The detection of new cases has definitely come down in the last couple of days, but this should not dull the senses of anyone into thinking that the virus has been checked. It is very much out there even today, infecting at will and as the National Health..

Naga peace talks The end of RN Ravi’s saga..

The transmission chain is yet to be broken. The virus is just lying low and stretch this understanding a bit and it should be presumed that the there is every possibility of the virus returning in all its virulence and this is where the call for the New N..

The politics of peace or the politics of political dialogue is certainly interesting and one has seen this from close quarters ever since the NSCN (IM) inked the ceasefire agreement with the Government of India on August 1, 1997. Thereafter began the roun..

The Congress back then took an open stand and this is the reason why its presence in the Naga dominated districts of Manipur gradually and quickly withered away, best demonstrated in the 2012 Assembly election. To get a better understanding of the stand o..

Maintain social distancing-meaning stay at least 6 feet apart from the person next to you, avoid crowds, don’t go or do anything that brings you physically close to anyone, stop socialising; maintain physical hygiene-meaning wash one’s hand th..

Time for the State Government to take a non-nonsense stand and make it known that it is not a Government which is there to buckle under pressure of any sort. For this, obviously it has to first study any subject before it takes a stand, listen to differen..

The Board of Secondary Education, Manipur, the different school authorities, officials nominated by the Government to work out the modalities of grading the Class X students to be promoted to Class XI have done their job, but it is not clear whether the G..

Political players. Mark them out from the politicians, the ones who are wedded to the ideology and beliefs of the party to which they belong to. And it is the antics of the political players that would be fun to watch, especially for those who are in the ..

It is a refreshing change, but then no one knows for sure whether the change that one sees is superficial or runs deeper than what meets the eye. Part of the credit for this must surely go to the policy adopted by the Narendra Modi Government which has ma..

The great ADC Bill divide. It should be obvious to all those who have been reading between the lines and the BJP led Government at Imphal, which interestingly is in a coalition with Naga People’s Front, and the number of civil society organisations ..

The public needs to be informed. It cannot only be for academic interests. Hope the State Health Department and all the officials advising the Government in chalking out strategies and deciding how long people should be told to stay indoors get the point ..

From five picked for the Indian contingent to represent the country at the Tokyo Olympics, 2020 to capping it off with the stupendous show of two returning with medals, Silver from S Mirabai Chanu in weightlifting to the Bronze from S Nilakanta Sharma in ..

The BJP Governmanet is expected to do better. It has done away with the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award and replaced the same with Dhyan Chand Kehl Ratna. No arguments here. Its objective is Nation First. Again no arguments here. But is the Armed Forces Spe..

The statistics is disturbing and there is no sign that the transmission chain has been broken. It is not only the statistics per se that is worrying and a cause of concern, but also the hugely fluctuating report from some of the hill districts. This is a ..

Nothing to do with the Congress but then again in a way much to do with the Congress. Internal affairs of the BJP, one may say but then again one cannot entirely write off the fact that the man central to the new interesting development is a man long syno..

Manipur has every reason to look back with satisfaction at the just concluded Tokyo Olympics, 2020 and the statistics should say it all. With just about 30 lakh population in a Nation of 130 crore people, Manipur did well in having five of her sons and da..

Giving a new meaning to the understanding of medal haul or podium finish at the biggest sporting bonanza in the world and Manipur has shown this to the rest of the country at the ongoing Tokyo Olympics, 2020. Manipur’s presence on the sports map of ..

A different approach has to be adopted. A hybrid approach if one may add. The extension of the total curfew by yet another week should be understood in the backdrop of the rising graph of positive cases and number of deaths daily. The daily positivity rat..

Not pressing the alarm button but it is more than clear that the 10 days total curfew imposed since July 18 has not worked. The statistics should tell its own story. From July 18, the day the total curfew came into force, till July 26, the  number of..

The virus is running riot, infecting at will and killing randomly. This is a fact that cannot be diluted in any manner. What makes things more disturbing is the fact that Manipur has been under curfew or restrictions since April 29 and this was further ti..

The Government should accept this. Lockdown, total curfew, containment etc is not working. On the fourth day of the total curfew, Manipur reported 1327 new cases. The statistics say it all.  It is not working. Think outside the box is a line that The..

Get your shots ! Get vaccinated ! Health Director Dr K Rajo has gone on record to say that it is 83.33 percent of those who have not got vaccinated make up for the death count. In other words this can be taken to mean that those who have received the shot..

Not the time to take things casually and this was first witnessed in the order issued by the State Government to enforce a 10 day total curfew in the face of the rising Covid infections and deaths. The media, both print and electronic, was nowhere mention..

A point briefly touched upon in a previous comment in this column, but repeated again now. Time for the COVID-19 Common Control Room or the Health Department or the publicity machinery of the State Government to detail the vaccination status of the people..

Second lifeline of a State. This is what the Imphal-Jiribam route or National Highway-37 is to Manipur and it is with a feeling of mixed emotions that one welcomes Makru bridge. Happy that the 200 kilometre long National Highway has finally received a bri..

The number is worrying. Deeply worrying. July alone, and the month is just beginning, has added 6242 to the tally of the total infected cases in Manipur and this is a pretty big number when seen against the tally of 76,032 the count for which started on M..

The timing is perfect. With just one induction, the stock of the BJP has risen hundred fold and coming as it has just before the next Assembly elections in the early part of 2022, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has delivered a near perfect ball to rattle th..

Fast forward to July in 2022 and Manipur will have a new Government and while it is still too early to say which party will romp home in the next Assembly elections scheduled in the early part of next year, what is clear is that the fight will primarily b..

Test, Trace, Treat. The three Ts advocated to take the fight to the virus and while the State Government has launched mass testing exercise at different localities as well as taken up numerous steps to more efficiently treat patients in the hospital, it i..

The missing link. This is what is worrying. Even after more than 60 days of restrictions on people’s movement, containment, curfew or whatever term one may give it, the number of positive cases continue to surge in triple digit each day and so too d..

Ramp up vaccination was the call then. Now it is more about convincing the people to shed their vaccine hesitancy and come out willingly to get their vaccine jab.  It is in this context that Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Mann Ki Baat radio broa..

No one knows how long the pandemic will continue. More importantly no one knows what further mutation the virus will undergo and already alert has been sounded over the Delta Plus variant of the coronavirus which is reported to be much more contagious and..

The important question is, what lessons have been learnt from the first and second wave of the global pandemic here in Manipur ? This question is important for it  is a foregone conclusion that any preparation for the third wave should come from the ..

This is not at all amusing. And why has the blame game suddenly picked up speed in the last one day or two ? The answer must be clear to all those who have been following the spat of words between the BJP and the Congress closely but the interesting quest..

Extraordinary time calls for extraordinary measures to cope with the time and it is along this line that the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) and the Council of Indian School Certificate Examination (CISCE) have gone ahead and announced their a..

Not surprising that the BJP led Government at Imphal has decided to do away with the Class X or HSLC and Class XII or HSSLC exams this year given the current situation. In between, the Class XI examinations conducted by the Council of Higher Secondary Edu..

Figures, figures and more figures. This is what all the Imphal based newspaper houses must have been obsessed with ever since COVID-19 started spreading at will and taking lives. This is more so during the second wave of the pandemic which has proven to b..

The important question is not when, but how ? And one thing that is for sure at this moment is, the lockdown/curfew will be lifted gradually and not go as a whole. The spiralling figure should reflect the reality that is Manipur right now and expecting or..

For close to 18 months or a little over 14/15 months, it has been Covid, Covid and more Covid all the way and it came like a whiff of fresh breath to learn that amid this all round gloom some individuals have gone ahead to give a glimmer of hope and sunsh..

The curfew/lockdown/restrictions on movement of people etc cannot go on forever. At the same time there is no sign as yet that the spread of the virus has peaked and has started going down. This is about Manipur and to a certain extent, the North East reg..

The death count is deeply disturbing. And it is climbing. Obvious that the death count cannot be understood sans the rising number of positive cases, but ultimately it is the death which can and will have the deepest impact on the bereaved family and the ..

Not totally unexpected but the first as far as one can go back in memory and how a system which has been solely relying on the mark/exam system will work out the performance of the students remains to be seen. That it took none less than Prime Minister Na..

It is becoming more and more clear and the Government of Manipur must have already heard the rumblings from the virus. New records are being written and rewritten all within a span of 24 hours and so it is that from a record of 1007 positive cases on May ..

Test, Trace, Treat. The three magic Ts in the fight against the Coronavirus and it is heartening to hear the Chief Minister announcing that the Government will soon go in for mass testing. Albeit via the Rapid Antigen Test method and while this model is u..

Nearly a month of restricting people’s movement, yet the numbers continue to grow, both in terms of deaths as well as in the number of infected persons. Should then this be taken to mean that the restrictions have not worked ? To say yes would be ju..

The shift is clear. The virus has changed direction and from rampaging across the cities of the country and States like Maharashtra, it has now shifted focus and appears to set its eyes on the North Eastern region of the country. In Manipur, each day has ..

Better late than never, one may say. Significant to note that the State Government has deemed it fit now to acknowledge that ‘home isolation without proper facilities for the same has been a major cause for the rapid spread of the virus.’ This..

Already reeling under the second wave and with experts predicting that India will face a third wave, the next few or many months, even stretching into 2022, will be dicey. If the second wave of the virus is any indication, it can be taken that the third w..

Unheralded but quietly going about with whatever assistance they can to help the people during this uncertain times of the pandemic. They are not folks who people will automatically recognise on the road and they certainly do not announce their arrival or..