Siliguri Corridor

Dr. Vimal Khawas, News September 4, 2026

Siliguri Corridor: Between Strategic Necessity and Ecological Precarity

Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s statements during his recent visit to Siliguri have brought focused attention to the practical requirements of safeguarding the Siliguri Corridor. He described the Corridor as one of the most sensitive and critical zones in the country, connecting eight northeastern states to the rest of India and therefore is vital for national security. While he gave various directives correctly identifying the urgency of hardening physical control and improving inter-agency coordination, they largely remain incomplete if treated solely as a security-centric package.

An implementable policy complement would be the formal establishment of a Siliguri Corridor Integrated Management Authority (SCIMA), a statutory body under the Ministry of Home Affairs with representation from the Ministries of Defence, Environment, Forest and Climate Change, and Development of North Eastern Region, as well as the governments of West Bengal, Assam, and Bihar.

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Dazzling Darjeeling

Plastic Bag Darjeeling

Swachh Bharat August 29, 2019

What Lies Beneath! The Truth about Darjeeling’s Waste

Just as we reached, a truckload came in, and after a minute another. The rains had subsided to a light drizzle but the fog remained. We stepped to the side and watched the drivers expertly manoeuvre their vehicles in a practised manner, edging the back tyres just above the precipice. The backs of the trucks were opened up and the workers rapidly pitchforked the contents down the edge. At such a place, there was no dilly-dallying, for the stench was overpowering and flies swarmed, a thick black on the bonnet of the trucks.

Kumar Subba

Obituary January 21, 2022

In Memorium: Kumar Subba

There was something about the voice that felt so heavenly the first time I heard it in the National Panasonic tape recorder that my family had recently bought back in the mid 1980s. I was barely 12 then, and I had just started listening to greats like Mohd Rafi and Kishore Kumar, along with new singers like Kumar Sanu and Udit Narayan Jha. However, the Nepali songs like the ones sung by the legendary Kumar Subba were something else, and they swam through my cerebral cortex like a wakeful dream, the lyrics, the voice quality, the music notes, all easy on the ears and relaxing me to the hilt.