Tag: United States

Why support ‘Nobel Peace Prize for Irom Sharmila’ as part of International Women’s Week’?

By: Shanjoy Mairembam First think ‘Irom Sharmila’ as an Indian, as a woman, as a human; then, acknowledge the fact that she’s been fasting for the last 10yrs in practical… Read more »

By: Shanjoy Mairembam

First think ‘Irom Sharmila’ as an Indian, as a woman, as a human; then, acknowledge the fact that she’s been fasting for the last 10yrs in practical Gandhian style of non-violence asking Indian Govt to treat every Indians same within India and follow the democratic principles what India itself preaches to the whole world; also acknowledge that Iranian Nobel peace prize winner Shirin Ebadi met and supported her during the delhi visit; also, realise that Sharmila is no lesser suitable than Burmese Nobel Peace Prize winner  ‘Aung San Suu Kyi’ as woman role model towards humanity; NOW Reason yourselves – Doesn’t ‘Irom Sharmila’ deserve to be nominated for Nobel Peace Prize; being the only Lady who is in history a living example/follower of Gandhian non-violence approach?

Dear Friends!
As part of celebrating ‘International Women’s Day’, let us share the info about ‘Irom Sharmila’ who is an Indian woman from Manipur State (located at north-eastern border of India, sharing international border with Myanmar/Burma). She has been a strong follower ‘MK Gandhi – Father of Nation in India’ not just theoretically but in practice. She has been on ‘FASTING’ for the last 10yrs (a whole decade) in Gandhian approach. Her simple request is “To remove the unlawful Act named ‘ Armed Forces Special Power Act, 1958′ which gives uncontrolled legal rights for army officers/soldiers to shoot/kill anyone without having to go through any form of reasoning/justification in the areas (i.e. North-East Indian states) wherein the ACT is in force since 4-5 decades by now”. Please promote her cause and support her nomination for Nobel Peace Prize.  Please make Indian govt realise its own mistake by the global audience and help the humanity.

What does her request means? –
The Govt of India ought to treat every Indians in the North-East Indian states same as other Indians in other parts of India, because North-East Indians (having mongoloid facial look similar to Chinese, Japanese, Koreans) are not some sort of foreigners who should have a separate set of laws to be followed while within India. It’s worth reminding newly that “India became ‘Republic’ as a country by combining a diverse and numerous kingdoms in the past prior to 1950”. So, the terminologies such as country ‘India’ and the people ‘Indians’ were created / realised practically only form 26th Jan 1950 onwards. Thus, the term ‘Indians’ are similar to the term ‘Americans referring to everyone settled legally within USA (i.e. French, Germans, Chinese, Japanese, Brazilians, Spanish, British etc) ‘.

So, Indian Govt and its constitution is absolutely WRONG to treat Indians in North-East part of India as some sort of aliens/foreigners by enacting/enforcing some unethical/inhumanly laws which should never be used on India’s own people. In fact, the AFSPA is the modified version of the ‘Rawlatt Act’ used by the then British Empire to curve/control the then Indian freedom struggle. So, Isn’t it wrong for Indian govt to treat North-East Indians as if some sort of colonised people in the 21st Century via some ACTs which are not recommended for use in other parts of India, when India claimed itself to be the greatest ‘Democratic & Republic country’ globally’? Either Indian govt should declare publicly/globally that there is a WAR going on in the North-East Indian states for such  radical acts to be justified, or, clarify under the Indian constitutional framework (or International legal framework) how a part of democratic and republic India can have such radical laws in-force for 4-5 decades by now. In fact, such gross mistakes of Indian govt will tear down the whole concept of oneness  ‘the Indian’ and the country ‘India’, since such acts discriminates among Indians and breaks down ‘unity in diversity’.

Being a responsible Indian citizen and being a responsible human being, we ought to open up the closed eyes & ears of Indian Govt to follow the democratic norms/laws which it preaches to the whole world first within India itself. Indian Govt and people of India need to refresh the lessons of ‘what does Diversity actually mean?’ because, ‘diversity’ seems to mean different things to different people and understanding ‘what should Diversity mean to Indians’ will help National Integration and prosperity of India as a country.

Author: Shanjoy Mairembam, London (UK)
shan_mairembam (at) yahoo (dot) co (dot) uk

http://www.causes.com/causes/559021-nobel-peace-prize-for-irom-sharmila

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NISA thrashes SSU

IMPHAL, Mar 4: NISA defeated SSU by 5-3 goals in the first semi-final match of 3rd lamyanba Hijam Irawat Memorial Football Tournament held at Sunshine School ground, Moreh.

IMPHAL, Mar 4: NISA defeated SSU by 5-3 goals in the first semi-final match of 3rd lamyanba Hijam Irawat Memorial Football Tournament held at Sunshine School ground, Moreh.

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Engineering Exports to touch US $ 50 billion in the Current Fiscal

Source : NEPS NEW DELHI, Mar 4: Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) India with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, organized the Buyer Seller Meet at Indian Trade Promotion Organization… Read more »

Source : NEPS

NEW DELHI, Mar 4: Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) India with the Ministry of Commerce and Industry, organized the Buyer Seller Meet at Indian Trade Promotion Organization (ITPO) here today. Shri Sumanta Chaudhuri, Joint Secretary, in the Ministry of Commerce & Industry, delivering the key note address on this occasion, stated that, “India is a major exporter of light and heavy engineering goods and has a well developed and diversified industrial machinery and capital base’. He further said, “Exports of engineering goods from India are likely to be over US $ 50 Billion in the current fiscal”.

According to official sources, buyer Seller Meet (BSM) has participation of over 40 delegates from USA, Canada, CIS, ASEAN & South Asian countries. This BSM organized by EEPC India is the second in the series this year. Engineering Sector is the most important sector in India’s global exports. This event was organized in conjunction with India ASEAN Business Fair and Business Conclave coordinated by FICCI, and is an initiative to provide a platform to engineering companies for mutual interaction.

Shri S.C. Ralhan, Regional Chairman- EEPC India, Northern Region in his address stated that, “India is in fact one of the countries which produces the highest numbers of Engineers in the world. He also stated that Asia as a continent is going to play a very important role in shaping the destiny of world trade and that the world should look at Asian markets afresh.” The export of engineering goods are in a state of flux at present and highlighted that the growth of exports of engineering goods during April-January 2011 has been to the tune of 70% over the same period last year, he added. During the meeting, the next edition of the India Show to be coordinated by EEPC to be held at Toronto, Canada from October 17-20, 2011 was also announced.

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Where is Imphal?

Chitra Ahanthem. What would you do if two people with cameras slung around their necks walk up to you and try and coax you to hold a placard that says,… Read more »

Chitra Ahanthem.

What would you do if two people with cameras slung around their necks walk up to you and try and coax you to hold a placard that says, “Where is Imphal?” and pose for the camera? One migrant balloon seller retorted back with “Imphal is certainly not in Kashmir!” Confused?

Well! The two people with camera and placard in hand happen to be IFP editor Pradip Phanjoubam, a tall man (by Manipuri standards) and myself (short, by any standards!). We were looking for places (and will continue to do so) and moods to convey about Imphal city. First stop was the War Cemetery and for lack of any subjects, I had to “model” with the placard that said: “WHERE IS IMPHAL ? ” It was late afternoon and there were only young couples who would look furtively around to see if their pictures were being taken. But two small girls who had come with their grand father saved the day. They became our first models. The next stop was on Bir Tikendrajit Road where a vegetable vendor sat about doing her business with the placard placed near her. Later, we would take pictures of polo ponies and small boys holding the placard inside Pologround; balloon sellers at Samu Makhong and an old gentleman who saw us struggling with putting the placard at the base of the statue. He got a pedestrian walking past to pose with him, both of them holding up the placard. Still confused?

So well! The story starts with a public art project, “WHERE IS HEIDENHEIM?” based in the Heidenheim Zietung, a local newspaper of Hedienheim in Germany. The project format was developed by artists Tina O’Connell from Ireland and Neal White from the United Kingdom who says of their project, “We see public sculpture more as a malleable process informed by broader social contexts, and not bound in form by physical materiality, but through the flux and dynamics of
events, which in turn become the substance and context of our own practice.”

Connecting globally many ‘local newspapers’, the project occupies public space as an exploration of the connection between a community and its own printed voice. The project is made in response to the perceived threat to local newspapers from the internet. The first link paper to take part in the exchange with Heidenheim Zietung in August 2010 was ‘The Wendover Times’ from Utah in the USA. The story of the work was printed on the front page and then reprinted as a whole page inside the Heidenheim Zeitung. Further copies of the Wendover Times were distributed in a vending machine next to a large 6 metre
sign that has been erected in Heidenheim. Newspaper stories continue to be run in both papers thus creating a bridge between two small towns separated by distance but coming together in content and flavor.

The “Where is Imphal?” photo feature will first be published in Imphal Free Press, the newspaper copies of which would be sent to Heidenheim Zietung, the newspaper in Heidenheim in Germany. They will then print the entire page from the Imphal Free press – inlcuding other articles and news on that page, as a full page inside their own paper and order copies of the paper for distribution in Heidenheim.

Sounds crazy? But then, it is a load of fun trying to coax people to hold the placard while we aim our cameras at them. Our plan for the photo feature would be to look not only at landmarks of the city but also at the essence of Imphal city: its pulse, its noise and chaos. Our only stumbling block is the part about talking to people and convincing them to pose for pictures. Candid camera shots are easier and rather than risk the afternoon light from fading too much, we ended up being models ourselves. Me “shooting” my editor and vice versa! In the process, we had our share of “who are those two weird people?” kind of look directed towards us. Sometimes, people would disperse real quick, the moment we walked up to them and stood near to them with the placard.

End-point:

For this week, if you see the tall man (Editor!) and the human version of the caricature that comes along with this column in IFP (me) approaching you anywhere around Imphal, please smile for the camera and be a sport!

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Winter Bald Eagles

The wintering bald eagles  @ Lock and Dam No. 14 Preserve located on the Mississippi River,USA Photography By: WB

The wintering bald eagles @ Lock and Dam No. 14 Preserve located on the Mississippi River,USA

The wintering bald eagles @ Lock and Dam No. 14 Preserve located on the Mississippi River

The wintering bald eagles  @ Lock and Dam No. 14 Preserve located on the Mississippi River,USA

Photography By: WB

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Two Cheers for Revolution

The dictatorial regimes in Tunisia and Egypt have collapsed in the face of large scale protests by the people of these countries. These events are now having a ripple effect… Read more »

The dictatorial regimes in Tunisia and Egypt have collapsed in the face of large scale protests by the people of these countries. These events are now having a ripple effect on the entire neighbourhood. Libya, Jordan, Yemen, Bahrain and many more autocratically ruled Arab states are now restive. As the entire world watches, a new wave of revolution is unfolding in the region, each demanding the end of autocracy and the introduction of democratic and transparent rule. It is amazing that most of these despotic regimes all the while had the blessing of the so called champions of democracy in the West, including the United States which had even gone to war to dismantle another dictatorship in Iraq, the chaotic repercussions of which are still unfolding in the unfortunate country. Everybody with a stake in the Middle East is worried, and this includes in particular USA and Israel. This is understandable, for negotiating terms (or bribing) with a few corrupt despots is a far easier proposition than dealing with the will of the entire populations of these countries, which is what democracy is about. Israel did not hide its worries for instance at the fall of the Hosni Sayyid Mubarak regime, which was both America and Israel friendly. Now that radical and democratic reforms if not regime changes in the entire Arab world seems quite imminent, the world is preparing for a very drastic overhauling of their Middle East policies.

Amidst the deluge of praises for the current democratic revolutions in the Middle East, eulogising the invincibility of people’s power, what is often forgotten is that there have been many other instances of the complete defeat of this same people’s power. Two momentous events, which happened about quarter of a century ago, close on the heels of each other, come to mind. The first is what is today popularly known as the 8-8-88 (August 8, 1988) pro-democracy uprising in Myanmar after the Military Junta there refused to give up power after the country’s charismatic leader, Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy, NLD won a landslide victory in the election that the government allowed in the country, probably confident they would be voted back. The world remembers how an estimated 2000 student street protestors were machine gunned down on the streets of Yangon in a crackdown which also resulted in the exodus of hundreds of thousands young Burmese dissidents to neighbouring countries to take refuge. Aung San Suu Kyi was also imprisoned and only recently released. The regime did not fall at the time, and despite pressures including economic sanctions by the West, the military junta continues to hold sway. This should knock down some of the optimism placed by so many crystal gazers on the so called people’s power.

The world again witnessed another pro-democracy movement brutally put down in China’s Tiananmen Square the very next year. After two months of protest demonstrations by students at the historic square, beginning April 14, the Communist government decided to roll in tanks and in June of the year committed another massacre of anti-government demonstrators. Even as a horrified world watched the street blood-letting, pro-democracy voices was nonetheless allowed to die a cruel death. Public memory is said to be notoriously short, but business memory proved shorter, and even as photographs and prophetic commentaries on the uprising predicting the fall of the rule of the Communist Party of China in the country began dwindling, cash-rich multi-national corporations began making a beeline to enter China to do business. Today, China is soaring high and has become the second largest economy of the world, having overtaken Japan only very recently. If the expansion of its economy continues in the same trajectory, as it is most likely to, economic pundits are already predicting this Communist country, which has no tolerance for democracy whatsoever, is set to overtake the US to become the largest economy of the world by the middle of this century. There are a few token show of disapproval by the West of China’s silencing of pro-democracy voices, such as the award of the Peace Nobel 2010 to jailed Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo. This notwithstanding, the beeline to do business with China continues to get longer. Today, when anybody anywhere in the world buys a consumer good, from high end DSLR cameras from the top camera maker brands, to cheap toy guns, the overwhelming chances are, they would have the “Made in China” tag on them. So is this a case for celebrating or mourning the people’s power?

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