Northeast Everest climbers hand summit flag to sports minister

With a group of first mountaineers from the North East successfully scaling Mount Everest, Sports Minister Jitendra Singh has expressed the possibility of making such an expedition an annual affair.
"The Minister while addressing the group of World Mt. Everest Expedition expressed the possibility that such an expedition could be made into an annual feature," a sports Ministry release stated.
The expedition, which was flagged off on March 28 by President Pranab Mukherjee, handed over the Mt. Everest 'Summit Flag' to Singh yesterday after the successful completion of the mission.
Led by L Surjit Singh from Manipur, the seven-member expedition team belonged to the six states of north east India.

The expedition had several first to its credits, with Nameirakpam Chingkheinganba of Manipur being the youngest of the lot.
Anshu Jamserpa from Arunachal Pradesh and a mother of two children became the first lady from the state to successfully climb the Everest, while Manipur's N Bidyapati Devi and Wansuk Myrthong of Meghalaya too became first women climbers from their respective states to scale 8,848 m high peak.
Tarun Saikia was the first person from Assam to summit Everest. Another member of the team was Anand Gurung from Sikkim.