Surprise! Surprise!!

It’s a real surprise.

The Kuki Students’ Organisation (KSO) has just pulled off a very successful Manipur bandh.

Normally, a bandh called by KSO is successful in churachandpur district and some parts of Kangpokpi and its adjoining areas.

Today’s bandh is in protest of the shootinig down of 2 Kuki youth by police commandos, who claimed that they were the cadres of a Kuki underground group. But KSO says they are just innocent men.

Yesterday, there was only a cursory talk of a bandh by a Kuki student’s body. I think everybody thought that the Imphal valley won’t be affected. I responded normally to the announcement and so I didn’t reschedule any of my planned tasks for today. Actually, a very important meeting was scheduled for this evening.

But in the morning, I was totally surprised finding the unexpected disruption of life in Imphal

Personally, I think that it is a good sign for Manipur. More so, in the light that it shows the vitality of that aspect of our society which sends out signals of being an active meltingpot. Actually, I’m really enthused over it.

In case 2 innocent men are gunned down by whichever security force, it is everybody’s business to condemn, and protest against, it. We should not ask anything about the ethnic affiliations of those murdered men or women.

And, we should also try to remember the protest against the Tipaimukh dam here. As the worst affected people belong to Tamenglong district, they are compelled to find like-minded people in their efforts to organize State-wide protests against the dam. They are garnering supports from any like-minded people, irrespective of their ethnic affiliations. Thus, the State wide apex body formed to organize protests against the dam is headed by a gentleman from Tamenglong, supported by other people from other parts of Manipur in subordinate positions.

I think we are witnessing very welcome developments whereby people from different parts of the State are pooling in their resources for common cause having been not distracted by their respective ethnic affiliations.

Seeking out the pattern

This will be the last post on Tipaimukh—I mean, for the moment. It’ll be my duty (see how dutiful I am!) to come to this topic as the situations unfold in the coming weeks and months. Rather, I’ll be vociferous about the topic.

That said, do you not make out a pattern in the genesis of the dam, as seen from Manipur?

At their first sales pitch, they were confronted with total rejection of their proposal by the general public of the State. Normally, they should take note of the objections raised by the cross sections of the public in the open discussion. Those feedbacks should have reached the drawing board of the proposed dam.

In short, they should respect the wishes of the people and try to refashion the proposed project accordingly.

But none of that kind happened.

They retreated for some years and tried to push through their agenda by engaging the corrupt MLAs and ministers. Actually, they did succeed in extracting the MOU.

The pattern is : Keep quite for some time and try to wear down the opposition in the meantime. When that’s achieved, try to attack from another flank, like buying the corrupt MLAs and ministers and force your agenda. Damned with the wishes of the people.

I’ll demonstrate with a rather stark example from a recent past.

Remember the rape and murder of Th. Manorama.

Just some days into the raping and murder of the lady, Lt Gen Bhopinder Singh, who was commanding the AR from Shillong, landed in Imphal and made a request via the media—“ Give me at least some days and I’ll punish the guilty”.

Although we knew that he was trying to buy some days in the hope that in the meantime the edge of the popular uprising would be blunted by deploying massive forces, we can excuse him for using the trick because his job, as a security man, is to bring the fluid situation into some semblance of control.

But how about the Prime Minister?

Remember the Prime Minister speaking at a well attended public meeting in Kangla. He said he is a father of two daughters and he knows how a father would have felt if his daughter is raped and murdered. He promised to book, and punish, the guilty ones.

As I’m writing this, there was not even a suspension in the AR ranks.

Even the prime minister of the biggest democracy is caught in the same devilish pattern.

Make a lot of promise and buy more time. In the meantime, wear down the resolve of the people. When that’s achieved, push your own agenda. Damned with the wishes of the people.

The genesis of the dam

I should not go away without telling you of the genesis of Tipaimukh dam as seen from Imphal.

It must be 7/8 years ago. There was a 2-day open discussion on Tipaimukh in Manipur University. To my mind, it was the first organized selling of Tipaimukh dam to the general public of Manipur. It was bankrolled by Brahmaputra Board. It was efficiently organized with all the paperworks, backgrounders and the actual technical feasibility reports etc duly made available to all the people who happened to come to attend the discussion. It was also a well attended discussion session.

Only during those two days I came to have an inkling of the structure of the Government of India for organizing electrical resources. At the top is CEC ie, Central Electricity Commission, a statutory entity created by an act of Parliament. For the North East there is this Brahmaputra Board, also an entity created by an act of parliament. The Board seems to be created for keeping a focus on the electrical resources for the NE and it reports to CEC.

A team of high level officials from the Brahmaputra Board was in attendance. They had seen with their own eyes how there was no taker for the proposed dam at Tipaimukh. The handful of attendees who had spoken in favor of the dam were the Kuki-chin-mizo people of around Tipaimukh, who were going so because they were going to get largesse from the Board as the compensation of lands likely to be acquired for the dam.

There were no takers for the dam.

We thought that the dam was as good as dead from the perspectives of the people of Manipur because there was such an overwhelming opposition to it.

It was only after several years down the line that reports on newspapers surfaced stating that NEEPCO was lobbying hard the MLAs and ministers for finalizing a MOU for the construction of the dam. There were protests against the proposed MOU. The government said that they were shelving the process that lead to the signing of the MOU.

NEEPCO is another of those entity created by an act of parliament but unlike the Brahmaputra Board, they are mandated to carry out the commercial facet for mobilizing electrical resources from the NE.

After some months they signed the MOU on the sly and came to the press saying they had done that for the future of the State!

There were only sporadic protests.

It was only some ago when those disparate protesting groups could coalesce into a State-wide apex body. The move was spearheaded by the people from Tamenglong district because they will be heaviest losers if the dam is constructed.

They are facing the prospect of losing all their heritage sites under the water of the dam. Inside Tamenglong district the water level of the
lake formed by the proposed dam would rise so high that a substantial portions of the present NH 53 would be inundated. NEEPCO proposed to lay brand new highway on the higher reaches of the Tamenglong hills!

Needless to say, the water from the proposed dam will inundate parts of Noney which is barely 45 kms from Imphal.

The proposed dam is a disaster not only for Tamenglong district but also of the whole of Manipur. A real DISASTER in the making.

Govt of India as village money lender

I’m still at Tipaimukh dam, sorta continuation of yesterday’s post.

Actually, I’m in the mood of shocking you. As in shock therapy.

See, NHPC, deploying the potential of our own Loktak, has now billed us for using the power generated!

How much?

To the tune of Rs 120 crores!

The people of Manipur has now to pay Rs 120 crores to the Govt of India for using the potential of our own Loktak.

How much they invested in the whole project at that time? 100 crores of Rupees? May be!

Agreed that the party which has made the investment should enjoy reasonable return on their investment. That the party should enjoy their rightful ROI must be within some parameters, basing on some commonly accepted norms. In our case, as demonstrated in Loktak project and likely to be repeated in Tipaimukh, there is neither the parameter nor the norms. There is just the sweeping one-sided contract which stipulates that we should get only some fixed percentage of the produce of the project with having to content with no SAY either in the functioning or the distribution of the profits, of the whole project for eternity. I mean, for ETERNITY.

This is grotesquely usurious.

This deal (which will almost certainly be repeated in the case of Tipaimukh) reminds me of Indian village money lenders. Back in college we were taught that they were (and still are) the efficient saboteurs of the normal functioning of rural economies. I’ve still got the idea that they are evil.

Now, the Government of India, comfortably hiding behind varied corporate masks, is on the prowl threatening to force terms, which are more usurious than the EVIL village money lenders, in unsuspecting peoples’ throats.

Isn’t a good logic to conclude that we are confronting an entity more EVIL than the village money lenders?

And, it’s everybody’s business to struggle to nip the EVIL DESIGNS in the bud.

Say NO to Tipaimukh.

NO TO TIPAIMUKH DAM

A 24 hrs general strike began from 6 in the evening today. It is against the construction of Tipaimukh dam.

I’m totally against the dam.

Don’t think of the emerging clash as between some idealist environmentalists and tree-huggers on the one hand and the pragmatists and people-for-development types on the other.

It’s not.

I’m against the dam after carefully going through the cost-benfit profile of the mammoth project vis a vis the interest of the all of the people of Manipur. As I understand it, the cost-benefit profile is something like this:

>>As per the project report of NEEPCO, the project will produce more than 10,000 MW of power. The investment, based on the cost factors of some years back, is also around Rs 10,000 crores. I’m depending on my memories here.

>> Out of the 10,000 MW produced, NEEPCO will give 12% to Manipur ‘free’.

This 12% of the power produced is supposed to be ‘free’ benefit from the project. 12% of the projected power produced works out to 1200 MW. If we get that much MW of power, there will even be surplus power for the whole State for some foreseeable futures. I firmly believe that we should somehow manage to get MW of power in demand during hours, if not as large as 1200 MW. Without that much power supply, we cannot hope of any development in this state.

Naturally, the power that be in Manipur is dazzled in the prospect of getting ‘free’ 1200 MW of power. They are saying that the whole people of Manipur are extremely fortunate in finding some corporations, like NEEPCO, which are willing to sink in that kind of investment here.

What about the cost? Cost burden to the future generations of Manipur??

We can start here like this—in accepting the 12% ‘free’ we would be gifting the 88% to NEEPCO for eternity. The operating word is ETERNITY. We, of the present and all the generations to come, will have no right to renegotiate the deal. So, we will be looted of 88% of Tipaimukh’s resource from ourselves, next generation to us, so on up to ETERNITY.

Do I sound like an alarmist? Even a propagandist of some tree-huggers??

Look to Loktak project, executed and run by NHPC. They are giving 10% of the total power produced to the State. And they are looting the 90% of the power for many years now? How much they had invested here?

I have had some opportunities to talk to both NHPC and Manipur Govt officials. And it is confirmed beyond any reasonable doubt that the Government of Manipur has absolutely no rights to renegotiate the Loktak project deal.

In other words, NHPC will continue to own the 90% of the potential of the waters of our own Loktak for ETERNITY.

You have to remember here that NHPC and NEEPCO represent Government of India but with corporate masks.

Tipaimukh dam is the same deal as that of Loktak’s but on a much bigger scale.

This cost alone totally makes it justified for us to reject the Tipaimukh dam for now and for ETRENITY.

Turning back!

I hardly slept 5 hours waking up early in the morning to go to a friend’s place. I went to his place on my bike (I mean, bicycle). When I was near his place, all the while exercising my thigh muscles riding the bike, this friend of mine just whizzed past me from the opposite direction, not seeing me, nor hearing me shouting at him.

I had to turn back and return home empty handed.

While riding the bike it occurred to me that I was in the mood for cooking for yummy dishes. So, I planned in my head to go buying a whole variety of veggies. I wanted to walk to the marketplace. So, grabbing a bag, I came out of my house but another of my friend was there waiting for me. He is the one who wants to sell furniture and he wanted to get my ‘inputs’ regarding the design of his display room. Unexpectedly, I spent nearly an hour discussing various designs with him. By then, my shopping moods were totally soured.

Turning back home, I cooked eggs and potato.

After lunch, I hurried back to my computer to give finishing touches to a piece of English to Manipuri translation for yet another of my friend. I did that and so satisfied, I was on a blog post by Brad DeLong about China. I sailed through that post and was right in the middle of comments where I was beginning to enjoy myself immensely. Just then the light went out. Dutifully shutting down the computer, I went to the next task.

The task is to go to a library to seek the copy of the Times of India of 24th July. I got the key of the bookshelf from the caretaker (no librarian—it’s a sort of small reading room) and started pulling out the back copies of the paper. But the particular copy of the particular paper was nowhere to be found. I tried several times but in vain. And, the caretaker was fuming finding a copy of his papers missing.

I told myself not to get discouraged. Because the next planned task is to go to the theatre!
Actually, I’ve been planning for this occasion for some days now. Because it is the play by Kanhailal. Most of the time, Kanhailal’s plays are staged at his own playhouse in the Langgol hills. But the hill road leading to his playhouse is usually deserted by dusk and something always tells me that the road is not safe after dark. So, I miss most of his plays. But this evening’s play is to be staged at JN Dance Academy.

But, when I reached there at around 5 minutes to 6 pm, which is, by the way, is the scheduled time, there was not a single soul! Not even an announcement for postponement or cancellation. In fact, the hall itself seemed to be under lock and key!

So, I turned back again towards my lonely home!

Global ramifications

I’m still at the mortar attacks on the Indian troopers along the international border between India and Burma. It may be more or less boring to hear someone talking about a topic for some days at a stretch. I know that. But it is one of those things which may cause a shift in the paradigm of how this society tries to interact with other surrounding societies. It may be first glimmer of a just a feeble hint of how a huge change is underway in this part of the world.

First, I’ll tell you about the developments in the last few days.

You might remember that AR in a press statement said that the attack was from across the border and so, they lodged a complaint to the Burmese military. (Till this day there are no words about the Burmese military’s response).

Then, they came out with another press statement giving names, fathers’ names, addresses and the respective ranks in the insurgent army of three cadres of the rebel group, who, they said, were killed in the retaliatory fires by them. They said another four civilians were hurt and they were now hospitalized in a Tamu hospital. They said they had got the information from a cadre of the group arrested in Moreh.

The rebel group replied in a press statement that no cadre of theirs was arrested in Moreh in the last few days and the ‘drama’ of furnishing names of their cadres by AR is just laughable. They also said that the AR troopers were so scared by the intensity of the attack that they imagined it coming from across the international border.

That four civilians were hurt on the Burmese side of the border is a fact and they might as well be hospitalized in a Tamu hospital. It’s reasonable. But the AR authorities tried to mix up some propaganda in the above fact. It’s a very ingenious ploy and it is reasonable to assume that some senior and higher-level strategists were involved. Why going all this whole hog? To my mind, it is to send the message that one particular rebel group is in hand in glove with a military junta, though they claim to be struggling for democratic and sovereign rights of the people of Manipur. That means they are doing things which are solely the prerogatives of the civilian leadership. It’s very disturbing to see army troopers going into the domain of making political propaganda.

Besides, try to read this with the news that a students’ body was demonstrating in Delhi on the very next day of the attack and you can see that the diplomatic brigade in New Delhi is clutching on the straws. Because they tried every tricks in their diplomatic bags and nothing seem to work. You have to remember here that what we call Kuki or Mizo has a Burmese equivalent in Chin and they are concentrated in Chin state of Burma. This Chin people (whom we call Kuki or Mizo here) have been facing a constant but slow ethnic cleansing sponsored by the Burmese army. So anybody who has anything to do with the Burmese army is an enemy of the Kukis. So, the diplomatic think tank in Delhi is trying to utilize the last available option—to sow bad bloods between the Kuki, as a community and this particular rebel group. They are stooping pretty low. That said, it also signifies the fact that they are running out of options.

Running out of options? See how there was an arms shipment from the Indian on the 17th night and on the very next night there was a mortar attack from the Burmese side. This only shows the defiance of the Burmese military.

They may also be hinting at the message that arms shipments of 20/30 trucks are peanuts. They want them on a larger scale.

If that’s so, we are confronted with a very significant question. Who will want to see India sending significant arms shipments to a military junta, that also the one happening to rule the Orwellian state of Burma?

If we try to answer this question, we can easily see the global ramifications of the hush-hush diplomatic tussles underway in a sleepy border side village, called Moreh.

Tired

Today, a friend of mine came to me unannounced. He wants to sell furniture from one the shop spaces of mine.

So, I was there with him all day long doing such things like taking measurement, trying to find a design of the display room etc.

It was not a hard work but, unexpectedly, I’m tired.

May be, it’s also something to do with the fact that Imphal is usually very warm today.

I’m going to bed early tonight.

Load shedding, as they call it.

Today is just the right time to tell you of the power situation in Imphal. We have a planned outrage of 6 six from 4 to 10pm on every third day. They call it load shedding.

Tonight it is our turn for the load shedding.

It came just before 10 pm. Just in time for my dinner. But it went out again before my finished eating my dinner.

And it again came back just 5 or so minutes ago.

So, I have not the time to write out my planned post. I will do it properly tomorrow as I have in my head something new to say.

I’ll come tomorrow.

What's happening?

This is sort of continuation of yesterday’s post.

Because, today’s papers carried the press statement of the rebel group owning up the mortar attack on the AR post along the Indo-Burma international boundary. They did not say the attack was launched from the Burmese soil but that has already become a common knowledge here.

Because of this press statement, today becomes a very significant day in the otherwise lethargic, geo-political scenario of this region.

I’ll start by giving you a brief back grounder.

Slowly but steadily, the realization has dawned on the common people here that the rebel groups here had established a working relationships with the Burmese army. There have been not even a write up about it in the newspapers but it has also become a common knowledge all the same. Everybody knows that the rebels can stay and operate near the international border because they are logistically supported from across the border. These have been going on since two or three years back.

But the official confirmation came only some months ago. And it came from Kolkatta. The Times of India carried that innocuous looking news story several months ago. As I remember it now, no other papers carried that story. A senior Army official was addressing the media in Fort William (where the Eastern Command of the Army is headquartered), Kolkatta. He said the Burmese army is giving sanctuary to the rebels, mainly in Sagaing division (ie, the parts of Burma bordering Moreh and other parts along Chandel district), only with the rider that they should not carry out attacks on Indian forces from the Burmese territory.

Note the rider. It is very significant. It’s the minimum acceptable protocol between two neighbouring nations, even in the case of the two being at each other throat.

But today’s press statement shattered that rider to smithereens. It appears that the rider is not in force right now.

What’s happening??

I'm edgy.

Just read the news headline that there is credible intelligence of another terrorist attack on Mumbai. Even the Assam police are looking into the possibility of a terrorist attack on its busy and crowded Paltan Bazar area. Even in Imphal, I can feel the uneasiness hanging palpably in the air.

I should not fail to note today’s another news item stating that the 13 Muslim youths from Thane district of Maharastra were let off as they happened to be true tablighis ie, the preachers of Islamic ideals in remote areas of the country.

I’m edgy because a lot also are happening here.

It was only on the 18th that Poknapham carried the news story about the arms shipments from the Indian side to the Burmese military. Then, at around midnight of the 18th itself there was a mortar attack on one of the AR posts manning the international border in Moreh. It was reported to be an hour long exchange of mortar and machine guns fires. Five girls living in the vicinity of the AR post were hurt, some of them seriously.

What the Burmese military is saying is that they would accept the freebies as they come along but also ready to let their territories be used to launch attack on the Indian army post along the border. I know there is no morality in international diplomacy but this is definitely sickening.

But this is not the end of the story.

The mortar attack happened at around some half an hour past midnight of the 18th. That means that happened on the early morning of the 19th. Then, on the 20th itself there was a protest by Kuki students against the attack, saying that it was the handiworks of a Meetei insurgent group in connivance with the Burmese military.

I saw a photograph of the protest in Imphal Free Press but the paper in its brief report did not say where the protest took place. From the photograph I can say with certainty that the protest was in Delhi. If that’s the case, see the speed with which the protest was organized. Some very interested parties seem to be in high alert to seize any available opportunity to protest. Very interesting indeed.

The name of the students’ body is Kuki Students’ Democratic Front. This is the first time I’ve ever heard of this body. Note the word ‘democratic’. Because in the banner they were holding it was written that they condemned the attack by UNLF and SLORC. The latter denotes the Burmese military junta and so by associating with a military junta UNLF is not democratic or do not believe in democratic values. They are essentially saying they are a democratic student body but UNLF is not a democratic organization. Isn’t it interesting? It is not definitely just another student protest. A lot is happening here.

UNLF is a rebel group which was accused of carrying the mortar attack.

I think I should say something about what happened some days earlier prior to the mortar attack just to put things in perspective.

I can’t remember it exactly but it must be on the 14th. An AR patrol party in Chingmeirong area shot dead two young men, who, they said, were UNLF cadres. They said that they were shot dead because they were fleeing when asked to stop. But people in the neighborhood said they were executed.

Two days later, the AR post commander at Gate no 2 in Moreh was gunned down in broad daylight.

UNLF said they did the killing but they also said that the youths shot dead some days earlier by AR patrol were not their cadres.

Two days later AR personnel ran amok in Moreh bazaar, beating up innocent people and shutting down shops.

A day or two later another personnel of AR stepped on a bomb planted by the said rebel group and got one of his legs blown off.

Then came the mortar attack and it was not claimed by the rebel group as their attack.

So, did the mortar attack came as an answer to the arms shipment or to the series attacks and counter-attacks? Confusing, isn’t it?

The blocking of blogs and the Jihadis

Today is the day 3 of blocking of blogs by Government of India.

Today, the Times of India front paged a story and ran an editorial about the blocking of blogs. The front paged story said bulletin boards are seething with the furious anti-government of India messages from all ranks of netizens, besides bloggers. One blogger, Mr. Dilip D’souza is teaming up with other bloggers to invoke the Right to Information Act to ask the Government why their blogs, and for that matter, all other blogs, should be blocked at all. But the report made it a point not to mention the blog of Mr D’Souza. Is this a pure coincidence? It also quoted the NASSCOM Chairman as saying that the blocking of blogs is neither appropriate nor effective.

The editorial said that the Government of India attempted to block only 13 blogs but the ISPs ended up blocking all the blogs. The main thrust of the editorial is that this act of the Government only showed the ignorance of the government regarding how the internet actually works. This will only bring ridicule from the tech community of the world, which otherwise is starting to perceive India as one of the emerging tech powers of the world.

In related matters, the numbers of suspected jihadis from Maharastra and Gujarat who have been arrested by Tripura police have risen to 39. A team of Special police force, Anti Terrorist Squad of Maharastra has already started interrogating them. But in the meantime, the moulvi of the mosque who have given shelter to the suspected jihadis have quietly slipped into Bangladesh.

Four more suspected jihadis are also arrested in Guwahati city. They were staying in a city hotel in faked Hindu names. Another confirmed jihadi was also arrested in the same city. He was masquerading as a rickshaw driver when he was arrested!

In the upper Assam city of Dibrugarh, Army troopers have arrested a moulvi who, they said, have confirmed links with Students’ Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), the already banned students’ body. He was arrested with 600 gram package of powdery substance, suspected to be cocaine. The interesting thing here is how the Army troopers have suddenly joined the fray for arresting jihadis!

Blog blocked!

Only last night I found out that I could not see my blog although I could still create post on it.

Day before yesterday I came across a girl blog from Sikkim and that day she made a post about the blocking of blogs on blogger. But I could still access her blog. So, I was a bit confused. She also said that she could still create post on her blog on blogger. She said that she could see her only through a proxy server.

Today’s Statesman front paged a story about the blocking of blogs on blogger. It was a pretty detailed report carrying condemnations across the world, mainly by influential bloggers from the US. It said the department of telecommunications only instructed the ISPs to block thirteen sites which presumably include a blog on blogger. But all of ISPs do not have the technology to block a single blog from among the blogs which have similar url ie blogspot.com. So, they resorted to a blanket block on all the blogs.

Times of India have also a similar story.

To my mind, the terrorist outfits might have used blogs as a means of communications for their sinister plans. So, this blanket block is required.

But the government should block blogs, for that matter, any other sites. There should be free flow of information.

I think there should be some forms of protest against this blatant suppression of citizen’s right to information.

Any idea??

Another dance with the military dictators

I mean another diplomatic dance of democratic India with the military dictators of Burma.

Poknapham has front-paged a story about a hush hush arms shipment by the Govt of India to the Burmese military dictators. It was 10 pm in Moreh of the 17th and the people living along the Gate no 1 of the international border could clearly saw around 20 military trucks rumbling towards the bridge that goes to the Burmese territories. All the trucks are brand new and all of them carried expensive looking ‘equipments’ in neatly sealed boxes.

The story carried a detailed report of how the shipment was received at the Burmese side of the territory. It said the military rulers there ordered all the house lights along the Moreh-Kalemyo road should be turned off by 8 pm that night. And nobody should come out of their houses by that time. So, they received the shipment on darkened and deserted streets.

Although it was a news item, Poknapham did manage to put in some advices and observations in the story itself.

Advice no 1: India is loudly proclaiming itself the largest democratic state in the world. So, it should not give any arms shipment to a military dictatorship.

Observation no 1: This very shipment of arms, which can be construed as a support to a military junta by a democratic country, makes the people confused.

Observation no 2: The people here know that the democratic Government of India is doing such things on the sly because they want to coax the Burmese military rulers to agree to the military operations along the international border to drive out the Manipur-based rebels.

Advice no 2: We know military operations against the rebels are high on the priority list of the Government. But that don’t mean that it trample on the democratic principles of the country.

Observation no 3: It said that we should not expect the empty trucks coming back through Moreh after transporting the arms shipment to the Burmese military. Because back in May another 30 or so trucks rolled into Burma with the similar shipments on them and they never came back. So, the Government of India is giving arms shipment to Burmese military along with the bonus of brand new military trucks carrying those shipments.

One point in the report is very interesting. Those 30 or so military trucks that went to Burmese military back in May came directly from Madhya Pradesh all laden with the arms shipment. How did they get that detail? And, what’s there so special in Madhya Pradesh?

All said, good game, Poknapham!

First Pitch in the news

L.Somi Roy’s First Pitch is making news. Some days ago, I read a story about First Pitch which was datelined Chandigarh. Today I read another one datelined Kolkatta.

Some days back, there was a press conference in Imphal which was addressed by Somi Roy. All the papers carried the news of the conference in details. But none of them carried a photograph of the press conference. I also checked all the papers of the following day also but still none carried a photo.

Imagine all the newspapermen covering a press conference and writing detailed report about that—but without an accompanying photo of the event.

Another of my grouse is that all the papers carried the story on their sports pages which are invariably on the last pages. I think First Pitch story should at least get the front page space, if not the headline. Because First Pitch is the story of an initiative of a private citizen. Story of an initiative from below. Such story should get front page treatment.

First Pitch is bringing in 2 Major League baseball coaches for a coaching camp here in Imphal from 4th to 14th November this year. There would also be preliminary coaching camps in 4 or 5 other cities of India. The whole project would be in collaboration with the US Embassy in New Delhi.

In preparation of this main coaching camp there would be another preliminary camp in Imphal from 17th to 26th September this year. And the co-coordinator of this preliminary camp is one Geet. I think the press in Manipur should not shirk its responsibility in presenting this Geet to the public of this State, even if they think that Somi Roy is a well known figure to need an introduction in their papers. I think we should demand a photograph of this coordinator, may be, in a baseball cap!

What’s interesting for me in the press conference is that Somi Roy happened to show some video clips to his friends in the US. Those clips are, of course, of baseball games in Manipur played without the mandatory protective gears. He said all his friends were properly wowed by the dexterity of the players without the protective gears. And those video clips played a significant role in forming First Pitch in later years.

But, to my mind, all of Somi Roy’s friends would surely have flinched every time they saw a player threw a ball to the batsman in the video clip. Because that’s how I exactly felt when I saw some players practice their baseball without all those protective gears. At least at their practices ( I’ve never seen a full baseball game here) the distance between the one throwing the ball and other who is to hit the ball with the bat is surprising so short. And the ball is thrown with such a force that the player has to exert all his strength on the throw itself.

And I found myself flinched every time a player throws the ball to the batsman!

out of premium:is pakistan a smokecreen:and in manipur

Wow! There must be something called ‘out of premium’ just like ‘out of beta’. Last night, I clicked on two of the links from my blog just to make sure they are still active. Nevertheless, it’s good that they are out of premium because now everybody has a chance to read them.

I like the National Review piece. Surprisingly it seems to be a comment made by Mr. Donnelly on some main articles in the magazine. But it does not matter. It’s a small piece but it still can put across the idea pretty well. Concise and to the point, I think, it can serve as a ‘manifesto’ for fighting back the Islamic terrorism!

Now, everybody seems to be pointing to Pakistan as the instigator of the bomb blast. It’s perfectly reasonable if viewed from the perspective of the history of Indo-Pak relationship. But it also serves as the perfect smokescreen for the terrorists. Imagine they are quietly planning and recruiting sleeper cells from inside Bangladesh while everybody is being fixated towards Pakistan.

Incidentally, there is this news item that 11 young Muslims from Thane district of Maharastra were arrested near the Indo-Bangladesh international border in Tripura by Tripura police. All are very well educated, some of them still holding good tech jobs in reputable companies. They told the police that they were on a religious mission, spreading the messages of Islam. This is their version on how they landed in a sleepy small village near an international, as was reported in yesterday’s papers.

They had changed their version again. In today’s papers (you can find the news item in most of the papers, though I read in Telegraph and Times of India) they were saying that they were supposed to be traveling towards Manipur—that was their plan. That they ended up in Tripura was because of a terrible mix up!

Now, Maharastra police is convinced that they are jihadis. So, they are persuading their Tripura counterpart to continue interrogating them from the angle that they have 11 young Muslims who are potential jihadis.

Well, we don’t like them to be inside Manipur. We already have too many problems.

Try to find a find a man or a woman from Yairipok or Mayang Imphal areas—he or she may of very tender age, an uneducated fellow or just about anybody you can find in a street corner. But this fellow will calmly proceed to tell you that their Muslim neighbours regard them as kafir. You will be told that previously the word kafir was mainly used by their religious leaders inside the mosques but now the number of people using the word is increasing day by day.

Nobody talks or writes about this. Even writing a few sentences, as I’m doing right now, would already be the height of political incorrectness. I would be scorned by just about anybody in this society. But in a private space the people of such localities will calmly tell you that kafirs are for putting under the sword under the Islamic scheme of things. They know. That means there is already the undercurrent of mistrust between neighbouring villages in these places.

What we are doing right now is, at the best, hoping that the problem will somehow go away and at the worst, imagining that there simply is no such problem amongst us.

Personally, I think that we should not shy away from engaging in dialogue with our neighbouring Muslims. I also think that we can a glimpse of the nature of that proposed dialogue by reading ‘the manifesto’ by Mr. Paul Donnelly.

links

Here are the links given by Mr. Paul Donnelly in another of his email. The links bring you to his articles in various publications, which, in turn, will shed more light on what he calls the ‘theological component’ of a game plan devised specifically for fighting Islamic terrorism.

*********

The Washington Post
The Ban on a Muslim Scholar
By Paul DonnellySaturday,
August 28, 2004; Page A25

Tariq Ramadan, a professor at the College of Geneva and the University of Fribourg in Switzerland, is the author of a book that is perhaps the most hopeful work of Muslim theology in the past thousand years. This month he was to come to America to take the position of Luce professor of religion, conflict and peacebuilding at Notre Dame's Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, when suddenly his visa was revoked..
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40222-2004Aug27.html

National Review Online February 22, 2002The Theology's the Thing http://www.nationalreview.com/comment/comment-donnelly022002.shtml

Salon.comFebruary 19, 2002"The Muslim Martin Luther?" an interview with Tariq Ramadan http://www.salon.com/people/feature/2002/02/15/ramadan/index.html

********

Unfortunately for me, all his articles were deemed ‘premium’ and so you are required to make a micro payment to read them. As worthy of an Imphal resident I’ve no instrument for making micro payment on the web!

So, you please try to read them and do a review in the context of Mumbai blast. And don’t forget to give me the link for your review.

Bomb blast and a starting point

I’ve been scanning the newspapers for any clue to enhance my suspicion that the Mumbai blast is more of the league of Madrid’s or London’s. I still can’t believe that any Kashmiri militant group would have the logistic competence to carry out a series of blast within 15 minutes interval, that too in a big metro city like Mumbai. It is most likely that Al Qaeda has opened shop in India and that snuff out the refreshing proposition that India, despite having the largest Muslim population in the world have not been infected with the virus of Al Qaeda type militancy.

Then it is logical to assume that their nerve centre for the whole South Asia would be in Bangladesh. Because they have succeeded in infiltrating all the various institutions of the Bangladesh Government with the result that the Govt is soft towards the activities of the Islamic militancy of any hue.

Thus we are confronted with a new dimension of unrest in the already troubled region of ours, especially Assam and Manipur. We should note that Bangladesh is very near to us and the border with them is extremely porous. There is even the widespread allegation that the Government of Bangladesh itself is encouraging its citizen to infiltrate the border and fan out inside the sparsely populated states of the region. And the Muslims population of the region, especially of Assam and Manipur, is in a state of flux and the youths amongst them are desperately seeking for an ideological mooring to ‘compete’ with the ‘revolutionary movements’ sprouted in the communities surrounding them.

I know it is a tough call to address the problem of how best to respond to a terrorists’ asymmetric attack, like that of Mumbai. But I think it is all wrong to start using the same trains, which served as a killing field for several hundred innocent people, within the next 10-15 hrs. Doing so is creepy and is certainly an act of heartlessness. Isn’t it the case of a bunch of heartless terrorists making all the citizens of Mumbai equally heartless?

But at the same time, I also agree that it is definitely very tough to devise an effective response to such an asymmetric attack.

Personally, I find the idea of Mr Paul Donnelly for countering the whole gamut of Islamic militancy very refreshing and attractive. He is of the opinion that there should be a theological component in the strategy to fight back. I found about his ‘theological component’ theory in the course of a raging debate in Mr David Neiwert’s blog. I was very intrigued about this theory and so, I shot off an email to him asking him about the details of his proposition. Please note you google his name and easily get his email id from among the search results.

I’m quoting from one of his emails. I’m doing this because there is nothing personal about the email exchange and for someone living in India it is the most appropriate moment for quoting Mr Donnelly.

*********
“ Well, let's see. First - while I think I know a little, I hope I know enough to realize that I'm not really an expert on Islam. That said, this is what I think the core of it is. (I wrote about this in National Review online a few years back - go to the site and search my name, you'll find it.)

Islam is unusual among religions in that the founders actually fought wars during the Prophet's lifetime. Christ didn't do that, and while various major figures in Judaism and Hinduism and so on DID, they weren't 'founders' in the way Muhammed was.

Still - what makes Islam the world's premier 'us vs. them' ideology, now that Communism is gone, is NOT in the Koran. It's the notion of the House of Submission to the Will of God (Muslims) opposed to the House of War (infidels - the rest of us). That's not in the Koran - it's a creation of Muslim scholars about a thousand years ago, when it was, let's face it, a pretty accurate view of the world: Christendom vs. Islam.

He has been banned from the U.S. (I wrote about that in the Washington Post, you can search for that, too) but I think his notion of a "House of Witness", in which Muslims and unbelievers compete in good works to show the truth, is the way out of the us vs. them thing.

I am also intrigued by the insight of a Muslim friend of mine (with the unlikely Islamic name of Tanya O'Connor, who grew up in Egypt and whose grandfather was a notable United States Congressman: go figure). She wonders why we don't translate "Islam", and "Muslim" from Arabic.

It's an interesting point: Islam, I am told by serious Muslims, is not really a 'religion' in the same way that Christianity (notably Catholicism) is. It's more of a way of life, like being male or female. That is, Islam has no Pope, and actually precious little that is universal to the faith, as distinct from the culture. It has LAWS - which is perhaps the primary reason the separation between Church and State is so slippery for Muslims.

Most of the world's harshest critics of Islam note that there are verses in the Koran to the effect of 'when you find infidels, hunt them down and kill them', which contradict what Muslims like to point to as its pacific and tolerant character, e.g., "There is no coercion in religion."

Tonya explained to me that when you read Arabic, of course, you're not translating "Islam" and "Muslim", you're READING them - and they have very specific meanings, namely "submission to the will of God" and "those who obey God". They are not proper nouns.

So the infamous passage about 'when you come upon infidels' refers more to mass murderers than to Christians or Jews. I mean - who is it exactly who deliberately disobeys the will of God? Islam doesn't teach that Christians nor Jews do that - in fact, in some true sense they are all "Muslims", just not followers of the sharia. That means they are misguided - but "there is no coercion in religion'.

That's why I think the "House of Witness" concept is potentially so useful - FWIW.”

**********

The email was dated 13th January 2005. Note that his main thrust is the concept of ‘House of Witness’. Personally, I also think that it will serve as a good starting point.

What do you think?

Tribal

Yesterday’s post has served as a trigger for me to go on a thinking spree. Mostly about the present day problems of Manipur. And I find it remarkable that most of the problems have got something to do with ‘tribal’, one way or the other.

I’ve not with me either device or the know- how to establish a theoretical underpinning of the different connotations of the word, tribal. That said, I also think that we cannot depend much on text book knowledge of the problem as it is constantly changing in its form and interpretation vis-à-vis the practical impacts it imparts in the present day political environments.

So, instead I’ll try to illustrate the problem by deducting from real life phenomena.

The Nagas and the Mizos, in fighting a guerilla war with the Indian State for several decades, could not reach that stage where the Indian State was forced to initiate diplomatic overtures to a neighboring country as a part of that conflict. On the hindsight, it might be major weakness of their struggle, which enable the Indian State to isolate and destroying the guerillas on the ground.

But the Manipur’s rebels have just reached that stage. Notice how the likes of Shyam Saran, Natwar Singh and even the president, Mr Kalam dashing to Yangon to embrace the military dictators there. They are giving freebies like construction of roads, satellite earth tower and the latest being the offer (made by Mr Jairam Ramesh) of more than Rs 300 crores for developing waterways there, which, by the way, would make a river in Mizoram navigable all the way to the Bay of Bengal.

Don’t get me wrong here because I’m not singing paeans to the rebels of Manipur. I’m trying to deduct a meaningful interpretation here.

Doesn’t it stand to reason that the Nagas and the Mizos could not do that because they are considered as ‘tribals’ by the Burmese? I know I’m going into the domain of pure conjecture here but still, I think that there is a ring of plausibility in the argument (that’s, my argument!). If you go with me (despite the heavy dose of conjecture), you will notice how a vast difference was made on the ground because of a simple tagging of the word ‘tribal’ to a group pf people.

Back here, the Nagas are saying that they want to form a bigger state with their fellow ‘tribal’ brethrens. Here, the interpretation is that the word ‘tribal’ contains some nation-forming qualities.

Again, they say to Meeteis that they are being considered as ‘tribal’ and they are hugely offended and that leads them to their decision in wanting to integrate with the State of Nagaland. Here, the interpretation is that the word ‘tribal’ have some innate connotations of being inferior.

So many interpretations are there for this word—it makes my head spin!

But the trick should be to wrestle with the interpretation of the word in the context of the emerging notion of 4th World people. We should take notice that even in the middle of Europe the notion of 4th World got acceptance as shown by the recent emergence of independent country of Montenegro, which incidentally have less than 10 lakhs population.

Blunder

Students in four hill districts are burning textbooks prescribed by the school authorities of Manipur. Papers carried pictures of students burning their textbooks in Ukhrul, Senapati, Tamenglong and Chandel. They are symbolically destroying Manipur’s textbooks as they are switching over to the textbooks prescribed by the school authorities of the State of Nagaland.

But they seem to be in complete haste. Because no sooner had they wrapped the symbolic burning up than it dawned on them that now their school going kids are going to be burdened with learning an extra language. That is, they have to choose one language from among the prescribed languages—Angami, Ao or Hindi. Because Nagaland’s school authorities have no provision for teaching Tangkhul, Anal or Mao, which is the present norm in Manipur.

From my personal experience I can easily say that trying to make an average Tangkhul (for that matter, Mao, Anal or Zeliangrong) student learn either Angami or Ao would be a near impossible job. I think there will be revolt against the present Naga leadership if they try to persist with the idea of teaching Angami or Ao to the hill students of Manipur.

Being so in a haste means they are trying to send out a message to the Delhi leadership? That is, on the eve of the scheduled talk in Amsterdam during last week of this month?

If that’s the case, then we are left with no option but to say that the Naga leadership is extremely naïve.

Considering the present scenario, we can easily say that the Delhi political leadership would not be in a position to accede to their main demand of ceding Manipur’s land to a greater Nagaland until and unless the rebels of Manipur are dealt with a crippling military blow. That’s because it is an open secret here that the rebels are readying themselves for leading the general public of Manipur in a direct and open revolt against Delhi’s leadership in case they try to tinker with the boundary of Manipur.

But I think they are encountering a diplomatic roadblock in their task of thrashing the rebels of Manipur.

Consider the following developments (they were all reported in the newspapers here and I have no privileged knowledge whatsoever regarding this matter):

>>Back then when the Army repulsed the rebels from Thanlon area, Lt Gen Z U Shah told reporters ( some of them Kolkatta-based) that their next target of ‘mopping up operations’ would be along Indo-Burma border in Chandel district.

>>Two or three days later, some rebels partially encircled the battalion headquartes of the AR in Chandel district and in the ensuing battle, the commanding officer himself was hurt. He was flown to Leimakhong for treatment.

>>I can remember at least two other such attacks in their battalion headquartes.

>>So the rebels were sending out the clearest message—WE ARE HERE. WE ARE READY FOR YOUR ATTACK.

>>But some 10 days back, the Army authority was quoted in the newspaper as saying that there were no rebel concentrations in Chandel district. Surprise!

Reading between the lines, this can only mean that they are not successful in their diplomatic efforts to get the nod from the Burmese authorities for military operations along the border. I think they are hitting a diplomatic roadblock here.

Thus enmeshed in a diplomatic fiasco, the political leadership in Delhi would have no ears for the book-burning noise in the hills of Manipur. Besides, there is every likelihood of a revolt by the student community in the hills regarding the extra burden of learning a Nagaland language.

Failure on the part of the Naga leadership to correctly anticipate the above points clearly points to their political naivety.

More than that, they are committing a major tactical blunder.

Two symbols

The best designed house I’ve ever seen in Imphal (may be, in entire Manipur) belongs to a guy who owns and manages 3 nos of ‘Moreh dukans’. I was pleasantly taken by surprise when I first saw the design of his house, which is in the nearby leikai, only separated by a street and another leikai from my house.

I really think that a picture of that house should accompany this post. But all have is an old film-camera. Sure enough, I’ve friends who have, let’s say, arrays of cameras, both still and video. But for some personal reasons, I don’t want of get one those cameras—I mean, at the moment. So, I feel this post is a bit incomplete and I’m still a little helpless at the moment.

You know, people from the upper class and also, intellectuals and high officials of the State, somehow only manage to put up grey boxes as their houses and all of them are eyesores. You may say that I’m making a rather sweeping generalization. But I’ve been to every conceivable nook and cranny of Imphal and I do not come across any beautifully designed house. But this upstart, who hails form Thoubal, have managed to build his first house in a newly bought land—this first house of a ‘Moreh dukan’ owner DO have an extremely refreshing design inputs.

Don’t you sense a symbolic shift, however subtle it may be, in the class configurations of this society?

I know that I may sound a little repetitive here but I think I should not fail to mention the following.

I change a toothbrush for every 30 days. I do not consult a dentist but I read somewhere that you just have to do that. I also suspect that manufacturers also produce toothbrushes to last for only 30 days. Because I notice that, as you approach 30 days on a toothbrush, it begins to deteriorate in its functionality.

I change a toothbrush tonight—that is, a Chinese made toothbrush for another Chinese made one. In using a Chinese made Rs 5/- a piece toothbrush, I find that it is better in quality than those of Rs 15-20 price ranges of Indian made ones.

So, what’s the big deal here? Why should anybody be ready to draw any useful conclusion from the prices and qualities of toothbrushes?

But, wait a minute. You have still to sink yourself a little deeper than the surface and try to sense the great and profound force that is being unleashed in a society not very far where I’m banging away at my keyboards. That force propels its people and factories to produce products with a quality that enable them compete with a comparable, but priced 3 or 4 times than themselves, products in a foreign land.

So, the cheap Chinese goods are symbols of that great unsettling force that is rearing its head not so far away from here.

The two symbols, though one is native to this society and the other, of a foreign land, are feeding one another as they are rolling down their unstoppable paths. I mean, their UNSTOPPABLE paths.

Still in World Cup

It’s a great novelty for me to find an adult who happened to watch her FIRST World Cup match in the just concluded final.

I like her post about her feelings after seeing her first world cup match. Here is the link.

If you want to see ( again and again!) the famous head butt by Zidane, go to Nathan Weinberg’s blog.

So extremely anticlimactic

The lingering image of this World Cup would be Zinedine Zidane’s head butt. For that, he got red carded in the closing moments of the extra time of the final match. Well, he ended his career with a red card. Such an illustrious career but the ending of it was so extremely anticlimactic.

But Luis Figo also head butted a player (was it in the match with Spain—I really can’t remember?). The player went down, seemingly writhing with pains. All his teammates came rushing to his rescue and there were actually some scuffles between the players of the two teams.

But Figo went unscathed. Not even a caution.

How do we reconcile with this blatant injustice—one escaping unscathed and the other, forced to retire with a red card? Obviously, it’s a difficult question to answer. But one thing is certain. If there was not a man named Buffon in the Italian goalpost, the French skipper might as well escape unscathed. Just like Luis Figo. But Buffon was all over the field, pleading, complaining and drumming up support for some actions against the French skipper. He was so energetic in doing so that the referee was forced to take note and to consult his assistant on the line. And that consultation resulted in the red card for that great player.

And the French team was psychologically defeated at the very moment when their skipper was red carded.

A seemingly small matter ended up in bringing about such a huge difference in a World Cup final match.

Another view from Imphal

We noted that Mr Rajinder Puri’s op-ed talked about Chinese economy in terms of US Dollars (like bad loans to PSUs amounting to nearly 700 billion US Dollars). When his op-ed inspired us to write something about China, we also need to put in dollar terms for whatever monetary matters that we might encounter in doing the write up. So, when we say that Chinese lighters are selling for Rs 2.50 a piece in Imphal, this price works out to around 1/20th of a dollar. In case of the Rs5.00 a piece toothbrush, it is 1/10th of a dollar.

Seeing in dollar terms, the Chinese are nothing short of conjuring up a miracle.

‘Miracle’ may be an overstatement in case of what they are doing in Paona Bazar area in Imphal but they are certainly ravaging that area with their rock bottom prices. Not so long ago, Paona Bazar Road was lined up with mixes of shops dealing in varieties of trades. Book stores, newspaper stands, medical stores, eateries, hardware and electrical parts stores. All the usual mix. What was the original Moreh market ( now called the Paona International Market) was nothing more than a row of 40-50 rag tag stores housed in skimpy wooden structures. I admit all that was changed, not because of the Chinese, but by the hosting of the National Games by Manipur. Then there seemed to be a consensus here in Imphal that the Moreh market should have a more presentable face to those people expected from other States for the Games. So, the present RCC structure was built.

So far, the only change was that the Moreh Market now had a RCC structure housing the stores.

But something dramatic started happening. I can hazard to pin down the starting point to a period somewhere two years back from now. The book stores, the pan shops, the tea stalls, hardware stores and all others started by keeping some super cheap Chinese goods at their shelf. After some months, those cheapo assorted goods neatly occupied half the shelf spaces. Then in no time, there was nothing left of the book stores, the pan shop, the tea stalls or the hardware stores. You name it –you would find it totally occupied by the Chinese goods.

Now, from the entrance of the Paona Bazar Road up to Usha cinema, the Chinese occupation was almost total ( with only one or two photo shops and one or two assorted stores taking the proverbial last stand).

The worst affected are the book stores and magazine stalls. They are totally routed. You have to go at least up to Friends Talkies to buy a book, a magazine or a newspaper. I hate it. I hate the cheap Chinese goods for banishing all the book stores and newspaper stalls from Paona Bazar area. ( The only exception here being the Sahitya Parishad’s office cum book sote and the one belonging to Mr Yumnam Rupachandra. As he is the associate editor of ISTV and a fairly known public figure, I think I can name him. His sister runs the bookstore on their family shop space—so, no monthly rent—and it is mainly known for its Card business over and above for storing NBT books and some DIY kinds. I should also note that there is still a small magazine stall sitting side by side with Rupachandra’s but I think its days are already numbered. You have to note again that Sahitya Parishad’s bookstore is also using its own shop space and they are running their affairs with a yearly grant from the Government of Manipur).

Thus, unwittingly, Imphal has already become the frontline battlefield for the looming competition between the two giants. The most graphic illustration of the battle line is the visible transformation of the Marwari-Gujarati-Punjabi monopoly traders into just another average trader. Their competitive edge lies in the versatile network of their kith and kin which serve as the distribution system for the goods, produced again by their kith and kin, in the factories in Maharashtra-Gujarat, Rajasthan and Punjab. End to end, they are monopolistic.

But Chinese goods do not ride such a network—their USP is the uber cheap price. With exception of construction materials, you can have a Chinese substitute for any goods available here. Thus, this cheap Chinese goods , due to the massive upheaval of 100 million of its peasants, effectively blunted the traditional Marwari-Gujarati-Punjabi network right here in the middle of Imphal. BTW, you have to note those spaces for the big business-politicians nexus from which the Marwari-Gujarati-Punjabi traders normally mint money is totally usurped by the rebel here.

Do you notice a note a celebration in my reporting of the triumphant marching of the Chinese goods in Paona Bazar area?

No way.

Actually, I feel frightened by it.

That said, I’ve to inform you that I’m more interested in the corollary of this great drama now enacted in Imphal. The sheer power of these cheap goods from China propels a class of educated young men here to an altogether new plane from where they are accustomed to seeing that the Marwari-Gujarati-Punjabi traders can be beaten in their own game—trading. They are doing that right now—they are beating them. Some of them are flying in Kathmandu-singapore-HK-Bangkok circuit establishing business networks that usually extends up to Tamu and then to Moreh.

To my mind, they are busy affecting a shift in the paradigm of this tiny society although they are not aware of it themselves.

I'll brook no defeat.

I missed my daily reads. And I also missed my blog.

That I missed something or someone is a sure sign that I’m healthy, isn’t it? I mean, it should not be construed that I’m addicted to internet.

I’ve also a healthy life outside of Internet. I fancy myself to be a passionate man. I like outdoors a lot. And I almost always dress up casual.

I’m also aware of the sheer futility of wasting valuable time and bytes chiding BSNL for its incompetence. But I’m also aware that I should not be cowed down by all those vibes of underdevelopment. Although I know that those vibes are constantly debilitating, suffocative and corrosive of your will, I will always be ready to fight for my space—my personal tiny space in this choice less place.

My personal blog is what I’m—It’s (It’s not about me—it’s me) my fight for shaking off the corrosive vibes of underdevelopment. If I start to feel that it will be boring for you to hear me out of my constant harping of my access to internet, electricity or water, I just might have taken the first step (unwittingly, of course) towards defeat. If I ever thought that I might be nearing that zone, I’ll pinch myself hard and immediately start talking of my choices and that state of being choice less.

And, blogs, to my mind, will be changing the world. This is the first in human history when an ordinary citizen of any country can bond directly with any other citizen of any other country. This is the first time in human history when an ordinary citizen can escape the clutches of his government, political leaders, editors, directors, CEOs and see eye to eye with a fellow citizen of any other country in this world. It is exactly, what the revolutionary Mao would have termed, ‘an earth shattering advent’.

All said, I was denied access to my blog last night. My dial up box actually announced ‘access denied’ which instantly transported me to a surreal regime where you are under the constant watch of a Big Brother.

I made it

I made it. Bloody made it!

All the evil and conspiratorial forces in the world could not prevent me watching the second semi final of the World Cup! Between France and Portugal.

Between the snatches of matches seen as the highlights the day after the matches and the last night’s full play, there is a discernible pattern. Try to posses the ball inside the D-box and tempt your opponents to rough tackle you.

Bingo! You got a penalty shoot!!

At least during last night’s second semi final match, whenever a Portuguese player came near the D-box of the French side, most of the time, three French players swarmed on him. The tactics effectively crushed any credible initiation of moves to develop towards their goal post.

A major defect of this tactics is that if 3 French players are committed to tackling a lone Portuguese player, then at least 2 Portuguese players are left unmarked somewhere in the field. So, the effective counter strategy to neutralize the French strategy is to quickly move the ball over to the 2 players left unmarked—the weak point of the French strategy.

That means using long passes. Short, elegant passes won’t do.

The Italians should devise a gameplan whereby they can swiftly move the play of the ball towards the area of the 2 players likely to be left unmarked as a negative result of the French strategy. They should hone their skills to move the ball from one area to another by using long, accurate passes.

Well, that’s my take on the French strategy. And I can definitely go into godmode in my blog from time to time. But not so frequently!

Btw, the French coach looks exactly like a technocrat. That’s telling. Because all the players in this World Cup are all uniformly talented and all the teams, more or less, adopted European style strategies and the only distinguishing and winning edge of any team is to have a game plan tailor-made for specific opponent they are facing. That’s exactly the work of the technocrat,

Would that mean that Frenchmen have an edge over the Italians? I would say, YES.

Just on these days. Just in time.

This is not an accusation or some exercises in wasting valuable time and bytes at finding faults of others. May be, it’s just a rant. And I’m sick of finding faults of others or accusing anybody, of incompetence, or of being evil. I’m in the moods for some actions and making a tiny a change, if possible.

But think of this. Opting out of cable means that I’ve been waiting for the first live telecast of the World Cup by doordarshan’s national network ( ie, by a terrestrial network).Last night, when I returned home ( before 7 pm) I found that there was no electricity in my house. But some of my neighbours’ houses were gaily lighted up. So, I rushed to the phone and rang up the ‘complaint room’. The guy at the other end coldly told me that I had to go without electricity because there was a major breakdown. But I retorted that some of my neighbours’ houses were still lighted up brightest by their electricity! The guy told me that the breakdown was in one particular part of the network which supplied power to my house.

My goodness! What about the soccer tonight, I shouted into the phone.

There was no reply but just a wry laugh at the other end of the phone.

Damn it! I’ve been waiting for the last 30 days or so and now that stream of electrons refuses to come into my house!

Just on this day. Just in time.

I actually counted the numbers of households. All the seven houses to the South of my house were in pitch darkness and all the households to the North, all lighted up gaily.

And when it was around 9 into the night, one particular neighbour came out a long bamboo pole and went on to switch on to the power lines which did not suffer the breakdown. He loosen the tight wrapping of his domestic lines on to the main power lines and with the help of the bamboo pole started finding the working lines by trial and errors. With one trial he shouted very loudly—‘ Is it ok?’. No, came with a booming shout from his house. After several nos, finally came the yes and his house was lighted up and he went on to watch the soccer semi final!

But as I returned exhausted from my sister’s ‘eepan’, I had not the energy to emulate my adventurous neighbour!

And, when I went to bed at around midnight ( last night what I did was cooking the dinner, eating it and brushing my teeth—but it was still around midnight when I went to bed—what’s wrong with me?), I heard another of my neighbours trying out a portable generator. I know for certain that he did not own a generator. He probably hired one earlier in the night! Hard workers here!!

The next day ie, today, I again waited for the highlights in Doordarshan. It was a one hour affair starting from 4 in the evening. Just when I was about to switch on the TV, the light simply went out! Again I was on the phone and the official at the phone told me there was planned outrage from 4 pm to 9.30 pm. He went on to say that he could not help me.

What do you call this? Coincidence?? Conspiracy???

What's in a name!

I asked my brother-in-law to tell me the name of my nephew. He replied that astrologer had recommended two names—Loyamba or Ataangba. It was a surprise for me because astrologers usually recommend Sanskrit names. It’s the first time for me to hear that they actually recommend non-Sanskrit names. One of nephew’s aunts wants to call him Lanchenba.

Back home, it occurred to me that combining all the three names produced a classy name. Loyamba Ataang Lanchenba Leishangthem! I’ll certainly recommend the name to his parents. But my guess is that they will just smile at my suggestion and will proceed to choose one of the three. But they should really go for some classy stuff!

I don’t know the idea behind the name Firedoglake. But it’s still a very hip name.

And don’t you think that MSN need to change its name to compete with likes of Google and Yahoo in the web services space? MSN still sounds like NBC, ABC or CBS. I mean, it still sounds like an old media company.

Once, Isaac Aasimov was interviewed and was asked what the secret about his success in sci-fi writing is. Surprisingly, he replied that it was all to do with his name. As he was a Russian Jew immigrated to the US, his publishers pressured him really hard to change his name into something which is a bit Americanized. He resisted all the way. He said that if he happened to buckle under the pressures he would be just another sci-fi writer!

I’m also counting on my name. Whether I put my name in Bengali or Manipuri or Roman scripts, it’s still echaandam ( I mean ‘e’ is phonetically common to all the scripts). I should not really praise my stuffs in a public space. But I should say that it happens to be versatile at the least.

What a day!

I’ve been scurrying around non-stop in grappling with those uncanny small things for organizing ‘Eepaan’ for my newest nephew.

It’s totally exhausting.

And I’ve to be up and going by at least 5 am to get ready for the main ceremony later in the morning itself.

I’ll be around here tomorrow with a mind fresh with newer ideas and liberated from those debilitating small thingies!

Views from Imphal

I wanted to say about the impact on this little place of ours, called Imphal, made by the great upheaval going on inside today’s China. That was, of course, triggered by Rajinder Puri’s op-ed. But the Army’s reply intervened last night as I wanted to put on record what the Army had said on the same day that publication was carried in the Imphal Free Press.

You know, 100 million people are on the move right at this moment inside China. They are on the move, leaving their homes and villages for search of works in factories located mainly along the coastal regions of China. The peasants of China, who built the Great Wall and, form the backbone of the Chinese revolution under Mao, are now on the move.

100 million people on the move for any reason is a fearsome phenomenon. And it is the largest movement of people at a given time in the entire recorded history of mankind.

This floating population of 100 million people forms the limitless supply of labour force for the factories making ipods, Xboxes, garments—you name it and they are making it. They are functioning literally as the factories of the entire world. And this availability of the floating population of 100 million workforce means that factory managers can drive down the production cost to the rock bottom level.

In Imphal you can buy a Chinese made cigarette lighter for Rs2.50! So, smokers no longer bother to buy matchboxes. They buy a Chinese made lighter for the grand sum of Rs 2.50, use it for some months and simply it throw away, without bothering to refill them again. And buy another one for Rs 2.50 again.

On the personal level, when I find Anchor’s (of the famed electrical appliances brand) toothbrush selling for Rs 10.00, I thought that it is an invitation price. Because the quality is so good. But some weeks back, I found out that Chinese made toothbrushes are selling for Rs 5.00 a piece. The quality is as good as any other available Indian toothbrush in the market. And it comes in a first rate packing which you find in Rs 20.00 a piece Indian toothbrush. Naturally, I now switched to Chinese made toothbrush and I’m finding the quality really commendable.

I’ll come again tomorrow with this subject because I’ve something more to say.

The Army replies

No, not to my blogpost. But to an editorial of the Imphal Free press carried on its 24th June edition. I missed that editorial but going by the reply of the Army it was in the same vein as my blogpost. Note my blogpost was dated 15th June 2006.

Here is the post.

The reply from the Army came as a letter to the editor of the Imphal Free Press dated 1st July 1, 2006. It was signed as PIB, Defence Wing, Ministry of Defence, Imphal.

The reply starts like this:

“The Army do not see those projects as an ‘experiment in governance’—but view themselves as a pillar of this country involved in Nation Building. The civic action under ‘Opreation Sadbhavna’ has always been Army’s thrust areas with positive effect. As a result, the current situation holds great promise for early return of normalcy in the entire State”.

.. … ..

And concludes like this. I’m giving the last paragraph verbatim.

“The aim of this letter is to put across the fact that nobody in the Army sees itself as a force, trying out an ‘experiment in governance’. Far from it, the Army sees itself as an organ of the government. The Army in Manipur is for providing a secured environment to facilitate in the smooth functioning of the State machinery. The MCA (welfare project) undertaken by the Army reflects the rich ethos and traditional facets of humility, care and compassion”.