Little Elizabeth lives forever even after death

Shillong, Aug 3: The world may have forgotten the sweet memories of 8-year-old Lungnila Elizabeth, but not the farming community in Manipur.

The golden face of Elizabeth, who was abducted and brutally killed on November 2003, would never be forgotten now as 2,500 hectares of land in Manipur has been flowered into high yielding rice named after the eight-year-old school girl-Lungnilaphou rice.

Little Lungnila Elizabeth was abducted by 'unidentified Persons' from near the premises of her Little Flower School on the 4th of November 2003 leading to the outburst of whole country. Her highly decomposed body was recovered from Sadokpam, Manipur after being weeks in the custody of her abductors.

In order to fulfill their emotional reposnsibilty towards the region, the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) North Eastern region named a variety of rice, which the institute developed after the Manipur's golden child.

Lungliphou variety of rice is now cultivated in 2,500 hectares of land in Manipur. It is one of the high yielding variety with a yield of 6.2 tonne per hectares as compared to the average yield of 1.8 tonne per hectares in the North-East, disclosed ICAR (NE) Director Dr K M Bujarbaruah.

Little Elizabeth's father Francis Ngajokpa, who is a Horticulture minister in the Ibobi Singh government formally launched Lungnilaphou Rice in Manipur sometime back, which is doing astoundingly well, Dr Bujarbaruah claimed.

The Lungnilaphou Rice is also slowly making in-roads in others states of the country because of its higher yielding capacity.

UNI