NOW 2003 09 10.Pdf

10-16 September, 2003; NOW! 1 SOUTH-EAST ASIA editorial: 2-DIGIT DILEMMA DISCOUNTED GANGTOK, WEDNESDAY, 10 - 16 September, 2003 AIR TICKETS TOUR FOR INSTANT RESERVATIONS CALL: CALL FOR BOOKING: Pineridge Travels Tashila Jet Airways Sales Agent TOURS & TRAVELS The Oriental 94341-53567 Mahatma Gandhi Marg Telephone: Gangtok 229842 / 222978 SIKKIMNOW! MATTERS VOL 2 NO 12 Rs. 5 Ph: 221182 / 221181 / 221180 A NOW! SPECIAL FOR COMECOME TOGETHERTOGETHER PANG LHABSOL INSIDE NOOSENOOSE TIGHTENS ON Imagine being packed off to SIKKIM POLICE PIECES TOGETHER Malaysia with promises of HOW THESE DREAM MERCHANTS employment only to find out that you are travelling on a SOLD NIGHTMARES OF MALAYSIA tourist visa. You have no SIKKIM’S money for the return fare. What do you do? Many Sikkimese youth who fell for the smooth-talking RK Subba were faced with a BODY-SHOPPERSSHOPPERS similar predicament... TURN TO pg 3 FOR DETAILS SALE SALE SALE ‘Good news for you first time in go Sikkim’ NEW STOCK!!! 24,647 SQ. 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Before Mangan, There SIKKIM MATTERS Was Akarthang 2-Digit Dilemma Glimpses of Mangan – III The on-line version of the ever-popular single-digit lottery, thinly veiled as a double digit draw has become so hugely by DEEPAK SHARMA popular in the State that almost every second day, one hears ust beyond Rang-Rang, there of someone who has squandered his month’s earning on its is a flattish patch along the half-hourly draws or another who poured good money after North Sikkim Highway with bad hiking his stakes in the game until a loan was all spent. J a cardamom plant with trees in the While some of the stories might be true and others worked backdrop which might have one from imagination, there is no denying that the lottery is a smart believe that it is an abandoned buy as far as the incorrigible lottery buyer is concerned. There plantation. The place is in fact are many protesting the new lottery as a social ill, but the seeped in history. temptation of betting on the reduced odds offered by the new schemes does not seem to wane. “Akarthang,” at Rang-Rang, First, let’s look at the legality of the new game. Single-digit just 9 kms short of Mangan is well lottery is banned in the country, but given the exact interpre- known to the people of North tations of official diktats required by law, the new scheme Sikkim. Few are however versed The bridge here, which connected [which has actually been tried many times in the past] passes in its past. Records reveal that be- Manganites] opened a shop at it to Mangan was operational till the muster and becomes legal. Barely so, one may add. When fore Rinzing Namgyal established Akarthang in 1900 and later sometime in 1960 when it was similar “social” concerns were raised in the past in connec- Mangan bazaar in 1903, shifted to Mangan when it was abandoned and a new bridge con- tion to another 2-digit lottery, the officials had stopped its sales. Akarthang was a bustling market- established in 1903. structed at Rang-Rang. Not because it was illegal, but because they had caught on to place serving not only Rang-Rang, When NOW! visited the area a technicality and banned the lottery till those managing the but also Mangan and the surround- recently, it discovered that Although Akarthang might counters produced authenticated draw results. The organisers ing areas. Akarthang, in a way, not Akarthang, which looks more like have seen only a few years as a installed fax machines and were back in business. With the only straddles history, but also ge- a disheveled jungle now, still re- trading post, it is important vis a debut of on-line double-digits the authorities cannot disrupt ography in the sense that it was tains some signs of its past. The vis Mangan’s prosperity. After all, sales on technicalities any more. The authentic, certified re- from here that the construction of supporting structures of the old it was only after operating at sults are just a refresh button click away. the North Sikkim Highway began. bridge can still be spied upon be- Akarthang that businessmen who The double-digits might be a borderline case of legality, Earlier the road from Gangtok hind overgrown weeds and creep- later flocked to Mangan saw the but are still on the right side of the law till the courts tell us ended at Rang-Rang. ers. Although no signs remain of potential that the North Sikkim otherwise. Sikkim cannot ban its sales given the reciprocal Rama Shankar Agarwal of the settlement there, it must have market held. In this, the centenary arrangement lottery-operating states share. That still does not Mangan reveals that his father, been a busy spot given the fact year of Mangan, it is important take away from the fact that this scheme is unethical. But Champalall Agarwal [known that it straddled the converging that we also remember the places then, even that is a comparative notion. Lotteries, no matter popularly as “Ek Aana Babu” by roads from so many directions. that preceded Mangan’s rise. how much they increase the odds of winning, depend on their appeal to the gambling instincts of its buyers for success. AGARWAL NOT MALU a “Mall” for a free walk. What might be gambling for someone, might just be recre- am very much dissatisfied and LETTERS For the shopkeepers also it will ation for another. But surely, if the lottery is becoming increas- Iequally astonished to read the be a down fall of their sales un- ingly addictive and blatantly easing through a loophole, then title of my father as Champalall that no one seems to be acting on less they are ready to be satisfied something needs to be done. Anonymous letters and private “Malu” as appeared in your es- it. Isn’t there some authority by watching the playful games of condemnations are not the options a society takes when it is teem magazine NOW extras (Vol which can stop Pepsi from con- the children. A resident of Tadong tries to rid itself of a vice. The people have to put a face to 02 No. 09) at page No. 04, under tinually announcing something or Chanbari would definitely be their complaints and stop expecting someone else to take up the glimpses of Mangan Bazar that is wrong? Shouldn’t the ready to buy his daily require- the cudgels for them. It is at times like these that Sikkim misses (old) under the banner health authorities of consumer ments at his own locality rather not having a civil society or an NGO culture working on social Champalall Agarwal but unfortu- affairs be taking Pepsi to task? than spending more and taking the issues. It is from platforms like these that such concerns as nately the title of my father has The issue here is not whether extra labour of buying at MG the ills of the latest lottery are voiced and heard. In their ab- been found written as Malu in- Pepsi has pesticide or not, but that “Mall” and boarding at old West sence, there are only shouts in the dark which are seldom stead of Agarwal in the latest is- it is lying to the local consumers. Point School Taxi Stand or wher- coherent and rarely heard. sue of NOW. Hence, I would like I hope some action is taken. ever it may be. to advice and suggest the humble S. Rai, Tadong, Gangtok Turning MG Marg into a Mall Reporter through NOW to au- makes it a nice tourist spot, there Dear readers, thenticate the information’s be- GANGTOK IS NOT is no denying that, yet, for the Change is always welcome and if that change adds colour, fore it is sent for publication in THE CAPITAL OF people of Gangtok, it will be a even more so. With this issue we opt for the literal interpreta- order to safeguard the sentiment SWITZERLAND curse and not a boon. Gangtok is tion and as you must have already noticed NOW! is now in of the readers. hoving the concept of MG already packed with vehicles and colour. The good news continues with the announcement that RS Agarwal and all Agarwal SMarg “Mall” forcefully down the numbers are still increasing. we are adding colour without any increase in our cover price. brothers, Mangan, North Sikkim the dumb throats of Gangtokians Once the present MG Marg really Packaged along with these two is more – 4 more pages. Apart is very unfortunate because turns into a Mall, where will all from going colour at the same cover price, NOW! will hence- WHAT NEXT FOR PEPSI Gangtok is not the capital of these cars be parked when their forth be 24 pages on a regular basis and sometimes even was shocked to read of how Switzerland.

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