A gross miscalculation for all his far sightedness or a case of misjudging a far sighted personality ? It could be either but what is unfolding could be a reflection of the reality knocking hard on the consciousness of everyone. Thuingaleng Muivah, the ar..

Perhaps this is the right time to remind all, the Government, the parents, teachers, students and school managements, that it was not so long back that a loud and audible noise was raised to regulate the functioning of the different boarding facilities th..

Statistics don’t lie though they may not tell the whole story. This is how one must view the upsurge in the new cases updated daily by the Covid-19 Common Control Room. Probably not the whole picture but the recent surge in the detection of new case..

With the Board of Secondary Education, Manipur announcing the Class X examination results on July 8, expectedly a large number of parents, guardians and the students themselves have started making a beeline for some of the better known private schools loc..

What are the steps that the Government has taken to make the ban on single use plastic effective ? Is it going to be a step by step process, meaning living up to the understanding of phasing out single use plastic or is it going to be an all out ban ? The..

It is probably the biggest natural disaster that Manipur has ever seen and the horror of it all must have sunk in on everyone’s consciousness. So far, that is till July 4, 47 lifeless bodies have been recovered while 15 are still missing. Imagine th..

The search continues, the body count too continues and in the process are added more widows and orphans. This is the reality, a reality tinged with tragedy and underlining the point that when nature strikes, there is nothing much that man can do, despite ..

It was down. It never was out. A line which The Sangai Express has been maintaining since a long time back, even before the second wave hit the people with such devastating impact and so it is that Covid which has been lying low for over two months seems ..

Kick the engine into life or switch the engine into life with the turn of the ignition key, kick or pull the clutch, slowly release the clutch and put the vehicle into motion and presto one is driving. Unfortunate it is but to many of those who are behind..

The more correct term could be ‘phase out’ but phase it out by 2022. This was probably the objective of Prime Minister Narendra Modi when he announced that India would be working towards a plastic free environment. This was what the Plastic Wa..

A mixture of the sweet and sour. So while the BJP led Government has gone ahead and fulfilled the demand/suggestion of setting a base year for the Inner Line Permit System to come effective, it has fallen short of the target set by the Joint Committee on ..

It should be obvious to all. It is going to be a long, drawn out war and the crucial question is whether Manipur has come anywhere near to winning it. No easy answer here but there are questions that need some answers. Are the three women arrested with 15..

The BJP led Government seems to be intent on this and this is something which needs to be backed by all concerned. Demolition drive can never be easy and it needs conviction and this is something which should be lauded by all concerned. Illegal constructi..

The drug menace is very serious. Here’s hoping, praying that the powers that be have taken due note of it. The state government has given the impression that drug dealers are being pulled up and this must have been good news to everyone concerned. T..

“The last 8 years have seen unprecedented development in the Northeast. The focus is on infrastructure creation, ensuring better healthcare, education and popularising the rich cultures from the different Sates of the region.” These were the e..

This much is clear. There is either a communication gap or a misunderstanding between pony rearers/owners and the Government. Even after the State Government’s announcement that horses/ponies may be let loose either at Lamphelpat or Marjing Polo com..

Isolate the NSCN (IM). This seems to be the mantra of quite a handful of power players whose presence can be felt but who still  are invisible. It is this hand which can be felt/seen in the growing polarisation amongst some groups of the Naga people ..

A mew of a protest, despite the statements of condemnations that have poured into the office of The Sangai Express. This is what may be said in the response of the people against the placing of a bomb at the gate of Little Flower School a few days back. I..

No doubt, pressure has been mounting enormously upon the NSCN-IM leadership to seal a final solution to the long drawn Naga peace talks. Incidentally, the NNPGs which joined the dialogue process much later had made it clear that they are ready to ink a fi..

Does the Congress need a brain storming session, spread across two days to come back to the reckoning ? Or does it need a sincere soul searching exercise to acknowledge where it went wrong in the 15 years it was in power here at Imphal. One irrefutable fa..

Wanted : A far sighted leader, a personality who is able to see or visualise how Manipur and her people would or should be like 10/20/30 or even 50 years down the line and all should understand why the present has prompted this observation. The present da..

Good job, one should say. From a village level, to a district level to a State level festival and surely the Shirui Lily Festival has come a long way. What was once just the name of a flower, with only a few actually equipped with the knowledge that this ..

Key board warriors but tinged heavily with shades of villainy. A look at the words punched in on the key board should leave no one in doubt over this. Other than these key board ‘champions’, there are motor mouths who spew venoms and who expec..

‘How can a 15 year old child be a terrorist ?’ poser or something to this effect raised by the Justice Santosh Hegde panel in 2013 to now the Session Judge of Imphal East issuing notices to 9 cops for charge hearing on May 26, 2022 over the al..

Morphine to heroin to brown sugar and in between there was podrom, hyptogen, calmpose tablets and later came the alluringly named World is Yours. Throw in the cough syrups with codeine as one of the major components and truly the world of drugs has got Ma..

One step down from Greater Lim or Greater Nagalim and one step up from ‘confined within Nagaland’. This is what may be read into the much tom tommed, Pan Naga Hoho, a model espoused by the NSCN (IM) and underlined yet again by its chief of arm..

The politics of peace must have surely proven to be much more dicey than the bush war that the NSCN (IM) waged against the Government of India for decades and the latest move of New Delhi to seek the ‘opinions and suggestions’ of former Chief ..

Framework Agreement of 2015. Agreed Position of 2017. Two frameworks according to which the final pact with the NSCN (IM) and the NNPGs is believed to be inked. The stumbling block towards a final pact however seems to be the separate Flag and Constitutio..

Administrative convenience or linguistic basis. Twist this a little bit and one may well come to the line, administrative convenience or on tribal basis ? Linguistic basis and it was on this line that States were created after the British left India and s..

Taking the community along or rather the community stretching out its hand to be part of the campaign against drugs, giving more teeth to the War on Drugs slogan coined by the BJP led Government. Surely a shot in the arm of the Chief Minister and one hope..

The State Congress has been uncharacteristically quiet save for opening up when there are some incidents, such as the recent alleged custodial death of a goldsmith or against the poll expenditure statement of the Chief Minister. Is this good for the land ..

It is indeed confusing and disappointing that the political dialogue which went on between the Government of India and Naga militant groups, particularly NSCN-IM has neither been brought to a conclusion nor terminated. It is also not clear whether the dia..

That it took a nudge from the Supreme Court to make the State Government appeal the acquittal of Lhoukhosei Zou in the infamous drug seizure case of 2018 in a higher Court should say something profound.  All credit for this must go to 3.5 Collective ..

Drug smuggling, vehicle thefts, gold smuggling. Correction-Drug smuggling should be qualified by the line, ‘drug/heroin  manufacturing units’ and clearly Manipur stands right up there on the list of infamy.  And so it is that now sto..

The virus did keep them away from the classrooms and the examination hall for more than a year and so it is that after one whole academic year, young students of Manipur, like their counterparts in the rest of the country, sat for their Class X and Class ..

Is the BJP led Government that broke that it cannot pay the outstanding advertisement bills owed to different media houses in the State ? Is the BJP, supposed to be the richest political party in the country, so pauperised that it cannot pay what is due t..

For the past 25 years or since 1997, the NSCN (IM) has been engaged in a peace process with the Government of India and in the process it must have learnt that the politics of peace is as dicey as the politics of the bush war it waged against the security..

No vehicles allowed to park at Paona Keithel. Street vendors told to pack up after 8 am everyday. The objective behind this move should be obvious to everyone. Decongest the already over crowded Paona Keithel, Thangal Keithel, BT Road and MG Avenue. One d..

Chief Minister N Biren is an old hand in the craft of politics, having made his Assembly debut way back in 2002 and now in his second term as the Chief Minister of Manipur, he must have surely come to grips with the politics of being the first among equal..

Principles of coalition politics and the realpolitik of coalition politics. There is a fine dividing line here and one wonders whether going along with just one partner in the present regime can be seen as going in for a coalition Government in the true s..

Learning a language is a personal choice. It cannot and should not be thrust down anyone’s throat. Perhaps this universally irrefutable line blew over the head of Union  Home Minister Amit Shah while announcing that Hindi will be made a compuls..

It did not feature as a major poll issue in the just held Assembly election in Manipur. But it is nonetheless significant to note that Rajya Sabha MP Leishemba Sanajaoba took it upon himself to raise the demand that the Meiteis/Meeteis be included in the ..

The report that contraband drugs worth over Rs 7 crore had been seized from a police personnel throws up a number of questions and tends to substantiate the general suspicion of involvement of some law enforcing agencies in drug cartels operating in the S..

Not surprising it was the top news in all the newspapers published in Manipur. It was also the news to carry in many newspapers published outside Manipur. It must also have been the same in Nagaland and Assam. Local television news channels also lost no t..

The scourge of drug abuse and alcoholism, Manipur knows this and more. Some have made a complete and honest recovery from the clutches of drugs and alcohol and many have not and in between are the tales of numerous rehabilitation centres that have sprung ..

Theoretically, the new Government has gone a step farther in its War on Drugs. The first Cabinet meeting of the new Government held on March 22 resolved to make Manipur drug-free and assign an officer of the rank of IGP as the head of Anti-Narcotics Task ..

The two contenders are back, but everything is still as hazy as it was before they left for New Delhi at the summon of the Central leadership of the BJP. True or otherwise, Messrs N Biren Singh and Th Biswajit managed to put up a ‘good show’ t..

BJP comfortably home with 32 MLAs in its kitty. Results declared on March 10. Yet even five days after the results, the BJP yet to name who will head the next Government. Not a problem with number and certainly not a problem of dissidence. Yet it should b..

The BJP is home comfortably and from with whom it may go in Government formation, the overriding question which has piqued everyone’s interest is who will be the top man. Will the BJP continue with N Biren as the Chief Minister or will it adopt the ..

It is raining BJP all the way. At the time this commentary is being written down at 7.15 pm of March 10, the saffron party had already bagged 25 seats and was leading in 7 more. Now if the lead translates into wins, then the BJP would be sitting pretty wi..