Month: July 2009

  • USA

    Payne’s tips to reach gender equality…
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    Siliguri, July 30: Gender equity cannot be achieved till the discrimination that exists in accessing vocations is removed, US consul general in Calcutta Beth A. Payne said here today.

    “The problem does not only exist while accessing education, but also afterwards when women have to choose a vocation for themselves. Women are pushed towards stereotypical vocations like nursing or teaching while men are considered efficient to take up profession in engineering, management et al. These barriers only make the discrimination between men and women more severe,” Payne said.

    She was speaking at an interactive session on Gender Equality—A Reality Check organised by the north Bengal zonal council of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in association with the Lions Club of Siliguri Greater Femina this afternoon.

    The problem of discrimination has been made more severe on the job front by the use of gender specific language.

    “Why can’t there be gender neutral language in our work places? Terms like chairman in an organisation can be replaced with chairperson and flight attendant is more appropriate than stewardess because both women and men occupy these posts. Such terms only help to widen the gap,” she said.

    Unfortunately, Payne added, it was not just men but women, too, who adopted such discriminatory attitude.

    “India is a country where 50 per cent of the population is women and if there isn’t gender equality, the full potential of its work force cannot be achieved. The solution lies in changing our attitudes and perspectives,” the US consul general said.

     

  • China & Russia

    China Chenhong…

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    Rainbow came in our contact in 2005 when Ankit first went to China and later I met her in Changsha in 2007 and then she helped Ankit in Moscow in 2009.

    How fate takes peoples to places…

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  • China

    Chengdu trophy…

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    When a trophy was presented to us on 7th June 2009 in Chengdu International Tea Convention to all the speakers who presented papers there, I took it lightly but a book alongwith the tropy in its box made me sit up and have a close look. This was made of some very heavy transluscent semi-precious stone. Have a look… 

     

  • Darjeeling

    Darjeeling protests hit tea and tourism

    Tue Jul 14, 2009 12:48pm IST
     

     

     

    By Sujoy Dhar

    KOLKATA (Reuters) – New separatist protests by ethnic Nepalis in Darjeeling hills are hampering tourism and threatening to cut production of the area’s eponymous tea by more than 20 percent, industry officials said on Tuesday.

    The Gurkhas called an indefinite strike on Monday demanding their own federal state, “Gurkhaland”, which they want carved out of the eastern state of West Bengal to protect their heritage.

    “We are going all out this time in our demand for a separate Gurkha state,” Gurkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) leader Roshan Giri told Reuters by phone.

    The delayed monsoon has already hit early tea production in West Bengal and threatened agricultural output across India, although India’s farm minister on Monday said rains will improve. Gurkha protests have hit Darjeeling, a picturesque Himalayan hill station known for its British colonial-era legacy and tea tourism industry, since 2008, but this year’s round is targeting tea production during the harvest season.

    The production of Darjeeling tea may fall 20-25 percent in 2009, industry officials said.

    “The agitation will worsen the situation since the delayed monsoon has already affected the production of first flush during April-May,” said Sanjay Bansal, chairman of the Darjeeling Tea Association.

    Darjeeling tea totals 7 percent of India’s tea exports and the region churns out about 9 million kg (19.84 million lb) of quality brews that fetch 5-6 times the price of normal CTC (crush, tear, curl) tea.

    “The agitation will kill the industry and destroy our overseas market. The immediate fallout would be delayed despatch,” said Rajiv Lochan, owner of Lochan Tea Limited.

    The peak harvesting season for Darjeeling tea is April-June, after which quality and prices fall.

    The protests also hit the region’s tourism industry.

    “Darjeeling is the only place in eastern India which witnesses high footfalls of foreign tourists. Now all that is going to end with frequent strikes,” said Anil Punjabi, regional chairman of the Travel Agents’ Federation of India.

    “There is a drop of 50 percent in tourist inflow in the region owing to the protests,” he said.

    At least 1,200 people died in the first Gurkhaland campaign in the 1980s, but protests ended after Gurkha leaders accepted limited autonomy.

    New protests erupted in early 2008, but both the communist-run state government and the federal government rejected the demand for a separate state.

     

  • Russia

    More business…

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    Killing many birds by one stone is the name of the game. Russia is a very good hunting groud and we should always make the most of it. Keep it up Indian Tea Board…

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  • Russia

    Russia is always cute, so is tea…

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    Ankit arrived in St. Petersburg on 11th July and then moved on to Moscow yesterday. Confertable weather makes us far surer of achieving better things and markets for our teas.