Matamgi Manipur

By Dhanabir Laishram Source:   The People's Chronicle (thepeopleschronicle.in)  Manipur Times (www.manipurtimes.com) In India people have been disillusioned with UPA I and UPA II. Under the economists Prime Minister, Finance Minister and Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission (all are famous economists) the country is facing uncertainty, fail to control price rice and confusion. Administration has collapsed. Rampant corruption is running the nation. The 2G scam, commonwealth Games scam, Adarsh housing colony scam are no bigger than the Coalgate scam where the Prime Minister is allegedly involved. The CBI is investigating the Coalgate scam under Supreme Court’s supervision. Miraculously and most unfortunately, 157 files related to Coal scam is missing. Where have the files gone? Coal ministry is not missing, office of coal ministry is not missing, Government is not missing, and then why the files are missing? Ironically the Prime Minister was the in charge of coal minist...

Manipur’s horror: When Operation Bluebird struck terror Rahul Karmakar, Hindustan Times  Senapati, November 05, 2014 Pius Varay ducks instinctively whenever a child pops an empty Tetra Pak carton or a motorcycle misfires. The sound is a traumatic reminder of soldiers firing in his village of Oinam in Manipur 27 years ago. The 36-year-old Varay may be the youngest survivor of Operation Bluebird, a brutal counter-insurgency operation launched by paramilitary soldiers in July 1987, but the scars still remain. According to an Amnesty International report, many men were maimed, tortured and women raped between July and October 1987 after the military launched the operation following an attack by National Socialist Council of Nagaland (NSCN) rebels on Assam Rifles’ Oinam outpost. The rebels killed nine soldiers and escaped with 150 guns and 125,000 rounds of ammunition.

This article by Amar Yumnam was originally published by the Imphal Free Press on 6 Oct 2014 India’s policy (read as the Central Government’s policy) towards the North Eastern Region (NER) of the country has undergone three phases. First, there was the period from the start of the Planning Era to the end of the 1980s. This was the period when the principle of not doing anything except militaristic-perspective-based interventions was honoured. The second period starts from the beginning of the 1990s when the Look East Policy (LEP) became a coin for international political announcements and the so-called border trade agreement was also signed between India and Myanmar. This second period has been the most pretentious one so far as the policies towards the NER are concerned. This period gave an overt picture of being concerned with the development concerns of the region. But this was nothing more than a bluff as the underlying principle of the first phase was adopted with no content of bo...

Yambem Laba wrote this article originally for The Sangai Express and Epao posted it on 24 September 2014 A visit to the director's office at the Regional Institute of Medical Sciences in Imphal is akin to visiting an ultra high security zone. You go past unarmed guards provided by an agency and then you enter a fortified area complete with sandbagged posts manned by the CRPF wielding automatic weapons. Past that you are greeted with signs that read "Visitors not allowed beyond this point" and then you get to the ante room and find Manipur Rifles personnel armed with AK-47s — the personal security detail of the director. The aura of the institute being an advanced centre for medical sciences seems to have been lost somehow.

This article by Amar Yumnam was originally published in 1 Sep 2014 issue of the Imphal Free Press Any loss of life due to actions by any agency, whether state or non-state, is painful. No effort should be spared to avoid such kind of an outcome. Death is never a reversible event and so should never be externally imposed on any soul. This principle should be respected by both the state and the non-state entities. Otherwise, the state or the non-state agency would emerge as the Enemy of the people. Something like this keeps on happening in Manipur. In other words, Manipur has been in a cycle of fragility for the last half a century. There would be moments when things seem improving but would be back to the same turmoil situation sooner than later.

Editorial , The Sangai Express August 20, 2014  The Court of Sessions Judge, Imphal East has passed a landmark judgement today, the 19th of August 2014, and it would remain an outstanding milestone in the history of mankind’s struggle against controversial laws like the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act or AFSPA which has its genesis in the British colonial era. Irom Sharmila is one universal name which symbolizes common man’s struggle against repressive laws enacted by ruling elites even though she is known more about her crusade against the AFSPA. For 14 long years, she has been fasting. The Sessions Court verdict says that Sharmila shows no intention of committing suicide either by way of continuous fasting or other means. Thus first ingredient of the offence punishable under Section 309 IPC, i.e to commit suicide is lacking. The Court’s verdict reads, “The petitioner (Irom Sharmila) be released from custody, if not required in any other case”. This is a highly signific...

This article by Pradip Phanjoubam was originally published as an editorial in the Imphal Free Press, 21 Aug 2014 The extremely haughty manner in which the NDA government dismissed the finding of the Justice Hegde Commission which was mandated by the Supreme Court of India to look into the very serious allegations of fake encounters in Manipur is to say the least, alarming. It seems to confirm the widely held apprehension that under the new government headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, there is a real danger of the executive assuming too much asymmetrical power for itself, even those which should rightly belong to the judiciary and legislature. It may be recalled the Justice Santosh Hegde Commission had come out with the startling report that of the random cases of alleged fake encounters he picked up for examination during his enquiry, he discovered to his consternation all of the allegations had convincing evidences. To this the Centre simply said the procedures adopted by the J...

This essay was written by By Dr. Amarjeet Singh ( http://southasiajournal.net/2014/02/ethnic-groups-conflict-indias-manipur/ ) for South Asia Journal ( http://southasiajournal.net ) on Feb 19, 2014 in its Issue 10 - Winter 2014 edition Abstract The political aspirations of Manipur’s main ethnic groups: Kukis, Meiteis, and Nagas, are at loggerheads over the political future of Manipur. On one side, the Meiteis who live in the central low-lying plain want a country of Manipur with full sovereignty, and on the other, both Nagas and Kukis, who live in the hills surrounding the plain, are in favor of the reorganization of Manipur into three parts so that they can control certain territories outside Manipur. The Nagas call their homeland Nagalim, while the Kukis call their homeland Kukiland. If Nagalim and Kukiland are carved out of Manipur into two new states of India, Manipur will lose large part of its land. But, this will not go unchallenged since Meiteis are determined to preserv...

by Yenning Source: The Sangai Express, E-pao,  Hoi Polloi And Mundanity Via an article posted on July 20, 2014  Clamping of prohibitory orders under CrPC 144 over Ukhrul town consequent to the killing of Ukhrul Autonomous District Council (ADC) member Ngalangzar Malue on July 12, 2014 has been interpreted by the frontal organizations of Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) especially the United Naga Council, Naga Mothers' Union, All Naga Students' Association Manipur, Naga Women Union and Naga Hoho as a "systemic policy of sabotaging and jeopardizing the Nagas of Manipur through muscle power and military might". And such a move is taken by the frontal organizations of NSCN-IM as akin to keeping Unkhrul town under siege.

This is an extract of a paper of the same title, written by Sandra Pogodda* & Daniela Huber**, accessed from Academia.edu on 7 July 2014 . It has been grouped into two parts to focus on the context of Northeast India.     Part 1 Northeast India Northeast India is a term first coined by the British colonists who developed the concept of a ‘north-eastern frontier’. It consists of the ‘seven sister’ states of Assam, Meghalaya, Manipur, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Tripura. The diversity of the population is reflected in the fact that it includes 75 major ethnic groups and sub-groups with 400 languages and dialects. Thirty percent of the population belong to tribes. George T. Haokip (‘On Ethnicity and Development Imperative: a Case Study of North-East India’, Asian Ethnicity  Vol.13, No.3, 2012, p.222.) differentiates three faultlines in the conflict: tribals versus the state, tribals versus non-tribals and tribals versus other tribals. Conflicts revol...