Manipur News

IMPHAL June 12: The Shija Hospital and Research Institute today observed its fifth anniversary while side by side launching ‘Mission Myanmar’ today.

The programme which was held at the hospital premise was attended by health minister L Jayanta and Mamtaa Carrol, program manager of Smile Train (Eastern Zone) among other dignitaries.

The Smile Train project sponsored by the Smile Train Incorporated, a US based NGO was taken up by Shija Hospital and in course of time many individuals mainly children having cleft lip and palate in the state have been operated on.

Under the project Shija hospital has performed 1927 cleft operations. Of these 20 percent were conducted outside the state including in Myanmar.

Managing director of SHRI, Dr Kh Palin stated that the project will be taken up in the neighboring country Myanmar starting from June 28 to extend the campaign, he said that there are numerous cleft and palate cases in the country which are left unaddressed due to lack of surgeons and only one surgeon from Thailand has been treating the cases in the country.

It is also speculated that Myanmar must be having around 50,000 to 60,000 cleft lip and palate cases out of its 15 million population with most of them requiring operation.

Palin said that the patients of Myanmar go to Thailand for surgery which is costly and time consuming.

“ Since the treatment we offer is free of cost and the close vicinity between Manipur and Myanmar would prove much effective in addressing the cases”, he said.

The campaign will also be extended to Tripura, Nagaland and Cachar.

Health minister L Jayentakumar attending the anniversary celebration as the chief guest assured that necessary help would be extended to Shija Hospital’s Mission Myanmar.

“We’ll be extending necessary help if required”, he said before adding, “I will make my own arrangement to attend the forthcoming programs”.

Expressing the need to mobilize the human resources of the region, the minister also provided a brief update on the latest status of the proposed Imphal-Mandalay bus service which was initiated when he was transport minister. Besides he also informed the gathering particularly the media that NEDFI had agreed to take up a medicinal and aromatic plant project in the state.

Mamtaa Carrol, program manager of Smile Train (Eastern Zone) attending the STCP anniversary while sharing on a similar sentiment, said,”Our project has no boundary as we are moving forward for a cleft free society. So it should be made mandatory to send persons with cleft cases from Myanmar to Manipur without any hesitation otherwise there would be no meaning of the Look East Policy”.

A Myanmarese citizen Sabilal (52),a resident of Tamu township who had been waiting his turn for the free operation at Shija said,”I’m happy now as I would get proper operation here”. He is among nine Myanmarese patients who have come down to Imphal for treatment of various ailments.

Read more / Original news source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Kanglaonline/~3/61MXG7YGJ5c/

IMPHAL June 12: The Shija Hospital and Research Institute today observed its fifth anniversary while side by side launching ‘Mission Myanmar’ today.

The programme which was held at the hospital premise was attended by health minister L Jayanta and Mamtaa Carrol, program manager of Smile Train (Eastern Zone) among other dignitaries.

The Smile Train project sponsored by the Smile Train Incorporated, a US based NGO was taken up by Shija Hospital and in course of time many individuals mainly children having cleft lip and palate in the state have been operated on.

Under the project Shija hospital has performed 1927 cleft operations. Of these 20 percent were conducted outside the state including in Myanmar.

Managing director of SHRI, Dr Kh Palin stated that the project will be taken up in the neighboring country Myanmar starting from June 28 to extend the campaign, he said that there are numerous cleft and palate cases in the country which are left unaddressed due to lack of surgeons and only one surgeon from Thailand has been treating the cases in the country.

It is also speculated that Myanmar must be having around 50,000 to 60,000 cleft lip and palate cases out of its 15 million population with most of them requiring operation.

Palin said that the patients of Myanmar go to Thailand for surgery which is costly and time consuming.

“ Since the treatment we offer is free of cost and the close vicinity between Manipur and Myanmar would prove much effective in addressing the cases”, he said.

The campaign will also be extended to Tripura, Nagaland and Cachar.

Health minister L Jayentakumar attending the anniversary celebration as the chief guest assured that necessary help would be extended to Shija Hospital’s Mission Myanmar.

“We’ll be extending necessary help if required”, he said before adding, “I will make my own arrangement to attend the forthcoming programs”.

Expressing the need to mobilize the human resources of the region, the minister also provided a brief update on the latest status of the proposed Imphal-Mandalay bus service which was initiated when he was transport minister. Besides he also informed the gathering particularly the media that NEDFI had agreed to take up a medicinal and aromatic plant project in the state.

Mamtaa Carrol, program manager of Smile Train (Eastern Zone) attending the STCP anniversary while sharing on a similar sentiment, said,”Our project has no boundary as we are moving forward for a cleft free society. So it should be made mandatory to send persons with cleft cases from Myanmar to Manipur without any hesitation otherwise there would be no meaning of the Look East Policy”.

A Myanmarese citizen Sabilal (52),a resident of Tamu township who had been waiting his turn for the free operation at Shija said,”I’m happy now as I would get proper operation here”. He is among nine Myanmarese patients who have come down to Imphal for treatment of various ailments.

Read more / Original news source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Kanglaonline/~3/61MXG7YGJ5c/

If men were good, there would be no need for governments, James Madison, the third President of the United States of America, and one of the founding fathers of the country’s constitution famously said in charting out the philosophy by which the American constitution was to be written. The innate suspicion of man’s basic nature may be contrary to the idealistic teachings of religions, but it has nonetheless proven to be an effective mantra for governance. Madison’s prescription for America definitely would cure a lot of the ills of any government anywhere in the world. The Manipur administration too could use some of it much to its benefit. If it had understood the significance of the statement in its letter and spirit, it might have been able not only to anticipate but also draw up effective administrative measures to prevent what happened at Tentha last year, whereby Hindu villagers burnt down a church built in the village by Christian converts amongst them. No, we are not talking about preventing conflict situations by beefing up security or through other intimidatory shows of state power, but through un-intrusive social engineering that takes into consideration that differences in faith, ethnicity etc, can easily translate into social friction and even conflicts.

Given the administrative foresight, religious or ethnic frictions do not have to be much more than mere civic problems, well within the power of the civil administration to handle. In fact it is the duty of a secular government not to allow any of its social problems to escalate beyond the civic. It is a limitation of imagination that makes secularism seen only in terms of the doctrine of tolerance. The term tolerance itself implies putting up with something one is not altogether too pleased with. Rather than this, secularism should be more about good impartial and farsighted administration that keeps in mind that men are not angels or saints. Supposing the government were to enact a legislation restricting the building of public places of worship, be it a temple, church, mosque or synagogue in residential areas and opening it only to government approved sites, no problem of civil religious strife would have arisen? One might not have anything against living next door to a Hindu, Christian, Muslim or a Jew, but if the followers of any of these faiths decide to convert his house into a public temple or church the next day and have congregations singing bhajan or performing midnight masses, it is likely to rub many other neighbours the wrong way. The Manipur government, and so too a large section of the public, in their obtuse sense of secularism, have been ignoring this particular dynamics behind conflicts. Mark our words, given the rapidity with which public places of worship are sprouting, if the administration does not take care to rectify this oversight, religious frictions in the state, not necessarily Hindus pitted against Christians, but in any permutation or combination of the religions practised in the state, are likely to escalate. After all, as Madison implied, men are not angels, and it is a senseless conflict resolution strategy to simply curse that men are not angels.

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By Robin S Ngangom

Having lost it
How could I celebrate my independence
Though I’ve sewn flags on cockeyed schooldays?
Margins are superfluous in the big centre’s book
Although memory is not silent and speaks up at times.

Now the periphery (of which I’m also a guilty part)
Is scrawling a unique history on delusive margins,
Mischievous like a collage by brawling painters.
Once lebensraum has sunk to pogroms
The periphery can murder too
And then deal peace cards on the table
Or hoist a nation’s flag in driving rain.
On the continuum of farce
It doesn’t matter if we’re moving forward or backward
Or if a government is serving rats on its menu.
The morning passes with a prime minister orating
From the ramparts of a fort,
“Make the borders irrelevant,” he said a year ago.
It never occurred to him to disguise himself and ask
The man on the street about his unhappiness.

On the road outside shut down by insurgents
Aimless now in its bafflement
Trees and lamps are breathing fog and a light rain.
This day passes between surfing for news of theoutside world,
Statistics of farmers committing suicide on the weaverbelt
And the poor waiting for paper to translate into bread
After discovering that a law has been enacted for them
Which finds all of them culpable for shaming thenation.
And fifty years of discrimination festering in theperiphery
With another anniversary of murder and disappearances.

I’ve been told that I live on the edge
By intellectuals who also teach me
The history and politics of far away countries.
I have to take their word on faith, being so unread.
I don’t know if I’m shallow with little inner life.

I try not to book a flat in the city of the sky
But meditate brokenly on love and its players
Although it gave me a terrible fright the other day.
I merely silenced her shame with my mouth
And remain a freeloader of passion from its web.

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IMPHAL, June 10: Decrying government inaction in the case of continued looting at the shops located in the heart of Imphal city and demanding to adequate security today, shopkeepers and owners in the Paona Bazaar area staged a protest by pulling down shutters today. 

The protest of the Paona bazaar shopkeepers and owners was staged following another incident of theft at the high security bazar area.

‘Mobile planet’ belonging to one Y Surjit of Uripok dealing in mobile phone handset was found looted this morning and following the incident all shops shut down shutters to mark a protest.

Speaking to media person he said that he found his shop looted by unknown persons this early morning at around 6:30 after he was informed by his  friends which is located under the city police station in heart of the Imphal city.

He further said that the looters had carried away various company phone including high rate and low which Nokia, Samsung, LG Max and others, cost round about 9.65 lakhs. And further said that it is very unfortunate to say that how such thing is happen inside the present of tight security management in heart of Imphal city. And appealed the concerned authority to tighten up security measurement in the heart of Imphal city in the interest of business persons.

In the meantime it may be mentioned that yesterday two electronic enterprises ‘Sunrise and Chongtham Brothers’ located in Paona bazaar under the city police was also found looted.

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Leader Writer: Sukham Nanda
The State Vigilance Commission, Manipur was set up with an objectives to ensure partial and clean administrations in every departments of the state. Its scope however extend to matters within the executive jurisdiction of the State Government, investigation and enquiries into corruption and misconduct of public servants as laid in the Resolution for setting up the Vigilance Commission.

The responsibility of Vigilance rests primarily on the department concerned. It is for the heads of the department to identify corrupt element in their organizations and deal with them firmly, besides to assist the head of departments to identify corrupt element, a Vigilance unit each headed by an ex-Officio Vigilance officer at the Secretariat and Head of department level had set up in every Government office with the recommendation of the State Vigilance Commission to ensure that employee maintains utmost honesty and integrity and to identify corrupt elements in the department, to keep a watch on the activities of the employees suspected of corruption, malpractice or misconduct and also to initiate prompt action and persue all cases, where there are reasonable ground for suspicion or where corrupt, malpractice or misconduct exists.

In fact, the role of the Commission undertakes general check and supervision over all vigilance and anti-corruption works in the state. It causes investigation to be made into any act of the public servant involving corruption, lack of integrity, misdemeanour, misconduct or malpractice. On receipt of the investigation report and after examination, the Commission advises the disciplinary authorities about the type of proceedings, if any, to be initiated. In the cases where the Commissioner, Departmental Enquiries is appointed as Inquiry Officer by the state government, the report are submitted to the Village Commissioner. The Commission also advises the government whenever and wherever necessary about improvement in procedures and practices.

No error has seen in framing the rules regulations of the commission and commission on the other hand taken up multiple numbers of cases as it has been witnessed during this last few years that some improvement in response of the Administrative Department to reference from the Commission and departments have to play a more effective role in starting departmental enquiries on the recommendations of the commission, and in ensuring that the departmental enquiries are completed deditiously and guilty officials need to be punished promptly.

Officially or unofficially it has known that the normal functioning of the state Vigilance Commission in terms of case hearing involving high ranking officers of the department were quite oftenly interfere in the forms of directions / commands from the external elements and even from the ministers and MLA, which causes delaying in the disposal of the case or kept the case pending for more than four five years.

Even though there is State Vigilance department to investigate the cases related to the corruptions and malpractices etc. in very government departments of the state and the Commission is there to conduct enquires of the reported cases but the increasing trends of corruptions, malpractices, lack of integrity and misconducts in various major government departments are still witnessed. This shows that no practice prevalent for surprise check on offices, on works undertaken except by the Audit and it is felt that the government should introduce an effective system of annual inspection to detect long pending cases, as also to find out malpractices, exercise or non-exercise of power for improper or corrupt purposes etc.so that the importance of the existence of state Vigilance department and constitution of the state Vigilance Commission could be achieved in the state.

Thus it is very much require to strengthen the powers and functions of state Vigilance Department by deputing adequate manpower and letting the state Vigilance Commission to conduct its enquiries independently by preventing back-door interferences from the outside elements so that the objective of maintaining partial and clean administrations in every government departments could be restored to some extend in future to come.

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