DD to screen individual success stories from northeast

The Home Ministry is turning TV producer to showcase success stories from Northeast on national television. The Ministry has already commissioned a 13-episode programme, with each telling stories like that of the all-girls band Hurricane Girls, family planning campaigner Dr Ilyas Ali or gymnast Dipa Karmakar. The programme will roll out later this month on Doordarshan and if successful, the North-East Division in the Home Ministry may look at the possibility of extending it to 26 or even 52 episodes. The Ministry is also looking at the possibility of airing this programme on private channels.

"Our idea is to make people aware about the success stories in the northeast. Through this programme, we are trying to tell how these people are changing lives in the region," a senior Home Ministry official said.This programme is expected to go a long way in changing the attitude of people in other parts of the country towards those from the northeast as they sometimes face problems outside the region, another official said. It would also give a sneak-peak into life in the northeast though primarily it would talk about individual success stories. One of the most anticipated episodes would be that on 23-year-old Dipa Karmakar from Tripura, the first Indian woman gymnast to seal an Olympic berth. The episode is planned to be aired just before Olympics starts in Brazil in August. The Home Ministry is also planning episodes on celebrated boxers Shiva Thapa and Mary Kom. In the episode on Hurricane Girls, the all-girl band from Guwahati, one of the band members talk about their experience of their first show. The band member was promised Rs 2,000 but she even did not get that from the organisers. The episode tells how they now have grown into a band which gets a couple of lakhs for each of their shows now.

Another episode would talk about how Meghali Borah's efforts to train women taxi drivers have helped them. Government doctor Ali's experiences in persuading rural Muslims to go for family planning feature in another episode.