3 Day Long Sikkim Winter Carnival 2013 Kick Started

source: Voice of Sikkim

Sikkim Winter Carnival 2013 : Governor and the CHief Minister inaugurating the 3 day long event at MG Marg

22 Dec, Gangtok (IPR) : The three days long Sikkim Winter Carnival 2013 kick started today at White Memorial Hall with the inauguration of Buddhist Art & Craft of Butter Sculpture and Sand Mandala presented by Tourism and Civil Aviation Department, and Photo Exhibition presented by Information and Public Relations Department.

Hon’ble Governor of Sikkim Shri Shriniwas Patil inaugurated the Carnival in the presence of the Chief Minister of Sikkim Shri Pawan Chamling. The Carnival has been organized by the Tourism and Civil Aviation Department, Government of Sikkim in order to promote tourism of the state.

The inauguration ceremony also included the inauguration of the exhibition at the premises of Directorate of Handlooms and Handicrafts, Zero Point followed by visit of the exhibition, sales emporium and live demonstration by the Governor, Chief Minister and host of other dignitaries.

At MG Marg, Gangtok the Hon’ble Governor of Sikkim declared open the Sikkim Winter Carnival 2013. Earlier, the dignitaries also visited the different stalls at Titanic Park.

Governor, Smt Patil, HCM and Speaker Shri KT Gyaltsen in Sikkim Winter Carnival 2013 stall

While presenting the welcome address, Mr Chewang Zangpo Bhutia, Sectretary, Tourism and Civil Aviation Department informed that the three days carnival will showcase ethnic culture coupled with peace and tranquility of the state. He also sought every one support to make Sikkim a must visit destination. He also informed that the three days event will also be broadcasted live through internet by the I.T. Department.

The dignitaries also witnessed the rich folk depicting culture, traditions and customs of the various communities of Sikkim.

Thereafter, the Governor and Chief Minister visited the photo exhibition by Imago Creative Studio, titled ‘Glimpses of Sikkim’ in front of Star Hall, and then proceeded to Kanchenjunga Shopping Complex where traditional food and artifacts stalls were laid out by various communities and associations of Sikkim.

Per capita power consumption

Most profitable fund house in FY13

Data source: Business Standard

Sharp fall in 2 and 4 wheeler sales over past 6 months

Data source: Siam

Sikkim reports highest number percent of diabetes

Sikkim reports highest number percent of diabetes, hypertension as per NPCDCS screening

Joseph Alexander, New Delhi Saturday, October 12, 2013, 08:00 Hrs  [IST]

Belying the common notion that South Indian States reported maximum number of diabetes cases, Sikkim emerged as the State to have maximum percentage of suspected diabetic patients, if the ongoing screening for diabetes and hypertension by the Union government is any indication. According to the figures based on the screening so far done under the National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases and Stroke (NPCDCS), screening for diabetes & hypertension among the population above 30 years of age has been initiated in 100 districts of 21 States. 3,81,12,537 persons have been screened for diabetes and 20,14,385 persons have been screened for hypertension till the end of August. The screening found that 6.32 per cent of the population having suspected of diabetes and 5.91 per cent as suspected of hypertension. Standing high above the national average, 13.67 per cent people among those screened had diabetes while 18.16 per cent of them have hypertension. Out of total 127,393 people screened, 17414 persons have suspected cases of diabetes while 32,225 have hypertension. Karnataka (9.36 per cent), Punjab (9.36 per cent), Gujarat (9.10 per cent) and Andhra Pradesh (7.42 per cent) reported high incidence after Sikkim in the case of diabetes. Madhya Pradesh with just 2.57 per cent reported the least number of cases. In the case of hypertension, Assam came second with 10.42 per cent of prevalence, after Sikkim. According to report published by International Diabetes Federation (IDF; 5th Edition, 2011), number of people with diabetes (20-79 years) in Urban setting of India are about 27 millions in 2011 which is projected to reach about 56 millions in 2030. The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has completed the phase I of Task Force project entitled, “ICMR-India Diabetes (INDIAB) Study-Phase-I,” with the aim to determine the national prevalence of type 2 diabetes mellitus and pre-diabetes in India, by estimating the state-wise prevalence of the same and  compare the prevalence of type-2 diabetes and pre-diabetes in urban and rural areas across India. In the first phase of the study, the rural and urban settings in four states and one union territory viz., Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand, Maharashtra and Chandigarh have been included. The adjusted prevalence of diabetes (both known and newly diagnosed) in Tamil Nadu was 10.4 per cent, Jharkhand - 5.3 per cent, Chandigarh - 13.6 per cent and Maharashtra - 8.4 per cent. The prevalence of pre-diabetes was 8.3 per cent, 8.1 per cent, 14.6 per cent and 12.8 per cent respectively. Data reported during the course of screening of school children under NPCDCS indicates that out of 92,047 school children screened in the towns of Nainital, Ratlam and Bhilwara, 1,351(1.467 per cent) were suspected to be diabetic. States No. of persons screened Suspected for Diabetes % of Diabetes suspected Suspected % of Hypertension Hypertension Suspected Andhra Pradesh 6,919,210 513,301 7.42 527,738 7.63 Assam 1,268,479 62,465 4.92 133,080 10.49 Bihar 2,249,272 131,244 5.83 63,605 2.83 Chhattisgarh 970,028 57,444 5.92 41,527 4.28 Gujarat 2,633,861 239,634 9.1 176,588 6.7 Haryana 1,290,313 61,920 4.8 80,514 6.24 Himachal Pradesh 169,195 9,779 5.78 8,416 4.97 Jammu & Kashmir 559,208 31,389 5.61 45,922 8.21 Jharkhand 1,166,716 63,451 5.44 67,444 5.78 Karnataka 2,692,871 251,943 9.36 96,207 3.57 Kerala 3,300,811 157,984 4.79 107,138 7.23 Madhya Pradesh 1,651,784 42,478 2.57 47,437 2.87 Maharashtra 3,033,450 170,982 5.64 223,087 7.35 Sikkim 127,393 17,414 13.67 32,255 18.16 Orissa 2,362,801 138,791 5.87 71,517 3.03 Punjab 880,192 82,396 9.36 81,490 9.26 Rajasthan 1,209,737 60,416 4.99 61,640 5.1 Uttarakhand 241,706 13,960 5.78 7,659 3.17 Tamil Nadu 2,664,499 152,576 5.73 39,791 8.14 Uttar Pradesh 1,269,989 54,854 4.32 54,659 4.3 West Bengal 1,451,022 95,043 6.55 46,671 3.22 Grand Total 38,112,537 2,409,464 6.32 2,014,385 5.91

PORT of call for HAPPINESS....

Each of us wants some peace and happiness in life. Still, happiness often evades us. “Is there a simple, straightforward road-map to get happiness and peace in life,”  ‘Reducing PORT is one of the ways’. PORT stands for Possessions, Obligatory Duties,Relationships and Transactions. How to reduce these?

Happiness is a state of mind; it does not come from possessions. There are severe limitations of happiness sought in place, things, beings, relationships, social status, financial status, situations, circumstances, conditions, environment, etc.

First, time, effort, money and some pain are involved in acquiring objects. Many waste their entire life in pursuit of desirable objects. There is no guarantee that even after getting those objects or positions, we would be happy.  Wemay feel ‘let-down’ after spending so much of time, effort and money. One may think, ‘this is not what I laboured for’.  Also, objects of desire keep changing, and so also our goal posts. The chase continues and   every new possession brings with it its own burden. If someone has a big house with swimming pool and ten bed rooms; imagine his plight in maintaining it. He is busy all the time cleaning, fixing, protecting. Does the house serve us, or do we serve the house? Again, objects make us dependent on them. Any kind of dependency is a cause of bondage and any kind of bondage is a cause of misery. For instance, once we are used to a particular standard of living, it is inconvenient not to have certain objects such as air conditioners in our life. Hence objects usually create bondage.

Relationships are meant to make our life happy. But do they? We have to maintain some blood relations for social cohesion, but we create other new relationships, which complicates life. Every new relationship has to be maintained. We have to remember to wish people on their birthdays and anniversaries or else they will take offence, participate in functions like marriage and engagement, or reach out in case of sickness or loss. Also we experience sadness or pain when the person with whom we have a relationship does not reciprocate. It is said that grief is never caused by outsiders or unknown people. It is caused by people with whom we have a relationship. Depending on our attitude, our relationships might cause us more pain than pleasure. The thing or being to which we are most attached will be the cause of our biggest misery in life.

Every possession and every new relationship creates its own obligatory duties. We have to insure our vehicles, for example, remember to send it for regular service. Similarly we have to attend to the expectations of relationships. These add to our list of obligatory duties. We cannot avoid basic, minimum obligatory duties towards the office, business, parents, spouse or children. But our optional duties also become obligatory when we maintain too many possessions and relationships.

We should also be careful in accepting new roles in life just for the sake of ego-satisfaction. If we are made President/ Secretary/member of a Society/village/city, we may feel good, but that adds to our obligatory duties also. Performance of each of these duties becomes a transaction. This way we try to cope with a large number of transactions in our life, and get exhausted at the end of the day. Where is the time to be happy?

This is not to say that we should have no objects or relationships in our lives. However, the idea is to be aware of their limitations and not to get too much attached to them. We should strike a balance in everything. 

The mind will be peaceful only if we are able to discriminate between what is necessary and what is unnecessaryin our lives.  

Reducing Possessions, Relationships, Obligatory Duties and Transactions (PORT) is a practical way to look at life and happiness.

That is the PORT of call for HAPPINESS.

Sunanda K Datta-Ray  

October 4, 2013 Last Updated at 22:46 IST

Sunanda K Datta-Ray: The lost kingdom of Sikkim

Vijianagram's relic is as forlorn as the Chogyal's palace in Gangtok on the cover of my book Smash and Grab

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More Columns by Sunanda K Datta-Ray

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Indar Pasricha would have murdered me. It was bad enough plonking a copy of Smash and Grab: Annexation of Sikkim, the book that has had as turbulent a passage as Sikkim itself, on the priceless piano in his smart picture gallery in London's Connaught Street. I cringed when a fashionable grey-haired woman placed a glass of red wine she'd just taken from Indar's butler on the piano's gleaming marquetry surface only to pick up the book. She put her glass down right next to a notice sternly warning people not to use the surface like a table.

It was an early 19th-century piano. There are only three of them in the whole wide world, Indar says. What probably counts far more is that it belonged to a European royal family that found refuge in Switzerland. Hastily, I placed a paper napkin under the glass before it became a casus belli in those rooms packed for the opening night of Tim Scott Bolton's exhibition of oils and watercolours that recalled Mark Twain's famous eulogy, "If there is one place on the face of the earth where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very earliest days when man began the dream of existence, it is India!"

There was the expected Taj Mahal and an unexpected Amritsar cook house, an unfamiliar view of Delhi's Rajpath and an all-too-recognisable Lodi Gardens, all shrouded in mist and mystery like Turner on the Thames. But Bolton's India isn't locked into the straitjacket of political frontiers. I counted several scenes of Nepal and Bhutan. And to my delighted surprise, above the hallowed piano hung a vision of prayer flags, chortens, red-robed monks and a glimpse of white monastic walls reaching up to upturned eaves against an ethereal background of snow, cloud and rock. It was unmistakably the lost kingdom of Sikkim. That's why I braved Indar's wrath and, as I told the artist, offered my book in tribute to his art.

Not that I immediately recognised the Sanga Choelling ("island of esoteric teaching") monastery seven kilometres from Pemayangtse ("the sublime perfect lotus"), Sikkim's premier monastery which I do know. Like a painting of Darjeeling's Bhutia Bustee, Sanga Choelling evocatively captured the essence of Himalayan life. It was the biggest (36" x 48") painting in the show. At £6,000, it was the most expensive. At the risk of being accused of artistic lese-majeste, I felt it would have made an ideal illustration for the glossy new Tranquebar-Westland edition of Smash and Grab which Deep, my son, had just brought from Mumbai.

The original book was manoeuvred into obscurity 29 years ago. The virtually indistinguishable paperback edition you bought in Darjeeling, Kalimpong and Gangtok all these years was a cunning work of piracy. The mix of bureaucratic conceit, political insecurity and clandestine censorship that made this possible is described in detail in my long introduction to the new edition. Bolton had no inkling of those tumultuous happenings. He had visited Sikkim as a tourist long after it was all over. But Indar knew. His exhibitions are a celebration as much of the Indo-British encounter as of royalty. Witness the Paikpara portraits in his basement.

It was entirely appropriate, therefore, that we should stumble upon a small tablet lost in the grass on our way back from the elegantly jolly opening nights he specialises in, as I wrote in this column four years ago. I didn't want to walk but Deep insisted on cutting through Hyde Park. I am glad I agreed because, otherwise, I would have missed what a guide book calls one of London's "lost fountains."

The metal plaque that tops the little slab of concrete reads: "A Fountain given by His Highness the Hon Maharajah Meerza Vijiaram Gajapati Raj Manea Sooltan Bahadoor of Vijianagram. KCSI stood on this site from 1867 until 1964." The questions popped up. What did the fountain look like? Was it demolished in 1964 or relocated somewhere else? Why? Above all, who was this forgotten potentate who squandered his state's revenues building fountains for foreigners who obviously cared nothing for him?

He wasn't the only one. Apparently, fountains were a welcome gift after London's 1854 cholera epidemic. The books say "Cowasji Jehangir Readymoney gave one to Regent's Park in 1869." The Princess of Teck inaugurated it. Perhaps the Readymoney creation still stands. I must look for it. But Vijianagram's relic is as forlorn as the Chogyal's palace in Gangtok on the cover of my book.

Ninth session of Eight SLA concludes

Gangtok October 5: The Ninth Session of Eighth Assembly concluded today with passing of 3 bills  viz. the Sikkim court Fees and Stamps on Documents (Amendment) bill, the Shri Ramasamy Memorial University, Sikkim, bill and the Sikkim Civil Courts (Amendment) Bill unanimously by the house. The bills were introduced in the assembly on 4^th October 2013.

 The concluding day also saw the presentation of reports namely Separate Audit Report on the accounts of Sikkim Mining Corporation for the year ended 31^st March 2008, 2009, 2010, and 2011 and Separate Audit Report on the Accounts of State Bank of Sikkim for the year ended 31^st March, 2007 and 2008, both these reports were laid on the table of the August House by the Chief Minister Mr. Pawan Chamling also the Minister in charge for Finance Revenue and Expenditure.

Whereas the Annual technical Inspection report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India for the year ended 31^st March 2012 on Panchayati Raj Institutions, Government of Sikkim was laid on the table of the house by the Minister for Rural Management and Development Department Mr. C.B Karki.

The Speaker Mr. K.T Gyaltsen announced presentation of Annual report of the Sikkim State Police Board 2011-12& 2012-13 along with annual report of the other government departments.

Before the house was adjourned sine-die by the Speaker, the Chief Minister and the Leader of the House Mr. Pawan Chamling in his valedictory remarks reiterated that the hall mark of his government and governance, the peace tranquility and social security which has been prevailing in Sikkim since last two decades and the rate of overall development which has only soared high under his stewardship and urged everyone to take collective responsibility along with the government to give continuity to it.

Sikkim has made significant mark for itself in the nation and today is in the lime light and we should all try and protect, preserve and secure it with our tireless endeavors, he avowed.

Mr. Chamling also thanked everyone concerned and all the government departments for smooth running of the two days session and press and media for good coverage.

The Speaker also presented his vote of thanks in his valedictory remarks.

Global Youth Unemployment at 12.8%

Ban Cash to Reduce Corruption

A  A  A

- By Asad Dossani, Author, The Lucrative Derivative Report 

Asad Dossani

How can we reduce corruption? This is one of the most important issues we face as a nation. We are all aware of the negative impacts that corruption has on society. So what are we going to do to fix it? Here is one idea: Ban all large cash transactions.

Cash transactions are a fuel for corruption. Since cash transactions cannot be traced, it is very easy for two parties to exchange cash without anyone finding out. It means that a business that earns cash can evade tax. It means that a politician can accept a large bribe. Without cash, accepting a bribe becomes much more difficult.

This would work as follows: All transactions above a certain amount cannot be made in cash. Instead, they must be made using debit cards, credit cards, checks, or bank transfers. This means that any large transaction can be traced. Further, large cash withdrawals or deposits should be disallowed. This means that one cannot draw large amounts of cash to make a dodgy transaction. And further, and if someone accepts a large cash bribe, it can't be deposited in a bank or used anywhere.

While banning large cash transactions would not affect petty corruption, it could have a major impact on high level corruption. Cash will still be useful for making small transactions, and this protects those on lower incomes while fighting corruption at the top level.

A solution such as this one will take time to implement. Right now, we do not have the infrastructure for everyone to make transactions using a card or their bank. It is estimated that around 50% of Indians do not even have bank accounts. However, this is something we can change. As more banks open in rural areas, a greater proportion of the population will have access to banks and financial services over time.

Corruption is a long term problem, and it requires a long term solution. Cash is the biggest tool used for corrupt activities. By taking away large cash transactions, we can make it much tougher for anyone to give or accept a bribe. This is something can definitely work towards over time.