An Insight into Arunachal Pradesh

While going through the recent comments section, I had to navigate to the post where I had written how the tagline-’Gateway to Serenity‘ came into being for the Department of Tourism, Government of Arunachal Pradesh (Read the story here.) The post led me to navigate to the official site of Arunachal Tourism. I was quite impressed by it’s new simple look (see snapshot at left), which has elements of Web 2.0 design (if I’m not wrong) and I’m glad that the state government departments are trying to make their official site more vibrant unlike the NIC managed dull sites. Just check state government’s official site. Coming back to the Arunachal Tourism site-Hey! where is the logo and the tagline? Have they forgotten to include the logo in the design or has purposefully refrained from using the logo…*wicked smile*…

One of the turn downs that makes both foreign and domestic tourists from putting Arunachal Pradesh in their itinerary is the Entry Formalities i.e., RAP & ILP and the lack of information on how to obtain them. The section Entry Formalities of the site just covers that and gives information on where to apply for ILP or RAP. However, it fails to address one pertinent question-How long does it take to obtain ILP or RAP? Also the section is updated with the information on recent relaxation in entry formalities for foreign visitors.

The Destination Section has a brief on existing travel circuits like places of interest, how to reach, where to stay etc. But I failed to understand why destination Tawang and West Kameng alone has been given dedicated full pages and not for other destinations?

Besides, the site has briefs on Festivals, Arts and Crafts, People, Wildlife and Orchids and information on government registered tour operators.

So head on to the official tourism site of Government of Arunachal Pradesh for information on entry formalities, travel circuits etc., if you are planning a trip to Arunachal, soon.

Did I told you that other than blogging, my indulgence includes sketching? … Well, well, that was a long… long ago, infact. It has been ages since I seriously tried my hands on sketching…again. It was some days back when I was flipping through my steel trunk of college days, that I came across this sketchbook which reminded me that long back I had tried my hands at sketching. Below, I am sharing two of my sketches from that sketchbook done with charcoal, around a decade back.

Tried to do portrait of a lady that appeared in some magazine.

P.S. What above sketches got to do with Arunachal or Arunachal Diary? Nothing…but then, Arunachal Diary is also the personal space of AG besides space for issues related to Arunachal, right?

In the first instance, this sounds ‘Cool’, doesn’t it? A 3G services for NE States by BSNL, by January 2009? But try asking the consumers’ of BSNL services in this part of the country i.e., Ziro-Hapoli Township of Arunachal Pradesh, for them, this is an irony, a joke.

Why?

There is this mobile service provided by BSNL (the lone service provider), but no network to make a call (and you are talking about 3G services). There is this supposedly ‘always-on Broadband Service’ provided by BSNL, that seems to have forgotten when to turn on. And the greater irony is that the consumer has to shell out their hard earned cash for the service that has been denied to them by the service provider’s laxity in restoring the service.

This on and off relationship with the services provided by the BSNL has been prevailing since 14^th June, when torrential rain and subsequent landslide washed away the OFC linking Ziro Exchange with Itanagar Exchange. I wonder what is keeping the BSNL authorities such long from restoring the service? The only response that is forthright from them whenever anyone enquire about the prevailing condition of service is the cliché, ‘Sir, the OFC has been cut by some miscreants at X or Y or Z location‘. Well, can’t they think of any other alternative to provide the service or to lay OFC that is out of reach from the so-called miscreants? Or is it just an excuse not to restore the service, after all they are getting paid for the services they are not providing ?

And to talk about the ambitious project of providing 3G services to NE states by January 2009; why don’t they first concentrate on improving quality of service in this part of the country? Without network and poor QoS what would be the utility of 3G services, I wonder….

Have you thought Arunachal Diary is ‘dead’ and won’t be updated anymore?

Well, this is a very short post to announce that Arunachal Diary is still alive and kicking but for the forced short hiatus I had to take due to unplanned trip down South to Bangalore (Bengaluru) and to Coimbatore, which kept me out from updating the blog. Watch out for the space till I update myself with the latest happenings of the state and let you updated about Arunachal Pradesh.

Thank you all for visiting Arunachal Diary even when it was not updated for a while.