At last the long cherished dream of The people of the valley to see a train chugging out of the valley was fulfilled last week. Our PM Mr. Manmohan Singh, amidst much fanfare and tight security flagged the valley’s first train service.

Everyone in India must be proud of this special achievement by the Indian Railways, but is it? Hmmm....definitely not the people of the North-East. As a matter of fact to prove my point that the North-East has always been a subject of neglect among our national level politicians, I would like to bring out some starling revelations about the apathy of the Central Government towards the people of the North-East.

For a reference, the Silchar-Lumding broad gauge conversion project was taken up almost at the same time as the Kashmir Valley railway line project(around 1994). Although the Kashmir Valley Railway Line is now fully operational, Silchar-Lumding railway line is only about 30% completed.

For those who feel that this might be due to continuous disturbance from terror elements in the region, please ask yourself honestly how many times in the last 15 years have you heard about killings in North-East by terrorist and compare it with the killings in Kashmir valley. Honestly in a scale of 5 the ratio would be 1:5 (North-East:J&K). Also the Geographical complexity in this part of India is much more smaller than in Kashmir.

So now when the things have been clarified I would like to ask a simple question to everyone that isn’t the North-East a part of India, don’t the people(Indian’s) out there deserve a better deal from the Government Of India.

Irrespective of the numerous Special Economic Packages that are declared remember just declared by the GOI (Govt. Of India) the fact is that the people of the North-East still remain in the “Darks of the Stone Age” screaming for help, for development, for jobs for the thousands unemployed youths, some already finding themselves in the other side of society due to sheer neglect by the Government.

The Silchar-Lumding railway conversion project is just a single incident, which I found suitable at this juncture when we are celebrating the success of Railway’s in Kashmir.

What do you feel or you feel nothing at all, are you waiting for the North-East to bleed as J&K. People its already late and our land is bleeding.