The scene of the tragedy where 17 people were killed after the PWD building collapsed on May 11, 2013.

Aizawl (Mizonews.Net): Aizawl District Magistrate, Dr. Franklin Laltinkhuma has submitted the preliminary report of the probe into the Laipuitlang tragedy that killed 17 people to the state government, on the fateful morning on May 11.

The 29-page Ministerial Inquiry Report was submitted to GAD Secretary Ashwani Kumar day on Monday afternoon.

In reply to media query, the GAD Secretary said, the report has been forwarded to the Chief Secretary who will submit it to the Chief Minister.

The report touches only two of the four point terms of reference which are the circumstances leading to the landslide and the resultant loss of lives and properties and fixing of responsibility to the indulgent persons for causing the calamity.

The complete report comprising preventive measures for avoiding calamity in future time to come will be submitted later.

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The main programme was held at Assembly House Annexe Auditorium, Aizawl, which was graced by Parliamentary Secretary Lt.Col.(Rtd) Z.S. Zuala.

The theme of the ‘International Biological Diversity Day’ this year is ‘Water & Bio-Diversity’. Speaking on the theme, Parliamentary Secretary Lt.Col.Z.S. Zuala said that as all kinds of life in the world needs water for survival, such activities like polluting the air, deforestation etc. are to be stopped.

In Mizoram too, without just keeping this needful task to the responsibility of the Forest Department, each and every one needs to know our responsibility in preserving the green forest and water, Lt.Col.Z.S. Zuala told the gathering.

Citing that in earlier days the Mizo chiefs used to impose penalty to those who let the forest burnt, Col. Zuala said the people in the modern days need introspection, adding that in the present Mizo society, while people are ready to spend huge money on their mobile handsets, but they don’t have money for making water storage.

Environment & Forests Department PCCF J.L.Singh also stressed the need to preserve each and every life, saying that every creature in the world is the precious God-gifted. He also added that the 9 – Sanctuary/National Parks in Mizoram – Murlen, Phawngpui, Lengtleng, Tokalo, Ngengpui, Pualreng, Tawi, Thorangtlang and Khawnlung besides Dampa Tiger Reserve Forest are being protected by the Forest Department.

In the programme of the Bio-Diversity Day today, Liandawla, Chief Wildlife Warden; Dr. Lalnuntluanga, Asst. Professor, Dept. of Environmental Sciences, MZU and Samuel Lalliansanga, AEO, Agriculture Dept. instructed the gathering on ‘Water/Crop Bio-diversity’.

As the central government has passed the Bio-Divesity Act in 2002, Mizoram Bio-Diversity Board has been set up in Mizoram too.

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The actress will show her sexy side on camera and your eyes will pop out. Despite being a fitness freak Saira did not want to leave any stone unturned to look her best in a bikini in her upcoming movie “The city that Never Sleeps” which is produced by Satish Reddy and Directed By Haroon Rashid. She improved her diet and workouts in advance as she wanted to look really toned in her bikini scene.

Saira Khan said, “I did not follow a different diet or workout regime to look perfect in the bikini, as I stay fit all year round. I only went on a strict, high-protein diet for some time and increased the intensity of my cardio workouts. Donning bikini is not a everyone cup of tea it’s require art to perform it.”

The Bikini subject and the feel of the film add more sparkles to the film’s charm. The audience’s liking has started developing and people now are on way to sit on the waiting chair. The bikini scene of Saira Khan will create a lot of hype.  Sensuous body and sex appeal had always played magic on her fans.

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Actress Paoli Dam

By: Faisal Saif

Sultry actress Paoli Dam who single handedly charmed one and all with her hot and sexy avatar in Hate Story is all set to take the cause of medical negligence in a big way. Not surprising since one of her close friend relative from Kolkata had died due to gross negligence which became a high profile case in the apex courts.

Says Paoli “Doctors are the noblest profession amongst all professions, but immoral & unethical practices should be brought to the fore. Doctors must follow medical protocol for treating patients. Medical practitioners’ community need to fix ethics and accountability. They should have the authority to take disciplinary action against delinquent physicians. And since India does not have the healthcare facilities like the west, the poor are the most affected. India should have its own medical malpractice reforms bills. So when Vikram Bhatt offered me the film based on the Ankur Arora murder case, I just had to do it”

But according to her, it is not only “average” people that are hurt and affected by medical malpractice, but involves all strata of society and even celebrities. So imagine high profile celebrity cases like Michael Jackson, whose doctor was imprisoned for medical negligence, so the chances of the poor are even less. I greatly admire Aamir Khan for bringing the issue to the fore in Satyamev Jayate”

Incidentally even director Mrinal Sen had alleged that Smita Patil died due to gross medical negligence. After working with India greatest directors like Gautam Ghose and Rituparno Ghosh in Bengali cinema, the bong beauty Paoli, has made a huge impact in Bollywood with Hate Story and has 5 films already in her kitty!!

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Dr. H. Thanglora

By: L.Keivom

The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude. -Thornton Wilder

It was May 13, 2013, a lucky day for some and a fateful day for another. My nephew and co-traveler in the realm of historical research Dr. Lal Dena rang me up from Imphal at 1658 hrs to break the news that Dr. Thanglora left for his eternal home a few minutes ago. I had been preparing for this news any moment since his admission in New Life Hospital, Aizawl on March 16 for pneumonia-related complications coupled with the inevitable curses of ageing. He was 93 running, more than a decade beyond Moses’ time-line. But when the end came, the shock was no less cruel despite my mental preparations. There is no cushion or cure to bear softly the crushing blow of death. Every human being knows its inevitability and finality.

Thanglora was my next neighbor, my headmaster and mentor. When he came to establish Pherzawl High School in 1951, I was only 12 years running, doing Class IV at the rickety Independent Church Middle School with only two teachers. He stayed next to our house at Muolveng, a medium thatched and bamboo-matted house after its owner Hnuna (Dovelpa) migrated to Rengkai Road in Churachandpur town. We were deliriously excited to have a BA next to our door. None was available in our vast area those days. His was the first BA face we ever set our eyes on. He looked gentle, unimposing, kind, intelligent and knowledgeable. There was a streak of radiance in his smile difficult to describe in words. It’s something like the smile of a new moon on a clear and soft eventide. They said he could tell the number of leaves a tree has just by touching its trunk. Vow!

Naturally, we were excited beyond words. He was the object of our veneration and our new hope for the transformation of our people and our area by the gentle touch of his magic wand. We ate and drank with great gusto every single word that came out of his gentle and gracious mouth as the marriage party in Cana did of the special wine divinely brewed by the honoured Guest. Thanglora was a good communicator, an excellent tale teller especially in a homely surrounding where simple village folks sat around the warmth of the hearth leisurely smoking their homemade bamboo pipes stuffed with locally produced potent substance, their Golden Virginia tobacco that produced nicotic fumes powerful enough to drive away stinging insects and house pests. The entranced folks inhaled every wordy aroma coming out his mouth.

Dr. Thanglora with L.Keivom at Aizawl on Sunday, April 22, 2012.

Most of all, Thanglora was a born teacher who could make every subject intelligible and interesting. I joined his school in 1953 by skipping Class VI as our headmaster left to work at the high school. Students from Mizoram, Tripura, Cachar and North Cachar Hills and every nook and corner of South Manipur hills came to study in his school. Being a Zo nationalist and integrationist to the core and also the President of the Mizo Union in the area for some time, he encouraged and nurtured the growth of Zo nationalism through a fusion of Zo culture, especially in secular songs with students from Mizoram playing a major role. It was during this time that I picked up many songs in Lusei as it was then called as well as the dialect itself. Much later, I realized that my vision of a strong united Zo nation was born unconsciously during those formative years but it took many years to develop into a concrete shape. Zoram Khawvel serial is the product of that vision. Thanks to Thanglora and our visionary chief Pu Dolur who turned Pherzawl as a hub of education and Zo cultural integration in South Manipur.

In fact, Thanglora himself composed a few romantic songs which were very popular in Hmar area those days. The one I still remember was set to the tune of Pastor Khuma Biete’s hymn in Hmar, “Jerusalem khaw kawl Kalvari muolah.” This kind of song set in a borrowed tune is known as Kaihlek/Keilet (Lushai/Hmar). Religious fanatics regarded it as a parody of a sacred hymn and therefore to be avoided by the believers. A closer look at Zo kaihlek songs would however indicate that the use of hymn tunes by some song writers was chiefly prompted by their inability to compose a tune and not by any ulterior motive or calculation to profane the sanctity of a sacred hymn or song. Rather, it is simply borrowing the tune of a song, whether sacred or mundane, and set in other lyrics. In short, Kaihlek is composing a song employing the tune of another song. It has nothing to do with godliness or ungodliness. Many Christian hymns in the past were ‘kaihlek’ or rendition of secular songs. Nothing sacrilegious about it. Two of my songs (Sakhming Khawvel & Hmangai Nunrawng) and Darkamlo’s popular piece ‘O Di O Di lungrunpui’ are kaihleks from Hindi-film songs. If one takes as an offence, the problem lies with the level of understanding of the offender. The refrain of Thanglora’s love song mentioned above runs like this:

Hmu ka nuom ie, hmangai lungrunpui,
Lungkham bangna, sokhlei par sensieri,
Hmar tlangpui mawi dinga hung pieng chu.

I long to see my love, my sweetheart,
My blooming rhodo and my heart’s content,
Born to beautify Hmar hills and vales. 

Let me stretch a little further on this topic to highlight the important role Thanglora played in this field. Since Christianity came to our area, there had been a persistent tendency to replace every cultural and religious practices and expressions with the practices of the new religion. The new converts had come to view almost every form of our cultural expressions as a pagan practice and therefore satanic. Our traditional songs were replaced by translated Christian hymns from the west with tunes far detached from ours. We became caged creatures taught to parrot only western hymns with alien tunes. Boys and girls could no longer express their feelings in songs and music. On social events and gatherings, we had to content with borrowed hymns howsoever irrelevant they might be for the occasions. For us trapped souls in the name of religion, our only freedom was monkeying the western culture to avoid clerical affront and their shuddering threats of eternal damnation.

It was at this juncture that the Young Lushai Association (YLA)’s clarification of December 6, 1947 came which defined what kind of songs that YLA (later changed into YMA) members could sing. The holistic YMA clarification allowed its members to sing ‘Hla Lenglawng’ on YMA and social occasions and this covered any song which was not a Sacred Song. However, songs that contained expressions which were offensive, immodest, indecent, obscene and vulgar should be avoided. The clarification also contained words of encouragement to those with poetic abilities to compose songs on nature, country, people, nation, social life, patriotism and nationalism which resulted in the spurt of secular songs with Rokunga leading the march. The landmark publication of his compilation, ‘Thalaite Hla Bu’ in 1952 was to a great extent the outcome of cultural movement generated by the YMA clarification mentioned above.

The explosion of ‘Hla Lenglawng’ coincided with the birth of independent India. A new political party called Mizo Union was also born with an agenda first to free the people from the clutches of their autocratic rulers. Many sarcastic and taunting hla lenglawngs denigrating the chiefs and their henchmen came out in numbers but the church could no longer resist singing these songs as many church leaders themselves belonged to the commoner’s side and got actively involved in the movement. Though some of the political hla lenglawngs definitely crossed the parameters of YMA clarification, they became songs of freedom from bondage and the church had to learn how to tolerate it for its own good and survival. The Gordian Knot was cut off with YMA playing the role of Alexander the Great.

Thanglora was the product of that generation, a generation at the crossroads, of old and new, of bondage and freedom, of fears and hopes, of the vanishing British Empire and the dawning of India’s freedom. The key role the elites played in the growth of ‘hla lenglawng’ at this crucial period cannot be overstated. Being the apple of public veneration, the elites enjoyed highest respect and therefore, their support and encouragement of hla hlenglawng greatly helped in stifling, if not removing, church opposition to it. Many of the Hmar ‘hla lenglawngs’ which are still popular even after six decades were the product of this generation with Pherzawl and its neighboring villages playing the leading role. It can therefore be said without demur that, apart from his pioneering role in education, Thanglora left an indelible imprint in the growth of secular Hmar literature even though he might not be aware of it. Perhaps, he was divinely ordained to play that role. He came in the nick of time, played his role effectively, turned Pherzawl and its High School as a launching pad for educational and cultural activities and then left for another place to continue his civilizing mission till his last breadth. For people with a clear mission, there is no holiday in their life’s journey. Life is too short and precious to while away.

The last time I met him was at his modest house in Edenthar Veng in Aizawl on April 22, 2012. I took David Buhril and my son David Keivom with me. I wondered why they called the place Edenthar Veng (New Eden Locality) as the locality and its surroundings to me bore no sign of Edenness. In my Diary of that day, I wrote, “I went to visit Dr. H.Thanglora at his residence in Edenthar Veng. He was sitting all alone in the verandah, looking vacantly. His wife was not there- on a visit to someone’s house. He was already 92 years young but his mental and hearing faculties including his eyes were still very good. I presented him my book IMPRESSIONS ON KEIVOM. His wife Nekawi (S.N.Hnemi-Thangthriengnu) was 86 running.” As I did in my previous visits, I enquired from him the status of his promised memoirs which I always asked every time I visited him and which he promised he would write when he found time to do so. I knew from experience that people who said the same never wrote or finished their memoirs as the time to do is always ‘now’ and not later. He was still busy chasing his dream- a dream of opening a good educational institution despite the very many high schools (7) and colleges (5) he had already either opened or served as principal. The more he associated himself with the spread of education, the greater his thirst for a better institution became. Therefore, he had little or no time for his own affairs.

It will take years to assess the full impact Thanglora’s sacrifice has on the society. In my capacity as an Indian diplomat, I had visited all the continents on this planet. A number of people of substance I came across in different parts of India and abroad were either former pupils of Thanglora or their children. Members of my family alone spread out from New Zealand to United States of America “on which the sun never sets” as Christopher North (1785-1854) said of the British Empire. We are always thankful to God and his handyman Thanglora who brought education to our doorstep. Had he not volunteered to open high school at Pherzawl, many of us and our descendants would still be struggling with thorns and bushes with dao and hoe in hand amidst blood sucking leeches, stinging sandflies and malaria-carrying mosquitoes under oppressive sun and rain. He was our redeemer and savior in life. Many officers of the top civil services in India, educationists and academicians, doctors, engineers, cabinet ministers, church ministers, missionaries, poets, writers, and social workers were his former pupils. Few or no educationists amongst us could produce so much as his and he fully deserved his name ‘Thanglora’ which means ‘standing out in fame.’

Rest in peace, my great teacher and beloved master. (May 20, 2013 Delhi)

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The Ladies Vs Ricky Bahl actor really admires Ranbir’s work and even appreciates the success he has achieved so far. In a recent interview Ranveer said, “He is making very brave choices and his performances are all fabulous. For all the young actors today he’s clearly the benchmark.”

And the actor didn’t stop there and added, “Amongst all of us right now he’s the only one who is competing with the big boys. He’s working for the betterment of cinema and most certainly keeping us on our toes.”

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The actress who is currently busy promoting her first production venture Ishkq in Paris, said: “Off late, I have been thinking that I will join politics because it’s so sad what is happening to our country. I really want to be somehow involved in positively changing our country… One fine day I am going to come out and say vote for me.”

The actress even added that she has even made an imaginary picture of Preity Zinta, the politician.

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The bridge over Langkaih river, which is the only link between Mizoram and Tripura has been blocked since April 29.

The BDO Level talk is yet to produce result after the process of consultation is completed in both sides.

Meanwhile, the process of identification of Mizoram Bru in Tripura Camps for repatriation in the last part of this month is also stalled because of the situation.

In another case, members of the Joint Churches Committee of Mizoram have arrived at Champhai on Monday to diffuse the tense situation between Vaphai and Saikhumphai.

According to official sources, the Joint Churches Committee is being headed by the Chairman, Rev. Lalramliana Pachuau, who also is the Synod Moderator. Other Office Bearers and members are Lalnilawma Kawlni, B. Thangtinliana and Lt. Col. Lalramhluna.

They are accompanied by the Joint Director of Local Administration Deptt. C. Lalthlamuana.

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Mizoram despite being declared a dry state has seen an increased in sale of illegal alcoholic drinks in recent months.

Aizawl (Mizonews.Net): Illicit distilled liquor claims two lives in Aizawl on Monday and 6 more persons are in coma.

According to Aizawl Civil Hospital sources, 2 persons died in the hospital and 6 others are under treatment. One of them is kept in ICU with ventilator.

According to police sources, 2 persons who died in the hospital were identified as Vanromawia, 24, of Maubawk and Laldawngzela, 21, of Khawzawl.

The sellers of the liquor has been identified as Lalramnghaki of Salem Veng and five persons residing in Armed Veng locality. It is not yet clear as to whether the police have arrested the culprits or not.

Doctors in the hospital are trying to retrieve liquor sample in the stomach of some of the patients to determine the type of harmful spirit used in the drink.

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