Posts Tagged ‘Agartala’
Written by admin on 06 February 2012
Agartala, Feb 6 (IANS) To ensure enhanced rural connectivity, growth, investment and environmental protection, sustainable new technology must be adopted in road construction in India, specially in the mountainous northeastern region, experts and scientists said here Monday.
“New, alternative and superior technologies of road construction – including cold mix, tools using public waste, plastic waste, natural rubber, jute – have to be followed to get the better effect,” said P.G. Rao, scientist and director of Assam’s Jorhat-based North East Institute of Science and Technology (NEIST).
Rao said: “Around 70 percent of the terrain in the northeast region is mountainous. The region gets very heavy rainfall, ranging from 2,500 mm to 6,000 mm annually, which makes surface communication difficult.”
“Unlike in the plains, the construction of roads in hilly areas is different, extremely difficult and much more expensive. It is important to innovate and use new technologies for making better roads,” Rao told reporters.
Rao along with India’s renowned scientists, experts and engineers was speaking here Sunday at a workshop-cum-seminar on ‘Sustainable Technologies for Road Construction in the North-East’.
They said adoption of new and sustainable technologies would not only ensure enhanced rural connectivity – critical for growth – but also give a much-needed push to the central government-funded Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana (PMGSY), which aims to provide connectivity to all rural habitations in a time-bound manner.
“Natural rubber modified roads or roads using plastic waste are very useful in terms of longevity and cost,” S. Gangopadhyay, director of the Central Road Research Institute (CRRI), told reporters after the seminar.
He said that cold mix technology is considered greener, safer and facilitates faster roll-out suiting the climatic and terrain conditions of the northeastern region.
Gangopadhyay said: “According to the National Rural Road Development Agency (NRRDA) of the ministry of rural development, road construction and repair work done using hot mix technology is often sub-standard and there is a need to use cold mix for getting a better outcome.”
The CRRI has developed a separate module for building roads in rural India and northeastern states under its latest ‘code 800′ scheme to be implemented in the 12th Five Year Plan period (2012-13 to 2016-2017) for covering areas that have population of 800 million people.
“The initial results of some such environment-friendly technologies, including cold mix, in Assam, which has been used to construct more than 1,000 km of roads in the last three years has been good and we are certain that this would encourage the other northeastern states to gain substantial progress and quality of rural and state roads,” said P.K. Jain, scientist at the CRRI.
He said: “Often we have been sacrificing environmental aspects and health hazards of the workers while constructing the roads, but if the new technologies are adopted these harms would be restricted.”
“The authorities while constructing roads should keep in mind that the northeastern region falls under the most vulnerable of earthquake-prone zones,” Jain added.
The Geological Survey of India had earlier notified that the northeastern region could experience a devastating earthquake as the region, according to seismologists, falls in Zone V, the worst quake-prone belt in the world.
Tags: Agartala, Tripura
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Written by admin on 05 February 2012
Agartala, Feb 5 (IANS) Bangladesh will tell the world about the genocide of its three million people and mass atrocities on 200,000 women and children perpetrated by Pakistani forces during the 1971 liberation war, a Bangladeshi diplomat said here Sunday.
“Bangladesh missions across the world have been organising numerous programmes including screening of films and cultural programmes to depict the barbaric massacres, brutal atrocities on women and children during the nine month long liberation war,” Bangladesh Deputy High Commissioner Mahbub Hassan Saleh told reporters. He was speaking ahead of a three-day film festival — “Bangladesh’s War of Liberation in Celluloid” — beginning here Feb 10.
“To mark the 40th anniversary of the War of Liberation, the Bangladesh high commission in India in association with the Indian government, has been organising film festivals and cultural programmes in various Indian cities,” he added.
“The new generation in India and other countries knows very little about Bangladesh’s liberation war and the supreme sacrifice of lakhs of people and India’s role in the battle,” the envoy said.
Saleh said: “During the war, to escape from Pakistani forces’ barbaric atrocities, over one crore (10 million) Bangladeshi men, women and children took shelter in (the Indian states of) West Bengal, Tripura, Assam and Meghalaya.”
“Over 1,600,000 Bangladeshis (larger than the state’s then total population of 1,500,000) had taken shelter in Tripura alone,” he said.
“India-Bangladesh relations were founded during the war, which could not have succeeded without India’s support and help,” the diplomat added.
The official was talking to reporters
Six films, which recreate the valiant deeds of the freedom fighters in the 1971 liberation war, will be screened in this first ever festival in the northeastern state. The festival is being organised in association with the directorate of film festivals under the Indian union ministry of information and broadcasting and the Tripura government.
Similar such film festivals were held in New Delhi and Kolkata.
The films expected to be screened in the Agartala film festival include “Matir Moina” (the clay bird), “Khelaghar” (dollhouse), “Joyjatra” (victory mission), “Khondo Golpo-1971″ (1971 – a few shattered tales), “Amar Bandhu Rashed” (my friend Rashed) and “Guerilla”.
“The proposed films to be screened in the film festivals have won various international awards and have been acclaimed by all,” Saleh said adding that during the festival, the film directors and film personalities of Bangladesh would be present to explain about their movies.
India’s directorate of film festival deputy director Tanu Rai said : “The freedom struggle of any country is a very emotional and acclaimed issue and event. India always has had a deep and abiding respect for the Bangladesh liberation war and that is why New Delhi was associated with this festival.”
— Indo-Asian News Service
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Tags: Agartala
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Written by admin on 04 February 2012
Agartala, Feb 4 (IANS) A Border Security Force (BSF) trooper was Saturday detained by security personnel at the Agartala airport following the recovery of some bullets from his baggage, police said here Saturday.
“BSF Naik (NCO) Nanda Singh was going to his home in Rajasthan by a private airline when he was detained by the CISF (Central Industrial Security Force) troopers at the airport after recovery of some live cartridges from his hand baggage,” a police spokesman told reporters.
Later, the CISF handed over him to police which presented him before a local court.
The court released Singh on bail as “the court found no criminality for carrying the bullet with him,” the spokesman added.
Tags: Agartala
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Written by admin on 02 February 2012
Agartala, Feb 2 (IANS) The Lalit Kala Akademi is reaching out to the young in the northeast in its hunt for hidden talent, its vice chairman K.R. Subanna said Thursday.
‘A regional center of the Akademi will soon be set up in Agartala to encourage people in northeastern states,’ Subanna told reporters after the inauguration of a four-day northeast contemporary art fair here.
Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar inaugurated the fair where painters and sculptors from Assam, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya and Sikkim took part.
Tags: Agartala, Tripura
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Written by admin on 02 February 2012
Agartala, Feb 2 (IANS) Over 6,200 poultry birds and ducks were culled in Tripura after reports of a fresh outbreak of bird flu, officials said here Thursday.
The culling was done in Lembuchara area of western Tripura. “Mopping up operations and disinfection of poultry farms, birds and ducks enclosures and cages have begun,” Tripura animal resource development department director Manoranjan Sarkar told IANS.
In addition to culling, huge quantities of eggs and feed material have been destroyed and compensation has been given to the affected people.
He said the Tripura government had imposed a ban on the import of poultry birds, ducks and other poultry products from outside the state.
“Nurturing of poultry birds and ducks in the flu-hit villages and in a three kilometre radius has also been banned for the next three months,” Sarkar added.
Samples of sick poultry birds from the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR) farm were found to contain H5 strain of avian influenza virus last week. “The samples have been tested and found positive by the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory in Bhopal,” the official said.
The ICAR farm, 25 km north of Agartala, is surrounded by several villages.
“We have asked the BSF (Border Security Force) to maintain a vigil along the 856 km Indo-Bangladesh border with Tripura to prevent illegal trade of poultry and poultry products,” the director said.
Tags: Agartala, Tripura
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Written by admin on 01 February 2012
Agartala, Feb 1 (IANS) Tripura’s ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) Wednesday said it was looking to induct more women members.
“In Tripura, 25 percent of the total of 76,636 CPI-M party members are women. However, in the other states, the percentage is 12 to 13 percent,” CPI-M spokesman Gautam Das told reporters after a four-day long party conference.
The conference selected an 83-member state committee, with 10 women members.
Das said for every 29 voters in Tripura, the CPI-M has a party member, which was much higher than the national average.
The 14-member state secretariat, the highest body of the party in Tripura, got its first woman member in CPI-M central committee member Rama Das.
All top CPI-M leaders, including general secretary Prakash Karat, politburo members Sitaram Yechury, Manik Sarkar and Brinda Karat, were present on all four days of the meeting.
“The party asked all members to launch a mammoth campaign to ensure victory of the Left Front government in next year’s state polls,” Das added.
Tags: Agartala, Tripura
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