Vice Consul Jessica B. Pfleiderer (Left) in meeting with journalists in Darjeeling.

United States Vice Consul Jessica B. Pfleiderer is presently in Darjeeling to generate awareness about Visa procedures for the United States. Pflieder visited St. Paul’s School and presented an Interactive Visa Presentation to Travel Agents Association at Himalayan Resort. Pflieder will also be visiting Sikkim Manipal Institute of Medical Sciences in Gangtok where she will be offering a Student Visa Presentation. On the same day she will also be offering an interactive visa presentation to Travel Agents Association at Thomas Cook (India) Limited in Siliguri.

Speaking to The Himalayan Beacon, Pfliederer said that she wanted to interact with students and travelers from North Bengal and Sikkim and speak to them about Visa Procedures for the United States. She said that there had been great increase in a number of visitors from the region to the United States and she would want the the number to increase further.  Read the rest of this entry »

THE HIMALAYAN BEACON [BEACON ONLINE] EXCLUSIVE

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh with Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in New Delhi today.Click on the image to enlarge.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today told Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee that the Ministry of Home Affairs was expeditiously processing the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) Bill in the light of the issues raised by various Ministries and the comments of the State Governments. The Prime Minister also assured the Chief Minister that the Ministry of Home Affairs will complete the processing of the Bill soon.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had today called on the Prime Minister to discuss on the issues of the leakage in Farakka Barrage, the concern regarding National Counter Terrorism Centre and the grant of Presidential assent to the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration Bill.

On the issue of the leakage in Farakka Barrage, the Prime Minister assured the Chief Minister saying that the Ministry of Water Resources was working on plugging the leakages in Gate No. 16 and Gate No. 13 and the leakages will be plugged during March 2012. As for the Chief Minister’s concern over the issue of the National Counter Terrorism Centre, the Prime Minister said that he has requested the Home Minister to find ways to take the concerns of the state governments on board on the issue of the National Counter Terrorism Centre.  Read the rest of this entry »

FROM IBNLIVE.IN.COM

Thiruvananthapuram: Malayali scientist SD Biju, working at the University of Delhi, has done it again. This time around, he has discovered a whole family of legless amphibians from Northeast India, with ancient links to Africa, a research finding that has just been published in a journal no less than the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London.

SD Biju discovered the new family of legless amphibians called Ceacilians along with co-researchers from The Natural History Museum, London and Vrije University, Brussels. They have named this new family as Chikilidae and the new genus as Chikila. The scientific name Chikilidae comes from a Northeast Indian tribal name for these burrowing animals.

The remarkable discovery came after five years of study from 2006 to 2010.

“We undertook extensive soil digging surveys in about 250 localities in various parts of Northeast Indian states such as Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Sikkim and Darjeeling district of West Bengal,” said SD Biju. Read the rest of this entry »