Buddhist bodies call for naming AI flights

GUWAHATI, March 14?Three premier organisations connected with Buddhist and tribal people of North East India have moved the Centre to ?name and designate? the international flights of Air India on the Guwahati-Bangkok via Kolkata sector as ?Moung Dun Sun Kham? international flights, stated a release. Lauding the Centre for operation of the flights between Guwahati and Bangkok from April this year, the organisations stated that such step would give due importance to medieval relationship between Assam, Myanmar and Siam Thailand. Referring to the Centre?s ?Look Eastward? policy and the flight to ?Indian Asia? region, namely south East Asia, the NGOs said that this communication would boost India?s in general and North East region?s in particular, ties with the South East Asian countries especially in the fields of education and culture, trade and commerce, tourism and industry besides other fields. Member of the Central Executive Committee, Indian Buddhist Council, B Gogoi, the honorary president of the Deori Tribal Study Circle, North East India and the secretary, Phralung Buddhist Tribal Youth Organisation, Assam and Care Buddhist Information Centre, Nagaland have submitted a joint memorandum in this regard to the Prime Minister of India, the Minister of Civil Aviation, the Governor of Assam besides the director general of Civil Aviation and the chief executive director Air India. The organisations further said ??While Bangkok International Airport in Thailand, earlier known as Siam but known even now in Thai as Muang Thai, is called Dong Muang, Rangoon now, the Yangon International Airport in Burma now styled as Myanmar is named as ?Mungala Don?. The organisations also said that the royal Ahom tribe from South East Asia ruled over Assam for more than 600 years prior to British annexation, and added they named Ahom Assam as ?Moung Dun Sun Kham? in royal records and chronicles. Justifying their stand, the NGOs stated ?Moung Dun Sun Kham? means ?a country full of golden gardens?, reminiscence of ?Swarnabhumi? of Indian Buddhist literature now identified as the Indo-Chinese golden peninsula in South East Asia. The organisations further stated that christening of the flights would be a fitting tribute to the once independent Ahom Assam which kept alive the ancient Indian tradition and Mongaloid culture and civilization in medieval period when almost the entire Indian sub-continent succumbed to foreign invasions, destructions and rules.