Across the countryside in Nagaland, acres of farmland over rolling hillslopes are bearing the fruit of one man’s dreams and hard work. And thousands of farmers in the tiny state are reaping the benefits of this vision.
Nagaland agriculture production commissioner Alemtemshi Jamir has ensured that the year about to slip into history is not remembered only for fratricidal killings and political turncoats. Jamir was instrumental in bringing about a turnaround in the state’s agriculture sector, an area dogged by primitive methods of jhum cultivation, which had never been the forte of Naga farmers.
The soft-spoken bureaucrat unleashed a slew of out-of-the-box ideas to put the state into the country’s agriculture map.
Nagaland’s ginger production has gone up to 20,000 tonnes in the year gone by from a meagre 400 to 500 tonnes a few years ago. Similarly, rajma production in Tuensang district increased to 2,000 tonne this year.
That’s not all. Jamir has shown farmers that horticulture can make them rich. Overall, Nagaland has registered an agricultural growth rate of over 15 per cent and the state has this unassuming bureaucrat to thank.
In a country where bureaucrats are known more for their pompousness and corruption, Jamir is a refreshing change. Nagaland will testify that he made a difference to people’s lives.
_ Samir K. Purkayastha
On top of the world
Tapi Mra’s bare feet have scaled heights where no human feet have trod.
Arunachal’s 27-year-old Mra is the only man to have scaled the Himalayan peak of Imja Tse, also known as Island Peak, 6,189 metres above sea level.
He achieved his feat by dint of sheer endurance, braving the icy Himalayas and all odds to be on top of the world.
“It was an uphill journey for me. At one point of time my parents and friends abandoned hope, as we all failed to get a sponsor for my trip. ”
Fortunately, Tony M. Huber, a social scientist and professor of Tibetan studies, came to Mra’s aid and contributed Rs 1 lakh to sponsor Mra’s venture. Mra finally scaled the dizzy Himalayan heights, facing the vagaries of weather and contenders from Japan, Netherland and New Zealand. Armed with a degree from the Himalayan Mountaineering Institute, Darjeeling, and a diploma in paragliding from the Himachal Pradesh Mountaineering Institute in March 2005, Mra got into the act immediately. In fact, he was even called out to help an US army expedition team which had lost way in a blizzard in Himachal Pradesh.
Born in Leimiking village, about 400km from Itanagar, the journey to fame was indeed an uphill task for Mra.
— Atonu Choudhurri
This is a classic story with a twist in the tail.
When C. Rokhuma placed the proposal before the Mizoram government earlier this year, the people were stunned and the Church was aghast. But coming from a wise man of 90, the proposal had enough conviction and logic. The government agreed with alacrity and thus began one of the biggest concerted campaigns against rats.
The reason, by now well known, was the exponential rise in rat population with the onset of bamboo flowering, triggering fears of mautam (famine). Rokhuma’s brainwave was to ask the government to pay Rs 2 as cash award to villagers for producing each tail of rats killed, as evidence. No wonder the nonagenarian social worker, teacher and church evangelist — all rolled into one — has become the toast of the people for Mizoram in 2007 for his tireless battle against the rodent population. Till the last count, four lakh rat tails have been deposited with the agriculture department.
— Santanu Ghosh
Amit all the way
For music-crazy Meghalaya, the crowning moment of 2007 was provided by a young boy called Amit Paul, who simply swept everyone off their feet. The 25-year-old finalist of the Indian Idol 3 show was not just a phenomenon exploding on the music-loving people of the state.
He turned out to be a great unifier, bridging the divide between tribals and non-tribals. For several months, the people breathed Amit, lived Amit and cried for Amit.
Though Amit did not win the contest (he was beaten to the title by Darjeeling lad Prashant Tamang), Meghalaya did all it could for the unassuming boy with a golden voice and disarming smile.
A school dropout with a single-minded devotion to music, Amit found fans in chief minister D.D. Lapang and Union tribal affairs minister P.R. Kyndiah. The Shillong Arts and Music Lovers Forum was formed to promote the singer.
When Amit lost, the old and young wept unabashedly. His homecoming was an unprecedented occasion laced with euphoria and organised on a scale even a head of state would have envied. Who says Amit did not win?
— E.M. Jose
From Sir, with love
Soubam Somananda, 39, teaches chemistry at Liberal College in Imphal West.
Till recently, Somananda, a resident of Achanbigei Mayai Leikai in Imphal East, regretted not being able to appear for the MBBS entrance examination nearly two decades back because of “lack of guidance and funds”.
Today, however, he has reason to celebrate. His student, Romesh Yaikhom, not only secured first division marks in the Plus Two examination but also fared well in this year’s All India Engineering Entrance Examination. Yaikhom, whose father is a farmer and mother a quarry worker, got admission to Morb Engineering College at Rajkot for the BE (electrical) course. It was Somananda who kept Yaikhom at his home for several months, teaching him, providing him food, books and magazines and above all, guidance.
Thanks to Somananda, many students are starting to dream big.
— Khelen ThokchomWhen 30 of the 40 students he taught cleared the civil services examination this year, Abhijeet Bhattacharya smirked at life’s irony.
Less than a decade ago he had wandered in Agartala, jobless, having failed to clear the Tripura Civil Services.
It felt a little strange and enormously fulfilling to help others achieve what he had failed to do.
In 1997, Abhijeet set up an institute, the School of Science, to help students crack competitive exams to various medial and engineering colleges and of course, the civil services tests. “This year, our success ratio has surpassed all earlier records and even our own expectations,” says Abhijeet.
“I have now been selected by the Union ministry of human resource development to train candidates belonging to Scheduled Caste, Other Backward Classes and religious minority for central civil service exams.”
Having graduated in bio-science in 1992, Abhijeet landed a teacher’s job in Ram Krishna Mission School. Family responsibilities soon forced him to look for something that would pay better.
“Initially I had tried to earn a living by giving private tuition but it was difficult, as the market was dominated by established schoolteachers. It was then that the idea of launching the School of Science occurred to me,” says Abhijeet.
“Now it seems shocking since I missed the bus myself, being out of contention after the interview,” he smiles.
From an unemployed youth to the founder-principal of an institute, Abhijeet has come a long way. He now employs five whole-time tutors and two clerks.
“My inspiration is the success of my students,” he says.
— Sekhar Datta
Poor man’s banker
Mohammad Siraj Ali always wanted to do something for the economically backward people of his native village. His dream was the founding of a co-operative bank called the Rani-Bholagaon Samabay Samiti Khudra Sanchai Bank, modelled on the lines of Nobel winner Mohammad Younus’s Grameen Bank.
The former timber merchant motivated a group of people from the two villages of Rani and Bholagaon to start a co-operative bank with 10 executives and nearly 6,700 general members in September 2006.
Over a year later, thousands of residents of the villages in and around Rani, on the outskirts of Guwahati, talk about how Ali has made a difference to their lives.
The bank has turned out to be the catalyst for change in a cluster of 20 to 25 villages in Kamrup (rural) district.
Bela Rabha, a farmer, was in penury till he availed of a loan of Rs 30,000 from the bank to buy a pair of buffaloes early this year. “My buffalo cart now fetches me an income of about Rs 200 per day. I have almost repaid the entire loan. Two months ago, I took another loan to buy my second pair of buffaloes. I am a happy man now. My children can now go to school,” he says.
Dhaneswar Das is another beneficiary. He was an unemployed youth frustrated with life until he opened a grocery shop at Bholagaon with a loan from the bank.
This year, the bank disbursed loans amounting to over Rs 50 lakh to more than 500 families. “We will open branches by February at Bongora, Bordwar Bazar and Jarubori,” Ali, the chairman of the bank, says of the venture that began with a starting capital of Rs 4 lakh raised through people’s contributions.
The bank now has a corpus of around Rs 1 crore.
Ali has proved that an idea, and a streak of selflessness, can surely change the world.
— Samir K. Purkayastha
