Seven sisters’ demand for separate time zone gains momentum

1 May 2010

For years, they have been waking up early and starting late. But India’s northeast, which sees sunrise almost two hours before Mumbai, has decided it’s time to set the clock right. The region’s demand for a separate time zone has never been more vociferous

April is usually the cruelest month for India’s northeastern states. Cyclonic storms lash the region with vengeance and rip apart homes and hopes. But in all this, the stoic people find things that keep them together and going, their famous fortitude in place.

This April, it is the loud revival of an issue that has always united the Seven Sisters. Amid the deafening thunder and incessant, deluging rains, people here are whipping up a different storm as they try to turn into a mass movement the debate for a separate time zone, something that was kicked off in the beginning of the millennium by a few scientists, academicians and media persons.

And from all accounts — with film personalities, students, engineers, even housewives and common folks joining in — the storm is gathering force and the movement gaining heavy momentum. “We are trying our best to make ourselves heard,” says Samujjal Kumar Bhattacharya, president, Northeast Students’ Organisation (NESO). “We hope our voices will reach the deaf ears of the mainland people.”

………The National Physical Laboratory of India (NPL) also has reservations. P Banerjee, a senior scientist with NPL, rejected the feasibility of advancing the clock. “Instead of a separate time zone, we can advance office timings that are convenient to the (seven) states,” he says. “The introduction of a Daylight Saving Time (DST) scheme for the country would solve the entire problem. Also, a separate time zone cannot be introduced arbitrarily against international conventions. Plus, there are logistical problems like keeping pace with national railway and airlines timings with two time zones.”……….

Souce: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Your-time-my-time/articleshow/5879491.cms