On stage, Lou Majaw, the hill town's premier rocker-poet-troubadour, is belting out the Dylan standards - a ritual that he's been faithfully performing for the last 34 years on the singer's birthday.

It all began sometime in 1972 when Majaw began a folk festival to "honour Dylan" at a small auditorium on the singer's birthday.

A few years earlier he had been converted to the legend after he heard the seminal album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan.

Since then, the Dylan fest has played out every 24 May at homes, parks, and halls.

I am an executive of Cosyne Enterprises Inc. in Atlanta, GA, USA. Cosyne is an IT Services company. Please go to our website www.cosyne.com to know more about our company. Last year we opened an e-learning center in Dimapur, Nagaland where we have students getting certified in Microsoft products. We are also preparing them for jobs in the NE region, in India as well as abroad.

Our Mission is to put the North East in the IT map. We have been continuously working towards this Mission.

In the wake of the Tsunami on 26th December 2004 that struck the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and on the East Coast of South India, this was the question that we posed to ourselves at Dreamcatchers.

The answer to the question contoured our work with young people and communities in the Tsunami hit areas of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.

The magnitude of both physical and mental devastation in the aftermath of the tsunami was unthinkable. Thousands of children were living in relief camps, living in fear of the sea and experiencing a sense of complete abandonment and loss.

The iatreilang, shillong festival organising committee, which is hosting the event in collaboration with the arts and culture department, the tourism department of the meghalaya government and the meghalaya tourism development forum as the hospitality partners. the event is being supported by the north eastern council (nec).