Nature has been in the news in the Northeast

Nature has been in the news in the Northeast

The public eye

NORTH BY NORTHEAST by SANJOY HAZARIKA

As the political and military temperatures in India and Pakistan rose these past days over the brutal mur¬der of tourists in Pahalgam in Kashmir, markets, educational in¬tiltutions, businesses and offices in a handful of cities and towns across the ‘lortheast closed in solidarity with the victims. There were also candlelight remembrances in Shillong, the capital I Meghalaya, Aizawl in Mizoram, and 3angtok in Sikkim, the latter led by the thief minister. The editorials on the aagedy were sharp and the reporting extensive.

For a time, the focus of this region, 30 devastated in the past by violence and armed confrontations of many kinds, ttayed with the pain of those who had suffered directly as well as that of the Kashmiris who, recovering from dec¬ades of bloodshed, found themselves in a familiar but unwanted place. The latter also responded with extraordinary cour-age with protest marches, candlelight vigils and a bandh, for the first time in 35 years, to oppose the terrorists.

But as with the cycle of life, local is-tires came to the fare within a few days in the Northeast. For one, the panchayat elections in Assam are on with fierce =tests, campaigns, and occasional vi-)lence (in one incident, miscreants at¬tacked the vehicle in which the Congress AP, Pradyut Bordoloi, and a state legis¬lator were traveling). In another, demon¬strating how ignorance about informa¬tion can lead to emotional reaction, both the traditional and social media were teething with outrage at a gaffe about Assam by the National Council of Edu¬lational Research and Training. The or¬tanisation, which drafts curricula for schools nationwide, had, in a mathemat¬ics textbook for Class IV, shown a two-horned African rhino as the Indian rhi¬noceros, Assam’s state animal, which has one horn, and given an incorrect de¬scription alongside.

The text illustrated by an image of a two-horned rhino reads, “The Indian rhinoceros is found in the foothills of the Erunalayas in Northeast India. Floods and medicinal value of their horns have led to a reduction in their popula¬tion. In the early 1900s, their population was driven to near extinction with as lit¬tle as 200 rhinoceroses. But with recent enervation measures, there are now around 4,000 rhinoceroses.”

The Union education minister, Dhar¬nendra Pradhan, and the chief minister al Assam, Himanta Biswa Sarnia, have been asked to ensure that the faux pas is corrected. Biplab Talukdar, a mem¬ber of the Asian Rhino Specialist Group, an international conservation organisa¬tion, also slammed the NCERT for talk¬tng about the supposed medicinal value 1 the rhino horn, which, in fact, is mated hair. Scientists say it has no such properties but the horns command high Prices in China and in Southeast Asia as L supposed aphrodisiac. The NCERT ref¬rence, Talukdar said, could normalise poaching in the minds of children. Nature was also in the news in other vays: a few fierce bursts of rain brought ife in Guwahati, the largest city of the egion and its commercial and political rub, to a halt for a few hours, as it has often done in the past. Red, muddy storm eater flowed down from the hills around kssam’s capital, mixed with overflow¬ng drains, and turned main routes into vater charmels, causing extensive jams. It’s a familiar experience for many. In ne particularly massive flood last Au¬ust, I was stuck for several hours and Lad to stay overnight in a modest hotel. ‘housands were similarly held up; some eached home on foot late or in the early Lours; others waited on high ground, uch as flyovers, till the water receded. A headline in The Assam Tribune, he region’s largest English language aper, declaimed after the recent down¬pour: “20 mm rain turns city streets into fivers”. Citizens vented their ire on so¬ial media. There were photos and vide-s of garbage floating on the water, cars ploughing through water-logged streets, aid residents walking tentatively over proken sidewalks as the water lapped longside.

Tackling the water overflow is a gen-Line challenge in a fast-growing city that s undergoing a massive transforma¬ion. It’s almost as if a new city is being guilt alongside the remnants of the old. ‘here’s a surge of new businesses, of-ice spaces, hospitals, malls and resi¬lential apartment complexes towering Ivor older buildings of wood and plaster, nom and pop grocery stores as well as raditional markets, bakeries and diem-its. New flyovers are being built to ease loth current and future traffic.

Msdor infrastructural changes re being pushed through: for exam¬ple, old water pipelines are being replaced with new ones laid under a low from the Japan International Coopers tion Agency. Another project backed b! JICA, which has prioritised the North east, is addressing Guwahati ‘s peren nial problem of sewage. Heavy machin ery is being used to declog sewage pipe and large pumps are also seen in action The goal is to upgrade the city’s creak infrastructure so that it can cope witl the surge of investments, industry an( travellers, including those who comp for healthcare, that the state’s leader anticipate.
JICA is also funding road-connec tivity projects in Assam, Mizoram an( Meghalaya as part of an Indo-Japan ini tiative going back several years that sup ports the Act East Policy of linking thi landlocked region with its neighbour and, eventually, with Southeast Asia This effort, however, has been slowed, i not stopped, by the civil war in Myanma next door and the frosty relations of thi new regime in Dhaka with New Delhi.

The old problems remain, at leas for now They are caused by a combina tion of factors, including the lack of co ordination among agencies, contractu al negligence, and inattention to detail Thus, the state minister handling mbar affairs had declared in March that de bris from desiltation of city drains, an ongoing process, would be removed b! the month-end. A battery of monitor ing committees had been set up, he said to keep an eye on things. In many plat es, however, the muck was not remove from the side of the drains. The metro’; district commissioner recently quote monitoring committees that said that a times the silt stayed uncleared for ova 24 hours—meaning that if the rains hit the cleared muck would flow back int( the system. After the bash surge of rain more floods, jams and public outrage the district commissioner said that con tractors and agencies involved in the de silting process would face legal action ii they did not act quickly.
Let’s see if that works.

https://epaper.telegraphindia.com/calcutta-edition/29/2025-05-06/page-10/article-2036785682.html