Here's some good news for the tourism sector. A group of leading tour operators from Singapore visited the Northeast last week, familiarising themselves with the region’s tourist spots. The group visited Tawang, Kaziranga National Park, Sivasagar, Rukmini Islands (on the Brahmaputra), Shillong, Tezpur and Guwahati. They met local tour operators, hoteliers and government officials and discussed ways to make the stay of foreign tourists smoother.PM’s birthday gift groundedPRIME Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee’s birthday gift to the northeast—an exclusive air service for the region—has failed to become fully operational. The new scheme, comprising four 50-seater ATR aircrafts, was supposed to link all the state capitals including Aizawl and Shillong to Guwahati. But two months later, the Mizoram capital is still to be linked to any other airport in the region except Imphal. Awards, not pensionsWHILE most literary awards are given only to veterans, the Munin Barkataky Literary Award in Assam has ushered in some change. Now in its sixth year, the award, instituted in the memory of the well-known writer and critic, is meant exclusively for writers below the age of 40. This year, for instance, it has gone to as many as five writers, all of whom had never received any award previously. After all, awards should not be pensions.Assam to tame schoolsAN unsystematic growth of private schools, especially those imparting education in English, has compelled the Assam government to introduce a bill to regulate them. Announcing this, state education minister Pankaj Bora last week said that there will be no compromise on education. Government-run schools however continue to be the worst-managed.Bamboo on showGUWAHATI will be hosting the first-ever international bamboo festival and technical meet next week where top international experts will discuss how to make better use of bamboo. The raw stock of bamboo in the region is valued at Rs 5000 crore and if even a quarter of this is uses it would help generate Rs 2500 crore a year. Organised by the UNIDO-sponsored Cane & Bamboo Technology Centre, Guwahati, the festival will also have a mela showcasing bamboo products from the world over.Museum for SikkimSIKKIM will at last get a museum at Gangtok, the state capital. The museum, to be established under the guidance of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), will primarily focus on people’s lifestyle and religious heritage of the state. Sikkim, incidentally, gets the highest number of foreign tourists in the Northeast.
