Exercise1. Write a report for a newspaper with the following points. Give asuitable title to the reportFive militants arrived-kidnap a tea-garden manager Cacbar-30th July, 6P.M.-demands a ransomn of Rs. 2 lakhs by a given date. Panic in the tea-garden arca-Got orders resewa operation-Para-military forces put on alert-Police search throughout the arts-deadbody of the manager found lying bya ditch on the Silchar-Jiribam Road.
Answers
Answer:
Uttara Choudhury takes a close look at the
fiefdoms
We just sit in our bungalows, watch television and hope the Sunshine Boys dont drop by, says Asim Barua, assistant manager of a tea garden in Nowgong district, Upper Assam. Sunshine Boys is an euphemism for the banned United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) with its symbol of the rising run and seven rays. In July, ULFA levied a tax of Rs 10 lakh on tea gardens in Upper Assam. Now it is spreading its tentacles throughout the Brahmaputra Valley.
The Sunshine Boys have lots of company. In Darrang district, across the river from Nowgong, it is the Bodo boys who call the shots. The Bodos come in many shapes: the All Bodo Students Union (ABSU), the Bodo Security Force (BSF) and the Bodo Liberation Tiger Force (BLTF). In end-August, thedreaded BSF announced that it was hiking its annual tax on tea gardens from Rs 1,500 to Rs 2,500 per hectare.
Assam has over 800 tea gardens spread over 180,000 hectares, so that could work out to Rs 45 crore assuming, of course, that the BSFs tax administration machinery covered the whole state. But then the tax rates themselves are arbitrary: one tea major alone is rumoured to have paid Rs 10 crore to the BSF!
In the picturesque plantations of the Moriani tea belt, the threat is from the battle-hardened Naga militants. We consider ourselves lucky if we can buy peace by paying the Nagaland Socialist Council Rs 2 lakh as protection money. Our tea estates proximity to the Nagaland border has made us sitting ducks, says planter Dhiren Barua.Coming over for tea
What happens if Barua doesnt pay? Since 1990, at least 14 senior planters have been killed by the militants, while 40 top-level tea executives have been kidnapped and then released for undisclosed ransoms. Like most tea companies operating in Assam, Tata Tea is caught in a bind. The last few years have been fraught with trouble for the tea major.
In 1993, Bolin Bordoloi, who spearheads Tata Teas Guwahati office was kidnapped by the Bodo Security Force and kept hostage for 11 months. The Sunshine Boys also moved in for the kill by picking up two Tata Tea garden managers from Nonoi Tea Estate. P C Scaria, one of the companys senior executive was shot dead. Once again, the tea major finds itself at the receiving end of the stick as Assam DGP K Harishkeshan is bent on making an example of it.Last week, the police arrested S S Dogra, general manager, northern Indian plantation division, for allegedly extending financial aid to the ULFA. Two more officials Mumbai-based K Sridhar and Calcutta-based executive director S M Kidwai are being put through the wringer.
Caught in a no-win situation, Tata Tea is now fighting back. It issued an open letter in the front pages of the national dailies on September 22 lambasting the state government for its failure to control militant organisations holding the state and its industries to ransom. It also details how company officials have met the Home Secretary of Assam and sought assistance to deal with repeated threats. Caught on the backfoot chief minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, called Tata Teas outburst Operation Cover-up. The state government maintains that tea companies should beef upsecurity on the estates, instead of cowering before the militants. This is easier said than done. Tea majors such as Williamson Magor, Tata Tea and Goodricke have roped in the Indian Tea Association (ITA) sponsored Special Tea Protection Force (STPF) at a cost of more than Rs 8 lakh annually.
But the smaller tea companies gripe that the STPF security blanket only covers estates belonging to members of the elite Indian Tea Association the rest (approximately 700 plantations) are left out in the cold. Drawn from the existing battalions of home guards, approximately 2,500 personnel are deployed in 70 gardens at a phenomenal cost.All this is telling on the health of the Rs 2,200 crore tea industry in the state, which has already been under pressure due to depressed tea prices in 1996 and rising inputcosts. Most companies have been declaring profits out of other income including sale of assets. Tea alone cannot give us the profits to declare dividends. There is no chance of any tea company offering bonus shares in the next 10 years, says N C Kankani, president of Jay Shree Tea and Industries in industry journal, Tea Time. The flow of investments has also been stemmed. Senior bank officials insist there is a flight of capital. Says one of them: Some plantation owners have not visited their properties in the last ten years. Why should they plough money into Assam? Surrendra Paul, owner of Assam Frontier Tea Company (a part of the Apeejay Group), was gunned down on a visit to his estate in Tinsukia in1990. Calcutta-based BM Bhaduri, the owner of Sonapur Tea Estate, was abducted while making a whistlestop tour of his plantation in Upper Assam.
ARTICLE BY________
Answer:
GUWAHATI: The manager of the Pabhoi tea estate in Biswanath Chariali, Sonitpur district, was kidnapped on Thursday night.
The tea garden manager, Bharat Singh Rathod, who hails from Rajasthan, was picked up by a group of 10 to 12 masked gunmen from his bungalow on the tea garden premises. Three security guards and a relative of Rathod were also taken captive but the gunmen released them 5 km from the tea estate.
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