The Train of Thought
Whatever her diehard political adversaries may say about the Railway Budget for 2010-2011, the people in the Northeastern region have reason to compliment the Union Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee for some vital projects announced in her second budget. It is on public domain that except for Assam and a few other states, most of the leaders of the North East states are not very enthusiastic about the development of the railway network in their states as they are more interested in safeguarding and strengthening roadways. However, they have to put signatures on collective memorandums presented to the Centre pleading for the improvement of connectivity in the region. Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi was among the Chief Ministers who had pleaded with the Central Government for the expansion of the network and had given some valuable suggestions in this regard.
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Opposing China’s Shwe project in Burma
 Voices against the foreign intrusion in Burmese economy are increasing. The pro-democracy Burmese activists and their supporters have come out with various programmes opposing a China sponsored multibillion dollar oil and gas pipeline project inside Burma (Myanmar). The dual pipelines are designed to transfer oil and gas from a Burmese state to a Southwestern Chinese province.
The initial point of the proposed oil and natural gas pipeline project will be the offshore Shwe gas fields of Arakan (or Rakhine) state. The 980 km dual oil and gas pipelines would then cross the span of Myanmar touching over 20 townships.
The project will be used to pump the oil, taken by waterways from the Middle East and African countries and also natural gas from the Shwe gas fields of Myanmar to the Yunnan province of China.
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GUWAHATI
A MIXED BAG FOR WOMEN
 Dipa Chakraborty is a medical representative of German Remedies, a leading pharmaceutical company based in Guwahati. Having 10 years of experience in her profession and eight years serving her company, Dipa is now happy and confident with her modest earning notwithstanding the challenges like gender bias in the profession.
When she joined the profession a decade ago, the situation was different. Medical representatives were not defined as workers and there was no specific work time. As such, she was supposed to work till late in the night visiting doctors in their chambers. The threat to her personal security was not taken into consideration by her company.
With the regular struggle led by Commercial Representative Union (CRU), the apex union of the medical representatives, things have changed with relaxation of work time to eight hours per day.
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Manipur’s Sacrificial Lambs
 In a rare verdict in the state of Manipur regarding a case of alleged fake encounter, the National Human Rights Commission has given a directive to the Manipur State Government to pay a sum of Rs 5 lakhs as compensation to the next of kin of late R. K. Sanajaoba who was shot dead by a police constable in an alleged fake encounter way back in 2004.
Since then the victim’s family has been putting in every possible effort to get justice and to some relief for the family, the NHRC has accepted the case as a fake encounter.
However, addressing a press conference, the victim’s family observes that the compensation can not substitute justice and is pursuing the case through Guwahati High Court to award a befitting punishment of the guilty police personnel. Meanwhile, voices are rising from various sections that compensation should not be a substitute for deliverance of justice while dispensing cases of extra judicial killings in Manipur.
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COUNTDOWN TO EXTINCTION
The national animal of India is on the verge of extinction. A survey conducted by the Wildlife Protection  Society of India has given us a clear image of the grievous situation. Different NGOs have also done a survey on their own and have come out with grim results which depict that within a period of just eight months we lost a total of 66 tigers which is a huge number in itself. The causes are manifold. Blame it on poaching or disease or old age or man-animal conflict, we are moving a step ahead towards losing these majestic animals. Surely we do not wish our coming generation to find tigers only in history books. With rapid development, the country is rapidly losing its forests. In such a situation, the pertinent question is - Where do the tigers go? Their habitat is threatened by this development. There are just 1411 tigers left and something has to be done to prevent their extinction.
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