Dear Rajen, With all humility, I convey my sincere accolade to Dr. Arvind Phukan and Wasbir Hussain for the TV interview that will open doors for discussion and participation by like minded people. This will be a pathfinder step to be taken by People of the Seven Sister States of Assam, Arunachal, Nagaland, Manipur, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Karbi Anglong, Tripura, Mizoram and others. I congratulate you in the FASS for initiating this historical step.
At this point I request you to consider if my humble participation will be of any use for the cause. To participate, I'll need a contour map* of Arunachal Pradesh. If possible, Please ask someone to give me a map of the "Sunrise State" Arunachal, showing the land area --- all her rivers, rivulets, small streams with flow data, land elevations (here comes the contour) and rain-fall data. While agreeing with Dr. Arvind Phukan who said that the CPGB has not done any design so far, we may need basic, preliminary, conceptual designs for general perception to look into alternatives. Kindly develop a written script of the interview so as to save time in unproductive debates. With warm greetings to all, and foreseeing joy and happiness for all, Himendra * In 1968, about half-a-century ago, in a one-man struggle to initiate a sewer system for the city of Guwahati, I asked for a contour map of Guwahati. I was totally condemned forever for such a blasphemous request. I am sure things have changed now and Guwahati will have her sewer system very soon. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Barua Rajen [email protected] [FriendsofAssamNE]" <[email protected]> To: "Friends" <[email protected]> Cc: "North East" <[email protected]>, "fass-usa" <[email protected]>, "Himendra Thakur" <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, April 8, 2016 2:04:34 PM Subject: Re: [FriendsofAssamNE] Re: TV INTERVIEW of DR Arvind Phukan on the CPGB Flood and Erosion Problem in Majuli Dear Himen da Thanks for the compliments for the TV Interview of Dr. Arvind Phukan. The interview is very important for several respects for the entire public of Assam. Lot of credit goes to Wasbir Hussain the TV Interviewer for asking the right questions, let us say for the first time. Congratulations to Arvind da who responded to all the questions spontaneously but very professionally out of his lifelong experience on the subject. Over all it came out very good. First this Interview will give lot of information about the following: 1) How China is planning to divert the Brahmaputra and how the public and the government of Assam and India are just sitting and watching without any reaction till now. This should wake up the country for the sake of Assam. 2) Dr Phukan has also suggested what we should do in case a part of the Brahmaputra is diverted in near future. a) We should suggest the GOI to put the Water in the agenda of Chino India talk. b) We should make long term plan right now for alternate solutions like Rain Water harvesting and managing the 100 od tributaries of the Brahmaputra for Water reserve and small hydro electric power generation. He also suggested that the big dam being planned in Arunachal Pradesh is not suitable for the NE. 3) It also shows that whatever the GOI and GOA had been doing in the name of Brahmaputra Flood control all these last 60+ years are mostly going down the drain without showing any fruit. 4) It also briefly shows what the CPGB group which is an NGO without any public fund so far is trying to do. The last two points bring us to the vital question when and why the CPGB was established and what it is doing. Briefly CPGB was established in 2010 in the NEIIM-2010 when FASS organized the first North East India International Meet in Guwahati. It was a three day seminar. We discussed several other topics starting from the Economy of Assam, Education, Tourism and many others. One session was "Mitigation of Brahmaputra Flood and Erosion Control' which was headed by Dr Arvind Phukan. Many experts spoke about the problem. It was also revealed the all the efforts of the Brahmaputra Board during the last 60 years was not effective. As an outcome of the discussions, a committee named CPGB (Core Professional Group Brahmaputra) was formed with technical experts from Assam residing all over the world. It included hydrologists from the USA, IIT Rookie, IIT Guwahati and many others. CPGB group has later been registered a separate NGO (separate from FASS) and it has been working all these years basically under the radar. It has prepared proposal for a small project for flood and erosion control of Majuli and submitted the same to GOI for funding. Although the GOI has promised to fund in words, but the files are being shuffled from offices. In fact the CPGB is right now busy in revising the proposal as directed. We are hoping that GOI will finally fund it. We are hoping for the best. In the above respects, this TV interview of Dr Arvind Phukan is important for waking the GOI and the public. Please note that Assam is being cheated in several respects since the Yandaboo Treaty and the public of Assam are just sitting and watching with a Hobo Diok attitude. We are trying to wake up the public to support us. You have rightly suggested that if we can publish the text of the Interview. Your suggestion is well taken. We have received this suggestion from many quarters. In fact right now I am working on that and when done we plan to publish the same in English as well as in Assamese. One corollary of point 2(a) is that we should file a Petition to the GOI to include the Brahmaputra River as a high priority item in their next Chno India talk. We also should suggest that a team of our experts from Assam should be allowed to visit China to find out what is going on. In near future FASS plan to work on thi Petition. We all need your full support. Again thank you for your asking the questions. Rajen On Wed, Apr 6, 2016 at 7:04 PM, [email protected] [FriendsofAssamNE] < [email protected] > wrote: Dear Rajen Barua, Thanks for the TV Interview which will encourage all. Please consider if it will be possible to circulate a script of the interviews. It will also be helpful if the CPGB is described together with a brief introduction of what is going on in Majuli, Diversion of Brahmaputra river water by China, etc. With warn greetings, Himendra From: "Barua Rajen [email protected] [FriendsofAssamNE]" < [email protected] > To: "Friends" < [email protected] >, "North East" < [email protected] >, [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, April 5, 2016 11:43:12 PM Subject: [FriendsofAssamNE] Re: TV INTERVIEW of DR Arvind Phukan on the CPGB Flood and Erosion Problem in Majuli On Tue, Apr 5, 2016 at 10:42 PM, Barua Rajen < [email protected] > wrote: <blockquote> https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=brahmaputra+river+arvind+phukan Congratulation to Arvind da for a great TV Interview with Mr. Wasbir Hussain regarding Flood and Erosion Problem in Majuli, CPGB and Diversion of Brahmaputra river water by China etc on March 12. We congratulate Phukanda for giving a great leadership to the whole CPGB group for the sake of Assam. The You tub is in three parts. (Approx.6 mins.each). Please note that Part 1, 2 and 3 are not in right order. Please see part 1 first. Rajen Barua </blockquote>
