Port Blair, Oct 14: The State President of Bharatiya Janata Party, A&N Islands Shri Vishal Jolly visited flood affected areas of North & Middle Andaman. He visited Kausalyanagar, Urmilapur, Sabari, Swadeshnagar, Billiground, Dasharatpur & many areas in Rangat & Diglipur. He interacted with the flood victims and the victim who were staying in various relief camps & took the stock of the situation. After this personal visit he has demanded that the Administration should immediately take steps to jointly survey the whole area with the representative of Revenu, Animal Husbandry & Agriculture Department and the victims should be compensated sufficiently and timely.

During his visit he was comprised by Shri B. Kurma Rao, State Vice – President, BJP,Shri Taranga Kr. Dhali, State General Secretary, BJP, A&N Islands, Shri Ajoy Bairagi, Observer, Diglipur area, Smti Kiran Tigga, District President, North Andaman District, Shri Subrata Basu, State President, Yuva Mocha, A&N Islands, & respective Mandal & Unit Office Bearers & Party PRI Members.

He appreciated the positive attitude shown by the Deputy Commissioner of North & Middle Andaman District, toward the victims.

DJ Venkatesh
Diglipur, Oct 10: At Diglipur, at General Pool Office, a drain cover is missing since last one year. It was damaged long back but no only really cared to replace it. Hundreds of Islanders visit the General Pool Building of Diglipur everyday for various works by walking or by two or four wheelers. Dozens of Dozens of school students wait near that building for school buses. Already a few students have fallen inside the drain while struggling to get inside the bus for a seat, luckily no one was injured severely.

The saddest part of the story is that everyday, the senior officials of APWD visit the GPO building for various meetings and official works but nobody really bothers to put a new cover on the drain. Probably the APWD officials are waiting for some major incidents before putting a cover on that drain.

Port Blair, Oct 10:  Mr. K. Srinivasan , the newly elected Adhyaksh and Mr. Sony Thomas the newly elected up-adhyaksh of N & M Andaman Zilla Parishad, will be administered the oath of office by Deputy Commissioner, N & M Andaman on 11th October, 2013 at 10.30. am at the conference hall of Zilla Parishad, Mayabunder

Port Blair, Oct 10: The Greeno Eco Club of Government Senior Secondary School, Sabari,Middle Andaman observed “Wild Life Week 2013” from 2nd October to 8th October 2013.The theme selected for this year was “Branching out for Wildlife”. Various programmes were conducted to observe the week in a meaningful manner.

In drawing competition Bina Halder, VI A, S Kausalya, VIIIA ,Deepak Tirkey, VII A bagged the first three positions. In Essay writing H Asif Sohail X A, V Abhishek X A, Udit Sarkar XI clinched the first three positions respectively. In Photography contest V Abhishek bagged the prize and Lipika Debnath grabbed the prize for writing the best slogan.

The valedictory function was held on 8th October in which Principal of the school emphasized the need of making judicious use of natural wealth for safeguarding our natural heritage for posterity. He further added that from time immemorial, our wildlife has been closely associated with our legendary beliefs and our folklores, with our epics and our history. Our lives would be very much poorer without these varied forms that build up the balance of nature. Wildlife preservation in fact implies active and planned wildlife management under which all forms of life would progress side by side with human progress, each in its own sphere of influence and utility and without any detriment to human interests A quiz competition titled “Our wildlife and us” was held in which the group comprising of Saurav Dhali, P Vinod, D Vignesh were declared as the winners.

DJ Venkatesh
Diglipur, Oct 09: It has been learnt from reliable sources that the Police Outpost of East Island has suffered heavy damages today when a tree fell on it. Report says that a part of the building got severe damages. Following this police personnel posted in East Island took shelter in signal Centre (Communication Centre) of Indian Navy.
Meanwhile, the District Administration of North and Middle Andaman are doing their best to monitor the entire situation. At Diglipur, the Disaster management team at Diglipur sub-division working round the clock under the supervision of Asst. Commissioner Dr. Vivek Kumar.
The revenue officials and Tehsildar Diglipur made arrangements for announcements in the villages about the possible cyclone. Reports of about 19 tree-fall cases, including four on the houses, were received. These trees were later cleared with the help of the Fire service personnel. There was power cut in entire Diglipur Region since morning, which was restored by 7.30 pm.
Police personnel, Fire service staffs, APWD and Forest personnel were kept standby to tackle this situation. Fire service personnel from Mayabunder were also kept standby in case any emergency situation to tackle from other end. Till late night no causalities reported.
Meanwhile a few rain hit people from Pinaki Nagar Primary School Camp came to Billyground and narrated their ordeal. According to them for 50 odd victims only 10 bedsheets and two mats were provided by the District Administration. Later when the matter was reported to the Assistant Commissioner of Rangat, Ms. R Menoka, she rushed relief materials to Pinaki Nagar.
Here Andaman Sheekha correspondent Dr. P K Mandal helped 45 stranded tourists from Chennai to get their flights, which was scheduled tomorrow, rescheduled.
Meanwhile, as per late input, the Assistant Fisheries Development Officer Dr. Sailesh Kumar informed Andaman Sheekha that out of 19 fishermen 3 returned to their home at Durgapur and now 16 fishermen were stranded at sea near Japan Tikry due to recent cyclonic weather at Diglipur Sub-Division.

Staff Correspondent
Kadamtala, Oct 06: The issue of Jarawa coming to Kadamtala Bazaar and demanding to meet LG, hogged limelight and got prominent media coverage. But when everything is said and done, one wonders whether Jarawa really knows, what they are asking for or what ‘LG’ word means.

Is there a bigger conspiracy behind this entire episode just to misguide the entire world that the Jarawa Tribes are willing to join, so called, mainstream? Andaman Sheekha has found that there are several gaps in the entire ‘Jarawa Protest’ drama of Kadamtala and probably the drama was well scripted and well timed.

According to investigation carried out by Andaman Sheekha a group of people, locally known as ‘shikari party’ (hunters) frequent inside Jarawa Reserve and have a very good relations with some Jarawa youths. Keeping Jarawa youths happy means good business for them. Moreover, if Jarawa tribes are brought to mainstream, they can enter inside the deep forest without any fear.

It has been learnt that during an internal inquiry, some Jarawa youths have now accepted on the record that the members of ‘shikari party’ (Hunters) have instigated them and told them to put demands of meeting LG, opening of schools for Jarawa Childrens. According to reports the Top-Secret recorded statement of Jarawa youths has reached Port Blair but, Administration will never accept this fact, for obvious reasons. Andaman Sheekha is however waiting for an official denial from the Administration, to confirm this input.

Moreover, sources said that all 10 Jarawa were more or less fresh and clean when they entered Kadamtala Village, which means that they had stayed somewhere in the village or nearby areas for one or two days before this Protest and during their stay inside village, they were probably taught well, what to demand. Usually when they come out from deep jungle they have mud all over their body.

In any case, the incident of Jarawa coming inside village and demanding to meet LG, shows that something is terribly wrong in the Tribal Welfare Department and AAJVS. Poaching is perhaps the biggest threat for the Jarawa and the Administration must conduct a thorough inquiry in this regard to find out who had actually masterminded this protest drama and for what reasons. Even if the protest was genuine the Administration must take serious efforts to safeguard the Jarawa from outsiders.

Jarawa comes out of forest, demands food

Sheekha Bureau
Port Blair, Oct 03: In a shocking development, a group of ten Jarawa today came out of Forest of Kadamtala and lodged their protest at Panchayat of Kadamtala. The Jarawa tribes were repeatedly demanding to meet the Lt. Governor to lodge their protest of shortage of food items.
The Pradhan of Kadamatala immediately informed this matter to the Deputy Commissioner of North and Middle Andaman, who directed R Meneka, the Assistant Commissioner of Rangat to reach Kadamtala and meet the Jarawa youths.
A large number of villagers gathered at Panchayat Bhawan to see Jarawa tribes, who were repeatedly saying that they want to meet Lt. Governor of Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
The Jarawa youth who led the protest today, Mr. Afee today told the gathering that “We want to meet the Lt. Governor so that we can tell our problems to him. We don’t have food, we are in great distress. We eat pigs, potatoes and fish but nowadays there is severe shortage of food inside jungle. We often sleep empty belly but do not get any food item from the babus. We know Government (sarkar) send a lot of food items and cloth for us but we don’t get anything. We want our children to study in school, like children of Onge. We also want to become (bada admi) rich.”
When Andaman Sheekha Contacted the R Meneka, the Assistant Commissioner of Rangat she said that there was no protest at all at Kadamata. “First thing I must say that there was no protest. They said two things to me first, they wanted to sharpen their weapon, which we agreed and secondly they wanted dry ration and spices, on which I told them that the secretary of Tribal Welfare will visit them soon and they can place this demand infront of him. Not even single time the Jarawa told me that they want to meet the Lt. Governor,” the Assistant Commissioner maintained.