DEMAND OF SEPARATE STATE CANNOT BE ACCEPTED

This is the detail story of yesterday’s meeting of GJMM with Chief minister I could find. Can some one translate the main points please. It is published in Anandabazar Patrika.

PROPOSED MAP OF GORKHALAND

This is the officially realeased proposed map of Gorkhaland which covers darjeeling, Kurseong, Kalimpong, siliguri,Bhaktinagar, Malbazar,Chalsa,Nagrakot,Banarhat, Birpara,Madarhat,Jaigaon, Kalchini and KumarGram(underlined places falls in Duars)

Issue of Gorkhaland: Himalaya darpan

4 member team from GJMM met Chief Miniter Bhaddhadev Bhattacharjee and submitted the proposed map of Gorkhaland. Chief minister discouraged the proposal of separate state. GJMM supremo Bimal Gurung stands firm on the proposal and demand of separate state of Gorkhaland.

Morcha maps demand- CM rebuffs statehood cry, roots for council revision

Calcutta/Darjeeling, May 22: Gorkha Janmukti Morcha leaders today met Bengal chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at Writers’ Buildings in Calcutta over their demand for Gorkhaland and handed him a map of the proposed area of the new state.
“We submitted a memorandum demanding a separate land for the Gorkhas. We also handed over a proposed map of Gorkhaland to the chief minister and requested him to arrange for a tripartite meeting in Delhi to discuss the issue as the hill people are linguistically and culturally different from the rest of Bengal,” said Morcha general secretary Roshan Giri.
The leader was talking to reporters after the one-and-a-half-hour-long meeting. The proposed area on the map includes Darjeeling, Siliguri, the Dooars and Terai.
Bhattacharjee, however, rejected the statehood demand and instead asked the Morcha to sit for talks so that the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council Act can be strengthened through amendments.
“The chief minister has made it clear that he is willing to have discussions on the Darjeeling Gorkha Hill Council Act and was in favour of increasing the autonomy of the body. But he insisted that there was no need of a separate state and said the economic development of Darjeeling was closely associated with Bengal,” said home secretary Asok Mohan Chakrabarti.
According to the home secretary, Bhattacharjee asked the Morcha to steer clear of organisations like the Kamtapur Progressive Party and Greater Cooch Behar Democratic Party. Both want Cooch Behar district to be declared a state and are supporting the Morcha in its Gorkhaland demand.
“The chief minister has requested the Morcha general secretary not to have connections with these organisation of north Bengal as the state government does not approve of their activities,” Chakrabarti said.
Bhattacharjee also reacted to the Morcha demand for a separate police force for Gorkhaland and new number plates for vehicles. “A political party cannot demand such things,” he reportedly said.
In Darjeeling, Morcha president Bimal Gurung, who was not in the four-member delegation that met Bhattacharjee, said he would take part in talks only if the Centre was involved. “If we have to write to the Prime Minister or the home minister, we will do so, but the state has to arrange for the tripartite meeting,” Gurung said.
Amar Lama, a central committee member of the Morcha who was part of the delegation, said the chief minister would convene an all-party meeting in Calcutta to discuss the issue. “The hill parties will not be invited to this meeting,” Lama said.
“The chief minister is of the opinion that the inclusion of Siliguri and the Dooars in the Gorkhaland demand is unjustified as most people as well as intellectuals are against the move, but we told him that we, too, have the backing of intellectuals,” Lama said. (The Telegraph)

Siliguri intellectuals for demand abrogation of Indo-Nepal treaty

Statesman News ServiceSILIGURI, May 22: A number of eminent intellectuals from Siliguri have demanded the abrogation of the 1950 Indo-Nepal Friendship Treaty as a means of restricting border movement from neighbouring Nepal into Darjeeling and Siliguri. “Passport-visa system should be introduced and the citizenship rights should be bestowed upon the genuine Indian Nepalis who had come into India prior to the signing of the treaty in 1950,” they demanded. They also expressed apprehension that if the movement along the border was not regularised through passport-visa system, the settlers might outnumber the original inhabitants posing a serious law and order threat in near future for the hills and the plains in Darjeeling district. Mr Ashru Kumar Sikdar, an academician and writer, said today that it was queer that the border between two countries remained open for years. “It is being used by people from the neighbouring country to settle in several areas of Darjeeling district, particularly Siliguri,” he observed.“The only way to control this problem is to abrogate the Indo-Nepal Friendship Treaty immediately. The Maoist leader Prachanda has already demanded revising the treaty in the changed political context. We cannot understand why the Government of India is not yet serious about the issue,” Mr Sikdar wondered.Incidentally, the external affairs minister Mr Pranab Mukherjee, who was in Kalimpong to inaugurate a water project recently, had said in response to Prachanda’s demand that India was open to talks with Nepal.Another academician from Siliguri Mr Haren Ghosh today said that if the Centre was not serious about restraining trans-border movement, law and order problem in the Darjeeling hills as well as in Siliguri would get aggravated. “The genuine Indian Nepalis and the settlers after 1950 should be differentiated and passport-visa system should be introduced along the Nepal border to check the trans-border movement continuing unabated for years,” Mr Ghosh stated.Mr Asoke Hore, the secretary of the newly formed apolitical platform, Jana Jagaran Mancha, said that Siliguri was fast becoming a den for the ‘Bhupalis,’ (Bhutanis of Nepal origin) who had been deported from Bhutan.“There is evidence that a section of the ‘Bhupalis’ is involved in subversive activities recently unearthed in Siliguri. We are apprehensive that if the Indo-Nepal Treaty is not abrogated and human movement across the border is not subjected to a passport-visa system a much graver law and order problem may engulf the region,” Mr Hore warned. (The Statesman)