“School is for the rich man’s bachaa,” says six-year-old Meenara Begum, her tiny hands busy peeling betel nut. In the Nurul Islam Supari Factory, Meenara is one of the 19 children at work, bread earners of their families. And she isn’t the youngest. Anisur Rahman is four, Sofiqul Islam, five. Ensconced in the dingy shed, it is their world, where a day’s earnings amounts Rs 15; it keeps her alive along with her family, most of whom work as domestic help in the rich man’s house.

Rajeev Mishra of Rajeev Electronics, whose family entered the Tibet trade in 1917, recalls that in the ‘50s his family warehouse in Kalimpong would at any given time have some 22 rooms full of watches, their specialty. For the old traders of Gangtok, the decision to reopen the trade-route at Gangtok has come as a windfall.

Distrustful of the Chinese, the Tibetan community here views the developments with suspicion, and are working hard to bring about a complete ban on Chinese goods. That hasn’t, however, dampened the spirits of Chief Minister Pawan Chamling who had petitioned for the re-opening of the trade route ever since he first came to power in 1994. In an official statement made shortly after the announcement, Chamling thanked the Centre and the prime minister in particular for delivering on his government’s “long-pending” demand.

For the villagers of Bhogdanga along the Indo-Bangladesh border in the Golakganj sector in Assam’s Dhubri district, their Indian citizenship lasts about six hours a day, in three two-hour stretches.

After the initial attention and media fanfare in 1995, perhaps not to the degree as the re-opening of the silk route between Sikkim and China-occupied Tibet, it has taken almost a decade for the government of Manipur to get Myanmar to provide letter of credit (LOC) facilities to traders operating across the international border between Moreh in India and Tamu on the other side. "It was difficult convincing the military junta but they finally agreed last month," says Raj Kumar Nimai, special secretary, department of commerce and industry, Manipur.

“These aren’t the Alps,” says Suraj Prakash, chief engineer of the General Reserve Engineers Force (GREF), which looks after roads in Sikkim, including most of the well-maintained 130 km National Highway 31A between Siliguri and Gangtok, and the 55 km “all-weather, trafficable” JN (Jawarhalal Nehru) Marg to the Nathu La, that together would form the trade route between China and India. “The Himalayas are young, geologically speaking.

The North East region of the nation, a ‘bio-diversity hotspot’ is also home to a lineage of people whose cultural affinity is more with the people across the Patkais then mainland India. Though years of separation and interaction with people of a different origin have affected the livelihood of these people basically they are more like the Chinese than Indian in many ways.

The lives of these sailors, some as young as 17 could have been saved had the US radar control based at Oahu intercepted the huge plot on their screen correctly.

What they took as a fleet of American bombers expected that morning from the mainland and as two formations from their own aircraft carriers Lexington and Enterprise then at sea was actually a Kamikaze strike force under Commander Mitsuo Fuchida.

The incident occurred last month in the Harendranagar Tea Estate in the Sadar subdivision of the West Tripura district. However, while persons such as Sudhamaya Majumdar, leader of the Durgabari Tea Estate Co-operative Union and vice-chairman of the Tripura Tea Development Corporation, confirm the selling of the baby, the police at the Sidhai police station, which would have had to look into the matter, are yet to receive a complaint.

Even as students all over the country fill up their forms to enter university, students from Assam present all too familiar a sight, forced as they are, year after year, to beg universities to allow them to fill forms and attend classes till their teachers back home have decided to check their papers, and declare their Class 12 state board results. It’s the same this year, with the delay in results of the Assam higher secondary examination dashing the hopes of thousands of students aspiring to pursue higher academics outside the region.