Articles/Opinion – Page 7

FDI in India’s Retail Sector

FDI IN INDIA’S RETAIL SECTOR By Gaikhamdim Marangmei FDI is a process of investment in… more »

FDI IN INDIA’S RETAIL SECTOR

By Gaikhamdim Marangmei

FDI is a process of investment in which a foreign investor, invest his money in other country by establishing his own business and also run it with its own existence. For instance Adidas, KFC, Reebok etc.

FDI in India can be granted through automatic route and govt. approval, in the automatic route FDI can be done through the permission of RBI, as RBI has been delegated the authority to do the same. While on the other hand FDI though govt. approval is done with the acceptance of govt. and while giving such type of acceptance govt. will act according to the recommendation of the FIPB ( Foreign investment promotion board)

The present discussion regarding FDI is about purposing of 51% FDI in retail multi brand sector. As there is already FDI in single brand sector.

FDI limit in various sector till date

Sector	Percentage %
Telecom	74
Banking	74
NBFC	100
Insurance sector	26
Private petrol refining	100
Construction development	100
Coal and Lignite	74
Electricity	100
Pharmaceutical	100
Transportation infrastructure	100
Mining	74
Advertising	100
Airport	74
Film production	100
Pollution control	100
Print media Newspaper/Current Affairs Scientific and technical periodical	26 100
Tourism	100

Retailing is defined as an interface between the manufacturer and the individual consumer who are basically individual users. Retailers stock the producer’s goods, after purchasing it directly from them, and then sell it to the individual consumers keeping a profit margin for themselves. The retailing sector in India had grown with coveted success, terming it as one of the sunrise sector in the economy. A.T. Kearney the well known international management consultancy, considered India as the second most lucrative destination of the world for retail business.

In India retail sector is divided into two classes – Organized and Unorganized sectors.

Organized retailing is the one, trading conducted by licensed retailers. Those who are registered for various kinds of taxes. On the other hand unorganized retailing refers to the traditional format of low cost retailing like local store, small road side stores, door to door selling of various goods etc.

Unorganized form of retailing is the most prevalent form of trade in India, constituting almost 98% of the total trade, while organized sector account only for the remaining 2%

The recent cabinet decision to allowed 51% FDI in the multi brand sector has triggered a series of debates on both positive and negative notes, and has become a political issue.

Some of the merit and demerit of FDI in retail sector:

Merit

It is widely acknowledge that FDI can have a positive result on the economy triggering a series of reaction that in the long run can lead to greater efficiency and improvement of living standard apart from greater integration into the global economy.

With the coming of the foreign companies, new infrastructure will be build, thus real estate sector will grow consequently banking sector, as money need to be required to build such infrastructure would be provided by banks.

CII (Confederation of Indian industry) said FDI in multi brand retailing will boost to the organized sector, which positively impact several stake holders, including producers, workers, employees, consumers and government, thus the overall economy. Opening up of FDI can increased organized retail market size to $260 billion by 2020.

This would also result to generation of job and also government can be expected to received an additional income of $25-30 billion by the way of a variety of taxes.

For Producers

Increasing price realization for the farmer by 10-20%, through sourcing directly to the farm.

Upgrading the framer’s capabilities by providing know-how and capital.

Improving farmer output and yield through better extension services and user friendly processes.

For Consumers

A wider choice for the consumers with better option.

Assurance of quality with greater transparency and easier monitoring of adulteration, counterfeit product and traceability.

For low income family organized retails has the ability to lower the cost of the monthly consumption basket as much as by 5-10%.

Lack of infrastructure in the retail sector has been a major issue in India, which has led to an incompetent market mechanism. FDI might help India overcome such issues by channelizing the resources in the right manner.

Demerit

Many of the small business owner and workers may lose their job as lot of people is into unorganized retail business such as local shops. If the retails giant like Wal-Mart sets up operation in India, their supermarket will sell everything from vegetable to the latest electronic gadgets at a very low price, which will most likely undercut those selling similar goods. Foreign retail giant may buy big from India and abroad and sell it low price, severely under cutting the small retailers. Once a monopoly situation is created this might turn into buying low and selling high.

Nick Robbins wrote in the context of the East India Company that by controlling both ends of the chain the company could buy cheap and sell dear. The producers and the traders at the local level of the operation will never find place in this sector. Having been uprooted from their traditional form of business, they are unlikely to be suitable for other areas of work either. In time the local outlet are also likely to fold and perish by the pricing power that a foreign players is bale to exert.

Dr Murukadas, Chairman Foundation for sustainable development, while describing about the demerit of FDI in retail sector also point out that majority of the consumers who buy essentials goods from their neighborhood stores on credit and pay bill on a monthly basis, will also suffer with the disruption of the traditional system of neighborhood retail stores.

From the above discussion it give a clear picture of the merit and demerit of FDI in retail sector. Many non-governmental organizations have recommended various method to the govt. regarding the method to improved retail industry without FDI, citing the example of developing countries where FDI was allowed in retail sector. China Malaysia and Thailand who opened their retail sector to FDI in the recent years have been forced to enact new laws to check the prolific expansion of the new foreign malls and hypermarkets.

Posted: 2012-02-04

This article was sent to KanglaOnline by Gaikhamdim Marangmei, adim2b AT gmail.com

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/02/fdi-in-indias-retail-sector/

Save Sharmila Campaign – An open letter to all political parties of Manipur

By Save Sharmila Solidarity Campaign AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL POLITICAL PARTIES OF MANIPUR Dear… more »

By Save Sharmila Solidarity Campaign

AN OPEN LETTER TO ALL POLITICAL PARTIES OF MANIPUR

Dear candidates & the representatives of various political parties,

As 28^th Jan is nearing, the election fever seems to be in air in the 60 constituencies covering about 17.5 lakhs voters. All we get to see and hear are long, promising speeches being delivered by candidates, candidates walking around promising of development, better security and a better future and people contemplating about election results. There are also some blotches like flowing of liquor, attacks on fellow candidates etc.

Sharmila

Issues of territorial integrity, road blockades & insurgency continue to dominate the agendas. What is new in the elections is the entry of Naga People Front. Other than that, it’s the same thing with major political parties like People’s Democratic Front, Trinamool congress and BJP struggling to make their own mark, while Congress is off trying to maintain its record in the state yet again.

Like everytime, the political parties are promising different political solutions to the civil and political problems, resulting from the internal conflicts, of the Manipuris. But this time again, like for the last 11 years, all the political parties have chose to forget Irom Sharmila.

Where is the issue of Irom Sharmila? Why hasn’t any of the political parties raised this issue? Is it some kind of vote politics? If yes, then how are they different from the rest and so how can the people believe that they will

The issue of Irom Sharmila has now become a global issue. It is a matter of anxiety among many national as well as international organizations and activists. It is astonishing to note that even though many nobel peace prize winners, megsesay awardees, padam recipients , intellectuals and students from across the country and beyond are showing support for Irom and her cause for peace, non violence and humanity, this issue has failed to become a point in the election agendas of political parties in Manipur, Irom Sharmila’s own state. Another astonishing thing is to note that this of a woman is being ignored in a state that possesses more women voters than men.

It is known to everyone that Irom Sharma has been on a hunger strike since the year 2000 but the State Government has not undertaken any concrete steps to resolve the issue. Likewise, the Central Government too has not adopted any positive approach. Irom is under arrest on charges of “suicide attempt” and the Government has also restricted her meeting with public, family and media. But Irom Sharmila is among the few of those prisoners who have been assigned solitary confinement. This allegation is also not this serious to support such a brutal punishment. The next question is the charge of “suicide attempt” on a social activist who is fighting for the people. Isin’t this an insult to her struggle? An insult to the people’s sentiments and more importantly, to the democratic way to protest?

Moreover, even if we accept this charge, doesn’t solitary confinement increase, rather than retard, suicidal tendencies? All these questions remain unanswered, because government has no reply. This is a clear case of violation of right to equality.

But the most amazing part still reserves for the attitude of the electoral candidates in Sharmila’s own state. Why are the political parties silent?

We hope and request the representatives of the various political parties to raise this issue in these last days of campaigning. This issue is based on issues of truth, peace and justice. This can restore peace in Manipur.

And even if political groups become fail to deal with the issue, we appeal to the general public of Manipur to bring the issue in main concern. Justice is their right. Economic development can be enjoyed only when social development and justice is imparted.

We, on behalf of Save Sharmila Solidarity Campaign, a campaign which has gathered support of more than 80 organizations and lakhs of people from almost all states of India and even of other countries, hereby demand all political parties, their representatives and candidates, all independent candidates and people of Manipur that:

*We, the people who believe in democratic values, non violence and peace, demand justice for Irom sharmila Chanu and political solution for her demand through talk process.
*We, the people, also believe that all armed struggles in Manipur should be ended and people of all sides should make themselves ready to be engaged in peace processes.
*We, the people, have full solidarity with problems of Manipur and we will do every possible efforts to resolve your issues on the ground of humanity.
*We, the people, who favors humanity, believe that truth is the tool of sustainable development and the real victory will be made in the hearts of people of Manipur rather than in just getting seats in elections.

We demand that all, regardless of their other political agendas, should collaborate on this common point to resolve the issue of Irom Sharmila and to impart justice to her as soon as possible.

By:

Save Sharmila Solidarity Campaign

New Delhi

WEBSITE: www.savesharmila.org

–

Regards,

Volunteers of ”SAVE SHARMILA SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN”

(A joint initiative of various organizations & movements)

We welcome your participation/suggestion/feedback. We work in favor of Peace, Democracy, Non Violence, Human Rights.

Our demands with Govt of India:

To take positive steps of talk
To send all party delegation
To send members of NWC,NHRC
To send special team of doctors from New delhi to examine Irom’s health

NON VIOLENCE SHOULD NOT BE IGNORED.

Primary education in Manipur is not so prime but a fiasco.

By Bishwajit Okram. The vital source of a nation’s strength is education. A good education… more »

Primary education in Manipur is not so prime but a fiasco.

By Bishwajit Okram.

The vital source of a nation’s strength is education. A good education system is like a gold mine of the nation. Manipur is yet to discover this mine, unfortunately.

Education precedes development always. Elementary and primary schools of a nation are the stepping stones of a good education system.

Neglecting this system at the start of the system and dreaming of 100% literacy one day, is like the story of a foolish dreamer kicking his milk pot.

By just mere analysing of few data, one can easily assess – there is a black hole in the primary education system in Manipur. It looks the system is severely paralysed and dysfunctional. It is a mouse click away for anyone to understand the state of primary education system

The symptoms are palpable and can be clearly vouched from the lackadaisical nature of the education ministry’s website itself.

Mr L.Jayanta Kumar who is still sitting there in the web page of the ministry of education as the minister, has been replaced by Mr DD Thaisii a year back. It is appalling at this advance informatics age; such a small change could not be made duly.

Apart from this, many of the information shown in the website are junk and irrelevant; it is very frustrating when one tries to get some relevant information.

This website is the mirror of our education ministry and our education system that we all endure of.

The inefficiency and the ineffectiveness of the ministry’s website are just the tips of the iceberg manifesting the underlying fiasco of our education system. The purpose of this article is to understand and analyse this fiasco from.

UNESCO found in its reports, only 83% of eligible elementary school pupils of India are enrolled in elementary schools in the year 2009.

But, for Manipur, it is 96%, according to a report, ‘Education Profile of Manipur’ based on Government of Manipur official data. It is a bit weird and absurd, this author himself visited some primary schools in Manipur during the month of November, and all he found was no pupil or a handful of pupils in every school he visited.

The Hindustan Times on 17 January, ran a head line “Fake admission brings down enrolments in Schools across India.” This report unearth scandalous, fake enrolment list of school pupils in government schools across the country. This author’s own eyes have verified this in Manipur.

According to Assessment Survey Research Centre Report (www.asercentre.org) 2009, in all India level, 69% of enrolment level in school takes place in government schools and 25% in private Schools. But it is just the opposite for Manipur. Manipuri’s enrolment in private school is 65% and in government school is 31%. The 2012 report from the same sources reveals –enrolment in government school has gone down from 31% of 2009 to 27% during the year 2011. It is plausible to think why!

At the same time the report says that there has been a surge in enrolment from 264019 pupils of 1991 to 285580 of 2001 and to 324096 of 2006, based on the Government of Manipur data. If this is to be believed, most of the enrolment are then happening in private schools.

The report, ‘Education Profile of Manipur’ added, “65% of the children who enrolled for class 1 never reach class V; 71% of them do not make it to class VIII”.

The Indian Express, in its 17 January print, a report goes the heading “Half of class 5 kids can’t read class 2 texts”. The Hindu says, “Class III students do not know simple mathematics of subtractions.”

Amid these facts, Manipur government claims that literacy rate of Manipur is 70%. Something amiss and contradictory indeed; it does not conjure away the flaws in the system.

This is can not be unique to other parts of India and exception to Manipur.

Is not it the time to re-define what literacy means? Crappy crabs needs to be churned out properly.

Let us assume for a minute, those pupils in 2001 were to write their class X exams in 2010. Then, only 34824 pupils matured to studentship out of the 285580 pupils of 2001. It tallied very well with the report that 71% of the pupils enrolled in primary schooling never make it to class VIII.

When it comes to the accountability, key stakeholders wash off their hands. Public scrutiny drive in this tiny state of 2.7 million people has been the epitome of the nation for years. There are host of student bodies, NGOs, activists and pressure groups doing this scrutiny and fighting for the rights to proper education in Manipur.

One will wonders why cracks are still not mended, despite so many policemen. Or is this the case of too many hawkish for this rate! Are they then a factor of impediment, rather then mitigating the ills, they compound the issues manifolds?

Teachers, they are happy campers, free salary for doing nothing. Black sheep outnumbered dark horses.

ASER 2011 says, 28% of enrolment in 2011 is with the government school and the figure could be safely presumed as about 100000. Assuming 1:20 is true for pupil teacher ratio, there could be around 5000 teachers.

According to a National Salary data, on an average, a government teacher gets Rs.156,880.00 per annum as salary. Other perks, allowances, peons, chawkidars and schools running overhead cost, together (say 50% of the teacher cost) this per pupil cost can go up to Rs200000.00 p.a. It means, per pupil cost of teaching is Rs.10000.00 which is way above the cost per pupil of private schools.(Assuming private school teachers gets on an average Rs.5000.p.m)

Johnny (name changed) from Khurai, Imphal, is an engineer by qualification but became a primary school teacher in Manipur. He said, “There is no student or very little students in my school of posting. For an ambitious person like me it is difficult to continue there, but I am paid, so I do go there for some hours every working day, sit there and come home”

Sonia (name changed) from Thoubal, a primary school teacher said, “There is no student to the school where I am posted at. So I don’t go to the school every day”

Anthony (name changed) from Chandel district says, “There is no student in the primary school of their locality. So the teachers don’t come there often. They pay some one to sign their attendant registers. This way many hill people are also get paid just to mind the attendance.”

When it comes to affordability and cost, government of Manipur is always at its knees.

Under the government of India plan, ‘Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan 2002’, all children are required to complete five years of primary schooling by 2007 and eight years of schooling by 2010. State has to contribute 10% of the total expenditure. But Manipur has been unable to pay this 10%, thus it is not authorised to use the balance 90% fully. Now, this ratio of expenditure sharing is going to go up from the IX and X plans onwards.

Another report says, Manipur still has many building less schools and teacher less schools. It is hard to digest to think of it in this 4th largest economy of the world, India.

According to IBEF report (www.ibef.org), 0.15% is the share of Manipur’s own all India Gross State Domestic Products. Foreign Direct Investment inflow to Manipur is just 0.05% of all India figure.

Scary enough, Manipur can not afford to teach its own children with its own money.

It shows how dependent we are to the government of India, even for our basic education right.

In the last five years from now, India’s education budget has increased from 152847 crore to 372813 crore, a jump of 244%. Out of this elementary education budget has increased from 7156 crore to 15000 crore. This is an increase of 210%.

Money is aplenty but the rider is- state has to contribute its own share as well. Education is a subject of state matter under Indian constitution. No doubt, salaries of schools teachers are paid every 3 to 4 months in Manipur.

Now matter how rich India grows, for Manipur unless every players in the education sector do not do a soul searching, Manipur will find it very difficult to come out of this black hole.
It may be through top-down or bottom-up approach or a mixture of the two, we have to find a solution to it.
Frederick The Great said: “An educated people can be easily governed.” Let us all understand this.

My Republic, My View

By Ravi Nitesh MY REPUBLIC , MY VIEW “Where the mind is without fear and… more »

By Ravi Nitesh

MY REPUBLIC , MY VIEW

“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high” – Rabindranath Tagore (Noble laurate)

As far as freedom is concerned, it can be defined in many ways and with many views. One may relate it with economical progress and self decision or determination, one may relate it with laws and constitution, one may relate it with right to live with certain rights and enjoying freedom etc etc. However, after so many thoughts, it is all about a safe and standard living, for a common man.

Freedom is like air, you need it and you feel it, but you cannot see it everywhere in physical form. It is more than any of your emotion; it comes from heart and mind. It is not only the relation of a citizen to his/her country instead it is the relation of citizen with his/her government , society and its own conscious; it is the relation of a citizen with another citizen.

Freedom is breathing of any democracy, it requires in all parts of governance at all levels.

At the time, when India is going to celebrate its republic day (on 26th January), programs are being organized everywhere and will be continued for some days. People are decorating dash boards of their cars with Indian flags, sold by street children, who used to sell it on red lights of the road. At the same time, there are the families of farmers who are mourning over the deaths of their bread earner. At the same time, when multinational companies are trying capturing the land of innocent tribal’s and poor’s of this republic. At the same time, when still people are bound to protest for getting electricity and roads and get killed. At the same time, when states like Manipur of this republic posses security personal to civilian ratio higher than military ruled Myanmar. At the time , when J&K, the state with muslim majority in this republic is living under fear. At the same time, when more than sixty percent children of this republic are suffering from malnutrition. At the time, when corruption has been spread its roots everywhere and millions of cases are still pending in Indian courts.

The achievements of this republic reflect in reputation, election/selection and the public image of pillars of democracy. Legislative & Executive are already facing protests from the side of public. At the time of policy execution for public safety the friendly police and security forces have become the prime accused for making the public unsafe.

People see the celebrations from government offices, they become witnessed the speeches of their representatives, and they will again hear all false promises. All will become engaged again in their routine, and will forget the vision of republic of their dream.

All the policies and execution will be there in words and papers, but if the problems will not be resolved, it will remain just as a formal celebration.

Real freedom is still away, away from the heart and mind of people. Inequality is continuously increasing. People are still divided and not enjoying the uniform freedom. There is a struggle between the India, which is enjoying the freedom and the other India, which is still deprived and in search of freedom. If the government will take ground based initiatives with real participation of public, rather than its airy promises, probably the day will come, when the republic will not just be a formal word to celebrate, instead it will become a real public festival, a festival which will be celebrated by everyone and everyday through their heart and mind.

On behalf of my fellow citizens

Support SAVE SHARMILA CAMPAIGN

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/01/my-republic-my-view/

India vs. China – the elephant can not fly like the dragon unless winged

By Bishwajit Okram Simple facts of the two fastest growing economies of the world say,… more »

By Bishwajit Okram

Simple facts of the two fastest growing economies of the world say, Chinese dragon is way ahead of Indian elephant in terms of their respective future economic growth. For India, the elephant needs to be winged to fly; she can not afford to wait for the evolution of a flying Elephant, writes Bishwajit Okram, Financial Controller, C&F Group, Ireland.

China will take over USA in 2018 as the world’s largest economy, says an economic game published in the December 31st edition of the Economist.

India is nowhere near the two; interestingly at the least, nowhere near China. The economic barometer is pointing towards a Chinese economic world no later than 2020.

The underpinning facts of Chinese economy overwhelm those of India’s.

India vs. China

China’s annual appetite for steel consumption is 868% more than that of India’s in 2010. Steel is a vital raw material for any development particularly in infrastructure and manufacturing industries.

China’s energy consumption is 598% more than that of India’s. Energy is like blood in a human body to business. It shows how hard the economy is working to produce more gross domestic product (GDP). The result in 2011 says, China’s GDP growth is 9.2% where as India’s will be 7% as the prime minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, reckoned.

The economic growth of China is paying off now: they have more than 200 billionaires as compare to 69 of India in 2010. They spend around $192 billion in public health, where as India spent only $65 billion, when the population is now very close. Life expectancy is 75 year in China 75 but in India it is around 65 only.

China’s expenditure on health care system is nearly 5 times that of India.

The gap between India and China is widening in terms of values of most social indicators of living standards, such as life expectancy, infant mortality rate, mean years of schooling, the coverage of immunization. 97 percent of Chinese children are immunized with DPT vaccine, in contrast with India’s meagre figure of 66 percent.

India’s prime minister announced that he was ashamed of the fact that India still has many malnourished children despite being fastest economies of the world.

In the field of research and development, India has not made a dent yet. The fact that in 2011, 12.3% of residential patents registered in the world is from China , a massive increase in its registration , suggest that they are truly emerging as a world leader in innovation. Recently the world has been taken aback with China’s announcement of sending astronauts to the moon and sending a well designed space station after USA is abandoning its own.

China became competitive faster than any other countries over the last one decade. This is one reason why companies would like to flock in China. According to the world competitive ranking China is at 31st position as compare to India, which is at 50th position.

The only area, India has a point to smile, is their domestic consumption which is not far off from that of China’s. China’s retail sales in 2009 were $360b, which is just 25% more than that of India’s.

Strong retail sales are a sign of strong domestic market. This can also be interpreted in different ways: China has a huge potential for its retail market as the domestic market is still yet to be exploited.

Another critical negative factor for India’s economy are the inflation and the unemployment rates, which much bigger than China’s. India’s average inflation rate for 2011 was 9%, where as China’s inflation was less than 6%. The Unemployment rate of India was nearly 9%, when China had 4% which is considered negligible according to international standard. India’s credit rating is BBB- where as that of China’s is AA-. This is one reason, why India’s overseas funds withdrew a net $380m in 2011 compared to record inflows of $29bn in 2010.

China still has net foreign assets of $2 trillion or more. The biggest of all is that China has $3 trillion foreign exchange reserve, the highest in the world where as India has only $314 billion as at the end of 2011.

Recent announcement of the government of India of huge food subsidies is fraught with many economic ills. Dr Manmohan Singh, the prime minister of India said in his new year’s speech that India need pare back subsidies and implement tax reform because he was concerned about fiscal stability in future.

The Nobel Laureate in Economics, Prof. Amrtya Sen once said that the distinctions are important for the emerging economies which are trying to decide where to emerge. India needs no horse race competition with China in relation to the economic growth figure but with the other aspects of social values developments, quality and standard of living developments, democratic values and political liberties.

Over the last two decades, in all the social indicators, India has persistently declined even in the areas of social development indicators as compare to Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal and even Bhutan. Bangladesh has taken over India in nearly all the social indicator.

Many more Indians have various deprivations, undernourished, unschooled, and medically uncared much, Prof. Sen pointed in a recent seminar at New Delhi.

Financial times quoted Kunal Kumar Kundu, senior economist at Roubini Global Economics in Delhi as saying that at the end of the day, it was all about attractiveness of the market. Remember, even Indian investors were now more prone to investing outside of India than they were within India, given the various issues they are facing – policy paralysis and corruption.

India needs to pull its shocks especially by the policy makers and politicians. India is not dying; but India is simply not staying fit to fight for global economic dominion. The pulse rate, through the economic stethoscope, says India’s economic pulse is much slower that that of Chinese.

It is time to put wings on the elephant, rather than waiting for an evolution of flying elephant, lest China will be the next USA, not a hearty choice for India.

Hear the Cries of Bleeding Manipur

By Jagdamba Mall Following stiff opposition from Manipur, Aruanchal Pradesh and Assam after local medias’… more »

By Jagdamba Mall
Following stiff opposition from Manipur, Aruanchal Pradesh and Assam after local medias’ revelation on the Centre’s move to provide a ‘Supra State’ status to Nagaland, Prime Minster Manmohan Singh and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi rushed to Imphal on December 3, 2011 to alley the fears that there is no such move. Earlier, Home Minister P. Chidambaram had also stated that he was not aware of such move. Addressing a public rally at Kangla fort in Imphal on December 3, the PM said that he and his government were committed to protect the territory of Manipur. Home Secretary R.K. Singh in his off the record briefing told reporters on Friday (2.12.2011) that local media has got their story right as NSCN was indeed offered a Supra State as a substitute for Nagalim during the course of negotiations. But Singh said that the govt. had backed off considering the adverse fall out of the proposal. That explains why the PM has taken it upon himself to back off from the Supra State concept and make it clear in so many words during his Manipur visit. Making no commitment to the people of state of frequent economic blockades he wished such incidents would not happen again. He said “There are no winners and all are losers.”

Notwithstanding the bomb blast that had killed one and injured four ahead of the visit Dr. Manmohan Singh and Sonia Gandhi said they were happy with the improvement of law and order in the state. Both the leaders failed to condole several hundred people including over a 100 Hindi speaking people killed by terrorists in Imphal valley from where the AFSPA has been withdrawn from 2004 onwards under the pressure of militant organizations and Human Right activists.

Manipur is a failed state. It has been bedeviled by bandhs, protests and violence obviously under the pressure from under-grounds and human right organizations sponsored allegedly by Church and Foreign forces who want the AFSPA to go. The majority Meitei population vowing to go at any length to protect the territorial integrity against the demand for integration of Naga areas with Nagaland, the Kuki community demanding a separate hill district (Sadar Hills) and Nagas demanding a “separate alternative arrangement” outside Manipur severing all ties with the Manipur government and strongly opposed to inclusion of any land for creation of the Sadar Hills district-all these contrary and contradictory demands by various conflicting communities have made Manipur volatile, volcanic and restless. The conflicts and counter-conflicts have become order of the day because there are no immediate solutions and the instigating forces are rife.

Manipur has faced unprecedented 120 days of economic blockade starting from August 1 on both the Highways- NH 39 (Imphal – Kohima – Dimapur – Guwahati) and NH 53 (Imaphal-Jiribam-Silchar-Guwahati)- the two arteries of Manipur. As a result, the prices of essential commodities have gone sky high and life saving drugs has disappeared from the market. The cost of petrol went upto 240 per litre, diesel 200 per litre, gas cylinder Rs. 2000/- per cylinder and the cost of kitchen commodities touched sky high. The private and civil hospitals in Imphal valley and else where in the state dried up of medicines and oxygen cylinders. As a result, the patient mortality has increased multi-fold. The children, expecting mothers and patients of serious diseases are worst-hit. The business is destroyed. The students are also worst-hit due to loss-of academic year because of frequent bandhs and terrorists’ gun-trotting. Because of that, brain-drain has taken place.

No sooner than the Kuki blockade began by Sadar Hills District Demand Committee (SHDDC) for a separate Sadar Hill District out of existing Senapati district dominated by Nagas fearing the state Govt. may give into the demand, Nagas under the leadership of United Naga Council, UNC, imposed a parallel blockade with a message to the govt. they will never agree to such a district and their own blockade is warning of the shape of things ahead if they are not heeded.

The Kukis have since withdrawn their blockade after the govt. gave them the assurance that the Sardar Hills district would be formed after the District Reorganization Committee submitted its report but the Nagas resent this and continued their part of the blockade. On December 1, UNC also lifted the blockade at their own for the reasons not known to the public. The Prime Minister and Sonia Gandhi visited Imphal on December 3.

The Nagas claim that the Sadar Hills region in Senapati district is part of a Naga ancestral homeland and that Kukis who are later migrants into the area cannot be more than their tenants at best. They also overtly implied in press statements that Kukis by their demand for a separate district are also negating Nagas’ intended imagined homeland (Nagalim) put- forth by NSCN (IM) and this was objectionable to the Nagas. A compromise being stubbornly ruled out by either side, though the Naga blockade has been lifted unconditionally there is still no end to the trouble in sight.

The Meities Are The Target: – The Meities are third major ethnic group in Manipur, the first and second being the non-Naga Non-Meitei group and the Naga group. These Meiteiss are committed Vaishnav Hindu drawing inspirations from Vedas Puranas, Gita, Mahabharat and Ramayan. They draw lessons from glorious history of Bharatvarsh. They go on pilgrimage of Ayodhya, Mathura, Vrindavan, Haridwar, Rameswaram and Somnath etc. Sangam Snan at least once in a life-time is last wish of every Meitei Hindu-men and women both. Tulsi mala in the neck and Chandan teeka at forehead after morning snan are must for every member of Meitei family. Gita, Mahabharat, Ramayan, Bhagwat, Puran and all other Hindu scriptures including Vedas are must in each literate Meitei family. Their culture and way of life are unparallel. Their Raas-leela and various forms of folk dances are unparallel through-out the globe. Their patriotism is like a unbreakable wall at north eastern international border adjacent to Myanmar and Bangladesh which are under close proximity of China. As long as their Rashtriya Samaj-the Meiteis and their allies are economically, culturally, religiously and academically strong, the conspiracy hatched by internal and external enemies threatening the unity, integrity and sovereignty of the nation shall not succeed. The conversion crusade of Church and missionary menace will not succeed as long as the Meitei community stands united with firm belief in their forefathers heritage religion, and culture.

The nexus of Church, NSCN (IM) of Nagaland, UNLF of Manipur and ULFA of Assam, ISI and Communist forces.

The Church and Church sponsored terrorist organizations of Nagaland, Manipur and Assam, ISI and Islamist terrorist organizations, Maoists, pseudo-secularist Hindu political leaders and rabidly communal politicians from Christian and Muslim communities and anti-nationals working in the garb of human right activists have formed a nexus to target the Meiteis NSCN (IM) of Nagaland, UNLF of Manipur and ULFA of Assam though they have lost their ground in the areas of their operation, are still bargaining and blackmailing the respective state Governments and the Central Government. The Church is on the conversion spree of Meiteis under protective cover of Naga militant organizations. And even UNLF of Manipur and other Manipuri terrorist organizations do not oppose Church’s conversion crusade because church allegedly provides them classified information about Army and requisite resources to militant organizations for perpetuating them. The reverends and pastors are allegedly employed for performing the job of spies.
The dubious foreign NGOs have mushroomed in Manipur and Nagaland. The Chinese language study centres have been opened in both the states. Medicos Sans Frontier (MSF)- an Americal medical agency with doubtful integrity is spreading its wings in both the states Korean Christian missionaries are hired to preach the gospel to Meiteis. Meitei Christian converts are rewarded with huge money and foreign trips. The Church has declared “Manipur For Christ” which means Christianity is the only recognized religion. The Church pronounces at the top of their voice that all other religions prevalent in Manipur viz Tingkao Raguang Chapriak (TRC), indigenous religions of various Janjatis and Hindu Dharma of Meiteis are satanic leading to eternal hell fire. The Church did the same in Nagaland under the slogan-“Nagaland for Christ” and destroyed the glorious history of their forefathers, their precious religion and colorful ancient culture. Simultaneously, Muslim infiltrators are pouring. Maoists are gaining ground. And thus,
Manipur is withering away day in and day out.

Governments Apathy:- In the most atrocious way, the state Government continues to do little to either resolve the crisis or enforce the law and order by force and seem only content waiting and watching till the agitators tire out. The central Govt. too appears to be in complete apathy. Because of this, there has been a growing demand from all concerned for the imposition of Presidents Rule.

The Demonizing of Army: – The country today is faced with multi-dimensional challenges and the army has to measure up to these threats to our national security. The nation needs to accordingly equip itself with state-of-the-art weaponry and hone our skill through relentless training and immunity provided through necessary laws to deliver the required response to our adversaries, external forces and their internal stooges. In this context, it is pertinent to note that Army has to be strengthened with AFSPA to deal with internal threats posed by foreign sponsored terrorists’ organizations. But the army is being demonized by a some of Human Right activities with doubtful integrity in league with selfish political leaders. Simultaneously, Irom Chanu Sharmila of Manipur who is allegedly the mask of terrorist organizations is being glorified as iron lady. In this context, the Rashtriya Samaj is required to come forward in defence of Manipur while Meitei civil society is required to resist the divisive and dubious forces with all might to uphold the glory and cultural identity inherited from their forefathers. Manipur should not meet the fate of Nagaland where Church and insurgency are two sides of the same coin and reportedly 40,000 Nagas have lost their lives not in encounter with army but in the war of supremacy between NNC, NSCN (IM) and NSCN (K).

The Church described Naga forefathers as wild, savage, pagan, heathen, cannibal, dirty and head-hunters with satanic practices. The Church described Nagas’ eternal religions and festivals as satanic practices leading to eternal hell fire. Surprisingly, the Nagas reverends and pastors parroting the same condemnation taught and professed by Church. No community in the world condemns his forefathers as Nagas shamelessly do. The Meiteis should be aware of this conspiracy of Church and they should not allow their glorious culture and religion to be demonized by Church and its hirelings.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/01/hear-the-cries-of-bleeding-manipur/

Compensate Rs 5700 Cr to the Poor First for the Economic Blockade!

By Deben Bachaspatimayum (This article was erroeously credited to another auther in a previous issue…. more »

By Deben Bachaspatimayum
(This article was erroeously credited to another auther in a previous issue. We are making amends by re-running it.)
The Sadar Hills District Demand Committee (SHDDC), UNC, the state Government of Manipur and the Union Government of India to jointly compensate 3,79,188 poor people (17.5% of Population BPL, 2004-05 Report) for the loss and hardships they have suffered over the last 3 months. SHDDC & Co and UNC & Co. for trampling over the right to life of poor people and putting to extreme hardships in managing square meals against sky rocketed price. The state and Union Govt for neglecting obligation towards the poor, and not responding to the situation for 3 months, causing extreme hardship without any relief or enforcing laws to stabilize the situation. The four parties together owe a sum of Rs 5700 Crores in compensation for the 3 months long economic blockade (1st Aug – 31st Oct, 2011) to people below poverty line in particular.

Pay the poor for deprivation or pay the state and own the National Highways

Each of the family below poverty line who earns a meagre wage of Rs 56 per day for survival of their families had to spend another Rs 56 per day to keep their family hearths burning for their children during the economic blockade when prices on essential commodities sky rocketed. Each of these families must get a sum of Rs 5040 for 90 days to stabilize their family economy and recover the loss of their small little savings. And if without any further considerations – how the economic blockade only hit the poor families and their children below their belt – UNC and Co continue clamp economic blockade on the NHs they must be prepared to compensate another Rs 3808 for 68 days economic blockade last year (Apri-Jun 2010). If they don’t see good reasons in this demand of the poor then they must fully pay the Union Government of India, the entire cost of construction and maintenance till date, of the National highways passing through their ancestral domain so they may absolutely own it and do anything they like at their own sweet wills without having to answer to any group or community in the neighbourhoods. As long as they don’t pay to the Union Govt they must pay to the poor who suffered without any reasons.

Declare: No national highway in Manipur or enforce laws

Though the Government at state and centre may not be held accountable and answerable to the people as majority do not get representation but the state by the constitution has obligatory responsibility to ensure and maintain law and order. National highway is maintained by National Highway Authority under a set of rules of law. The government with its huge companies of security forces deployed should only remained silent spectator when the national ways are blocked for any reasons by any group of community. Worse for them is to remain as affected party by the economic blockade. It does not behove well when ground troops on counter-insurgency duty are purchasing booze from local vendors for simple reason that supplies in the army canteens are stopped because of economic blockade. People don’t need any sympathy nor should they expect the same from the people. Simple fact remains. The army, paramilitary forces deployed all along National highways and over-sized law enforcement agencies in the state are useless in the face of economic blockade. The big question will continue gap for answer: why the central government is not providing security on national highways and ensuring normal supplies of essentials for the common people? The state will have to be held accountable and answer why do not enforce law on the national highways even when economic blockades affects large population, their livelihood, and right to education for children. If they, for genuine reasons unable to provide security the central government must declare that there is no national highways connecting Manipur. But until they do so they must own responsibility towards the poor people and compensate jointly with leaders of SHDDC and UNC & Co. to each family of the poor.

The issue is the Governance not the people

The fundamental flaw in the Indian democracy which spells out as a Government of the people; by the people and for the people is conspicuous and revealing in the multi-party electoral political system. This must be studied and understood well before blaming any group of community. It is easy arose the communal sentiments but difficult to calm down by reasons. Systems are hard to develop but run easily once appropriately in place by reasons. The result of the 9th Manipur Legislative Assembly election 2007 is a glaring example to take to understand the fundamental problems of governance for a population of diverse race, ethnic communities and cultures.

It is not the 90% turn out but only 37% that make the Government!

One cannot be complacent and fooling by the impressive turn out at the polling station during elections. What remains hidden behind the impressive 80-90% voters’ turn out, reported by state election commission in the 9th Assembly election in 2007 is the hollowness and skewed people’s representation in the highest decision-making body of the state – the Legislative Assembly. The 9th Manipur Legislative Assembly – elected representatives of 60 persons where voted by only 37% of the total electors’ population belonging to all communities above 18 years of age in the state of 21,66,788 (2001 Census). Yet, all the decisions taken by small group of elected representatives voted by minority affect the lives and socio-economic situation of average citizens on day to day basis. The larger majority have been systematically marginalized from the Governance and the poor more acutely and adversely for the last 3 decades of Indian democracy in Manipur. The poor do not belong to this state government and they will never be unless the system gets reformed or changed. As long as the existing electoral politics continue the government will continue to be in reality of the elite, for the elite and by the elite belonging to all communities. The elites have no caste and creed. The newly emerging elite society in the state belongs to political class, bureaucrats, contractors, technocrats, professionals and business community. Their interests and security is primary to all others. This is what has been observed over the years.

It is a rule by a small elite minority! Why bother the majority?

Consider the statistics of last poll results. Each constituency had an average of 5-6 candidates vying for the assembly seat both in the hills and valley. More than two candidates in a constituency only divide the electors’ population in a constituency into fragments of small minority groups of close kins, clans and friends voting their candidate not on any issue of party ideology. This fragmented electors’ population make the Indian democracy a virtual illusion by electing representatives of small close minority groups assuming mandate of the people from their respective assembly constituency. 60 candidates who entered and /or returned to the last 9th Legislative Assembly in the state was voted to the power by only 36-38% of the total electors in each of the assembly constituency. If there were any poor people who voted for a winning candidate they would have been richly rewarded over the last one decade by the present ruling government. Furthermore, they would, by now, be aiming for more wealth and assets only to ensure that the rule of their masters continue for the next term to register into the newly emerging elite club. It is this group of elite the leaders have to, if at all, target for and hold accountable to their issues not the larger majority people. It is clear. It is not the larger population who make the government.

Leaders are elected by one’s kith, clans and cronies not on public issues

The poor and the large majority of voters (62-64% of total electors) at an average have no representation in the government for all time. The position of the Opposition in the Manipur Assembly, for the last two terms, needs no further discussion. It is suffice to say they are simply an acutely marginalized minority in the legislative assembly among the elites in power. They have no say especially because they also do not represent basic issues of larger population in the first place. Secondly, they were elected by own kith and kin, clans and cronies. The majority of the population which comprise of 63% of the total electors (10,66,170) and plus another 21% of the total of underage children population (4,65,388) do not either belong to the government or has any representations. So, they are also not responsible for anything the government does to any community or group. Why should large majority population be responsible for the issues and bear the burden of economic blockade for months together? What is their fault if it is not because they belong to a particular community other than Naga or Kuki?

Issues are genuine but the methods are not just

The leaders of all civil society and frontal organizations, especially in Naga and Kuki communities will have to reflect on their strategies and actions of addressing their issues and answer many questions to the larger population who for no fault of theirs victimized and penalized. Why should the burden of month-long economic blockade be imposed over all the poor and majority? How do the leaders imposing economic blockade for months on NHs justify that their action which they suppose is targeted to the Government? How do they pray over plateful of rice and meat every meal while starving thousands by their own action? Even the worst communal Government in the state have not starved its people what moral ground and authority have leaders to drive thousands to brink starvation? Why interests in making hundreds of people spend sleepless nights in queues for a litre of petrol to send their children to school or to buy essentials for double price? Why should the leaderships deprive children of school, pregnant women emergency access to hospital and patients in emergency oxygen and life-saving drugs in the hospitals?

The Economic blockade is a war against the neighbours whose support may be needed

Despite having expressed displeasures over the continuing blockade and appeals to lift it what is intentions of further resolving to continue the blockade if it is not a war against a particular community or larger population? Other people may or may not subscribe to or share the views of Naga and Kukis leaderships and their action why do they to arouse animosity? On the contrary, one is rather shocked to hear the audacity of these leaders, proudly announcing “economic blockade is the best method for addressing issues” even after acknowledging the fact that such action has given extreme hardships to common people! Do they know that their action is violating other people’s right to life and right to culture? One would still be sympathetic to the cause of Naga and Kukis leadership, despite the hardships, if the issues were of starvation in the hills, instead. But when right to land is given priority over right to life, education and culture can there be any good reasons to remain silent spectator and accept situation of starvation? Economic blockade is a war against a population in the neighbourhood. What do these leaders actually working for: Governance and better administration or an exclusive ethnic nation-state in the 21st century?

Educated leaderships can do more

Finally, in sincere appreciations of all the educated leaderships that has emerged in all communities in Manipur, especially those representing social and political organizations of different ethnic communities including frontal organizations and their capabilities of influencing the socio-economic and political affairs in the state it behoves them well to focus their attentions to the systems of governance that has caused the situation and spare the people especially those in the neighbours and poor across communities. It must be remembered that it is the neighbours only who will rush to and extend a helping hand at the times of need. They are the only one who will tell your stories to the future generations across communities only if the leaderships rise above the communal and narrow worldviews. Indigenous community cannot choose neighbour especially when the neighbours are also indigenous people.

It will be in the best interests of SHDDC and Co, UNC and Co, State Government of Manipur and Union Government of India to respect the rights to life and livelihood of the poor as they have nothing to do with the issues of Sadar hills, Naga integration and territorial integrity. Stop victimizing and starving the poor and unrepresented majority. Priority for the poor is securing the next square meal and to do a work that pays them. Most of them will also simply accept any amount of money for voting in favour or against a particular candidate in the assembly election for a paltry sum of Rs 100-500/ not knowing that they are selling their rights for the next 5 years. But they do that for their immediate requirements. They are neither represented nor responsible for the issues. Spare them. If there is anything the leaders must focus their attention, at all, it is the fundamental flaws in the electoral political system of Indian democracy not the people. Reinventing the wheels is neither a creative solution to the problem of governance nor desirable for the large majority and poor who will anyway be marginalized. But it is in evolving the given system to suit the realities of ethnic diversities that is given.

Expect help from others if actions are self-respecting and others

Indian Democracy is only the largest in size and population but not the oldest that is deep-rooted in our society. There are lacunae, loopholes and loose ends everywhere. This is increasingly felt by educated citizenry across India. Despite deficiencies and disappointments Indian democracy is young and flexible to enough to bend and open to change to suit the self-determination needs of all indigenous communities and growth of peoplehood across indigenous communities it has either occupied or adopted or inherited from British India. Expect and hope that Indian democracy can evolve to be the finest democracy in the twenty first century by drawing resources from its largest body of ethnic people and cultures, and knowledge. It is in winning together peace and development sustains not by defeating the others. This is possible only when leadership lead the people towards democratization of traditional society, greater participation of all people and improving representations deficiencies. Not by rejecting and communalizing society and politics but by working together. There are concerned people, though less, across communities if you starve them they will die and nobody in the neighbourhood will be able to be helpful to address the issues.

`Quietely and Unexpectedly Poetry Came and Woke us up`

Interview by: The Gender Studies Journal Tattooed with Taboos, An Anthology of Poetry by Three… more »

Interview by: The Gender Studies Journal
Tattooed with Taboos, An Anthology of Poetry by Three Women from North East India was published by Siroi Publications and Loktakleima Publications in September 2011. The book was awarded the Best Book Production, 2011 in the recently concluded book fair held in Imphal organised by National Book Trust, Raja Rammohan Roy Library and Central Libray,Imphal. This is an interview of the poets Chaoba Phuritshabam, Shreema Ningombam and Soibam Haripriya by The Gender Studies Journal based in University of Delhi. The poets talk about the process of writing and publishing poetry, negotiating gender, Manipuri society and politics. (They are referred to by their initials)

What made you write poetry? How is your gender identity related to what you write?

S.N. : Writing poetry came to me in my school days. For me poetry is a revolt. It can hardly erupt from a banal feeling. It has to be from a deep pleasure, pain, passion or catastrophic disappointment. The feeling of being trapped in this gender construct, the anguish of the social norms associated with it and the sense of censorship and surveillance in our private and public life is expressed in several of my poems.

S.H. : This is a rather difficult question. Poetry is never apart from me and I write as a woman. There is no other way, there is no escape. I don’t think if I were a man I would have written poems.

C.P. : Seeking freedom which I don’t get in our society as a daughter, sister, and lover made me write poems. Women in our society still cannot express their own feelings freely without fearing judgement – even falling in love needs the consent of a man. My writing celebrates the desire of a woman while removing her crown of being a cultural ambassador.

What role do you imagine for poetry in feminist politics?

S.N. : Poetry can be a form of resistance and rebellion. As a part of literature it can be a medium for imagining and subsequently constructing a new world and new moral order which is fundamental to feminist politics. In this, poetry can be a means as well as an end.

S.H. : Poetry expresses what I feel as a woman and when I claim that poetry for me is very personal, how can that be divorced from politics? When I write about home, in the section ‘Angst for the Homeland’ I feel I have a certain ambivalence – why should I write for a homeland when I know it doesn’t have an inch for me?

C.P. : Poetry carries the untold dreams, desire and hopes of a person. It can provoke a reader to understand her womanhood and realise what she wants from her life. Once she claims her body and soul, no one can suppress or conquer her.

How have you three poets influenced each other’s work? Do you feel that the collective has a role to play in the process of writing?

S.N. : We have spent much time together talking, discussing for nights and days and almost eating from the same plate. If it was not for this solidarity and collective consciousness the poems may have not taken the form they have now.

S.H. : Not just this collective but ‘Burning Voices’ as a collective has shaped my poems. The discussions we have had, not of the form and structure of the poems (though I think we should take that up too) but the spontaneous emotive expressions we experienced remain a central influence on my writings. I would not have written ‘Five Day’s Untouchable’ if I hadn’t met Shreema. This poem came about after I read an article written by her.

C.P. : Without inspiration, discussion and help from my friends I would not engage too much into writing escaping my busy office schedule.

Who or what is a significant source of inspiration for you, an impetus to write?

S.N. : My grandmother was a poet though she was not a literate in the modern sense of the term. A phrase which she coined tremendously inspired me: thamna khenjongna wai wai, tharo thambalna hai hum (the lotus leaves swaying wai wai, and the lilies and lotuses swaying hai yum). She was standing in the midst of lotuses and lilies trying to gather lotus stems which she would sell in order to feed her children. Poetry is an arena of my personal resistance against the dogmas of patriarchy. When I seek freedom, I write poetry.

S.H.: Laishram Samarendra Singh, my introduction to his work is through a collection – Mamang leikai thambal satle, 1974 (And yonder blooms the lotus) a satire on the contemporary situation of the society we grew up with. In the title poem he with his trademark subtle sarcasm built a utopian Meitei community where people started caring for their work and the people around them. Thangjam Ibopishak of course, and Shri Biren for his absolute love and dedication to poetry. I read works of Memchoubi as a conscious decision, because she is a women poet. These are all Manipuri poets and I do get inspired by them though my poems are written in English.

C.P. : My mother who cannot read and write any script but has tremendous knowledge of literature. I wanted to paint her imagination in my writing. Also, being born and brought up in a troubled state like Manipur.

Please tell us about the production of the book.

S.N.: The book was printed at Kangla printers in Manipur. We had faced the price of paper zooming up because of the ongoing economic blockade. The ISBN number is given by Siroi publication and Loktakleima publication is our own consisting of the three of us as founders.

The cover design was done by Kapil Arambam. The four red drops on the cover were supposed to be on the phanek but he made it into four o’s in Tattooed with Taboos. It was wonderful. I also wonder if poetry can be for sale. So we tried to keep the price as low as possible.

S.H. : We had approached some mainstream publishing firms but since that was going nowhere we decided to pool in our own resources. Thankfully we did not know what it entailed. Publishing poetry in the time of economic blockade and socio-economic turmoil was rather difficult. Shreema was one woman warrior who coordinated the entire process through innumerable obstacles on our way.

C.P.: It’s a common goal for us to reach the people with our poems. Shreema’s father edited the book more than five times and I have no words to thank him. Kapil Arambam, who started designing the cover of this book since February of this year provided 37 cover designs, without his contribution this book would be incomplete.

Could you tell us more about the significance of the phanek?

S.N. : Phanek is a symbol and a qualifier of women in Meitei society, how we wear it, what colour we wear it and when we wear it has so much significance. From being a symbol of impurity to the symbol of resistance in nude protest phanek is a marked signifier in women’s lives in Manipur.

S.H. : That the book has a phanek for its cover is very significant in many ways. We were asked why a meitei phanek, why not any other ethnic community. But it is the meitei phanek which is tattooed with taboos. The phanek of other communities I believe, is not embedded with such stark ideas of impurity. Choosing the phanek mapanaiba as the cover was a very conscious decision. Firstly, it is untouchable, meitei men do not touch the phanek, and putting that on the cover of course will have many men touching the phanek unconsciously. Secondly, it is considered inauspicious. Of course this is strange because I am sure there is not a single man who has not yet touched a phanek.

C.P. : Its interpretation especially in Meitei society is still confusing for me. A piece of mother’s phanek is treated as something so powerful that it can even ward off evil spirits – so men living in far flung places used to carry a piece of their mother’s phanek to symbolise living under her protection at all times. On the other hand, a husband is not allowed to touch his wife’s phanek in front of others. I wonder, does a Meitei man avoid touching his wife’s phanek in the bedroom also? Phanek has now become a part of politics because self proclaimed moral police stated it as a symbol of our culture and tradition.

What does the phrase ‘writing with the body’ mean to you?

S.N. : It means a way to resurrect our own body.

S.H. : It would mean, to me, the poems ‘Five Days’ Untouchable’ or ‘His and Hers’ . Writing from the sense of feeling, in a very physical way. An articulation of the physical and its manifestation. Why, not only these two poems, I think I have written all of them with this idea of expression of an immediate urgent sense of feeling something and that feeling is through my physical manifestation.

C.P. : Signifying a woman’s claim to own her own body and soul . Understanding her physical and emotional desire and expressing them with freedom against the social and political restraints.

What does it mean to be a Manipuri woman and write of ‘mother’?

.N. : Motherhood can be a powerful experience. In the context of Manipur it is a source of “hysteria” and “anxiety” in every woman whether you are birthgiver or not. As in the case of Meira paibi all women are mothers. Motherhood as an archetype is very easy to be appropriated. In my poem ‘Mother’ , I speak of myself as a mother waiting to mourn the death of my yet unborn. This is an existential reality in the lives of many women in Manipur.

C.P. :Expectations of Manipuri, especially Meitei women, are too high- we should have a good character, be hard working, beautiful, polite, independent, courageous, charming, religious etc Women are also the favourite topic of criticism among some groups of moral police. ‘Mother’ is the most respectable title given to a woman in our society. Manipuri mothers are known for their participation in many social and political struggles even against the British such as “Nupi lan”. Most of the supporters of Irom Sharmila Chanu and protesters of ASFPA in Manipur are women.

S.H. : As a woman it is still very scary for me to see the notion that people have about ‘mother’. To construct this entire myth of mother and embed in her ideas of chastity, forgiveness etc. and to assume that out of every woman, motherhood will ooze is absurd. I usually refrain from writing with reference to the idea of ‘mother’. The first lines I wrote about mother (ema) (not in this collection) were these:

Ema’s tender hands
Weary of
Creating flowers
One day
Grew barbwires
from her slender fingers

I feel it that way, and I wish my mother would be accepted even if she has barbed wires for fingers…

A long distance from a fully secure India

By Bibhu Prasad Routray Originally published on Dec 31, 2011 in the New Indian Express:… more »

By Bibhu Prasad Routray

Originally published on Dec 31, 2011 in the New Indian Express: http://expressbuzz.com/voices/a-long-distance-from-a-fully-secure-india/348041.html

In the past few months, the government has asserted in unambiguous terms that the security situation in the country has undergone serious positive transformations. The last one in the series of its publications is the December 24 Report Card of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), titled, ‘Capacity to meet threat to internal security improved—Overall security situation remains under control’. The MHA insists that with a plethora of measures initiated by it during the past year, the country’s capacity to meet terror threats, arising internally as well as from across the border, has grown manifold. At the dawn of 2012, unless one is a serving government official or a loyalist of the ruling party, it is difficult to go along with such assessments.

The most obvious achievement that the government has attempted to flaunt is the declining terror incidents in the country. This is true across the board—for the Northeast, Kashmir as well as the Naxal-affected theatres. However, the fact remains that much of these improvements remain reversible.

The outbreak of peace in the Northeast region is, inarguably, a gift from Dhaka and certainly not the result of upgraded anti-terror capacities of the security forces stationed in the region. The Awami League government reversed the age-old practice of sheltering militants by arresting and handing over these insurgent leaders to India. While that has somewhat quietened the north-eastern part of the country, the task of transforming the ‘decline in violence scenario’ to one that guarantees durable peace has just began. It is very clear that India’s western neighbour will not repeat the gesture of Dhaka. And that would keep Kashmir potentially on the boil for foreseeable future, the current peace in the state notwithstanding.

MHA insists that Naxal violence has been “contained”. The reality, however, is violence has simply decreased to some extent. Naxal activity was reported from 194 districts in 2011. Night running of trains remains suspended in areas under Naxal control, development initiatives remain suspended and periodic bandh calls by the Naxals continue to paralyse lives. Moreover, the increase in the number of Jan Adalats, training camps as well as killing of police informers indicates that the extremists have tactically retreated into a capacity-building mode.

The other claim to fame for the government is the manpower increase among the Central police forces. There are certainly more security forces on the ground today compared to previous years. Recruitment to create additional battalions continues at a rapid pace. However, mere numbers are only a small part of the winning formula. The failed experiment of Operation Green Hunt is a stark reminder of the fact that the amassment of ill-motivated and insufficiently inclined forces alone does not guarantee victory.

Notwithstanding the so-called “impressive” record of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), the fact remains that since 2009 almost all the terror attacks in the country remain unsolved. This includes the four attacks that took place in 2011. The Intelligence Bureau (IB) has about 30 per cent vacancy among its field personnel. In the words of the retired Home Secretary, the personnel who have been recruited in the past couple of years would need at least two more years before starting to deliver.

Among the countless flip-flops on erecting an effective counter-terror architecture, one that would go down as the most incredulous is the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC). One of the pet projects of the Home Minister, the NCTC had been highlighted as the end-all institution for preventing terror. After three years of prolonged wait, we know for sure that the NCTC being prepared for the country is not an organisation that fuses the counter-terror capacities of dissipated organisations in the entire country, but a parliamentary committee-type of toothless advisory organisation. Meanwhile, the fate of the National Intelligence Grid (NATGRID), even after its July 2011 “in-principle approval” by the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS), still hangs in balance.

And add the continuing confusion and total lack of political unanimity on dealing with terror to overall state of affairs. And what we have is a completely different situation from what is being projected by the government. India’s ability to fight against terror is still in its infancy.

The author is a former Deputy Director at the National Security Council Secretariat, New Delhi. Views are personal.

–
Bibhu Prasad Routray, Ph.D.
Visiting Research Fellow (South Asia Programme)
S Rajaratnam School of International Studies
Nanyang Technological University, Singapore
Phone- 65-98549223 (Cell)
BLOG: http://warantiwar.blogspot.com/

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2012/01/a-long-distance-from-a-fully-secure-india/

An Article on cultural and linguistic rights of some tribes in Manipur

By : Bishwajit Okram, LL.M and ACCA. The cultural and linguistic rights of Khoibu and… more »

By : Bishwajit Okram, LL.M and ACCA.

The cultural and linguistic rights of Khoibu and Shaibu tribes must be respected by Maring tribes of Manipur.

“It is estimated that, if nothing is done, half of 6000 plus languages spoken today will disappear by the end of this century”, Recommendations to UNESCO for Action Plans on the Safeguarding of Endangered Languages (2003).

“With the disappearance of unwritten and undocumented languages, humanity would lose not only a cultural wealth but also important ancestral knowledge embedded, in particular, in indigenous languages”, UNESCO.

Khoibu and Shaibu tribes of Manipur fear that their language will be among the half of 6000 plus language spoken today which is under a threat of extinction, if nothing is done.

History has witnessed many such disappearances. English annihilated Ireland of its own Gaelige culture and language. Meitei scripts and culture were uprooted some centuries ago by the Bangalis with their culture, language and scripts.

Khoibu and Shaibu tribes’ fear is logical. They must do something and state should protect their identity. Both, national and international law strongly provision for such preservation and protection.

Khoibu tribe and Shaibu tribe of Manipur, having around 3000 and 1000 population respectively, in a country of 1.2 billion population, should be declared as endanger tribes of the world and be called for the protection of their cultural, language and historical heritage.

In a recent interaction, a young, educated couple from Khoibu and Shaibu tribes, explained why their tribes are not at all a sub-tribe of Maring and that they are now under imminent threat from this major tribe of losing their language and culture to extinction.

“Tangkhul Baptist priests used to teach and translate bibles in Tangkhul languages in our villages and Maring villages, but the Tangkhul priests are no more doing this now,” problem started from this point explained the husband. “Marings are now trying to impose their language upon these two tribes who have utterly different languages of their own from Maring,” added the husband.

On being asked as to why their tribes were not recognised separately earlier under Indian govt gazette, both (husband and wife) admitted: “It was until just some generation ago that their tribes started going to school and colleges. There were not many educated people in the villages. People were very poor. We remained ignorant till today. There was nobody who could fight for our case”

Both the husband and wife resented, “We have been forced to add ‘Maring’ in the end of our names.”

“The Shaibu tribe has altogether a different dress code, colour, language, rituals and food habits” claims the Shaibu husband.

“When there is nothing called similarity and commonality between us and the Maring, except that we live in hills, where is the question of we being called Maring which is not our own tribe’s name, ” added bitterly by the Shaibu tribe.

“Now that bible is forced to read in Maring language. We don’t know Maring language. Our parents do not understand Maring language. But we want bible to be read in our own language for our own clarity and understanding”, the Khoibu wife continued.

“We must send linguistic scholars and anthropologists to verify our claims and their claims, otherwise there could be violence in future among the tribes”, said the Shaibu husband.

UN declaration on the rights of persons belonging to national or ethnic , religious and linguistic minorities has been adopted by the UN Commission on Human rights in its resolution 1992/16, 21 February and then, by the General Assembly in its resolution 47/135 on 18 December 1992.

Article 1 and 3 of this declaration requires member countries to protect minority linguistic rights and under article 2 of the declaration, it says, “ Persons belonging to national or ethnic, religious and linguistic minorities (hereinafter referred to as persons belonging to minorities) have the right to enjoy their own culture, to profess and practice their own religion, and to use their own language, in private and in public, freely and without interference or any form of discrimination. […]”
Indian constitution has plenty of articles that protect and sustain linguistic rights.
Article 14 of the constitution expressively says that every citizen of India shall have right to equality before the law and equal protection of the law.
Article 29(1) of the constitution says any section of the citizen has the right to conserve its distinct language , script or culture.
Article 350(A) and 350(B) have gone a step further, saying that state must provide provisions for facilities for instruction in mother-tongue at primary stage and for a special officer for Linguistic Minorities and his duties respectively.
The rights of persons belonging to linguistic minorities have been increasingly acknowledged in international human rights law as both individual and collective human rights.

Khoibu and Shaibu tribes must present their case with supporting evidences and fight for their rights. Set an example before other tens and hundreds of suppressed tribes!

Talks with the Kachin and Mon Rebels in Myanmar: Strategy, Motives and Hurdles

By Bibhu Prasad Routray Myanmar’s recent policy to politically reform itself might have excited many… more »

By Bibhu Prasad Routray
Myanmar’s recent policy to politically reform itself might have excited many analysts outside the country, but its objective of achieving peace with the ethnic rebels is progressing slower than expected. Suspicion regarding the government’s real intentions remains the key factor.

Policy to end Isolation
On 18 August 2011, the new government in Myanmar called for peace talks with armed ethnic rebel groups along its borders with Thailand and China. The new approach came three weeks after opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi wrote an open letter to President Thein Sein offering to mediate between the government and the rebels. The government went on to form a negotiating panel for peace to work on a formula of achieving peace in the entire country in the next three to four years.

By all means, the present strategy is directed at ending the country’s pariah status. Bringing the war with the rebels to an end is one of the conditions set by the West for improvised relations with the Myanmarese government. This was further emphasized by US Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during her visit to Myanmar in early December 2011.

Peace Talks
On 29 November 2011, high ranking Kachin Independence Organization (KIO) leaders held discussions with a Myanmarese government delegation in the border town of Ruili in China’s Yunnan Province. KIO insisted that the political dialogue needs to continue whereas the government underlines the need to ink a ceasefire agreement. The KIO incidentally had signed a ceasefire with the military junta in 1994, becoming one of the first ethnic armed groups to do so.

Similarly, the first round of peace talks were held on 22 December 2011 between a Myanmarese government delegation headed by the Minister for Railways Aung Min and a delegation from the Mon armed group, the New Mon State Party (NMSP) led by its secretary, Nai Hang Thar. The talks took place in Sangkhalburi in Thailand’s Kanchanaburi Province. The government offered to favourably consider the possibility of granting the right to teach the Mon language in Mon State and also to assist NMSP leaders in developing business opportunities. While the government side said it hopes to conclude a ceasefire agreement during the second round of talks scheduled for January 2011 in the Mon state, the NMSP too, like the Kachins, insisted on a political dialogue.

Hindrances
Suspicion regarding the government’s real intentions remains a hurdle in the actualization of the peace talks. There is a widely held belief that the government is using the twin strategy – military offensive as well as peace talks – to subdue the rebels. Since June this year, armed offensives are continuing with the Kachin Independence Army (KIA), the armed wing of the KIO. President Thein Sein made a statement during the November 2011 ASEAN summit in Bali that the security forces could annihilate organizations like the KIO/KIA “within a day”. Reportedly more than 100 infantry battalions and three divisions of forces are being used against the rebels, who have since lost many of its camps along the Myanmar-China border. The President on 10 December 2011 ordered an end to the fighting. Skirmishes, however, continue as the directives are yet to reach the troops.

Whether a ceasefire agreement should precede political talks is the second area of contention. The government obviously is in a hurry to showcase its ability to achieve total peace in the country, where as its past records of procrastinating political dialogue with the groups which had signed the ceasefire agreement in the 1990s, remains a negative point of reference for the groups. For example, the NMSP observed a ceasefire agreement with the government between 1995 and 2010 and the entire 15 year period remained bereft of a single round of political dialogue.

Thirdly, government’s moves to individually hold negotiations with the groups rather than talking to the umbrella body United Nationalities Federal Council (UNFC) has contributed to the suspicion that the government is adopting a “divide and rule” strategy. The 11-member UNFC merging the loyalties of the Mon, Shan, Karenni, Chin, Arakan, Karen, Kachin and Pa-O ethnicities had been formed in February 2011. The UNFC demands that the government deals directly with it rather than individually with the groups. The government, on the other hand, insists that political talks with the UNFC will be the “third step” of its peace process. As a result, the UNFC’s Peace Talk Group formed in the last week of August 2011 remains idle. The UNFC has gone ahead to form a Federal Army during its 16-17 December emergency meeting on the Thai-Burma border.

For obvious reasons, the government will have to walk that extra mile to create confidence among the alienated ethnicities. The excitement in certain quarters about the process of reform underway in Naypyidaw notwithstanding, the rebellious ethnicities will need to be given time to internalize the process of reformation. Honesty and transparency rather than rapidity in achieving peace would have to be the key principle behind the government’s policy.

`Half Loaf Worse Than No Bread`

By B.G. Verghese Team Anna’s farce ended, not with a bang but a whimper, with… more »

By B.G. Verghese
Team Anna’s farce ended, not with a bang but a whimper, with “80 crore Indians” or whatever never in sight whether in Mumbai or Delhi. They never were there in any such like numbers, despite bogus referenda and other gimmickry and media magnification. That bluff has been called and the underlying humbug and blackmail increasingly exposed. Yet Anna is girding for another round with an anti-Congress poll campaign to boot.

If he and his friends had followed the debate in both Houses of Parliament, they would have seen who opposed the Lok Pal Bill – the BJP, Trinamool, SP, the Left, BSP and some others. But they did not wait for Parliament. They had rallied around another of Anna’s pre-determined fasts and announced dates and timetables without caring to know what Parliament might do with the Bill. It was for them still the old war cry “Our Bill or No Bill”. Why? Because they had decided the official Bill was “useless”, “toothless”, “a joke”. They called on Parliament to defeat the Bill on the plea that for the suffering people of India, in whose name they claimed to speak, half a loaf is far worse than no bread.

Sadly, the Opposition in Parliament too has hugged the theorem that half a loaf is worse than no bread. The Government made out a cogent case in both Houses and did in fact accept some amendments on the floor of the House to meet critics half why, but to no avail. The major sticking point suddenly became the alleged assault on federalism by virtue of legislating for Lok Ayuktas in the States in a Central Lok Pal Bill. The argument is specious in view of the fact that the Government was duty bound to fulfil its “treaty” obligations under the UN Convention on Corruption which India has ratified. Further, it had accepted an amendment making application of the Lok Ayukta section subject to the consent each State. Where is there any violence to federalism here?

Three other issues were pressed by the critics. First, the CBI, which deals with more than just corruption cases, should be under the Lok Pal and totally independent of the Government. Secondly, that Category C and D Union appointees (including peons, drivers and such like) should be under the Lok Pal and not the Vigilance Commissioner though the latter would be bound to report to the former. Objection was also taken to the explanation that the prescribed 50 per cent representation in the eight member panel of the Lok Pal bench, excluding the chairperson, would mandatorily go to SC/ST/OBC, minority or women nominees in order to reflect the plurality and diversity of India without reserved quotas for each segment.

The official position in all these matters was not unreasonable. There are real dangers in creating a new and all powerful supra- bureaucratic-cum-police monolith virtually accountable to none. Those who doubt the efficacy of the structures and mechanisms proposed in the Bill had no reason to believe that all future options are closed. Surely if a year or two down the line, the actual working of the Lok Pal were to prove to be inadequate or hamstrung, nothing would preclude this or any successive Parliament from moving amendments to cure such defects. Nothing is foreclosed. After all, the Constitution itself has been substantively amended many times

Over and beyond these matters, some Members thought the Bill goes too far in encompassing certain categories of trusts and NGOs, even if only above a certain financial threshold, while others argued it did not go far enough insofar as it excludes the corporate sector. On both counts the Government has a point. Trusts and NGOs do get foreign funding and in some instances have been known to indulge in malpractices. Corporates too are prone to corruption and can and must be dealt with through other mechanisms without overloading the Lok Pal.

The Whistle-Blowers Act was adopted without controversy by the Lok Sabha and will give heart and muscle to men and women who stand up for principles. However, the Bill to vest the Lok Pal with constitutional authority was shot down on the ground that the Lok Pal Bill as conceived is full of infirmities. The Congress could not muster the two-thirds majority required for a constitutional amendment and displayed poor floor management. Yet this by itself would not have mattered, and the Constitution Bill could have been re-introduced at a later time, without impeding the establishment of a Lok Pal.

However, this was not to be. Though in a minority in the Rajya Sabha, the Government could have got the Lok Pal Bill passed by a simple majority with some friendly support. However, it was rudely let down by its own UPA allies, the TMC being the most adamant. Seeing the way things were going, the Government perhaps wisely thought it fit to close the debate by midnight December 29, the last day of the extended session, and not seek a vote on the tactical plea that the 187 amendments moved would need careful consideration. The tearing up of the Bill by an RJD member was disgraceful and should not go unpunished. Gratuitously attributing motives to the Chairman for adjourning the House sine die on account of choreographed disorder is equally unacceptable. Rival conspiracy theories have been floated to divert blame by insinuating mala fides to others. This will not wash.

The Lok Pal Bill as passed by the Lok Sabha is still alive. This leaves the Government with the option to bring it up in the Budget session, after further consultation or amendment. In the latter case, the Bill will need to go back to the Lok Sabha for its approval, failing which a joint session of both Houses will have to be convened to settle the matter.

Though all is not lost, the current impasse is a national shame. The Government’s handling of matters has been slipshod and lacking in timely consultation. The BJP has adopted a petty partisan stand that puts embarrassing the Congress above the national interest. And the Trinamool has repeatedly betrayed every canon of collective responsibility and seems to be in the UPA only to extract what it can. Mamata

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/12/half-loaf-worse-than-no-bread/

India Struggles to Cope with Growing Internet Penetration

By Mannika Chopra/CPJ India Consultant Sites like this Facebook discussion group have been the subject… more »

By Mannika Chopra/CPJ India Consultant

Sites like this Facebook discussion group have been the subject of complaints to the Indian police by activists. (CPJ)

As Internet penetration deepens, largely religiously and socially conservative India is struggling to cope with concerns about controversial web content and its easy accessibility to a vast population, all with little oversight. Local courts have become the launching point for some of the anti-Web offensives.

On December 21, a civil court in Delhi ordered 22 websites—including Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, Facebook, and smaller ones like Orkut Blogspot, Topix, Exbii, Boardreader, and Zombietime—to remove content deemed “anti-religious” or “antisocial.”

And on December 23, 21 website operators, again including Google, Orkut, and Facebook, were summoned to court on charges of criminal conspiracy and spreading obscene content and given until February 6 to remove it. “The accused in connivance with each other and other unknown persons are selling, publicly exhibiting and have put into circulation obscene, lascivious content,” Metropolitan Magistrate Sudesh Kumar said when he handed down his decision in Delhi, according to a Press Trust of India report.

Magistrate Kumar also ordered the central government to file a report to his court by January 13, explaining its plans to control what he considers the growing amount of offensive and derogatory content on websites. A copy of the order was sent to bureaucrats who head various government ministries, including Communications and Information Technology, Home Affairs, and Law and Justice.

The magistrate might well have an ally in Kapil Sibal, the minister for communications and information technology. Earlier in December, he tried to regulate online content by asking site operators to take steps to pre-screen content and filter offensive material. The suggestion unleashed a storm of protest from media activists who said the government was resorting to forms of censorship and monitoring the Internet which went against the basic principles of freedom of speech outlined in the Indian Constitution.

But Sibal’s calls echo a grass roots attitude. On Monday, social activist Nutan Thakur based in Lucknow, capital of the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, filed a complaint against Facebook and one of its users for allegedly posting comments and spreading hatred against Hindu’s holy scripture, Bhagavad Gita. In her complaint, Thakur alleged that the comments on Facebook were enough to provoke anger and trigger communal riots, according to local media. Earlier, her husband had done something similar, angered by a Facebook discussion group called “I hate Gandhi.”

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) says Internet usage is accelerating in India, driven by the use of mobile devices like smart phones. The ITU says mobile data usage in India grew by almost 35 percent between June 2011 and September 2011. With about 100 million users online (a low number given India’s population of 1.17 billion) India is already the country with the third largest number of Internet users, behind China and the United States.

Mannika Chopra, CPJ’s India consultant, is based in New Delhi. She is a media columnist and contributes to The Tribune, Hindustan and The Statesman. She is also involved in setting up women media collectives and mentors international journalism students visiting India.

Flashback: And that`s how the show finally began

By Subir Ghosh Production and distribution were only two pegs to the films busines. But… more »

By Subir Ghosh
Production and distribution were only two pegs to the films busines. But the movie moguls of early Hollywood knew that the money actually entered the industry from the third – exhibition. If ‘Hollywood’ was initially a group of California-based studios and offices for distribution throughout the world, it also came to include a cluster of movie palaces situated on the main streets of the big American cities – New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

The modern movie palace era started during the silent phase of the film industry. Much credit for this goes to Samuel Lionel Rothapfel, better known as “Roxy” (1882 – 1936), an American theatrical impressario and entrepreneur. He is noted for developing the lavish presentation of silent films in the deluxe movie palace theatres of the 1910s and 1920s.

As they say, in the beginning it was The Strand. Roxy’s rule commenced with the opening of the 3,000-seat Strand in 1914 in New York. The Mark Strand Theatre, as it was called, was built as part of the chain of movie theatres owned by the Mark Brothers, Mitchell and Moe. It cost $1 million to build and may have been the first lavish movie palace built only to show motion pictures. It was designed by Thomas W Lamb and served as a model for many other similar theatres built at the time. To manage the theatre, Mitchell Mark personally hired Roxy Rothafel.

Roxy combined a live vaudeville show with films. His vaudeville presentation offered a little something extra that attracted audiences away from more ordinary film theatres down the street. Roxy’s shows opened with a house orchestra of 50 musicians playing the national anthem. Then came a newsreel, a travelogue, and a comic short, followed by a live stage show. Finally, the audience got to see the film. Roxy’s strategy worked.

The Strand went on to be renamed first as the Warner Theatre in 1951, the Warner Cinerama Theatre in 1953, and in the 1980s as the RKO Warner Twin. The building closed in February 1987 to make way for the Morgan Stanley Building, part of the redevelopment of Times Square.

Roxy’s greatest achievement was the eponymous Roxy Theatre, a 5,920-seat theatre, just off Times Square in New York City, in March 1927. The huge movie palace was a leading Broadway film showcase through the 1950s and was also noted for its lavish stage shows. It finally closed down and was demolished in 1960.

The Roxy Theatre was originally conceived by film producer Herbert Lubin in mid-1925 as the world’s largest and finest motion picture palace. Lubin roped in showman Rothapfel with an astronomical salary, a percentage of the profits, stock options, and even offering to name the theatre after him. It was intended to be the first of six Roxy Theatres in the New York area. Roxy worked closely with Chicago architect Walter W Ahlschlager and decorator Harold Rambusch of Rambusch Decorating Company on every aspect of the theater’s design and furnishings.

The theatre boasted lavish support facilities including two stories of private dressing rooms, three floors of chorus dressing rooms, huge rehearsal rooms, a costume department, staff dry-cleaning and laundry rooms, a barber shop and hairdresser, a completely equipped infirmary, dining room, and a menagerie for show animals. There were also many offices, a private screening room seating 100, and massive engine rooms for the electrical, ventilating and heating machinery. The Roxy’s own staff enjoyed a cafeteria, gymnasium, billiard room, nap room, library and showers.

The theatre’s stage innovations included a rising orchestra pit which could accommodate an orchestra of 110. The film projection booth was recessed into the front of the balcony to prevent film distortion caused by the usual angled projection from the top rear wall of a theater. This enabled the Roxy to have the sharpest film image for its time. Courteous service to the patron was key to the Roxy formula. The theatre’s uniformed corps of male ushers were known for their polite manner, efficiency and military bearing. They went through rigorous training, daily inspections and drill, overseen by a retired Marine officer. Film-watching was an experience.

Roxy’s ambitious and outlandish ideas made the budget shoot up over $2.5 million over the planned costs, and pushed Lubin to sell his own controlling interest to movie mogul and theater owner William Fox for $5 million. The final cost of the theatre was $12 million. But by this time, Roxy had shot himself in the foot – by making Lubin go almost bankrupt. His own film career ended soon after, and none of the other planned Roxy theatres were built.

Samuel Rothapfel, nevertheless, had created the concept before he vanished into oblivion. Hungarian-born Adolph Zukor, who had already established Famous Players-Lasky with director Jesse Lasky, was quick to catch on to Roxy’s ideas. He quickly purchased a string of movie palace theatres across the United States, thus gaining control of a fully integrated system of film production, distribution and exhibition. Zukor’s corporation merged with Chicago’s Balaban & Katz, to form Paramount Pictures in 1925.

The show had finally begun.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/12/flashback-and-thats-how-the-show-finally-began/

Holiday Manipur

By Bishwajit Singh Okram Without development and supporting infrastructure, why should tourists come to Manipur?… more »

By Bishwajit Singh Okram

Holiday Manipur

Without development and supporting infrastructure, why should tourists come to Manipur?

Lack of adequate infrastructure and support system betray tourists visiting Manipur for holiday, writes Bishwajit Okram about a recent holiday to Manipur..

Manipur is a multicultural and multi ethnic state. It boasts a temperate climate ranging from 0 to 32 degree cc. Its natural vegetations, abundant varieties of faunas, orchid plants and flowers are world famous. Unlike other populous parts of India, Manipur has a thin population, just less than 2.5 million in areas of more than 22000sq.km, north east of India.

I reckon, when the captain announced that the airbus was descending for landing from a height of 30Kms, I looked out through the window: there I found the place, Manipur being enveloped in a bluish-purplish coloured landscapes. This was in October end, 2011.

My list for the sight seeing was long: 1)Singda dam, the highest mud dam in India, 2) the kangla fort, 3) the barak river, the peculiar flower- Lily of Shirui hill, 3) the willong khullen stone erection, 4)Sadu waterfall of Ichum Keirap village, 5)famous pure water Loktak lake and 6) Kakching’s newly built hill garden.

I however could visit only few places with utmost difficulty.

Surprisingly, except some parts of the National Highway 39, most part of NH 39 and other state roads are still not road worthy. It is difficult to drive at a speed more than 20 to 30 kilometres per hour.

There are no handy tourist offices to assist visitors to the state. A fellow tourist was lamenting that there were no guides available even in the state capital, Imphal, who could take tourists to these places. There were no tourist buses taking tourists and going to these places, he continued. It should all be organised privately, which I did through a friend.

Taxis and private car operators are available only at the airport and bus stands in the state capital, Imphal. It is extremely difficult to call a cab or rent a car for a drive to any place.

Security is another concern. A hotel boy said that it was very dangerous to venture out late at evening or at night.

Except few hotels of 2 or 3 star standards in Imphal, these tourist spots I listed above have few night stay facility or not at all. Tourists should, therefore, not plan for night stay at these places.

My daughter was hospitalised due to a stomach infection and the doctor advised to us all: “Do not take food from street vendors and any roadside hotels.” Always carry a pack lunch or eat brunch (breakfast+lunch) before you set off for any of these places.
It means one really needs to plan and if one is lazy about planning, this is not the holiday place one should go. On the other hand one can consider holiday in Manipur as an adventure!

But one good thing is, one can visit to any doctor at any time.

Tracks leading to these actual places are mostly narrow footpaths. One requires some physical stamina to walk long and many uphill. Most of these places are suitable for young people, both single and couple. These places are not elderly and handicap friendly either.

One of the good market segments of tourism is the senior citizen segment as they have money and time. But there is nowhere any sign that managers of these places tried to tap this market. Same is with the handicap tourists’ market segment.

Someone said that the first Prime Minister of India, Pt Jawaharlal Nehru, had admired Manipur as Switzerland of India sometimes in the middle of 20th century. Today we are in 21st century post a decade, if Nehru were alive; one would wonder what he had to say in this high tech era. Perhaps, he must have seen Manipur from the top in his prime minister’s helicopter.

Not every ordinary tourist like me could afford a chopper though!

Manipur has many hot tourist spots and it is beautiful on the whole. It is only the development of the place and supporting infrastructure that are missing. But for a tourist, it is not worth spending a cent visiting this place, at this present situation.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/12/holiday-manipur/

Malls are charging Polythene/Plastic/Carry Bags

India is a place where we can do a lot of things if you have… more »

India is a place where we can do a lot of things if you have brain to fool people with the help our largest democracy scripts and which is one of the most horrible part when someone come to know what going on the existing system. As a common man in this largest democracy country, I am really shame on it to other decent Continents like Europe, America & Australia. In recent Quote from SWISS Bank Chairman – “India is a poor country however Indians are not poor.” Normal person who earns as hand to mouth can’t survive in this country. Everything which we need for day-to-day life have to fight for our rights otherwise the owners of the wide industrial honchos viz. Reliance, Aditya Bilra & Tata etc… They can move the Governance system, if they wish to do that. I am not blaming to them I am just blaming the system which they can impose without thinking the common man those who are facing such difficulties in their daily life. In this regards, I would like to share one of my experience when I was teaching in Private School in Manipur. At that time, I attended one Teachers’ Training and the Trainer taught us that you have to classified the concerned class as A,B & C wherein A could be considered as Excellent Students, B as Medium Students & C as not up to the mark Students respectively. Why do I mention this story because we can apply this theory to the existing society wherein our country is one of the second largest population country in this planet but at the same time we have facing poverty in many context of our life. So, every development should be based on C Class which is called as Below Poverty Line (BPL), if BPL can reach this level then the other A & B will be benefited automatically. Please do not take advantage of our Democracy system, we have to wake up to change the system, in this regards, I really proud of Anna Hazare who has brought our system to another level.

Here, the main purpose to write is that recently I went through some tough time with Malls’ Managers and their Management Team for Charging of Polythene/Plastic/Carry Bags which is not acceptable because the others like normal grocery shops and their part of packaging is still based on plastics/polythene/carry bags not in other way that means Environment Ministry’s restriction towards the ‘Free Plastic/Polythene Zone’ which is no use. I am not against the system of not using of plastics/polythene/Carry Bags but I am against the implementation system which is really called partiality with the development of existing society.

Why I am saying this because I have observed and researched in this matter within Pune City that all the Local Shops are still using polythene/plastic bags to the customers without charging of but all the Malls like More, Central, Westside, Big Bazaar & others are charging as follow:
1.Large Plastic Bag – Rs. 5.00

2.Medium Plastic Bag – Rs. 3.00

3.Small Plastic Bag – Rs. 1.00

When I asked/enquired about the charging of the bags, they told and showed me the resolution which was passed by their Association of Malls which really not acceptable for the common man of this country. I totally support their initiative towards pollution control but Malls are not the only caused to stop this system. We have to find out from the perspective of root cause and aware in this regards. Here I would request to the concern authority that please look into this matter on serious note. Our country is one of the fast developing countries as far as every aspect of development is concerned; we have reached beyond our expectation. For the same time, we have to make sure and to look into the matter minutely to rectify it with progression.

Lastly, I would request to the concern authority that please look into this matter for charging of plastic bags in Malls and balance accordingly. We would love to see in with positive response as soon as possible. On the other hand, if someone has come up with such kind of issue then that the person targets from some angles which is normal procedures for our country. However, spite of all this we have to struggle and rectify accordingly otherwise next generation will ask a valid question and there will be no answer because we can’t take any kind of initiative. As we have one proverb called – “A drop of water makes a mighty ocean.” If there will be leakage of some social matter then we will definitely come to know the value of water here. Henceforth, mobilization and awareness has to be in place in every subject of our livelihood so we will come to know what needs to be done or not as a common man. Every individual should be part this mission to find out what will be our convenience prosperity and going forward for the development of Secularism Country. We are all responsible for all because at the end of the day, we are the persons who are facing such silly matter one or the other. Taking into consideration, ignorance is so dangerous in this current scenario, so we have to be very much multitasking in every aspect as well as in any field.

This article was sent to Kanglaonline by Md. Raees Ahamed.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/12/malls-are-charging-polytheneplasticcarry-bags/

The Blackest Black Hole: Scientists Find a Monster the Size of 21 Billion Suns

By Michael D. Lemonick They’re huge. They’revoracious. They’re blacker than a panther on a moonless… more »

By Michael D. Lemonick
They’re huge. They’revoracious. They’re blacker than a panther on a moonless night. They’re black holes, the mind-bending, space-warping cosmic objects with gravity so insanely powerful that even a beam of light that wanders too close will be sucked in, never to emerge. Einstein’s theory of general relativity predicted they might exist, but the great physicist himself doubted it would really happen.

Einstein was wrong. Over the past decade or two, black holes have been discovered all over the place — small ones peppered around the Milky Way and huge ones, impressively called “supermassive” black holes, lurking the centers of galaxies. The one at the core of Milky Way weighs as much as a couple of million stars, and it could swallow the sun without even noticing, the way you’d swallow a pistachio.

But that’s positively puny compared with the two new black holes, each about 330 million light-years away or so, just announced in the journal Nature. The smaller one, located inside a galaxy known as NGC 3842, is as massive as 9.7 billion suns, and the other, in a galaxy called NGC 4889, is more than twice as large: if you put it on a very large balance, it would take at least 21 billion stars to even things out. Another way to think about things: even the smaller of the two is nearly 30% bigger than the previous record holder, announced last winter, and it would make for a great storyline if astronomers were surprised, amazed, flabbergasted, blown away by the awesome giganticness of these monsters. Truthfully, though, they kind of expected it. “If we infer the existence of quasar black holes of ten billion solar masses at early cosmic times,” Harvard theorist Avi Loeb told Nature’s Ron Cowen for the journal’s online news blog, “we’d better find their counterparts in the present-day Universe.”

Loeb is referring to quasars — beacons of light so intensely bright they can be seen halfway across the universe. When astronomers first spotted them in the late 1950s, nobody knew what they were. Nowadays, everyone pretty much agrees that quasars are supermassive black holes at the cores of young galaxies. The holes themselves aren’t visible, of course, but when they suck in surrounding matter, the stuff heats up to millions of degrees, sending bursts of energy shooting across the cosmos.

Back when the universe was young, there was plenty of gas floating around to feed these monsters. Nowadays, much of it the gas is gone, and so are the quasars — but the black holes that powered them should, as Loeb says, still be around (where would they go, after all?). Now, thanks to some of the world’s most powerful telescopes, astronomers know that indeed they are. While scientists can’t see the black holes directly, they can see stars whipping around at high speeds in the two galaxies’ cores — and by clocking those speeds carefully, the astronomers can calculate how big and how dense the object they’re orbiting must be. In each of these cases, nothing but a supermassive black hole fits the bill.

Such observations are technically difficult, so in one sense the latest black-hole discoveries are extraordinary. Still, astronomers expected to find such things all along, so it might not seem like such a big deal to space experts. Indeed, Martin Rees, the British astronomer royal, dubbed the new results “an incremental step” in the New York Times, with nary a word about shock or awe. If you’ve got a professional interest in how black holes were born and how they evolved, this is more grist for the mill.

For the rest of us — well, they’re just kind of awesome.
(www.time.com)

Irom Sharmila and the Loneliness of a Long Distance Runner

By Pradip Phanjoubam (article written for the web magazine MxMIndia.com on Sharmila completing 11 years… more »

By Pradip Phanjoubam
(article written for the web magazine MxMIndia.com on Sharmila completing 11 years of her marathon fast)
Irom Sharmila is in love with somebody who has been communicating and sharing soul anguish with her in her confinement through letters. A report in The Telegraph, Kolkota declared this loudly. Nothing very strange about this, after all Sharmila is only 39 years of age, and living alone in a prison cell after having vowed to sacrifice eating to demand the repeal of the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, AFSPA, for the last almost 11 years. Her fast completed 11 years on November 2 which is the day her family says her fast began, or November 5 when the newspapers first took notice of her fast and put it on record in the next day’s edition.

The terrible privation she has inflicted upon herself and how she has been coping with it is next only to superhuman and it is a wonder that her spirit had not broken down long ago. Ordinary men and women would have probably lost their sanity by now. She is still very much alive today, carrying on the fight she took upon herself to shoulder. It must come with a great deal of bewilderment for many to discover that a superhuman has the heart of a human within. This should not be a matter of discouragement but of elation. After all, what we want to see demonstrated is an ordinary human pushing the boundaries of achievement and not a god doing what are humanly impossible.

We would in this sense give three cheers to Sharmila for the revelation and not downgrade her stature in any way, although we do feel as a public figure she should have been a little wary and discreet about going public with her very private life. It is also unfortunate that she had not indicated this to the local media, making it seem as if the local media has been party to keeping her feelings under wraps. Or is it a case of efforts by interested parties to do just this? This should become known sooner than later.

But no great damage done, the truth is out, so be it, and hopefully for the better towards the actualisation of the noble cause she is fighting for. Her direct supporters, and all the rest of us, must come to terms with the new and more human image of the lonely tough-willed fighter, and carry the movement forward with renewed vigour. After all the movement is what is important, and with or without an iconic figure like Sharmila as standard bearer, it should carry on without any sense of loss or that the wind in the sail has diminished. She has done enough to highlight the issue, more than anyone behind the cause can imagine every doing. We should not be on the lookout for a martyr in her. Instead we should be encouraging her to end her self-inflicted privation and carry on the struggle without having to go through all the torture of unending hunger. The issue is the draconian AFSPA and not Irom Sharmila, however great she is.

We cannot however help wondering if Sharmila is not under psychological stress more than ever in the past few months. It is learnt that meeting her even by her own family members is no longer as easy as it used to be, permission now having to be acquired from the chief secretary of the state himself. All of us who have visited the iron lady in the past know her confinement was not so strictly guarded. For whatever the reason, her privation was being deepened and surely her loneliness too in equal measures, after all she is a human too. Imagine 11 years in a prison cell all alone, not even in contact with other prisoners as she is in a special jail ward in the Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital Porompat so as to enable medical care and nose feeding.

Not only this, going without food is not just about tolerating hunger. In fact, in her case, hunger may not be much of an issue for she is fed through the nose and kept alive. But her self-denial is more about foregoing taste and smell of food, some of the most gratifying of all human senses. Any lesser person would have lost sanity under the circumstance. Is this additional stress having a toll on her? We hope not.

In any case, the campaign against the oppressive AFSPA has been allowed to hinge on Sharmila alone for too long. This was not good for her as she is finding out now, or for the movement, for it deprived individuality of individual campaigners, most of them having simply to rally behind Sharmila, abdicating in the process the need to take individual stances in the manner Eric Fromm described the emergence of dictatorships in “Escape from Freedom”.

The episode is sad in another way though. The paradoxical thing is, to be a public leader entails a great deal of sacrifice of private life. Sharmila as a selfless crusader against the embodiment of an oppressive law automatically came to be lifted on an exalted public pedestal. Sharmila as a shy private woman can lead a happy individual life but will disappear from the public domain. This is the difference between an inspirational leader and a common citizen. The freedom to aspire for either should remain with the individual. Let Sharmila decide her own future without any guilt. She has contributed enough already. Manipur and its resistance against the AFSPA must however continue undeterred even if she decides to retire to a peaceful normal life.

Leaders and Followers
But there are more to what this recent development has proven. The fact that a personal decision of Irom Sharmila is now seen somewhat as a threat to the campaign against the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, AFSPA, in Manipur is a demonstration of the strategic and structural flimsiness of any protracted struggle to resort to hero worship. It has to be said that Sharmila’s direct followers are guilty of having done this to a great extent. Even if it is not hero worship, they had built their campaign with her as the major, if not the only prop.

The approach should instead have been to see Sharmila as a star campaigner, but not the heart and soul of the campaign, but unfortunately, for whatever their reason, this route was not given much importance. And so a single report of Sharmila’s love affair with a hitherto unheard of man, and her reported statement that she is disillusioned with her followers, caused so much trepidation and even the fear that the campaign against the AFSPA would lose much of its steam.

We hope this does not happen and the movement is able to find new legs that could do with but did not absolutely need Sharmila as a prop if she at all becomes unavailable. Indeed, the myriad human rights organisations actively involved in the campaign must now take time off to rethink, retrospect and reorient their future strategies. Meanwhile leave Sharmila to be where she wants to be.

But increasingly confounding is also the reason why The Telegraph chose to give so much prominence to Sharmila’s declaration of her very personal affair. This is even more intriguing for in all of the 11 long years she has been staging her protest fast, even on the day she completed the 10 year landmark, she was not seen as deserving headline space by this newspaper. Many other newspapers and television channels even ignored the event. So why this sudden interest in her personal affairs, even though it is clear she was the one who revealed it to the journalist who did the report.

The timing, whether by design or coincidence is also curious for only a few days earlier the Union home minister, P Chidambaram had announced in New Delhi that the government was considering a review of the AFSPA. Moreover a reflected halo form the Anna Hazare blitzkrieg in New Delhi was beginning to hover over Sharmila, signifying perhaps liberal India’s conscience was being awoken, and the issue of AFSPA was beginning to attract national attention. It was in the midst of this that the story of Sharmila’s love affair butted in rudely.

The story was heart warming no doubt despite the hiccups caused by a passage suggesting Sharmila was having very serious differences with her supporters, still the question of its timing as well as the prominence given to it, would undoubtedly make many suspicious that it may have motives other than plain journalistic calibration of news value. Thankfully however, it does now seem the sensational revelation is unlikely to sidetrack the anti-AFSPA campaign.

The development also should bring back the old debate of whether leaders make situations or the situations make leaders. The Sharmila case should again highlight the need to find the right balance between two. Leaders with vision give any movement the right focus and charisma, but it is also equally true that it is the peculiarities of a given situation which throws up a leader. For instance it is unlikely Gandhi could have happened in the 18th Century or Abraham Lincoln in the 20th Century.

This notwithstanding, it would be wrong to also dismiss human agency in shaping event and indeed history. If everything were to be predetermined by circumstance and leaders too were forged only by the impersonal forces of history, as Isaiah Berlin noted in “Crooked Timber of Humanity” a difficult ethical situation would arise whereby it would become impossible to hold anybody accountable for history’s many atrocities. Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot and all the other mass murderers of history would then appear to be no more than quasi-tragic figures, compelled by historical circumstances to do what they did.

In this context, Pol Pot who killed two million of his countrymen in the span of a decade of his rule, believed whatever he did was for the good of his country even on his deathbed as became evident in what was to be his last interview by Far Eastern Economic Review. It would thus be prudent for the human rights movement in the state to assess the situation arising out of Sharmila’s changed emotional constitution from this light.

Too Much Politics in Politics

By B.G. Verghese In India politics is sport. There is too much politics in our… more »

By B.G. Verghese
In India politics is sport. There is too much politics in our politics and too many are in it just for a laugh. Politics and elections are about power. Alas, power is quite often related more to pelf than to purpose. Such gamesmanship has again been in evidence as the season of scams plays out.
The winter session of Parliament was stalled for the first week as the BJP insisted on the Home Minister’s resignation and would not permit him to speak. His alleged guilt: a post-mortem memo in 2008 that he would have handled spectrum pricing differently over the preceding years. This ex-post facto record of a view that was superseded by a subsequent collective decision does not amount to criminal collusion. In any event, these very matters are pending before the PAC and being investigated by the CBI. The BJP nonetheless decided to block parliamentary proceedings with the support of other parties with similarly negative agendas demanding precedence in moving adjournment motions of their choice on issues pertaining to food prices, inflation and black money.

The country lost. Parliament was stymied and both time and money were wasted by those who tirelessly demand debate but prevent it, ask for bold reform but stall pertinent legislation, seek a lowering of prices but come in the way of production, investment and employment, and posture in the name of the poor but are their worst enemies. The BJP, has much to answer for. The Government too has exhibited deplorable floor management in Parliament by failing to concert action through the business advisory committee and informal talks with opposition party leaders and coalition partners. Our politicians appear to have forgotten that time is a precious resource.

The conclusion of Advani’s nth yatra against corruption and black money is merely beating the air as much as Rahul Gandhi’s loud exertions in Uttar Pradesh. The BJP’s own record on corruption in states governed by it is hardly reassuring. That apart, it is surprising that Murli Manohar Joshi, the BJP chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, currently examining the spectrum matter, should have written to the CAG’s office earlier, inquiring into the status of its impending report and urging expedition so as not to allow the Government time to fiddle with the record! It is also puzzling why a notional or presumptive spectrum price loss for failure to follow the auction route, ranging from a few thousand crores to Rs 1,76 lakh crores (depending on the assumptions made and dates taken into consideration), should in public parlance be pegged to the astronomic upper figure while totally disregarding the notional gain or value of social benefit and revenue earning from the huge expansion of telecom services under the adopted policy.

An earlier CAG report on the so-called Kargil defence purchase “scam” , on which the Supreme Court is calling for action against “errant” officials, again shows the somewhat mechanical manner in which auditing is done. The fact is that the armed forces had faced delays or denial of fresh acquisitions and procurement for long on account of procedural and strop-go hang-ups, as even today, when Kargil happened. In the circumstances, and not knowing how long the conflict might last and what degree of escalation might occur, the armed forces prudently prepared for the worst and placed orders from available vendors without extensive trials in all battlefield conditions so as to procure emergency supplies of ammunition, missiles, metal coffins and other stores. Nor could quantitative estimates be pegged to a pre-determined duration of hostilities.

The purchases were made and performed as required. The metal coffins allowed the dead to be carried back to their families and homes as far away as the Northeast and Kerala for the last rites with honour, without the indignity of body fluids oozing out of wooden coffins. Some stores arrived only after the war was over. But who would have assumed responsibility or calculated the cost had the stores not been procured and things had gone otherwise?

Parliament must be allowed to function if our democratic process is not to lose falter and fail. “Civil society” can be uncivil, incoherent and arrogantly authoritarian, as we find from the antics of the Anna brigade which, bleating about the bush, has sought to extenuate the Pawar slap with disingenuous ifs and buts. Whatever its past record, the Government is now moving on FDI in pensions and multi-brand retail, food security, land acquisition and R&R, and a clutch of bills to deal with corruption, judicial appointments, whistle blowers (other than the BJP’s cash-for-vote variety) and citizens’ grievances. These must be debated and improvements may surely be suggested. But to claim that little is being done or insist on “my perfect Bill” or nothing is to play spoiler.

The forthcoming UP elections have become a huge distraction from getting on with the job all round. Why should Mayawati’s resolution to split U.P into four states be considered a gimmick or an electoral “masterstroke”. The demand for smaller states in administrative and economic grounds has been made time and again by many. Uttar Pradesh is certainly a monster state with a population of over 200 million and growing. Mayawati urged its splitting up soon after assuming office and has sprung no surprise. The Congress is for a separate Budelkhand and its new-found ally, Ajit Singh, is for Harit Pradesh. The Congress was for Telangana, then against it. Thereafter, it, appointed a commission that made Hyderabad an issue. Then it proclaimed Telangana was coming. Now it says if UP is divided, then how will it cope with similar demands for Telangana, Vidarbha and so forth.

The answer would lie in appointing a new states reorganisation commission with instructions to report within 12 to 18 months and prioritise its implementation in measured phases along with steps to ensure inter-state coordination in various matters. The original SRC had recommended the establishment of five inter-state regional development councils. These were set up but have long disappeared.

Finally, one must inveigh against the tendency for Wahabi groups, largely funded from Saudi Arabia, seeking to “convert” the humanist, sufi-infused Muslims of South Asia to intolerant radical Islamists of the Taliban/jihadi variety. The latest manifestation is the rabble rousing around the conversion of some Muslim youth in the Kashmir Valley to Christianity. Conversion by force or inducement would be reprehensible.

But if by choice, there is no reason to seek “action as per Islamic law” and to allege blasphemy. J&K is committed to secularism. Shariat law does not prevail there and the Valley cannot be allowed to be Talibanised.
www.bgverghese .com

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/12/too-much-politics-in-politics/

Corruption : A Need for Middle Class Indians

By Bishwajit Okram Corruption is made to be a requirement for middle class survival in… more »

By Bishwajit Okram

Corruption is made to be a requirement for middle class survival in India, many middle class individual in the country thinks. Anna Hazare, whose crusade against corruption in India hit the headlines in all the major national and international news papers in recent past, is relentless in his fight to remove this basic requirement for middle class survival in India. But these middle class are not expecting anything from him.
During the most beautiful festive season, October-November, I along with my two daughters and wife, paid a month long holiday trip to my country, India. I have been quite inquisitive, and extremely curious about the so called ‘second independence struggle’ of the noted Gandhian, Anna Hazare, against the corruption in India. He has become my idol for his courageous struggle. Therefore, the first and foremost thing I did once I landed in India, was to talk to my friends about his movement against corruption in India.
I reckon, visibly, there was nothing much changed in Delhi except for the well carpeted Indira Gandhi International Airport and the posh shopping malls mushrooming here and there! All, manifesting the burgeoning growth of middle class in India!
The greedy taxi drivers still remain the same. House wives are still squabbling and wrangling with vegetable vendors for the price of vegetables they buy. Corporate executives are busy greeting and presenting gifts to their valuable customers and clients under the opportunity of Diwali festival, but to retain and gain loyalty. My friendly friends, as always, ask if I got duty free Scotch, Black Dog, French wine and Chocolates.
As it was Diwali time, families were busy counting the gifts and the presents they received and expected to receive. Babus, in other posh colonies and Pandara road colony of Delhi, are cooling their heels waiting for Diwali gifts from the urban middle class; all in the name of the festival but indeed for a purpose otherwise.
Indian middle class has the busiest day in a year: the eve of Diwali. Roads are flooded with haughty, snarled, and unruly, drive to kill traffics. One must see Diwali eve of Delhi, there are lots to understand from it.
Now, it is time to talk to them, which I did to some of them representing the hardcore middle income group and my friends. For the sake of their privacy, I have not revealed the real names but the followings are their strange but very valid views on the subject matter.
Many think the system of corruption in India is too big that it can not easily be changed. People, mostly from the middle income group thinks Anna and his team can not remove this system.
One such individual from a middle income group from Delhi, Gagan Singh, an accountant by profession, said: “This system can be changed by the people who are in the system : the middle class. Anna and his team are not from middle class and they are not in the system”. Philosophically he added: “ A system is made by a vast majority of people. For India the vast majority of the people is from the middle income group. Therefore, without the determination of the middle income group of people, corruption can not be waived off from India.”
According to a survey of Transparency International, 55% of Indian, in some stage and in some form had paid bribes to get jobs done in public offices successfully. Incidentally, nearly 50% of Indian family comes under middle income group. If one reconciles the two figures, what Gagan Singh said was not far from truth.
One Aruna Chauhan, a marketing executive in Delhi, said: “ Look at the team Anna, senior leaders are mostly those who have both time and money. Their profiles speaks for themselves: Kiran Bedi, a former IPS officer; Arvind Kejriwal,a former Revenue officer; Shanti Bhushan and Prasant Bhusan, both are noted lawyers; Manish Sisodia, a former Zee News Producer. The crowd who gathered around them were mostly students and young executives who have time, if not money.”
She added: “People from middle income group do not have either money or time to spare for such activities. They are worried about their survival on day to day basis. In a highly competitive environment such as India, without paying bribe it is very difficult to get my works done first and faster than the others”.
India is now the world’s third largest economy. It is expecting to grow further, which means greater scope and opportunities for scams and scandals. The country’s image has been badly tarnished by 2G Spectrum scams, commonwealth game scams, fodder scams and many more other scams. Aruna was perhaps right under such circumstances of economic opportunities, for a middle class, the only way to pass through hurdles of obstacles in her growth could be by greasing palms of those who can let her pass the hurdles. And it all began from here, the so called corruption.

Another IT professional, Imtiaz Khan said: ‘It is not team Anna who can bring a change into the system but the Information Technology (IT). Corruption is about lack of transparency and IT can bring this transparency.’
Boby Bazwa a self employed 40 years old , father of 2 children in Delhi said, ‘In India corruption is needed, for a normal men to grow in his life and in his business as much as a sick person needs vitamin and medicine to cure his illness’.
He sarcastically said on being asked why he did not join the movement of Anna Hazare : ‘Anna is 74 years old man, free from many of day to day family responsibilities. He has time to go for it.’
Many, having said all these opinions, in their heart, secretly desire to change this corrupt system however pessimistic they may be about Anna Hazare and team. But their points are worth considering: it is indeed those who are in the system that should stand up to change the system because they only knitted the maze of corruption, they can unravel it as well. Otherwise, corruption will remain as a need for the middle class Indians.

Read more / Original news source: http://kanglaonline.com/2011/12/corruption-a-need-for-middle-class-indians/