Editorial

Needed : Visionary leaders Look 30/40 years hence

A long term vision. Many of the vexatious issues besieging Manipur right now are matters that could have been avoided or averted or may simply not have risen at all if successive Governments down the years had been guided with a vision, the ability to loo..

Of women and their position Gender policy

Encouraging to note that Social Welfare Director Ngangom Uttam is keeping the doors wide open for suggestions to give more teeth to the draft gender policy prepared by the Manipur State Commission for Women before its adoption. Let the experts and individ..

A requiem to RV Mingthing Unity is thy name

Not a regular political heavyweight like in the mould of the late Rishang Keishing, the late Yangmasho Shaiza or any of the other bigwigs who have etched a name for themselves just by winning one election after the other, but the name of RV Mingthing has ..

ST for Meiteis and NRC call Common thread

The common thread running through is unmistakable. The call for the National Register of Citizens (NRC), a demand which has been given more teeth by the ‘mushrooming of dubious settlements’, the incursion on protected/reserved forests, the dec..

Temporary Shelter Home at Moreh Acknowledging the reality

Acknowledging the reality. Instead of RC, opt for TSH, that is instead of Refugee Camp  open a Temporary Shelter Home. This is the line the State Government has struck now and this is in sync with the growing likelihood that many would have crossed o..

Process of lifting AFSPA From 2004 to 2023

The reasoning is simple enough. Law and order situation has improved so the Disturbed Area tag, which ushers in the Armed Forces Special Powers Act, has been removed. This is the line of thinking in the corridors of power and it is along this line that th..

Enforcing ban on single use plastic Posers on the earlier ban

It just does not add up. Or is it a case of the right arm of the Government not knowing what its left arm is doing ? Nearly one year after Imphal followed the call of Delhi and announced a ban on the manufacture, sale and use of single use plastic as well..

Studying with a purpose in mind Exams after exams

Study with a purpose in mind and perform accordingly. This line is important especially in the face of the ongoing Class X and Class XII examinations conducted by the Board of Secondary Education, Manipur (BOSEM) and Council of Higher Secondary Education,..

Manipur and water crisis

Finally, rain is here. After weeks and months of waiting eagerly, a slight shower has started wetting the parched lands. But it is too early to say whether the current spell of rainfall will be enough to tide over the water crisis besieging the State at p..

Poppy plantation and agents of desertification

The connection between massive deforestation or clearing of forest areas and the extensive poppy cultivation is quite obvious. However the possible link between poppy cultivation and illegal immigration from across the border has not been fully establishe..

Taking the NRC call to Delhi Unifying factor

From the streets of Imphal marching towards the official bungalow of the Chief Minister, to the march and voice raised at the campus of Manipur University to now a dharna staged at Jantar Mantar demanding that an exercise on National Register of Citizens ..

All thunder and lightening but no rain The dry spell continues

In the end it was more a case of all thunder and noise but no rain. Put in short bursts of strong squall but no rain and this should about sum up the day in Imphal that was March 15. On the said day and date, Imphal woke up to a somewhat overcast sky and ..

Briefing Union Home Minister Not sons of the soil

Details are not available and the English edition of The Sangai Express had to give a miss to the report that Chief Minister N Biren Singh had briefed Union Home Minister Amit Shah on the decision of the State Cabinet to withdraw from the Suspension of Op..

All set for HSLC 2023 exams The mad mark rush !

Exams are here to stay and marks will be the defining factor to decide how well a student or a candidate has done in the, generally, three hour rituals called examinations. So it is that from March 16 more than 38 thousand students, all drawn from Governm..

Noting stand of Forest Minister Eviction drives

Forest Minister Th Biswajit has a solid point. ‘Eviction drives don’t target any specific community’ is the line that he has maintained and why should the eviction of a recently established hamlet inside a protected forest be given a com..

Tough times call for tough decisions Pressure on resources

Tough times call for tough decisions and this is where one ought to know the difference between ‘tough decisions’ and ‘harsh decisions’. And with 32 MLAs in its kitty, the BJP is comfortably placed to take tough decisions and the d..

Act not think for the future of Meiteis Reflecting reality

Time to think for the future of the Meiteis. This was Rajya Sabha MP and titular King of Manipur, Leishemba Sanajaoba, a person well placed to understand the state of the Meitei community. The observation of the honourable MP is noted and acknowledged. Ho..

The good and the bad of Yaoshang Festival of colour

Festival of colour and making it more colourful is the fact that Manipur is a land of festival. So it is that the very set of people who pull back nothing to make Holi or Yaoshang all that more colourful, will put their best foot forward to rend the air w..

Show no leniency to poppy growers Biswajit bang on target

Forest and Environment Minister Thongam Biswajit was bang on target and he couldn’t have been more right than in observing that befitting penalty should be imposed on all poppy growers rather than giving any sort of priority while giving rehabilitat..

ST demand has come a long way Wrongs of history

Shutdown to street corner meetings, rallies, eliciting positive responses from the elected representatives of the people via personal visits to attempt to march up to the Assembly where the session is presently on, the Scheduled Tribe Demand Committee, Ma..

Lungnila : Long wait for justice From 2003 to 2023

God sees the truth but waits. A case of real life coming real close to imitating a fiction written more than a hundred years back by the inimitable Leo Tolstoy and one here is talking about Lungnila Elizabeth, a child who jolted Manipur awake to how ugly ..

State needs Old Cachar Road & more highways

The historic Old Cachar Road or Tongjei Maril not only deserves ugradation to the level of a national highway. It deserves to be developed as an all-weather highway which can serves as a reliable alternative to Imphal-Jiribam highway and even Imphal-Dimap..

Irrigation and agricultural productivity

Whereas the total irrigated area of the State stands at mere 46,512 hectares, a staggering 1,87,928 hectares of agricultural land or paddy fields are devoid of any irrigation facility. In another word, agricultural activities, specially paddy cultivation ..

Economic development & investment

Indeed, the B20 conference of the G20 dialogue forum for the global business community held at Imphal recently was a significant step towards economic development of the landlocked State called Manipur. Though significant, it was only the first step and M..

Points from Congress noted Unanswered questions

The Congress has a solid point and the BJP led Government at Imphal should take the questions raised by the former as an extension of the War on Drugs campaign. This is all that more so as the Congress has already announced that it supports the War on Dru..

Where did the encroachers come from ? Eviction drive of Govt

The open hint of defiance is unmistakable if one goes by what Chief Minister N Biren informed the Assembly on February 22. Just 48 hours after dwelling huts were razed to the ground inside a Protected Forest on February 20 and given the marching orders, t..

Noting shabby Imp-Ukl road stretch RS MP’s observation

An admission and a correction or a clarification is in line. The news item under the heading ‘RS MP notes pitiable road condition of Ukhrul’ which appeared on the February 22 edition of this newspaper should have ideally appeared on page 1 of ..

Class X and Class XII exam schedules Yaoshang shadow

That anxious moments are back, all with a somewhat good feel factor and not without reason. After more than ten years of schooling, young students will now be set to appear for probably the first ‘big test’ of their academic life when they app..

Testing the merit of a student Three hour schedule

So it is that the three hour schedule to test how much a child has learnt in the last 12 years of her or his schooling will be decided when the Council of Higher Secondary Education, Manipur (COHSEM) starts its annual Class XII exams from February 23. The..

Keenness from US firm, Argentina Thank the Prime Minister

A line of gratitude is in line. Manipur must say thanks to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Government at Delhi for choosing Manipur as one of the venues to hold the B20 conferece, the official dialogue forum of the G20 countries. It is not often that..

Studying Manipur ahead of 2027 Hosting B20

Where does Manipur expect to see herself four years down the line, that is by the time the next Assembly elections come in 2027 ?  This is a question which the BJP led Government at Imphal should be asking itself now. Short term look, one may say but..

Water-The elixir of life Grim situation

Not exactly a case of ‘Water, water everywhere but not  a drop to drink,’ but twist this line with due apology to Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and Manipur comes somewhere close to the understanding of ‘Rain, rain for many months in a ye..

From 2016 to 2023 The jinx continues

The jinx it seems, continues. Dates and years figure prominently in this tale of ‘jinx’ and it dates back to 2016 the year the exam was held, then 2019 the year the said exam was cancelled and many who were already in service suddenly found th..

Uncertain days for the newspaper Circulation the oxygen

Uncertain, very uncertain. Things are anything but rosy at the moment and at stake here are not only the journalists, the professionals engaged in the work of collecting information or report and making the same into readable news items, the Sub-Editors w..

Identifying with the idea of Manipur Responsibility sans rights ?

Chief Minister N Biren Singh was not off the mark in observing that the Meitei community has sacrificed a lot for the sake of a united Manipur and this is a line which The Sangai Express has been stressing on all these years. Come to think about it, it is..

Taking the debates outside a TV studio Ugly, very ugly trend

It was ugly and it has gotten uglier. Just one day after two not so gentle gentlemen, representing the big two-BJP and the Congress-went hammer and tongs against each other, coupled with reports that some supporters of one of them ‘waited’ for..

‘Clearing forest’ for poppy plantation Long arms of drug cartel

The War on Drugs has to be taken up on different fronts and this is where the co-operation and vigil of the ‘Green Activists’ become indispensable. It is with a reason why Chief Minister N Biren took to his Facebook page to announce that a cas..

Nothing thrilling about this ‘thriller’ High profile drug cases

It sounds like a thriller but there is nothing thrilling about this. In the last 20 years or so, Manipur has seen high profile drug seizure cases implicating equally high profile personalities and interesting to note too that the arrest and exposure of th..

Noney mishap of 2022 and the ‘warning’ Focus on school vans

The Noney road mishap that claimed the lives of 7 students, one teacher and one warden while they were out on a study tour on December 21 last year is recent, very recent, if one views the time frame in the backdrop of the human tragedy, but public memory..

MHRC : From 1998 to 2023 Anything but smooth

To many, human rights, correction, its violation is central to the identity of Manipur and not without reason. It was with a reason why a young lady, Irom Sharmila launched her marathonesque hunger strike sometime from November 2000 to 2016 demanding the ..

A twist to the War on Drugs drive Worrying incursions

Giving a more mysterious twist to the War on Drugs and while the Government seems nowhere near unmasking or pulling up the big fishes-the people with the needed financial and muscle power to operationalise the ‘drug business’, the offensive la..

No rain, no water in Imphal river Grim prognosis

If no rain, then Imphal River will run dry after one month. This is the grim prognosis of PHE Minister L Susindro while responding to a query raised by Congress MLA K Ranjit on the floor of the House on February 3. The statement of the PHE Minister aptly ..

Drug menace and the HIV reality The fight must go on

Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA), alleged excesses of security personnel, fake encounters with the Supreme Court of the country having taken note of it, law and order situation (though situation has improved in the last few years), the drug menace ..

Take the War on Drugs beyond Govt on the offensive

The Government is obviously on the offensive and rightly so. Destruction drive of poppy plantations at the hills of Manipur is now almost a daily staple with Imphal based newspapers religiously carrying reports of so and so hectares and acres of poppy pla..

Reaching out to the interiors Stepping out of Raj Bhawan

If the soul of India lies in her villages, then it may be said that the spirit and soul of Manipur lie in the remote, hilly areas and it is gratifying to note that Governor La Ganesan has taken it upon himself to visit some of the remotest parts of the St..

Incursion from across border Wake up to the reality

The Government should wake up to the reality that is staring everyone in the face.  In the month January alone, over 80 Myanmar Nationals have been detected and pulled up with the latest information being the arrest of four Myanmarese. This is not al..

Disturbing call from Lamlongei ST tag could be answer

The Government should take note of the cry of protest that has come forth from Lamlongei, Mantripukhri. If not checked well in time this can snowball into a major issue which would not be in the interests of Manipur and her people. And the term ‘peo..

Already 30 days into 2023 Address the basic needs

Already 30 days into 2023 and what are the priorities that the Government has worked out for the next 365 days ? A question which all concerned citizens of the land should be raising now. One obviously is to see how to give more teeth to the War on Drugs ..

From 2020 and still in process Imp-Ukl road stretch

Started sometime in 2020 and the focus and the target seem to be ‘complete it before the Shirui Lily Festival’, which can be held sometime in April or May this year. This is the assurance given by the National Highway Infrastructure Developmen..

Growing traffic congestion in Imphal Time to act is now

Something should be done. Time to move out from the drawing board room, to borrow a line from the corporate world, and actually get down to working on ways to ease the growing traffic congestion in the heart of Imphal city. Those who come under the VIP ta..