Day: April 8, 2014

The Editors’ Guild of Manipur recently organised a gathering in connection with the forthcoming Lok Sabha election. This was to facilitate an interface with the candidates of the Outer Parliamentary Constituency with the media and representatives of civil organisations. What is encouraging is that the session was held with the initiative from the Chief Electoral Officer of the state. Interface like this one is the first of its kind to be organised under the aegis of an election authority. The election office has been taking a proactive role beyond their conventional duty of administering a smooth conduct of the election. Besides the herculean task that they have to shoulder at the time of election, this time the authority has taken effort to bring awareness among the electorates about their rights as voters. The importance of mass media has been taken into account for their integral role in disseminating not only what is considered as news, but also in the role of instilling  a sense of debate and thereby enabling an informed choice among the public. Mass media like the radio has been extensibly employed in the current electoral exercise by the election office. One can often get to hear songs of election lyrics rendered by renowned local artist of Manipur over the radio.  These songs are skillfully inserted between the news at seven-thirty of the All India Radio Imphal, clearly an attempt to make it reach to a wider sphere of public as news at this hour is hardly missed by the listeners across the state. In addition to the songs there are also quick dramatic dialogues enacted as casual conversation between husband and wife, or among two friends discussing relatable issues of election. At the end of the day it is at the disposal of the public to make sense out of the awareness drive that has been carried out at the cost of tax payers’ money. Nonetheless the effort made by the election office is indeed appreciable.
During the interface ‘Meet the Candidate 16th Lok Sabha Election 2014’, half of the ten candidates failed to turn up for the occasion. The incumbent MP of the Outer Parliamentary Constituency was present in the interface unexpectedly as speculations were doing the round that he would not turn up. He obviously attracted most of the questions during the session. Responding to one of the questions, he had confessed that it is ‘difficult’ to solve all the problems that the state has been facing. We cannot but agree with him that a five year period is too short to solve all the problems. At one point he also said that the Local Area Development Fund earmarked for each MP is too little to meet the demands of the constituencies which he represents. That is also agreed. Further, a hill based journalist requested him to point out at least one development project that he had taken up in the hill districts during his five year tenure. The journalist was specifically hinting at Senapati area where his paper was based.  Mr. Baite clearly fumbled while replying to the particular question. His reply was that he could not exactly remember the detail of the project. But he assured the journalist that a detailed report would be furnished after consulting with his staff. We would say that was the last straw. All the previous explanations that he had given regarding the meagre amount of funds, the time limitation of five years in bringing about development all turn out to be a parroting shade to sweep under all the baggage of incompetency that he carry as a representative. On a different question, Mr. Baite answered that it is not possible to take part in the parliamentary debate owing to its complicated procedures. We thank the CEO Manipur for encouraging such sessions. Let us all together make it more vibrant.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2014/04/meet-your-candidate-2/

A general strike was called at the beginning of this month. This was to do with the death of a young woman somewhere from Thoubal Achouba Bamon leirak. She was found death, hanging in the bathroom. The locality suspected of foul play. They rejected the suicide account as told by the family of the woman’s in laws. As usual, a JAC was formed to protest against the death. The JAC submitted a memorandum to the Chief Minister demanding immediate arrest of whosoever had a hand in the alleged crime. They have also reportedly demanded of handing over the case to the CBI. Apparently, there was no positive response from the side of the Chief Minister. This was in spite of the fact that the voice of resentment was raised from the CM’s own Assembly Constituency. As evident the CM is currently immersed in the election campaign of the Parliamentary Election which is only a few days away. He and his party MLAs’ are seemingly confident of harvesting winning numbers from the Assembly constituencies which they currently represent in the Manipur Assembly. Their campaigns, as far as the inner seat is concern, has been by and large focused at areas where they have failed to get expected number of votes in the last Assembly election. The CM must have comfortably sidelined the demands of the JAC from his home turf. His loving electorates are swept aside for the interest of retaining the seat in the Inner Parliamentary Constituency. Those of Mr Ibobi’s critic who have been accusing him of being ‘Thoubal centric’ in his outlook and approach, and that he has been abundantly kind to his Thoubal voters in job recruitment will have to eat their words.  There is a joke about Bangalore, the silicon valley of India. In Bangalore, if you throw up a stone in the air the probability of the stone falling on the head of a software engineer is high all the time. In similar vein, if you throw a stone to any of the state security personnel either standing in a group by the roadside, or to those roving in their vehicles for duty – chances are that the stone will hit someone from Thoubal in most of the counts.
Feeling dejected over the CM’s cold response to their demands the JAC along with the civil organisations called a general strike from the midnight of April 1. Declaring the strike the JAC had sought public support to mount pressure on the government. We do not wish to question the wisdom of the JAC in demanding a CBI enquiry into the incident. Though their resolution of demanding an enquiry of that level has figments of immaturity and impulsiveness on their part, the JAC in their appeal for support from the public seemed to have wedded to the larger issue of crime against women and children. The demand or their point of contention could have been more pinpointed by homing in to the crux of the crime and its possible leads instead of anchoring on a larger issue, which undeniably has been a pressing concern in the present context of crimes that has been happening in Manipur. On the other hand, the strike was called with the support from most of the civil organisations of the state. What is noteworthy is that the ‘all Manipur general strike’ was met with a lukewarm response from the public. There was no effect of the strike in Imphal and other places. Accept for the fact that the strike was confined at some pockets of Thoubal. This is not the only case where we have seen protest increasingly getting choked within the confines of the victim’s locality. Is it that the state and its machineries have become shrewd enough to blunt the voice of protest wherever they wish? Or is it that the people have lost all empathy for a crime meted out to their fellow beings? And more importantly, has the people become skeptic of the functioning of the civil organisations, which has to do with their calls for public support in the time of need et al? As for us, the answer is affirmative for all questions.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2014/04/fragmented-voices-2/