Manipur News

North East Students Organisation (NESO) will serve ultimatum to the government of India on various issues pertaining to the people of North East and the region.
NESO advisor S. Artax said one among them is to formulate an effective mechanism by the government of India for the safety of the North East people in the mainland India.
In its serious deliberation today in Guwahati, NESO leaders have decided to serve an ultimatum to the Central government to formulate effective mechanisms for the safety of North Easterners in mainland India and also to take stringent action on the over 80 Bangladeshi nationals who are “missing” after entering India with valid documents in the last three years. Artax said there have been many such cases before three years or so too. NESO’s ultimatum to the government of India will include for compensating the victims from the North East region due to the prevailing situation adequately.The apex students’ body of the region also is also discussing how the government of India will rehabilitate the people of the North East who had fled from the study and work places.
It then acknowledges the various state governments working hard for containing the present problem.NESO then feels that the mainland Indians are yet to consider the North East people as their equal partners.Issues on the illegal immigrants in the north east region and the prolonging fencing process of the government of India .

Read more / Original news source: http://manipur-mail.com/neso-on-exodus/

MNS: The Benches of Gauhati High Court have already been set up and are functioning in the States of Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura. Giving this information in written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha today, Shri Salman Khurshid, Minister of Law & Justice said that recently, the Parliament has passed “The North-Eastern Areas (Reorganisation) and Other Related Laws (Amendment) Act, 2012” which provides for setting up of separate High Courts in the States of Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura. The Minister said that the Government has initiated action for establishing separate High Courts in these three States.
The Government has said that with a view to carrying out comprehensive electoral reforms, a Core-Committee was constituted under the Chairmanship of Additional Solicitor General. The talking points of the Committee included: (i) De-criminalisation of Politics; (ii) Funding of Elections; (iii) Better Management .

Read more / Original news source: http://manipur-mail.com/high-court-benches-in-ne-states/

Mail News Service
New Delhi, Aug 23: Manipur Students’ Association Delhi MSAD condoled the untimely demise of Dolaipabam Mohammad Sharif Ahamed of Manipur, a student of Cotton College in Assam, who was allegedly thrown out of a running train and killed in West Bengal on 19th August. Sharif was considered one of the six passengers of the Guwahati-bound special train carrying Northeast people fleeing Bangalore who were killed on their way. The incident reports the injury of three other North easterners who were first beaten up and pushed out in a racist manner in the ongoing atmosphere of targeting Northeast people in India. MSAD condemned such an inhumane incident.
MSAD condemned the act of taunting, humiliation and harassment of Soibam Arunkumar in a racial manner by a crowd of Delhites on the night of 15th August in and around Chirag Delhi. MSAD also condemned the reported attack on Yuringam and Wungshungmi from Manipur at their rented premises at Kotla Mubarakpur on the intervening night of 18th and 19th August. These few reported instances in Delhi were preceded by the murder of Loitam Richard in Bangalore and the controversial suicide of Dana Sangma in April and the denial of justice. In the past there were several reported instances of social discrimination and attacks. Government’s initiative to address the issue is late coming, slow and inadequate. Against this backdrop, it is logical of the exodus of Northeast students and migrant workers from Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad, etc when attacks and hate propaganda had begun.
We are aware that there was killing and displacement as a result of clash between Bodo peoples and alleged ‘illegal foreigners’ in Assam, which is considered to be the reason for targeting Northeast people. The conflict in Assam is the result of the deliberate apathy of the government to address the immigration issue in the right time with acceptable solution. Immigration is a burning issue in Manipur as well.
The immigration issue unfolds the struggle for control over land, resources, job opportunity and market monopoly between ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’. The Indian political leaders and concerned government departments are feigning blind to the demand for practical solution but jugging with sensitive issues to fulfil certain selfish motives.
The irony is that the clash in Assam and between Rohingya Muslims and Buddhists in Myanmar is given a racial interpretation in India. Students and workers / employees who were compelled to emigrate due to bad governance in Northeast are racially targeted in Pune, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Delhi for their racial affinity to Bodo Assamese and Myanmar Buddhist. The target on Northeast people seems to be increasing in correspondence to increasing number of emigration for education and for working as cheap labour in the IT sectors, hospitals and private companies. It strengthened our understanding that racism renders the people of Northeast vulnerable and unsafe in mainland India. The government needs to spell out a practical white paper to address our plight; for the present and for the future.
MSAD appreciates the peace initiatives taken up by Muslim organisations in particular and other social institutions at such a complex situation. We are thankful to certain sections of the media who are playing positive role in minimising attack and casualty. We further appeal them to co-operate with us in the fight against injustice and for peace. We also appeal to our brothers and sisters in the Northeast to calm down their fury and restrain from racial response for the excesses committed by certain sections of the mainland Indians. Instead we must win them to support us in our endeavour towards peace and harmonious neighbourhood with them said a press hand out issued by Makakmayum Md. Shafikul Haque, President, Manipur Students’ Association Delhi (MSAD)

Read more / Original news source: http://manipur-mail.com/msad-condoles-death-of-sharif/

Mail News Service
New Delhi, Aug 23: The Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY), Ministry of Communications and Information Technology has approved and notified two important frameworks to ensure effective citizen engagement and communication with all stakeholders using various offline as well as online channels including Social Media.
As more and more projects are getting implemented, an increasing need has been felt for wider and deeper participation of an engagement with all stakeholders especially public at large to ensure that citizen centricity is maintained in all projects.
To enable and support this goal, the Citizen Engagement Framework for e-Governance Projects has been developed for all government agencies. There is now a consensus that citizen participation and civic engagement are the building blocks for good governance and e-Governance is a critical component of good governance.
Media is transforming the way in which people connect with each other and the manner in which information is shared and distributed. In order to encourage and enable government agencies to make use of this dynamic medium of interaction, the Framework and Guidelines for use of Social Media by government agencies in India has been formulated.
These guidelines will enable the various agencies to create and implement their own strategy for the use of social media. The document will help them to make an informed choice about the objective, platforms, resources, etc. to meet the requirement of interaction with their varied stakeholders.
The guidelines provide an in depth review of types of social media, their characteristics and challenges in their uses. In order to assist the departments to undertake such an engagement, the document provides for a framework and detailed guidelines governing each element of the framework.
While at a personal level, the uptake and usage of social media is gaining rapid popularity, use and utility of such media for official purpose remain ambiguous.
Many apprehensions remain including, but not limited to, issues related to authorisation to speak on behalf of department/ agency, technologies and platform to be used for communication, scope of engagement, creating synergies between different channels of communication, compliance with existing legislations etc.
Social Media is being used across the world by different government agencies. It is believed that the Framework and Guidelines will be useful for departments and agencies in formulating their own strategies and will help them in engaging in a more fruitful manner with their respective stakeholders.
Awareness and communications in e-Governance is a high priority area to ensure wide spread dissemination of e-Services and service access channels and DeitY has been mandated to enhance visibility of e-Services enabled under National e-Governance Plan (NeGP).
Also there was an immediate need to create framework for citizen engagement and use of Social Media which would enable Government Agencies to undertake meaningful engagement with citizens as well as leverage Social Media platforms more effectively for such engagements.
E-Governance marks a paradigm shift in the philosophy of governance-citizen centricity instead of process centricity, and large scale public participation through Information Communication Technology (ICT) enablement.
The Frameworks can be downloaded from www.mit.govin and www.negp.gov.in .

Read more / Original news source: http://manipur-mail.com/government-notifies-framework-for-use-of-social-media/

Guwahati, Aug 23 NNN: Indefinite curfew has been imposed Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) following the heightening tension hours after the arrest of Bodoland People’s Front (BPF) MLA Pradip Kumar Brahma in the wee hours of today. Brahma was arrested at around 1 am today on the charged of his role in the clashes in Kokrajhar district. The BPF legislator was then produced today in the court of chief judicial magistrate (CJM) in Kokrajhar and then remanded for 14 days in judicial custody.
Situation became highly charged as the day advanced today as the news of Brahma spread through SMS and phones in Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC).
As a pre-emptive measure, the administration clamped indefinite curfew in the BTC since this morning.
Reports said that Pradip Kumar Brahma was arrested from his house at Dotoma in BTC at around 1 am.
In protest against the arrest of the Bodo legislator, people came out in large number in BTC and started blocking trains in three places in Kokrajhar district. The BPF supporters demanded that Pradip Kumar Brahma should be released by 12 noon today.
Talking to reporters, Assam’s inspector general of police (IGP) in charge of law and order LR Visnoi said that curfew has been clamped as a measure to prevent further occurrence of untoward incidents. The police officer added that more forces have been rushed from the state capital to BTC this morning to contain the situation.
The Bodo legislator was questioned before he was produced before the CJM court by the police.
Officials said that seven cases of arson and firing have been registered against Pradip Kumar Brahma.
It can be noted that Kokrajhar district in Assam is the epicentre for the present problem pertaining to the people of North East India region and the Muslims.
The clashes between the Bodos and the immigrants Bangladeshi Muslims started in mid July which have already claimed 80 lives so far. A good number of vehicles have been torched and thousands of people have been displaced. Large number of people are being camped in relief camps set up by the government.
Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi has been trying out so many things in order to restore normalcy in Assam.
Tarun Gogoi sough the help of newspaper editors today for restoring normalcy in the communal clashes affected areas of Assam particularly in Kokrajhar and Dhubri districts.
Meeting the editors, the chief minister of Assam requested the journalists to extend needed co-operation to the state government in restoring peace in Assam.Altogether 15 newspaper editors attended the meeting.
In Dhubri district, two persons were reportedly killed (yet to confirm officially) yesterday following firing by miscreants while in BTC, indefinite curfew has been imposed since this morning as tension became high following the arrest of a Bodo MLA.
Reports had said that around 1200 non Muslims had already fled from Dhubri district since the last few days fearing backlash.
Communities like Bengali Hindus and Koch-Rajbongshi comprised the maximum among the fleeing people from Assam’s western district of Dhubri.
Dhubri is an Assam district bordering Bangladesh where, of the total population Muslims comprise of 75%.
In districts such as Nagaon in central Assam and Karimganj and Hailakandi in southern Assam where Muslims are majority, the state government is in full gear to contain any untoward incident. Reports said adequate security has been already stationed in these districts.
It has been reported that nearly 3 lakh migrants had fled Kokrajhar and Chirang districts of western Assam ever since the clashes broke out in the middle of last month.

Read more / Original news source: http://manipur-mail.com/assam-mla-held-curfew-imposed/

Chief of Army Staff General Bikram Singh has issued instructions to set up a board of officers that will be tasked with the responsibility of disbanding the clandestine military intelligence unit established by his predecessor General VK Singh.
The so-called ‘technical support division’ was controlled directly by General VK Singh, who had taken on the government over his age-related issue, a battle that he eventually lost in the Supreme Court.
It may be recalled that this outfit was set up with a funding of Rs 18 crore, and was given the responsibility of tapping the phones of top political leaders and bureaucrats. It has now been ordered to shut down.
General Bikram Singh has issued directions to probe the unit’s mandate, tasks executed by it and its financial records. A three-star general will head the clean-up act.
“The Army wants to fix responsibility before disbanding the unit. It’s surprising why a unit with no strategic relevance was reporting directly to the Army Chief,” a senior officer said.
General VK Singh retired on May 31, and before superannuating, had claimed he was born in 1951, contrary to official records that showed he was a year older. Post-retirement, he has continued to speak out against the government, even sharing the stage with Anna Hazare. It was alleged the snoop unit had illegally deployed two sets of mobile phone interception equipment.ANI

Read more / Original news source: http://manipur-mail.com/army-to-disband-v-k-singhs-snoops/