KSU president Samuel Jyrwa, after an emergency meeting on Sunday, said they had decided to call off the blockade and bandh after appeals from church leaders, senior citizens and parents of those children whose marriages are scheduled on the two days.

"Besides the weddings, we have also acknowledged the appeal of the church leaders as Indian Catholic Youth Movement will be held in Shillong this week," Mr Jyrwa said.

Instead, the student body will hold office picketing on both the days in East Khasi Hills, West Khasi Hills and Ri-Bhoi districts, in protest against the State Government's decision to hand over power projects to private companies.

All the State and Central government offices, financial institutions and government undertakings, will fall under the purview of the office picketing.

Schedule of the "public procession", however, remains unchanged and it will be taken out on Monday from KSU office at Jaiaw here at 11 a.m.

Warning the State government against taking the KSU decision to call off the band and blockade lightly, Mr Jyrwa said, "We are going to intensify our agitation if the government does not review its decision to hand over the power projects to private firms."

He appealed to the public and the government employees to extend support to the Union during the agitational programmes.

"Though we are not in favour of creating inconvenience to the common people, we have been forced to agitate as we cannot allow the government to sell out our resources in this manner," he said.

MLA opposes Cabinet move: Meanwhile, Mylliem legislator PM Syiem on Sunday expressed his opposition to the handing over of power projects to private companies and demanded immediate review of the Cabinet decision.

Mr Syiem said the government should immediately revoke the decision as "any delay might lead to law-and-order problem especially when the KSU has already announced a series of agitations".

MULTA bomb expert to surrender: A former ULFA-turned-MULTA cadre will surrender to the BSF on Monday. The militant identified as Raju Sheikh is an explosive expert and joined Muslim United Liberation Tigers of Assam (MULTA) after deserting ULFA, BSF said.

SHILLONG: Ending a long row over proposed merger of two regional parties, MDP legislators PT Sawkmie and DP Iangjuh on Saturday resigned from the party to contest from UDP in the coming Assembly elections.

"We have resigned from the primary membership of the party in order to bring back unity among the regional parties and also to respect the sentiment of the people," Mr Sawkmie and Mr Iangjuh stated in a letter addressed to MDP president Marlte N Mukhim.

Both the legislators will also resign from the Assembly membership as per the Anti-Defection Law. They are expected to submit their resignation letters to Speaker MM Danggo on Tuesday, leaving only Mr Mukhim to represent the party in the Assembly.

However, Mr Mukhim was not unhappy over their resignations. He said, "They had created a lot of confusion within the party and with their resignations, for which they took so much time, will help the party."

"We have derecognised them as party members long time back," Mr Mukhim said.

Denying the resignations a setback for the party, he said the party had already recruited thousands of new members in various constituencies.

"They may say I am left alone but the fact is that there are many new faces who will join me in the fray," he said.

The much-talked-about merger of UDP and MDP was not possible with Mr Mukhim declining to accept the UDP's offer to him to return to the parent party.

Mr Mukhim maintained that it was the same party which refused to join RPA, so now again this rhetoric of merger did not hold much ground.

The MDP is an offshoot of the UDP and was formed after splitting in 2003 ever since Roy and Mukhim have pursued different agenda although both are ministers in the ruling Congress-led MDA coalition government.

It may be mentioned UDP's effort for merger of regional parties ahead of the Assembly elections was met with sharp rebuff with MDP chief calling the Donkupar Roy-led party as "pretentious".

TURA: Four Independent candidates of Garo Hills have come under one platform to take on political parties in the ensuing elections to the State Assembly. If elected, these four candidates will put forward a set of demands to the parties, which seek their support to form the next government.

The Independent candidates John Leslee K Sangma, Lazarus M Sangma, Sanjib R Marak and Septerwin R Sangma will contest from Tura, Bahamas, Dalamgre and Rongchugre respectively.

Among other demands like justice for the September 30 firing victims, holding of winter session of the Assembly at Tura, closure of all wine stores during the month of December, the Independent candidates, interestingly, have also incorporated a separate State for the Garos in their demand list.

"Our support will be solely for a party that can efficiently and honestly serve the people," John Leslee said in a joint press conference at Tura on Saturday afternoon.

According to him, the present Congress-led government failed to fulfill the aspirations of the people.

The four aspirants have also demanded holding of all interviews at Tura for filling up 40 per cent reserved posts for the Garos and construction of Governor's house within three months from the formation of the government.

They have decided to initiate a programme of doing away with money and wine during election campaigns. "Our motto is to encourage the voters to elect candidates who will work for the society and not indulge in illegal practice to woo the people. And, we have shown the way in the last MDC by-election at Tura," said Mr Leslee, who emerged as the winner by defeating his nearest Congress rival.

Earlier, Sanjiv R Marak, president of Achik Youth and Cultural Organisation resigned from the organisation to join the election fray as an Independent candidate. He will take on NCP heavyweight and Opposition leader Admiral K Sangma in Dalamgre.

The general conference meeting of the MDP held at Karukol LP School, Karukol was attended by more than 500 delegates, party workers and well-wishers of the party including MDP State joint secretary K Khongjirem.

The meeting also reconstituted the MDP, East Garo Hills district unit with Mr Surjit Sangma as its president. It also elected Willard Sangma, Gomolson Marak and Prinbath N Sangma as vice presidents, Lenitha Sangma as general secretary besides other secretaries, an advisor and six executive members.

In a statement issued here on Sunday, the Dorbar Shnong also aired concern over leakage of drinking water pipes, which resulted in damage to roads in the locality, while seeking repair of the same by the concerned authorities.

The West Bengal chief minister, Mr. Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, visited the strife-torn Nandigram to pacify people after the CPM cadre had created mayhem in which hundreds of people were killed and thousands of houses were either burnt or partly destroyed. The political duplicity of comrades does not need any elucidation as they are good at confusing the issues in political jargons.

Long on pretence, but short on performance, the Marxists never tire of patting themselves on the back for their supposed scientific socio-economic outlook and commitment to the have-nots. They glibly proclaim that they are "progressive" and shorn of superstition, bigotry and prejudice of any kind. Never mind, if in the 30-year of the egalitarian Marxist rule in West Bengal, dowry, lynching women as witches, marrying daughters to dogs and hiring sorcerers’ service to tackle malaria, and refusal to eat food cooked by Muslims and lower caste Hindus are rampant and thriving in the state.

Recently, the atheist CPI-M top brass displayed how fragile is their adherence to rationality. An editorial in the party weekly People’s Democracy (December 2), reminiscent of the rantings of the saffron brigade, linked natural disaster to sin, alleging that the tsunami is the "culmination of a legacy of hate and destruction that we the people of India overcame in the political sphere in 2004." Asked for comment on this convoluted logic by the press, the embarrassed party general secretary, Mr. Prakash Karat, in New Delhi was evasive, pleading that he had no time to read the party journal yet.

Whether religion is opium or not, Marxist rhetoric and Marxist rule in West Bengal have failed to turn its people Godless and irreligious. Party stalwarts follow a selective approach to practising secularism. Ministers boycott Saraswati bandana at public functions and excise Ganesh bandana from the Chhou dance sequence, but do not mind sitting through Kuran telawat at official functions. Party activists, including many senior office-bearers, actively participate in pujas and openly and, at times, demonstrably say namaz. There can be no quarrel with that one’s faith is a personal matter that must not interfere with one’s political conviction. What is insufferable, however, is the Marxists’ use of religion with an eye on securing political advantage.

For example, on December 21 at Bakrid ceremony, a former state minister and presently an MP led the namaz on the Red Road in the full TV glare. While there was nothing objectionable to that, during the parliamentary election campaign in 2004 in his wall writings he had prefixed "Comrade" to his name in the Hindu-majority areas, but dropped it from the writings in the Muslim-dominated areas and used his convenient first name "Mohammed" instead! Though no illegal, it certainly reeked of duplicity and, yes, bourgeois hypocrisy. Morality and communism have always been contradictions in terms, opportunism being the overriding element in Marxist ethos. For the sake of captive minority votes, which account for 22 per cent of the state electorate, the Left-Front regime has been routinely turning a blind eye to many illegal and criminal activities of lumpen CPM cadres and supporters in the minority community. Infiltration from Bangladesh has acquired the proportions of a veritable demographic invasion and has entirely changed the communal complexion of the border districts. Criminal and subversive activities of many infiltrators have heightened the insecurity of the original inhabitants of the border belt, forcing them to leave the affected area sin droves, selling their houses and land for a song to Muslim migrants.

As a result, in the outlying peripheral areas of Nadia district Hindu inhabitants had owned 60 per cent of the cultivable land till five years back, but presently their share has now come down to less than 40 per cent. Keeping mum over this disastrous process for years, chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has been lately decrying illegal immigration, but has not taken any effective measures to stem the flow of migrants, let alone deport them.

In line with the scale of infiltration, mosques and madrassas have been mushrooming on public land, violating government rules. A feeble attempt by the chief minister to mildly deprecate the unrestrained growth of these institutions earned him a severe reprimand from the state party headquarters, forcing him to eat his own words. The state government spends more than Rs. 15 crore annually on madrassa education, focused on teaching the Kuran and hadis, which is not exactly conducive to instilling the much-needed secular ethos in our younger generations to promote inter-community harmony. In contrast, the Left front government has virtually stopped supporting the traditional Sanskrit seminaries (tols). The reason for such "step-motherly treatment", in the words of a former head of the department of Sanskrit of the Calcutta University, known for his proximity to the regime, is the fear that teaching of Sanskrit would increase the influence of the RSS! The Kuran, which calls all non-Muslims Kafir and ordains their gratuitous annihilation, is taught at state expense, but teaching of Sanskrit texts that unfailingly contain the message of universal brotherhood and harmonious living together at all living beings is a taboo. Only Marxist morons are capable of such dastardly distortions and discriminations.

Unchecked radicalisation of Islam in the post-Mujib era has led to the growth of Jamaat-supported Talibani terrorist outfits in Bangladesh, which, while wreaking havoc in the country, also pose a serious threat to the security and stability of the region. Predictably, the unsavoury developments across the border have been adversely impacting on sections of the Muslim community in the state, notably in the border districts. Fundamentalist Muslim clerics in Murshidabad district have issued fatwas proclaiming social and economic boycott of twenty-odd Muslim bauls for singing their traditional songs urging peace, unity and harmony among all human beings. In Bangladesh, the country’s High Court has banned fatwa, but the preudo-secular Marxist regime of West Bengal has preferred to remain a silent spectator of these atrocities. By banning in 2004 Tasleema Nasreen’s Dwikhandita under pressure from a section of Muslims and mullah who publicly instigated the faithful to assault and humiliate her, the state government had effectively boosted the growth of Islamic fundamentalism in the state, though the ban was declared illegal by the Calcutta High Court. Now, Ms. Nasreen has been thrown out of Kolkata.

And all that is for the 22 per cent crucial block Muslim votes needed to retain the Left Front’s hold on power. Thirty years of one-party misrule has turned West Bengal into a torpid and apathetic state that has given its people the rudest and most humiliating treatment. Driven by duplicity and deception, the tyrannical regime successfully maintains a fraudulent facade of democracy and freedom of the media, but its primary concern is to maintain the submission of its ubiquitous army of henchmen spread within its party ranks, the bureaucracy and the opposition parties. Given the will, the henchmen can collectively oust it from power but the art of its unimpeded tyranny lies in giving them privileges and rewards, which they do not wish to lose, and convincing them that they can hold their own positions only if the regime keeps its. The more ruthless the repression the easier is to achieve this because the henchmen also have a guilty fear of what the people might do to them if their mounting frustration were ever unleashed. In this darkening situation, the intellectuals could have made a difference, but wary of losing the crumbs of government largesse, they are "strangers to that vigour of mind, and all the virtues, grafted on those passions which animate our more active spirits." The corrupting and corroding influence of the incumbent regime has heightened the deadening effect of Bengali indolence on them. Honourable exceptions apart, there is little enterprise and less generous sentiments among our intellectuals and, therefore, no significant social commitment to spearhead any serious movement towards pulling the hapless state out of the morass of ruinous Marxist misrule. INAV

Never before has the Indian media community been so blessed. The number of media organisations is increasing and being filled by professionals whose salaries have improved vastly. But what has set this year apart is the presence of fake stings that exposed the media's fault lines and unspooled a much-needed bout of introspection.

In late August Uma Khurana, then an unknown maths teacher at a government run school located in Daryaganj, was 'found' forcing her high school students to become part of a prostitution ring.

The sting operation was aired on India Live, a 24-hour news channel that had recently been renamed. A teenage girl, claiming to be Khurana's pupil revealed her ordeal on camera to a supposedly enterprising reporter.

Minutes later a mob gathered outside the school, physically assaulted Khurana, set a car on fire and bayed for justice. Solely on the basis of the sting the police arrested the stunned teacher.

It took ten days for the police to discover that the sting had been cooked up and the teacher framed. The 'student' was Rashmi Singh, an aspiring journalist, and the 'reporter' was supposedly an accomplice of a person to whom Khurana owed money.

This was not the only example of a sting that had gone horribly wrong. Earlier this year three men had been arrested for trying to extort money from three Members of Parliament from Jharkhand by saying they were conducting a sting on behalf of reputed TV news channel Aaj Tak.

They said they would not hand over an incriminating undercover report if the politicians paid them. Ultimately they were nabbed.

Rajdeep Sardesai, CNN-IBN's editor-in-chief, writing in the Hindustan Times on the dominating presence of sting operations in TV journalism, recalled how he had been sent an SMS from Patna by a person who claimed he could provide the channel with 40 ready-to-hire stings.

"Trust me," the text message punned, "together we can create a Tehelka".

Sardesai dismissed the proposal but the offer did reveal that the public saw the media as an industry reeling under market pressure, and so desperate to make profit that it was willing to corrupt established news processes.

Today, sting journalism - also nicknamed stink journalism - has become such an accepted practice that media schools are beginning to offer specialised courses on it.

In a sense the Khurana episode was a disaster waiting to happen. Ever since Outlook magazine first went undercover to expose the presence of cricket match fixing and Tehelka, then a website, captured on camera senior politicians of the BJP-led NDA coalition accepting money for defence contracts, there has been a multiplier effect.

The Tehelka expose was undoubtedly the most influential story of 2001 - the union defence minister and the president of the BJP both resigned. Commenting presciently on the investigation then, editor Vir Sanghvi had felt that the moral ambivalence over the way facts were collected would come back and haunt the profession. And so it has.

Now there is a glut of stings in the electronic media and occasionally the print media too. Mostly outsourced, these undercover operations range from being legitimate exercises to expose official malpractices to voyeuristic devices used for promotion by upcoming media outlets to sheer fabrication.

Now the fake Khurana sting has triggered a credibility crisis in the world of spycams, secret recordings and phone tappings. It has compromised past and future stings and placed them in an ethical soup. Within the media collective it has raised questions about entrapment, about using deceit to pursue truth and has got the whole issue in a legal bind.

As undercover operations have escalated the public has developed a sense of doubt over the intent of stings. There is a realisation that a sting predicated on the whim of a journalist gives the media too much power. Today, sting fatigue, both within the press and within the nation has slowly begun to creep in.

The result is that genuine stings are starting to lose their power. Operation Cleanbowled, broadcast by Headlines Today recently on the factionalism within the national cricket selectors and the Indian cricket team, failed to ignite a debate.

Tehelka's most recent undercover operation in October, Operation Kalank, detailing how closely Gujarat's top leadership was involved in the massacre of thousands of Muslims in the horrific carnage of 2002, hardly created the expected ripple though broadcast on the eve of the Gujarat elections.

On the potential plus side, the Khurana fake sting's biggest contribution is that it has provided an opportunity for the media to come up with its own ethics code before the government steps in with regulations in the form of a new Broadcast Bill.

Already, while disposing of a petition over the Khurana case, the Delhi High Court has suggested that all sting operations be cleared by a committee set up by the Information and Broadcasting Ministry which would issue no objection certificates.

Unlike the West, which has very clear procedures that govern undercover investigations and has a well-defined code of ethics, Indian news organisations have no such external or internal rules. Here there is no clear law against sting operations nor is there a clear right to privacy.

In fact, technically, it is only the Pre-diagnostic Technique Amendment Act of 1994 that allows a sting. Under this law a journalist can go as a decoy to expose the use of an ultrasound for sex identification.

This is how Mangala Telang, a prominent Delhi-based gynaecologist, was caught last month on camera by a BBC undercover team agreeing to abort a female foetus.

Undercover reporting can produce memorable and meaningful journalism. It's up to the Indian media not to settle for anything less.

Sir,

I would like to bring to your kind attention a few anomalies in NEEPCO (North Eastern Electric Power Corporation), a government of India enterprise.

There was a lot of hue and cry regarding malpractice by erstwhile CMD of NEEPCO, and he was forced to leave the Corporation. The press have also played a vital role in bringing out the real facts to the public. As public money is at stake such a step from the press is appreciable.

At present the Corporation is headed by Mr J Barkakoti as In-Charge CMD. The irony is that, since he had become CMD, he has hardly attended office at Shillong, but is busy making trips to Delhi, Kolkata, besides two trips to Germany and Spain. Now he is planning to go to Goa for vacation. If the head of the organisation remains absent from his office you can imagine how an office will function. He being also in charge of Director (Technical), all the important decisions are pending for which Kameng HE Project is suffering badly.

The present HRD Department is headed by a simple graduate in the capacity of Director (Personnel). In fact he has acquired a personal management certificate at a much later stage in his career, which is suspicious. He has the dubious distinction of taking out wrong orders and renowned for taking out amendments to his original orders/circulars.

Mr IP Barooah, the Director (Personnel) has considered NEEPCO to be his personal property. That is why, the Corporation's Guest house at New Delhi is being used for his two daughters' education at Delhi.

There is a policy of the Corporation regarding site/project

posting for minimum two years prior to becoming Manager and DGM. But these rules are violated by this man, especially for those people whom he has kept in vital position to fulfill his own interest. Whenever, question of promotion of these set of people comes he takes the matter to the board of director and approve their promotion under the pretext of safeguarding Corporation's interest.

Today NEEPCO has only one ongoing construction project, i.e. Kameng HE Project in Arunachal Pradesh. Recently the GM, who was in charge of Package work, retired. But Mr Barooah has even failed to depute one substitute for this vital position, because he has no time for the Corporation.

Most of the Design Engineers have resigned from the Corporation, because of this attitude of the two senior most Directors of the PSU. Today design wing of NEEPCO located at Zoo Road in Guwahati is only a structural building with no proper manpower to look after the design works.

Under the guidance of Mr IP Barooah, the construction of one new Guest House at Guwahati was taken up by calling tenders from limited parties, in the pretext that the work is urgent in nature. It is very unfortunate that NEEPCO is having a guest house on hire at Guwahati for last 20 years. How come suddenly construction of Guest House has become so urgent that they have to go for limited tender. The matter need to be enquired by CVC.

Yours etc.,
Pompa Hazarika
Tezpur
Via e-mail

State Parliamentary Affairs Minister and Government spokesman Tako Dabi informed from New Delhi here on Sunday that the Centre would pass an ordinance within next the three to four days for cancellation of its earlier order for delimitation of the Arunachal Assembly constituencies.

''The Centre's decision to actively consider the State Government's demand in the larger interests has come as a new year gift to the people of this Himalayan state,'' Mr Dabi added.

Earlier, the draft proposal for the delimitation of the Assembly seats had evoked protests throughout the State as population was taken as a yardstick for the delimitation process.

A team, headed by Arunachal Chief Minister Dorjee Khandu, Speaker Setong Sena, state PWD Minister Nabam Tuki and Dabi, on Saturday met the Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister to discuss the delimitation process.

Dabi further informed that the Chief Minister had earlier written to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, stating that the delimitation of Assembly constituencies on the basis of the 2001 census was not justified and could lead to serious law and order problems in the State.

In a memorandum, the State Government had also requested Delimitation Commission Chairman Justice (Retd) Kuldip Singh to reconsider the case of Arunachal Pradesh and exempt it from the purview of the delimitation process, Dabi added.

He further informed that Khandu, along with his Cabinet colleagues, would call on Manmohan Singh in New Delhi to finalise the Prime Minister's visit to the State, scheduled either in the end of January or the early part of February.

The Prime Minister was also likely to announce a special package for infrastructure development in the state during his visit, besides inaugurating the Rajiv Gandi Bhawan here, he informed. (UNI)

AGARTALA: The CPI(M)-led Left Front Government has urged the Election Commission to declare the dates for Assembly election in Tripura.

CPI(M) politburo member Sitaram Yechury, while addressing youth rally here at Stable Ground on Sunday, said the election dates should be declared immediately in the State.

Expressing displeasure over the role of Election Commission, he said if the Congress-led UPA Government imposes President Rule in Tripura what it had done in Nagaland, the party would not leave to teach a lesson to the Congress High Command.

Flaying the EC's delay to declare polling in Tripura, Yechury said the State is all set to go to the polls within next one and half month.

"The election should be announced immediately," he snapped, while expressing confident that the ruling Left Front would win the next Assembly elections.

He also criticised the Congress for its bid to forge electoral alliance with Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT). "While Congress is propagating against terrorism and communal force at the national level, here in Tripura, it is doing electoral business with underground outfit backed by political parties to capture power," he said.

Besides Yechury, Chief Minister Manik Sarkar, general secretary of the party's youth organisation (DYFI) Tapas Sinha also delivered speeches in the rally.

Chief Minister, who is also member of party's highest policy making body, lambasted the Congress for its attempt to "rig" the election process in order to oust the people friendly Government.

Highlighting the Left Front Government's achievements during the past few years, Sarkar said people will set a new recorded by installing the sixth Left Front Government in the State.

The Chief Minister also expressed dismay over the Election Commission's move of seeking elaborate report on summary revision of photo electoral rolls.

"The State poll panel has been making the photo rolls with the help of Government employees and people for the last one and half years. Opposition parties are still filing complains to delay the process," he said.

Come what may, no force will come in our way of achieving landslide victory in the next elections, he proclaimed.

Kohima: Allaying fears that President's Rule might provide free hand to the armed forces, Nagaland Governor K Shankaranarayan has said that security and maintenance of law and order are the top priority of the Government during the Central rule, which was imposed in the State on Thursday last.

"President's Rule means civil rule, not Army rule, where the civil administration, police and Governor have to run the Government efficienetly and smoothly," he said in view of some political parties and organisations' assertion that President's Rule meant Army rule leading to sufferings by the people.

Addressing a security co-ordination meeting at police headquarters on Sunday, the Governor asked the police and paramilitary forces to remain alert.

The Governor directed the Director General of Police (dgp) to issue instructions to all senior police officials and Superintendents of Police (sps) to make available police officers and personnel at their places of posting so that they could visit the place of occurance of any incident.

Shankaranarayanan insisted on achieving peace and a sense of security by the people of Nagaland and lauded initiatives of NGSO churches and village level functionaries such as gaon burhas (village chiefs) and dobhashis (interpreters) in halting factional fightings in the State.

Stating that Nagaland was due for Assembly elections soon, he emphasised on networking of intelligence State police, CRPF and Assam Rifles to ensure law and order.

The Governor also asked the police force to strengthen the existing check gates and to be polite and courteous with the people. (PTI)

NNN adds: The Nagaland Pradesh Congress Committee (NPCC) has termed as "unfortunate" the 12-hour bandh called by non-Congress political parties on January 8 on the NH 39 and 61, passing through the State, to protest against imposition of President's Rule in the State while stating that they (political parties) should instead take up their grievances with the Centre.

The move would only "disrupt the lives of the people of Nagaland".

The NPCC statement said, "if they were genuinely agitated with the Centre's decision to impose President's Rule in Nagaland, they should go to Delhi and demonstrate their unhappiness there. "

Meanwhile, Thoubal Superintendent of Police (SP) Th Radheshyam said police nabbed two miscreants who had committed robberies on the NH 39 (Imphal-Moreh Road). (UNI)

Official source said the BSF post was attacked by using sophisticated weapons including rocket launcher by the gunmen. The BSF personnel retaliated the firing and the encounter lasted for around half an hour. Misfired ammunition of rocket launcher landed in the nearby locality. The BSF personnel later defused the unexploded explosives. (NNN)

The police said a bomb planted inside a car owned by a prominent businessmans exploded when his son opened the garage at their house premises.

The son was admitted to the Dhubri civil hospital in a critical condition. (PTI)

Guwahati: An accomplished Assam artist, Anup Hazarika in collaboration with a small group of art buff, has evolved a new technique for creation of paintings that are combination of digital technology and genuine strokes of artist's brush.

It is all about digitising the original painting of an artist then reproducing it on the coarse side of a flex and the artist will give the final touch on the reproduction with his/ her brush besides signing on it. That way the cost of the painting will come down to an affordable level without affecting the quality of it.

The objective is to make quality paintings affordable for art lovers who do not have deep pockets to buy expensive paintings. "Using this technology, one can create a series of paintings depicting a concept while keeping each of the paintings complete by itself. We have called the method canvascope," said engineer Utpal Das, an art promoter and art lover.

Canvascope, sounds strange and not to be found in any dictionary of English language. The venture too is one of its kinds in the trouble-torn but culturally rich North East. The popularise the concept called Canvascope, an infrastructure for artists and sculptors, especially those from the younger generation, that is being given shape under the roof of a 3500 square feet shed in an industrial estate here.

"It will provide a much needed common platform for artists and sculptors of the region to do their work, experiment with colours and shapes as well as to sell their products," said Hazarika.

"There is no point blaming our youngsters for going ashtray without providing them with an environment to hone their skills and talents. Canvascope is a humble attempt to promote the cause of art and sculpture among the youth," said noted filmmaker Sanjib Sabhapandit, one of the pioneers behind the venture.

Anup Hazarika has already displayed 13 of his paintings created using the new method in the Canvascope to begin with.