By Amar Yumnam While I wish everyone a Prosperous New Year, I do Pray that 2018 be a year of robust communal harmony, social peace and individual happiness. I am both conscious and conscientious when I make this wish for Manipur in the year just starting the day this piece appears. What 2018 turns out […]
By Amar Yumnam While I wish everyone a Prosperous New Year, I do Pray that 2018 be a year of robust communal harmony, social peace and individual happiness. I am both conscious and conscientious when I make this wish for Manipur in the year just starting the day this piece appears. What 2018 turns out […]
Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2018/01/the-year-ahead-should-be-a-year-of-consolidation-for-manipur/
By Amar Yumnam When the Classical period of the grand thinking of the Adam Smith and his followers was over, and particularly after the high rise of the post-Classicals, grand theories became dominant rather than grand thinking. Rising inequality and financial crises in recent years have made the world return to the period of grand […]
By Amar Yumnam When the Classical period of the grand thinking of the Adam Smith and his followers was over, and particularly after the high rise of the post-Classicals, grand theories became dominant rather than grand thinking. Rising inequality and financial crises in recent years have made the world return to the period of grand […]
Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2017/12/first-mover-policy-framing-and-theoretical-empirics-of-trade-it-is-much-more-than-literacy/
By Amar Yumnam A few weeks ago, I had written in this very column appreciating the commitment and robust attempts by Biren as Chief Minister to bring about real world socio-politico-economic changes in Manipur. I had also written “that Biren is functioning under heavy constraints.” Then I had emphasised the fiscal constraints amongst others that […]
By Amar Yumnam A few weeks ago, I had written in this very column appreciating the commitment and robust attempts by Biren as Chief Minister to bring about real world socio-politico-economic changes in Manipur. I had also written “that Biren is functioning under heavy constraints.” Then I had emphasised the fiscal constraints amongst others that […]
Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2017/12/et-tu-brute-governance-challenge-in-todays-manipur/
By Amar Yumnam What is the twenty-first century model of development thinking and development intervention? The world has already learnt lessons from attempts in understanding any society and evolving policies based on that understanding based on the colonial legacy. The most important bitter lesson is that all along the world has been trying to attempt […]
By Amar Yumnam What is the twenty-first century model of development thinking and development intervention? The world has already learnt lessons from attempts in understanding any society and evolving policies based on that understanding based on the colonial legacy. The most important bitter lesson is that all along the world has been trying to attempt […]
Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2017/11/pseudo-anglophone-model-manipurs-continuing-predicament/
By Amar Yumnam Manipur has just experienced the most significant Elections of this century. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century and till the 2012 Elections, these have been a rather one Party show. But this time there has emerged a more or less equally strong contender to the incumbent. While the complete outcome is […]
By Amar Yumnam Manipur has just experienced the most significant Elections of this century. Since the beginning of the twenty-first century and till the 2012 Elections, these have been a rather one Party show. But this time there has emerged a more or less equally strong contender to the incumbent. While the complete outcome is […]
Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2017/03/manipur-elections-2017-the-parties-and-the-lessons/
The post Manipur University and JAIR : International seminar in Imphal appeared first on KanglaOnline.com.Manipur,IMPHAL, August 16: Jadavpur Association of International Relations (JAIR), a non -profit NGO in association with Manipur University will…
The post Manipur University and JAIR : International seminar in Imphal appeared first on KanglaOnline.com.
Manipur,IMPHAL, August 16: Jadavpur Association of International Relations (JAIR), a non -profit NGO in association with Manipur University will host an international conference entitled “India and her neighbours: Revisiting relationships with Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Maldives”. General secretary of … Continue reading
The post Manipur University and JAIR : International seminar in Imphal appeared first on KanglaOnline.com.
Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/08/intl-seminar-in-imphal/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=intl-seminar-in-imphal
Esha Roy : Imphal, Mon May 07 2012, 00:26 hrs In one of the first… more »
Esha Roy : Imphal, Mon May 07 2012, 00:26 hrs
In one of the first such collaborations between the two very similar cultures, Manipuris and Thais, Manipur University will now teach English to Thai students. More projects are on the agenda as the universities of Manipur and Thailand are set to collaborate on a number of matters.
“On our visit to Thai universities last year, they discussed with us a need for their students to learn English. Despite having such a strong tourism industry, the Thais are very weak in English. Their primary aim is that the students be conversant in English so that they are able to deal with the increasing number of international tourists,” says Prof Amar Yumnam, Dean of Social Studies at Manipur University. He was part of the delegation that visited Thailand.
Prof Yumnam points out that Thai students start learning English, if at all, only after Class XII.
Dean of Students Welfare and English professor in charge of the project, Professor Ratan says the project will begin in this academic session starting in July. Nearly 40-50 students are likely to come for the first certificate course. “We are keeping the number limited since this is just a certificate course. We will look at an expansion only once this course is successful,” says Prof Ratan.
Manipur University signed an MoU with Surindra Rajabhat University in the Surin province of Thailand last year.
Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/05/thai-students-to-learn-english-in-manipur/
By: Amar Yumnam The basic purpose of having an administration and a governance system anywhere needs to be recalled and analysed at this moment of history when we are… Read more »
By: Amar Yumnam
The basic purpose of having an administration and a governance system anywhere needs to be recalled and analysed at this moment of history when we are celebrating six and a half decades of independence from foreign rule. This is because, despite the recent more or less impressive track record of good growth performance, the meecham praja (common people) seem to be at the receiving end of every mechanism of governance.
Manipur Scenario: The situation is worse in Manipur than elsewhere in the country. Whereas the rest of the country has reaped the benefits of modernisation, although the dispersal of the benefits has been an issue, the case is different in Manipur. We have not had the kind of economic expansion experienced elsewhere whereas we have had more than our share of the inflationary trends and growth disturbances. Further, while in the case of other States in the country there are people in the administration who are alive to the fundamental purpose of governance as facilitating the access to administration and livelihood efforts of the common people, we are pained to observe the complete reversal of this principle in the case of Manipur.
We can have multiples of daily life exemplars to drive home this subjugation of the common people. First look at the daily dose of alertness they have to have at their command in order just to be in the business areas of Imphal and cross the streets. They have to bear all the costs of insensitivity of the official vehicles and arrogance of the private ones as well. What I would love to see is the kind of scenario where my senior-citizen “mother” and my aged “father” would feel at home and cared for whenever they set foot in any area of the Imphal city; well, a very unlikely and unrealistic expectation.
I would consider myself as someone who is fairly conversant with own rights and responsibilities. I am also fairly conscious of how to resist encroachments into my personal space and rights arena. But pretending and behaving as if like any of the common men in the street in daily dealings and assert when violated has taught me how hard the daily lives of the commoners are in Manipur. Let me start with an example from an office of the Central government. In a personal post-paid mobile connection for which I have been religious in paying the due bills every month, there occurred recently an interesting development. Even after payment of the dues as reflected in the latest bill, there used to be reminders for payment of dues for at least three to four times a day for about ten days. In the beginning, I had the impression that it must be just machine problems or routine issues. But within a few days, I found all out-going calls barred besides the STD and ISD. When I had sent one of my office assistants to enquire into the status and reasons for the barring of all outgoing calls, two things of great interest emerged. First, the daily multiple reminders for payment of dues stopped immediately after the enquiry for reasons best known to the staff of the department only. Second, the concerned officials sent back my boy with explanations which any reasonable person can immediately establish as nothing more than a bluff. Dissatisfied and angered by this, I did call up a higher ranking officer of the department as a prelude to going for full scale grievance correction complaint. On his intervention, I got the barring removed. But that was not the end. The ISD and STD were still blocked. I had to go for another round of telephonic contacts to get the ISD and STD barring removed. Now the question that arises here is what might be happening in the case of a commoner who is not so conversant on the various recourses to actions to get his due services delivered.
Further, once the barring has been removed, why does not there exist a system whereby the connection is restored to its full functionality instead of requiring further contacts? Still further, it needs to ponder why the indulgence in full blown bluffing when an innocent person was enquiring about the issue. Similar experiences are undergone daily by the common people while dealing with the offices of the State government as well. Now these suppressive features of governance are superimposed on the rising difficulty of the common people to eke out their living. The rise in the prices of commodities of daily consumption in an atmosphere of shrinking livelihood opportunities is a reality everybody is living with.
Now the Resolve: Now in the celebration of the August 15, we need to be very sure of at least one resolve. There is no point in making many promises. The need of the hour is reminding ourselves the existence of a majority of the common people in circumstances un-conducive to their functionings. The administration would be doing a yeoman’s service if it at least resolves and ushers in a period where the facilitation of the survival of the common people is the yardstick of the success or otherwise of governance. We all should remember that not only do we all have a common beginning, but we also have a larger set of relatives among the commoners. Let us all try to facilitate each other’s existence, particularly of the commonest of the common people. Nobody would be a loser in this, and the society would be the gainer in terms of peace and stability.
Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/08/meecham-praja-the-forgotten-common-men-in-manipur/
By Amar Yumnam The winds of change are blowing the world over. Corruption and authoritarian regimes are under pressure in all the countries today. While in the earlier eras of… Read more »
By Amar Yumnam
The winds of change are blowing the world over. Corruption and authoritarian regimes are under pressure in all the countries today. While in the earlier eras of human evolution, people had little knowledge as to how and with what mechanism these evils were to be fought against, they now do have the mechanism as well as the medium for effectively putting this into application. For the first time in human history, the relative strengths of the leviathan and the public opinion have been put to real test. It has now been established that despite the look and perseverance of power, the leviathan is essentially vulnerable. Further it has been established that the ruling elite too are a very fragile group. Since they consist basically of self-serving individuals, whenever there is any groundswell of public anger there easily arises cracks in the veneer of consensus they profess to have. Now is the time when we could warn the powers that be anywhere with Jacques Necker (1792), finance minister to King Louis XVI of France, thus: “Only fools, pure theorists, or apprentices fail to take public opinion into account.”
While the officers in the security set-up may remain loyal to the power elite, we cannot expect the citizen army to be brutal on the fellow citizens whenever a formidable public movement arises. This was fully demonstrated in Manipur in the June 18 event and in the developments now marking the Arab world. When the movement possesses massive support, the size of the leviathan security forces makes no difference; the force of the security agencies gets neutralized.
Old But New: It is true that corruption has been an issue societies have had to fight against for a pretty long time. But, as mentioned earlier, people now have the methods to fight against it. At the global level, we already have the United Nations Convention Against Corruption. Further, unlike before, transparency and accountability are increasingly becoming the buzzwords of public demand.
When it comes to India, the reality really bites. While many countries have already ratified the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, India still remains one of the major laggards yet to ratify it, of the total. This is understandable of course. The recent events unfolding one scam after another and including the issues of money laundering in Swiss accounts speak of the reasons why India is still reticent about signing the convention. But it is going to be increasingly difficult for the power elite in this country to stop the global tide of movements against corruption with the power that modern information technology has given to the formation and assertion of public opinion. The very fact of the scams getting dug out by the news agencies testifies to the emerging trend in this country.
By any yardstick, the moral authority and public credibility of the Indiangovernment have already suffered a nose-dive consequent upon the exposure of the scams. Even the clean-image of the head of the people of the country has not only suffered a beating, he himself wears an injured look while facing the media. This is in sharp contrast to the image he commanded and confident posture he displayed while he was fathering the spate of economic reforms as minister responsible for looking after finances of the country.
Manipur Not Left Out: My colleague economist Elangbam Bijoykumar has recently interpreted the emerging economic scenario of Manipur. He forcefully and quite rationally explains the increasing hold of the contractors on the society of Manipur with construction emerging as a major component of the State’s economy. The contextual interpretation of this trend speaks of the unhealthy direction the society of Manipur is heading at an increasing speed.
But what is of utmost interest to social observers of the land is that the global and national trend of fresh wind blowing seems to have touched Manipur as well. In terms of capability to use force and indulge in manipulations to achieve the desired outcome, the present government in the province would have very few competitors. But the recent bye-election to an assembly seat held by a prominent member of the ruling party has turned out to be an eye-opener. It has established beyond doubt that the people of the land can and do hit back as when the situation compellingly demands. What only awaits the land is a spark that fires a collective sharing of public opinion simultaneously. Under pressure of public dissatisfaction, the provincial government seems to increasingly losing its grip over issues. The handling of the ongoing strike by the teachers and the statements being made in this regard only speak of absence of application of mind.
The Final Lesson: The key lesson emerging from both the international and provincial developments is singularly significant. It might take time for public opinion to coalesce, as many citizens would just sit back when the issues involved have elements of haziness. But when the regime perpetrates the excesses beyond a reasonable intensity and also beyond a tolerable time limit, it would definitely dawn on the people for the necessity to unite and assert aggressively. Once this dawn occurs, the public opinion alone would determine the course of history. What was unthinkable till yesterday would be the reality today. Miracles do happen when the public are resolved of the issues involved in a united way.
Read more / Original news source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Kanglaonline/~3/4fsPXWR2o2w/
