Manipur Bir Tikendrajit House in total disarray
NEW DELHI, May 19 : A rudderless ship, that is what Manipur Bir Tikendraji House at Chanakyapuri, South Delhi has been reduced to with the staff running around trying to keep the House in order. When The Sangai Express visited the State house, there .....
Incentives for Everesters
IMPHAL, May 19: The State Government will consider incentives that may be given to the five Manipuri mountaineers who have successfully scaled the world’s highest peak Mt Everest, informed the Chief Minister while talking with The Sangai Express. The.....
Governor, CM, Dy CM congratulate So far, six from State have scaled Everest
IMPHAL, May 19: Governor Gurbachan Jagat, Chief Minister O Ibobi and Deputy Chief Minister Gaikhangam have congratulated the team of the 1st North East Mt Everest Expedition 2013 on summiting the highest peak of the world. Gurbachan Jagat said that the.....
Cleanliness drive at Ima Keithel
IMPHAL, May 18: With an objective to keep Ima Keithel neat and clean, Blooming Manipur, Kangla (Facebook Group), Manipur Times, Manipur Photography Club, European Manipuri Asso-ciation (EMA) and Manipur Cycle Club jointly organised a cleanliness drive at .....
KNF celebrates raising day
IMPHAL, May 19: The Kuki National Front (KNF) celebrated its 26th raising day at Camp Ebenezer, Sadar Hills yesterday with more than 200 cadres and leaders. The raising day celebration started with a mass fasting prayer. Addressing the gathering KNF p.....
AIDS Candle Light Memorial Day Observed Solemnly NGOs urge for amended AIDS policy
IMPHAL, May 19 : While observing the International AIDS Candle Light Memorial Day at JN Dance Academy today, 16 NGOs have urged the authorities to implement an amended Manipur State AIDS policy within three months. Generally, International AIDS Candle.....
Rongali Bihu
IMPHAL, May 19:The Asom Samaj Manipur hosted Rongali Bihu celebration at Devalaya Mandir, Kalibari (Thangal bazar) today with Education Minister M Okendro Singh gracing the celebration as the chief guest. While Okendro conveyed warm wishes to the Assam.....
To check frauds and money swindling Economic offence wing set up
IMPHAL, May 19: With the primary objective of checking the practice of swindling money from the public by non-banking financial companies (NBFC), an Economic Offence Wing has been set up in Manipur Police Department. The Economic Offence Wing was set .....
Guardians' body takes up street vendors' cause
IMPHAL, May 19: Noting that upper floors of the three market complexes at Khwairamband keithel are yet to be occupied, All Manipur Students' Guardians' Organisation has proposed that the Government of Manipur provide trading slots to women street vendors .....
DU admissions
IMPHAL, May 18 : Delhi University has announced the dates for undergraduate admissions for the academic session 2013-2014. It will commence on June 5 and continue till June 19, said a press release issued by Naga Students’ Union, Delhi. Unlike las.....
Ex-rebels are not untouchables : Dy CM
IMPHAL, May 19: Stating that the State Government has initiated several measures to bring insurgents on the path of peace, Deputy Chief Minister Gaikhangam has called upon all the people not to view or treat former rebels who have laid down arms and retu.....
UG cadres surrender
IMPHAL, May 19: Security forces of Red Shield Division recovered a huge cache of arms and ammunition buried under ground in 2007 by a cadre of UPPK at the foothills of Thangjing ridge, said a PIB (DW) release that identified the UG cadre as SS Capt Moiran.....
ZU concerned
IMPHAL, May 19:Zeliangrong Union (Assam, Manipur, Nagaland) has expressed concern over the death of an NSCN (IM) cadre in a reported gunfight with ZUF cadres yesterday. In a press release, ZU (AMN) said that it has always been working for maintaining p.....
Tousem body
IMPHAL, May 19:Development Committee Tousem Block 52-Tamei AC has drawn the attention of Chief Minister O Ibobi regarding bad road conditions of the Sub-Division. In a press release, the committee said that the Chief Minister had promised during his vi.....
Hurt in mishap
IMPHAL, May 19:Three youngsters, who were riding a brand new Yamaha FZ motorcycle, met with an accident in front of Mantripukhri headquarters of 69 Bn CRPF this evening. According to an informed source, the biker trio hit the road median and rolled sev.....
MLA inspects
IMPHAL, May 19:Ahead of the monsoon season, Yaiskul AC MLA E Chand today conducted a field inspection of the vulnerable sections of Imphal river bank within Yaiskul Assembly segment together with IFC officials. Observing that many excavations dug up fo.....
Hate the person who breaks traffic rules
If you think no one is watching then you are mistaken! But unfortunately, I am not a traffic cop who will jump in front and enforce you fine for breaking the traffic rule. It is the general Indian nature of carelessness and interpretation of pampered free.....
Traditional healing methods with special reference to Manipur
By Dr K Paochunbou Every ethnic community in Manipur has well-established knowledge, skills, beliefs and practices relating to promotion of positive health and avoidance of sickness even before the hospital oriented system of medicine. In an old civiliza.....
Mis-selling Insurance
By Dipankar Jakharia Not a single week goes by when I am not asked by my readers about an ULIP policy they have invested and now feels as if they have been ripped-off by it. I have written many a times before and ready to write many a time in future abou.....
World Migratory Bird Day 2013
Large scale climatic changes, as have been experienced in the past, are expected to have an effect on the timing of migration. Studies have shown a variety of effects including timing changes in migration, breeding as well as population variations due to .....
General Articles
By : Sangai Articles
Manipuri diaspora for socia-economic development of Manipur
By Aeroshil Nameirakpam
“Diaspora is the movement, migration or scattering of people away from an establishment or ancestral homeland” (Wikipedia). So, the writer took the freedom of using diaspora in the title to signify both Non-resident overseas Manipuri (NROM) who work and study abroad in different parts of the world and Non-resident Manipuri (NRM) who work and study in various cities and states outsite Manipur but within the Indian union. Recently the writer came across a dissertation topic submitted by a student of London School of Economics and Politicial sciences entitled “The Diaspora as an Economic Asset-How China and India use their Diaspora to support there economic development”. The author of the dissertation analized and did a comparative study on how India and China’s economic boom and success story is so closely linked to the contribution made by the respective diaspora of both the nations. How both the nations have been able to channelize and create an emotional bonding of diaspora with their respective mainland at the social level and economic bonding by setting up dedicated organizations like The Overseas Chinese Affairs Office(OCAO) and Overseas Indians facilitator Council (OIFC) to bring about Socio-Economic changes to their respective nations. According to the author of the dissertation, the Chinese Diaspora (excludil1g Taiwan) represents less then 4% of the Chinese population but had an income of $700 Billions, which equals to two third of the Chinese GDP during the time of data collection around 2001. Whereas the Indian expatriates had an estimated income of $160 Billions, which was equivalent to 35% of the GDP of India in 2001, but. they only represent 2% of the Indian population (Devan and Tewari 2001: 55).
Majority of the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to China and India had some diapora member working in multinational corporation, often playing the role of a mediator between the company and the Chinese and Indian markets. They had the benefit of knowing the language and the culture of both investor company and investees nation. The Diaspora members are also likely to setup high-tech industries by trasfering of technologies they know from abroad. For Instance, entire Indian IT industry was setup with know how and knowledge transfer of Indian diaspora who worked in major IT firms in US and Europe. They replicated the same organizational structure, working model and work culture which has been upto a certain extend abolished the old work culture of babugiri given to India by the British. If we also do analysis within India union and look at the prosperity level of various states within the nation we see that states like Gujarat, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Kerala etc. which has the highest percentage of NRIs and PIO s in the country exceeds other states which has fewer non residents.
When We NROMs and NRMs start discussing about going back to Manipur to work or setting up a business,all we hear is that, Law and order situation is very bad, there is not enough organizations who can pay us as we are paid for working here, there is no Govt. jobs available, electricity and water suppy are bad, starndard of living is low and a whole list of other facts which comes up to most of us when we talk about moving back to Manipur. But, there is a saying, “If you want to change a system, you have to change the system from outside and not by staying within the system”. Most of the changes which came to rather a conservative mition like India during the 1980s and communist nation like China was due to the changes which were brought about by opening up their market and allowing to be influenced by outside nations and endeavour by free thinkers who were not bound by bureaucracy, politics, social stigma. There were no proper infras- tructure and the situations were not ideal for doing business in India or China during that period. But because of risk takers and pioneers who didn’t wait for the law and order situation to get better, who didn’t wait for proper road, electiricy or water supply to get better and still went ahead and took initia-tive we can see a remarkable difference of both the nations in terms of growth compared to when it was 20-30 years back.
Coming back to our current scenario in Manipur, the writer actually feel bad for those friends who after finishing P.G. and Doctorate level of studies in diffent Universities in India goes back home and applys for the post of a primary teacher or IRB constable” after paying a hefty amount to officers and politicians in the name of getting a “Government Job”. He also feels bad for himself and all other employees working in different multinational organizations around the world having to toil for 8 to 12 hours a day living on pay check paying hefty rentals for apartments, insurances, bills and suffering the abuses of the majority community without owning any asset ‘for ourselves and working for someone else and thinking that we have a better standard of living compared to people back home. But we know for a fact whatever we are doing now is not a permanent fix or a long term plan, all of us know at the back of our heart and mind, we want to go home and do something for ourselves which can be sustainable and which can actually benefit our society and community.
The good News is the dilemma we are facing now is nothing new, nation like China who has faced it in the later part of 1990s trying to bring back their high skilled diaspora who went to Japan to work and to solve the issue they did come up with a strategy. Chinese authority realized, “If we had brought these people (diaspora community) back, it is not certain we could have used them, because currently we cannot pay them the same salaries and benefits they get in Japan.
—to be contd
