I wanted to put the following into as last Sunday's post. I could not do it then. On Monday also, I could not it. Yesterday, there was nightlong power outage. So, today I put it as a current blog post anyway!
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Today being a Sunday, it was late in the morning when I went out of my bed.

With the steaming cup of tea, I tried to get a glimpse of the morning news. But I could not log into the network connection.

After several tries, I gave up and instead, fired up my recently downloaded vlc media player to play my currently favorited playlist. To the tune of my favorite songs, I quickly washed the utensils! You know, I was on my way to the daily chore of making my lunch.

As soon as I was over with the chore, I turned off the music and tried to log into the network, thinking that I had no chance of getting there on the Web. But surprisingly, I could log into the network at the very first try.


To my surprise, I found a friend online. It was a surprise because this particular friend usually needs a lot coaxing for a simple online presence there on my buddy list.

Well, well, we talked and talked. Until the bad BSNL internet connection dropped, we had not lost a second to play catch up with each other. It now seems to me that we were literally trying to devour each other.

We had not talked for several years now. That might one of the reasons why we actually tried to devour each other.

But I am really happy to learn that our friendship remains as fresh as ever. I also sent her an email telling this.
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Was it of paranormal kind?

It was in the middle of the night of the 24th when I felt myself suddenly awaken (by what?). Immediately, I sensed that ‘something’ was there inside the confines of my residential space, if not, inside my house.

It was around 1.30 in the morning.

My immediate suspicion was that it was a burglar. There were those unnatural and muffled sounds. I felt that something was moving around, all the while trying to do so without making any sound.

I was there lying on my bed, now fully awaken. I thought—if it was a burglar, what might be his immediate incentive?! He would make his next moves in pursuit of this ‘incentive’—I further reasoned!

What should I do to counter his moves?

All this mental planning was necessary because I’m living alone. But after some 15 minutes of trying to discern any pattern in the unusual sounds, I was out of the bed and, with a flashlight in hand, I tried to find out the ‘something’ behind the unusual sounds.

But there was nothing.

Nevertheless, sleep deserted me. At around 2.30 in the morning , there came the noises and footsteps of the patients or the patient parties, queuing up in the doctor’s residence, who is my neighbor. What do you think of the patients trying to start queuing up from 2.30 in the morning onwards?

With the stomping of footsteps and the people starting to strike up conversations in my next neighborhood, all the unusual sounds were gone or muffled up. I went to sleep again and I woke up at around 8.30 in the morning!

In the afternoon, one of my sisters phoned me telling me that my mother’s youngest was no more.

In the morning when I woke, I was totally puzzled as to what might be behind the night’s unusual sounds. I have been living alone for several years now and it was the first the instance of my encountering such kinds of unusual sounds. Most of the times, I also sleep like a log and I can’t remember any night when I was awaken by such sounds in the middle of the night.

As soon as the phone conversation with my sister ended, a thought crept into my mind—Were sounds anything to do with the death? Were the sounds of what you call the paranormal type?

UPDATE: My not coming to my blog for two consecutive nights does not have anything to do with the ‘paranormal sounds’ of the other night. The following night saw all night long power outage. Yesterday, I went to the house of the deceased. My intent was to stay there as briefly as possible. But all my dear and near ones were all there and I ended up staying the whole day there itself. When I returned late in the evening all those grieving and sadness somehow seeped inside me and I could not pull myself up to blog.

Bomb Blast inside high security zone

This morning, at around 10.30, there was a bomb blast inside the high security zone of Babupara. The spot was a just a stone’s throw away from Chief Minister’s official residence.

The bomb, believed to be fitted inside a scooter and triggered by a remote control device, had damaged the compound wall of T. Mangibabu, who is a MLA from Thanga Assembly Constituecy . He is serving as the chief whip of the legislative wing of the ruling party in the State.

Five people, ostensibly passer bys, were hurt and hospitalized.

Another bomb, this time fitted inside a cycle rickshaw, was defused by the police near the main entrance of the Polo Ground.

Interestingly, the bomb was defused shortly before the visit of the State Governor to the Polo Ground to attend a polo match there.

Good old dialup

Today being a State holiday, I stayed indoors all day.

Today is Khongjom Day.

My plan was to stay home all day long and wrap up encrypting my ADSL connection. And, I have had several subjects that I need to look up in search engines. My plan was to complete all those tasks today itself.

But my ADSL connection went mad. I can still log in but it cannot load a simple web page. An ADSL connection having trouble loading a simple page—what to make of this?

I’m using my dial up connection to post this!

Summer days

This morning it's look like Summer days are here.

While in my rooms, I could not even tolerate the feel of a flimsy shirt. So, I went bare chested and also bare footed. Only then, I felt a little cooled down.

It's already well past mid April and most of the times, we feel that Summer days are yet to be here. Today, it seems they are here.

They are making their appearances just when we just had heard about the depleting water level in Singda dam. It's said we have only 21 days stock there.

And, the whole of Imphal is depending on Singda dam for its drinking water.

The news reports told us that the problem lies in the leaking valves of the dam. Four of eight valves are leaking. The dam is managed by Public Health Engineering Deptt and they are not repairing the leakages for want of funds.

How much?

Would you believe this--the amount required for the repair is paltry 4 lacs of rupees!

For want of Rs 4 lacs, Imphal is facing the prospect of not getting its drinking after 21 days. This is ludicrous.

Now, every Imphal resident feels it to be fortunate if he/she can get tap water for some 30 minutes in a single in a week.

We are fortunate. We are getting that much amount per week!

Obama's trial

It’s always tricky to poke your nose in matters of trying to speculate the possible winner in any election. But I’ll stick out my neck and try to do just the tricky job!

For one, where will I be able to stick out my neck quite safely but in my own blog?!

Even if Barrack Obama be able clinch the Democratic Party’s nomination, would he have a reasonable chance to win the big thing in November?

I don’t think so.

I think Obama needs to further articulate with what America is or what America stands for. It’s quite tricky to put a finger on what America is or what America stands for. But when John McCain said that Obama’s agenda would compromise what America stands for, it would certainly strike a chord with the majority of the American population.

More specifically, would a symbol ( like Obama) be able to bridge the Red and Blue Americas? To a question like this, most of the American, I guesss, would most likely to ask themselves—‘Is it ‘doable’ by a symbol?’.

Sadly, most of them would answer with a firm ‘no’.

Then, what’s Obama’s take on the questions like the Red and Blue divide and the fleeing of jobs from American mainland because of globalization?

I think not much substantive and the American voters would see through it as the big event comes closer.

That little girl from Delhi

‘Oh! Poor Mamo’, my niece said.

That was my niece when she first saw me after—how many years?—nearly 5 years. Her mum, my eldest sister, studied at Vanarasi just after she left her school. That must be nearly 10 years of her student life. As soon as she got her masters degree she stayed at our home only for some brief months before she got married. As soon as she got married, she and her hubby stayed again for only some brief months in Imphal before they set sail for Delhi.

We, at the family, got so used to her staying so far away from home that when she got married we didn’t feel particularly any emptiness at our home. When my other sisters married away, we always felt some spaces emptied out.

Our original schedule was to invite my niece at my house at Keisampat, mainly because my house is easy to reach from all sides of Imphal, where all my sisters are scattered! But my youngest sis had a crisis (my last post). Although she and her family came out unscathed from it, we decided that it was not proper for her to go out so soon after the crisis.

So, this morning, we all went to my youngest sister’s place, cooked delicious chicken and said goodbye to that busy little girl from Delhi, who has to catch another flight tomorrow to appear in yet another entrance test.

She was here to appear in another of her entrance tests.

When she phoned me last afternoon, she was over with her exam and was shopping. She wanted to visit me at my house but I was at the reading room of Central Library when I received her call. When she said she was shopping, I instantly knew that she must be at the Paona International Market.

When she first saw me, she said that I was so thin and she continued with a distinct maternal undertone that the reason for me looking so thin must be because I live alone and there was no one to cook for me!

I still remember how I used to hold her as a cute little baby and now she has that maternal undertone!

Every girl, regardless of her present age, grows up, it seems, with that maternal instinct deeply buried inside her.

A sad day

Yesterday, my youngest sister had a crisis.

Her hubby, a minor officer in an engineering department of the State government, was ‘picked up’ by the personnel of the Manipur Police Commandos the night before. They wanted to question him about the details of the ‘percentage money’ which was alleged to have been collected by the controlling officer of my brother-in-law from all the contractors in their department. The commandos accused them of keeping the amount in their custody for further transfer of it to the Naharols.

It was a serious allegation. They even threatened to detain the controlling officer under NSA.

It’s an open secret that such instances happen all the time. But my brother-in-law is still a minor officer and he is still not anywhere near the upper official hierarchy to have anything to do with signing of cheques. So, why detain him?

To use a diplomatese, he has no ‘locus standii’ of the signing of cheques in his department!

But the whole family member lost the whole day yesterday trying to secure his release.

The Police did not press any charge.

From our side also, we did not use any provision of law to secure his release.

Instead, we activated a vast web of ‘connections’ to send out the message to another set of ‘connection’ within the government that he should be released.

The whole day saw the hectic efforts by educated, capable and well-meaning men and women trying to side stepped the established laws. This is totally alarming. Our society is not run by established laws but by innuendos and influences.

He was released at around 8 pm. But when I returned at around 9, I was so freaked out by the day long exercises of sidestepping established laws that I could not do anything worthwhile.

I felt sad.

In the middle

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Seeing it from Imphal.

Tibet seems to be everywhere in the news. I read 4/5 feature articles by renowned sinologists today!

One of them said that Tibet makes up of nearly 30% of China constitute today. That’s huge. More so, if we consider the population size of Tibetans, which may be some millions only. That constitutes negligible percentage of 1 billion plus of the Chinese population.

One said the Chinese would have no problem in applying the ‘one nation, two systems’ principle (as is being applied in Hong Kong, Macau) to Tibet’s case also. The stumbling block is the Dalai Lama himself. In China’s perception, whatever be the principles of governance (like ‘meaningful autonomy’ as demanded by the Dalai Lama) which involves installation of the Dalai Lama in Llasa, the new government there would end up leaning towards India. That’s not acceptable in China’s strategic calculation.

So, everything seems to be measured in terms of either India’s or China’s strategic needs. Nobody seems to have any time for the Tibetans. It’s a pity.

But what should we make out of what’s happening out there? In trying to answer this today, I suddenly remembered one columnist of the Hindu who went to the Dharmasala just as the first instances of violence was breaking out in Llasa. He got the distinct impression that the violence was planned from Dharmasala and the Indians officials were in the know.

Now, I think that it’s quite plausible. As the Olympic torch rally is progressing prompting more protests by the Tibetans, I get this feeling that the Indian government was all along trying to send some messages to the Chinese. The message: ‘We have Tibet card if you are trying to play a NE card’.

Hers now, 3/4 ambassadors of Scandinavian countries are descending to Imphal next week. Whatever the reasons they are putting out to the media for the sudden descending down in the ‘interiors’ like Imphal, it’s quite clear that they are acting on some informations which are privy to the diplomatic circles only. They are acting on some information which are not in the media as yet and so, we, laymen, have no way of knowing.

It’s looking like increasingly possible that the Indian government is acting on such information, the very existence of which compels them to send the message to the Chinese.

Sudden impacts

I’ve been avoiding the Paona Bazar Road for quite sometime now. Now, there is a parallel road right on the Nambul banks. This road is also not blacktopped but not dusty. In contrast, the Apaona Bazar Road was so dusty that I usually had a major bout of sneezing while I was still on that stretch of roads!

But, yesterday, all the dust seemed to have vanished into thin airs so suddenly.

My point is that I have been walking on the parallel road several times on a daily basis. But I did not notice any lessening in the degree of clouds of dusk kicked up by the feet of the pedestrians and, by the wheels, of the two wheelers, three wheelers and cars.

But yesterday, I found out that all the dust had gone. Does nature have a way of presenting her decisions in so a sudden manner? Like, a sudden impact of an assassin’s bullet?

For no particular reason, I stated thinking of global warming. We’ve been reading about the increasing emission of green houses gases but still, kept on producing them so nonchalantly. Would we find out, on a fine (let’s say, not so fine day!) morning, that the climate has changed so suddenly, and that too, on a scale beyond our imagination? Would that happen?

We can also see another sudden impact. All the Imphal streets are literally knocked out of space by the crawling pedestrians, commercial passenger vehicles and cars. Even the street towards Singjamei, which is being widened more than 50% of the original breadth, has now already become a congested one. A street becoming congested while it’s being widened! What do you call this?

I, foe one, did not notice any gradual increase in the size of the traffic on the streets. It all seems to happen so suddenly.

Is this a nature’s way?

Missed target

Even in the US where corporations are super smart, laymen, like me, are encrypting their DSL accounts and effortlessly using BitTorrents. Here also, my ADSL service provider constantly keeps blocking the ports used by BitTorrent clients. I’m also trying to encrypt my ADSL account and portforward a dedicated port for downloading torrent files. Why there is such a fuss for downloading some songs per month, that too, mainly, country songs and non-commercial music? My target was to finish doing the two tasks today itself but they proved to be so time consuming. I could not achieve my target.

In the evening, I went out to buy fish. There were very few women selling fish. I went there expecting far less number of buyers and sellers but I was surprised by the scale of non-attendance to the usual business. It’s a glaring example that majority of the population still stick to observing Cheiraoba today. This is sad. Cheiraoba this day symbolizes the unobtrusive muzzling of our world view.

Some fifteen minutes back, I could hear a lone thabal. Later, I learnt it was in the 2nd MR campus. Was it an official thabal?

But, it is clear there is a heated competition between the two Cheiraobas!

Imphal is parched

The tap ran dry. Not a drop of water comes out it. For how many weeks now? It must be 7-8 weeks now!

There is a lot of construction works going on right now. Those constructions entail digging up of several popular roads, which, in turn, damage several main trunks of the networks of pipes carrying water.

So, everybody tries to understand it and so, keeps mum. Past few weeks saw people buying up water. It is quite a change!

Today, my drinking water stocks touch alarming level. I actually have stocks that would last for several days only. I began examining several options for emergency procurement of water!

But I pinned my hopes for not implementing those options on TODAY! Why?

Today is 12th of April and the following day would be another Cheiraoba. For several weeks now, I kept trusting my gut feelings that there would be water on the pipelines on the day before Cheiraoba. If not, I would have to go for some emergency procurement.

I made it a point not to go out today. But 2.30 pm came and went away. Nothing happened. 2.30 pm is the usual time for the water to start running through the pipes.

Then, at around 5 pm, the light also went. I was on my desk shutting down my computer. Just then, there was this commotion in the neighborhood. Real commotion! I just knew there must water in the taps!!

Sure enough, there was water! Now, I have several weeks’ stock. But, still, it’s not certain when would it starts flowing again next time.

It's a watershed mark

The State cabinet has decided to approach the Home Ministry in New Delhi to consider giving arms to the villagers of Heirok to enable them to protect themselves from the intimidations and threats coming from the rebel groups.

It’s slowly becoming clear that the Heirok incident, in which a rebel group shot 3 young girls, 2 of them fatally, has already emerged as a watershed mark in the history rebellion in Manipur.

Some of the rebel groups are overstepping, to my mind, intentionally, and with devilish design, the whatever mandate they had managed to extract from the general public by dint of sacrifice and blood of their fallen comrades.

Now, there is this gaping chasm between the general public, whom the rebel groups are supposed to liberate from the colonial grip of New Delhi, and the liberators themselves!

But what about Salwa Judum? If the State government has its ways, then the scheme might be modeled, more or less, in the line of Salwa Judum. But right at the moment, there is widespread condemnation of Salwa Judum within the political class of New Delhi itself.

India is being too aggressive

With so much headlines made by the passing of the Olympic torch inside India, it’s now quite apparent that the Indian uneasiness for anything Chinese runs far deeper into the Indian psyche. It’s not merely government to government competitions. At least in India, distrust for the Chinese percolates down to the lowest level of the population pyramid.

This does not bode for a stable Asia and so, for a global peace.

Amidst all these, the Indian Prime Minister told us that there is no competition between India and China for entering Africa. The phrase ‘entering Africa’ is also quite revealing. The colonial mindset is quite apparent. Do Indians still want to colonize Africa? Why doesn’t he say ‘working with Africa’ or ‘cooperating with Africa’?

Besides, ‘there is no competition with China’ line is meant to project a peaceful loving, non-aggressive India to the international community. While in practice, there are silent but concerted efforts to, discredit, and thus, to overtake, China. See the visa granted to the recently exiled Karmapa to travel to the US to tell the audience about the present misdeeds of the Chinese in Tibet.

It’s now quite apparent that India is more aggressive that the Chinese in the competition for the domination of Asia.

Nearer home, there is an interesting development. The Indian ambassador to Burma, Mr Bhaskar Mitra and the Jt Secy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was in Moreh some days back. They were ostensibly there for the re-negotiation of the border trade. But I don’t believe that vibe. There is more to the extremely low profile and hush hush visit to the god forsaken place like Moreh. They even took the trouble of having organized meeting with student leaders, leaders of various NGOs!

I have this feeling that India is being too aggressive.

What would be the new rule of the game?

Sometimes, what appears to be something of passing interest, or, even trivial matters, might just be the signposts telling us that we are now about to go into a completely new territory, where the whole rule of the game would be different.

Two things fit this description.

One, the killing of two young girls and a young man in Heirok during a thabal.

Two, the killing of one Uttam by Police commandos.

In the first case, a rebel group owned responsibility telling us that the killing was a result of some unintentional misfire. And they expressed regret while asking for forgiveness by the general public. To be fair, in the past some very few instances where, some particular rebel groups expressing regrets and asking for forgiveness for some unintentional misfire, did happen. In all of those instances, we somehow brought ourselves to believe that the rebels were telling the truth and they were really sorry for that. But, in the case of Heirok, the feelings are totally different. We cannot persuade ourselves to believe the rebels.

In the second case, a man in his early thirties was shot down in his own house, in front of his own family members. The gunmen, who were in civil clothes, later, turned out to be the Commandos of the Police. But the most shocking episode is yet to come. That arrives as the callous act of the State in disposing the death body saying that nobody came forward to claim it. This is pure shock. They are not even honoring the dead. We have remember here that the family members and residents of the neighborhood were demanding from the State one single point—put the two Police personnel involved in the killing under suspension. They are not demanding either judicial inquiry or compensation.

These two instances show us that we are about to step into a new territory where the State itself is being traumatized by the vigorous rebellion whereas the rebels themselves are facing creeping moral corruption in trying to withstand the coercive power of the State.

What would be the rule of the game governing this new territory?

Happy Cheiraoba

It’s a bit better now, as I’m typing this out. With sounds of several thabals in the air, this is festive!

But in the morning, it was as if we were in some kind of mourning. So, I turned on my playlists—full blast. I played all my recent downloads—that too, on my recently downloaded vlc media player! Most of the time, I won’t play that loud but today I didn’t give a damn. Do we forget how to celebrate?

My kind of Cheiraoba is to take an early bath and preparing the lunch and eat it assuming that it is some kind of Cheiraoba special!

After that, I took a very satisfying nap. I think it’s a good sign on a Cheiroaba afternoon!

Since then, with only several cups of green teas to intervene, I’ve been on my desk, online and reading. To be able to go online and read all the afternoon on a Cheiraoba is also a very good sign.

Don’t you notice that we have a really improved power supply for the last few weeks? I don’t know what goes wrong here! (pun, PUN!!).

But I have to go now. I want to rise early in the morning. I have several phones calls to make very early in the morning.

Happy Cheiraoba, everybody!

Bird flu: human to human transmission reported.

I feel sick inside reading the news. I read the news here.

Bird flu outbreak here last year amply showed us that this society was, and still is, wholly unprepared for a virus outbreak. Even in this stage of society’s unprepared ness we can reasonably feel safe if it is the case of containing the virus within the domain of poultry by culling its population. But if the virus mutates enabling it to jump from human to human we are in a serious danger. The whole population is in danger.

I had had a first hand account of how the government agencies carried on culling the birds in the affected region of 5 kms radius within Imphal. Once the culling personnel arrive at the farm, every able bodied men rush ahead of them and carried away the supposedly affected birds in their bare hands to their houses to be cooked later in the evening! Culling of affected birds here has the opposite effect of spreading the virus from a particular farm to its immediate surroundings. We were lucky that all of the farms culled by the government agencies happened to have freed of the virus. Otherwise, we would have had the widespread transmission of the virus here in Imphal.

If the human to human transmission is confirmed beyond reasonable doubts, it will be the most damning development here in this part of the world.

A meeting to discuss the recent violence.

I went to a meeting organized by Manipur Forward Youth Front (MAFYF) at the Press Club. It was named ‘Citizen’s conference on violence in Manipur’.

It was the first meeting organized by a Civil Society Organization to discuss the recent spurt of violence here. I came to know of the meeting from yesterday’s newspapers, all of which carried it as a news item. Some of the papers inserted it into far inside the inner pages and made it as innocuous as possible. I still wonder why.

I was late there. As far as the speakers I had had the chance to listen to are to be taken into account, nobody seemed to have any clue about the recent violence. Everybody said they hate violence. All of them blamed the government. That is routine, cliché.

It seems that our society is still in bewilderment by the sudden impact of the recent spurt of violence. It is yet to size it up and dissect it to find the appropriate antidote.

I still remember MAFYF launching it site at www.mafyf.org. I have no idea if they are still updating the site.

So, Moorrestown is here!

I even like the name. Moorestown is cool. Intel has just announced Moorestown, which will be world’s smallest motherboard. We have to wait for 2010 to have Moorestown enabled device in the market.

With that kind of motherboard we will have really small computer which would, in turn, have a lot of processing and memories.

With that of kind configurations we can easily compressed every feature we need into a single device. Cameras, phone, portable media center and what not.

I don’t like phones which have some processing power. Instead, I would go for a small and powerful computer which also have calling facility.

Why don’t go in for the reverse of Palm and the ill-fated Folio? First, we have a Folio type device which shall be smaller but more powerful. In that compact machine why don’t we house a really thin and futuristic handset? Even if we don’t use the handset housed in the machine we would still be able to call using the mic and speaker. When we have the mood for using the handset, we can easily take it out from the machine.

To me, that would be really cool.

A new development?

When somebody is sound signaling by clanging an electric pole with a rock or something, then there is trouble brewing up in the neighborhood. That was what just happened in my neighborhood this morning.

It was hardly 8 in the morning when I heard the clanging sound. At first I thought it was some kind of a prank. Then, there came another spell of clanging sound. Only then I knew there was trouble here.

Womenfolk were protesting the killing of one Uttam. They were, and still are, blocking the Mayai Lambi Road indefinitely. Police came and fired teargas shells and smoke bombs to disperse them. Disperse they did but the shops along the road pulled down their shutters and everybody avoided that stretch of the road.

Uttam was shot down in his own house by two men who came in a Honda scooter. After they shot him down, the two men coolly deposited a handgun by the side of the dying body. Several people who were there in their house at that time were eyewitnesses to it.

Later, the two killers turned out to be the commandoes of the Manipur Police.

As usual, a JAC (Joint Action Committee) was formed by the residents of the neighborhood and met the Chief Minister. After the meeting, the members of the JAC complained to the media that they were hurt by the tone of the Chief Minister when he told them about the ‘guilt’ of Uttam.

It would be better if they told the media what the Chief Minister actually told them and then, refute him publicly. Neither did they spell out what the allegations made by the CM nor did they refute the allegations.

Most intriguing is that Police have so far do not come out with an official statement.

So, what is going on here?

The killing took place some 4/5 leikais away from here. As the sizes of the leikais are very small here, the site of the killing is just a stone’s throw away. I even asked a friend even more close to the site of the killing and found out that he also did not know anything about the killing.

This development surprises me. Usually, behind the scene happenings that lead to a killing always come to us by words of mouth. This seems to be not happening anymore. See the killings of migrant workers, two ladies from Chandel district and then another 3 young girls in Heirok. Nobody knows who were the killers and the motives behind the killing.

I feel that we are being slowly but inexorably sucked into a new societal development so profoundly impacted by the conflict of the forces of insurgency and counter-insurgency.

Pull cord generator.

You pull a cord continuosly(as in starting a portable genset) for 5 minutes and you have power for one hour of lighting. That sounds good, isn't? It is potenco's pull cord generator. At the top is a picture of the generator.

Here is a video.

FOSS 2008

I planned to be there and to spend maximum time, observing and learning new things. But I could not make it to the opening day, that is, yesterday.

I was also late there today. I was able to just catch the last presenter of the day and so,of the event. The presenter was Dr Linthoi Akoijam, who is the general secretary of European Manipuri Association. It enthuses me alot seeing the presenter trying to contantly break the barrier between the audience and herself. She wanted to interact with her audinece. It is refreshing seeing that kind of effort.

Of course, I was in the last rows observing the whole procedure!

My general impression is that as most of the organizers are from the corporate sectors, if not techies, they seem to be trying to expand the audience of their familiar power point representation! Naturally, they sometimes seem awkward in trying to reach out to a wider circle. But it is really heartening to see all of them trying to reach out.

In future events, I'll try to be there in time.

As the event was in MU campus, I also pay a visit to the University library. I was trying to update myself on my regular journals and magazines. When I was to go out I try the good old 'poknapham'. I was just browsing through the headlines. In the foreign news section, there was this innocuos item of encounter with a UFO in Pennsylvania, USA. It said USAF's raptor fighters intercepted it and forced to land in the airbase. There elite US military commandos storm the spacecraft and captired four the ETs. I said 'WOW' and just trying to absorb the shock, I wander towards the end of the news.

There, it said--'Courtesy April Fool'.

C'mon, I forgot it--today is April Fool!!

Wellness vs sensitivity

When I first read a short piece on how sunbathing for about one and half hour daily is extremely good for health, my instant reaction was—“That must be true”. That piece sounded so true!

When you keep yourself covered most of the time and using sun-blocking lotions, how will you going to get Vitamin D? Vitamin D is much essential for proper body metabolism. Now, new researches have already proven that Vitamin D deficiency triggers major illnesses in human. So, exposing maximum parts of the body to the sunlight when the sun is young makes a lot sense to me. I suppose UV ray comes into play when sunlight becomes harsher as the day goes on.

So, I make it a point to take my bath in the open at around 10 am everyday. How can you possibly find a separate time for sun bathing? I try to expose as much body as possible and to try to linger on as long as I can! But 1 hour is the maximum I can manage so far!

Most important, I have this sense of wellness when I keep following this routine of mine. I think we need to have that sense of wellness now and then.

But today, it was raining in the morning. It was already 1 pm when the rain stops and the good sun makes its grand appearance. Immediately I rushed to have my bath in the sunshine!

Now, I have a running nose for taking bath so late in the afternoon! That’s not because I’m a weakling or in a bad health but because my body is so sensitive to even a minor changes like the timing of my taking bath. It can discern some minor fluctuations in my daily routine and give appropriate punishment for that!

And, I fancy that having a sensitive body is not that bad at all.

30th of March

One single day which is 30th of March every year vividly illustrates how the economic wheels roll in Manipur. The Chief Minister himself through an appropriate government order instructed all the concerned offices to work full time today which is a Sunday. So, today is a working Sunday here!

I don’t have a first hand experience of how the mammoth government papers move but what I learn from outside the system looks like this:

First, the DDO (which stands for drawing and disbursing officer) checks the bills and sign them.

The bills are sent to the treasury offices.

The treasury offices make out an equivalent challans for each bill which are accepted in SBI and UBI, which have government accounts deposited with money from the planned heads of the budgetary provisions. But, as the financial year ends on 31st of March, these two banks would accept challans from the treasury only upto the end of working hours of 30th March.

So, today is the last day of converting the departmental bills into challans. But I learn that the treasury people manage to devise some arrangements with the bankers whereby the banks would accept vast numbers of challans timestamped 30th March on the early hours of the following day ie 31st March. Most of the times, the treasury staff work non-stop throughout the night the night of 30th –it must look like a war room!

This shows how the economy of the State totally depends on the money provided by the government budget. What we may call private sector here is the trickle down effect of these budgetary provisions.

Manipur do not have an official special economic package from the power that be in New Delhi. But getting roughly Rs 500 crores every year as a Special Plan Assistance is as good as getting an official special package as in the case of Nagaland, J & K etc. But what’s most surprising is that the departments which oversees the utilization of this Rs 500 crores account, mainly for developmental works, could hardly burn 47% of it, when last accounted for on the 15th of March 08!

So, the Chief Minister instructed the officials in all the departments to make bills for projects not yet commence so that the money can be encashed and put in an especial state government account for future uses! So, many important people would be burning midnight’s oil tonight making bills for non-existent projects!!

Manipur rebels, Marathis, Tibetans and the 2 nations

When we were talking about ‘Maharashtrian type of agitation’ (my last post), there is report of fresh attacks on North Indians in Mumbai itself. Most interestingly, the Dalai Lama also said that the Tibetans are in immediate danger of being swamped in their own homeland in Tibet. He told mediamen that there are only 100,000 Tibetans in Lhasa but outsiders, mainly Han Chinese, constitute double that number. I read the news on the Hindu as RSS feed but somehow I manage to lose the link.

I don’t know current statistics but rebel groups, in their press handouts, put the number of migrants in Manipur at around 7 lakhs. They said that number exceeds the total population in the hills. It seems they are slowly swelling up in number to touch the half way figure mark of the total population of the State.

This is a huge problem for us.

Talking about Tibet and China, the recent happenings on that front has already brought about a discernible change in India China relations. The Chinese home ministry summoned the Indian ambassador in Beijing just after midnight some days back. The purpose was to protest to the Indian Government regarding the scaling of Chinese embassy in New Delhi by the protesting Tibetans.

If we don’t consider the timing of the summoning of the Indian ambassador, we can think of the whole affair as routine. But summoning a nation’s ambassador at midnight is something not normal. Naturally Indian Government took it as an affront and they cancelled a previously scheduled visit by the foreign secretary to China.

It is most amazing how history takes its own courses belying all so assiduously researched calculations. I’m saying because I think we are just witnessing a major shift in power equilibrium in our immediate neighborhood. The main factor of this shift might just be a monk. The Dalai Lama is getting older and he might just be in a little haste to leave a worthy mark in history. That means we would be witnessing an increasing restive Tibetans in Tibet itself.

The Dalai Lama might leave his mark on history as one unassuming monk who somehow to put India and China at loggerhead.

Critiueing the orthodox Marxist

Tonight the curfew started from 9 pm. But by 6, nobody was in the streets and all the shops pulled down shutters. I myself came to know of the new timing only after I heard police vans started patrolling the streets at around 9 pm. But it’s better. There are a lot of problems if we have to close day’s business by 6 in the evening.

One paper carried the full text of a press handout of a rebel group. All other papers are serializing it. The rebel group is the one which the Chief Minister accused of being the perpetrator of the recent killings of the migrant workers.

It reiterated that it had nothing to do with the killings.

But the most interesting part comes when it made its point that the orthodox Marxian view that the proletariat, be it Indian or others, are not the enemies of a revolution is no longer valid. We have to remember here that one leading rebel group had reiterated oft repeated stance that the migrant workers are not enemies.

But today’s press statement by this group not only said that the orthodox Marxian is no longer tenable but also said that the migrant workers, part of the soft Indian power, are more dangerous that the hard part like the military. But it hastened to add that it did not approve the random shooting down of the workers. Instead, it wants to organize people against the soft power of the Indian State, of which the migrant workers form a part.

So, we can safely conclude there might more Maharastrian type of agitation here.

Creepy feelings in Imphal

The newspapers did reappear this morning. In the Central Library, there were exactly 3 copies of newspaper, one each for three leading paper here. I think that was because there was heavy demand for the papers in the morning; so, the hawker responsible for delivering the papers for the library was forced to oversell his stock resulting in delivering of only 3 copies for the library!

That shows that Imphal is not quite normal.

Evening newspapers reported massive upheaval in Heirok. People there demolished three houses apparently belonging to sympathizers of a particular rebel who sought forgiveness for the killings of 3 young girls in a thabal there. The rebel claimed that the killings were the result of an unintended misfire.

And what’s the benefit of clamping curfew here in Imphal when all unwanted events kept occurring in the outskirts? Is this because of lack policemen to enforce the curfew in the outskirts?

I have this creepy feeling that some very select few in the government are in the know of the events occurring here. As a matter of fact, they might be active participants in the horrific events of the last few weeks. Imphal valley seems to be slowly turning into a hotbed of an unprecedented conspiracy hatched by military intelligence operatives, rebel renegades and some adventurous political hotheads—in fact, a massive twilight zone.

Living with the wary and the mad

Yesterday, blogger was not reachable from here--even its home page was not accessible.

Early this morning I was deeply confused as to why not a single newspaper appeared on the newsstand. It was only when I went to Central Library in the afternoon then I realized that a particular rebel group was responsible. As a part of factional fight within the group, both the factions began dictating to the press not to publish press handouts of the one opposing to it. So, the editors chose not publish the papers at all.

At the library I read one interesting piece on China and Tibet. It said that non-Han people like Uighurs, Mongols and Tibetans were brought in to the Chinese empire only during the 16th Century. Incidentally, during that time the Chinese empire was ruled by the Qing dynasty, which, it said, was non-Han and was of Central Asian origin. It said they ascended the Imperial throne by conquest. Interesting—I thought that the only non-Han emperors of the Chinese empire were the Manchus.

And, I also always thought that the Tibetans had their representatives to the Chinese imperial court at least continuously for 2000 years.

The article closes with an implicit message that the Chinese were ruled not by Emperors but the wily Confucian bureaucracy. Again, implying that the Chinese Communist Party is a vast bureaucracy, it made its point in an undertone that nothing has changed for the Chinese people—they have been under the yoke of a wily bureaucracy, be it Confucian or Communist. Unless they break free of this wily bureaucracy, the world will have no chance to see the real of the Chinese people. Of course, unless that happens, the Tibetans would not have a chance to see their fate under its own management.

But reading the article, I have got this feeling that the writer is a little wary of the Chinese. We can understand that the Dalai Lama is a bit wary of the Chinese but why the writer of an article in a newspaper? It’s puzzling. But everybody seems to be a bit wary of the Chinese.

When I came out of the library I could buy two evening newspapers. That means that an agreement was reached between the editors and the rebel group and there would be newspapers tomorrow.

But there was distasteful news in the headlines. Some madmen shot death two young girls in Heirok, which is in the foothills of the mountain ranges that spread towards Burma embracing Chandel district along the way. Sure enough the girls were from Chandel. It was on 21st this month.

The retaliation came the very next day. There was a thabal on that day and at around 9.30 pm gunmen came there and started shooting indiscriminately at it. Two young girls were killed on the spot and one young girl and another man were seriously hurt. It is apparent that the gunmen must be the cadres of some hill-based rebel groups.

Right now, Chandel district is observing a bandh to protest the killings of the two girls.

It’s quite clear that it is cold blooded murder to turn the residents of Chandel district against those of the Valley. And, it’s the right time to remember the T Minou is in Chandel district. Interesting—really interesting.

I’m afraid some madmen are really on ‘engineering trips’. Please see this post to understand the idea behind the words ‘engineering trips'.

Curfew and rain

Today also I stayed indoors all day long. My home which is cable tv free and has a radio receiver which is not working! I went out late in the evening to buy some vegetables. I heard several groups of people talking in hush tones about the number of migrant workers already shot down within the last few days. But to my mind, the abhorrence for hurting or killing innocent and unarmed people is so ingrained in our society that the mad men who actually pulled the triggers of the handguns would ultimately revolt against the baddie boss if they are ordered to shoot on the innocents again and again. Let’s see how it comes out.

Curfew is also from 6 in the evening.

There was rain and it was actually chilly in the afternoon. Chilly weather in a March afternoon!

Curfew and rain effectively banish Yaoshang celebration from people’s mind. Instead, everybody seems to be staying indoors and feasting. Feasting on what? May be, on chicken. There were such long queues in front of chicken retailers near my houses. I suppose it’s the case in all over Imphal, at least.

One surprise is that we have been supplied with uninterrupted power for the three/four days. The power that be calculate that if the people are forced to indoors from just nightfall, they should at least be supplied with electricity! But where do they get the extra megawatts? Surprise here.

But life is still completely paralyzed. No transport system—nothing. There was no vegetable in the market—no, no, there was not even the market! There were only some daredevil women vendors attempting some sales.

How about the answer?!

I stayed indoors all day long. When I went at around 5.30 in the evening to buy some chicken meat, everybody was hurrying and stores started pulling down their shutters. Curfew started from 6 in the evening. To make matters worse, it was also raining. When I returned home I did so in a power walk mode!

Imphal sure looked a ghost town in 6 in the evening.

So, I was completely shut out from the happening around me. But I dare that in this rain soaked evening even the dreaded killers would not have venture out to shoot down some poor migrant workers!

Even in this bleak atmosphere I still want to try to answer the question with which I ended my last post. Please re-read the post.

1) We need a political barrier. We should not be isolationist but we need some norms for letting in people from other parts of the world. That norm should be tailored to our needs and interests. We should be able to enforce that norm by coercion.

2) We should heavily lean on the emerging technology. If 21st Century belongs to the 4th World people, then it is also the century of robots. We should try to make the line of the emerging robots intersect with that of the tiny societies like us. Even in the US, which is a huge country, they are field testing apple-picking robots. Essentially, they are attempting to give serious competitions to the cheap migrant workers mainly from Mexico. And, the development cost of that particular robot, which the engineers think would be as good as humans in picking apples in the field, is around 5 million US dollars. That cost is certainly affordable. We need to compete out the cheap labor of the migrant workers.

3) We need to leverage our small size. That we are so small in number should mean that we are nimble—we should be quicker to arrive at collective decision and more ready to bear social cost imposed on us by the smallness of our population. For example, if the robots doing works in the field are not as versatile as the migrant workers, we should ready to live with it until new generation robots comes out in the market.

Fresh shootings

On the streets I heard hush conversations about fresh outbreak of shooting of migrant workers. Numbers of migrant workers shot vary wildly. I won’t mention any one of them—they are more in the nature of rumors. My radio is not working. I also don’t feel like phoning any media houses because they are now officially on holidays.

Then, suddenly there were police vans on the streets announcing that the curfew which was to start from 9 pm (like yesterday) would come into effect from 6 in the evening instead. So, the news of fresh shooting down of migrant workers is as good as being confirmed.

Popular narrative in Manipur invariably paints the migrant workers as one of the active actors of a grand conspiracy to swamp the population here. The narrative has been drilled into common men’s psyche.

To my mind, it is the right time for everybody who has a stake in the well being of our society to start to think empirically. It is exactly not the time to be swayed by emotions. We need to disengage ourselves form the tight embrace of the popular narratives so smoothly passed down from generation to generation. Otherwise, we would start to lose our collective direction and would start walking right into a trap.

Even if there is a grand conspiracy, the poor migrant workers are not active participants in it. At worst case scenario, they just might be a cog in the wheel—a tool of the power that be.

So, it’s no use striking at them. It’s waste of time and energy.

If 21st Century would be a century of the 4th World people, then it would be the history of tiny communities like Albanians, Croats in the Balkans, Timorese, Shans, Karens in Asia and even Scots, Irish in the middle of Europe finding ways to continue to do business with large, established societies and at the same time, not swept away from their cultural and ethnic moorings.

But how?

Murder and poiltics

We are not going anywhere by killing innocent and unarmed people. There should be unconditional condemnation of such inhuman acts. This is one aspect of the episode.

Another aspect is that the Chief Minister, by letting his Director General of Police categorically naming one rebel group as the perpetrator of the ghastly killing, is out to settle political score. This is really unfortunate.

Nobody is saying this on records but there is widespread belief that the rebel group that the DGP had mentioned had a major role in organizing the recently failed camp by the MLAs in New Delhi to oust the incumbent Chief Minister.

Besides, the Superintendent of Police, Thoubal district, had also named another rebel group as the perpetrator of the killings.

So, it seems everybody is out to make capital out the ghastly killings.

But the most important, the logical sequence of the happenings in the last few weeks does not point to a rebel group as a likely perpetrator. This seems more complicated than the State officials are trying to make to be.

I’ll come again more on the subject tomorrow. Right now, I’m feeling exhausted.

Normalcy?

It looks like the madness of killing innocent laborers has subsided. Today’s evening newspapers had not carried a single case of fresh killing.

But the curfew is still in place. I also can’t understand why the curfew is imposed in Imphal areas only. All the killings took place outside Imphal. To my mind, it should be extended all throughout the valley.

If (this is a big IF) the killings are cases of some mad people going for ‘engineering trips’, their efforts have already been paid off so handsomely. For understanding ‘engineering trips’, please go to my last posts.

See how both houses of Parliament in New Delhi saw heated discussions on the killings here. Some MPs even called for the resignation of the Federal Home Minister, Mr Shivraj Patil.

Here, at the State Assembly, there were widespread condemnations by the MLAs. And, the Assembly session have been adjourned for three times now. Originally, it was to close its session on the 16th; then it was adjourned till 19th. Now, today’s papers carried the news that it was yet again adjourned to the 3rd of April. So, what’s happening?

To my mind, it all seems to be so orchestrated.

Buried deep into inner pages of one particular newspaper, there was this nugget of news here. All other papers failed to carry the news. Manipur’s leading female actor, Kamla had just signed up for her 100th film! This is an amazing story. Filmdom seems to be the most happening zone here in Manipur.

The day after

Today’s evening newspapers reported another non-Manipuri shopkeeper shot death in Kumbi, which is the small township just past Moirang on the way to Wangoo.

Just at the moment, I heard a lot of police movements on the streets. Some of the sirens of the speeding police parties sounded as if they were transporting some wounded towards RIMS. I have no way of confirming it. Some 30 minutes or so back, I also heard a sound of explosion.

Night curfew is still in place. By 5 in the evening there were traffic snarls caused by scurrying masses of people anxious to reach their homes safely.

Anxieties seem to be writ large on people’s faces.

When I visited Central Library at around 2.30 pm, I found it deserted. All the staffs had already returned home!

Rumors fly around thick and thin.

Main market places were shut down as a mark of protest as the inhuman killings.

The evening newspapers also reported some truckloads of laborers fleeing the State. Around 100 or so of them were prevented from fleeing by the Police for their own safety—they were advised to go, if they have to, after semblance of normalcy returns.

And the Chief Minister announced ex gratia payments for those killed and wounded.

Imphal under night curfew

Imphal is under night curfew—from 6 tonight until 5 in the morning tomorrow. It was imposed this evening.

Today is strange. We woke up with the news headline that 8 unarmed laboureres outside the State were shot dead somewhere near Uchiwa along Imphal-Wabgai road. In the evening, the headlines were again of the killing of 5 more laborers, this time near Lamlai which is along the Imphal-Ukhrul road.

In today’s episode they tried to shoot down around 30 laborers in three attempts in three different places all near Lamlai. 5 got killed, 4 were rescued by the nearby villagers and the rest managed to escape. Today is a horrific day.

I also get this feeling that some murky minds were on a short ‘engineering trip’. Please read my last to understand this ‘engineering trip’.

The same papers also carried the report of the Chief Minister meeting the press this morning. He said that the identity of the kingpin was established and operations were on full swings to capture him and his accomplices.

He also said they were the handiwork of a rebel group. He did not name it.

Lastly, he said that process had already been initiated to safeguard the lives of those students studying outside the State. But I got this strange feeling he had wished to see some students already killed in response to the killings here in his State. He seemed to make the statement not protect students but to initiate retaliatory responses from somewhere whereby some students got killed. Strange—it’s really strange.

I also get this uneasy feeling that all these killings of innocent people happened as a direct result of what had happened during the last few days in a place called T Minou. Please read my last 2 posts to get the story.

T Minou 2

Why should anybody have the time to go deeper into the competitions amongst rebel groups?

Please read on. I’ve something in mind.

Any rebel group worth its salt with an avowed aim of fighting the Indian military should have a doctrine for doing so, which in turn should be the fruition of the interaction between political and military thinkers of the group. Within the framework such doctrine, commanders in the field need to devise strategies and tactics for military onslaughts.

After they passed the tests of fighting the police forces like CRPF, BSF etc, they all find something amiss when they come face to face with the Indian military. The only exception might be the group which carried out the attack on T Minou military outpost. Neither do they the doctrine nor have they the human resources to bring forth it.

Naturally, rebel cadres cutting across party lines are demoralized. They start to fervently wish that the society which gives sustenance to their movement suddenly withdraw the political space that enables such sustenance. It’s because they know from the Nagas and Mizos that going for peace talk would render them turncoats at best and traitors at worst.

At the second phase of the demoralization of the rebel cadres, they now want to engineer the social conditions which will result in the withdrawal of the political space by our society.

Sensing the new development, the Indian military intelligence sprang into action.

Now, these two elements quietly withdraw into a twilight zone where they collude for their future plan of actions. With the increasing frequencies of the military actions that took place at T Minou, this twilight zone and the number inhabitants are likely to grow bigger and bigger.

A chill races down my spine as I try to capture the scale of damages these murky minds are likely to impinge on the social fabric of our society.

This is my feeble attempts to try to connect the dots and I fervently wish that I was totally wrong in my assessment and no such twilight zone ever existed here.

And, today, I should not fail to record this: YAOSHANG SPORTS STARTS! I saw several torch rallies in the street heralding the beginning of the sport events.

But isn’t it bit too early? Apparently there are lots of takers for opting to sports as their careers. That’s a good development.

T Minou

T Minou presents us with a lot of dots that need to be connected.

T Minou and the unsaid words.

If we go back some weeks, we would remember that T Minou is exactly the place 5 of the cadres of a rebel group were shot down by the Indian military. That rebel group directly competes with the one which had completed the onslaught on the military post.

If we go back exactly a day further after the shooting down of the 5 cadre, we would also find out the other rebel group claimed to have shoot down 5 soldiers of the Indian military somewhere along Indo Burma in Ukhrul district. That was the day before the rising day of the rebel group which had lost 5 cadres in T Minou. That means the group lost their 5 cadres on the day which also happened to be the rising day of their party. Some days after their rising day celebration the group came out with a press handout that claimed their cadres were unarmed and were on their way to a mission in civilian clothes. I doubt the veracity of the claim and I suspect that they lost their cadres while trying to attack the military outpost there in T Minou.

Two things come out here. One, the first attack along the border in Ukhrul district just 1 day before the rising day of the particular group was meant to send out the message they should show their firepower on their rising day by attacking some Indian military personnel. I think they tried but they ended up losing their cadres instead. One group forcing another to prove their firepower.

Two, if they lost 5 of their cadres in T Minou, we would demolish the military outpost there—that’s the message of yesterday’s attack. Showing off the efficacy of their firepower vis a vis the lost of 5 cadres of the other group.

I would come up with the continuation of this post tomorrow. I’ve an appointment early morning tomorrow.

Nameless!

A fortnight ago, you could walk along the Paona Bazar Road, at least, along the side walks as the workmen were only digging up at the middle for laying pipes for the Imphal Sewage Project. That pipe laying works are almost complete with only a 100 ft or so of road remains to be dug up towards the new overbridge.

But now, you cannot walk along that stretch of the road!

For one thing, they are digging up 4-5 ft wide and 3-4 ft deep at both the sidewalks. They are meant to be laid with RCC work for carrying power lines, telephone cables and drains as well. I’ve seen some RCC works in progress and they contain three furrows, one each for power lines, phone cables and drainage.

They are also digging up across the road at several points for reconstructing the culverts carrying drainages.

So, what the storeowners do in response? They all scramble to put up makeshift ramps of wood and bamboo across the 5 ft wide moat. Some are so disheartened that they manage to put a single rickety wooden plank to welcome their customers.

For the last 15 days or so, they had hardly any business. So, the storeowners and their salesmen stood at their doorsteps(ie, at the bank of the moat!) to stare blankly at the workmen, wallowing in the dirty and smelly sewage water trying to put up the rcc works.

To complete the picture let’s add one more element. A man trying to sell evening newspapers, shouting at the top of his voice—A FIERCE REBEL ATTACK AT ARMY CAMP NEAR MOREH—A VERY HEAVY CASUALITIES.

I bought one 1-rupee and 1-sheet paper and it was actually there in the headlines. Military outpost is at a place called T Minou and the paper said the attack by the rebels was ‘fierce’. The details were sketchy but it said there was ‘heavy casualties’.

With the paper in hand, I moved on—I meant, along the Kakhulong road. I was looking for green leafy vegetable.

I chanced upon a green leafy stuff which I had not seen before. I asked the lady vendor what the stuff called. She could not recall the name of the stuff she was selling. She tried asking several of her fellow vendors. But it turned out nobody could recollect the name of the green and leafy stuff I was about to buy!

Anyway, I bought the green, leafy stuff which was nameless lest you tend to forget!

Well, I’ve just found out that the stuff taste like medicine!

Crafty?

I went to a craft fair in the afternoon.

It is quite plausible to think that they are trying to make festive sales for the coming Yaoshang. At the moment, I can count at least 4 fairs in Imphal itself. For the last 30 days or so, there were uninterrupted fairs in some venues—one party packed up their wares, then another one unpacked their fares!

But the shocking insider news is that they are neither attempting festive sales nor trying to find new customers. Instead, they are trying to pocket some portions of the money sanctioned to organize the fairs!

Of course, the money is sanctioned in New Delhi by Ministry of Textiles.

But I notice that the profiles of the craft persons undergo vast change. Now, they are mostly girls in denims and tops.

Looking them at their works, I can’t help thinking—why don’t they attempt to migrate to the Web?

It would be interesting to see the customers’ response if we promote ‘Moirang phee’, Wangkhei phee’ and ‘Kouna’ as brands on the Web. ‘Moirang phee’, ‘Wangkhei phee’ or ‘Kouna’ not just as handicraft but as communities of artisans and craft persons. The thrust of the brand making should be to bring such communities in direct contact with the users or customers. It would not be new thing to attempt that. We have ready example like the attempt to promote ‘Jodhpur’ as a community on the Web.

But the phenomenal rise in the numbers of fairs this year may also indicate that some younger craft persons have made the first steps in looking for newer markets, newer horizon. If that’s the case, we may see the migration to the Web in no time.

Here I am

I’ve returned to my blog.

I did this on an impulse. But today is 13th. Will 13 be always unlucky? Will my return to my blog be a bad restart?

I’ve so many things to say. But the first, the prelude!

I planned to rest for ¾ days because of an onset of a flu virus infection. But I ended up resting for almost 6 months! Life is always so full of surprises!!

But I’m enjoying my offline world. It is world without rss feeds and I thought that I would not be able to populate that kind life. But slowly I got used to it. Surprise, surprise!

Actually, I kept postponing returning to my blog as I planned for an interrupted internet and power. As regards power it is easy if you are ready to bear the cost. But the intenet? It is really difficult in a place like Imphal. As I’m typing this BSNL’s broadband is down and I’m using dialup service to post this.

I’ll try to come to my blog on a daily basis.

I’ve so many things to say!!