of Mr. Karzai's government. Mr. Karzai has his own bridges leading toward the Taliban camp to which he once belonged, after all. There will always be disgruntled elements, but then there are the traditional Afghan methods of patronage and accommodation. Mr. Karzai takes an active interest in regional affairs. His bonding with Pakistan and Iran shows that his political antennae are already probing for openings in anticipation of the U.S. withdrawal.

In this complex setting, India's own policy orientations are realistic and near-optimal. The primacy on building warm and cordial ties with the government in Kabul; nurturing people-to-people ties; contributing significantly to reconstruction; non-interference in internal affairs; an aversion to Indian military deployment; a non-prescriptive approach to an Afghan settlement and the insistence on an “Afghan-led” reconciliation process; and, most important, the trust that Mr. Karzai knows the “red lines” — these parameters of policy are eminently sustainable.

However, a couple of points need to be made. India should establish communication lines with the Taliban — assuming, of course, it wants to talk with us. After all, we talked with Mr. Sayyaf, leader of the Ittehad, which Jalaluddin Haqqani served as commander. It is inconceivable that any Afghan could harbour ill will towards India and the Indian people. The rest is all the disposable stuff of how the Afghan has been manipulated by outsiders through the 30 years of civil war — including when he vandalised the Bamiyan statues. But in the kind of Afghanistan Mr. Karzai wants his country to return, it becomes possible for us also to rediscover the Afghan we knew before foreigners came and occupied his country. (Incidentally, this is also the basis of Mr. Karzai's optimism when he reacted on hearing about Mr. Obama's drawdown plan: “This soil can only be protected by the sons of Afghanistan. I congratulate the Afghan people for taking the responsibility for their country into their own hands … Today is a very happy day.”)

And, our “dialogue” with the Taliban must go hand in hand with a policy to do all we can by word and deed to instil confidence in the Pakistani mind about our intentions that for the foreseeable future, Afghanistan's stabilisation can become a shared concern for the two countries. Much has changed already in the most recent months in the prevailing air. No one talks seriously that the drawback of Mr. Obama's drawdown plan could be India-Pakistan “rivalry” in Afghanistan. There is actually no scope for zero-sum games, since Pakistan's interests in Afghanistan are legitimate — and are reconcilable with India's concerns.

Second, Indian diplomacy should utilise the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) process to evolve a new strategic culture of collective security for the region, which it lacks. Mr. Obama's words should be properly understood, when he said that the U.S. can no more “over-extend … confronting every evil that can be found abroad.” As India and Pakistan move to a new trajectory of growth, a favourable regional environment becomes the imperative need. India can learn a lot from the Chinese “technique” of creating synergy between the SCO track and Beijing's bilateral track with the Central Asian capitals — and with Moscow — which till a generation ago were weaned on unalloyed anti-China dogmas of the Soviet era. Indian diplomacy can do one better. It can adapt this “technique” to normalisation with Pakistan — and with China.

(The writer is a former diplomat.)

source:The Hindu

Prof. Lama attended 4th Global Studies Consortium at Sanghai, China

 

Gangtok, June 21: With a call to make the global studies programme widely prevalent and also inter-disciplinary, The Fourth Global Studies Consortium consisting of large number of reputed universities spread over various continents ended in Shanghai, China on Monday. The Consortium seeks to facilitate collaboration in teaching, research and student and faculty exchange. Sikkim University (SU) has been one of the steering committee members of this prestigious consortium right since its inception. This Consortium has representations from the universities in Asia, Europe, Pacific region, Africa and the USA.
The consortium meeting was preceded by two days lively discussion on “Emerging Societies and Global Reordering” organized by China Forum of Global Studies at Shanghai University wherein SU Vice Chancellor, Mahendra P Lama presented a paper on “New Regionalism and Economic Integration in South Asia : Repositioning China and India”. The presentation roused a good degree of discussion and also spoke elaborately about how School of Global Studies in Sikkim University is first of its kind in India to promote global studies.
The Global Studies Consortium meet further decided to strengthen the exchange of students on various global studies programmes both on a credit transfer and dual degree basis. Arizona and Pennsylvania University offered the same on an immediate basis while SU and University in Denmark would take time to undertake such ventures.
Encyclopedia of Global Studies and Royal Management Institute of Technology, Melbourne, Australia will host the 5th global Studies Consortium meeting in 2013.
Courtesy: Haalkhabar.in

India gets its second live casino in Sikkim

Casino enthusiasts in India now have another reason to cheer, as a full fledged on-land five star casino has come up in Sikkim to give the thrill of live gaming like that of Singapore, Hong Kong, Macau or nearby Kathmandu.


Casino Mahjong, the second only land based live casino in India as well as Sikkim became operational at Hotel Mayfair at Ranipool near Gangtok on Friday (June 24). Mayfair group, the state government licensee has authorised Trio Ventures owned by local entrepreneurs to run the facility.

Giving players an almost entire gamut of live gaming unlike electronic gaming stations in other parts of India, the manually operated Casino has roulettes, black jack, baccarat, kitty, mini flush and poker. Sixty attendants and six pit bosses look after the gambling station.

The Casino presently has eight slot machines, four roulettes and ten card tables spread over five thousand square feet with ten more slot machines to be added by August. Live musical performance and a bar add up to the gambling excitement.

Tourism stakeholders in the state are betting big on the casino as it would be able to attract more visitors to the state. As more good hotels and night life zone develop it is seen as tourism boom for Sikkim to offer more for high-end tourists who want to see the mountains and also entertain themselves in a casino.

Travel Agents Association of Sikkim (TAAS) president Lukendra Rasaily says that the casino would add to position Sikkim as a high-end tourism destination brining home good business for hoteliers and travel services. The opening of the gambling stations is expected to create year round tourism season for the hill state is set to be the most sought after gambling destination once the airport at Pakyong in East Sikkim becomes operational.

China, India and Brahmaputra



source:iSikkim

Adapted from Jesper Svensson’s article Diverting Brahmaputra: A Rational Choice?

Yangtze – Asia’s biggest river – is experiencing its worst drought in 50 years and there are genuine fears that the western lifeline of the South-North Water Transfer Project will not be able to transport enough water for feeding the thirsty Northern China Plain.

Chinese scientists have been proposing going beyond diverting the tributaries of the Yangtze and also diverting Yarlung-Tsangpo/Brahmaputra, along a course that follows the Tibet-Qinghai railway line to Golmud, through the Gansu corridor and, finally, to Xinjiang in north-west China.

Diverting Brahmaputra from its upstream is, however, an old Chinese plan dating back to red nationalist Li Ling, author of Tibet´s Water Will Save China.

From the Indian point of view, it is important to recognize a fundamental element in these proposals that will likely extend for the foreseeable future. At the core of these proposals is the advantage of diverting waters upstream, because it has an altitude of 3,600 metres above sea level, thereby reducing the need for pumping uphill. D

Pure economics

China’s water policy is driven by pure rationalism and not geopolitics. Its logic is that if national interest demands major water diversion projects on the Yarlung-Tsangpo/Brahmaputra river, China will undertake such a project if the price of transferred water is cheaper than conservation or getting water from the sea. The plan, however, so far has failed to secure the backing of the Ministry of Water Resources and many dismiss the proposal as unfeasible.

Moreover, the diversion of the Brahmaputra is in competition with another diversion: to drop a pipe into the Bohai sea in China´s east, draw more than 340,000 cubic metres of seawater a day into a complex of coastal desalination plants, and then pump this water 1,400 meters uphill for more than 600 km to Xilinhot, where it will be used for coal mining while conserving the region’s scarce water resources.

If the former proposal were to be selected, the Chinese government will deliberately package the diversion scheme in a scientific light in order to create a “story-line” that justifies exploitation of transboundary rivers. This behaviour can be seen in a newly published article on information extraction of Himalayan rivers, where Chinese scholars argue that surface runoff, population, cultivated area and GDP within the territory of China occupy a very small proportion in three river systems.

According to “Information Extraction and Analysis of the Himalayan International Rivers” by the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the natural surface runoff of the Indus river, the Ganges river and the Yarlung Tsangpo/Brahmaputra river are 207km3/y, 550km3/y and 828km3/y respectively, and of which only 10km3/y, 14km3/y and 121km3/y are produced in China, accounting for 4.83 per cent, 2.55 per cent and 14.61 per cent separately. For the Ganges Delta drainage system, which includes the Ganges river, Brahmaputra river and Meghna river, water from China makes up only 8.8 per cent of the total natural runoff.

Whether this data is manipulated or not is difficult to prove, but it demonstrates a bitter truth to India: China may argue that activities upstream have no impact on India or Bangladesh because water quantity from the Brahmaputra river within China makes up only a very small part of the total water of the Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna system.

More importantly, it will be difficult for India to make an effort to persuade to the contrary given the scientific adv

NCPCR seeks report on genitoplasty in Indore

Special Correspondent Source:The Hindu

  

The Hindu Taking cognisance of a newspaper report about several hospitals and clinics in Indore performing surgeries on baby girls to change their sex, the NCPCR has asked the Madhya Pradesh Govt to undertake an investigation with a team of doctors, known for high professional competence and ethical standards. File Photo

 

Takes cognisance of a newspaper report that hundreds of such operations are performed every year

Taking cognisance of a newspaper report about several hospitals and clinics in Indore performing surgeries on baby girls to change their sex, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has asked the State government to undertake an investigation with a team of doctors, known for high professional competence and ethical standards.

The Commission has sought a detailed report within 15 days, giving facts, figures and circumstances of the cases, list of doctors/hospitals practising genitoplasty and action taken or contemplated against them.

It also wants to know the measures taken by the Madhya Pradesh government at the State/district and local level in terms of publicity/awareness campaign against the adverse effects of sex change operations as well as female foeticide and infanticide.

It has asked the government why measures to create awareness against preference for a male child have been ineffective.

‘Curb unethical practice’

The State government has also been asked to take all necessary action to combat the unethical practice, including cancellation of the licence and registration of doctors and hospitals involved and initiating penal action against them under IPC and other applicable laws/guidelines.

According to the newspaper report, every year hospitals in Indore perform hundreds of such operations on baby girls. Genitoplasty is performed on children who are just 5 years old.

The procedure costs about Rs. 1.5 lakh.

source:livemint

SIKKIM Chief Minister Leads the Way

KC PRADHAN on the CM’s Sikkim Bhraman, how it has drawn remote areas into the development and empowerment process and how the people at large at the civil society should respond to the CM’s call to cleanse Sikkim of corruption and denial…

I am closely following the Chief Minister’s 40-day village-to-village grassroot level public interaction tour through all corners of Sikkim both, on the local TV channel and the dailies, with considerable interest and delight. Meeting people from far corners of the State like Dhupidara, Labdang, Karchi, which I consider the most neglected, and making the Heads of Departments see the ground reality has gladdened my heart. I had occasion to see their plight and have often hoped that development start from such far away corners. It has been a good 50 years since I saw them literally in rags and to see them in pictures now, well dressed, empowered and articulate enough to demand their rights, I say to myself, “Yes, Sikkim has really changed and changed for the better. All other sentiments set aside.”

The highlight, as stated in the local paper Sikkim NOW! 20 June: “The CM has also been issuing strong statements against the bane of the development process- the trend of pocketing commission/percentage in the name of the party and the government”; and in Sikkim Express 21 June: “Stating that the party has taken up an initiative to abolish the percentage system, Chamling reiterated his statement that no one should entertain percentage and bribes in the name of the SDF party”, has genuinely struck a chord with me.
This is the bane of present-day Sikkim’s developmental activities, rather governance, and I’ve often wondered why despite so many wonderful programmes and constructive vision for a better Sikkim as initiated by the Chief Minister, whether this menace called “Percentage for Party Fund” will augur well in his visionary march for Sikkim - with all-round prosperity, tranquility, peace and happiness. It is an admitted fact that the gulf between the haves and have-nots is widening at a pace which will certainly bring chaos and social unrest to Sikkim in the not too distant future.
Sikkim has no poverty as such, and temperamentally, the Sikkimese are a happier lot. But the scale of swindling by certain sections of society has left a larger section of the populace here gape at their wealth in awe. But they remain dumb out of sheer fear. To say Sikkim is doing better than the rest of the seven sister States of the North-East has no room for complacency as Sikkim was already way ahead of these States. As the Chief Minster rightly propounded, Sikkim should strive to be the best, best not in mere economic jargons based on GDP and GNP which will soon be out of fashion, as we see social unrest around the world, but a State with people as genuine human beings with all the required virtues. Soon, there will be a new economic order - an order in which people will find inner happiness, peace, a sense of security away from the madness of this economic-globalization.
It is also important to understand why people tend to become corrupt - especially in the developing countries: The first is a sense of insecurity. Insecurity in terms of housing, good education for their children, better health care and a decent standard of living. Once these basic necessities become dismal, people realize the need to amass wealth that will take care of these needs. In the process, things go overboard, a chain-reaction follows and the gap widens to untold ramifications. As narrated in my memoir, a junior officer quietly slipped a piece of paper under my glass table-top some twenty years back. This was a short verse:

To fight or not to fight- that is the question:
Whether ‘twas nobler to remain honest
In the milieu of others with dishonest wealth,
Or to have suffered the pains of poverty, with an air of dignity.
To take up arms against the corrupt- to fight-to win, Or join
Them to a glass of wine and laugh at the honest fools.

The verse is short, the man is no more, but he has said and said it so eloquently, the fall back of which is increasingly been seen all around the world.
Sikkim is ideally suited to establish the best of educational institutions from primary to higher education. This is as true for the field of health and medical services due to its sublime climate. Housing comes with better infrastructural facilities, well planned and well dispersed in the State. The State is also well financed by the scores of banking services that have mushroomed in the state for reasons best known to themselves. But there should be a good mix of both public and private enterprises and confining all within the Government domain is wishful thinking.
When we talk of housing we must take a re-look at the antiquated land tenure system which has outlived its utility. This was in fact one of the main demands of the people in their uprising of the early 1970s. Sikkim must change with the changing times.
Our own country is passing through a different and difficult time in history. Corruption has come to the forefront as never before. Whether it be Baba Ramdev’s tamasha or Anna Hazare’s stubborness, people have realized enough is enough and there is no going back. Lokpal Bill will be drafted and redrafted. Parliament will go into slumber and cacophony with the Opposition not allowing it to function. But this is neither the remedy nor good for sensible citizens and the country at large. The remedy is to start functioning- right now, today. Tomorrow will be too late.
As I have stated many times over in the local papers and monthly magazine Talk Sikkim, “Politicians who come to office for five-year terms can afford to be corrupt to fend for rainy days, but certainly not the bureaucrats and the government machinery which have been paid for handsomely much to the discomfort of a resource starved State like Sikkim”.
But here I stop.
Since no one should be corrupt, the elected representatives should be handsomely paid with sizeable sumptuary allowance at their disposal. If the top is honest and he means it, the others lower in the ladder have no alternative but to mend their ways. For the Government employees, who are the most highly paid in the country with equally handsome pensions to lead dignified lives for the rest of their lives, to still go on merrily swindling public money, as if it is their right to do so, is not acceptable any more.
From that standpoint, I for one, highly applaud the Chief Minister’s bluntness, I know it is to the discomfort of many, but he has already put the essence of the much hyped Lokpal Bill or Act into action. It is now for the people of Sikkim at large to see and see without any fear that percentage, bribes, commissions are not the done thing and stamp it out wherever it occurs. The ball is in our court.
But, in a democratic setup like India’s, where votes can still be purchased in an environment of illiteracy, I can say for sure that this will not be the case in Sikkim anymore. People have come of age. It is development that matters. Thanks to Pawan Chamling for his boldness to give people the freedom to speak. But if people, high and mighty do not speak out of fear or sheer inferiority complex or just because they are dishonest, that is a quite different matter. He has blazed a path that is irreversible. The intelligentsia and the civil society at large cannot and should not be armchair critics anymore. It is time to think, study, deliberate, discuss and churn out what is good and put it squarely in the Chief Minister’s domain and support him where support is required and give constructive alternatives wherever it is found wanting. We have our hope in our younger generations. May more Aparjita Rais and her kind blossom in this sacred land and find place of pride where ever they go and in whatever fields they ventured into. Sikkim and Sikkimese, though minuscule both in size and number, have a special entity within the Union of the country. As long as adjustability and resilience flow in our blood, there is nothing that should dither us in our march ahead, as amply exemplified by our young boys and girls excelling in many fields around the world
So let us resolve to become better watch dogs and say loud and clear Corruption at all levels in Sikkim is NO, NO. Our meekness should no longer be taken as weakness. The fly-by-night operators must be hounded. It is time to do away with personal and inner differences and unite to make a better Sikkim as envisioned by the present Chief Minster.

Source:SIKKIM NOW