Tag: Human rights

By R S Jassal
Poll punditry, arm chair psephology, swings, trends and anti-incumbency analysis are all history – until another time.  The results of 10th Manipur assembly elections have proved the exit poll predictions of a hung assembly fallacious. The ‘Palm’ has been upheld with Indian National Congress (INC) sweeping 42 Assembly Constituencies with a thumping majority and other political parties such as MPP, CPI, NPP, SS, BJP, RJDs and independents, literally razed to ground zero, with AITC at 7, MSCP at 5, NPF at 4. This has prompted exit poll experts to reflect upon as to why their predictions have gone haywire.

The exit poll conducted by a group of Political Analysts and Advisors hosted by the  Centre for Study of Developing Societies(CSDS) had predicted ruling party bagging at the maximum 24 to 32 seats, AITC- 7 to 13, MSCP, CPI, NPF & independent conjointly getting 10-18 seats and Anti-Congress alliance termed as  Progressive Democratic Alliance as 5 to 11 seats. CSDS had also tagged CNN-IBN & The Week, with their findings, so psephologists and pundits were impelled to put their sense of prediction on hold. The pre poll happenings had also swayed the State intelligentsia to keep mum and watch the Pandora’s box only to unfold on 06 Mar 2012 which put INC at the highest pedestal ever since 1972 against all prognostications.

Factors which Affected the Electoral Situation.

Boycott call of Cor-Com, hurling of hand grenades, exploding of IEDs, Kidnappings, burglary at Party offices and sporadic killing of supporters of INC and some odd supporter(s) of other political parties like MSCP did overtly create a fear psychosis amongst political workers both, targeted & to some extent non targeted too. On the top of it media published bulky lists of supporters of INC to be targeted even after elections for their continued support if any candidate won.

Creation of Progressive Democratic Alliance (PDA) consisting of MPP, NCP, RJD(U), RJD and CPI was carried out at a very belated stage of the election process, which created quandary amongst even the intellectuals that probably PDA was looking for only political mileage without any progressive hope for the State. Other than RJDs, all other parties had integrity of Manipur in agenda so tilting on the support of NPF somehow to oust INC had its own effects on the voters.

Further, the creation of a grand alliance with tacit understanding of INC and MSCP that too at the last moment  despite the fact that MSCP was considered as a sister party floated by the CM of Manipur in shadow dealings, without any Common Minimum Programme (CMP) was no more a secret even to the common man. INC landed in “No speak mode” and announced they will align with AITC and NCP for Government making.

Naga People Front (NPF), a United Naga Council (UNC) sponsored party desperately tried to align with many political parties against INC,  overruling and setting aside their own manifesto in which their main plank was to work towards bringing all Naga inhabited areas of Manipur under one umbrella, openly understood and restrictively projected with Rio’s group of party of Nagaland.  Further excessive use of Nagaland’s leadership and their resources created ripples amongst valley politics and those groups of Nagas and Kukis who were against breaking of Manipur integrity. This resulted in the over confidence of NPF, PDF and grand anti Congress (INC) alliance. Also, breaking away of CPI from SPF Government at the last moment and projecting anti congress coalition emerging as a potent viable option left the electorate confused. 

Effect of these factors on the State

All these factors affected the situation without any external direction but internally it was ‘free for all’ threats and intimidations.  Each group of Political Parties started assuming self win-win position which considered masses as cursed into unlawful binding. The results showed entirely different trend, unexpected and undirected, just like self – eruption, which can be categorized as follows:-

(a) NPF performance from any angle may well be said “taken as referendum  on Nagalim”, winning four seats against 12 and except in Karong and Mao, the winning percentage is much lower than what has been garnered by other non-NPF Naga winner candidates. It will also affect on UNC’s bid to alternative arrangement lying pending with the Government of India.

(b)  In the valley, despite Cor-Com’s diktat and active interference as also shadowy Maoist – Marxist – RPF connections, the verdict has gone ahead the way it is. Stalwarts like Shri Radha Binod (NCP), Shri Th Chaoba Singh (MPP), Ex Minister, Shri Ph Parijat (CPI), Shri O Joy (MPP) and many of his ilk falling flat like uprooted poles after a hurricane. Some non performing sitting MLAs from all parties were also brushed aside: Can this be said to be a replica of plebiscite wanted by Shri R K Meghen, the UNLF chief?  Can this be taken as a screen shot of what can actually happen if Plebiscite is resorted to? Examine the voter’s trend from Hills and Valley both for sake of Hill-Valley unity.

(c) Healthiest sign – Fragile Politics: The voters of Hills & valley alike which included this time, voters of 18 years age and above, have now a mixed mind on both issues of Plebiscite, Nagalim and violence.

This is probably the healthiest sign of maturity shown by voters in both hills (including Kukis) and valley. They can not be taken in easily by slogans, “My Land, My Gun, and My Sovereignty”. All the sixty Honourable MsLA irrespective of party affiliations will be taking solemn oath to the Constitution of India as have been doing since inception of first elections to the State assembly.    

Should INC Go Complacent?

Yes, it is tricky. This magic number may weigh very heavy for its 42 members to carry the weight of their pledge to voters and the party. There are limited numbers of portfolio for Ministers and a few number of Chairman Posts which have attraction of possession. Can the CM whosoever he or she may be have the gumption of holding this flock of wise 42 together for full term? A tough task for the President, INC who has to undertake frequent tours of Manipur.

No-Fear of Guns

In the fine end, the general voters have proved their “No-Fear” factor, denounced diktat of Cor-Com and separatist forces , have exercised their franchise the way they liked, and no one else but the democracy stands the winner. This does not mean that no malpractice was resorted to in the voting process. The deduction from this assessment is that if people go courageous and firm up their mind as to what they want, they being the grassroots can usher in a new chapter of change- pave the way for development and force the rulers to grant them good administration. They are now questioning about accounts of expenditure, utilization of NREGA and other Government funds and voicing against custodial deaths and fake encounters. They have also taken note of erstwhile insurgents under obligation of Suspension of Ops (SoO) and Ceasefire (CF) agreements and are questioning as to why some of them operate outside the confines of their designated camps and involve in extortion and any other nefarious activities. In the current milieu the synergy between the civil administration and the Security Forces (SF) is at its peak. The SFs have delivered commendably in providing and ensuring a secured environment for polling and also preventing armed interference in the polling booths during elections. The People of Manipur have delivered their verdict in favor of secularism in democracy which is loud and clear. They are showing maturity in self governance under constitutional norms and with this speed Peace is not far off.

To conclude, the CSOs and Frontal organizations need to crystallize their policies of criticism and role in moving developmental activities forward and meet challenges of corruption, extortion and violence which are eating into our vitals. Ruling INC is also cautioned to change its perception of leaving any project incomplete. Imagine what would have been their position if Non Congress Alliance had really come to power. They must settle all contentious issues facing the People of Manipur one by one. The Author sincerely sympathizes with the losers and congratulates the winners.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/03/janadesh-2012-manipur-assembly-elections-ramifications-and-stratifications/

By Bobo Khuraijam
Do not tell lie or you will meet with the same fate of Sanjennaha. This is the proverbial reminder from our elder quoting from the story of a young shepherd who was a habitual liar. He met an early end because he could not change his habit. We were reminded of the shepherd and his story the day ‘swearing in’ ceremony took place. Some sixty of them took oath that they will not lie or cheat. We feel it is time to do away with the humdrums of a ceremony of that kind. At a time when truth is the only victim, recuperated with muddy drip of elixir called the fallacies of life. The need for oath does not arise at all. They are the epitome of truth, chosen by the people. We can endure long hour of traffic jam, perhaps the longest, on their day of oath taking. The military and the paramilitary cavalcade that zoom past the mean streets of Imphal at any given time also had to join the lesser mortals in the jam on that very day. On a regular day you will find them paving their way smoothly. The man with the whistle in the mouth and hand on the trigger of the Light Machine Gun makes way for the cavalcade. The ambulance, school vans and everyone had to wait for them, the chosen ones. We know how truthfully the campaign went. A majority of them did not win. A minority, who were debarred from campaign, electronically voted by majority won. And it has nothing to do with the electricity. Least amount of energy garners the maximum number votes. Perhaps the definition of miracle should be relooked at.

LIVE COLOR: By the by, we do not want to waste words musing about the chosen ones and their miraculous act. Truly speaking, we do not want to nurture the repentance of missing the muse of Yaoshang. Each time the spring arrives, of all the packages it comes with, the festival of Yaoshang comes in extra-large package. Five days of fun for the children, thrill for the youth and time for reunion of the elders. The festival is celebrated across the length and breadth of the valley. Holi, as it is known in other parts of India and celebrated on a single day. It is celebrated for five long days in the valley. Each day has its significance. We are not better equipped to explain the meaning of celebrating it for five days. Our elder folks who visit the Govindajee temple in great number can explain it better. It is time to regroup for the holi pala. Elders who have not been keeping too well with their health get rejuvenated with the coming of the Yaoshang. Try stopping them from taking part in the pala, you know their reaction. For that matter, also try stopping the kids from going to nakatheng and water pistols. The response is the same.

SPORTINGLY: Introduction of games and sports during the festival is fairly a new thing. Here is also another record in the making. For those who have been running the business of renting out PA system, they must have earned well enough to expand their business. After the election meetings and campaigns, the PA system is played again by each and every leikai. Just imagine the whole valley playing the loud speakers at one go, for five long days. As factionalism is not in our DNA, a leikai can have three or four different Yaoshang sports. Some select few have the luxury of organizing it in a grand scale encompassing wide area of localities. They even rope in film actors to take part in the torch rally. The sports are drawn on a larger than life canvas of gamesmanship and good health. Despite the fact that only two or three items of all the games played are in the Olympics. As if those five days of recreation will groom youngsters for international games, when most of the leikai grounds are replaced by community halls. And when most of the school does not have a single playground; for everything we do, we have the habit of unimaginative vision playing the spoilsport.

DANCE IN THE MOON: Why the much awaited Thabal has to coincide with the Board examinations? It is late already, but realization is never too late. Those people who set the schedule for examination should think over. We would love to hear how they felt during their exam days, especially when the sound of drums and clarinet calls out everybody? Did they shake their legs quietly under the table? Whom or what they saw between the printed words? With restrictions ruling the roost, Thabal was made to cramped up. There were too many Thabals at a time. More so, the chosen ones had financed so many of them. There were thabals and thabals, you take any line: Sagolband line, Keishampat line, Khurai line. Of all the lacking(s), the lack of Shabi-Shanou was mournful. For a dust free and a full circle thabal, you have to move out from the four KM radius of the town. That’s a secret. Well, thabal itself has gone a sea change over the time. Besides the drums and the clarinet, now you have the electronic synthesizer playing not only the songs but the rhythm as well. It resembles the thrash beat of late 80s Bombay films. Accordingly, we find ladies and gentlemen dancing on different steps. We are told that in olden days, everyone has to dance in tune with the the makok chingba or chingbi. Now, we find different dance styles in a single line. Perhaps, this is a mirror image of our society where discipline and unity is the hallmark. The beat is new, the outfits are new, hair style is new. But the Thabal is old, so are the sixty sanjenahas. So, cheers!

FOOTNOTE: a long lost friend whom we regularly find in the information super highway came home for a short stay, taking a break from his information and technology work in a cosmopolitan city. He was too occupied to meet us, sent us an electronic mail and left. Leipung Ningthou calls it, “bigyan gi mari ga punshi gi mari ga samjinabada fuse chaakpa”.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/03/sanjennahas-dont-lie/

By T.  Vunglallian
The heavy dinner is 30 minutes in my good old system. My handy little Asus netbook, with over 5 hours of battery-life still left, is before me on my ever-cluttered table. Relaxed and satiated i select a mix of old favourites … Simon & Garfunkel, Bob Marley and Freddie Mercury … and while walking down memory lane i try to  think deeply of the letter i had started typing a couple of days ago …  

Respected MLA Pu,
When you came to the sub-divisional headquarters – at the heart of your constituency – and campaigned two weeks before voting day, i was so impressed by you, your ideas and your speech that i made up my mind, then and there, to vote for you.

Came voting day and as it was past 12 noon i ended up voting in a dead man’s name. Someone the agents had okayed had already voted for me. And for my entire family! The thing is i was not surprised, nor angry, as in my experience this kind of ‘give and take’ was what elections were all about.

After all, elections is a time – a horribly true aberration in my life – when i forget what i kneel and pray for every day from the bottom of my heart; what ecstasy and euphoria my worship and hymns lead me into; what i am preached about from the heights of a pulpit i secretly wish i could speak from.

Ugh! Elections is a time when i speak and think ill of my neighbour and childhood friend, just because we want to vote for different persons.  Election time is amazingly atrocious because the worst in me takes over all of – an otherwise – pretty ‘decent’ me! The same goes for all my otherwise honourable, straight-forward, religious and upright citizen-friends and colleagues! Perhaps voting on a Sunday would be an auto-correction of the aberration … perhaps.

Honestly, I just don’t know what devilry takes over us all. Such that we all see nothing very wrong in booth-capturing, money and favours openly changing hands, parroting words and manifestos we know are not true, yet we will talk about it with passion … and when we hear of one of our own successfully casting votes 9-10 times we pat her or him, khillai tea and puri – if not more – and see nothing shameless and wrong in it … yes, i really don’t know the power of the ‘satanic-elections’ in me! 

This year i consider myself lucky that there was a re-poll at our polling station 9 km away from our village. And even though we had to once again walk over hill and dale for over 2 hours from our village, just to vote, we all cheerfully spent another whole day and, this time, really voted. In fact, with all the security, this re-poll turned out to be the first ever free and fair voting day in our lives.

That is why i am so happy that a God-fearing man like you got elected. No doubt i would have liked a bigger margin as proof of my ‘right’ choice … but still, victory is victory. Congratulations!

In the past everyone we elected had promised much change and many ‘things.’ But we never saw them again in our area, or in our lives, till about the end of the fifth year when they came around with easy smiles and a few of the many small ‘things’ we miss in our lives. i must say these vote-seekers are clever because by the time they come round our angers have dissipated, and our hope-less and back-and-spirit-shattering lives make us ready, if not relieved to hear two days of dream-fuelling speeches over endless mugs of sweet tea and huge chunks of bread. Yes, for those two days we gorged non-stop on beef and pork heaped upon mountains of rich steaming polished rice. To top it all we were entertained, like never before, by the tribe’s most popular singers from Lamka Khopi/city. Thus, come election day, with appetites sated and our hearts stolen by mesmerizing singers, it was but obligatory on our part to trudge the miles to cast our votes.

Voting this time was with no regrets. Even though, before you came, the decision of the village was to not vote for any candidate this election. Why? Because our lives have not changed one bit in six elections!

Let me put it this way, our village of 23 households is now but a shadow of what it was 60 years ago. Those days we had over 70 houses. Our chief and all the VA members lived side by side with us. They all live in Lamka Khopi today. We even had a government middle school for the area. There were teachers who taught and lived in the village, including Ta Yaima and Ta Chou who taught Maths and Science! True there weren’t many other ‘things’, but with a small functioning weekly dispensary and running water there weren’t many more things needed. All said and done those were quite happy days. Now, those happy days are difficult to explain to those born in the last 10-15 years. No one believes us, and our faded B&W photographs don’t impress our youngsters.  

At this point, let me share a secret-cum-advice: One very big reason, among many others, for many of us becoming disillusioned with our representatives, starting with MLAs … they are that after 2-3 years of each of the six elections we were told MLA Saab had built a grand bungalow at Lamka and a really palatial house at Imphal, and that his children were studying in Delhi, Hyderabad or Bangalore, living in their own flats. And you know, till the last election we used to be happy – even proud – that ‘our’ very own MLA had built a mansion in Imphal and Lamka! We boasted about their flats in the cities of India, and gazed in wonder on their pink skins ensconced in swanky limousines or peering from behind tinted glasses of high and mighty SUVs when they zoomed by to take part in a foundation stone laying programme by the Prime Minister … Oh! They were like Bollywood stars. In just 2-3 years!  

Also, by and by, we got to learn that by the 4th year each MLA Saab could definitely be counted as one of the wealthiest among all tribals! In fact, their ‘kids’ told us: If you have a problem just go to MLA Saab at Imphal …  

We wonder why those close to MLA Pu, we all call them ‘kids’, never realize this: How could a simple singtangpa like me/us ‘just’ go to Lamka, 120 kilometres up the highway, when we find it a big problem just going to the sub-divisional HQ only 20 km away? As for Imphal, a further 65 km away … amongst complete strangers?! Forget it. Never! As it is, if we did manage to gather the means and time to go that far, imagine the commandos on duty behind forbiddingly high walls telling us that MLA Saab is at a meeting. And casually: “Come tomorrow!” Clang! Clang! and that 4”x4” hole in the iron gate shutting in your face. That is what happened to my cousins who once dared to ‘just’ go!

The painful truth is my MLA Pu had become someone else’s MLA Saab!

TIMES A-CHANGING
… but this time, surely, past is past. For you convinced us of times a-changing and that YOU would bring in the change. If i am not mistaken, you said you would change the rules of the game. i like that very much. It was and is heady stuff, especially when you said you would be the ‘game-changer!

Now, it has been a month since your induction in the ministry, so another very big Congrats to you, Pu. In the meanwhile my co-villagers and I have listed – based on what you had said, and hinted in your talks over tea/food – our thoughts, ideas, hopes, expectations, dreams, including un-expressed fears, though not quite everything …

1. What moved us most was that you said you would spend 10 days a month in the sub-divisional HQ town, the centre of your constituency. You said for that you would have an MLA hostel constructed.

2. MLA Pu, as we want you to get elected un-contested in the elections to come, we take the liberty to suggest you should be here in your constituency each and every day of each and every month of each and every year. So the best thing is: Construct your house here instead, and make it your home. You can always use the hostel at Imphal for your rare trips there!

3. We dare to make this suggestion because it has been the norm all these years that our elected representatives live far away at Imphal, and once in a blue moon spend a night or two at Lamka … that too IF the function/ programme where they are the chief guest(s) are late or very early in the day!

4. Hasn’t it ever dawned on them that we in the constituency have been left high and dry … fatherless? Motherless? Leaderless? Abandoned like ‘orphans’! We voters of the constituency fail to understand why the one we sent to the Assembly (or Parliament, for that matter) to be OUR representative goes and stays away! The situation is like a father or mother staying away from home and expecting the children and family to come up well! Question is: By whom? And so while such ‘heartless parents’ live far away, often in the lap of luxury, the lives of the orphans have only changed for the worse! We, therefore, cannot help but use the harsh term ‘heartless’ and think of worse things … all because such abandonment says: We do not really care for you, and whether you live or die hardly makes a difference! For after 5 years I will come and give you what you will always need … I will BUY your votes!

5. Whereas, by your living with us, the first and immediate fruit – (let me insert here that ‘fruit’ is like ‘day’, and the ‘olden things’ championed by MLAs of the old mould is like ‘night’) – is that you will set the example: You will be ‘et ton taak’, and would compel each and every government teacher, doctor, nurse; SDO, SDC, clerk, peon; DSP, fireman and policeman, postman, electrician, water-carrier, sweeper … you name it … all government servants to follow the example of her/his elected representative, and live in ‘their place of posting’. In a way something like you living in ‘your place of election’!

6. If you were present in the constituency 24x7x300 (Why 300 days? Because we’d never question 65 days for Lamka/ Imphal/ Delhi and a week’s holiday away from it all). If it were so, the result would be: every government school – no matter how remote or small – would have their headmasters and teachers; every PHC their doctors, nurses and water-carriers … all. Yes, ALL! Need i elaborate? i think not, for we all know!

7. Now a very very big side-benefit, the most beneficial for all of us small-non-government-job-holding-hill-folks would be that the rural remote and hill economy – the RR&HE – would change OVERNIGHT! Because, to feed all government servants and their families now living in and around us, we’d now gladly grow the best organic vegetables and fruits this side of Aden.

8. Consequently, the owners of Tata 207s and 407s would themselves make – without the need of  waiting for PWD work/annual plans – roads right up to our villages to take our produce to every nook and corner of the state! Pretty soon, the highways would need to grow 4-lane for heavy trucks to ship our ginger, potatoes, hill-cabbages, bananas, pineapples and very soon tea, coffee and spices … And we’d grow rich on and of our own. So much so you’d never need to buy votes! More importantly, we’d regain our humanity, honour, self-respect and dignity … things that – we will dare say – you’ve helped us lose.

9. Our hills would be heady with the sweet aroma of mosquito repelling lemongrass (hence, at long last, malaria-free … without the need of big money national eradication programmes) while international perfume houses would queue up to strike deals with us hill-folks. Many hill slopes would be covered by colourful orchards laden with Nagpur-beating oranges from Tamenglong and Tipaimukh. There’d soon be Himachal/Kashmir-beating apples high in Tengnoupal, Ukhrul, Mao and Kaihlam range of Churachandpur. There’d be Kachai-envied lemons and even Nasik-beating grapes being exported from the hills of Manipur.

10. Yes, Pu MLA, we’d give up jhuming in a jiffy because we’d become well-to-do organic food growers. And exporters!

11. Also, in a few years … 2-3 years at the most … our hills would be the greenest and cleanest with the purest air and water. We’d have health and wealth and the good life.

12. And, yes, Pu Ramesh – chiefly because we are used to much harder work for very little returns … mere pittance – we’d now naturally and quite effortlessly put India miles ahead in the race for the largest green-footprint on Planet Earth …

Ah! Pu MLA-

*if only you would give up your old ways, and if you could just for 5 years follow the drift of our dreams … the hills is where the future is!

*If only it would dawn on you that decentralization is not the un-sound belief that bureaucratic power be decentralized and dispersed … but that you be where you were always supposed and meant to be … in your home in the heart of your constituency. Then, and only then would the centres of power shift, a true paradigm shift!

You need not be at Imphal, even if you are a Cabinet Minister! All you need to do is pick up your mobile and call up the Secretary /Commissioner (Works) or (Health) or (Education) or (Power) to come by late afternoon, stay overnight in the Sub-Divisional Guest House and over dinner solve the constituency’s problem(s). You’d be surprised that in the blink of an eye your long deprived folks would have good roads, hospitals, schools, power stations (not necessarily electricity as we know it), along with all modern amenities. All these would surprisingly be still within the same budget. How? Because you’d be where the money has to be spent, seen and made to be spent.

* If only …

Also, believe me, the beautiful description of Manipur, but till date inapplicable words of Nehru: ‘Switzerland of the East’ would, in reality, apply once you and all other hill MLAs live in your constituencies, 24x7x300!

By this I mean that if none of you 20 MLAs are ‘born again’ and continue to go on living – not in your constituencies – but at Imphal and Lamka … and even if you make and own your own skyscrapers in Imphal and Lamka, or have palaces in the district HQ towns of Chandel, Senapati, Tamenglong and Ukhrul … Nehru’s sobriquet would never ever apply. Not even in a 100 years! Nor in a thousan … 

“Hey! Wake up! Light has come!” 
       
Shaken awake i find myself looking blankly at my wife. Still pretty dazed i look around the CFL-lit room. It is our bedroom and it is 10:05 PM. The TV is on and i am at my desk. Soon steaming Korangani green tea – with lime squeezed in and laced with Dabur’s honey – is placed lovingly before me and i tell the wife of my dream letter.
      
Between ironing my shirts and glancing at some inane Hindi soap she matter- of-fact-ly tells me to stop dreaming!

Aside: i can’t stop imagining … My ‘born again’ MLA Pu would never build in the sub-divisional HQ of his constituency a money-wasting mansion with floors of exquisite marble, bathroom tiles imported all the way from Italy, each tap or door-handle glittering like a gold collector’s item … and dark tinted glass – as thick as my thumb – covering half the building! etc. etc.  No, that would be most inappropriate, considering the living conditions of his vote-bank and, of course, his salary.

What would, however, be fitting and decent would be a simple solid and large house with a magnificent view. It would be built by the best local carpenters, using locally available materials. Of course, to raise the bar somewhat, a few refined and useful thing or two … copied from re-known wood-workers from around the world would adorn the house and gardens.

Into such a ‘home’ my cousins, or i, could walk in any day of the year. After hearing us out our MLA Pu would tele-conference with the CM or cabinet colleagues, the CS or the DC. A few days later work would begin on the suspension bridge over the mountain stream separating our village from the highway. Or the new mathematics teacher would give his joining report and start living in the village itself. Or that bus-load of Tadubi Govt School students on their half-yearly school excursion would have the Sub-Divisional Education Officer and his team of DIs and SIs in a tizzy, especially as the SSA funded School-Exchange-Students Hostel is incomplete. Or the Sub-Divisional Medical Superintendent and his staff are all excited because the MCI is to hold the Annual Regional Conference on Applying Medical Technology in Remote Regions in a week’s time. Or …                

Heeding, as is the habit, my wife’s matter-of-fact advice … I press Ctrl & A, pause awhile, then press … Delete.

Yet in front of the blank white screen i can’t stop wishing … I just want my Pu back! My MLA Pu, not someone else’s MLA Saab!

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/03/the-power-of-a-letter-unsent-a-hope/

By RS Jassal

Introduction
This is with reference to the article by Wg Cdr G Baruah (Retd.) published in The Sangai Express issue of 02 Feb 12.  It gave me an interesting reading. Maintaining internal security of a big Nation like India is a tedious problem since hyper-active powers, inimical to India from within & across are always at play to weaken its strength to retard progress, development and economic growth with an ultimate aim to dismember its territorial Integrity. Youths of the country need to be more sensitive to the National responsibility by distinctive weeding out of bad, coercive and sinister influences on them from such evil powers. If their energy is harnessed in a committed manner, India can become an exemplary a strong secular Nation of its own example in the world. Up to 1947, the country was a combination of scattered kingdoms, Princely States, fiefdoms commanded by Rajas, Maharajas, Nawabs, Nizams, Chogyals and Choudharys, segregated from each other due to lack of communications & infrastructural resources and above all divided by castes in high and low by religious fanaticism. India has got present shape cobbled from all sorts from within and from all directions known to the world by its perennial wisdom & boundaries.

My article is not a comment on Wg Cdr Baruah`s perception of AFSPA of what he wants and what he does not want, but a sincere effort to cast truth about three incidents he has raised in his write up so that readers can get true picture to compare whether AFSPA was responsible for those unfortunate incidents, concerning which Army had lost their Officers and men and yet earned displeasure of writer like him and media.

Tyre burst Incident at Kohima

As mentioned in the article that for a tyre burst Army troops in convoy opened blind & blatant fire along NH 39 (now NH-2) killing and injuring scores of people. At that time I was posted at Tuensang as Assistant Adjutant & Quartermaster General (AA& QMG) with HQ 7 Sector Assam Rifles I was detailed to receive that particular Bn of Army at Jorhat on arrival and to guide them up to Mokokchung, where they were to be deployed for intensive operations against NSCN (IM) & (K) group both subsequent to the killing of Col Nair, the then CO of 16 Maratha Light Infantry (MLI) at New Chungtia road on his way back from Longkhan (Mokokchung). He had just conducted 10-15 days operations against NSCN (IM) & (K) groups since they had created havoc among local population and were involved in inter factional clashes but killing numerous civilians.

The truth is that the Army Bn (name of the unit withheld) had successfully done duties in Manipur & were on their way to Jorhat, in a convoy consisting of more than 30 vehicles. Tyre of a jeep/ Jonga had burst near DGP Police HQ (then under construction). Since vehicles were spread over more than a Km & half, from KTC (Kohima Town Committee) gate to Naga Hospital with more than five major curves in between, the sound of tyre burst reverberated so much in echo that it sounded like explosion of an IED (Improvised Explosive Device). And Kohima also used to be frequented by NSCN groups as was Longkham area.  The Officer in the rear  echelon immediately fired two rounds of two inch Mortar into a nullah dividing the AR complex and Accountant General`s office  where there was no population.  Forget about killing, not even a single civilian was injured in the said incident. Shri SC Jamir, then CM was present in his home cum office complex. He immediately contacted GOC 3 Corps on his hot line. To avoid further confusion, the Bn was ordered into stand still mode by GOC 3 Corps and was concentrated in Assam Rifle Complex. The Bn was withheld at Kohima for three to four days.  The Court of Inquiry was carried out and based on the above facts; the Bn was absolved of any blame & allowed to move to Jorhat thereafter.

Stray Firing Incident at Mokokchung

Prior to Kohima incident, 14-15 days operation of 16 MLI was concluded in area Longkham where village khels were divided over 50:50 support to UG gps (both factions). There was no cease fire at that time. Col Nair, then CO of the Bn was entrusted to deal with both factions. He warned both the warring factions of serious consequences if they did not stop their firefight. He was successful in stopping the daily routine of firing and village authorities also agreed not to allow entry of UGs into their village. A Barakhana with village elders was organized, so there was no indication of NSCN (IM) annoyance with the CO. He was to move back ahead of convoy to Jorhat to receive his wife who was to join him same day for a week or so. The Jonga in which he was traveling was ambushed along with other two vehicles as OP Monsoon which was launched by NSCN (IM) was still not called off by them. The Officer got killed instantaneously. Later a letter of apology was sent by NSCN (IM) to the wife of slain Late Col Nair. The Battalion (of Kohima incident) was to move to area Mokokchung to launch operations in area Longkhan & South of Khonsa as mentioned above.

See the tragedy. Lt Col Chengappa, the Second in Command of Maratha Light Infantry Bn with one company was left behind at Mokokchung, with Assam Rifles, to wait for Kohima Bn (temporarily under detention) to be relieved. A sudden face to face firing started between both NSCN factions in main Market, 200 ft away from police round about (Dr. Imkongliba Square).  Lt Col Chengappa rushed with his troops to control the situation. A stray flying bullet hit the Officer and unfortunately he died on the spot. During this firing by the groups some bullets hit a barrel of petrol/diesel stocked in a shop, which caught fire and enflamed 12-14 other cloth shops too in a row & reduced all to ashes.  Two civilians from a nearby village who had come for shopping were also caught in a shop with shutter down and not knowing how to extricate themselves, were burnt to death.  There was no incident of rape.  Live bullets were flying for a few minutes not knowing from which directions, UGs disappeared into their dens. Army/AR troops stayed behind to control the situation, swallowing the grief of loss of their Officer and to inhale all possible winds of dis-affectation from all sides. The incident was in the news on AIR Radio/DD the same evening.  It was a scene of confusion of the highest order where an Army Officer lost his life while bringing faction tiraders under control.            

A Parliamentary team consisting of eight Members of Parliament (MsP) arrived within 2 days in Mokokchung first ever in the history of counter insurgency in NE, who studied each and every aspect minutely & absolved SFs of any fault. UGs were blamed, and as such they are always above law, so case was closed. And that was Assembly Constituency of CM himself.

Napalm Bomb incident of Mizoram

Wg Cdr Baruah has claimed throwing of Napalm bombs in Mizoram by the Army. I have checked up with all possible Defence sources and it is confirmed that India does not possess Napalm bombs in its combat arsenals. Some helicopters are fitted with special machine guns for firing bullets into areas where foot soldiers are not able to reach/operate and where militants have taken full control of the area or security forces camp/post is under siege. And also to provide air cover to VVIP aircraft while on board. There are some places in Mizoram like Farkawn, where memorials of Army Infantry Company(s) exist of complete company strength with JCOs & Offrs, annihilated by MNF militants overnight.  In such situation if strafing was done, I have no knowledge, but never any napalm bomb was thrown.

There was another event of even bigger magnitude created by FGN/NNC Army at Mellury (the Naga Hills now Nagaland) in 1957 when late V. Krishna Menon was Defense Minister. Assam Rifles Wing HQ plus one Platoon post was under siege for 10-12 days and Air Force Dakota was sent for dropping aid in rations/medicines was shot at by Naga Army under SS Gen Zuheto Sema and SS Lt Col Kaito Sema grounding it about two kms or so away from the post. The whole Nation came to stand to. Menon cut short his visit to Ladakh, held emergency meeting same evening with three Chiefs and had to make a statement in the Parliament next day.  Then AVM Sondhi, AOC-in-C Eastern Air Comd flew a Dakota himself with medicines, water & ammunitions and delivered with low flying over the post after two abortive flights. Even under these circumstances No bomb was thrown in the suburbs of post.  The Defence Forces have well laid battle doctrines for operating within own country, within own insurgents/ militants, whatever the provocation may be.

Tough Times – Truth Vs Lie

At times, Armed Forces in uniform have to face utter disgusting environment in most unfavorable terrains, yet under oaths taken on passing out, officers & men keep nations IZZAT above self always. They sacrifice their lives without grudge. To them Nation is first, rest afterwards.

Fight by interested groups against AFSPA is alright but must not hurl disgrace to the finest Army of the World as Wing Commander G Baruah has attempted to do.  I really feel sorry for such people who feed concocted information to the readers without verifying.  He should know who are the components of the Forces – all are Indians from within four corners. AFSPA whether stays or withdraws, amended or modified, used with human face or iron fist is all Political & Administrative expediency BUT how these three incidents have been projected as an resultant of AFSPA is incomprehensible!  I am clear in my belief that AFSPA is not difficult to remove because that is the state decision.  Withdraw the Army, AFSPA rolls back. How can you perceive Armed Forces on Internal Security duties fighting, against well armed uniformed militants with sophisticated weapons, with gun in one hand and the second hand tied at the back? So measures like fast unto death, holding `Inter Regional Rallies
` and marches across the country cannot achieve any tangible results. Mis – users of AFSPA have been punished under law and will continue to be punished in future also. Wherever it has not been done, must have been due to evidential lacunae.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/03/afspa-as-i-see-it-wg-cdr-g-baruah-retd-vs-truth-abstract-of-lie/

By: G.S. Oinam
This time, Union Budget 2012 shall not left Manipur in lurch. Once the Information and Knowledge Management project is successful, our long demand for removal of AFSPA will go from Manipur phase wise. Beside, we shall not ignore the problem faced by the women and children. Special scheme has to be introduced immediately to facilitate women in conflict states specially widows and lower income groups.

Before highlighting pre-budget discussion of Union Budget-2012 to be presented on 16th March, know about the man who will be presenting Union Budget-2012!

76 years old Congress leader Shri Pranab Mukherjee, Union finance Minister was rated as the ‘Finance Minister of the Year for Asia 2010’, by London-based magazine ‘Emerging Markets’. The title was awarded to him for his “ability to steer the Indian economy through the global financial crisis and balancing growth with fiscal responsibility.” In 1984, Pranab Mukherjee was rated as the ‘Best Finance Minister in the World’ by ‘Euro money’ magazine. Pranab Mukherjee will present the Budget for seventh time in history, thus becoming the Finance Minister to have made third highest number of budget speeches.

Pranab Mukherjee was born on 11 December 1935 in a small village, Mirati of Birbhum District in West Bengal. He is a son of Shri Kamada Kinkar Mukherjee, a respected freedom fighter spent more than 10 years in British jails.  His parliamentary career was begun as a Rajya Sabha member from Congress Party in 1969. In 1997 Pranab Mukherjee was voted Outstanding Parliamentarian. Active in West Bengal politics, he was the president of the state’s unit of Congress since 1985, but resigned in July 2010. Well-respected by politicians of all parties, Pranab Mukherjee is the Congress party’s main troubleshooter and has often been called upon to guide the party through difficult situations. He is married, and has two sons and one daughter. His children are all good “like father like son!”

The UPA wants to unleash a new approach to skills development in its penultimate Budget before the 2014 Lok Sabha polls. But there is a hitch in announcing the new skills framework to make youth more employable by training 500 million people over the next decade. Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh has asked Tata Consultancy Services vice-chairman S Ramadorai to urgently untangle the crosshairs between the two ministries (HRD and Labour) so that Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee`s Budget speech can make a clear statement about the UPA`s `Big Idea` for developing skills. Ramadorai is the skills advisor to the Prime Minister and holds the rank of a Cabinet minister. Singh stepped into the imbroglio over skills development, a subject close to his heart, at a meeting in late February where it was pointed out that no country has two departments evolving independent frameworks on the same subject. Ramadorai`s intervention is expected to begin with a meeting early this week with top officials from the two ministries along with Planning Commission member Narendra Jadhav.

With a view to overcome the shortage of skilled manpower in the Indian gems and jewellery industry, NSDC, co-promoted by the Union finance ministry with the mandate of involving the private sector in training people, has identified 21 sectors for which 150 million people will be trained by 2022 and gems and jewellery is one of the focused segments.

The healthcare industry in partnership with the government plans to train as many as 4.8 million skilled healthcare-allied workers over the next 10 years to fill the industry`s massive manpower shortage.

The initiative will be executed through Healthcare Sector Skill Council (HSSC), an industry body that will be run by a 15-member governing group comprising representatives of healthcare industry, members of Medical Council of India, Nursing Council, Quality council of India and Health ministry, among others. Corporate hospitals, small private clinics and existing medical colleges can provide training once they are registered with the council, which will also certify the courses. The council is in the process of finalizing the curriculum and appointing a full time CEO. These trained people will be eligible to work at both government and private hospitals.

To begin with, the council has proposed eight courses, which have been identified after a detailed review and feedback from the industry requirements and the skills needed to be employable. These are nursing assistants, auxiliary nursing midwives, emergency technicians, ECG technicians, radiology technicians, laboratory technicians, dialysis technicians and special assistants for elderly patients.

At present, the $65 billion domestic healthcare industry is growing at around 20% a year and according to ratings agency Fitch, the Indian healthcare sector will swell to $100 billion by 2015. But the industry faces acute shortage of skilled manpower, which the industry believes will be a constraint to growth.

According to Reddy, the country needs to quadruple the number of such allied medical services workers to 10 million from 2.5 million currently to meet the industry`s requirement.

The programme is part of the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), a public-private partnership body that plans to train as many as 500 million skilled workers across 30 sectors by 2020. NSDC will also aid the initiative. At present, such technicians are trained by standalone training centers that have their own standards and curriculum, many are not recognized by the authorities and therefore not eligible to work for government healthcare centres. “In most cases, the skill levels are also not adequate,” an industry executive said.

Skype, biometrics, M-health (use of mobile phones) and E-health are all set to make an entry into India`s primary health centres (PHCs) and sub-centres as the health ministry plans to go hi-tech. The steering committee on health said that in the 12th plan (2012-17), all district hospitals would be linked to leading tertiary care centres through telemedicine, Skype and similar audio visual media. M-health will be used to speed up transmission of data.

India will also put in place a Citizen Health Information System (CHIS) – a biometric based health information system which will constantly update health record of every citizen-family. The system will incorporate registration of births, deaths and cause of death. Maternal and infant death reviews, nutrition surveillance, particularly among under-six children and women, service delivery in the public health system, hospital information service besides improving access of public to their own health information and medical records would be the primary function of the CHIS.

The ministry plans to give a big push to support telemedicine services in primary, secondary and tertiary care. Disease surveillance based on reporting by providers and clinical laboratories (public and private) to detect and act on disease outbreaks and epidemics would be an integral component of the system.

“The system will also support financial management – from resource allocation, resource transfers, accounting and utilization to financial services like making of payments to facilities, providers and beneficiaries. It will provide a platform for continuing medical education and support regulatory functions of the state by creating a nation-wide registration of clinical establishments, manufacturing units, drug testing laboratories, licensing of drugs, approval of clinical trials,” the document added.

Beside, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee may move to boost infrastructure in the Budget. To allow tax free bonds of at least Rs 50,000 crore by government undertakings like NHAI, HUDCO & ports.

Budget Expectations- check out what women want: As woman we have lot of expectations from life, (God has made us like that, capable of expecting & delivering), so why not add some more to our wish list.  Like, as this is exam time, we expect a lot from our children, Appraisal time, so lot of expectations from boss, Anniversary time, so lot of expectation from husband and budget time so lot of expectations from Finance Minister, Bienu Vaghela, Chief Editor, Apnapaisa said.

We just celebrated International Women`s Day on March 8, but the hangover still persists, particularly when the issue is of reaching out to Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, who is just few days away from presenting the Union. This Woman`s day, as a woman I would request Finance Minister to consider slashing duties from branded cosmetics as it will motivate us to be well turned out in office. It will in deed a pleasure if the duties are reduced to minimum on food and beverages so that healthy and cheap food is accessible to millions of Indian homes Budget. We as women love to dress our children, ourselves, so duty on apparel to be drastically reduced to make them more affordable. As they are really expensive which is a big dampener as it is eating badly into family’s budget? The prices of apparel should be reasonable so that every home maker is happy to buy them, Ms Bienu Vaghela said.

Another big expectation and the most important one too, decent pricing for a decent home which will be possible only if duties from steel/ cement are slashed. Also declaring housing under Infrastructure may go a long way in making us realize our dream of owning home of our home.  As a working professional, I would expect that Income Tax slab goes up from present Rs1.80 lakh to Rs 2.5 lakh, which will mean more cash in hand to provide better amenities.

Those who have home loan need some respite too, and that can be granted if standard deduction on home loans goes up from age old Rs1.5 lakh to Rs 3 lakh.  It`s not that we as women only love to splurge, we love to save too! Finance Minister would surely know that whenever a family faces financial crisis, women of the family comes forward to bail out the family. And they achieve this by the small amounts invested in many small saving instruments from their pin money.

It will be a great help if interest rates on small saving instruments are increased to ensure better returns. Not only this, this budget should lay thrust on long-term investment and the standard deduction of 80C may be raised to Rs 1.5 lakh. It is also proposed to increase the tax exemption on investments in infrastructure bonds under Section 80CCF from the current Rs 20,000. Hence, instead we home makers cutting our expenditures year after year, we will expect FM to cut expenditure and show much needed financial prudence, Ms Bienu Vaghela concluded.

Bangalulu Initiatives on Skills:

Karnataka Small Scale Industries Association (KASSIA) will be made as a partner institute in the skill development scheme to provide financial assistance, Union Minister for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) Virbhadra Singh said. There is a need to equip the youth with skills and knowledge for giving them access to productive development,” Singh said. Unveiling a slew of initiatives taken by his Ministry for the development of MSME sector like public procurement policy for SMEs, which mandated 20% reservation for SMEs in all procurements by Government departments and PSUs in addition to a special quota of 4 % earmarked for SC/STs; target of training 1.5 crore persons within 2022 and more than 40 lakh persons during the 12th Five-Year Plan.

He said the ministry would give free training to SC/STs, women and physically challenged persons along with monthly stipend of Rs 500 per trainee; provision for 15 % capital subsidy on institutional loans upto Rs 1 crore availed by MSMEs under the Credit Linked Capital Subsidy Scheme (CLCSS); providing guarantee cover upto 85 % on collateral-free credit facility extended by lending institutions to new and existing SMEs for loans up to Rs 1 crore.

The KASSIA School of Business Management, started jointly with ICBMS Educational Trust and Info Career Pvt Ltd would offer Certificate, short-term and long-term courses on soft skills and other skills specifically required by prospective and existing entrepreneurs in multiple languages including English and Kannada and also incorporate e-learning practices.

KASSIA is coming up with several initiatives for the small scale industry, such as the launch of a dedicated B2B cum Employment Exchange portal called kassia.com by the end of this month. The website would aim at listing at least 5,000 small scale industrial units in the next one year.

The KASSIA Credit Cooperative Society would shortly expand its outreach and function as a micro finance organization. KASSIA had invested Rs 12-crore in the last 5 years towards infrastructure building and the setting up of a state-of-art world class Industrial Campus at KASSIA Udyog Bhavan. KASSIA had not availed of any funding from the Central Government for this purpose; Raikar said and requested the MSME Minister to release at least Rs 1 crore from the Ministry. He also appealed to the Minister to consider enhancing the limit under CLCSS Scheme to Rs 2 crore from Rs 1 crore and the subsidy limit from Rs 15 lakh to Rs 30 lakh.

Qualification Frameworks differences between two Ministries:

The problem between the labour and HRD ministries is that both have developed their own vocational qualification frameworks. While the HRD ministry calls it the national vocational education qualification framework (NVEQF), the labour ministry calls it NVQF. The HRD ministry, which is led by Kapil Sibal, has had several parleys with state education ministers, including one as recently as February 22, and industry bodies for its national qualifications system, which would cover all schools, vocational education and higher education institutions. It would set occupational competency standards that list out major activities and knowledge a worker must possess to perform a task, based on inputs of skills councils for different sectors.

There are a few other critical differences in approach. The HRD ministry`s vocational courses impart a few hundred hours of training along with the student`s regular classes. With the Right to Education law in place, the ministry is also constrained from including school dropouts in such courses. The labour ministry`s institutes deliver courses that run into thousand hours or more but focus only on the skill sets relevant for a job. They allow school dropouts from even Class V to scale up their skill sets.

The two ministries also differ on creating equivalence between those who acquire skills from industrial training institutes and those who acquire it from HRD ministry-run formal schools, colleges and polytechnic institutes. While the HRD ministry wants to start vocational courses from Class IX with a training focus on the services sector, the labour ministry`s focus is on both the services and manufacturing sectors.

As per the government`s allocation of business rules, vocational education refers to such courses being offered in schools and polytechnic institutes, with the HRD ministry entrusted with the overall responsibility. Vocational training comes under labour ministry`s watch and refers to courses offered by separate training institutes such as ITIs

The labour ministry, led by Mallikarjun Kharge, controls the National Council of Vocational Training (NCVT) and runs over 10,000 industrial training institutes (ITIs) and 6,000 vocational training centres.

Beside, seventeen different ministries are involved in imparting skills, but primarily in their own sectors. It has an agreement with the World Bank and a Euros 6.5 million pact with the European Commission (EC) for technical assistance to develop its vocational framework in India. The first meeting with EC officials took placed.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/03/union-budget-2012-focus-on-skills-development-and-infrastructure/

By Dr. Khomdon Singh Lisam
Voting is a fundamental right
The heart of democracy is voting . The heart  of voting is TRUST that each vote is recorded and counted with accuracy and impartiality . The purpose of an election is not to name the winner, but it is to convince the losers that they lost. (Dr. Dan Wallach, Computer security expert, Rice University ). Voting is a statutory right under the Representation of People Act 1950 and fundamental rights in India  under  Article 19(1)(a) to know the antecedent of the candidates contesting for the election. A voter has the right to know  whether his / her vote has been recorded and counted . Can a voter in India today  know whether his /her vote has been recorded or counted . with accuracy and impartiality If so , where is the proof  and where is the accountability ? Does EVMs  answer these questions ?

What is EVM ?
India’s Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs)  have two main components  (1) CONTROL UNIT, used by poll workers, which stores and accumulates votes, and (2) a BALLOT UNIT, located in the election booth, which is used by voters. These units are connected by a 5 m cable, which has one end permanently fixed to the ballot unit. The system is powered by a battery pack inside the control unit.  The ballot unit has 16 candidate buttons. If any are unused, they are covered with a plastic masking tab inside the unit. When there are more than 16 candidates, an additional ballot unit can be connected to a port on the underside of the first ballot unit. Up to four ballot units can be chained together in this way, for a maximum of 64 candidates. A four-position slide switch in the ballot unit selects its position in the chain. The Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Electronics Corporation of India (ECIL) are the manufacturers of EVMs in India and  the foreign companies  in US and Japan  supplying microcontrollers,

When EVMs were first used ?
The electronic voting machines (EVMs)  used in Indian elections are internationally known as Direct Recording Electronic (DRE) voting machines which record votes directly in electronic memory . Electronic voting machines were first introduced in India in 1982 in assembly elections on a limited basis. One such constituency where they were used was the Parur Assembly constituency in the state of Kerala. In 50 of the 84 polling stations, electronic voting machines were used. EVMs  have been in universal use in India since the general elections of 2004, when paper ballots were phased out completely. They have been deployed in all assembly polls and the general elections in 2009.

Advantages of EVM
Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) have revolutionised the Indian election process. The advantages of electronic  voting machines is simplicity of the procedure,  the ease of  tabulation of ballots into results and the faster and more accurate results .  It`s easy to see the utility of the machine— it eliminates invalid votes, ends booth capturing, and makes counting easier and faster. “It is tamper-proof, error-free and easy to operate,” says  the EC`s manual for returning officers states.

Is it legal to use EVM in India ?
In 1984, the Supreme Court of India held that the use of electronic voting machines in elections was “illegal” as the Representation of People (RP) Act, 1951 did not permit use of voting machines in elections. Later, the R.P. Act was amended in 1989 incorporating Section 61A. However, the amendment says voting machines “may be adopted in such constituency or constituencies as the Election Commission may, having regard to the circumstances of each case, specify.” Violating the provisions of the R.P Act, the Election Commission has conducted 2004 and 2009 nationwide general elections only using electronic voting machines. Many legal experts say that going by the 1984 judgment of the Supreme Court, parliamentary elections of 2004 and 2009 may be held illegal. (GVL Narasimha Rao-http://www.indianevm.com/articles/ten-reasons-for-banning-indian-evms.pdf).  .( http://www.indianevm.com/blogs/?cat=3). It will be interesting to know whether ECI specifically issue notification for use of EVM in the general election of Manipur-2012.

What happens when we caste our votes ?
The general process of electronic voting on the most common EVMs  models  goes something like this:

1. The voter checks in  with the voter’s ID  with poll workers .  The  polling personnel and the agents verify the name  and identify the voter .  They obtained signature or thumb print of the voter . To prevent double voting, they mark the voter’s right index finger with indelible ink

2. Next, a poll worker presses the BALLOT button on the control unit to allow one vote. This causes  a green READY light to glow on the ballot unit.

3. The voter enters the polling booth and presses the button for the candidate of his or her choice. A red light next to the candidate button glows, the ready light turns off, and the control unit emits a loud beep to indicate that the vote has been cast. The red light then turns off automatically. This process repeats for each voter.

4. At the end of the poll, the presiding officer removes a plastic cap on the control unit and presses the CLOSE button, which prevents the EVM from accepting further votes. The ballot unit is disconnected and the control unit is placed in storage until the public count, which may occur weeks later.

5. On the counting day, the control units are delivered to a counting centre. In public view, an election  official breaks a seal on the control unit and presses the RESULT button . The display on the control unit shows a sequence of outputs: the number of candidates, the total votes, and the number of votes received by each candidate.

6. The Counting officials manually record the totals from each machine and add
them together to determine the results of the election. The machines are then placed in storage until the next election.

Disadvantages of EVM :
Some disadvantages of electronic voting can include viruses and hacking, as well physical tampering. Despite elaborate safeguards, India’s EVMs are vulnerable to serious attacks.

1. EVM Software Isn’t Safe
The electronic voting machines are safe and secure only if the source code used in the EVMs is genuine. Shockingly, the EVM manufacturers, the BEL and ECIL have shared the ‘top secret’ EVM software program with two foreign companies, Microchip (USA) and Renesas (Japan) to copy it onto microcontrollers used in EVMs. This process could have been done securely in-house by the Indian manufacturers. Worse, when the foreign companies deliver microcontrollers fused with software  code to the EVM manufacturers, the EVM manufacturers cannot “read back” their contents as they are either OTP-ROM or masked chips. Amusingly, the software given to foreign companies is not even made available with the Election Commission, ostensibly for security reasons. With such ridiculous decisions, the Election Commission and the public sector manufacturers have rendered security of the EVMs a mockery. (GVL Narasimha Rao-http://www.indianevm.com/articles/ten-reasons-for-banning-indian-evms.pdf)

2. EVM hardware Isn’t Safe
The danger for EVM manipulations is not just from its software. Even the hardware isn’t safe. Dr. Alex Halderman, professor of computer science in the University of Michigan says, “EVMs used in the West require software attacks as they are sophisticated voting machines and their hardware cannot be replaced cheaply. In contrast, the Indian EVMs can easily be replaced either in part or as wholesale units.” One crucial part that can be faked is microcontrollers used in the EVMs in which the software is copied. EVM manufacturers have greatly facilitated fraud by using generic microcontrollers rather than more secure ASIC or FPGA microcontrollers. Not just only microcontrollers, mother boards (cards which contain microcontrollers) and entire EVMs can be replaced. Neither the Election Commission nor the manufacturers have undertaken any hardware or software audit till date. As a result, such manipulation attempts would go undetected. To detect such fraud, the upgraded EVMs have a provision to interface with an Authentication Unit that would allow the manufacturers to verify whether the EVM being used in the election is the same that they have supplied to the Election Commission.

The EVM manufacturers developed an “Authentication Unit” engaging the services of SecureSpin, a Bangalore based software services firm. The Unit was developed and tested in 2006 but when the project was ready for implementation, the project was mysteriously shelved at the instance of the Election Commission. Several questions posed to the Election Commission for taking this decision went unanswered. (GVL Narasimha Rao-http://www.indianevm.com/articles/ten-reasons-for-banning-indian-evms.pdf)

3. Vulnerability to hacking:
The Indian EVMs can be hacked both before and after elections to alter election  results. Apart from manipulating the EVM software and replacing many hardware parts discussed above, Indian EVMs can be hacked in many ways.  To possibilities may be mentioned :-

Each EVM contains two EEPROMs inside the Control Unit in which the voting data is stored. They are completely unsecured and the data inside EEPROMs can be manipulated from an external source. It is very easy to read (data from) the EEPROMs and manipulate them (GVL Narasimha Rao-http://www.indianevm.com/articles/ten-reasons-for-banning-indian-evms.pdf)

The second and the most deadly way to hack Indian EVMs is by inserting a chip with Trojan inside the display section of the Control unit. This requires access to the EVM for just two minutes and these replacement units can be made for a few hundred rupees. Bypassing completely all inbuilt securities, this chip would manipulate the results and give out “fixed” results on the EVM screen. The Election Commission is completely oblivious to such possibilities. ( http://www.indianevm.com/articles/ten-reasons-for-banning-indian-evms.pdf)

Contrary to claims by Indian election authorities, these paperless EVMs suffer from significant vulnerabilities. Even brief access to the machines could allow dishonest election “Insiders “ or other criminals to alter election results.

There are allegations that  some “insiders” demanding vast sums (Rs. 5 Crore or more  for each assembly constituency) to fix election results. Who are these insiders? Unlike in the traditional ballot system where only the election officials were the “insiders”, electronic voting machine regime has spawned a long chain of insiders, all of whom are outside the ambit and control of the Election Commission of India. There is every possibility that some of these “insiders” are involved in murky activities in fixing elections. The whole world—except us in India–is alive to the dangers of insider fraud in elections. The “insiders” include the public sector manufacturers of India’s electronic voting machines namely, the Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Electronics Corporation of India (ECIL), the foreign companies supplying microcontrollers, private players (some of which are allegedly owned by some political leaders) for carrying out checking and maintenance of electronic voting machines during elections. (http://www.indianevm.com/articles/ten-reasons-for-banning-indian-evms.pdf)

A team of researchers showed precisely how a display component could be replaced with a fake substitute programmed to steal a percentage of the votes in favour of a chosen candidate. They also demonstrated how stored votes could be changed between the election and the public counting session, which in India, can be weeks later, with a pocket-sized device. The team, comprising Hyderabad-based NetIndia, Dr J Alex Halderman, professor & noted expert on electronic voting security from the University of Michigan and Holland-based security expert Rop Gonggrijp, was instrumental in the ban on EVMs in the Netherlands.

4. Which candidate to favour -Once the dishonest display is installed in an EVM (possibly months or years before the election), the attacker must communicate which candidate is to be favoured or disfavoured and by what margin. There are many different ways that attackers could send such a signal—various kinds of radios, secret combinations of key presses, or even by using the number of candidates on the ballot.

2. Stealing of Votes To steal votes, the attacker indicates his favoured candidate using the rotary switch, which selects a number from 0–9, and the attacker can use it to pick a favoured candidate in any of the first 9 ballot positions, which normally include the major national parties. When the switch is set to positions 1-9, the chip on the clip-on device executes a vote-stealing programme . The programme runs in two passes: first, it reads the list of votes and calculates how many votes to steal from each candidate, and second, it rewrites the list of votes, stealing votes as calculated in the first phase. Any time between the start of polling and the public count, dishonest election insiders or other criminals could use the clip-on device to change the votes recorded in the EVM. In India, counting sometimes takes place weeks after voting, so criminals could wait for an opportunity to tamper with the machines while they are in storage. In normal operation, the EVM limits the rate of voting to no more than
5 per minute. However, Clip-on  device bypasses the software restrictions of the EVM, so an attacker is able to again forcibly take control of an EVM and stuff the electronic “ballot box” with any number of votes. These attacks are neither complicated nor difficult to perform, but they would be hard to detect or defend against.

3. Dishonest insiders or other criminals with physical access to the machines at any time before ballots are counted can insert malicious hardware that can steal votes for the lifetime of the machines. Attackers with physical access between voting  and counting can arbitrarily change vote totals and can learn which candidate each voter selected. 

4 The EVM has no means for the voter to verify that his/her votes have been tallied properly.

5. The EVM has no  means outside of the memories of the voting machines themselves to audit or recount  the votes.

6.    Susceptibility to fraud: Although some may believe that tampering with an electronic voting machine is extremely hard to do, computer scientists have tampered with machines to prove that it is quite easily done. If  people have access to the machines, and know how to work them, they can take the memory card out of the machine, which stores the votes, and in place they put their own memory card with a virus that can tamper with the votes

7.  Government  ties of manufacturers: The  Government at the time of election may hire any manufacturer or company for manufacturing EVMs according to the  needs of the political party  in power  An EVM can be tampered during manufacturing stage, that too during the manufacturing of the Chip.  After tampering the EVM, its difficult to detect it by a third party.  When the tampering happens at the manufacturing stage of chip, even those who are assembling the EVMs will not be aware of  and cannot detect tampering .

8.    Malicious software programming: Any computer software is basically generated from software programming and coding. And all these soft wares could be tampered with by a computer programmer who knows the source code. Testing electronic voting systems for security problems, especially if they were intentionally introduced and concealed, is basically impossible. If malicious coding is inserted by programmers into commercial software that are triggered by obscure combinations of commands and keystrokes via the computer keyboard, then election results can change completely.

9.    Physical security of machines:

10.    Secure storage of cast votes: The votes that are cast using the electronic voting machines, are stored in a safe storage or space in the computer machine memory.  The time gap between election and the counting of votes is a risk to possible hacking and manipulation .   The chance of tampering increases as the time gap increases.

Why do other countries rejected EVMs ?

Several countries in the world rejected Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) because they are difficult to secure, easily subject to manipulation and open to large scale fraud and pose a serious threat for free, fair and transparent elections in democratic societies. EVMs  are allowed in most states of the US only with a paper back up. Indian EVMs do not produce a paper trail, which is  a major drawback . Potential dangers of “vote fraud” and more importantly, lack of transparency and verifiability associated with them prompted ban or restrictions of their use. Developed nations like the United Kingdom, France, Japan and Singapore have so far stuck to voting on paper ballots, owing to their simplicity, verifiability and voter confidence in the system.  Some of the countries ho have rejected EVMs are as follows :-

1. Ireland abandoned e-voting in 2006.

2. Italian Minister Giulano Amato stated, “We decided to stop the electronic voting machine. During the 2006 elections we experimented with the machines as a voting system, and not a system that counts the sections, without any reference to the legally valid votes. “Let`s stick to voting and counting physically because less easy to falsify.” ( Source of info: http://www.jasonkitcat.com/h/f/JDOM/blog/1/?be_id=320)

3. California Secretary of State Kevin Shelley banned EVMs in the November 2004 elections as certain security conditions were not met with. Verifiable paper trail & certain security conditions need to be implemented.  People want elections results that can be physically verified.  (http://www.wvcag.org/news/fair_use/2004/07_01e.htm)

4. Germany`s Supreme Court ruled in March 2009 that e-voting was unconstitutional.

5. In the Netherlands, in 2006, licenses of 1,187 EVMs were withdrawn after citizen group `We do not trust voting machines` showed they could hack into EVMs in 5 minutes from up to 40 metres without the knowledge of voters or election officials. The nation will return to paper voting.” (Publication: ComputerWorld, Dt: 19-05-2008, Author: Andreas Udo de Haes)

6. Supreme Court of Finland declared the result of pilot electronic voting machines invalid in the municipal corporation elections of 2009.

After Hugo Chávez won the 2004 election in Venezuela, it came out that the government owned 28 percent of Bizta, the company that manufactured the voting
machines.  The CIA has reported  vote-rigging schemes in Venezuela, Macedonia and

Ukraine and a raft of concerns about EVMs & tampering. Stigall who studied electronic systems in about 36 countries said that most countries` machines produced paper receipts that voters then dropped into boxes. However, even that doesn`t prevent corruption. ( http://www.mcclatchydc.com/226/story/64711.html)

Should India also ban EVMs?
Speed of election results is obviously an attraction for the EVMs. But saving democracy is more critical than saving election costs or gain in efficiency.  Numerous EVM rigging allegations have been made by many prominent personalities.

• ”EVMs were manipulated during the poll which resulted in defeat of many Congress candidates,” IANS quoted Congress general secretary Ghulam Nabi Azad as saying soon after his party`s defeat in Orissa in July 2009.

•  LK Advani has demanded a paper back-up to electronic voting. Parties such as CPM, TDP, AIADMK, RJD, LJP and Trinamool Congress have joined the chorus.

• In 2001, Capt. Amarinder Singh, Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee alleged that EVMs can be tampered with.( ttp://www.tribuneindia.com/2001/20010312/main4.htm

• In 2009, Chandrababu Naidu blamed the EVMs for his defeat. ( http://www.deccanchronicle.com/hyderabad/now,-naidu-blames-evms-720

• In 2009, AIADMK urged the EC to revert back to paper ballots, saying that EVMs were rigged in Lok Sabha polls (http://www.thehindu.com/2009/05/28/stories/2009052850110100.htm)

• When the Indian National Congress surpassed all projections to win 262 seats in 2009,  According  to  Dr. Subramanian Swamy, President of the Janata Party (24-8-2010) , the  Leader of Indian National Congress Mrs. Sonia Gandhi reportedly hired hackers to hack into election results of the electronic voting machines, which resulted in landslide victory of the Indian National Congress in the national elections in 2009. (Electronic Voting Machine: Excellent tool of manipulation- by News Desk, December 17, 2011-http://www.weeklyblitz.net/1993/electronic-voting-machine-excellent-tool)

• In 2004, the  Hon. Kerala High Court has asked EC to consider representation seeking changes in the  EVMs. to consider suggestions of  Prof. Satinath Choudhary and address issues concerning possible tampering of EVMs
     ( http://www.thehindu.com/2009/05/27/stories/2009052751030200.htm

• On 1st December, 2010, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina  of Bangladesh announced that  there will be full electronic voting system in Bangladesh  to arrange the future elections in a flawless manner. But there are  serious  allegations that  a group of “election planners” of the ruling party has already contacted a number of leading EVM hackers in India, including the most infamous “Cyber Army”. According to unconfirmed sources, the ruling party influential figures from Bangladesh are already bargaining a “package deal” with the Indian hackers in ensuring a massive victory and re-election of Bangladesh Awami League during the election in 2014 in exchange of a huge amount of money. Initially, the Indian hackers demanded US$ 1 billion for this service; while the figure has already been brought down to US$ 400 million and the ruling party men are optimistic of getting even a cheaper deal with the Indian hackers. Once the deal will be successfully concluded, there will be visibly no way in stopping the ruling party from getting re-elected in the election of 2014. Bangladesh has indigenously developed its own electronic voting machines. Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology (BUET) has developed these systems. (http://www.indianevm.com/blogs/?cat=3 )

Possible solutions

Nine  safeguards recommended by International Electrical & Electronics Engineering Journal (May 2009, p 23) should be incorporated.
EVMs should print a paper record of each vote, to be deposited in a conventional ballot box. This ensures physical evidence and speedy results. A Voter Verified Paper Ballot (VVPB) provides an auditable way to assure voters that their ballots will be available to be counted. Without VVPB there is no way to independently audit the election results.

Use two machines produced by different manufacturers to records votes.

Expose the software behind EVMs to public scrutiny. Having the software closely examined by independent experts would make it easier to close technical loopholes that hackers can exploit.

Booth monitoring: Strict monitoring of the activities inside the polling booth is important to eliminate human elements responsible for frauid and corruption .

EVMs may be needed, but  this is not the best option for corruption prone environment that exist in India.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/03/how-can-electronic-voting-machines-evm-be-manipulated/

By Nandini Thockchom
March 8 is celebrated as International women’s day (IWD) all over the globe and it has been celebrated by having a theme for each year dedicated to the cause and upliftment of women. Connecting Girls- Inspiring Futures is the theme for today’s observation. However this year due to rising crimes against the girl child, its dedication is pertinent to the protection of the girl child as a means to harness and secure their future. I mean if we subject our girl children to abuses, neglect, torture and even death, there shan’t be any more women in the future for this day to be observed. The importance of this day is relevant in today’s Manipur when education, health systems, community bonding has collapse due to the conflict and systemic failure of governance.

Speaking about governance, the recent elections saw the indomitable rise of three women legislators. One hopes that this Yaoshang and IWD gift that women in Manipur has received would go a long way the trodden path of the Nupi lans, meira paibis, the keithel imas, Manorama, Rabina and Sharmila. The fact that the denizens of our land voted for the party who is the favourite punching bag in tea-stalls, artificial leipungs (as traditional ones have all been razed down in the name of development), meetings by state and non state parties alike, social networking sites etc is another matter. One shan’t even attempt to gravel at it even with a barge pole, as politics of the troubled mind spells trouble and sometimes reeks of it too.

The past month has seen a flurry of weddings bells and trumpets blown out of proportion. Being a person who avoids attending such celebration with the paraphernalia, I had no way out last month due to a wedding each at my marital home and maternal home. My participation or rather responsibilities in each wedding was conditioned by my age, marital status and also fertility status and in sharp contrast between my two grounds of identity- ningol and mou. Definitely not a level playing field for women in an array of activities controlled, managed and implemented by women. Nonetheless, it was self explanatory for many of forms of violence against women which need to be contextualized within the Indian variant of the patriarchal ideology which has been considerably reinforced by being sanctified through the ancient Hindu religious texts (including socio-legal treatises) which still exercise a strong influence over the Hindu, and in general Indian, society and of course the Meitei society.

A Hindu saying puts it, “Raising a daughter is like watering your neighbours’ garden.” So even if the government puts in place the many acts, laws and schemes instituted, the patriarchial structure that we live in puts women in a very vulnerable position and so faces myriad forms of discrimination and abuses. The chief ingredients of this structure being the supremacy of the man, and the inferiority and passivity of the woman whose goal in life is the procreation of male descendants who would perpetuate the family line and fulfil religious duties (for which a woman is deemed to be unfit). Parents do not want to have baby daughters because of the many hurdles she has to face when she grows up. Nowadays daughters are the unwanted children of many parents within a marriage or out of marriage. If one cannot rid of them as a foetus, they leave them once they are born. If you go and look up into the shishu grihas in Manipur that are being set up for adoption, you will find that there are more girls than boys indicating that girls are being rid off away more. Then if one looks at the orphanages, then there are more boys that have been put for institutional care. Now if one starts to question as to where are the girl children whose parents do not want them, and also not in the orphanages, then a closer survey will indicate that they are working as helpers in the houses of many middle and upper class homes.       

A mere glance in the declining low female-male ratios and high murder rates are simply two manifestations of a patriarchal environment wherein the patriarchal values and practices manifest themselves both in high levels of violence and in a strong preference for male children (leading, in turn, to low female-male ratios). In fact, one can argue that patriarchy, in the broad sense of the subjugation of women, is intrinsically based on violence or at least the threat of it. From this perspective, it is not surprising that areas of high violence are associated with sharp gender inequalities, of which low female-male ratios are one manifestation.

In Manipur, one reads in the newspaper that girls including mentally challenged and physically challenged are being molested and raped in their own homes. Molested and raped in their own protective surroundings and sometimes murdered. What does this indicate? The uselessness and usefulness of being born as a girl needs to be questioned and looked into seriously. After all, the cycle of life will be incomplete without women who constitutes half the total population.

State  Sex-ratio since (Number of females per 1000 males)
 1901 1911 1921 1931 1941 1951 1961 1971 1981 1991 2001 2011
Manipur  1037 1029 1041 1065 1055 1036 1015 980 971 958 974 987

Having said this, traditions that discriminate women in all aspects of life will definitely dampen the prospects of wanting a girl child. Technologies have also help perpetuate this discrimination. Doctors in India started advertising ultrasound scans with the slogan “Pay 5,000 rupees today and save 50,000 to 5 lakhs rupees tomorrow” (the saving being the cost of a daughter’s dowry). Parents who wanted a son, but felt guilty at killing baby daughters, chose abortion in their millions. In Manipur, there needs to be a research conducted to be followed by governmental actions against all the doctors, despite regulations, encouraged or gently persuade the expecting parents to avail of this wonderful technological advances. Mothers who reproduces a son first are allowed to carry the jatra in weddings. To keep up the tradition one may naturally opt to terminate all first to be born daughters, a heinous criminal offence accepted by tradition.

Every child has a right to protection. The need to protect some children is certainly greater than others due to their specific socioeconomic and political circumstances and geographical location. These are the children who are more vulnerable in terms of the harm/danger/risk to their right to survival/development/participation. For building on a comprehensive understanding of girl child’s right to protection, it becomes important to adopt both a preventive and a protective approach to child protection.

We have so many mechanisms in place for the protection of children and also some for the girl children specific. But unfortunately, Five decades of planned development has indeed failed to address the critical issue of ‘Child Protection’. The girl child stands un-protected from the traumatic potential of much that is considered customary. From the standpoint of human rights, this places her in need of both preventive and corrective protection.

Interestingly, In January 2010 the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) showed what can happen to a country when girl babies don’t count. Within ten years, the academy said, one in five young men would be unable to find a bride because of the dearth of young women—a figure unprecedented in a country at peace.

In Manipur, we need specific regulations in the context of the conflict situation. A land which has a proud history of women leaders in the 2 nupi lans, the meira paibis and a market ‘controlled’ by women, women athletes who do the nation proud is also the land which now figures in the top 5 in domestic violence. The rising crime against women literally stems from the fact that women are 2nd class citizens and a victim of the power structure whether it is in the family, the society or the nation in the whole. A change in the mindset regarding the value of women as a human being will go in a long way in decreasing the rising crime against the girl child and women on the whole.

A patriarchial structure which excludes women in many aspects needs to be examined. What was considered truth and safe in earlier times has to see the light of the day in modern times when one, young and old, has started using mobile phones, internet, satellite television and all the works.  One cannot claim to need the modern amenities and yet discriminate women in a cover up to protect tradition. It is this very discrimination that makes women in a very vulnerable position to many abuses and crimes.

This Day is traditionally marked with a message from the UN Secretary-General. All over the world, women’s organizations and other organizations will be observing this day with serious debates, chalking out plans with a commitment to the empowerment of women. In Manipur this day heralds the beginning of Yaoshang festival where girls, women of all ages will participate in full fervour day in and night out. Many holy and unholy alliances shall see the light of the day. Temples, shumangs, the streets and many grounds will be filled with all kinds of competitive activities, be it be sports, paisa-munba, hali-esheis etc. by both the genders. I wonder how many girls will be allowed to go for Thabal beyond their leikais and not be reprimanded if they ventured.

So, whether we buy new clothes for the girl for yaoshang, put institutional mechanisms into places, make budgetary allocations to help the girl child but until and unless we stop putting men on a pedestal, crimes against the girl child will only continue and rise and this future is certainly not inspiring.

The author works with Forum for Indigenous Perspectives and Action and may be contacted at nthockchom@gmail.com

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/03/of-objectionable-subjections/

( ECI  Bomb  thut )
By Kambam  Ibohal Singh, Ex-service Man
The election of the 10th Manipur Legislature Assembly was held on 28th Jan.2012 amid turmoil, violence and killing despite deployment of 350 coys. of  paratroopers to ensure free and fair election. Was the ECI satisfied with the deployment of 350 coys of paramilitary forces to conduct the single phase election? Manipur is since long time reeling under the hostile activities of various rebel outfits. In this context did the ECI the needful? Immediate reinforcement of Security forces is a must to contain the situation arraises out of the untoward incident but there was contradictory tale of the Tampi Polling station incident in Chakpikarong (CDL Dist) in which polling personnels were killed in an indiscriminate firing of the NSCN(IM) cadres. Rs. 10 lakhs cannot bring life to the deceased. It was the most unfortunate poll related incident by the outlawed outfit to focus public attention intentionally. Were the accountabilities for the victims rest on their own fate?

On 4th Feb’12 repolling of 34 polling stations in five hill districts were held. In that repolling voters were frisked before entering to vote and security forces were fully alerted. No such measures were taken in selected highly sensitive and abnormally suspected polling stations on the 28th Jan. 2012. There araises  a big question mark as to how free, fair and true election was held?

“ Cautioned IM men” after the killing incident? The NSCN(IM) had already done their job remarkably well with violence and killings. Actionless and Zigzag statement from any central leaders after each and every incident involving lost of life and properties is not a new one and not welcome by the people of the state. Obligatory and post mortem statements sans timely action are not acceptable and totally discarded. This reminds us the Union Home Minister, P.C’s visit to Mizoram to take stock of law and order situation there while Manipur was burning in the worst law and order situation in the wake of proposed unsuccessful visit of NSCN(IM) leader Th. Muivah to his native village with the consent of the Home Minister.

The election held on 28th Jan. 2012 was full of poll irregularities. Besides booth capturing, proxy voting, threatening the voters at gun point, misuse of postal ballot, non – deletion and inclusion of names of dead persons in the electoral rolls  etc. there was free flow of black money. Many more complains are likely to come up since candidates get time amply to look into the malpractices and unfair means adopted by their opponents. As for the strength of candidates to exert money power, the galore media report of scarcity of small denomination of Rs. 500/-, Rs. 1000/- in fish stall, chicken centers, and other shopping molls on the very next day of the election is enough to realize. It was ridiculed that the media reporters had hard time in their attempt to avoid the vibrating sound of the brand new denomination of Rs. 500/-, Rs.1000/- notes in the market.

A few days ahead of the polling day, like pilgrimage there was heavy rush of party workers /agents every day just to have a picnic party at residence of the candidate. That was the starting point(on the mark) of the flow of black money with a long list of voters for barter with denomination of Rs.500/-, Rs.1000/-  or Rs.1000   2 for voters as per the list. These active workers were the only connectivity between the candidate and the voters as people called them bloody eye of the candidate. All the expendable amounts of the candidate on road show, street meeting, flag hoisting ceremony, poster, exhibition cards etc. were easily converted into part of the black money. For the reasons there was every evidence to prove futility and hollowness in the norms laid down by the ECI.

There must be a mechanism to check the number of workers to act in this sinister deed.  Only registered/approved workers should be allowed to work for the candidate under the aegis of the observers and their agents. So far no achievements of the observers are in the eye of the public. This may not be treated as undemocratic since so many things were done undemocratically in the name of democracy. The people of India experienced election for many a times in absence of electoral reforms in the last 60 years and so. Candidates won or got elected by dint of money power or by threatening the voters at gun point (muscle power). As a result people are still eager to get the real service of a true patriot or a public servant in the truest sense.  As such it would be a blatant lie to hope the light at the end of the tunnel i.e.  to the full satisfaction of the people.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/03/after-death-comes-doctor/

By: G.S.Oinam
Some Englishmen, of whom Kitchener was chief, believed that a rebellion of Arabs against Turks would enable England, while fighting Germany, simultaneously to defeat Turkey. Their knowledge of the nature and power and country of the Arabic-speaking peoples made them think that the issue of such a rebellion would be happy: and indicated its character and method. So they allowed it to begin….
— Seven Pillars of Wisdom.
Show me your hand to tell your star position- Mercury, Venus, Saturn etc. I am a good palmist too. Who will form government? Whether you be a part of government formation—a minister or a chief minister? It is simple; Om! mantra can finish all evil spirits attacking you. I write it because my friends from South Africa asked me to write up about Manipur politics. Enough friends! There is ECI code of conduct- we are restricted even for Exit Poll. Political parties must know that when a lock is opened by many keys it`s called a `Bad Lock`… But when a key opens many locks they call it a `Master Key`. I am not telling, my tweeter friends are telling. They have started fighting openly for CLP leadership before poll result was declared on the one side and one party one minister seat sharing san CM post government before poll result was declared. To know your true friends is actually simple. Just remember who lift you when you fall. That`s friendship all about. The way we communicate with others and with ourselves ultimately determines the quality of our lives. Shaw`s Principle- build a system that even a fool can use, and only a fool will want to use it, somebody tweets.

For the last three-four years, my straight talk goes on various issues and policy matter of state government. My tweeter friends say- “In America, a person who can argue to the President, speak politely to a traffic cop.” Thanks God! Feedback does not have affixed or suffixed adjective and adverb. Thank you everybody for reading my articles and looking at good side even I do not maintained wikipedia standard of writing- my world wide fans likes such type of straight talk because it has sincerity and honesty in writing.

I speak only when I got sufficient proves and which is acceptable by men and God —your departmental diary has been lying on my table but I have no habit of reading somebody’s diary. We don’t need for sting operation to book an inept officer- there are many simple formula. I wonder! They are not still recognizing and respecting common man (mabu kari oiregene?) but I am a typical common man.

You are too slow to complete reading over one month for about 350 pages only on ”Information & Knowledge Management Project-DIPR, Manipur” that I wrote in 2 months after studying more than 100 relevant research papers. Please do submit to the Planning Commission as early as possible. This is a problem solving small budget project of your state but you should not run the project without my knowledge because I have put many passwords in the project writing. Unless you run the project without my knowledge or duplicate copy and pest formula, the project itself will attack you and implementing agency. This is a cautious word.

Personally, I did never ask anything from both the centre and state government. This is my first time seeking help from the government of the government or, give me a free hand, I would ask for project finance to most favourable countries. Even a rich person or a private company can finance for this small project. But, I would be happy if Shri Pranab Mukherjee, Union Finance Minister may kindly favour a small amount of money for this project in the Union Budget. Two years ago, I wrote about the power of skills development during union budget discussion in the month of March 2010 and I have had requested in advance that I would like to seek extra budget for Manipur especially for educated unemployed people but today, we want to get small amount of money to bring social order in the state on priority basis. Let the world knows, Shri Pranab Babu is a true friend of common men!

Being a great fan of Professor Amartya Sen, I follow and read his articles and speech attentively all the time. I believed that social order can be bring in the state only after media, NGOs, judiciary and government can work together towards the mission as a ‘joint venture’. Of course, collaboration for knowledge sharing or knowledge exchange is a part of bringing social order but not the end at all. Human security is concern with many factors like social wellness, health, environment, economy, innovation and technology a lot. Unlike any other state, Manipur government does not hire any experience person /consultant/ expert/ advisory member according to experience and requirement of the government. For any project, they would hire only fresher /young people on contract basis. It has many drawbacks in office management and functioning unless proper training is provided to the newly recruited employees.

Great! State government has taken up two right steps for jobs creation 1) textile park and 2) IT park. However, these two steps will not be sufficient to absorb 7.10 lakhs educated unemployed persons. More steps have to be taken up for job creation in the state. For job creation, you must know first the current and projected business trend of the world.

Oriental collage, Imphal initiative for autonomous collage is a good idea. Internal Quality Assurance Cell (IQAC) coordinator of the Oriental collage vocal about the opening of vocational courses and research work is a very good initiative. Don’t wait for state government initiative, please be sensitised to the larger national goal and ask yourself what you can do to contribute to the advocacy for skills, right now! We are willing to support you. Before this, Oriental collage has to launch an attractive collage website for world attention highlighting faculty members, innovative teaching practices both in class room and students level skills. To what extent do innovative teaching practices contribute to 21st-century learning outcomes? What the collage-level conditions contribute to innovative teaching practices? What are national or regional programme supports associated with increases in innovative teaching practices in the oriental collage?

During a skill council meeting on 19 January, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said India will need about 260 million skilled people by 2018 and around 340 million by 2022, according to estimates. These studies also indicate that India needs to provide quality training to around 80 million people in the next five years. There is a significant gap between the requirement and the supply which, unless checked, will constrain India’s economic growth.

Recently, PM tweets that there is a need to create adequate capacity at the centre and the states to meaningfully absorb the increased outlay. Proposals by National Commission for Macroeconomics & Health and the High Level Expert Group set up by Planning Commission to roll out soon. Health Ministry has proposed a new initiative called `Free medicine for all through Public Health Facilities` under the NRHM scheme. The Planning Commission was requested recently to allocate adequate resources to achieve the target of health care from 1.4% to 2.5% by 2017. Total government health expenditure to be increased to 2.5% of GDP by the end of the 12th plan. We will need to work harder if we have to reach our goal of increasing public expenditure on health to 2.5% of the GDP, Dr. Manmohan said.

The Government of India has coordinated a massive effort to rid our country of the terrible scourge of polio. “The Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana provides insurance cover to over 2.67 crore poor families” PM says on healthcare efforts under UPA. We must ensure that every Indian child, rich or poor, whether living in Ladakh or North East or in Delhi has equal access to the best immunization. On a broader level, we need to accelerate our efforts to achieve our goal of providing universal access to health care.

PM on agriculture: We need a second green revolution to ensure food security and welfare of large population of people in farm sector. Food grain production has improved steadily during the last three years. India`s food grain production is 250 m tons this year- a new record. PM says that agriculture sector growth has to involve everyone- from private sector to Panchayati Raj institutions. We have been able to channelize nearly 4.75 lakh crore of bank credit into agriculture and allied sectors. “A strong agricultural sector is necessary for our food security and for the welfare of a very large population that is engaged in farming. Gross Capital Formation in agriculture and allied sectors has increased from 13.1% of GDP in agriculture in 1999-2000 to 20.1% in 2010-11. Agenda today is initiatives on rain fed areas` growth, sustainable agriculture, farmer-industry partnership and farmer organisations inclusion. Livelihood security is among the top 5 challenges for the country in 2012. One of the most under utilised resources in our country is women. Economic growth is essential for the people, but we cannot allow growth to be pursued in a manner which damages our environment, PM said.

Chairman of Prime Minister`s Economic Advisory Council, Dr C. Rangarajan says Growth rate projection is now estimated at 7.1% marginally higher than projection of 6.9%. GDP is likely to grow in the range of 7.5 to 8 per cent in 2012-13 and inflationary pressure to ease. Strong growth in services sector will continue with overall growth of 9.4% but manufacturing is sluggish.

Mr S. Ramadorai, adviser to the Prime Minister on skill development, says national advocacy — which is a critical enabler of skill development — must be taken up as a ‘national movement`. We have one of the biggest challenges and opportunities before us and the likes of which is unprecedented in the world history,” he said in his keynote address at the MMA Annual Convention 2012. Skill development has a huge challenge. All of us collectively own the problem and hence must contribute to the solution, he said. Skilling a nation to the tune of 500 million by 2022 can make India the talent capital of the world. The aspiration of youth has been funneled in to a few narrow choices and sometimes this choice includes pursuing degrees that get them to nowhere. For example, children of marginal farmers do not wish to take up farming only to discover later that plain graduation does not get them a job. Modernization has led to specialisation of trade, requiring skills and aspirations, but pays very low value on skills.
This imbalance does not augur well for the nation. “I ask you to contribute your time and your ideas and efforts for this movement. Skill building must occupy a much larger space of our mind. We will need to drive the belief of youth empowerment through skill building. Their credible hope of a career path; of economics and personal growth of improvement in social status and of self work can trigger employment or entrepreneurship. The price we will pay will be a heavy one should we fail in our efforts. Skilling people to make them employable are a social imperative as much as it is an economic one,” S. Ramadorai concluded.

If India wants to see a GDP growth of 9-10 per cent it will need to formally train 250 million workers who are presently untrained and underemployed. Another 240 million is to be skilled in the next decade and nearly 12.2 million new entrants to the workforce are required by different industry verticals every year while India`s education and vocational training institutes churn out 3-4 million workers.

This leaves a yawning gap between demand and supply. To close this gap, there is a need to find ways to change the traditional mindset to show that there are alternate routes for success.  In north east, Assam government has announced that the state`s education curriculum will soon be restructured to accommodate new subjects that will help the students to get jobs. We are thinking of starting new subjects, which will help those secure jobs after the completion of their course, Assam state education minister said.

A bachelor’s degree in vocational education is likely to be introduced in the University Grants Commission affiliated institutions in 2012.The standing committee of UGC  which met here recently has  formally approved a proposal to introduce a bachelors degree  in vocational education. This is to get a final nod from the commission. Once approved, a college student can pick up a bachelors degree in art, science, commerce or vocational education. “We propose to add vocational education as one of the specific degrees of UGC from 2012. The finer details are however being worked on,” acting chairman of UGC Ved Prakash said. Union HRD minister Kapil Sibal had recently launched the National Vocational Education Qualification Framework for implementation in polytechnics, engineering colleges and other colleges in the university systems from 2012-13.

Although India witnessed a boom in the services sector in recent years, less than 25 percent of the country’s 1.2 billion population has the education and skill sets required for knowledge worker jobs. 700 million Indians will be looking for jobs by the year 2022. What skills will they need to make a living in an economy which is increasingly based on knowledge and services?  To address this challenge, Discussions focused on five themes are made– vocational skills and training to empower citizens; designing the curriculum and quality framework; use of technology in TVET; recognizing prior learning and assessment and certification frameworks. It was agreed that the Conference advanced understanding on TVET policies and strategies for integrating academic courses with vocational education through equivalency. The World Bank may initially provide Rs. 480 crore to India and lend further support depending on the success of the initiative, according to four people familiar with the development. The government has moved a proposal in this regard and the file is now with the Planning Commission for its formal approval. A senior Planning Commission official said the panel was evaluating the proposal.

National Skills Development Corporation (NSDC), which has a mandate to train as many as 150 million people over the next 10 years, currently has a corpus of Rs. 1,500 crore, of which it has committed Rs. 1,147.9 crore for skill training so far. NSDC has so far signed agreements with 46 training partners—38 companies and eight sector skill councils. The partners have a target to train 60.6 million people by 2022. The Labour Market Information System should give real time information about skill requirements and skill availability. Other innovative suggestion were bringing the traditional skills under the certification system and involving MSMEs in skill development.  The road map for skilling 500 million persons by 2022 should be finalized in consultation with the tripartite partners. 

Some of the vocational and technical courses and jobs does not affect on recent recession and to be expand in 21 century are 1) Actuary: Financial adviser, Financial analyst, Logistician, Meeting planner, Public relations specialist, Sales manager, Training specialist 2) Creative and Service Jobs: Curator, Film and video editor, Gaming manager, Heating, air conditioning and refrigeration technician, Interpreter/Translator, Multimedia artist, Technical writer 3) Healthcare Jobs: Athletic trainer, Dental hygienist, Lab technician, Massage therapist, Occupational therapist,  Optometrist, Physician assistant, Physical therapist, Physical therapist assistant, Radiologic technologist, Register nurse, School psychologist, Veterinarian 4) Social Service Jobs: Clergy, Court reporter, Education administrator, Emergency management specialist,  Firefighter, Marriage and family therapist, Mediator,  Medical and public health social worker,  Special-education teacher, Urban planner 5) Technology Jobs: Biomedical engineer,
Civil engineer, Computer software engineer, Computer support specialist, Computer systems analyst,  Environmental engineering technician, Environmental science technician, Hydrologist, Meteorologist, Network architect etc.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/03/inept-manipura-time-bomb/

by B.G. Verghese
Every nation needs a strategic policy – not just a vision. India lacks one, though it seeks permanent membership of the Security Council. The Nehruvian consensus has long disappeared. There is nothing in the public domain with Parliament having long ceased to debate and formulate national strategy.

It is therefore a welcome initiative on the part of a group of leading thinkers to have put their heads together to produce “Nonalignment 2.0: A Foreign and Strategic Policy for India in the Twenty-first Century”. The 63 page document, authored by Sunil Khilnani, Rajiv Kumar, Pratap Bhanu Mehta, Lt.Gen, (Retd) Prakash Menon, Nandan Nilekani, Srinath Raghavan, Shyam Saran and Siddharth Varrdarajan, was unveiled in Delhi last week and discussed by Brijesh Mishra and M.K. Narayanan, earlier National Security Advisers, and the current incumbent, Shiv Shankar Menon.  

Any attempt to identify the basic principles of an all-encompassing foreign and security policy can only broadly indicate priorities and guidelines. Not all may agree with the analysis and recommendations, but the document does challenge one to define differences and suggest alternative hypotheses. Hopefully, it will provoke national debate and consensus-building.

The basic theme is that opportunity beckons India to lift itself out of poverty and play its role as an emerging great power not merely by virtue of its growing economic and military muscle but by the power of its democratic and civilizational example, as a balancer between the United States and China in concert with other major players and regional hubs. There is a timely warning against losing the present window of opportunity or of falling into a “middle-income trap” for lack of will, vision and leadership. Choices made now will shape the long-term future. We have much to gain from a globalising world order provided we build the strategic autonomy to shape it. Like a chess grandmaster, we must think many steps ahead and watch all the pieces and spaces as relationships keep constantly changing.   

The Document states that we will require a grand strategy with military power that shifts from a continental to a maritime orientation. This will bestow greater freedom of action to dominate the Indian Ocean than is possible along our contested land borders with China and Pakistan. Even so, we will need to develop instruments and options that enable us to raise the cost of cross-border interventions by both these neighbours. This will require restructuring our higher defence management under a CDS and a Maritime Commission, a leap in technology and defence production, a high rate of economic growth, better governance, administrative reform, and development of a vibrant knowledge society. It will also call for new approaches to deal with discontents in J&K and the Northeast, Left Wing Extremism, ethnic unrest and resentments as a result of exclusion and disparities. Enhanced State capability and state legitimacy must both be assured.

Doing this requires partners, not allies, especially in South Asia, which remains our soft underbelly. The so-called “Gujral doctrine” of not seeking immediate reciprocity from smaller neighbours must be our guide. The US too can be a potent partner on more than a regional basis.

The Document nevertheless raises many questions. Why the reference to Non-Alignment? This seems an unfortunate throwback and goes beyond having an independent foreign policy that looks at issues case by case, free from inflexible alliance-related responses.  

Next, how does one base policies on geo-political and geo-strategic considerations when India’s school curriculum teaches a very warped Aryavarta-Delhi based “continental” history to the almost complete exclusion of our maritime, littoral and peninsular history and that of our outer marches? Further, geography is all but forgotten after Class 10, maps are taboo and archives remain closed.

The country has not paid heed to Dr Ambedkar’s wise caution that “liberty” and even economic progress might be defeated for lack of Fraternity and Equality. These social contradictions remain entrenched. The Naxal movement basically stems from the repudiation of the social contract promised Tribal India through the Fifth Schedule. Far from being addressed, it is simply not understood.  

The Northeast has many problems. But the administrative apparatus designed to tackle them through a weak North East Council driven from the back seat by Delhi through the Department for Development of the North East Region (DoNER), is misplaced. The Armed Forces Special Powers Act is largely unnecessary but is today applicable in only a small part of Manipur. It is not the prime source of alienation in the Northeast or J&K, despite a certain symbolic significance. Development and opportunity remain the key.

Local and sub-regional nationalism and identity issues can be best resolved through decentralised governance through a further empowered panchayati raj. Non-conventional security issues are by and large well addressed in the Document. Energy security requires less structural dependence on oil, de-nationalisation of coal and intensified efforts to promote clean and renewable energy. The current impasse over fast progressing the Koodankulam and Jaitapur nuclear plants is illustrative of a malaise. Ideological opposition and exaggerated safety fears regarding Fukushima-like dangers even after such issues have been addressed is holding back progress. Tamil Nadu today faces power cuts when Koodankulam-I and II were poised to deliver 2000 MW of energy by now.

Rash interventions such as the Supreme Court’s peremptorily re-ordering the Union Government to implement inter-basin water transfers from “surplus” to “deficit” basins over space and time (unhappily labelled Inter-Linking of Rivers) suggest judicial overreach, especially as we are dealing with trans-boundary rivers. Our co-riparian neighbours need to be immediately assured that nothing is being done or will be done without proper and timely consultation with them. Secondly, fragmented jurisdictions over water, energy and transport must be subject to appropriate mechanisms of overall coordination. Old fashioned Ministries need to be completely overhauled in terms of mandate and personnel if they are to deliver.     

Meanwhile, all new infrastructure projects and innovation is being delayed or negated by nostalgia and neo-Ludditism in the name of the rights of some but at compounded cost to all the people as a result of freezing employment, income generation and the multiplier effect. There is a very high opportunity cost of delay at a time when the country needs to add 10-12 million jobs net per annum to keep pace with the fast growing labour force, apart from coping with current unemployment and under-employment. Around 30 million distress migrants are on the move annually. Agriculture can no longer sustain the numbers crowding farms; yet programmes and investments designed to divert them to productive non-farm rural occupations in local manufacture or services are also challenged. This is creating an explosive situation and constitutes India’s greatest internal security threat.

Finally, reference is made in the Document to “strategic communications”. But India has no communication policy and inadequate instrumentalities for delivering information for empowerment, participation, dialogue and informed decision-making. Disinformation triumphs in the absence of prompt and accurate information. Having truly autonomous public service broadcasting and independent newspapers is imperative when public opinion, national and international, have become hyper-powers. Satyameve Jayate.
www.bgverghese .com

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/03/a-21st-century-strategic-policy-for-india/

(A report on the backdrop of vexatious election of Manipur, India)
By L. Muhindro Singh
This paper is specially developed when the writer joined Rodrigues Regional Assembly Elections, Mauritius recently held on 5 February 2012 just after a week of Manipur Legislative Assembly Elections 28 January 2012. As the writer found a drastic contrast, it seems to compel to see the way for consolidation of democracy, whether it is possible in Manipur. The writer is now attaching in the University of Mauritius as nominated by UGC, New Delhi to make a comparative study on contemporary electoral trends of India and Mauritius.

“Mauritius has never developed a ‘bullet’ culture, adopting instead a culture of the ‘ballot’.” (Bunwaree, EISA 2005)

According to the newly released London-based Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index which monitors 167 nations, Mauritius ranks in 24th out of 25 “full democracies” whilst Norway in the top rank and India in the 39 as “flawed democracy”. The Index is based on five criteria: electoral process and pluralism, civil liberties, the functioning of government, political participation and political culture. On the basis of electoral democracy, Freedom House report 2011 also mentioned that Mauritius is free in political rights and civil liberty.

The Republic of Mauritius is a group of islands in the South West of the Indian Ocean, consisting of the main island of Mauritius, Rodrigues and several outer islands. The islands of Mauritius and Rodrigues, with a total area of 1,969 sqkm, have an overall population density of 644 persons per sqkm. The population, estimated at 1.3 million, comprises Hindus, Muslims, Sino-Mauritians and mixed European and African origin. Mauritius has been successively a Dutch, French and British colony. It became independent from Great Britain on 12th March 1968 and acceded to the status of Republic within the Commonwealth on 12th March 1992. The official language is English, but French is widely spoken. However, Creole is the predominant mother tongue and several ancestral languages are still spoken. (Bertha C, EISA, 24 June 2005)

Mauritius has a good track record in respecting human and fundamental rights as well as democratic principles. Civil society is today regularly consulted on national policy formulation and stakeholders are involved in issues of national interest. (National Assessment Report 2010) Since its independence in 1968, Mauritius has a parliamentary democracy based on the Westminster system. Since 2002, the island of Rodrigues enjoys significant autonomy as well as its own regional assembly. National and local elections are held every five years under universal adult franchise and all the registered electorates who have attend the 18 years have the right to vote.

Mauritius is considered one of the most stable and democratic countries in Africa. Mauritius has an acceptable constitutional and legal framework, a largely satisfactory electoral system, a sound and transparent electoral process and legitimate and credible electoral management bodies (Bertha 2005). The constitution provides for freedom of speech, press and assembly and the government generally respects these rights in practice.

The electoral system used in Mauritius is the first past the post block vote (FPTP-BV) and best looser system. The present National Assembly comprises 62 elected members who are elected by party list from 20 constituencies returning 3 members each and only two members from (21) Rodrigues. Each voter has to vote for three candidates of their choice. If the voter chooses two candidates (for example), the ballot becomes invalid. Furthermore, 8 additional seats are allocated to the best losers who represent ethnic groups that would have been missed by the elected parties. The advantage of the block vote system is that it allows voter preference for individual candidates. The disadvantage is that if voters cast all their votes for candidates from the same party the BV system produces highly disproportional results. (Mauritius Election Observer Report 2000, EISA) The independent Electoral Supervisory Commission (ESC) and the electoral commissioner determine how the ethnic and political balance of the National Assembly will serve minorities by naming a maximum of 8 best losers.

Election related conflicts are quite prevalent in Africa. However, Mauritius has been fortunate in that in its more than 40 years of holding elections the country has never fallen victim to serious electoral conflict. (Bertha 2005) This has led to its becoming renowned as one of the most stable and democratic countries in Africa with its citizens enjoying political and civil rights. Any electoral challenges are managed through the judicial process. Mauritius has been committed to upholding the fundamental rights and freedoms embodied in its constitution and legal framework as well as to holding free and fair, credible elections. 

Vote buying case is a big issue in many developing democratic countries. It is also learnt that no vote buying case is found so far in this tiny island, when I asked to some electorate, they said that “all the electorates have mobile phone so it will inform to the concern police officials, so such kind of happening like distribution of cash for vote will be very tough”. The same response was also found when I made conversation with Chief Electoral Officer of Mauritius. The significance of mobile phone on the eve of election is very high for free and fair election in Mauritius.  Yes there is little bit suspicion that some candidates might have indulged in the malpractices that there is allegation of distributing some utensils and other material to the poor electorate with a view to influence them. The culture of donation by well wishers or corporate bodies to the prospective parties or candidate is appeared that can be influencing factor to unfair election. To get nominated from a party is very crucial that new comers has less chance though they said parties required any sum of money from candidates to secure their candidacy; however, once candidates were offered seats they must be ready to contribute a huge amount for party campaigns. (Bunwaree, EISA 2005) 

Significantly election code of conduct was started on trial basis when there was by-election in the Quartier Militaire/Moka in March 2009. In prior to this, there was no specific rules or codes of conduct although there are various informal practices and unwritten rules by which parties have to abide. The media is a critical stakeholder in helping the electorate to make a well informed choice. Prospective candidates use newspapers, radio and TV to influence voters. Of these, TV is the most powerful electoral apparatus, followed by radio. The publicly funded Mauritius Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) enjoys an absolute monopoly in the Mauritius media structure. The monopolistic status and the broad audience that the MBC enjoys combine to make them the most powerful tool in the management of public opinion, especially during the election period. (Mauritius Times) During election campaign, streets and building facades in each constituency strewn with banners, posters and plastic ribbons popularising the symbols and colours of competing parties. Election manifesto is considered very seriously that all the parties have strong commitment to follow their policy programmes led down in the party manifestos that was also formulated through different level of responsible committees of the parties.

The Rodrigues Regional Assembly Elections 2012

All the electorates have well aware of their electoral system but one outsider will have tough to understand the system easily. The Rodrigues Regional Assembly is consisting of 18 members elected, 12 of whom for local region members and the other 6 for Island region members. Election system is mixing in the sense that electorates have 3 votes comprising of two local region votes and one Island region vote. The local region votes shall be given for 2 candidates to be members for the local region. The Island region vote shall be given for a registered political party having submitted a list of candidates for election as Regional Assembly members for the Island region. The 2 Regional Assembly members for each local region shall be returned under the simple majority system. The members for the Island region shall be returned under the system of proportional representation. (The Rodrigues Regional Assembly Act 2001)

For this 2012 elections, altogether 24 candidates were in the fray as nominated by four political parties, all the four parties have submitted a list of 6 candidates each {FPR (Front Patriotique Rodriguais); Mouvement Rodriguais (MR); Muvman Independantis Rodriguais (MIR); OPR (Organisation du Peuple de Rodrigues)}.

Election is very likey to India, out of total 27,776 electorates 22,550 casted their vote (on 5 February 2012 at Rodrigues) which is 81.19%. For the convenience of electorates and officials the election was conducted in 78 voting rooms of different 15 polling stations. Surprisingly the election was very very peaceful that no report of violence or intimidation was found which is also proved that the police personals who engaged on the election duty had not possessed weapon / armed; this is the symbol of true and democratic election. Election campaigns started with music gathering where party leaders have been trying to woo their supporters by consolidating their policy programmes that led down in election manifestos. In this regard, mention may be made two important issues that they pledged to strengthen or solve the water problem and the other for more autonomy for Rodrigues. Note, Rodrigues is another island that depends on the Mauritius but they have separate Regional Assembly to govern the region.  

Factor contributing free and fair election in Mauritius

• Good governance / incumbency factor

Voice of repentance against the government is very minimal and coming up mostly from the opposition leader of the national assembly who made positive criticism to alert the ruling party. The main issue of the nation is to be water problem, electoral reform which also includes women reservation so as to enable them more participation in the decision making bodies. Differences are not appeared in between hill and valley / urban and rural that almost all the road and other facilities are provided the same. All the roads are connected with national bus transport. One of the remarkable appearances of the government is “Practicability” that all the laws and regulations can be implemented up to the expectation. For instance, free education up to 16 years (Hr. Secondary), free transport to all the students, free health care to all the citizens, old age pension and housing for poor, and other many more welfare programmes are implementing very effectively. Besides government respect all the fundamental rights. Action taken against the people who contravened law of the land is very fast. For the matter of corruption there is also Independent Committee Against Corruption (ICAC) that looks into all the cases of corruption, so the corruption rate is also relatively less, as per the report of the worldwide corruption perception ranking 2011 published by Transparency International, Mauritius is in the 46 rank while India got 95.  

In Manipur, both the central and state government have no sincere that every issue and matter is carrying forward for another issue and ultimately politicised it. This is one of the most important factors to ignore the existing laws and failure of implementation of various schemes for the welfare of the people. Almost all the government departments have issues of abnormal activities like, ignorance of duty, monopoly, favouritism, corruption… is it not the in-activism of governance. It is also seemingly influenced to general populace to develop a stereotype mindset to indulge in malpractices. Recent inauguration of many central funded projects like City Convention Centre will still remain to complete and it will take more time to have its utility.

• Rule of law

All the people respect law of the land very strictly that most of them have try to protect public  order which is also result of good governance in the sense that government has also care of their activities that whether it is against the fundamental rights and freedom of the citizens. As such police forces usually have not carried armed weapon, instead they are engage in the traffic control. Yes, at times, the cases of theft and other minor illicit cases are reported in the newspapers but no report of killing by state and non-state or terrorist is found.

What we have experiencing in the Manipur is very negative that if the government orders band something someone will search the way to go through backdoor, as such the order seems to be only namesake. Besides the government has no cared of its subsequence effect whether it is against the will of the people or against the basic rights. Very interestingly most of the people do what they wish that they do not bother of others right or respect. You see the HSLC exam scandal, frequent band and blockade, overestimated power of different organisations. It is vis-versa, if the government is weak or failed the civil organisation will strong and even encroach as law enforcing agency. It is seemingly normal process as the civil organisation sanctions reward to the people even settles the guilty. See the matter of present state election; the election commission of India have tried to bring maximum free and fair election. Having aware of the conflict situation and the previous election records of malpractices the commission has taken up various novel strategies but all the stakeholders (party, candidates and electorates) do not cooperate even though they are talking about democratic election. Most of the political elites and candidates had busy to search the loopholes of the election code of conduct and also supported by maximum electorates that is proved by cash for vote that doesn’t claim all the electorates. Violation of election code of conduct and cash for vote is taking in to consider normal electoral phenomenon in India. Even the Minster of Law (Khursheed) acted against the recommendation of ECI that witnessed the ignorance of the law.  Very remarkably, it is known to all that the mentality of the candidates supported by Nagaland’s regional party who speak senseless voices alleging one and all even against the efforts of ECI.

• Mentality and civic sense

All the citizens wanted to live in mutual coordination and understanding that shows by their normal practices. They will not throw any waste on the roadside or other that it will put down Dustbin placing in every corner of the road and public places. They care of environmental pollution that no one can see smoke from such huge amount of vehicles they are using. All communities live together in every place where they prefer or owned and support the inter-caste marriage. Though the island has inhabited many ethnic groups none of them committed any act that may lead or heart the other sentiment, community or individual. None of them criticised other religions and respect each other and try to strengthen their religion with the financial assistance of government. Most significantly, they maintain discipline which is one of the core elements to consolidate democratic culture that they will follow what the elders say.

In Manipur most of the leaders whether in the public and private has very less commitment that they do on the wrong way that has more self-centre interest which shows the mental standard. One or another conflict will come up when any task carried out by using in the interest of people. For instance the gimmicks of Manipur-Japan friendly football match, one way traffic system of Paona Bazar where powered groups will encroach the binding while they advise to follow the public; HSLC exam scenario etc. It is indeed very confused that even who talk for the better of the society turns immediately and involved in unexpected allegations without considering human integrity and dignity. Plurality and multifaceted issues is becoming a common phenomenon in various movements, perhaps there might be influencing factor from the politicians. Confidence to one and another is seemingly lost as such unethical and immoral practices are very often. 

Yes socio political background is so difference that no issues, conflict and movement is there in Mauritius whilst umpteenth issues and movements are normal procedure in Manipur as the government is irresponsible. In democratic states, parties everywhere have the potential to be effective and accountable, but they face enormous challenges of the political context and the conflict environment in which they function. But it is late to change their mindset to pay attention for consolidation of democratic government. For the better society and good governance, free and fair election will possible only when the political elites respect political morality, that they have to draw attention to renovate people / electorate’s mindset to feel free to vote whatever they like without any influence on the basis of good governance. Let’s try once, to produce a government who elected by democratic election that political parties have responsibility to do. By the way all the electorates are also appeal not to expect influential materials from the party or candidates. Such mental change can be activated by the political party only that all the civil societies and other illegal organisations cannot bifurcate from the pool of electoral politics which is experiencing today itself, it is quite natural.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/02/election-and-democracy-lessons-to-be-learnt-from-mauritius/

By Abraham Lotha
Out of the box. Muivah is fond of saying that the Indo-Naga conflict will be solved out of the box. Whether the conflict is settled within or outside the Indian Constitution, one has to give credit to the Government of India (GoI) and the NSCN (IM) for venturing to discuss various options to settle the Naga problem out of the box. For this, international experts on constitutions have been consulted and subsequently proposals have been made and are being re-adjusted in the negotiations.

For instance, Muivah’s comments, “We also have to understand India’s position,” seem to show a softening of, indeed to belie, the original demand of ‘all or nothing.’ On the other hand, the GoI’s offer of a ‘broad-based political package,’ or ‘Christmas gift,’ or a ‘supra-state’ status, even if they are only vague hints, is a starting point for further negotiations. The current impasse in the negotiations can then be considered as a creative tension.

At this juncture, both the Government of India and the NSCN (IM) have a tendency to want to know, in advance, the outcome of the talks. This curious positioning reminds one of the times when the IM leadership calls for the Naga public’s prayer and fasting for God’s guidance. The call would be fine except for one small detail: the decisions have already been made, which means that the prayer and fasting being requested are really not for guidance at all.

My point is that the talks have to be open-ended, and both parties have to respect each other’s position and be committed to the outcome. As I stated in an earlier article, the right of the Indian government to consider the Nagas as part of India should be respected. So also the Nagas’ right as a people should be respected. No party wants to lose. The Government of India and the Nagas should not underestimate the other, nor should they ask people to give up their dream.  At the moment, unfortunately, both parties are asking from the other what they don’t want to give. This is because the negotiations are being done strictly within the foredoomed framework of the Indian nation-state versus the “break-away” Naga nation.

Sovereignty, or the denial of it, has been the bone of contention between the Nagas and the GoI. But like most situations in life, it is important to note that the way we conceive of nation or sovereignty is very much shaped by our experiences of history. The lack of meaningful progress in the negotiations has shown that the hegemonic effect of the nation-state’s defining episteme, namely sovereignty, has made it difficult for both the GoI and the IM to think of alternative relations to those dictated by it. Both parties are locked in the mindset and structure of governance derived from a fundamentalist interpretation of the nation-state, thereby reducing their relationship to one of inevitable antagonism between winner/loser and ruler/ruled reminiscent of colonialism, instead of making the relationship into one of mutually beneficial postcolonial co-existence.

Thomas Biolsi reminds us of the possibility of this latter positive alternative when he refers to the nation-state’s “circulation not only as an obligatory but also as a liberatory category in the global public sphere,” a category which lends itself to “both political realities and subversive political imaginaries.” Neither the GoI nor the IM has explored the untapped potential that Biolsi speaks of. Both seem unaware that seeing the sovereign state as the only modular form available to them makes difficult, if not impossible, the need to visualize other forms of sovereignty and other forms of being a nation in the twenty-first century.  Such blindness can become an impediment for good governance and state-building. It will serve both sides well to heed Michael Seymour’s warning, that, failure to “conceptualize nations in different ways, one can then be led to adopt a negative attitude toward legitimate forms of nationalism, and these attitudes may in turn have enormous political consequences, sometimes even leading to violence.”

Sovereignty, then, has to be thought of in inventive ways. As Sanjib Baruah says, “Unlike political scientists of a generation ago that took the modern idea of absolute and indivisible sovereignty as normal and desirable, many today look to shared sovereignty as an aspect of the usable past that could provide a framework for resolving many stubborn territorial disputes of today.”  The challenge for India as a nation-state, then, is how to govern with issues of heterogeneity and diversity, and for the Nagas, it is how to be a unique nation among nations.

In multi-ethnic states, the challenge for both the state and the nations within the state is to realize that there are different ways of being a nation just as there are different ways of enacting sovereignty. Non-state nations have been influenced by the popular thinking that each nation should be entitled to its own nation-state. But homogenous nation-states are becoming a rarity especially in terms of territory and ethnicity. Besides, as Ottaway says, “nationhood, or a sense of common identity, by itself does not guarantee the viability of a state.” Along the same lines, Donald Horowitz argues, proving the Naga experience, that secession from states as a means to self-determination by ethnic groups is almost never an answer to the problems of ethnic conflict and violence. For Horowitz, as a sovereign Nagalim might learn too late, the most likely scenario is that the minorities in the new states become oppressed and their rights are not likely to be respected. The right direction, Horowitz suggests (something GoI should pay attention to), is for states to seek internal accommodation including devolution of power by means such as regional autonomy or federalism.

Fortunately, unlike the nation-state’s sovereignty there are no modular forms for state-building, so each multi-ethnic state can innovate according to their particular contexts. There is no one-size-fits-all model of state building. Conceptually, scholars such as Mark Berger suggest that, “the term nation-building is increasingly being substituted for the less problematic concept of state-building.” Thus, in multi-ethnic states, as Ottaway opines, “the goal of nation building should not be to impose common identities on deeply divided peoples but to organize states that can administer their territories and allow people to live together despite differences.” That is to say, force and armed repression are the proven way to a failed state; they won’t do. Rather, consensual democratic methods are the preferred ways for countries that would aspire to greatness.

It is clear then that just as there is no one definition of nation and nationalism, there is also no one way of being a nation or a state. There can be other ways of being a sovereign state and a nation than the supposedly irreconcilable nations-within-state paradigm handed down by colonialism. In the Indo-Naga case, one innovative postcolonial example is worth a mention: China’s ‘one nation two systems’ model under which Hong Kong functions as a Special Administrative Region. Though directly under the authority of the Central People’s Government of the People’s Republic of China for foreign and defense affairs, Hong Kong enjoys a high degree of autonomy including separate visa and passport agreements.

Should the Chinese practice seem unappealing to the GoI, there are other models. Puerto Rico as Associate State of the United States, the relationship of Gibraltar to the UK, the relationship of the Cook Islands and Niue to New Zealand, Liechtenstein’s status as a dependent territory of Switzerland, or Monaco with France. These are some examples of alternative types of sovereignty within nation-states. Incidentally, the GoI’s ‘supra-state’ concept has in it something of the Nordic Sami Convention.

Considering these types of sovereignty mentioned above, where the nation-state is only one among political geographies, Biolsi suggests that political entities “see these heteronomous or nonnation-state geographies not as anomalies or exceptions to the nation-state rule, but as concrete realities in which many people live and think about their rights and interests”. In other words, ethnic-driven states can co-exist with and not displace a sovereign state model.

Serious nation building is an everyday commitment, and the first task is to prevent political differences from spiraling into violence. The Indo-Naga relations have been that for too long. The time for violence and apathy has long past. Now is the time to negotiate an actionable, workable framework. The challenge of nation-building, as Ottaway says in another context, “need not become a quagmire as long as the effort has clear goals and sufficient resources.” Both Nagas and the Government of India need to come up with proposals for a win-win situation. “Poor eyes limit your sight; poor vision limits your deeds.” Let these words of Franklin Field not be repeated by posterity about the present generation of Indian and Naga leaders.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/02/naga-nationalism-out-of-the-box-settlement/

By Tanveer Jafri
In recent days, rhetoric of war has escalated between USA and Iran. The US naval warship USS Lincoln is said to be moving towards Persian Gulf. America has also accelerated the work on development of a 13.6 tonne Massive Ordnance Penetrator bomb, which is capable of destroying the underground nuclear facilities of Iran. The efforts to isolate Iran & cripple its economy have been on for years. Notwithstanding the sanctions & embargoes imposed by the West, Iran has sustained and expanded its nuclear program. While Iran has repeatedly insisted that its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes, the US claims that Tehran is clandestinely involved in developing nuclear weapons which would pose threat to the global security.

Tensions between the US & Iran reached to new levels recently when Iranian President Mahmhoud Ahmadinejad launched indigenously produced enriched uranium fuel rods in Tehran. He also announced the setting up of four more nuclear reactors. This is seen as Iran’s way of showing to the West that it has advanced its nuclear program based on indigenously developed technology. After this technological feat achieved by Tehran, the US has once against called upon the international community to severe its ties with Iran. But Ahmadinejad is apparently unfazed. He announced, “Some 6,000 centrifuges were operating (in Natanz facility), 3,000 new ones have been added – bringing the total to 9,000.” Although he also assured that Iran would share this information with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) & comply with the IAEA safeguards. Daring the US, Ahmadinejad asserted, “The era of bullying nations has passed. The arrogant powers cannot monopolise nuclear technology. They tried to prevent us by issuing sanctions and resolutions but failed.” He also tried to convey that America is no more all powerful and if need arises, Iran can teach a lesson to it.

Iran’s nuclear program is not new. It dates back to 1960s. But after the Islamic Revolution of 1979, it had to be stopped. It was revived after 1990 and has progressed notwithstanding American sanctions. Washington accuses Tehran of clandestinely developing nuclear weapons in the garb of its nuclear program in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). But not all countries are ready to tow this American line on Iran. Its main reason is that the claims of the US regarding Saddam’s Iraq possessing Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) were found false and they acted just as an excuse to topple Saddam regime. Therefore, majority of the countries are not ready to believe America again on Iran issue. Moreover, it is well understood that Washington is just trying to secure Israel by circumscribing Iran’s increasing strength in the region.

In December, Iran shocked the world when it claimed to have landed an American drone which it said, was spying into Iranian airspace. Embarrassed Pentagon said that the drone crossed into Iranian airspace from Afghanistan owing to a technical snag. In latest revelation, Iran has said that it possesses six American drones, which it has landed by deploying Iranian communication technology. Iran has also announced that very soon it will exhibit those drones.

In January, an Iranian court issued a death sentence to an American of Iranian descent convicted on charges of spying for the Central Intelligence Agency. On January 11, an Iranian nuclear scientist died in a “terrorist bomb blast” in northern Tehran when an unidentified motorcyclist attached a magnetic explosive device to the scientist’s car. Iran once again indicated that it believed the United States and Israel were responsible for this killing.

Tensions escalated recently when Israeli officials blamed Iran for bomb attacks in the capitals of Georgia, India and Thailand targeted at Israeli Embassy personnel. Evidence suggests that the bombings were part of a single plot, for which Israel has blamed Iran. Iranian officials, however, have denied any involvement & instead accused Israel of conspiring these bombings. In fact, Israel also wants the US to attack Iran & destroy its nuclear establishments and in the process weaken its military. Washington is not only increasing international pressure on Iran through sanctions, but also encouraging domestic opposition against Ahmadinejad’s government within Iran. Washington expected New Delhi to stand with it on Iran issue. But taking a clear stand, India has politely rejected the American suggestion and instead called for a diplomatic route to break this deadlock. Big countries like Russia, China and India are apparently standing with Iran as far as the option of military action is concerned.

As American allies, countries like France, Spain, Italy, Greece, Netherlands & Portugal proposed to stop oil imports from Iran from July onwards. They estimated that Iran could be made to fall in line using such threats. But their policy seems to have boomeranged as Iran has decided to stop crude exports to these countries with immediate effect. By this step, Iran has tried to prove that it is strong enough economically and doesn’t care for any threats. This standoff between the West and Iran is a matter of serious concern in the times of global economic slowdown and a danger of looming recession. Many questions are striking people’s minds such as why Iran is refusing to bow down under American pressure? Does America consider Iran as another Iraq? Does Iran treat American threats as mere hollow rhetoric? Facts suggest that after America’s rout in Afghanistan, groups like Taliban have stopped fearing it. Its claim of Iraq possessing WMDs was found to be a sham. Added to this, economic slowdown has crippled Washington’s ability to get involved in other such needless wars. Perhaps this is the reason why Iran is openly challenging the American hegemony.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/02/iran-refuses-to-bow-down/

By Yambem Laba
The Sun had passed its zennith on January 14,1990. The shadows were lengthening over ‘Valley View` on the north- eastern spurs of the Langol Range over¬looking Imphal when the bands of the Assam Rifles and the Manipur Rifles struck up Abide with me.

The casket containing the mortal remains of the man who had become a legend in his lifetime was lowered Into Its final resting place. The buglers sounded the Last Post. The place the man occupied will be difficult to fill In the post-Indepen¬dence history of India, notably in the fron¬tier states of north-eastern India. Mourners threw handfuls of earth atop the casket, the honour guard drawn from the Manipur Rifles fired thrice into the air, final salute. Major Bob Khathing`s long and eventful journey had come to an end,

Major Ralengnao Khathing, Military Cross, Member of the British Empire, Pad-mashree teacher, minister In the interim government of Manipur (1947-49), politi¬cal officer, and security commissioner of NEFA, graduate of the National Defence College, father of the special security bureau, architect of the state of Nagaland, chief secretary of Nagaland and ambas¬sador of India to Burma and the man who brought Tawang and the areas South of Bum La into the folds of Indian ad¬ministration was born on February 28,1912, and died on January 12, 1990.

His story is one of courage, dedication, honesty, leadership that has shown the path for generations to come.

Born Tangkhul Naga in the lap of the blue mountains of Ukhrul, in the eastern region of Manipur, he first studied at the Johnstone High School, Imphal. During this period he founded the Tangkhul Students` Union on June 15, 1932. It was to attend the 19th conference of this Union that he had arrived in Imphal from Shillong, a week before his death. He went on to Shillong to do his matriculation and later joined Cotton College in Guwahati from where he graduated in 1937. During this period he walked from Ukhrul to Dimapur a distance of over 3O0 kilometres to catch the train to take him to Guwahati. While in Imphal, whenever he felt homesick he would go to Langol hill and climb the tallest tree there and look eastwards towards the mountains of Ukhrul, where his village lay. He would spend the whole night on- it.

Though he failed to clear his BA examination in 193S, he was determined that he would not return home until he got his degree. He proceeded to Harashinga in Darrang District of Assam and founded a Middle Elementary School there, he also planted a tree in the compound which stands to this day. Years later he told me, ‘you see I was getting Rs. 35 per month as scholarship, it was a huge sum then’: “I lived up life and failed in my examina¬tions.” He stayed on, earning a small salary from the school and clearing the Examinations in 1937.

Then British SDO of Ukhrul, Duncan asked him to come and teach in Ukhrul. By 1939, he was the headmaster of the Ukhrul High School. When the Second World War broke out Khathing bade farewell to the blackboard to take up arms but he had already trained enough teachers to ensure that education would reach the remotest of the tribal villages in Manipur.

In 1941, Khathing was commissioned from the Officer`s Training School (OTS) into the British Indian Army. He joined the 2/19 Hyderabad regiment, which later be¬came the 9-Kumaon.

By 1942, Khathing was transferred to the Assam Regiment and promoted to Cap¬tain. It was in the officers` mess in Jorhat that Khathing got his nickname which stuck till the end. The British Officers finding it difficult to pronounce his first name Raneglao, unanimously decided to shorten it to Bob.

It was at this time that the British and Allied Forces combating the Japanese decided to raise the V-Force, a guerilla outfit in which hill people of the region were inducted, with a Allied Officer in charge. These people because of their knowledge of the topography and the ability to live off the land sometimes operated 150 miles from the nearest supp¬ly base. They Inflicted heavy casualties on the Japanese behind their own lines and acted as a screen for the 14th Army of-the Allied Forces.

* Khathing was sent to command a group of the V-Force in the Ukhrul area, the place where he had roamed as a child. He shed off his army tunics and battle fatigues. Instead he shaved his head In typical Tangkhul style, a mane running down the middle and bare on both sides. He walked barefoot, carried a basket bag which con¬tained dried beef and salt to serve as ra¬tions for two weeks and with his automatic concealed under the tribal shawl. Khathing set forth. He haunted the Japanese forces. He would ambush smaller patrols himself and would direct the RAF fighters and bombers to strafe and attack bigger formations. Once he found a large Japanese group occupying his house. He straightaway indicated the location to the RAF and had his own house bombed to smithereens to ensure that none of the Japanese escaped.

In 1943, Khathing played a key role in rescuing the 50-Para Brigade which had been surrounded by Japanese forces at Shanshak. For that gallant action he was made a Member of the British Empire. In 1944 the Commander in Chiefs Gallantary Certificate came his way and he was also mentioned in two dispatches. In 1945 as the Japanese prepared for their final lunge towards Imphal, Khathing with a handful of his trusted V-Force volunteers struck rapidly over a 100 kms stretch with devastating effect. The Japanese com¬manders thought that the enemy advance was delayed. The Military Cross was awarded to him the same year.

After the War, Khathing became a Com¬pany Commander of the 3-Assam Rifles and was in the Northwest Frontier Provin¬ces when Pakistan was created in 1947. Meanwhile the British left India. Manipur was on her own. It was at this juncture that Maharaj Kumar Priyobrata took over as a Chief Minister of the interim government. His first request to the outgoing British political agent was, “Please get Major Khathing here.” Khathing left the Indian Army and was soon elected to the council in the first ever election held on adult franchise in India which took place in Manipur in 1947 and was given the post of Minister in charge of Hill Development

When Manipur merged with the Indian Union in 1949 and the Government was dissolved, Khathing in his own words was “left without a job for six months”. During this period he stayed in Imphal with Arambam Ibomcha. It was Sir Akbar Hydari, the then Governor of Assam who asked him to join the Assam Rifles as a stop gap measure. So he donned a uniform again with the 2-Assam Riles. In 1950 they were sent to look for the source of the Brahmaputra. A devastating earthquake struck, half of their party was buried alive.

Khathing survived because he ordered his men to hold hands and lie spreadeagled on the ground.

In 1951, Jairam Das who was then the Governor of Assam met him in Shillong. Das asked Khathing a simple question `do you know Tawang`? A secret file was handed to him and he was asked to study it and to go and bring Tawang under In¬dian Administration from the hands of the Tibetans. Khathing then serving as an as¬sistant political officer set forth on his journey.

Khathing was able to do what the British Government had failed to do since 1914, when the McMohan Line was first drawn up demarcating the boundary between India and Tibet. He was the man who actually laid down the McMohan Line. This was in early 1951. He then founded Bomdi La town and soon became the first Indian political officer of NEFA, taking over from Major T.C. Allen.

Between 1954 to 57 he looked after Tuensang and when the embers of Naga Insurgency began to flare up he was made the Deputy Commissioner of Mokokchung. In 1957 he was instrumental in hosting the Naga People`s Conference at Kohima. Then followed the period when the first lines were drawn up which saw the 16 points Agreement with the Govern¬ment of India and the creation of the State of Nagaland. In 1961, he attended the National Defence College and was a mem¬ber of its second batch of graduates.

In 1962, he was Developmental Com-missioner of Sikkim and when he heard of the fall of Tawang to Chinese Invader, he at once requested the Chogyal of Sikkim to relieve him and asked the Government of India to send him to the war front. Within three days he was at Tezpur and attached to the 4-Corps as the Chief Civil Liaison officer. Lt. General T.N. Kaul was in com¬mand then. In his usual style, Khathing told Kaul “I have come to report, what is my charter of duty?” Kaul was relieved in three days, time and Lt. General later Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw took charge. But before leaving Kaul in answer to Khathing`s query said “you chart out your own duty”.

The lessons of the Chinese occupation prompted Khathing who had then become, the Security Commissioner of NEFA to organise a second line of defence. He modelled it along the V-Force and the Vil¬lage Guard he had formed in Nagaland. A force which would stay behind in the oc¬cupied areas in case the Chinese overran the areas again. Thus was born the Special Security Bureau.

He came back to Nagaland as Chief Secretary in 1967. A post he held till 1972. Then Khathing embarked on yet another role. He went to neighbouring Burma as India`s ambassador at Rangoon. After dis¬charging his duties at Rangoon till 1975 he returned home and headed the Ad¬ministrative Reforms and Tribal Law Com¬mission of the Government of Manipur.

He continued to take immense interest in the welfare of the people of the North-Kast. He spent most of his time in Shillong, but often came to Manipur to be at his beloved Valley View` Cottage on the spurs of the Langol range overlooking Imphal.

He arrived in Imphal on January 4 this year. The Tangkhul Student`s Union which he had founded 57 years ago was holding its 19th Conference at Sanakeithel in Ukhrul District. He had come to Valley View to attend it, inspite of failing health.

On January 12, two days before the scheduled conference while lunching with his best friend Maharaj Kumar Priyobrata he was overcome by a fatal heart attack.

On January 14, hundreds of mourners thronged Valley View for-a final glimpse of the legend as he was taken to his final resting place.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/02/a-legend-passes-away/

By RS Jassal
On need not associate Manipur with insurgency and connected problems always. There are many brighter sides too which far outweigh these. As a Manipuri it was really heartening for me to know that when it comes to gallantry acts for national cause, our contribution can equal that of any other state of India. We have produced great heroes who have done the Armed forces of our nation, really proud. The first among such heroes who comes to my mind and who in fact attained legendary status in the annals of Manipur history is Major Bob Khathing.

Born at Ukhrul on Feb 8th, 1912, into a well-educated Tangkhul family, he received his primary education at Ukhrul. He joined Kangpokpi Mission ME School for class VI. Mind you he had to walk from home all the way to Imphal and then to Kangpokpi (73 miles). He was the only one who got through the class VI examination is also another wonder. His devotion to loving parents was revealed at that young age, when the scholarship amount, which he had received from Rev Pettigrew for passing class VI exam, was handed over intact to his mother. He passed matric from Johnstone High School, Imphal which then used to be affiliated to Sylhet University and did his graduation from Calcutta University (Bishop Cotton College, Guwahati) and became the first graduate among the hill peoples in Manipur, to do so.

He was very good at sports and in extracurricular activities. In May 1941, he got King’s commission in the Army.

After passing out from the Officer’s Training School, he was Commissioned into 19th Hyderabad Regt and posted to the Regimental Training Centre at Agra, where he served under then Major Thimmaya (who later became Chief of Army Staff). Soon thereafter, he was asked to report to GR Force, Jorhat. By that time the Japanese had just overrun  Burma and the Allied Troops were withdrawing to Tactical defensive positions into Manipur. He was then instructed to recruit volunteers from the hill peoples bordering Burma, to reinforce the ‘V’ force, as informers & guides. He was promoted as a local Captain, reported to the officer in charge of Manipur Sector of ‘V’ Force Maj E Murray of 4 Assam Rifles. Thus some selected personnel of the Assam Rifles also formed part of the ‘V’ force i.e. Victory Force.

Capt Khathing put his heart and mind to the job at hand. He went to Ukhrul, met some Tangkhul headmen & elders & explained his mission. He then recruited about 5000 men for the ‘V’ force from Bungpa area, where refugees were pouring in from Burma into Tangkhul areas. Thereafter, he established another base HQ in Southern Manipur at Chakpikarong and covered the whole Kabaw valley, ultimately shifting his HQ to Sunle in Kabaw valley itself, to be able to control all villages in South East Manipur including the Kabaw valley. When Japanese forces overran Shangshak & Ukhrul areas, he was called to Tangkhul area to guide the British Army to counter the Japanese. He, alongwith his ‘V’ Force personnel effectively mobilized the Tangkhul leaders who wonderfully united and organized intelligence set up, passing information of Japanese movements to the Allied forces. Thanks to their efforts, the Japanese Force could be quickly driven away from Tangkhul soil. Even after victory, bulks of volunteers were converted to VVF-a force which worked wonderfully well even after Independence of India. His vision in V force, created a success story, which he used to organise, VG’s in Mon – Tuensang-Kiphire area of NHTA, in  his latter career as Political Officer. Real voluntary services to reckon with, these were the persons who had strands of nationalism of India’s pride and honour running through their veins, & their yeomen service will always be exhort ion call to the new generations to come.

In the course of only three years in the battlefield i.e. May 1942 to May 1945, Major Khathing was awarded the most coveted awards like MBE (Member of the order of the British Empire), Commander-in-Chief Gallantry Certificate, twice, Mentioned-in-Dispatches, and M.C (Military-  Cross) which speak volumes about military acumen ingrained in him as a sturdy Tangkhul Naga. (Refer remarks Nari Rustomji in his book ‘Enchanted Frontiers’).

On disbandment of ‘V’ force in June 1945, he was posted to 3rd Bn, the Assam Regt. At this time, the Maharaja of Manipur was setting up a Democratic Constitution on Manipur. On being persistently requested, by his closest associate and friend from the soil, MKPB Singh (also of the Assam Regt), who became CM, Major Khathing resigned his commission, and joined the Interim Government of Manipur State as the Minister in charge of Hills Administration in Oct 1947.

When regular elections were to take place, despite requests to contest from a Tangkhul constituency, Maj Khathing stood from Saikul Sadar Hills where there were Tangkhuls, Kukis, Gurkhas, Mayangs, as well and Saitu and Kangpokpi were the  part of Saikul. He was comfortably returned. This amply showed that Major Khathing was a hero not only as an Army officer, but also as a Politico-Administrator carrying mass appeal. He was not biased towards any community, possessed bubbling passion to   work for the people of entire Manipur as a true nationalist. This made MKPB Singh and Khathing lifelong friends, which reflected hill valley unity in this duo consequent to merger of Manipur into India, in May, 1950, Major Khathing joined 2 Assam Rifles as an Assistant Commandant at Sadiya, as an interim arrangement since Govt. of India was planning to introduce a new set of administrators for areas under NE Frontiers Administration then under Ministry of External Affairs, as  areas of Mon Tuensang were also part of NEFA till Naga Hills were merged with Tuensang area as NHTA. The first batch was of star personalities like Nari Rustomji, L. Kampani, TC Hazarika, T Aliba Imiti, Bob Khathing, and RK Madhurjit. Bob was thus absorbed into NEFA services as an Asst Political Officer which entailed days together of foot slogging to open new adm posts in the interiors of NEFA. It amply demonstrated that he was still a staunch soldier at heart, on 15 August 1950. While leading a special Recce Patrol to Tibet-China border in Rima area, his team was at Minzong staging camp before Chingwinti Outpost of Assam Rifles, that a severe earthquake occurred. Their staging huts collapsed and their reserve rations, destroyed wireless sets damaged. All the Mishmi porters ran away to their villages, leaving only 20 personnel’s, i.e., 3 Officers and 17 Jawans of Assam Rifles including Kumaon Regt. With the meager strength and depleted resources and rations, Maj Ralengnao Khathing and his team, faced the calamity head-on. They organized road restoring groups, rendered relief to the Mishmi villagers and arranged for airdrop of rations for the Assam Rifles posts, as well as for the villagers.

As Asst. Pol. officer he was stationed at Bomdila. Taiwang was closer to Bomdila adm base than Lhasa (Tibet). The local authorities approached him to include their area with Bomdila due to geographical proximity considering Bumla Pass. Assam Rifles escorts, RS 62 were used by him to reach .He sent wireless message for Shillong MEA to permit him to do, so.  Delhi not being sure about the authenticity of McMahon Line, asked him to wait to avoid international repercussions. Local leaders from Tawang were getting restless and were persisting him to open the outpost as part of India, he judging Delhi may not say yes fast, ordered AR operator to switch off the set on the plea of weather interference. He feigned as message not received. He hoisted the Indian national flag and Tawang with area home side of Bumla Pass were added into Indian Territories. He stayed there for 10-15 days after hoisting the flag and intimated his head office at Shillong. Everything went off well but his honor of Padmashri was delayed to be conferred till 1957

In Dec 1957, Major Khathing was posted to Mokokchung, Naga Hills as the first Deputy Commissioner of Mokokchung District, on up gradation of SDO office. He attended National Defence College at New Delhi from July 1961 to April 1962. Passing out from the NDC, he was deputed to the Sikkim Govt as Development Commissioner of the State.

In 1962, the Chinese troops occupied the border area of NEFA including Tawang, Bomdila, Sela. He at once sent an express telegram to the External Affairs Ministry, New Delhi, to pull him out from Sikkim and be sent back to NEFA to work with the people he loved most under those times of trial. He promptly received the order to report to HQ 4 Corps, Tezpur, which he did. He then worked round the clock to rehabilitate NEFA people and to restore civil administration. To have better co-ordination between Army and civil authorities, his post was re-designated as the Security Commissioner, NEFA and he served at Tezpur from Nov 1962 to Jan 1967 in the said post. From there he rose to the position of the Chief Secretary, Nagaland, the first Naga officer to occupy that privileged post.

Khathing was due to retire on superannuation by the end of Feb 1972, when he got a message from the Ministry of External Affairs, New Delhi that he was being considered to be the Ambassador of India to Burma. He agreed and joined at Rangoon as the Ambassador of India in 1972. After his retirement, Mr. Khathing also served the Govt. of Manipur in an honorary capacity, as the chairman of the Tribal Law Commission; and again as the chairman of Administrative Reforms Commission. He also served the Nagaland Govt. as the Chairman of the Re-Organisation of the Administrative Centers, etc. He was also appointed Advisor to the Govt. of Manipur in 1980, when Manipur was placed under Presidential Rule for a brief period.

He was pioneer proponent with other IFAS officers to site twelve ALG (Air Landing Grounds) like Mohanbari. Lekhabali, Daporijo, Ziro, and so on.  In forward policy all AR posts were pushed to function as close as possible to IB with Tibet & Myanmar and air maintenance of posts were resorted to.  Air maintenance continued as late as 1980s -1982 to outposts which could not be connected by surface means Porter system to carry official’s luggage & supplies of critical items was introduced. It pleased the locals to get hard cash in lieu of man services so provided to the Assam Rifles & civi-adm which made Assam Rifles  considered as part of Administration’s machinery & not as defence force in academicals sense. This and much more close tripartite inter dependence of tribal’s, civil adm & AR Force earned the Force a phrase from Verrier Elwin as follows: “Friends of the Hill people” and ‘pioneer of every advance into the interiors’ Major Bob Khating could afford aristocratic life style, however, he chose to be a soldier while being with the troops and in his day to day life he continued to remain and live like a commoner. That gave him the capability to adapt and understand the ground situations far better than any other administrative officer of his times.

Some high points & psychic ethos about his personality known to me as I served long periods in Nagaland & Arunachal and my personal interaction with  him,  I quote from my memory:

• He was very fond of the Assam Rifles troops & specially the Pipe Band. On any party which he attended, used to call for a bottle of XXX Rum & present to the Band Master without fail.

• At Tezpur, once he was admitted in MH for treatment & rest for some time. His subordinates & colleagues calling on him used to ask ‘anything required sir!’ he whispered once to his close friend, my rum is coming to finish so just replenish in next visit.  He reminded him ‘sir, Doctor has asked you to avoid.’ He smilingly said ‘I did not tell you to tell the doctor’. Then he pointed to the cupboard and small bottle with enamel mug hidden which put the visitor to cheers

• Tea with AR Jawans he used to always use  enamel mug.

• Stubborn UG cadres when using village precincts to ambush AR/ ARMY/CIVIL dignitaries, he issued Govt. of Nagaland order “whenever such incidents take place, the village authorities will be penalized to open a post for SF’s minimum for one month & maximum for six months depending on the gravity of ambush/ damage caused on state/ central forces. It worked well and incidents came down considerably.

• He was the Govt. rep  to finalize 16 Point Agreement & this signatory and Nagaland was created as 16th  State of India.

This adroit, assiduous, determined war hero, clean humanitarian administrator and dedicated teacher, all rolled into one and most importantly, a father figure to all Manipuri’s, hills & valley alike bid adieu to this world on 14 Jan 1990 at Imphal. His death moments also convey a great message  of friendship with MKPB Singh. It is learnt that Bob was to go to Maharaj Kumar’s house to meet him. He felt uncomfortable and could not proceed. Maharaj Kumar did not know about his intent and decided to go to Mantripukhri to meet Bob. Bob developed further complicacy and while talking to PB Singh, he collapsed into his arms and breathed his last, both friends again together at the last moment. Let’s pay tribute to this hero of India who hails from our own land and who continues to be a real source of inspiration to the many youngsters who aspire to join the Indian Defence Forces. Would the Govt of Manipur think of dedicating some road or erecting a statue to commemorate his precious service, to the state & Indian Nation?. Jai Hind my Bob ! my Manipur.

Author learns from Assam Rifles Authorities that yearly Football tournament in memory of Late Bob will be commenced soon. A real fit  tribute. Long live Bob ! And Assam Rifles from 28 Feb, 2012

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/02/legendry-hero-of-manipur-in-peace-and-war-major-ralengnao-bob-khathing-padma-shri-mc-mbe/

By Bobo Khuraijam
Proud, the Meitei are, of their history, of their culture, of their prowess in games and sports etc. There is one thing they seemed to have been ignored. They use it every season and almost every day. It is the English-Manipuri calendar. Communities around the world have different calendars, each according to their needs. Each of them would vouch for the uniqueness of their own calendars. Without beating the jingoistic drum too loud, the Meitei too, can be proud of their calendar. Beliefs which are chiefly guided by religious beacons are kept intact along with the modern version of counting day and date;a harmonious blend of the old and the new. Of course, they cannot claim to be the only community who areconserving it. They might have drawn inspiration from other communities. But those who started it in Manipur for the first time deserves to be mentioned in the GK of Manipur. Or has it been already mentioned? Please let us know as we are not sitting for any competitive examinations. Is not it a wonder that a calendar can predict whether a day is good or bad?

INVITATION GALORE: As the calendar says that such and such day is good, you have wedding invitations queuing up. The invitation card comes in different hue. Most of them sprinkled with glittering foils with pictorials like Ganesha head or intricate flower designs. Some graphics stands out from the rest, indicating that some creative hands have tried their hands on the card. A computer and a designing geek must have come handy for that. The texts have lifeless similarities in most of the cards. Perhaps the same text that has been in used since the very first time! Or much before photocopying machine came to Manipur. Yet, why do the proud Meitei keeps on copying the same text? The same word, the same format an above all the same error. The art is a spin-off of using ‘their’ and ‘our’ inappropriately. In simple term, the intended meaning is: who is inviting on whose behalf. Honestly, we do not wish to sound like a hardcore grammarian, who can point out grammatical mistakes even from the English newspaper editorial. Like a true Meitei one can also point out grammatical error or any other error from our musing, with the typical, “noidi kayaam heiradana”. The point is that ‘their’ and ‘our’ can create so much difference and confusion if one has to go by the strict sense of invitation. Is not wedding strict or  solemn (the word you love to print) in every sense? Or for that matter the Meitei wedding? There are limitless phei(s) and phatte(s).Solemnity,Cordialityand the Grace cannot be Highly Solicited with the textual error you love to copy and paste. After all the day of marriage is decided following the strictures of good and bad from the calendar. The kind of ‘once in a life time’ elaborate arrangement you made for the D-Day, the resource, energy and time you spent. Should we say your invitation card also deserves some attention in anyway? We know the easiest way to provoke you would be other way round. We could have started with opening statement like: error in invitation card would give only girl child to the would-be couples; or the couple would never become rich, or better; the couple would die young. Cards apart, we have now invitation sent through the text message of cellular phones. Some people are smart enough to deposit a bulk of the cards to a friend. The friend would send text message invitation to other friends far and wide. That electronic ‘beep’ of invitation has an air of freshness instead of the paper card. Though we do not contest that the text message should replace the paper made one.

A NEW CALENDAR: The latest text message took us to Kakching. A friend came down from the National capital to get married. His bride too had come down. Both of them work in the capital. It was a visit after a long time. Not to mention that the road in the Thoubal district is not inferior in quality from the road in the national capital. How we wished to be reborn in the district. If not as a human, we will be contented even if we are born as cattle. How pleasing would it be to sit on the middle of the magnificent road, cud-chewing once in a while, with the tail teasing the flies; eyes shut from the surroundings- the kind of assertiveness that every Thoubalites enjoy. The pleasantness of the journey could not match with the pleasantries we share with our friend’s parents. We were the odd ones: the Lonnou (s). We got undue attention whenever we spoke. Our friend’s elder brother who stays in Beijing had also came with his Chinese wife. Our Chinese eteima got the due attention with her look and the Meitei traditional attire. She looked familiar to us in a sense, like one of those faces in the Olympics doing one of the most difficult routines of gymnastics. Her husband, whenever we meet he used to talk to us in Imphal lon/lonnou. But this time he spoke to us in the same way anybody from Kakching would speak. Perhaps his stay in Beijing has revitalised his proudness of being a Kakching brethren. A Manipuri – Chinese calendar in the offing. You decide where to insert the Kakching part.

FOOTNOTE: Two forms of loneliness have visited recently. Gone are the days of bomb blast sound, also gone are the days of traffic pollution in two main Keithels. Leipung Ningthou calls it, “aki akhang gi makhol na taakhidabada thamoida laiman oihouba”.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/02/proudness-be-thy-name/

By B.G. Verghese
February 27 will mark the tenth anniversary of the dreadful Gujarat riots.One needs to rewind to that date, not fast forward as the BJP has been strenuously attempting to do to crown NarendraModi as prime minister even though Advani has been patiently queuing for the job. Modi’s PR men talk of Gujarat’s “good governance”, rapid industrial growth and favourable investment climate and plead that healed wounds should not be reopened as Muslims have come to terms with 2002.This is facile and betrays a nervous and guilty mind as the net closes in on the man who presided over that genocide.

Due process has been unconscionably delayed. Victims have been hounded and jailed while the guilty walk free. Evidence has been destroyed, sometimes through fake encounters as dead men tell no tales. Attempts to frustrate or prematurely close cases have compelled the High Court and Supreme Court to intervene and order special investigations, monitoring committees and periodic progress reports. These orders are being foughtsystematically, and as honest officials and former collaborators turn approvers pressures are mounted on them.

It is in this situation that Modi has completed his so-called sadbhavana or “reconciliation” fasts in all district headquarters, flamboyant shows allegedly staged at state expense to muster political support. The fact is that Modi’s record constitutes a most flagrant defiance of Justice in keeping with his sinister warning broadcast to the people of Gujarat over Doordarshanwithin days of the holocaust.In sum, the distilled message was that those who want peace must not seek justice. (See “Rights and Wrongs: Ordeal by Fire in the Killing Fields of Gujarat”, the Editors Guild of India Fact-Finding Mission Report, May 3, 2002).

How can anybody pit Peace against Justice, least of all a chief minister bound by his oath of office to uphold the cherished values of the Constitution and human rights? What is this if not ambushing the Constitution in a fake encounter! And how can there be reconciliation without admission or establishment of the truth? Recall how the National Human Rights Commission under its then Chairman, former chief justice J.S. Verma, had furiously to battle the lies and subterfuges of the Gujarat administration against Modi’s stoic denials and his stubborn defence by the NDA Government, particularly through the Home Minister L.K. Advani whose utterances were replete with rich encomiums for the swift and firm manner in which Modi had controlled the riots. (See “Rights and Wrongs”).

There was no expression of remorse either by Modi or Advani. Indeed, the only regret from anyone associated with the NDA, BJP or SanghParivar, came from AtalBihari Vajpayee. The then prime minister expressed his pain and shock and called on Modi to observe “raj dharma”. He wished Modi to resign, but was openly overruled, sidelined and shushed into silence by his Parivar colleagues. That episode in itself told a story of defiance, unrepentance and conspiracy.

As for Modi, his grim boast was telecast over Ahmedabad’s Doordarshan station on February 28, 2002: “I want to assure the people that Gujarat shall not tolerate any such incident (the Godhra train burning). The culprits will get full punishment for their sins. Not only this, we will set an example that nobody, not even in his dreams, thinks of committing a serious crime like this. The Gujarat Government …. shall not allow those who want to take law into their hands  to destroy the peace of innocent citizens. Such culprits cannot have any place in a civilised society”.  He did however call on the “innocents” to observe peace and restraint and promised that the government that would punish the culprits”. He was later to expound his “action-reaction” thesis”.

The “reaction” was inflamed by an official decision to take the bodies of those burnt to death in the Sabarmati Express at Godhra to Ahmedabad. The stops on the way attracted emotional crowds. There was a state-sponsored bandh on February 28. The verdict had been pronounced. Everybody knew who the “culprits” were and who must be taught a lesson. 

Five weeks later, this writer was part of the Editors Guild Fact Finding Mission to Gujarat.He was rudely interrupted while preparing to take evidence at the Circuit Hose in Ahmedabad. A mob of Parivar supporters burst into the room shouting “Hindu haiyaMussalman”? No surprise, when Modihad himself been openly spiting venom against Muslims in general and not at proven “culprits”. 

The Guild team met Modi in Gandhinagar. Present in his room at the Sachivalaya were all relevant senior civil and police officials. He was not batting alone. Yet he was virtually unable to provide a coherent answer to our questions.

Why were certain ministers and strangers present in the police control room during the riots; why were certain police officers who stood their ground and threatened to fire on rampaging mobs immediately “promoted” andtransferred; why was there no action following the daylight attack on the office of the State Wakf Board and State Minorities Commission in the Old Secretariat; why was no action was taken against Ahmedabad dailies that spread inflammatory canards; why was nothing done to save Gulberg  Society despite repeated calls by EhsanJafri spread over several hours; why was no action taken following an attack on two Muslim High Court Judges; how were a large number of Muslim shrines and graves razed without any action, including the Dargah of Wali Gujarati, a prominent landmark that was demolished and overnight paved over ostensibly to permit a better flow of traffic! The indifference and evasion was astonishing.

Relief and rehabilitation was largely left to private initiative, with the State at best playing a grudging or negative role. Certain areas were barred as relief camp sites on the ground that this would provoke trouble. The rehabilitation grants sent from the Centre were not speedily utilised. Compensation was discriminatory and tardy. In many cases FIRs were not registered and a boycott of Muslim economic activity was allowed to be mounted. Earlier, Muslim shops had been systematically looted. Muslims were openly scorned for producing babies. Modi’s own provocative phrase was “Hum panch, wohpachees”.

The State Information Directorate’s press releases (See “Rights and Wrongs”) were a travesty. Modi was hailed as ChhoteSardar and Hindu traders assured of every support to ensure their continued progress. Godhra was described as “inhuman genocide” and in one press note as “a pre-planned inhuman collective violent act of terrorism” (by whom and on what evidence or finding?).On the other hand, the ensuing pogrom incidentswereinvariably labelled as “disturbances” or, occasionally, as “violent disturbances”. The subsequent transcript of phone taps and the Tehelka sting tapes of boastful confessions by prominent killers make chilling reading.

And now, as Modi finds the truth closing in on him, the BJP points to the 1984 riots, another utterly disgraceful blot on India. But two wrongs do not make a right. The Truth about Gujarat must come out and Justice must be done.
www.bgverghese .com

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/02/rewind-to-2002-not-fast-forward/

By Sanasam Momo
The poetry of Shri Biren is a shadow of the hard life that he had traversed owing to the post-war circumstances of Manipur.His birth in 1942 marked the beginning of world war II in Imphal.The experience that he had as a boy shaped his poetry into a statement of the cruelty and roughness of life. He had a life of sniffles and this had turned his poetry into a dull but significant melody of life which to him has many wonders but behind its facet there seemed to lie the hard viccisitudes,There had been occasions when he felt hard to continue with life owing to his health but ceased to stop because of the will to pursue the literary interest. He , as a poet well understood the meaning of life and he could tell what it means and he also equated it with sniffles like O, Henry ,the American short story writer.There are little smile and sob in the life that is perceived by Shri Biren, a new dimension that was characteristic of the post –war Manipuri poets.

The death of Nongthombam Shri Biren did not bury his poetical works but rekindled a fresh impetus into a topical research of his poetry. The 2nd world war was a watershed in the poetry of Shri Biren who viewed progress and development, particularly industrial development with skepticism. Skewed by the materialistic tendency of the modern industrial progress, the poet in Shri Biren posed an angst, a protest cry against the destruction of the spiritual soul. The supremacy of the spirit and the soul came under test, the modern industry and economic development with its callous approach unhinged the spiritual balance of shri Biren who as a poet would like to safeguard the traditional texture of the spirit and the mind. Like Thomas hardy who raised a protest voice against the Industrial Revolution in his Wessex novels, Shri Biren found his poetry as a medium to record his protest against the ‘CONCRETISATION’ of existence. In a way, Shri Biren was a protest voice, an unheard voice in the noise of violence lodging complaints against the destruction of morality.The Industrial and Economic development, though it smoothened the place of existence, brought about in its wake the erosion of morality and sounded the  death knell of ethics. Shri Biren posed a moral and ethical protest against the vulgarization of the Industrial progress. It is well echoed in his poem “ TANGKHUL HUI’ (Tangkhul Dog). Only the dog lamented the crush of the flower under the weight of the massive ,cruel bull dozer driven by a vulgar, dirty and brutish man. Beauty, love and kindness were at the receiving end of this industrial and economic progress. The place of beauty and delicacy was consumed by the brutish cruelty of the machines and the heartless humans produced by the environment of the heavy machinery; while man has lost his moral and aesthetic sense, it is retained by a Tangkhul dog, an irony that struck and put it memorable because of its sharp and blunt use.

In another poem,”I AM NOT BAPTISED”(Ei Laiming Loude), Shri Biren attacked the concept of God. He used his poetry to destabilize the myth of God. His poetical philosophy was that God only is a figment of the imagination and criticized the Hindu myth of re-birth and previous birth as a ploy to conceal the non –existence of God. He cited instances of inequality and injustice to lodge that if God realy exist, such things could not be there. The existence of the immorality and inequality, he pointed out through his poem was true corroborative evidence that God  did not exist and He is only a figment of the imagination.In the play,”MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL” written for the 1935 Canterbury Festival, Thomas Stearns Eliot also brought out God as a” STILL POINT” which could suggest that it could be imagined anywhere. A point can be anywhere and is perhaps a close link with the imagination. This parallelism between Eliot and Shri Biren struck poetic wonders in the topical research into the poetry of the post –modernist talent, Shri Biren.Indeed, the poet is a store-house of researcj for new pioneering scholars.

Since the poet belonged to the post 2nd world war generation, the unethical dimension of violence and injustice is a recurring theme in his poetry. The materialistic vulgarization of existence sapped the soul of all tastes and sweetness nay dismantled morality and justice. God, perceived as a tiger by the poet, did little to rectify the inequality and injustice which defeated His very purpose and becomes the proof of his non-existence to Shri Biren. This approach to God is a post –modernist element.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/02/philosophy-in-the-poetry-of-shri-biren-a-perspective/

By Dr. Priyadarshni M. Gangte,
Lecturer, Damdei Christian College, Motbung, Manipur.
Introduction:
Popularly called Netaji, Subhas Chandra Bose, stands aloft among the many freedom fighters that India has produced. His contribution and character is unique. He provided the leadership when it was most needed. He gave a definite direction, the internal input, which invigorated the freedom struggle movement and intimidated the British Administration.

Netaji was of the firm belief that the British could only be thrown out by force. He had no constitutional means and peaceful methods for the attainment of freedom. He disagreed with Gandhi’s method of struggling for freedom. He thought that India under Gandhi’s Principle will not attain freedom and never achieve at all. He could not rely on Gandhi on this. While working as an active protagonist of the Congress, he along with Nehru had formed the Forward Block.

Rise of the revolutionary struggle for freedom started by Gandhiji in 1920, developed the middle class group who were led first by C.R. Das and later on by Subhas Bose. After the incident of Chauri Chaura (5th February, 1922), the socio-political condition was completely changed particularly in Bengal because some of the earliest settlers in Calcutta had amassed wealth and property during the John Company’s days and dominated the Calcutta Society for nearly a century because of their financial power.1 Since his entry into politics, his personality made him so popular and, of course, had taken the role of leader who inspired the well to do tycoons, edging their way slowly to the Congress platforms in order to ensure their earthly possession which had been acquired by being loyal to the British.

Regarding his anti-imperialist struggle and Sansyavada, Netaji engaged in a non-existent war with the British Government for the attainment of our political freedom2 Subhas categorily rejected all the constitutional measures initiated by Gandhi and introduced two paths for easily attaining goal; “uncompromising military and compromise”. He further suggested to face a major imperialist nation like Britain is not an easy task. So he wanted the supply of necessary resources depends on our ability to keep up the enthusiasm of the people and maintain the spirit of opposition towards the government. As an instance, Subhas opposed Gandhi’s resolution on Dominion Status at Calcutta Congress in 1928. Along with that, he also pointed that the Round Table Conference a misnomer. He gave reason to it, “a handful of non-descript Indian nominated by the alien Government would be representing to do with the bidding of the British politicians”. This had irritated Gandhi and Nehru. Subhas’ never fell in line of sycophants of the British. He behaved in his deeds and words.

He vehemently rejected the Delhi Pact better known in history as the Gandhi – Irwin Pact (March, 1931) and he out-rightly declared as a painful document and called to “Strike when the iron is hot”.3

The long rule of India by an imperialist nation, ultimately made India inferior and that developed inferiority complex would continue till India gets freedom. It is obviously true that India witnessed stiff hardship till she achieved independence. Subhas had foreseen the future. The social, economic and political forces working in unision within India were never possible. It rather contradicts with the British till her legitimate aspirations were fulfilled. Thus to defeat the British was to win freedom for India.

In the process of the freedom struggle of India, the role played by Subhas was significant. His quality was unique as was described by his biographer, N.G. Jog.

“Bose became the man of the hour … if, by some miracle he had returned to India, he would have carried everything before him as Napoleon did after his escape from Elba.”4 

This is the truth of which Mahatma and Nehru and the Congress were afraid.

Several factors were responsible for winning our freedom from the British clutches. Though, the Indian National Congress Party acted as the centrifugal force, there were many parties like Indian League, Muslim League, Communist Party, the Liberal Federation, Swarajya Party, Forward Block, India Independence League under Rash Behari Bose and individuals whose name never appeared in history, who had struggled hard for Indian Independence. Indeed, perhaps the violent ways of Subhas had also contributed a lot for the same. His charismatic leadership had influenced thousands of people which led the birth of Azad Hind Fauz (INA) – one major force fighting for India against the British. Before the Madras Congress Session in 1927 Subhas supported Nehru for an ultimate objective to gain Purna Swaraj or complete independence for India 5.

Subhas made an escape from India on January 16, 1941 through Afghanistan reached Germany on April 3, 1941. He was no stranger to Germany for he had spent time and time again in Europe during 1934 – 1937 though mostly in Germany, he went to Italy where he met Mussolini several times and to Austria, also. How much Subhas loved India can easily be seen from his actions to the cause of India that can be confirmed by Govind Talwalkar’s article “Among the Nazis”.

“ He was shocked by the cases of maltreatment of Indian students in Germany and Goering’s attack on Gandhiji. Subhas even wrote to Dr. A. Franz Theirfelder, Secretary General of the Indian Institute in Munich condemning the attitude of Nazis and demanding an apology from Hitler for his speech and Goering’s attack on Gandhiji.” 6

While Gandhiji detested Netaji he never did so. In fact he always defended in person outside India that was his greatness. Gandhi & Nehru therefore felt overshadowed by Netaji and his politics.

It is to be noted that during his visits and stays in Germany, he could not meet Hitler personally despite his several attempts but on 27th May, 1942, met the top brass of Germany of that hour. Furthermore, Subhas asked Hitler to clarify passages in Mein Kampf (a book which gave a very inaccurate account of his own life and set out his beliefs7 which were insulting to India Hitler explained that they were mainly aimed at discouraging the pacifist tendencies in Germany which might have been further influenced by the Indian movement8. In fact, Hitler had discouraged the non-violent path followed by Indian freedom fighters for two reasons. Firstly, the weapon Ahimsa goes against Nazism and, Secondly, admired the British imperial policy, because Hitler, had helped to copy the same after conquering Russia.

When the Japanese conquered the Malay Peninsula; a large number of Indian soldiers fell prisoners into their hands. Under an agreement with the Japanese Government, Bose, now called Netaji (Leader) organized them into an Azad Hind Fauz or Indian National Army. He inaugurated the Government of Free India at Singapore.9

It was on October 21, 1943, which is red letter day not only in the life of Subhas but also in the history of India’s Independence Movement. This Provincial Government was immediately recognized by nine powers. At midnight on October 23, the Government declared war on Britain to effect liberation from their dominion. The Indian National Army had been formed by Rash Behari Ghosh and Captain Mohon Singh and others, was reorganized and revitalized. Another significant area initiated by him was the involvement of Indian women in actual military action. Back in 1928, he had been instrumental in raising under the leadership of “Colonel” Latika Ghosh a Congress Woman’s Volunteer Corps that had marched on the streets of Calcutta in full uniform.10 When in 1943 he raised the expatriate INA in Southeast Asia, he decided to add a women’s regiment, which he called the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, named after Rani Lakshmibai, the legendary heroine of the Revolt of 1857.11 Thus, it was started with the 20 women12 maintained by Col. Dr. Lakshmi Swaminadhan Sahgal13 the Commander of the same. Under his able leadership the INA marched victoriously to Indian borders. It posted its tri-colour flag at Moirang Kangla on April 14, 1944 at about 5 pm by Col. Saukat Ali Malik, the Commander of the Bahadur (Intelligence) Group where a monument stands now in his name to honour his supreme sacrifice for the country.

It will be interesting to elaborate how Manipur became a Warfield during Second World War. On 10 and 16 May, 1942 Imphal the capital city of Manipur was bombed by the Japanese as their first raid. Thousands of Indian refugees were fleeing from Burma through Manipur. And, Imphal became the forward base of new forces built up by the Allied Forces.14 The intelligentsia including the Nikhil Manipuri Mahasabha – a political organisation had been waiting for impending changes in the emerging political and military scenario of the world. As had been said by Netaji, “The enemy of the British is the friend of India”. Germany, Italy and Japan though they were branded as fascist, all the leaders and workers of the Mahasabha regarded them as friends contended by Koireng15. Moreover, the Nikhil Manipuri Mahasabha had identical ideas and objectives with the Indian National Congress welcomed the appeal made by Netaji. Thirteen members of the Mahasabha, namely16, (1) Th. Angou Singh, (2) P. Tomal Singh, (3) S. Ibohal Singh, (4) I. Tombi Singh, (5) L. Bijoy Singh, (6) L. Kanhai Singh, (7) M. Jatra Singh, (8) W. Gyaneswar Singh, (9) M. Amuba Singh, (10) L. Irabot Singh, (11) Kh. Jugeswar Singh, (12) Smt. O. Keinya Devi and (13) Smt. K. Randhoni Devi reached Moirang secretly. They joined together with the members of Moirang and worked out their plans which could be seen by their actions. The INA along with the Japanese forces reached Manipur on 18th March, 1944 by crossing the hill tracts of Indo-Burma border17 the 15th Japanese Division with one INA regiment marched towards Tamu and Ukhrul in two ways. Ukhrul was captured. They further advanced towards Imphal-Dimapur road. In the meantime another group of the Division reached Pallel but they could not come down to the valley18 and for that matter the British forces could not stay in the hills but in the valley only. The combined forces of INA and 33rd Japanese Division advanced upto Kohima and Imphal towards Tiddim Road by capturing the British Defence Base at Khuga Valley, Yaiyok (Zezo), Thingkaiphai, Churachandpur19.

In this connection, it will be relevant to mention that some 32 (thirty-two) Meetei who earned their livelihood in Burma joined the movement under the leadership of Shri L. Guno Singh of Khurai (Manipur)20  and operated in the battle-front as an advance party. 13 out of the 32 Meeteis reached Pallel and tried to secure the secrets of enemy and also sought the support of local people. One of them was arrested at Sugnu.21 A large number of Manipuri tribals who were the erstwhile members of the British “V” Force also joined the movement and participated in the war front. One Kuki, named Lulngam Lhungdim even brought the message of Netaji from Chamol (INA Advance Base Camp) and handed it over to Dr. Gulapchand Singh, the then Medical officer posted at Sugnu, which rehanded over to Shri Thokchom Angou Singh of Singjamei, Imphal.22 Then the British force began to retreat and took defensive measures at Phougwakchao – Ithai, Tronglaobi and Okshangkhong but of no avail23. Consequently they were forced retreat and its surrounding areas to Phuballa, Ningthoukhong and then to Bishenpur – Thus the withdrawal of the 17th British Division was completed on April 13, 1944. Before the retreat of the British from Tronglaobi was their strong defence base till April 13, 194424. In the early morning of April 14, the leaders of the Indo-Japanese advance party had discussions with M. Koireng Singh, (2) L. Sanaba Singh, (3) K. Kanglen Singh and (4) M. Mani Singh and others all of Moirang at Tronglaobi Village. After taking stock of the situation, at about 5 p.m. on the same day Col. Soukat Ali Malik, planted the Tricolour Flag with springing Tiger as emblem at the historic Moirang Kangla where the INA Martyrs’ Memorial Complex is, at present taking shape.25

It was unfortunate that the Germany’s defeat in the war in April and her surrender on 3rd May, 1945 as well as the dropping of atom bombs in Hiroshima (6th August, 1945) and Nagasaki (9th August, 1945), compelled Japan to surrender to the Allied forces in the middle of August 14, 1945, the INA at Rangoon also surrendered. The members from Manipur were also arrested by the Rangoon occupying Allied Forces from their hiding places through a tip for Manipuris and put in Rangoon Central Jail. It will be relevant to know that Manipuris who took part in the INA at Rangoon were in Guest Houses at Kandogulay, Rangoon. (1) L. Irabot Singh, (2) Kh. Jugeshwar Singh and (3) I. Tombi Singh joined the active services of the INA and (1)Smt. O. Keinya Devi and (2)Smt. M. Randhoni Devi joined Jhansi Rani Regiment. The other members were attached to the Intelligence group of the INA.26

However, Subhas did not lose hope, his aspirations to achieve independence was living. On the 25th April 1945, a few days before the Japanese evacuated Rangoon, he flew out of the capital leaving behind a message in which the Government and people of Burma for their help and hospitality, and stated, inter alia:

“I am leaving Burma with a very heavy heart. We have lost only the first round. There are many more rounds to fight… I have always said that the darkest hour precedes the dawn. We are now passing through the darkest hour; there the dawn is not far off; India shall be free”.27

Whatever said and done, we assure that his foundation of the Indian National Army, its organisation in the foreign land, its programme for complete independence – all speak of his highest degree of capability during the Second World War. The great mission was executed in a grand manner and successes of the INA brought about a great damage to British interests in South-East Asia.28  Moreover, Rajaram29 contended that “the Indian Armed Forces began to see themselves as defenders of India rather than of the British Empire. This, more, than anything else, was led to India’s freedom”.

In this connection, it is pertinent to observe the contention of Chhabra30 :

“The public enthusiasm shown at the time of the INA trials the demonstrations of the Calcutta students on 19 November, 1945, who despite the police firings and lathe charge, could not be prevented from marching to the Dalhousie Square; the violent Mutiny of 3000 naval ratings on 19 Feb, the spread of this trouble to Karachi, Madras, Calcutta and Delhi and sympathetic hartals in the cities; all this showed that the fire of disaffection had spread from students to labourers, peasants, shopkeepers and now even to the common soldier without whose help the British could not stay on even for a day.

Furthermore, Rajaram31 justifically maintained : “This is also the reason why the British Empire disappeared from the face of the earth within an astonishingly short space of twenty years. Indian soldiers, who were the main prop of the Empire, were no longer willing to fight for the British. What influences the British decision was mutiny on 18th February, 1946 of the Indian Navy following the INA trials in 1946. While the British wanted to try Subhash Bose’s INA as traitor,Indian soldiers saw them as nationalists and patriots. This scared the British. They decided to get out in a hurry”.

Knowing the historical fact of facts, Rajaram32 emphatically asserted and reaffirmed on the subject matter that great historian R.C. Majumdar wrote, Subhas Bose with his INA campaigns probably contributed more to Indian independence than Gandhi, Nehru and their movements. Moreover, the result of Subhas Bose’s activities was the rise of the nationalist spirit in the Indian Armed Forces. As a matter of facts the Quit India Movement launched in 1942 were not the last uprising against the British rule in India, it was rather a part of the ongoing politics in India.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/02/revisiting-netajis-role-in-the-freedom-struggle-of-india-ina-and-manipur-perspective/

By Chitra Ahanthem
Every single time Manipur gets a mention in the tourism sector, one cannot help but feel serious concern about the state of unpreparedness in terms of tourist services and infrastructure. Apart from Imphal with its choice of hotels, other districts do not have any decent accommodation to write home about. Other states in the country have a whole range of home stays which are cheaper and which also aid in showcasing local cuisines and culture. But given the state of electricity in Manipur, home stays are not really a practical option.

It is not just the issue of accommodation that is the major cause of concern but a long list of gaps within the support services that should assist tourists during their stay: services that will bring in more foot fall. Services like pre paid vehicle services from the airport. Services like metered vehicle hiring: the existing system in Manipur is for a few private vehicle hiring service to dictate rates without any proper meter system. For instance, vehicle hiring in other parts of the country depends on the nature of the vehicle (AC/non AC), vehicle size and fuel kind, total distance traveled and number of hours for the hire. Compare it to Imphal where travel within Imphal main town will cost Rs 1500/- when the distance traveled and cost involved will not even amount to this grand total. But because the tourism department does not consider it within their duty to regulate for vehicles to register with their department and fix rates of hiring etc, vehicle owners laugh all the way to their banks.

Imagine you are a tourist getting into the state for the first time. What are your options for a great stay in the state? The answers are a bit depressing: apart from Imphal and day trips to places like Moirang and Andro , both places that one can visit and head back to Imphal again, there are no other options. People in the NGO sector or traveling on account of work may well take the option of travel and stay in a few districts but a bit of quick browsing on the internet will eventually show that there are no places to stay if a tourist per se is interested in places beyond Imphal.

Yes, the exotic photos of locations in the state, the dash of colour, the festivals and texture of food can get a mention of the state’s tourism potential. But scratch the surface and one can very well see what lies underneath. One very critical mention regarding tourism related publicity using photographs is needed here. Very often various departments end up using photographs without giving due credit to both professional and amateur photographers. FOOTNOTES has earlier mentioned about how the photography contest held during the Sangai Tourism Festival organized by the Tourism Department did not mention anything about copyright issues and how many times the photograph submissions would be used. It has been mentioned in this column earlier about how photographs end up being used multiple number of times and being used by various government departments, thereby exploiting photographers who submit their pictures. The Tourism Department needs to make sure that copyright issues are sorted out before organizing photography contests and using the photographs submitted therein.

To come back to how first time tourists must be seeing in the state, once they land: imagine reaching the airport and then taking overpriced autos or other vehicles to their places of stay in their hotel of choice. From the airport to the hotels, he/she will see two distinct entities: one is definitely the mounds of garbage especially starting from Keishampat area and on the river sides of market areas (Paona Bazaar, Thangal Bazaar, Naga Mapal) while the second would be the presence of various uniform colours of security personnel. The later cannot be wished away and has no direct bearing on whether tourists will come to the state or not. After all, Jammu and Kashmir still attracts many more tourists as does many middle-east countries where law and order situation is a major issue. The cinch comes in over the matter of whether the presence of security personnel aids tourists or hinder their movements: whether they can be reliable support systems. Do the police or other security forces in the state have a nodal officer or point person who can be contacted if tourists fall into a bit of a spot? The matter of garbage in Imphal is disconcerting. An NGO involved in collecting garbage from households in Imphal was recently awarded a UN level distinction for being environment friendly. If only the award panel knew about what happens to the garbage that does get collected, they may well end up penalizing the NGO. The Tourism Department must also make sure that they do not put out anything about Langol being a possible tourism destination for nature walks or hiking or taking a drive: the sight of garbage and the stink is what would greet tourists! In between, a random survey of households in Imphal will also throw open the story of how the garbage collection has almost stopped in most places while the rest will complain of irregular pick ups, resulting in throwing off of garbage on the river banks all over again.

End-point:
The Tourism department cannot take up the stand- alone responsibility of ensuring that support systems are in place for making Manipur a tourist spot. In fact, there is an ever- increasing need for various departments to work in partnership with one another with the Tourism Department taking a lead. There is also an increasing need to invest in travel writing: the brochures that one gets to see are sterile sentences that end up looking line banal descriptions. Another key area that has to be given importance is to make sure that government certifications be allotted to eating joints with special focus on traditional cuisines. What passes off as “Chinese” and “Continental” in Manipur will never ever match the range or taste that is available in the rest of the country. If Manipur has to be sold in the tourism market as exotica, the range of local cuisine is the best shot. It is certainly commendable that government departments and private agencies are coming together to make tourists take note of Manipur as a destination but more needs to be done: a lot of initiatives needs to be thought out well, planned out and implemented effectively. In today’s world of social networking sites, if tourist support systems are in place, tourists will come calling on their own: the real award actually!

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/02/manipur-tourism-missing-pieces/