Category: KanglaOnline

IMPHAL, May 9: The Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha Manipur Pradesh and BJP Mahila Morcha, Manipur Pradesh today launched a two day Pad Yatra (awareness rally) from the BJP office located at Nytaipat chuthek Imphal.The awareness rally which is participated by office bearers and party members was flagged off by the BJP state unit president Shantikumar Sharma this morning. Speaking to media persons the BJP president said that this awareness rally will proceed to all seven segments of Imphal Municipal Council and during the rally the members will spread the main aim and objective of the party. He further said that even though the rally was launched as one, participants will form two parties and head towards two different directions.He further added that the Mahila Morcha of the party will proceed towards Keishamthong and Yaiskul Kendra while the Yuva Morcha will proceed towards Sagolband, Uripok, Thangmeiband and Wangkhei.The Mahila Morcha will be rallying under the moto “Welfare for the Manipur Women Community”.While speaking to mediapersons during the rally, All India BJP Mahila Morch vice president Adhikarimayum Sarda demanded the government to check the price rise which has affected the general public and to stop domestic violence against women.She also demanded the government to punish black marketers and hoarders and to supply PDS items regularlyFurther speaking on the street vendor issue, she maintained that the government should bring an amicable solution to the issue at the earliest in the interest of the families of the vendors.She also demanded to take up welfare measurement for the widows of the state.In the meantime the “Pad Yatra” organnised by the Yuva Morcha under theme “join BJYM- Save Manipur” proceeded with the rally under the banner ‘we stand for: unity and integrity of Manipur, protection of the territorial integrity of Manipur; peace and prosperity; a clean government; rooting out corruption, scam and scandals; development of sports and free from drugs.

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IMPHAL, May 22: The secretary of Manipur Legislature’s Forum on HIV and AIDS (MLFA) and MLA of Oinam Assembly Constituency Dr. I Ibohanbi  expressed that HIV/AIDS policy of the state which was instituted in 1996 has become outdated.
The MLA was speaking at a One- day Constituency Covention on HIV and AIDS held at Namdunlong Baptist Church near Khuman Lampak today.
The convention was attended by MPCC president G. Gaikhangam and MTDC chairman and the MLA of Henglep constituency T. Manga Vaiphei and UNAIDS state coordinator Sushil Huidrom. Ibohanbi further stated that there are many programmes which are aimed at the benefits of persons living with HIV/AIDS.
To revised the HIV State Policy, a draft review has been prepared with consultation of Manipur Aids Control Society. The draft review will be brought to the attention of the state assembly and hopefully a new state policy will be passed. He also mentioned that to facilitate detection of HIV syndrome, the state govt. has also plans to purchase machinery to installed in all the district hospitals of the state. This will save, afford and facilitate the affected persons in the far flung districts.
Speaking as chief guest G. Gaikhangam stated that the means to control the HIV pandemic lies within the public and how informed they are about the virus. In the globalized world one has to refrain from stigmatizing the affected persons as HIV positive status can be compared with a person having diabetics or high blood pressure.
He said that with proper care and medication one need not die due to the affection of HIV prematurely.  He mantains such awareness programme as higly beneficial to the public in spreading awareness, and such through programme the public thus can understand the means of protecting oneself from being affected.

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Nothing should have come as more shocking than the news splashed on the front pages of local dailies today that an underground activist caught in the act of extortion turned out to be a personnel of the India Reserved Battalion, IRB, an armed constabulary of the Manipur government. This is also not the first time such a thing has happened, and indeed the Manipur police constabularies have come to have the extremely disparaging reputation of being infiltrated by various militant groups in a big way. If propriety was the rule of the game, today’s development should have even demanded the resignation of the top executive of the state, the chief minister, Okram Ibobi, himself, or at least his home minister, under whom the police department comes. Unfortunately, Okram Ibobi is also the home minister just as he is also the finance minister. He cannot in his capacity as chief minster possibly fire himself in his other avatar as home minister. In all likelihood, not to speak of heads rolling at the ministerial level, it is quite predictable that not even any of the senior police officers, the DGP included, would he held accountable for what should be described not only as shameful, but also dangerous development in equal measure, in the police department. But then, in the power corridors of Manipur, and indeed all over the country, shame and accountability are terms which have been deliberately erased from official lexicon. It is only recently that strong civil society and media pressures which made the Central government to think of introducing some semblance of accountability and discipline in public administration and public finance handling by those in power. Peripheral states like Manipur, however, are still blissfully left untouched by these waves.
The manner in which militant plants have been routinely discovered in the Manipur Police constabularies in the past one decade should have raised the alarm long ago. There must be something very wrong with the department. In all likelihood, as we had pointed out earlier, a lot of this is happening because of unprecedented corruption in the recruitment process during the period. It is known to everybody that today the bribe price of even the job of a constable in the Manipur police is as high as Rs. 3 lakhs. The price for sub-inspectors and inspectors can go up as high as Rs. 10 lakhs. This certainly would have some very serious implications, the most obvious of which is, those recruited would want to recover the bribe amount they had been made to pay, and this can only be done from means other than their salaries. Money being such a corrupting influence, once someone’s conscience has been breached by it, there is no turning back. So the ordinary newly recruited constable who recovered his money by corrupt means available to his profession and rank, would get addicted to his corrupt ways. Others probably end up seeking quicker ways of making money by joining the extortion racket introduced by the proliferating number of militant organisations.
There is however a scenario much more sinister. Since these jobs can be had by paying a bribe price, resourceful underground organisations can easily invest the money necessary to pay the bribe to infiltrate this key department of the government. This understandably would be far more convenient for the militants, as there would be no commotion over use of coercion, thereby leaving the infiltration process much quieter and shielded from public view or suspicion. Corruption in this way probably would have opened up the backdoor so wide that a lot of undesirable elements walked into government’s vital security and counter insurgency organs without a fuss. The pattern and frequency at which personnel of the Manipur Police have been found involved in the very crimes they are recruited to fight, certainly points towards this direction. What is now needed is a massive cleanup exercise. What is even more urgently needed is to fix accountability through a high level judicial probe. However, even before a probe is instituted, the redemption process should begin with the top executives of the state’s concerned department owning moral responsibility, and welcoming penalty, including resignation from the posts they hold, for indeed they have failed miserably. However, this is unlikely ever to be, considering the thickness of skin of those in power. Instead, at the most some scapegoats among lower and mid-ranked officers of the department would be found and transferred or suspended from service for some time to pacify public outrage. The bigger irony is, those thus suspended would also not see this as a punishment but a paid holiday. What a shame!

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IMPHAL, May 24: `Setting up of Guwahati Campus of the prestigious Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai, Deemed University, to cater to the North Eastern Region is one of the most positive development in education sector in the Region` in the recent past , said B.K. Handique, union Minister of DoNER at New Delhi. `It is heartening to learn that without waiting for physical infrastructure to come up, TISS has already chalked out a programme to begin two Masters Programmes from July-August, 2011 and 5 years integrated Masters Programme on Social Sciences from June, 2012,` he added.

According to an emailed statement of the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region, when government of Assam, at the initiative of Tarun Gogoi, Chief Minister of Assam, proposed to the ministry of DoNER for allotting funds under NLCPR towards the infrastructure cost of the institute at Guwahati, B.K. Handique, Minister of DoNER readily agreed and approved, in principle, to release Rs.81 crore towards the project. Assam Government has already identified the land required for the above purpose, it stated.

Five years integrated Masters Programme on Social Sciences will have 120 students per year. Thus, there would be 600 students in five years. This programme is scheduled to start from June, 2012. During 4th and 5th year of the Course, there will be specialization in inter- disciplinary areas like Human Resource Management, Social Enterprises, Public Health Counselling, Education, Social Work and Sustainable Mountain Development. In addition to above programmes, TISS is also finalizing to take up several Certificate and Diploma Programmes from August, 2011, it added.

`Meanwhile, the University Grants Commission has already approved the proposed setting up of Guwahati campus by TISS` said the Minister of DoNER. He also said that out of the 220 total seats, (120 for Under Graduation and 100 for Post Graduate) per year, 2/3rd of the seats will be reserved for students from the NE States. Thus, it makes 146 seats available for the students from the Region i.e. 80 for Under Graduation and 66 for Post Graduation, the Minister said.

B.K. Handique has also stated that he would like TISS to start Campus in other States of North Eastern Region in phases over a period of time so that the required skills for the North Eastern students can be imparted over the development of the region, it maintained.

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