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IMPHAL, June 15: A One day state consultation on ‘An Initiative Encouraging Responsible Tourism by Engaging Stakeholders in Manipur’ will be organized jointly by Eriema Gender Empowerment & Resource Centre for People’s Concern in collaboration with Impulse, Shillong supported by UNIGIFT (UNODC) with an objective to elaborate on a responsible tourism policy that will be implemented by all states in the Northeast at the Manipur Press Club tomorrow at 10 am.

The proposed consultation programme is a part of the ongoing efforts of the Impulse, Shillong to spread awareness to the common people of the region on the negative impacts and issues on environmental degradation in terms of exploitation of women and children in the process of development of tourism sectors in the region.

As the Impulse had conducted a series of consultation under separate themes including “Talks for change for making Tourism Sustainable, Equitable and Just’ Regional Consultation on Responsible Tourism in the North Eastern States of India’, which was held on August 26 and 27 last year at Gangtok, Sikkim which was supported by UNGIFT and technical support was provided by EQUITIONS, brought forward the follow up state consultation programmes which was organized at Sikkim on Jnauray 22 this year, on January 24 at Assam, on April 19 at Nagaland and on April 29 at Meghalaya.

It could be mentioned that, until the summer of 2010, various policies including the Look East Policy have promoted tourism as holding the potential to bring development to the North Eastern region.

As a result, many of the North Eastern states have developed tourism and ecotourism policies in the last few years. While all policies speaks of the economic benefits of tourism, little is spoken on its negative impacts and issues on environmental degradation and none of these policies have clauses on responsible tourism regarding exploitation of women and children.

In the meantime, the state consultation meeting tomorrow will discuss on how various stakeholders such as tour operators, hostellers, NGOs, law enforcing bodies, government departments such as labour, education, forest and environment, social welfare and tourism can play a role to carry forward in implementing a responsible tourism policy and making it workable.

On the other hand it is learnt from the organizing committee that the main objective for organizing such state consultative meeting is to elaborate a responsible tourism policy that will be implemented by each state in the Northeast, adapt and incorporate the Indian government Code of Conduct for safe and honourable tourism in every tourism policy and lobbying for it to be signed by every stakeholder and to elaborate, implement and monitor a training plan on human trafficking for tourism industry professionals.

Tour operators, hotel personnel, drivers, guides etc, will be trained to be able to react quickly if suspicion arises in certain situations. They will be able to transmit information on human trafficking to domestic and international tourists, who will be in a better position to make better choice, the source added.

Read more / Original news source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Kanglaonline/~3/0fwvoHezR-4/

Absolute faith is absolute surrender to an amazing grace. A lot many people do not like the idea of surrender, but it is a fact that a lot many who felt there never was a need to surrender, did ultimately surrender – albeit a surrender not in humiliation, but in humility. In legendary singer and poet, Bob Dylan’s words: “You may be the heavy weight champion of the world, but someday you gonna have to serve somebody.” This amazing grace however does not have to be in the direct sense of Almighty God, but often manifests in the shape of what many poets have referred to as “hope”. TS Eliot’s “Four Quartets” comes to mind, an extended poem that followed his earlier one of a similar genre “The Wasteland”, which, after a lengthy tour of the spiritually barren landscape of modern life, ends with the chant Shanti, repeated three times. In the end, all that matters is peace, but peace, as a physical condition as well as a mental state, is illusive. Nobody would know this better than those of us in Manipur. Its quest has also never been easy. In a very paradoxically way, those who have found it are those who have surrendered – in the most sublime cases, surrendered their individual wills to the will of the “Amazing Grace”.

Many, if not most religions actually say this. Earthly life in this interpretation is a punishment, and transition from this temporal existence to the divine is the ultimate meaning. In the Semitic religions (including Christianity) the original sin is what condemned life to earthly existence. Otherwise it would have been an eternity in Eden for the original parents and nobody else. As to how attractive this idea is, is a matter of opinion. The original mother, Eve, probably thought it was a bore so she ate the forbidden apple, out of what is described as a feminine weakness. If not for her original sin, we all probably would never have seen daylight, or moonlight for that matter. It is difficult to say if we should deride what she did or else be thankful. Another paradox of life we suppose – another overwhelming question of “to be or not to be”. To be happy with a secure vegetative life, or else look for happiness in choosing to face challenges even if it means exposure to trouble and misery. The non-Semitic religions say very much the same thing, but in a different way. Take Buddhism for instance, or Hinduism for that matter. Rebirth is perpetuated by individual sins, implying that this cycle will end when sin is banished. As in other religions, earthly nonexistence here becomes bliss. The lure of this bliss, it has been explained, is also what gives suicide bombers the fanatic courage which makes them able to do what they do.

But the Amazing Grace manifests in another more tangible and comprehensible form – hope. To paraphrase Eliot’s “Four Quartets” this amazing grace is like the faith of a passenger in a subway train that stops and becomes stranded for hours in pitch darkness in the middle of a tunnel deep down below the surface of the earth because of a sudden power failure, that power would be ultimately restored and the train would again begin moving. That at the end of even the darkest tunnel, there would be light. Put another way, it is like a test of faith of a child in her father’s love for her and her belief that he would never abandon her, come what may. In pitch darkness where she cannot see anything, in the event of an emergency if she is required to jump from the window of her first floor room, and her father implores her to do so from below with the assurance that he can see her and would catch her, would she jump? She would if she had enough faith in her father. Such faiths give hope. Such hopes salvage. The amazing grace is that way too. For some inscrutable reason which you cannot explain but all the same feel, you know that this amazing grace would not let you fall. Come to think of it, Manipur has been stranded in the middle of a deep, dark tunnel for decades. Yet it has held together, despite all the centrifugal forces threatening to tear it apart. It is reasonable to believe hence that despite all its inherent contradictions, a faith in itself has given it the strength and hope that there would one day be light. What a time to recall the miracle of this Amazing Grace in this auspicious and festive season of a great religion of the world.

Read more / Original news source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Kanglaonline/~3/b_5XubusTKE/

IMPHAL, June 17: Desperate evicted families of Lamphel Yaipha Leikai stayed in the Lamphel Police custody briefly after their temporary sheds and shelters were yet again evicted by the Police.

A team of the Lamphel police as a part of their continued drive of eviction today ransacked the temporary makeshift sheds and shelters this evening around 3 pm, put up at the road side between the Lamphel Employment Exchange office and office of the Chief Electoral Officer by the affected individuals of the eviction that was carried out on June 6 at Lamphel Yaipha Leikai.

About 10 individuals including two children forcefully climb on board the Police vehicle contending that they have no more shelters due to the further eviction of their only sheds and shelters.

After staying in custody of the police for a brief period the displaced residents later walk away from the police station late in the evening.

The police were compelled to take the aggrieved residents along with them till the police station following their adamant act.

The displaced residents have been putting up temporary sheds and shelters in the area since the eviction. Moreover they were left in the agitating mood for only 14 houses were affected by the eviction leaving behind some houses nearby.

In the meantime, even as the concerned MLA offered a place at the vicinity of Lamphel for relocating the displaced residents the offer however was rejected by the residents owing to the lack of security over the land and the unfavorable condition for habitation.

It has been reported that the alternative relocation is a marshy area at the same time temporary for three months only.

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By Robin S Ngangom
“The yellow mustard’s in bloom
Krishna’s got a wife
Radha has given birth to a child
Krishna is starving.”

Once again it is the season that smells of Yaosang.

The yellow mustard departs, peas ripen, and
Boys revisiting the year, steal from vegetable patches at night
For Yaosang’s neighbourhood feast.

We cursed the Brahmin priest when he refused to bring the god
To our reed and straw hut on the river bank
Ready to be razed to mark the new season.

As the months warmed up to her
My grandmother pulled out, one by one,
From the caches in her sunny room
Dry sweetmeat she brought from her endless pilgrimages.
In winter, she could only give me wizened fruits
That looked like her fingers.

And then the courtyard plays, the touring cinemas,
The khongjom parba phaibok, arrived in droves,
Growing in clamour as a boy’s nights grew very late
And he didn’t know that his father had gone looking for him.

For the boy, though, in the twinkling festive nights
Every girl was a fairy or a goddess
Smelling of lotuses and dreams.

And having abandoned his grandmother
While chasing his kite he felt guilty
And went to her now “dark and mouldy” room.

He found her tied with a rope to her bedpost and
Hobbling around her bed. She said,
“I’m mad now, don’t come near me.”

The boy ran onto the street behind his house.
But while running on the street he did not realise that
He was growing taller with patches of hair under his arms and belly
As the life of the streets claimed him.

It could be his blooming heart
Or his wet dreams, he mustered up courage to ask a girl out
After writing fifteen perfumed letters
And they went cycling past the returning mustard fields on river banks,
Past his almost happy boyhood.

So many years he waited in vain for them to return
The pena shakpa,the laiharaoba, the chalees of kang,
Thehalf-remembered pass khelas.

But they’ve disappeared in the folds of his reveries
Like the fairies and the goddesses.

One day in his middle years
They all returned suddenly as spectacle
Watched eagerly by wives and boys
Before they became victims
Of the killers who have stepped out
Of the courtyard plays and created widows
And made boys disappear into endlessly waiting days.

Read more / Original news source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Kanglaonline/~3/r2rUP4laCjw/

IMPHAL, June 27: The various Kuki underground outfits operating under the recognized Kuki National Organization, (KNO) and the United People’s Front (UPF) that are also signatories of the Suspension of Operation with the government will be pressurizing the government regarding various demands including completion of construction of approved designated camps and other benefits for its cadres. 

According to a high official source, another round of talk between the groups and representatives of both the state government and the centre is scheduled to be held at the 1st MR Banquet Hall on July 1 at around 11 am.

The source further maintained that the scheduled talk will categorically discussed the demands of the SoO signatory militant outfits including the completion of the construction of all designated camps as assured by the government in all the previous SoO talks, clearance of the cadres monthly stipends and the finalization regarding the issue of Id cards for the cadres of all outfits incorporated by the KNO and the UPF.

The talk will be attended by representatives of both the army and the para-military forces who are engaged in the counter insurgency operations in the state, the source added.

Read more / Original news source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Kanglaonline/~3/pnKEDQQ4_10/

HYDERABAD, July 6 (AP): Police arrested about 50 people, including three lawmakers, during protests Wednesday demanding the creation of a new state in Andhra Pradesh.

Shops and offices were shut and public transport was halted for a second day as statehood advocates pressed the government to act on their demand for a new state called Telengana be carved out of Andhra Pradesh.

Two state lawmakers and a member of Parliament were among those arrested during the demonstration in Hyderabad, the state capital, said A.K. Khan, a senior police official.

Police also fired several rounds of tear gas shells to disperse agitating students who pelted the police with stones at the city`s Osmania University, Khan said.

More than a dozen Parliament members and at least 80 state lawmakers in Andhra Pradesh have resigned in recent days to press the demands for creating the new state. The federal government says more consultations are needed before it decides.

Telengana supporters say the drought-prone northern area is underdeveloped and ignored by powerful politicians from southern Andhra Pradesh. Opposition to the split comes primarily because the proposed Telengana area would include the state capital, Hyderabad.

The Telengana demand has erupted sporadically since the 1950s, but protests gained strength in 2009 when veteran politician K. Chandrasekhara Rao began a hunger strike. After 11 days, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh`s government agreed to split the state. But little action has taken place since.

Several parts of India — the Bundelkhand region in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, Vidarbha in the western Maharashtra state and Gorkhaland in the eastern West Bengal state and the Northeastern region of the country— face similar statehood movements, but the government has not made any moves to create states there.

Read more / Original news source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Kanglaonline/~3/tnLtjev20rw/