Category: KanglaOnline

IMPHAL, May 30 (Newmai News Network): The Ukhrul District Congress Committee and also the North East chapter of Jesus Gospel Ministry (JGM-NE) have condemned the bomb attack at the office of Autonomous District Council (ADC) located at Khuman Lampak sports complex in Imphal on May 28.
Three persons–a woman and her two daughters–were injured in the explosion on Saturday morning. Till date no organisation has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Ukhrul District Congress Committee termed the Saturday incident as “undesirable bomb attacking culture targetting the innocent people. The Commiittee then appealed those elements responsible for such act to abstain from repeating in future.
Meanwhile, the Jesus Gospel Ministry-North East India (JGM-NEI) while asking the people involved in the May 28 incident to identify themselves, has said that such act is against any religion. “No religion permits such cruelty,” said Ashang Kasar who is the director of the JGM-NEI. He also said that acts of violence will not bring any good for the society but only more problems.

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Guwahati, May 31 (IANS): At least 32 people were killed in Assam when a bus plunged into a gorge and petrol tanker turned turtle and exploded, officials said Tuesday.

Twenty-eight people were killed and 10 had a miraculous escape when a bus, carrying a marriage party — the bridegroom, his family and friends, plunged into a gorge after hitting a wooden bridge around 11 p.m. Monday near Charabari village in Kamrup district, about 30 km from Assam`s main city of Guwahati.

The dead included the groom, his father, and other friends and relatives.

The bus was on its way from Guwahati to the bride`s house at Tihu in Nalbari district.

`The marriage rituals at the bride`s home in Tihu were to take place early Tuesday and the bus was on its way with the groom when the accident took place,` police official A. Das said.

`Initially, it was believed there were 43 people on board, but now after verification from the groom`s family it was found there were 38 people in the bus. Rescue workers and locals fished out 28 bodies, while 10 survived and are now in hospital,` Assam`s Health Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said after visiting the accident site.

According to witnesses, the driver failed to notice the wooden bridge without any railings or signposts and then straightway plunged into a deep gorge, about 40 feet from the road.

The Assam government has ordered an enquiry into the accident.

`We have already ordered an enquiry to find out as to why the wooden bridge had no railings or signposts alerting drivers about the bad condition of the bridge,` Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said.

`Immediate steps are being taken to make a concrete bridge, besides statewide alert sounded to look for such vulnerable bridges that need urgent repair or attention,` he said.

Gogoi also announced Rs.100,000 for the next of kin of each of those killed and Rs.50,000 each to the six injured.

Local residents, however, alleged that district civil and police authorities failed to react urgently following the accident.

`The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) was informed around 11 p.m. and they arrived at the accident site only around 7 a.m. Tuesday saying they don`t have night vision equipment and hence they came in the morning,` local community leader Bhabesh Bora told IANS.

`It is a shame the NDRF and other civil and police officials failed to react to such disasters.`

In the other incident late Monday, four people were burnt to death and 12 critically injured when a petrol-tanker turned turtle and exploded on a highway near Bokakhat in eastern Assam, about 250 km from Guwahati.

`After the tanker skidded off the road, there was a massive fire with several houses along the highway set ablaze with sleeping villagers charred,` police official B. Bora said.

Four people were charred beyond recognition, while 12 people were admitted to hospital with third degree burn injuries.

The fire raged for more than 10 hours and was brought under control around 10 a.m. Tuesday.

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IMPHAL June 4: Superintending engineer of the Public Health and Engineering Department (PHED), Th Lokeswor in charge of the urban division announced in a press meet held today at the Manipur Press Club, that the sewerage project presently underway will be completed within December 2012.The SE said that the department has been doing its best to complete the works under a stipulated time and with a concern of the public’s welfare.“ The project is taken up in the interest of the public, whatever excavations done to fit the pipelines have been carefully monitored and done so as not to cause public inconvenience, the department is assessing the implemented works on a daily basis and we request the public to bear with us for some more time”, he said.Detailing mediapersons regarding the sewerage project, he further said that the project officially started in 2003, but due to unavoidable circumstances, the implementation started from 2006 onwards. The laying of primary lines around Imphal city has been completed at least upto 85 percent while around 60 percent of laying of secondary pipelines is complete, he further added. He also stated that the French government has mainly provided the machinery and the technical know how for the sewerage project.“The French engineers come annually to check the progress of the works and provides technical assistance, every part of the project is monitored by them, the implementation is done under their supervision and there is no question of the project being carried out against the engineering norms “. He added that the cost of the project is revised at a total of Rs. 217.6 crores and the project will further be extended to other towns of the state as Churachandpur, Bidhnupur, Moirang and Loktak.“This project is the first in the North East and the works will extend to other districts in the near future, the contractors and the PHED has to be co ordinated, the law and order situation in the state sometimes causes a delay to the ongoing works, the target for completion though set on 2012 March cannot be met, but even though with the slight delay, the project will be completed within December 2012, the Chief Minister has also intimated his interest in the completion of the project at the earliest”, he said.The SE also announced that the works taken up at the RIMS road by the department had been completed on March 28, and the current ongoing construction along the road is the matter of either the PWD or MAHUD.The sewerage project is implemented to carry out treatment of waste disposal for the urban areas of the state and so as to further dispose off the waste material without incurring any health hazards to the public in the process.

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In the wake of the growing chant for more liberalization of economies around the globe and the unabashed worship of the market, there are many extremely well informed voices calling for caution against dropping all economic regulatory mechanisms. It is true market worship has led to a path of growth generally, but critics are now calling attention to the fact that growth alone cannot be development. Development, they say is not about the size of GDPs and GNPs alone, but also of a number of other conditions, some subjective and others objective. One of these is environment. Among the others are: gender empowerment, equitable distribution of income, public health etc. The most economically and militarily powerful nation, the United States of America, has often been the subject of case studies in probing these issues. Some of the questions asked by Nobel Prize winning economists like Amartya Sen and Joseph Stiglitz should be able to rhetorically present the nature of the problem. Why is this most developed nation also dotted with the most number of prisons in the world? According to Stiglitz, (“Roaring Nineties”) some of the American states spend more money on prison maintenance than on primary education. It is true that these rich societies have enough to spend on both prison and education, but the picture narrates of something extremely dysfunctional? Again according to a study by Amartya Sen and John Dreze (“Development as Freedom”), Black Americans although on the average they command incomes many times higher than people in the Third World countries even after taking into account the differences in the cost of living, have a lower life expectancy than many of the latter societies. Markets also have seldom shown respect for the environment, and hence the world’s most well endowed market, the USA’s refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol on world environment. These are facts and figures that point out how incomplete the traditional notions of development are. The issues are many, but on the morrow of the World Environment Day on June 5, it would be a profitable exercise to reflect on the many awesome aspects of the environment question.The question is large and can even go beyond easy comprehension. Viewed with an evolutionary sense of time, there seems nothing that anybody can do about the changes that happen to the earth’s environment. As for instance, who can prevent the next Ice Age from happening, for science today has determined that the Ice Epochs are a cyclic event, just as the earth’s seasons are, although on a much longer cyclic path. Seasons happen because of the earth revolves around the sun and also because of the inclination of its axis at 23.5 degrees against the plane of its revolution. It is now also established that the earth’s axis is not just inclined but also wobbles by about 4 degrees and this wobbling is thought to be the cause behind Ice Ages. In evolutionary terms this cycle may take millions of years to complete, but all the same it is inevitable. The last Ice Age, a minor one according to scientists, ended about 12,000 years ago, and it is only after this event that the race for modern civilizations was flagged off. Life forms also go extinct. This is again a fact about life on earth. Millions and millions of species of life have died out while million others have come out of oblivious existence to take centre stage in the earth’s 4.5 billion years. If a comet hit had not wiped off the predatory dinosaurs about 64 million years ago, scientists believe the species of life that evolved into modern man could have remained an insignificant creature perhaps the size of a house lizard, out of its own survival instinct. Evolutionary scientists like the late Stephen Jay Gould (author of best-selling “Wonderful Life”) and Simon Conway Morris (author of the authoritative “The Crucible of Creation”) have demonstrated through the study of fossils that on the one hand life just wants to be (the sole purpose of the creature called sponge seems just to hang around at one spot throughout its life until it comes to an end), and on the other, that life forms almost with an uncanny certainty, go extinct from time to time. They have also argued quite convincingly that evolution is not centred around humans and its sole purpose is to preserve life, not necessarily human life. The awesomeness of the mysteries of life is in a pristine sense, religious. If we reflect on it with earnest, it should humble even our greatest problems. On Environment Day then, let us learn to be humble.

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IMPHAL, June 9, 2011: The National AIDS Control Programme is in the process of designing the fourth phase of the programme, which is expected to be launched in April 2012. In response to this, 500 civil society organizations and community groups from across the country have decided to come together and conduct five regional consultations to shape a blue print and design for the programme.
In order to facilitate participation consultations will be held in different regions over the coming week. The first consultations which began in Guwahati today for the North East region will be followed by consultations in Delhi for North India, Pune for West India, Kolkata for East India and Bangalore for South India. The Guwahati consultation was attended by 110 participants from eight states including Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Meghalaya, Tripura and Assam. The regional consultations will feed into the NACP IV design, especially areas that communities and civil society want incorporated and made integral to the programme.
Commenting on this unique and unprecedented response, Dr. Sundarraman, a social activist involved for the last 30 years on the issue said, “We are not here just to dot the “I’s” and “T’s” of a programme document outlined by officials of NACO.”  Therefore, participants, many of whom have the vast experience of the community and hitherto difficult-to-reach populations, will deliberate on, “what worked for them in the present programme and why and what did not work” and how did we go about fixing it”.
During today’s deliberation, there was general discontentment about the lack of sharing by NACO of the planning process and proposed design of NACP IV. Many of the participants felt that their key role in the present phase of the programme has been completely ignored and their participation sidelined. The common demand of 100 delegates from civil society at the Guwahati consultation was let the fourth phase of the National AIDS Control Programme be a “people’s programme”.
Tomorrow, June 10,  over 95 participants from various line departments such as the Women and Child, health, law, education, DIPR, RNTCP and the AIDS Control Program such SACS, DPACU from the state level government agencies, from across eights North East states, are expected to make their recommendations for the design of the fourth phase program. Five members of the civil society will participate in the regional consultation and provide recommendations emerging from the ongoing community interactions.
 In light of this, the civil society consultation has emerged as a vibrant forum and an opportunity for the communities and civil society to put forward its experiences and expectations from the NACP IV. In one voice the message from all the participants is that a sense of urgency must be made a part of the planning and that the spirit of partnership witnessed in phase 3 must be strengthened to ensure that as the fourth phase program rolls out.
Dr. S.I. Ahmed, Director, AIDS Prevention Society, stated, “We need to ensure that the State AIDS Control Societies, health departments are made more accountable. Inter- sectorial collaborations are important but without ownership at the district level it’s a distant reality. More importantly, we are not seeing any systematic efforts to strengthen community ownership”.  
Bulee, a peer educator with the NGO Lamjingshai, Meghalaya, spoke of how, “Community mobilization is difficult particularly in Meghalaya, which has a matrilineal social setup because stigma and discrimination is high. The larger community, unlike in other states , is yet to acknowledge the existence of the community. Mental health has not been addressed at all. Most of the community members take to drugs due to frustration (lack of recognition). Let’s address mental health issues be addressed before we talk about behavioral change” she added.
Jahir Ulla Ali, Team Leader, Bhorakha Group, Guwahati, pointed out that, “ICTCs do not have MSM counselors who clearly understand the psycho-social issues of the community. Guwahati has only one MSM DIC. Stigma and discrimination is also preventing community members from accessing treatment in general hospitals and other clinics. Mobilization is also difficult due to a lack of MSM specific services.
Mary, a FSW from Manipur opined that, “NACP-IV should go beyond providing basic STI treatment and take into consideration the treatment of other related complications. A number of FSWs are homeless, having been driven out of their homes by their families and are taking shelter in bus stops, market sheds and other public space which is making them even more vulnerable”. Earlier, while speaking on behalf of community groups of the seven states in the North East, Raj Kumar Raju opined that, “If the rich experience of the community is not taken seriously and a comprehensive programmes are not worked out for an array of drug users, including under-served groups like female drug users, during the next phase of programme it would be difficult to halt the epidemic let along reverse it.”  
Taking this forward, Luke Samson, from the NGO Sharan, emphasized that the time has come for community groups most affected by HIV to go beyond providing advice and recommendations and start shaping the operational scope of the programme. He made it clear that while some interventions such as the Needle Syringe Exchange Programme (NSEP) have to be consistently implemented for regular drug users; other more complex interventions such as Opioid Substitution Therapy (OST) required a tremendous amount of designing and planning, especially in the programmes run in community settings.  He added that, “Without a human rights framework any health intervention that is seeking to address such marginal communities cannot work.”
Shashi, SASO, Manipur spoke of how, “IDUs, PLHAs and other communities are suffering in the North East. However, the NACO’s planning process did not even invite a large organization like SASO which is working with the community to the working group consultations”.
A key recommendation that emerged from the civil society representatives was that the fourth phase must be more accommodating and flexible to the ground level situations.
Bazo, Director, Kekhrie Foundation, Nagaland, felt that, “The key focus should be on women and children. We need a response to the stigma and discrimination that people are facing on the ground. PLHAS must be involved as a distinct entity rather than as part of the program delivery.”
Pratishta Chettri, Drishti, Sikkim, West District, narrated the difficulties of implementing programmes for vulnerable populations like FSWs in Sikkim and how it was difficult to overcome the stigma faced by the populations. “They are not able to come out. How do we reach out to them and give services?” She also felt that strategies like the PPP model could not be adopted in the context of Sikkim since very few private providers were willing to come forward.
Bhiku Brahmanand, Secretary, Arunachal Pali Vidya Peet, Lohit, Chowkham spoke of the necessity of ensuring that the skill building process reached out to the more isolated areas of North East.

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If men were good, there would be no need for governments, James Madison, the third President of the United States of America, and one of the founding fathers of the country’s constitution famously said in charting out the philosophy by which the American constitution was to be written. The innate suspicion of man’s basic nature may be contrary to the idealistic teachings of religions, but it has nonetheless proven to be an effective mantra for governance. Madison’s prescription for America definitely would cure a lot of the ills of any government anywhere in the world. The Manipur administration too could use some of it much to its benefit. If it had understood the significance of the statement in its letter and spirit, it might have been able not only to anticipate but also draw up effective administrative measures to prevent what happened at Tentha last year, whereby Hindu villagers burnt down a church built in the village by Christian converts amongst them. No, we are not talking about preventing conflict situations by beefing up security or through other intimidatory shows of state power, but through un-intrusive social engineering that takes into consideration that differences in faith, ethnicity etc, can easily translate into social friction and even conflicts.

Given the administrative foresight, religious or ethnic frictions do not have to be much more than mere civic problems, well within the power of the civil administration to handle. In fact it is the duty of a secular government not to allow any of its social problems to escalate beyond the civic. It is a limitation of imagination that makes secularism seen only in terms of the doctrine of tolerance. The term tolerance itself implies putting up with something one is not altogether too pleased with. Rather than this, secularism should be more about good impartial and farsighted administration that keeps in mind that men are not angels or saints. Supposing the government were to enact a legislation restricting the building of public places of worship, be it a temple, church, mosque or synagogue in residential areas and opening it only to government approved sites, no problem of civil religious strife would have arisen? One might not have anything against living next door to a Hindu, Christian, Muslim or a Jew, but if the followers of any of these faiths decide to convert his house into a public temple or church the next day and have congregations singing bhajan or performing midnight masses, it is likely to rub many other neighbours the wrong way. The Manipur government, and so too a large section of the public, in their obtuse sense of secularism, have been ignoring this particular dynamics behind conflicts. Mark our words, given the rapidity with which public places of worship are sprouting, if the administration does not take care to rectify this oversight, religious frictions in the state, not necessarily Hindus pitted against Christians, but in any permutation or combination of the religions practised in the state, are likely to escalate. After all, as Madison implied, men are not angels, and it is a senseless conflict resolution strategy to simply curse that men are not angels.

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By Professor N. Mohendro Singh
Former Member, Steering Committee, NER Vision, 2020
Well, it is good that the 60th plenary session of the North Eastern Council to be held on 16th and 17th June at New Delhi has been meaningfully designed to give effect to the NER Vision, 2020 signed on 13th May 2008 at Agartala after exhaustive preparation of three years. The development initiative marks a turning point to get down to the ground realities. In fact it is a Bible of Development for the entire North Eastern Region with the Transfer of Development Rights in the wake of challenges of globalization and imperatives of liberalization which was set in motion in 1991. Regional imbalance continued to pose a tantalizing headache for the planners in the country. The performance of economic planning in the country for the last 58 years fails to address the issue of regional imbalance. Curiously, to the dismay and disappointment, the North Eastern Region was found lagging 30 per cent behind the rest of the country. It was therefore essential to prepare the roadmap and guiding framework for a structural
change and responsive trajectory of growth.
In order to catch up with the rest of the country the North Eastern Region should be prepared to achieve annual average growth rate of Gross State Domestic Product of 13.17 per cent and Manipur 13.25 per cent by 2012-2017 as against the national average of 9 per cent. This is a new development challenge.

Any exercise has, therefore, to be made keeping this reality in view not merely the routine exercise of a few projects not carefully worked out to ascertain the accurate multiplier effect on the growth acceleration and stimuli released by way of externalities. In this connection we have to identify four major issues:
1 Where do we stand now i.e. by 2011-12?
2 Where to go (economic destination)?
3 How to go (potentials/priorities/strategy)?
4 How soon (time frame/time line)?

In the course of preparation of the Vision Document we suggested six components of strategy
a. Empowerment of people
b. Creation of Development Opportunities
c. Developing sectors with comparative advantage
d. Capacity Development of people and institution
e. Creating hospitable investment climate
f. Investment by both public and private sectors

It could be fair and equally convincing if the projects prepared by the Government of Manipur for the plenary session touch on and are derived from the components of the strategy. Of course, one should not ignore the abject ground realities in the state.

Well, it could be necessary to reiterate the fact that any major development initiative neither preceded nor accompanied by sufficient social empowerment invites inequality, imbalance and instability in due course. The very purpose of inclusive growth gets defeated. A sound strategy demands that Development and Empowerment should go together. Look at the impact of heavy projects of high capital intensity. The lion’s share of the intervention goes to the wealth-to-do rich contractors, companies and suppliers. The poor and unorganized sector remains a mere marginal beneficiary with a spill-over of daily wages.

Secondly we also identified crucial roles of social capital and social entrepreneurs to implement, run and maintain the economic projects. In this connection, once in a meeting of the Steering Committee, SHREE MANI SHANKAR AIYAR, former Honourable Minister, DoNER, in reply to my strong argument on Investment Gap in Manipur said “Professor Mohendro, please don’t worry about money. I will give you enough money for any project but who will look after the project? I know maintenance remains an unsolved problem in Manipur”. Even today plan for plan maintenance remains criminally ignored as a result of which many assets to-day remain half-completed, idle or underutilized. We suggested Administrative Reforms before any policy initiative. What we need in Manipur today is bureaucratic machinery with commitment rooted in domestic institutions not merely so-called refresher programmes.

One should not expect good governance without a fair knowledge on what to do and not to do. In fact confusion begins withjack of fair knowledge and firm commitment. Right now the bureaucratic apparatus in the state, by and large, fails to appreciate the historical necessity of Plan Culture not merely the so-called work culture. The compendium of a few schemes cannot substitute the planned works born out of a series of economic relationships.

It is really surprising that we are harbouring the false notion of inefficiency of District Planning while the whole world has accepted the principle of decentralization of planning and development as cornerstone of inclusive growth. Even to-day we do not have District Resource Inventory, District Perspective Plan and District Annual Plan. We have schemes but not plans. The Hill Development Strategy should necessary be part of the long term District Perspective Plan based on District Resource Potentials. To-day the development process in the hill areas gets distorted and remains visibly insensitive.

Lastly, yes, participation in the 60th plenary session is important;— but more important is the WAY the preparation is made and much more important is the SPIRIT with which you participate. The burden of heavy involvement in the gigantic task of the production of Vision Document remains a reminder of seriousness and thoroughness with which the action plans have to be prepared in order to initiate a directional departure.

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NEW DELHI, June 14 (MIC): Union Minister of Development of North Eastern Region (DoNER) Shri Bijoy Krishna Handique here today announced the launch of a programme called ‘Youth on the Edge’ by Ministry of DoNER through the North Eastern Council for encouraging adventure activities in the North Eastern Region. 

Shri Handique said, “We have devised -‘Youth on the Edge’ with the primary objective of encouraging movements of youth from the rest of India to the Border Areas of the North Eastern States to participate in structured adventure activities thereby furthering the cause of national integration and mainstreaming. The participants would get a chance to learn about the cultural heritage and local traditions of the Region. In addition Intra-North East exchanges of youth will benefit the local youth who will also be involved in the process”.

“As part of the programme, we also plan to send selected representatives from the Region to visit the rest of India. A talent scouting process will be done to identify prospective talents in adventure tourism who will be sent for specialised training in the National Mountaineering Institutes. This year we plan to start a Pilot Project and subsequently from the next year we will try to bring the programme under the 12th Plan,” he added.

This is the first time that the Ministry of DoNER has taken up a programme to attract youth from other parts of India.

In the Pilot Project, three trekking trails, two from Arunachal Pradesh and one from Mizoram will be finalized after consultation with the State Governments and necessary ground recee. The types of adventure activities are of Land Based like Mountaineering, Skiing, Trekking, Rock Climbing; Water Based like Sailing, Rowing, Water skiing; and Aero Based like Para Gliding, Hand Gliding, Microlite Flying. Each of these trails will be used to organize activities for 15 batches consisting of 555 youths during the three months. The batches will consist of 37 youth including seven representatives from the North East and National Service Scheme volunteers.

As part of the programme, around 200 youth from the North Eastern Region along with 6 escorts will also be sent to visit the rest of India. Also, to create skill development and self employment opportunities in future for local youth from NER, a few selected ones having an aptitude for adventure tourism will be sent to different National Mountaineering Institutes for specialized training. The total beneficiaries under this programme will be 1885 youths.

The Ministry of DoNER will fund Rs.2.86 Crores for this pilot programme and subsequently the programme will be put up for inclusion as a full-fledged scheme under the 12th Plan. The pilot scheme will be implemented by the Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports under the aegis of the Ministry of DoNER in coordination with respective state governments.

The North Eastern Region has attractive Himalayan mountain ranges with Sikkim and Arunachal having popular peaks like Kanchenjunga, Kabru Massif, Kangto, Nyagi Kangsang and Gaurichen. A number of wild unexplored rivers like Siang, Syom, Subansiri, Dibang, Lohit etc., are a big attraction for adventure seekers.

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