27 August 2014

Nagalim: Mass Rallies to Put Pressure on Indian Government


The United Naga Council is organizing mass rallies to push towards the solution of the Indo–Naga issue, as well as to protest against militarisation of Ukhrul area and the aggressive policies of the Government of Manipur in terms of the ancestral lands of Naga people. 

United Naga Council (UNC) has announced its decision of launching mass rallies in the four Naga dominated district headquarters of Tamenglong, Senapati, Ukhrul and Chandel on August 30 [2014] to exert pressure on the Government of India for expediting an acceptable and honourable settlement of the Indo-Naga issue.
The rallies will also be in protest against the alleged militarisation of Naga areas particularly Ukhrul district by Government of Manipur by deployment State forces in alleged utter disrespect of the Indo-Naga cease-fire as well as against Government of Manipur's alleged disrespect for the democratic process of tripartite talk on alternative arrangement which has been progressing towards a logical stage.
The UNC further said the August 30 [2014] rallies will also be in protest against the unabated aggressive policies of the Government of Manipur to encroach upon the ancestral lands of the Nagas and tribal through Laws, Acts & Notifications to subvert the protective provisions of the Manipur Land Revenue and Land Reforms (MLR & LR) Act, 1960 .
In statement issued by its publicity wing, UNC informed that after the rallies joint memorandum on all these points of demand and protests will be submitted by the Tribe Hohos and frontal organisations of the respective districts through the Government of India agencies to the Prime Minister of India and also dispatched through post.
UNC appealed to all churches, Christian leaders, frontal and regional organisations, village chiefs and village councils and village authorities, students and youth’s leaders to take up the moral responsibilities for ensuring the maximum participation of the people in the rally.
It also advised the Naga people to be vigilant against any attempt of the adversaries to discredit the peoples' movement for their political aspirations by sabotaging the democratic civil action.

Source: E–PAO
26 August 2014

Delhi Filmfest Highlights Message From Northeast India

By Srijani Ganguly

New Delhi, Aug 26 : The Siri Fort Auditorium in the Capital hosted a film festival dedicated to gems from the North-east between August 22 and 24. Organised by the Directorate of Film Festivals (DFF), 'Fragrances From The North East' not only showcased acclaimed films from each of the 'Seven Sisters', but also provided a glimpse into other cultural aspects of the region with concerts, exhibitions and food stalls.

The opening film at the festival was the 2012 Mizo feature film Khawnglung Run (The Raid of Khawnglung). Directed and produced by Mapuia Chongthu, it is based on the Khawnglung massacre of 1856-59. Of the two National Award-winning films that were screened at the festival, Jahnu Barua's 2014 Assamese film Ajeyo (Invincible) looks into the past.

The opening film at the festival was the 2012 Mizo feature Khawnglung Run.

The difference, though, is that Barua's film is based on the Sahitya Akademi Award winning Assamese novel Ashirbador Rong (1997), written by Arun Sharma. The novel tells the story of an honest revolutionary, Gajen Keot, who fought against social evils in Assam. "It is a classic novel set in 1946. It is a very different kind of novel and I enjoyed making into a movie," says Barua, who also adapted the novel into the screenplay.

The film, which will be released in Delhi by PVR by the end of September, is important for three reasons, says Barua.

"The subject of Ajeyo is particularly important for contemporary India. First, it talks of pre-Independence and post-Independence differences regarding the various aspects of development. Second, it deals with a lot of issues which a democratic country should be concerned about. Last but not least, it also talks about national integration," he explains.

Turning the Spotlight on Development Needs of Disaster-Prone Mizoram

By Vinson Kurian
The urban sprawl of Aizawl. Picture credit: Lalrinpuii Tlau
The urban sprawl of Aizawl. Picture credit: Lalrinpuii Tlau
The Narendra Modi Government’s ‘look North-East’ policy could not have come at a more opportune time for this earthquake-prone, rugged terrain.
We now have a Minister in charge of the development of the region, who could take a hard look at the vulnerabilities and options available.
Natural hazards
Among these, those pertaining to natural hazards cry for attention; nobody can ignore the notes of caution sounded through occasional rumbles by Mother Nature here.
Projections are hardly encouraging for a scenario where a hypothetical earthquake with an intensity of Magnitude7 (M7) on the Richter scale strikes Aizawl, capital of Mizoram.
The GeoHazards Society India, a leading NGO, has brought out a document titled ‘Effects of a Magnitude 7 earthquake on Aizawl, Mizoram, and recommendations to reduce losses.’
It lays bare the implications for the city in graphic detail. GeoHazards International and reinsurance major Munich Re collaborated in bringing out the document in coordination with the Mizoram Department of Disaster Management and Rehabilitation.
Water woes
Aizawl is a city that should never have been located where it is, far removed from any water source. Even today, water is pumped up several kilometers from the Tlang River.
It grew around a British Army base stationed there to bring peace between warring Mizo tribes. As a city, it has housed almost a third of the population over the last few decades.
Aizawl was hardly affected by the last major earthquake (M8.6) to affect the North-East on Independence Day, 1950.
Not entirely surprising, because most Mizo people then lived in traditional timber homes on the tops of ridges where earthquakes could do little harm to them.
But today, the city stands at the threshold of major growth, with a master plan that sees the population doubling in the next 20 years.
Destructive scenario
A quake of the same intensity could prove devastating today as described in the scenario — though this is far from a being prediction.
The choice the community here faces is a serious one, says the document.
Hills, valleys and recurring landslides provide evidence of ongoing geologic processes that bend and buckle the layers of rock beneath the city, shaping the landscape, and causing earthquakes.

A plausible M7 could cause extensive damage, destroy buildings, render useless utility systems and roads, cause thousands of casualties, and set back Mizoram’s economic development.
The shaking would trigger hundreds of landslides, the severity of which would grow several-fold if it happens during a monsoon, causing new slides and reactivating existing ones.
The road connecting Aizawl to Silchar and the rest of India passes through several known landslide-prone areas and will most likely be unusable for several weeks.
Utility dependencies
Aizawl’s water supply, pumped up from the river that passes through several landslide-prone areas, is expected to break in 50 or more locations.
Adding to this is the interdependencies of these critical systems. Water pumping needs electricity; electricity supply can be restored only by replacing damaged equipment, which depends on roads being cleared.
The few emergency generators need fuel ferried on lorries. Thus, Aizawl will be cut off from the rest of the country without water, food, and electricity.
The document recommends steps that authorities in Aizawl need to undertake on the highest priority, especially with respect to land use and building regulations.
Aizawl needs focused attention and extensive technical support from the Centre to pull it back from the brink of a catastrophic disaster, it adds.

Over 1200 Mizo Youths Trained

Aizawl, Aug 26 : Over 1200 Mizo youths sent for training so far this year.

Meanwhile, in continuation of the initiative of Mizoram Youth Commission for the jobless youths in the State, 30 Mizo girls were today flagged off for skill development training outside the State.

The youths, selected for the training by Mizoram Youth Commission and LE&IT Department, will take up 4-month training courses at IQST (Institute for Quality Skill Training), Guwahati.

MLA Lalrinliana Sailo flagged off the 30 Mizo girls from the premises of DRDA office.Addressing the flagging off function held before at the same place, MLA Lalrinliana Sailo lauded MYC and LE&IT Department for their initiative for the youths in the form of training that will develop their skill and secure job.

Sailo said that the different training courses they are going to take up are amongst those required by developing countries, and indeed will be of great use for Mizoram.

He exhorted the youths to pursue the training courses with perseverance and to do their best so as to bring fruitful result not only for themselves and their family but for the State.

Also addressing the flagging off function, MYC Chairman T.Sangkunga said that so far this year over 1200 youths have been sent for training.

He also expressed hope that more youths will be sent further.

Saying the success of the MYC initiative largely depends on the youths, MYC Chairman exhorted the youths to study their courses with determination for sure success.

Besides the MLA and MYC Chairman, the flagging off function was also attended by Dr.J.T.Vanlalngheta, Secretary, MYC; Francis Lianmawia, Assistant Welfare Commissioner, Workers' Welfare Board (LE&IT Dept.) and Lalsawmzuala, Superintendent, MYC.

Representatives of IQST came to take the youths for training.

On August 21, 2014 too, 43 youths have been sent for 4-month training in NIPS, Kolkata.

As per plan, about 100 youths will be sent on September 1 for training at NIAS and O2, Hyderabad.

Source: Newmai News Network

Central Team To visit Bru Refugee Camps in Tripura

Agartala/Aizawl, Aug 26 : A central team arrived here on Monday to take stock of the condition of Mizoram's displaced Reang tribals, locally called 'Bru', living in refugee camps in Tripura, an official said here.

About 35,000 Reang tribals are staying in seven camps in Tripura for about 17 years after they fled their villages in Mizoram following ethnic troubles after the killing of a Mizo forest official.

"The union home ministry has recently constituted a seven-member committee headed by Rajiv Gauba, the ministry's additional secretary, to oversee the condition of the refugees in the Tripura camps," Swapan Saha, Tripura's relief and revenue department secretary, told IANS.

"The central team arrived here today (Monday) and they would visit the refugee camps tomorrow (Tuesday)," Saha said.

He said the central team, also comprising officials of the human resource development ministry, social justice and empowerment ministry, Tripura government and representatives of three NGOs from New Delhi, West Bengal and Assam, will submit its report to the union home ministry and the Tripura High Court by Sep 12.

The central team was constituted following a directive from the Tripura High Court, which passed an order June 24 after a lawyer filed a petition on the alleged miserable conditions of the refugees and the camps they are living in.

"The central team would oversee the sanitation, health, educational and other facilities there," Saha added. Meanwhile, Tripura Governor Padmanabha Balakrishna Acharya visited the refugee camps Sunday and told them that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has sent him to see the conditions of the displaced people.

"Do not be upset, good days are ahead for you. Narendra Modi-led government at the Centre would resolve all the problems of all of you," the governor told the refugees while addressing gatherings of migrants in different camps.

Refugee leader and Mizoram Bru Displaced People's Forum (MBDPF) general secretary Bruno Mesha submitted a memorandum to the governor.

The memorandum contains 10 demands which included providing all facilities to the refugees like Kashmiri Pandits and Tamil refugees, allotment of lands to all the repatriated tribals, creation of model villages in Reang tribals' inhabited areas, ensure better security and sanitation, health and education to the tribals in Mizoram.

Acharya, who is the governor of Nagaland with additional charge of Tripura, promised the refugees to take up their matter with the central government.

The Mizoram government recently asked the union home ministry to take up with the Election Commission the issue of deleting from the electoral lists the names of those refugees, who are unwilling to leave Tripura camps and return to Mizoram.

"Mizoram Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla earlier this month held a meeting with Home Secretary Anil Goswami in New Delhi and requested him to take action over deleting the names of those refugees who are not willing to return to Mizoram," an official of the Mizoram government told IANS in Aizawl.

"Lal Thanhawla apprised Goswami that while the state government has done its best to take back the refugees from Tripura camps, the state government's efforts have often been opposed by a section of refugee leaders," the official said.

The Tripura government has been repeatedly asking the central government to take steps to repatriate the 35,000 tribal refugees to Mizoram.

Only about 5,000 Reang tribal refugees have returned to their homes in the past three-and-a-half years.

Rethinking Impunity

By Bunker Roy
The Centre has not only shown a lack of will and courage to dispense with this act, but even blocked a debate on it. ( Source: AP )
The Centre has not only shown a lack of will and courage to dispense with this act, but even blocked a debate on it.

Why it may be time to revoke the AFSPA in areas like Manipur.

Gandhi (1982), an epic but intimate biographical film, was Richard Attenborough's greatest triumph.
The release of Irom Sharmila from custody and her subsequent arrest have again raised the issue of whether the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act should remain in force in areas like Manipur. For some time, the chief minister of J&K has asserted that his state can do without the AFSPA. In Manipur, Sharmila has been on hunger strike for 14 years, demanding that this controversial and draconian law be repealed.

Neither the UPA nor the present government has paid any heed. What is so special about this law and why are all governments so reluctant to do away with it? It provides the authorities with a shortcut to assume certain repressive powers that are not normally available to them in a democratic society. It gives commissioned as well as non-commissioned officers of the armed forces special powers to deal with law and order situations in areas notified by the Central or state government as “disturbed”. These special powers include the right to use force, even to cause death; arrest without a warrant; destroy shelters, camps, structures, arms dumps; enter and search without a warrant. But neither the AFSPA nor any other law defines what constitutes a “disturbed” area.

The AFSPA, originally intended as a short-term measure, has remained in force for decades in states like Manipur. Despite tremendous public agitation in that state, the Centre has declined to repeal it, even though there is considerable evidence that it has led to gross violations of human rights. A number of committees, like the Jeevan Reddy Committee and the Santosh Hegde Committee, have clearly indicted the armed forces for gross violations of human rights and recommended the repeal of this exceedingly harsh law.

An argument often put forward by the government and army in support of the law is that the Supreme Court upheld its constitutional validity in the 1998 case, Naga People’s Movement of Human Rights vs Union of India. A law may be constitutionally valid, but that is no guarantee against misuse. The Pathribal fake encounter case of March 2000 and the alleged rape and murder of Thangjam Manorama Devi, a 34-year-old Manipuri woman, in 2004 by armed forces personnel are only two of the many examples of such misuse.

The army also asserts that the majority of complaints of human rights violations against its personnel are false. The problem with this type of argument is that most complaints are investigated and tried by the army itself. It has shown considerable reluctance to hand over such cases to the civil authorities or courts. It is only at the intervention of higher courts that the army has been forced to hand over some cases to outside investigating agencies like the CBI.

The AFSPA provides protection to armed forces personnel working under it, as no prosecution can be launched against them without sanction from the Centre. Civil rights activists have often complained that this gives them impunity. This argument is not very convincing because even if this provision is removed from the act, members of the armed forces will continue to be covered by Section 197 of the CrPC, which debars courts from taking cognisance of any offence alleged to have been committed by them without sanction from the Centre.

The Centre has not only shown a lack of will and courage to dispense with this act, but even blocked a debate on it by suppressing Justice Reddy’s report. Last year, the then Union finance minister, P. Chidambaram, even expressed the helplessness of his government to revoke the law because the army was against it. This is a country where the army is supposed to work under civilian control and decisions like imposing or revoking a particular law have to be taken by the government, not by the army. Chidambaram should have found a different argument to explain the Centre’s reluctance.

The army has been deployed to deal with serious law and order situations in this country on numerous occasions. In most instances, it has dealt with the problem without the protection of the AFSPA. It is therefore time the government showed willingness to objectively assess the need to retain this law. It may consider keeping it in operation in states affected by insurgency or terrorism, particularly when the trouble emanates from across the border. However, it may revoke the law in areas that are comparatively peaceful. If the government can think of controlling Maoist violence in some areas of the country without invoking the AFSPA, why can’t it do the same in areas like Manipur?

The writer is a retired director of the Bureau of Police Research and Development and author of ‘Policing in India — Some Unpleasant Essays’

Manipur Activists On House-To-House Search For 'Foreigners'

Imphal, Aug 26 : he demand for the reintroduction of the Inner Line Permit system in Manipur took a new turn on Monday with several activists conducting house-to-house searches. They were checking the identification papers of migrant workers staying in rented rooms. All these days the activists were handing over migrant workers without identification papers to police. However, from Monday the activists are asking such workers to leave Manipur.

Police sources said that there will be police intervention since many of such workers are genuine Indians. However, the activists point out that in the absence of valid identification papers the workers may be foreigners who had sneaked in through West Bengal and Tripura.

Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh has been saying that while the government will extend assistance in detecting the foreigners, police would not remain a silent spectator when genuine Indians are harassed.

Activists of Joint Committee on Inner Line Permit System are joining hands with women vigilantes and members of local youths' clubs in conducting the house-to-house searches.

In the recent past, some of the workers were found to be possessing fake voter cards. Many others did not have any identification papers.

The activists said that some government officials, village chieftains and panchayat representatives who had been issuing domicile certificates to a few outsiders, have been asked to stop such practices.
Markets for women, locals

The women's wing of the Joint Committee has vowed to preserve the exclusive character of all-women markets in Manipur which are known all over the world.

Nganbi Lourembam, the convener of the women's wing, told reporters on Monday that of late migrant workers have intruded the markets. She said non-locals should not sell wares in these markets. She further said that male migrant workers should stop coming to the markets to sell items.

She was talking to reporters during raids on some areas in the Imphal town on Monday. Reports suggested that new migrants in the town were taking shelter in various places of the town. If the persons do not possess valid identification papers like the voter card, they should go back.

She said that the raids are being conducted after prior announcement. Police stayed at a safe distance. She said the raids would continue in other parts of the State.

Meanwhile, there are reports of sit-in protests in some places demanding the reintroduction of the ILP in Manipur.

ISIS as Start-Up: Explosive Growth, Highly Disruptive, Super-Evil

$2,000,000,000

in the bank—thanks to military victories in the past few months. ISIS has become the most well-funded terrorist group in the world



ISIS makes $3 million each day from oil, and expanded its capital massively after the capture of Iraq’s second city, Mosul, in June








6,000,000

people already live under its control, across 35,000 square miles of territory in Iraq and Syria, an area captured largely over the past six months







470,000

square miles — that’s how much land ISIS aspires to, reversing the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 and upending the modern map of the Middle East.

Also, they’ve vowed to “conquer Rome and own the world”




80,000

fighters have either joined the cause, or been forced to become part of it. Three years ago, ISIS consisted of just 1,000 armed militants




That’s what they call ‘hockey-stick growth’ in Silicon Valley. Compare those numbers to any non-evil, non-terroristic start-up




40,000

tweets were sent in a single day from the accounts of ISIS supporters.

It’s built a huge, sophisticated web of connected Twitter accounts that amplify every single message






7,087

Iraqi civilians have died so far this year — the highest death toll since 2008




410

pages of ISIS’s slick annual report (also available in English) detail the group’s activities—and its efforts to become the world’s dominant terrorism brand, with magazines, T-shirts, apparel, and even passports







280

seconds of footage in the video of James Foley’s murder.


ISIS’s social media videos are disconcertingly polished, with high-production values.

And they don’t just revel in brutal beheadings: their propaganda shows militants giving candy and ice cream to children and visiting hospitals




93

air strikes have been launched by the U.S. against ISIS since August 8



http://www.reuters.com/video/2014/01/22/new-iraqi-defense-ministry-video-shows-b?videoId=276533410



55

days since ISIS declared their leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the caliph of the newly-created Islamic State—the 156th caliphate since Mohammed’s death




7

months between President Obama telling the New Yorker that

“If a JV team puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant”

and announcing after the death of James Foley that

“No just God would stand for what they did yesterday and what they do every single day.”



2

ISIS is arguably now the second most capable military power in the Middle East behind Israel




0

There is no known ransom being offered for kidnapped journalist Steven Sotloff. In ISIS’s last video, the masked jihadi who killed James Foley instead offered a scenario with no good options:

“The life of this American citizen, Obama, depends on your next decision.”



Source: medium.com
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