THERE is good news for rhino lovers. At the Kaziranga National Park, home to over 1600 one-horned rhinos, poaching has been successfully curbed. In 2002, the park lost about 62 rhinos, out of which 56 died due to old age while six fell prey to poachers. Compare this with the toll between 1996-2001, when 68 rhinos were killed by poachers while 367 died due to natural causes. In the Orang National Park took, which was once a den of poachers, not a single rhino was killed in 2002.Now, Manipur Targets Bengali TouristsWITH its number of foreign visitors dwindling from 836 in 2000 to 419 in 2001, Manipur is now trying to explore the domestic tourist market. And they are starting with Kolkata, home to the intrepid Bengali traveller. A Festival of Manipur is being organised in the City of Joy next week. While over 500 artists from the state will stage cultural programmes, Kolkatans will also be treated to the Manipuri theatre version of Devdas.For DD, 2003 is Year of the NortheastDOORDARSHAN is all set to observe this year as the Year of the Northeast. Its director general, S.Y. Quraishi, said here last week that the national channel would air more programmes on the region. A musical festival is also being organised. The contest winners will reportedly be promoted internationally. According to Quraishi, DD kendras in all the Northeast state capitals will start airing a 15-minute news bulletin everyday from January 26.End Extortions, says Militant OutfitWHERE most underground armed outfits of the Northeast are known to raise funds by extorting the general public, the Manipur People’s Liberation Front (MPLF) has urged all such groups to discontinue demands for ‘‘donations’’ and collection of ‘‘taxes’’ from January 15. The MPLF, which is an umbrella organisation of three major outfits — the United National Liberation Front (UNLF), the Revolutionary People’s Front (RPF) and the People’s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (Prepak) — said its member organisations had already put an end to such extortions.What’s in a name? Tripura or TwipraANOTHER demand for a change of name, this time in Tripura. The Indigenous Nationalist Party of Tripura (INPT) has demanded that the state be renamed as Twipra, as that is allegedly the original name and conforms to Kokborok, the main local tribal language. Justifying the claim, INPT president Bijoy Hrangkhwal claims that all the old scriptures and royal documents spell the state as Twipra.
