Category: KanglaOnline

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 I Ibohanbi  expressed that HIV/AIDS policy of the state which was instituted in 1996 has become outdated.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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By Chitra Ahanthem
One wise saying has this for people to ponder over: you fear what you don`™t know. And if there is one stage of life where fear plays a central part, it is the world of childhood where in each one of us try to make sense of the outer world. The growing up years is when we want to explore our surroundings yet scared to step out. It is also the stage when grown up people in their own beliefs of protecting us or trying to steer us out of trouble, tend to fill our ears with stories of doom and punishment. I am pretty sure that most our parents or family elders used the medium of stories to scare the living day lights out of children in the belief that they would be more obedient (with the threat of punishment with `proof` from stories).

The scare factor in my younger years was Tapta. Looking at the story now, one cannot help but be impressed by the very basic premise of Tapta: a creature that does not exist with the two main protagonists (the tiger and the thief) both believing the worst of this non-existing creature. But the narrative power of the story when the mother trying to soothe down her wailing baby says `tapta laak ae` (Tapta has come) and the immediate aftermath of the child stopping its wails immediately builds up the suspense of this `creature` and how hideous and mean it would be in its appearance. Lai khutshaangbi was another creature who made the windows in our house assume a very terrifying structure. The thought of a long stretchable arm that would swoop down on `children who do not behave` looked like a reality given my rebellious nature. Since there were no comic books then with local fables, it was our imaginations that drew our own mental pictures of the ogress with the stretchable arms. For me, she was someone with bloodshot eyes, unkempt straw like hair and hands that would go on and on. I remember a part of me trying to visualize how she would have rested her long arms when she tried to sleep. My imagination failed me but made up with the heart stopping terror of being lifted away. When my grand father told me that the `red` patch that we find in sugarcane is actually the blood of the lai khutshangbi after a father of a child cut her arms off, it bred more questions for me: would her arms grow back? No one gave me any answer and that scared me further. Thinking of an injured ogress meant conjuring the image of a very angry woman who would want revenge!

Yet, Tapta and Lai khutshaangbi sounded more mythical but with Churanthaaba, it was a different chapter altogether. Here was another entity whose features we were not told about, a being who was supposed to go about with a huge sack to collect unruly children. One major concern that occupied a lot of thought was what would happen to the children so caught. But the scariest `explanation` about what happened to the children caught by Churanthaaba was that they were being used as sacrifices while building huge bridges. The elders in the family said that Thong Nambobi (the humped bridge that connects Waheng Leikai with the bazaar area) was full of children!

I can only laugh at my naivete then. Yet, the fear of these entities were more or less shared by many of our generation and earlier. With later generations of children bred on story-books and fables, the terror made out by fictional characters just does not stay since they would discover much earlier in life that they were make belief. With TV and cartoon shows and video games exposing them to visual imagery, they did not have their imaginations creating a greater atmosphere of fear. They have no baggage of heart stopping terror of the unknown. Rather, they come up with startling conjectures. I remember my now 6-year-old son coming back from his school about a year ago. He looked very excited as he blurted it all out in a rush, `Mama, Tapta does exist! He sings songs. One is called `sambru`™ (mole)!` He was connecting the fictional Tapta with the singer`™s artistic identity and that was his discovery for me to acknowledge.

End-point:
Child psychologists may not approve of the tendency of parents and elders to tell children about scary characters or stories. Also, there is a certain feeling of being let down when we discover that our elders have often lied to us to make us behave for often, the stories were not often told as mere stories. Rather, they were used to scare us into `behaving`. Of course, it is now a different story altogether for the children we see around us now. Their world reflects the environment around them. The sad reality for them though is that their world of bandhs, blockades, murder, gun violence and more is scarier than the make belief characters our own parents told us about.

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IMPHAL May 29: Charges have been alleged upon the Khadi and Village Industries Commission for misconduct and nepotism in regard to awarding of work tenders by the Comission officials.

A reliable source revealed that a `drama`™ was staged at KVIC office by its officials and selection committee members on May 27 with respect to engaging of an agency for data collection and data entry for electronic tracking system for Prime Minister Employment Generation Program (PMEGP) units under the Ministry of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises, Govt. of India.

A tender notification in respect of engaging the agency for data collection and data entry for e-tracking system for PMEGP units was published in local dailies calling for willing Agencies (DEA) to apply for the bid. According to the tender documents issued to the applicants for the bid,it was mentioned that the applicants has to undergo initial scrutiny for fulfillment of basic requirements, secondly for the technical appraisal where a bidder is required to make presentation of their company`™s profile, experience and also the methodology to be adopted for conducting the assignment and thirdly the applicants who have been shortlisted after the technical appraisal would be notified and thus qualify for opening of the financial bid.

The source maintained that ,four agencies (bidders) namely MANITRON, Computer Gallery, Capital Information Technology Park and Green Foundation had applied for the said tender. Although, all four agencies assembled last Friday at 1 pm as per direction by the Khadi and Village Industries Commission office staff, out of the four agencies, only one had been singled out and called in the selection committee room and witnessed the selection process and later the bid was also awarded in its favor namely Green Foundation. The remaining three Agencies was confined to another room for two hours only to be called in to pronounce that they have awarded the tender to the agency.

The source pointing out the discrepancies stated that out of four agencies, three were not allowed participation in the opening of the sealed tender documents which was supposed to be an open tender. Secondly none of the three agencies had not made presentation of their company profile, experience and also the methodology to be adopted for conducting the assignment which was a prerequisite for the technical bid. Thirdly, the remaining three agencies have not been intimated which agency qualified the technical bid. The source questioned how the selection committee could open the technical bids and financial bids without the knowledge of majority of the tender applicants,and such action points out the ignorance of the selection committee members and KVIC staffs.

Although the profiles of the selection committee members was not informed to the agencies, it is assumed that officials from different government department were on the selection committee. The majority of the applicants felt whether there were any motivating factors for the selection committee members to act in such a fashion. Values and duties of the participating agencies have been completely ignored. From the aforesaid points competence of the selection committee members is doubted and favoritism might have occurred in awarding the said tender, it alleged.

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TORONTO, May 30: From May 23-25, Nobel Peace Laureates Jody Williams, Shirin Ebadi and Mairead Maguire led an unprecedented conference in Canada, to develop strategies for ending rape as a weapon of war.
According to a statement from Mary D Khuvung of Control Arms Foundation of India, they were joined by over 120 civil society activists, corporate and security sector leaders, military and peacekeeping personnel, and academics to discuss and share ideas at the conference, entitled Women Forging a New Security: Ending Sexual Violence in Conflict.
 According to Nobel Women`s Initiative who organised the Conference, “Sexual violence takes place in every region of the world, with the reasons for its use varying from conflict to conflict. It has been used as a tactic to terrorize communities suspected of supporting guerrilla forces, as a way to force population off land, and to punish human rights defenders”, it added.
 “Waging war on the bodies of women has got to stop,” says Jody Williams, who won the 1997 Nobel Peace Prize for her work to end anti-personnel landmines. “Like any tactic of war, it can be eliminated.The magnitude of the problem must be matched by our collective effort. Working together, we can finally bring an end to this scourge on women and their communities.”
 The statement also stated that Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and honorary member of the Nobel Women`s Initiative, Aung San Suu Kyi also sent a video message emphasizing the critical importance of ending sexual violence in conflict.
 On 26 May, which was declared as international day of action against sexual violence in conflict, the three Nobel Peace Laureates called upon concerned people and nations from around the world to TAKE A STAND to end rape in war, it added.
 Binalakshmi Nepram, Founder of the Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network who participated in the conference spoke about the situation in Manipur and in India`s Northeast Region and the non-violent ways of unique protests in which women in Manipur and Northeast India have undertaken to respond to sexual violence against women in conflict zones, the statement added.
 A declaration was also unanimously adopted at the historic conference which called up Government of India, Manipur and other Northeast Indian states and also to non-state armed groups to stop violence against women in conflict areas and work to protect women.
According to the statement, the conference has resolved that, “We, 120 women from 33 countries including three women Nobel Peace Laureates gathered at the conference “Women Forging a New Security: Ending Sexual Violence in Conflict” in Montebello, Canada, May 23-25, 2011, call upon the Governments of India and the state of Manipur and other Northeast Indian states and non-state armed groups operating in the region to end violence against women in Manipur and Northeast India. We declare our solidarity with Irom Sharmila and hundreds of thousands of women in Manipur and India`s Northeast region who have non-violently resisted militarization in the name of insurgency and counter-insurgency. We call upon the Government of India to uphold its democratic values by repealing the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act of 1958. We call on all parties to cease attacks on the civilian population and seek peaceful solutions”.

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