Give credit where it is due. From village level then to district level and today a State level festival is being held in the name of Shirui Lily and this is where credit ought to be given to the BJP led Government at Imphal. A State level festival from a ..

This is not reel life imitating real life. In fact this is very much real life and not some fantasy tale scripted to entertain the audience on 70 mm. This is a reflection of what the adult world, that is the elders and the supposedly group of people who h..

After 26 months, since March 24, 2020, Manipur is Covid free, with the last three infected persons reportedly having recovered. This however should not mean that this is the time to relax for the virus is still  active across the country with neighbo..

Officially a dry State since 1991 and 30 years down the line, Manipur officially occupies the fifth spot in alcohol consumption, in a survey conducted by the National Family Health Survey. A damning statement on the slip between what is on paper and what ..

Incessant rain for the last many days and Imphal has been thoroughly ‘washed’ and ‘bathed’ and in the process one can see all the dirt and filth which had accumulated over the months being washed out. Tough to say whether the long ..

The ghost of the Lim demand. The lurking shadow of Kuki Homeland. The demand that the Meiteis or Meeteis be included in the Scheduled Tribe list of the Constitution of India. The War on Drugs, which is a clear indication that Manipur is today more than a ..

Detailed Project Report ready and this is fantastic. Definitely one of the better news in a long, long time, what amid the reports of so and so much of drugs being confiscated and stolen vehicles recovered. While the latter two category of stories highlig..

From Mt Koubru to Thangjing Hill and the circle seems to be complete, with the addendum that the circle may be widened or broadened with the addition of more such places if corrective measures are not taken  up firmly and immediately. No one would ha..

Taking the appeal against the acquittal of Lhoukhosei Zou in the infamous drug haul case of 2018 to the High Court of Manipur, albeit with a strong nudge from the Supreme Court of India, the news that two women drug dealers have been sentenced to 14 years..

The Govt or more specifically the Power Department  is playing a poor joke on the people.  People who pay taxes, people who buy power supply. The people are consumers. The power tax is paid beforehand thanks to the prepaid system and this is whe..

Not that it ever went out of the consciousness of the public, but there is something unique in the way the Armed Forces Special Powers Act has come back to occupy the consciousness of the people. After the infamous Army Act was made redundant in many area..

Just sit there and put your stuff for sale. Sooner or later buyers will throng the place and there will be buyers galore. The key word or words here are ‘sooner or later’ and obviously for those who live hand to mouth, or who live from the pro..

This takes back The Sangai Express to the days when it launched an intensive campaign against the acute shortage of cooking gas under the caption WANTED : Cooking Gas, Not Laughing Gas. Comical it is in a way for cooking gas has always made it to the news..

The traffic menace is getting worse day by day and the Government needs to wake up to the reality and look beyond the ‘No parking zone.’ One may tell the motorists not to park their vehicle at a particular spot and the Government has the means..

The War on Drugs should be much more than a slogan, a war cry, and this is where the Government would seriously need to think how to take this slogan a notch or two or even three higher. And the first step is to be as transparent as possible in any matter..

Covid is down but don’t mistake this with the virus being out. Since the end of February, the daily count has been well below the three digit mark and it has been on a decline ever since with Manipur returning a figure of only six new cases on April..

It is obvious that the ADC Bill drafted by the Hill Areas Committee in the last Assembly is still alive and kicking and it is just this that the All Tribal Students’ Union, Manipur (ATSUM) is seeking to wake up in the new Assembly. Perhaps this is w..

The disturbing question is, is Manipur just a transit route or has it also become one of the manufacturing zones for Heroin, Brown Sugar, WY Tablets etc ? Is it a case of Manipur not just being close to the infamous Golden Triangle but is today fast emerg..

Obvious that the BJP is well placed here at Imphal having bagged 32 seats in the just held Assembly elections. The leadership issue has been settled with N Biren Singh back as the Chief Minister for the second consecutive term with four of the old faithfu..

The Government will need to think out of the box. Just a cursory order banning parking of vehicles at Paona Keithel to address the growing traffic congestion in the commercial centres of Imhal cannot be the answer. In the first place, the Government will ..

It is understandable why many across the spectrum have welcomed the decision of the Government to roll back the Armed Forces Special Powers Act from areas under police stations located within six districts across the State. A sort of a strong political st..

Officially inaugurated in 2011, just ahead of the 2012 Assembly election and finally made functional only in 2016, nearly five years after its inauguration, the Inter State Bus Terminus located plumb in the heart of Imphal city at Kabow Leikai, Khuman Lam..

Now is the time to prioritise things. In its second term in office with Chief Minister N Biren back at the helm, it is more than appropriate that things are put in perspective and move from the tall claims during its first stint in office and see things f..

No doubt, securing as many as 32 seats in the 60-Member House is no mediocre achievement. It was also a rare distinction that a single party managed to get absolute majority. Of course, there was a case of Congress party bagging 42 seats in the past. The ..

It is getting more and more confusing and at the same time interestingly intriguing as well. Even as the BJP in Manipur has been maintaining that there are no official inputs on who has been named the next Chief Minister, this has not stopped a number of ..

This is the pits and maybe it is a classic case of the people getting the type of representatives they deserve. A point briefly touched here in an earlier commentary but there is the need to let all, particularly the elected gentlemen know, that what they..

At one level the equation is simple yet real politiks may say something else and this is what will make the next few days interesting. With 32 MLAs in its kitty, the BJP has the needed number to go it alone. But the question is whether it would be politic..

Manipur voted on February 28 and March 5. Now result is at hand and while the victors, their supporters and well wishers will go all the way to trumpet their show at the hustings, many may just not be able to answer straight if asked, on what basis they v..

Free and fair poll seems like a line drawn from a fairy tale and superimposed on a troubled place like Manipur all under the cloak of democracy. Nothing can be more unfortunate than this. The decision of the Election Commission to hold repoll in at least&..

The allegations are serious, very serious, if one may add. Already senior poll observer of the All India Congress Committee Jairam Ramesh has gone ahead to claim that the BJP led Government has buttered militant groups under the SoO pact with over Rs 16 c..

The allegations are serious and the voices of protest that have come forth ought to be listened with the merit they deserve. The Congress has already gone on record to allege that the BJP has used the service of groups under the Suspension of Operation pa..

Interesting it is but disgusting at the same time too. As the hours ticked by on voting day, that is on February 28, the talk doing the round in almost every Assembly Constituency was not so much on the voters’ turnout or the likelihood of which can..

The Sangai Express missed the report, but already the announcement of Chief Minister N Biren that the it is better for the die hard liquor aficionados to consume Indian Made Foreign Liquor or IMFL than to wet one’s throat with the locally brewed liq..

February 21, 2022-It was Rahul Gandhi. February 22, 2022-It was Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Thanks to the Assembly election scheduled on February 28 and March 5, Manipur is the destination of quite a number of political heavy weights drawn from the big ..

Obvious that the attention of the people, meaning the voters, is on the verbal duel and war of words between the BJP and the Congress and there is nothing surprising about this. War of words before any election is a given and may even measure up to the un..

No one is taking it easy. Not the political parties, not the candidates themselves, not the die hard supporters/agents and certainly not the leikai experts who seem to have worked out the intricate details. Suddenly one sees numerous experts coming from d..

The no pulled punches are interesting and so are the jibes. The great election tamasha is on and what has added that extra zing to the atmosphere are the not so witty off the cuff remarks, the ludicrous stand of righteousness, the no holds barb against ea..

Save for Independent candidate in Keishamthong Assembly Constituency, Nishikant Singh Sapam, none of the other candidates have made corruption a major issue ahead of the Assembly polls and this is what is confounding. Everyone agrees that of all the issue..

Indeed, the 12th Manipur Legislative Assembly election is round the corner. As expected, all major political parties with the exception of BJP have released their election manifestos and a couple of issues which are reflected in almost all these manifesto..

The confidence is remarkable. Even before the first vote has been cast, the BJP has gone ahead and announced that the next Chief Minister of Manipur will be decided by its Parliamentary Board after the election. This was perfectly in line with the grand p..

The Big Two-Obviously they will remain the BJP and the Congress. But the interesting part is the probability of the 2022 Assembly election turning out to be the Time of the ‘others.’ The ‘others’ will obviusly be read as the Nation..

Confidence booster. Shooting in the dark. Or plain tall talks with no substance. This and so many others can be read into the loud proclamations by different political parties ahead of the Assembly election and one  is left wondering if such an appro..

Should be obvious to all. Today it is no longer a two cornered fight between the Congress and the BJP and increasingly it has become clear that the parties to watch out for are the ‘others’. All indications that Manipur is most likely to see a..

Who is in, who is out and correspondingly heartburns, heartaches and joy and merry making on the other side. This and daily spike of Covid positive cases above the 300 mark accompanied by almost daily deaths due to the virus together go on to illustrate t..

Hectic election campaigning underway, at least 42 cases of the highly transmissible Omicron variant of the coronavirus detected so far, rising instances of new cases and deaths due to the virus and people letting their guards down-most visible on the road..

Ticket to the Assembly. The belief is a BJP ticket is the green card to enter the Assembly and this is the primary reason why there are so many intending BJP candidates in almost all the Assembly Constituencies. And this is precisely the reason why so muc..

Fluctuating fortunes and perhaps political fluctuations will rank right up there whenever ‘politics’ is underlined by the term ‘fluctuation’ and this must have been very clear to the leaders of the Manipur Pradesh Congress Committe..

May not exactly measure up to the understanding of the seller and the buyer being both guilty, but many may see the floodgates being opened up by the BJP to welcome defectors from other political parties, come somewhere near along this line. Ethics be dam..

It is not only a question of which party will occupy the seat of power after the Assembly election which has piqued people’s interest, but how many more of the current crop of Congress MLAs or Congress leaders will continue with the party.  And..

The commandments from the World Health Organisation (WHO) are-Avoid huge crowds (maintain physical distancing of at least three feet), Always mask up, Wash one’s hands with soap and water thoroughly and yes get vaccinated. Not from WHO but which is ..