Gorkha leader Madan Tamang, president of the Akhil Bharatiya Gorkha League (ABGL), was Friday stabbed to death allegedly by Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) supporters in this West Bengal town, police said. News of the death led to a spontaneous shutdown in the region. Tamang, who led the anti-GJM front in the Darjeeling hills, was hit with a kukri (long knife used by Nepalis) at around 9.30 a.m., an official said.

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Madan Tamang, Gorkha League leader killed

Pro and anti-Gorkhaland forces have called for consecutive bandhs for three days in Darjeeling district following the deadlock over the recent tripartite talks. Bangla O Bangla Bhasa Bachao Samiti, an anti-Gorkhaland organisation, called a 24-hour West Bengal bandh tomorrow in protest against the government holding talks with the GJM. On the other hand, Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) has called a 48-hour bandh from Saturday in their proposed territory which includes Siliguri and a part of Dooars

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Darjeeling braces for 72-hour bandh

Kalimpong, May 13: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha today said it would pull out of talks for an “interim” set-up for the Darjeeling hills and revive the demand for Gorkhaland in a fresh bout of muscle-flexing that came with a 10-day shutdown call next month. Morcha boss Bimal Gurung said “everything will remain closed” during the June 12-21 bandh, as he mounted pressure on the Centre and the Bengal government to agree to the inclusion of Siliguri and Gorkha-speaking areas of the Dooars and the Terai under the proposed authority’s jurisdiction. “Henceforth, we will not carry forward the interim arrangement, but will work towards the creation of Gorkhaland state,” Gurung told a media conference in Deolo, 5km from Kalimpong

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Morcha issues 10-day bandh in the Darjeeling Hills

The tourism sector and the business community today hit out at the state government for remaining silent to the 10-day strike of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, fearing that the ripple effect of the bandh may extend till the Pujas. “Over the past two-and-a half years, the tourism sector in north Bengal has suffered, not only because of the frequent strikes and agitation but the silence of the state government as well,” said Raj Basu, the working president of the Eastern Himalaya Travel and Tour Operators’ Association. “The current tourist season usually extends till mid-June when the forests close down and the rains come.

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Govt blamed for Morcha bandh

Siliguri, May 7: The Darjeeling district administration today granted permission to the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha to hold a rally in Sukna tomorrow despite stiff resistance from the anti-Gorkhaland outfits in the plains who have decided to oppose it tooth and nail. The permission for the rally at the BB Gurung Memorial High School grounds, around 10km from here, came in the evening. This is supposed to be the second largest public meeting of the Morcha to be held in the plains

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Morcha gets ready to prove mettle – Rivals plan to put up resistance to plains rally

Kalimpong, May 7: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha’s four frontal organisations today enforced a five-hour pen-down strike in the subdivisional office here to protest the shifting of a library science course from Kalimpong Janata College to Siliguri. Representatives of the four organisations — the Janmukti Secondary Teachers’ Organisation, Gorkha Primary Teachers’ Organisation, Janmukti Karmachari Sangathan and the Janmukti Asthai Karmachari Sangathan — reached the subdivisional office before 10am to enforce the strike. Since the agitating organisations had issued a prior notice on the strike, the employees had not turned up for duty.

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Course shift protest in hills

The misuse of DGHC funds by the frontal organisations of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, as alleged by the council’s administrator B. L. Meena, will be discussed in detail at the next round of political-level talks in Delhi, according to Bengal municipal affairs minister Asok Bhattacharya

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Darjeeling Funds misuse to dominate talks: Asok

GNLF leader Dawa Pakhrin today threatened to move Calcutta High Court against the state and central governments for their alleged failure to restore normality in the Darjeeling hills. A former GNLF branch president of Kalimpong, Pakhrin also admitted a “difference of opinion” within the party, which he said, had been affecting its activities in the plains and the hills. “We have repeatedly written to the Centre, state and both the human rights commissions, highlighting the atrocities of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha.

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Legal threat to restore peace in the Darjeeling hills

Darjeeling, April 30: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha and the CPRM, the two largest parties in the hills, will organize May Day celebrations here tomorrow, raising a possibility of confrontation between their supporters. As both the parties have pledged to ensure the participation of as many people as possible, police have decided to post adequate forces at the venues where meetings will be held. The CPRM had announced its decision to organise May Day programme more than a fortnight back

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Battle of numbers at May Day meets – Security at venues to prevent clash

Siliguri, April 30: The forest department is trying to bring in the Sashastra Seema Bal to check the smuggling of rare medicinal plants from the Singalila National Park to Nepal. The 78.6sqkm park is on the Indo-Nepal border in Darjeeling district. Singalila, at an altitude of 7,000ft, is a storehouse of rare medicinal plants that have great demand both in the national and international markets

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SSB protectors for Singalila forest species – WWF trains border guards to conserve park & keep away smugglers

Gangtok, April 30: Foreign delegates who participated in an international seminar on rhododendron conservation and sustainable use here yesterday lauded the Sikkim government for its efforts to protect the state’s bio-diversity. Experts from Germany, Holland, Sweden and Bhutan are here to participate in the Rhododenron Festival organised by the state government this month. “In Europe, we have rhododendrons cultivated for collections and parks but here in Sikkim, the plant’s various species are found in the wild and in their natural form,” Wolfgang Spethmann from Germany told The Telegraph.

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Foreign delegates lauded Sikkim for its efforts to protect bio-diversity

Darjeeling, April 18: The ABGL has urged the government to hold a referendum to find out whether the interim set-up mooted by the Centre, state and the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha is acceptable to the people. “If the referendum goes in favour of the (interim) set-up, we have nothing to say. However, the government must not thrust any provision on the people unless it is accepted by them,” ABGL president Madan Tamang told a media conference today

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ABGL for referendum on ‘set-up’

Darjeeling, April 18: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha has “banned” the movement of government vehicles in the hills for an indefinite period, demanding the immediate arrest of GNLF supporters who had allegedly beaten up some Morcha men in the Terai last week. The “ban” extends to police cars as well. The GNLF, too, has threatened a chakka jam tomorrow at Darjeeling More in Siliguri if the Morcha supporters involved in Tuesday’s clash are not arrested immediately.

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In hills, ban on govt cars – GNLF for wheel jam in Siliguri today

Gangtok, April 18: A 40-year-old man drowned in a tributary of the Teesta in East Sikkim last evening while trying to rescue three persons marooned atop a truck stuck in the river that rose suddenly following heavy rain. Three men were loading sand on the truck and another was cleaning his Tata Sumo in the Rangpo, when the water level began rising around 5pm.

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Teesta River in East Sikkim swallows saviour

Hill Boys’ United FC, a club formed in Kolkata by a group of youths hailing from the hills of Darjeeling and Sikkim won its second match of the League stage at the prestigious Calcutta Parsee Club 5 a side Football Tournament on April 17th. Hills Boys’ defeated Shining Stars Club 3-2 in a hard fought encounter. The Boys came from behind twice to earn this victory showing in the process that never say die attitude of the Youths from the hills

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Hill Boys’ United FC continues it winning streaks

Darjeeling: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha has decided to “ban” the movement of government vehicles, including those of police, for an indefinite period starting Saturday. The outfit is demanding the arrest of the Gorkha National Liberation Front supporters who clashed with Morcha activists in the Terai region on Tuesday.

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Govt. vehicles ban in the Darjeeling Hills

Bagdogra, April 16: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha today said the Centre would have to take a call on the party’s proposal for an interim administrative set-up for the hills and iterated that it would not drop Siliguri subdivision from the proposed map for the separate state it wants. On his return from Delhi with four other leaders, Morcha president Bimal Gurung said: “We have placed our proposal for the interim set-up to the central government and now it is for them to decide. The ball is in their court, we’ll wait and see how they play it.” According to Gurung, it is the Centre — and not the Morcha — which will take the subject (of the proposed set-up) further.

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Centre to decide on interim set-up: Morcha chief

Darjeeling, April 16: The Centre has decided to rein in cable operators airing Chinese, Pakistani, Bhutanese, Nepalese and Bangladeshi satellite channels in the state. Ragu Menon, the secretary of the information and broadcasting ministry, in a letter (No 9/22/2009-BP&L) to state chief secretary Asok Mohan Chakrabarti, which is in the possession of The Telegraph, said: “It has been observed that Multi-System Operators/Cable operators in the country are carrying illegal and unauthorised television channels on their Cable TV service networks…..It has also been stated that contents on these channels are not conducive to the security environment in the country and immediate action is necessary to curb the carriages of such unauthorised channels.” A Chinese channel in Tibetan language — XYZ TV — popular among the Tibetan community in Dareeling and its surrounding areas has also been included in the list of “illegal and unauthorised” channels

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Leash on hill cable operators

Gangtok, April 16: The first batch of 226 graduates from Sikkim University received their degrees today in a convocation presided over by President Pratibha Patil. Sikkim University is the 23rd university in the country to be established by an act of Parliament on July 2, 2007

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President at Sikkim convocation

Kalimpong, April 16: Had Rabindranath Tagore been alive, he might have been moved to pen an elegy on the approaching death of the bungalow from where he had recited his poem, Janmodin (Birthday), live on the national radio more than 70 years ago. Almost four weeks short of another anniversary of the recitation (that took place in 1938), it is difficult to imagine that Gauripur House on Hill Top used to be one of the favourite summer destinations of the Nobel Laureate. The two-storied bungalow, owned by B.K

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Repair cry in Tagore heritage home in Kalimpong