[Assam] Fw: BBC Article on North East - Your Comments

[Rajen & Ajanta Barua]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7232114.stm

Posting BBC article on the North East is not much except the fact it was published in BBC and for the lot of comments it received from readers across the globe. You may also put your own comments and voice your opinion.  My two cents as well as from my friends Rabain Mahanta in Houston posted below.
__,_._,___ 
Rajen Barua, Houston, USA
Mr Basu is a visitor to the North East and does not seem to have any understanding of the problems of the North East, and as such the article is rather without any depth. The North East is only 4% of India's population but has about half of India's total 600 ethnic groups and produces about 40% of India's oil and 50% of India's tea. The solutions presented by him are the same solutions anybody would suggest superficially. As a person from the heart of Assam, I believe a big part of the problems of the North East is rooted in the complex geographical and socio-ethnic cultural system of this minority population combined with lack of strong local leadership and lack of understanding of the complexity of the problem by the central leadership resulting in inefficient and unhealthy centre-state relations. Insurgency is a scapegoat for underdevelopment. India has its own problems to give the required time or focus to the problems of the North East. Illegal immigrants have been pouring through the porous border for the last 60 years from the south from Bangladesh. In Kaziranga National Park, the world's only one horned rhinos are being killed in broad day light at the heart of Assam on the average about 16 Rhinos per year for the last 60 years. Today North East seems to be nobody's land, and everybody seems to be just making money at the expense of the poor people. North East India is a region, which India can neither govern, nor it can let it go. God saves the North East.


Rabin Mahanta, Houston, USA

The real problem is lack of understanding from the mainland of India of what these groups want. The central government is meeting force by equal or more force instead of skilful negotiation, more development funding and creating more opportunities. India should try to unite the seven states into one unit which will stop the current divisiveness.