UNC Reach Out to GoI Interlocutor

Naga economic blockade to protest Manipur polls

Imphal, Apr 12 : Even as the volunteers of All Naga Students’ Association, Manipur (ANSAM) have scattered themselves and stationed in various ‘strategic locations’ to impose the 6-day economic blockade along the national and state highways from midnight of Sunday, the United Naga Council (UNC) said today that it had apprised the Autonomous District Council poll issue to R.S Pandey, interlocutor of the Government of India in the peace talk with the NSCN-IM.

UNC chief Samson Remmei disclosed to Newmai News Network over phone from Senapati that on April 9, the UNC team met R.S Pandey in Nagaland and apprised him about the development in Manipur. “We have briefed Mr. R.S Pandey that we do not want the imposed legislation on the tribal people by conducting the ADC elections based on the Manipur (Hill Areas) District Council Act, 2008,” said Samson Remmei.

Meanwhile, the UNC president said that the Naga frontal organizations are now all set to agitate in different forms once the 6-day long economic blockade gets over. “If the response from the state government is not that positive, we are here to resort to sterner and more drastic forms of agitation,” asserted the UNC chief.

It is worth noting that the United Naga Council (UNC) had called a 12-hour ‘chakka bandh’ in Manipur hill areas on April 6 against the present status of the ‘imposed legislation’ with special reference to the Manipur (Hill Areas) District Council Act 1971 and amended in 2008 which has been ‘rejected outrightly’. On the other hand, the state government has set May 17 and May 24 to hold elections to the ADCs.

Meanwhile, All Naga Students Association, Manipur (ANSAM) president David Choro said that ANSAM activists are now stationed in all ‘strategic locations’ to impose the blockade from midnight. “We have appealed time and again to everyone particularly the transporters to extend their co-operation to our move,” the ANSAM president said.

24 hr total bandh across tribal areas

Supporting the All Naga Students’ Association Manipur (ANSAM)’s move of imposing economic blockade along the two national highways in the state, the Manipur Tribal Joint Action Committee Against Elections Under Unwanted District Council Act has called a separate 24 hours ‘total bandh in all the tribal inhabited district of Manipur’ starting from the mid-night of April 12.

GK.Rongmei, chairman of the tribal body against the elections under unwanted district council Act said that the bandh will cover all activities including the construction of railway line from Jiri to Imphal. However, he added that essential services will be relaxed from the purview of the bandh.

The chairman asserted, “The new trend of the Manipur government to hold ethnic based election is imprudent and dangerous policy which seemingly incites tension among different groups of Manipur,” adding, “such kind of divide and rule policy among the tribals should be stopped forthwith as it invites unwanted social upheaval”.

While welcoming all the tribal organizations partaking against the ongoing district council issue, the tribal body urged the general public to co-operate during their bandh.  It also warned that the bandh violators shall be at their own risk.

Newmai News Network

Hmar Inpui Ex-President Denies NOC for Link Language

New Delhi, Apr 12 : The Ex-President of Hmar Inpui (Hmar Supreme House) Mr. HK Joute has denied that he or the Hmar Inpui had written to the Union Minister of Information & Broadcasting with regard to the non-objection of use of Paite as official link language in the proposed Local Radio Station of All India Radio, Churachandpur.

In a letter to Union Minister of Information & Broadcasting dated April 9, 2010, HK Joute said that he had never written any letter to her on the issue.

It may be mentioned the on November 22, 2006, some people purportedly submitted a letter supposedly written by Mr. Joute to the Union Minister giving a clean chit to Paite language to be the official link language of the much delayed Churachandpur AIR station.

Claiming that the letter was the handiwork of some individuals and people with vested interests, Mr. Joute said, "That (letter) is a total lie and fabricated and the same was never written by me."

Mr. Joute also said that the Hmar Inpui has a tradition of putting agenda before its Executive Committee and resolutions passed in writing. "The said letter does not have any reference of our Executive Meeting - its date and resolution numbers, etc", Mr. Joute said.

Terming the letter "a testimony of its duplicity and (works of) forgery", Mr. Joute informed that the Hmar Inpui never count the Hmar Youth Association (HYA) and the Hmar Students’ Association (HSA) as ‘sister organizations’ but as ‘constituent members’ and are independent in their own.
He also said that he will take legal proceedings against the perpetrators of the "forged letter" and is currently consulting his legal advisor.
Mr. Joute also requested the Union Minister of Information & Broadcasting to treat the said letter as null and void and to take no decision on the same.

The copies of Mr. Joute’s letter has been forwarded to Chief Minister of Manipur, Chief Executive Officer of Prashar Bharati, Director General of All India Radio, Deputy Director General (NER II) and Station Director (AIR, Imphal).

Indian Tribals For Movement Against Tipaimukh Dam

By Ehsanul Haque Jasim

New Delhi, Apr 12 : The indigenous and tribal peoples of three states of India those are Assam, Manipur and Mizoram and particularly the people from different communities of Cachar, are taking preparation to form strong movement against the proposed Tipaimukh Hydro Electricity Project, located at the confluence of Barak and Tuivai rivers in Manipur.

If the Tipaimukh dam is constructed it would have adverse impact on the sensitive and vulnerable indigenous peoples as well as on their social, cultural, economic, political, demographic and environment prospect in the three States.

So the indigenous and tribal peoples of the areas are more vigorous against the dam. The vigorous indigenous and tribal communities are Hmar, Zeliangrong, Reang, Khasi, Manipuri, Rongmei, Naga Kuki, Jishnu, Nanu Ngai and Bengalis.

The people of Cachar under the banner of Committee of People and Environment (CPE) on last Wednesday staged a demonstration in front of the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Cachar demanding scrapping of the Tipaimukh Dam Project.

Hundreds of demonstrators urged the government to make necessary steps to cancel the dam project saying that the dam will bring more miseries to the people of southern Assam, Manipur and Bangladesh.

They have already submitted memoranda to the Indian President, Prime Minister, Union minister for Forest and Environment and Chief Ministers of Assam and Manipur through the Cachar DC in support of their demands of stopping Tipaimukh Dam.

CPE general secretary Pijush Kanti Das on Thursday told the Mizoram Express, a media of India, that on several occasions we highlighted the possible disastrous implications of the Rs 9000 crore project on life, economy and environment of the region. So far southern Assam areas go, Barak and Kushiara rivers will dry up if the 163-meter high dam at Tipaimukh is built. The agriculture-based economy of the region will ruin besides destruction of flora and fauna, he added.

He said that if the dam is constructed, it will have negative impacts on 9,126 sq km area in Manipur also. A large number of indigenous communities, mostly belonging to the Zeliangrong and Hmar people, will be permanently displaced and deprived of their livelihood.

Other organizations of India are also protesting the construction of Tipaimukh Dam. Those are Citizens Concern for Dams and Development (CCDD), Committee on Land and Natural Resources (COLNAR) and Action Against Tipaimukh Project. The organizations recently jointly observed International Day of Action for Rivers under the theme 'Reclaiming Barak River' at the confluence of Tuivai and Barak rivers at Tipaimukh.

The Hmar, Zeliangrong and Meitei community and different organizations from the Barak basin resolved to stand united against any initiative that would disturb the inseparable relationship between Barak river and indigenous people of the river basin.

Declaring that Barak river must be allowed to flow at its natural course, the participants also resolved to stand against any intervention that would disturb the natural flow of the river due to construction of Tipaimukh Dam.

It may be mentioned that the river is the only route that served import of relief materials during the famine of 1960. So the river still continues to serve Hmar villagers as a key trade route.

Hmar Students Association (HSA) which is very vocal against Tipaimukh Dam, is also opposing the construction the Tipaimukh Dam that Hmar people would be submerged under water if the dam is constructed.

The Sinlung Indigenous Peoples Human Rights Organisation (SIPHRO) is also one of the Indigenous People's organizations which is more vocal against the dam construction.

SIPHRO will organize public meetings, public hearings, discussions, debates, seminars, press conferences, and photo exhibitions in different villages, towns and districts in the three States on Tipaimukh Dam issue, says Imphal, an Indian media.

Researchers says China-based Hackers Stole India Security Info, Dalai Lama e-mails

Indian Minister for External Affairs Somanahalli Mallaiah Krishna delivers a speech at China Institute of International Studies, Beijing Tuesday, April, 2010. Krishna, during his four-day visit, will meet his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi to discuss bilateral, regional and global issues, and meet with representatives of Indian companies in China to encourage new opportunities. (AP Photo/Gemunu Amarasinghe)

China-based hackers stole Indian national security information, 1,500 e-mails from the Dalai Lama's office and other sensitive documents, a new report said Tuesday.

Researchers at the University of Toronto said they were able to observe the hacking and trace it to core servers located in China and to people based in the southwestern city of Chengdu. The researchers said they monitored the hacking for the past eight months.
The report said it has no evidence of involvement by the Chinese government, but it again put Beijing on the defensive. Separate reports earlier this year said security investigators had traced attacks on Google and other companies to China-based computers.

"We have from time to time heard this kind of news. I don't know the purpose of stirring up these issues," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu told a regular press conference in response to questions about the report.

"We are firmly opposed to various kinds of hacking activities through the Internet," Jiang said. She said China will fight cybercrime according to law.

She added the researchers have not formally contacted China.

The report describes a hacking operation called the "Shadow network" that researchers were able to observe as it broke into computers and took information, including computers at Indian diplomatic offices in Kabul, Moscow and elsewhere.

The report said the researchers were able to recover Indian national security documents marked "secret" and "confidential," including ones referring to security in India's far northeast, which borders China. Others related to India's relationships in the Middle East, Africa and Russia.

Researchers also recovered 1,500 e-mails sent from the Dalai Lama's office between January and November 2009, the report said.

A map in the report showed computers were compromised on every continent except Australia and Antarctica. One was a United Nations computer, at the U.N.'s Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific.

"In addition we found personal banking information, scans of identification documents, job (and other) applications, legal documents and information about ongoing court cases," the report said.

The identity and motivation of the hackers remain unknown, the report said.

"We have no evidence in this report of the involvement of the People's Republic of China," it added. "But an important question to be entertained is whether the PRC will take action to shut the Shadow network down."

There was no immediate comment Tuesday from the government in India, China's massive neighbor to the south with which it has a growing military rivalry and lingering territorial disputes.

Rob Deibert, director of the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto, said the Indian government was notified in February.

"Their reaction was that they were very grateful. They were going to look into it further and they asked for continued dialogue and cooperation between us," Deibert said in a telephone interview.

"A small portion of it contained very very sensitive information, some of it market secret, some of it marked confidential, some of marked restricted," he said. "It was a major compromise across all aspects of the Indian national security state."

Foreign Minister S.M. Krishna is visiting China this week to take part in celebrations to mark the 60th anniversary of diplomatic relations between the countries.

The office of the Dalai Lama was aware of new hacking report.

"These things are not new," said Tenzin Takhlha, a spokesman for the office of the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader accused by China of supporting independence for Tibet. He said the office is working closely with the researchers to secure its computer systems.

A Canadian research group involved in Tuesday's report, the Information Warfare Monitor, released a similar report a year ago that said a cyberspy network, based mainly in China, hacked into classified documents from government and private organizations in 103 countries, including the computers of the Dalai Lama and Tibetan exiles.

Tibet's government-in-exile quickly denounced that network at the time.

Tiger Woods' Masters First Round: What Will Be The Biggest Distraction?

Tiger Woods returns to golf Thursday afternoon at 1:42 PM Eastern Time. The competition is sure to be a pressure-packed event: Woods is making his highly scrutinized comeback on golf's biggest stage, the Masters. After enduring five calamitous months, there are an untold number of distractions he will face. Scroll down to see the biggest ones. Which will be his biggest obstacle?

The Neighbor's Young Daughter

In a bombshell report that dropped just one day before the Masters was set to begin, a new claim emerged that Woods bedded the then-21-year-old daughter of a neighbor in Florida. The pair may have had sex in Woods' nearby office.

The Dirty Texts

Woods reportedly sent explicit text messages to at least several of his alleged mistresses. His steamy exchanges with Jaimee Grubbs were the first to be made public. He allegedly called another possible mistress a "wh--e" in a text, and he apparently told his latest alleged lover, "I want to f--- you." And, of course, nobody who read the extremely graphic messages he purportedly sent to a porn star mistress will be forgetting them anytime soon.

The 'Porn Queen'

Devon James only recently stepped forward to claim a past relationship with Woods. In addition to her work in sex films, James may be employed as an escort. She says she had "dirty" sex with Tiger.

The Panicked Voicemail

While it was left many months ago, just before his post-Thanksgiving car crash, Woods' bizarre voicemail to a Las Vegas lover exposed a vulnerable, rattled side to the golfer that his competitors may have never seen before.

The Alleged Ex-Lover-Turned-Stripper

Porn star Joslyn James has blasted Tiger at every opportunity. While Tiger is golfing in Augusta, James will strip in nearby Atlanta. Her show's promotional material leaves little to the imagination.

The Playboy Model

Playboy model and escort Loredana Jolie has been called "one of [Tiger's] favorites." She is planning a book that will spill the beans on Woods' alleged sexual encounters with men. Jolie also proved herself to be unafraid to compare Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan's performance in the bedroom.

The Rumored Sex Tape

In early December, when new alleged mistresses were popping up left and right, it was rumored that a Tiger Woods audio sex recording existed. In January, a porn CEO said he was reviewing a video marketed to him as a Tiger Woods sex tape.

The British Booty

The News of the World reported that Woods had "awesome" sex with British mother-of-two Emma Rotherham. A source said Tiger "couldn't keep his eyes off her butt" and he "loved to see her in black stockings and suspenders."

The First Lover

Rachel Uchitel was the first woman outed by the National Enquirer, days before Woods crashed his SUV in Florida. Woods reportedly emailed her once to say that "I finally found someone I connect with." An Enquirer source called Uchitel a "celebrity whore."

The Sex Fantasies

A Playboy model who says she slept with Tiger called Woods' sex fantasies "not normal." A leaked email, meanwhile, suggests that Tiger fantasized about alleged lover Rachel Uchitel having a star-studded threesome with Derek Jeter and Bones star David Boreanaz.

The Cougar

Theresa Rogers has been described as a "cougar" who allegedly boasted that she taught Tiger "everything he needed to know to be a great lover." She reportedly conceived a baby while she was seeing Woods, but an article suggests she believes the father is a Serbian basketball player she was also seeing at the time. According to another article, Woods told Rogers that he only married Elin Nordegren to boost his image. The 40-something Rogers may have negotiated a payoff in exchange for her silence.

The OTHER Porn Star

Holly Sampson is a porn star (NSFW pictures, video) whose films include Descent Into Bondage and Diary of a Horny Housewife. She may have worked as an escort (NSFW) and appeared in a video in which she describes her "amazing" sex with Tiger Woods. In another article, she spoke about the "sensual, beautiful experience."

The Restaurant Manager

Mindy Lawton, a 34-year-old former restaurant manager, says she met Woods at her workplace and that they had sex in a range of locations -- including a parking lot, a shower and Tiger's garage.

Jaimee Grubbs

24-year-old Jaimee Grubbs reportedly had a 31-month affair with Woods. Since being named as one of the golfer's alleged lovers, Grubbs has not hesitated to strip down for the world to see.

Jamie Jungers

Las Vegas blonde Jamie Jungers says she and Tiger had sex the night his father died. (The same father who is now in a new Nike advertisement with Woods.) She describes her sex with Tiger as "wild" and "crazy" and against a wall. Jungers allegedly worked as a stripper.

Julie Postle

Julie Postle allegedly met Woods when she worked as a cocktail waitress in Orlando. Tiger was reportedly "obsessed" with Postle and "really hunted" her. She was also photographed in a bikini.

The Ecstasy Companion

Susie Ogren says she took ecstasy with Tiger and he hoped "to get me into bed."

Elin

Tiger's wife Elin Nordegren was spotted without her wedding ring just two weeks (and numerous mistresses) after Tiger's car crash. The Swedish former model has maintained a low profile since her husband's scandal began, but she has made occasional public appearances. She will not be attending the Masters this weekend.

Shroud Of Turin Going Back Up Before The Public

Turin, Italy : The long linen with the faded image of a bearded man is the object of centuries-old fascination and wonderment, and closely kept under wrap. Starting Saturday, and for six weeks, both the curious and those convinced the Turin Shroud is the burial cloth of Jesus Christ can have a brief look.

By late Friday, 1.5 million people had reserved their three-to-five-minute chance to gaze at the cloth, which is kept in a bulletproof, climate-controlled case. Organizers said earlier this year they hoped some 2 million pilgrims and tourists would see the linen during the special viewing from April 10 to May 23.

That number doesn't include Pope Benedict XVI, who will fly up to Turin, Piedmont's capital, in northwest Italy, on May 2 for a day trip to pray before the shroud.

Traditionally, the public gets a peek at the 14-foot-long, 3.5-foot-wide (4.3-meter-long, 1 meter-wide) cloth only once every 25 years. But recent decades have seen much shorter intervals. The shroud went on display in 1998 after a 20-year-wait and then in 2000 during Millennium celebrations.

Church officials resisted putting the cloth on display when tourists poured into Turin in 2006 for the Winter Olympics. But, as city officials recently put it, in a nod to the "importance to the economy and employment" of this city that is automaker Fiat's hometown, they allowed that is being billed as the "first showing of the new millennium."

Since the linen's previous showing a decade earlier, restorers have removed patches sewn on by nuns in 1534, two years after a fire damaged the case then holding the it, Shroud Museum director Gian Maria Zaccone said in an interview with Associated Press Television News.

Taking off the patches allowed the linen to be fully extended and let restorers smooth out creases in what for centuries had been a rolled-up cloth, making for what restorers hope will be better preservation.

"A challenge to the intelligence" is how John Paul II defined the cloth in 1998 when he journeyed to Turin to view it. In a major papal pronouncement about the shroud, the late pope asked experts to study it without preconceptions using "scientific methodology" while keeping in mind the "sensibility of the faithful."

His balanced instruction reflected a Vatican tiptoe around the issue of just what the cloth is, calling it a powerful symbol of Christ's suffering while making no claim on its authenticity.

A Vatican researcher said late last year that faint writing on the linen, which she studied through computer-enhanced images, proves the cloth was used to wrap Jesus' body after his crucifixion.

But experts stand by carbon-dating of scraps of the cloth that determine the linen was made in the 13th or 14th century in a kind of medieval forgery. That testing didn't explain how the image of the shroud – of a man with wounds similar to those suffered by Christ – was formed.

However, some have suggested the dating results might have been skewed by contamination and called for a larger sample to be analyzed.

Among those in Turin on Friday for the start of the viewings this weekend was Antonio Lambatti, a professor of Christian history at the University of Parma, who describes himself as a skeptic.

"In my judgment, it's a fake," Lambatti told APTN. He cited historical research, specifically a declaration by a church official in 1355 that the cloth was a "representation" of the original cloth.

But the fascination about the shroud "goes beyond history and archaeology," Lambatti acknowledged. "It implies a choice of faith."

Besides the 16th-century blaze, the cloth has had other brushes with disasters, including a 1997 fire in the cathedral.

It also might have survived the covetous clutches of Hitler.

In the early weeks of World War II, the cloth was secretly whisked from its resting place in the cathedral to a monastery in Montevergine in the southern Apennine mountains, recalled Rev. Andrea Davide Cardin, director of Montevergine's state library.

"It wasn't so much that Hitler was looking for it, but that the Nazi hierarchy wanted it as a symbol of power, of omnipotence," Cardin said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press in Rome.

Because of a friendship between the monastery's chief abbot and the Savoys, the Piedmont royal family, long custodian of the shroud, Montevergine was chosen for safekeeping, and a hiding place carved in a wooden altar in a chapel of the abbey, Cardin said.

"During the war, no one knew it was there, except for the Victor Emmanuel III (then king of Italy), the head abbot and the Vatican secretary of state," he said.

The shroud was returned to Turin's cathedral in 1946, after the war's end, Cardin said. "What would have happened if, instead of entrusting it to the Benedictine monks of Montevergine, it was entrusted to the monks of Monte Cassino?" Cardin said, saying he was quoting a 1946 letter from then Turin Cardinal Maurilio Fossati in tribute to the shroud's survival.

The Benedictine monastery at Monte Cassino, about 90 miles (150 kilometers) to the northwest, was heavily bombed by the Allies in 1944, and many Savoy family documents about the shroud that were placed there for safekeeping during the war were destroyed, Cardin said.

Horse Racing's Finest Fans Turn Out For Ladies Day

AIR and Lingo Bubble

By David Buhril


I was a little boy when my mother narrated a story about a family in feud over the color of a necklace they dreamt of buying. All the members of the family wanted different colors, which severely divided the family’s cord even before they could buy their dream necklace.

Neighbors eventually had to intervene to stop the quarrel that was already progressing into a fight.

Despite the differences, the family could only be grounded by the fact that they did not even have the money to buy the necklace. My mother’s message to us was to be grounded and never to fight.

That was then. However, as I was going through the ongoing debates/discussion/comments that is doing the rounds in many of our exploding websites on the issue of AIR link language, I was reminded of my mother’s parable. Thought-terminating clichés murdering rational discussion.

Ranting like demented Othello. We surrender our moral autonomy to the growing Paris- like heroes of Troy who are diluting our reason in dealing with the already prickly subject. It is true that “we are cursed not by a cultural divide but by mutual cultural self-destruction”.

However, we must remind ourselves to shed the empty rhetoric’s that could invade our peace, which is our biggest resource. Once again, this reflects a breakdown of us. However, we should not allow their cheers for adversity invade all our valuable spaces to drown into the All India Radio link language issue. Please tell them that we have bled enough. We cannot afford to allow us to be another comfortably numb sacrificial lamb. We cannot feed ourselves with those raw fodders that could gnaw our peace into pieces.

Besides the supposed confronting actors (read: Hmar, Kuki and Paite), the concerned authorities ought to be sensitive to the issue as it is not just a spat. We have also allowed ourselves to go off the limits. Imagine this: Leaders of a particular community even went to the extent of becoming a forger, forging the signature of one of the presidents of another community, to expedite their interest. It is shameful that we have lost our integrity. If we care to retreat and take a peek of our current past, we cannot help but say that the ongoing debate is not merely about securing a link in the almost archaic All India Radio programme. Ethno-centrism and cultural prejudice is already tuning the cadence and temper of our debate, which is why we are all braying like the blinds who encountered the elephant. We are all right in our respective interpretation of everything. But I am ashamed. We never get to hear the elephant’s version. It must have said how blind and narrow we all are. It must have pained his animal instinct in seeing the unplough human reason trapped within us.

I think we all suffer from an incurable acute form of cultural supremacy complex, despite the blurred, but collective history. We share the German idea of “leading culture”, believes in war, armament, and other inconveniences that could reduce our humane existence. We make ourselves believed that we possessed the classical language of science, poetry, philosophy, music, etc. That could be one of the reasons that almost explode our chest as we sit behind the comfort of wall in urban jungles and burst mindlessly in front of black keyboard and glowing screen. But I have made myself believed that if all our love songs were on air with a stain of blood; I would rather choose to do without the bloody air breathing alive on the radio.

On the other hand, the cultural argument could be a mirror to reflect the intense feeling of political bitterness, enmity and victimization felt towards one another. The hyper-consciousness of our little explosive mindset that we all shelved within us, is actually driving us to forget the collective suffering of our own people wherever we are. Our marginalized state under Manipur Government with the absence of any basic facilities (health, education, infrastructure, etc.) and the failure of democracy and decentralisation, the “Chinese” or “Chinky” that we are called, and all the sour treatments as “others” outside our neglected homes, never seem to weave us together for that still absent union or realization. Are we just the blot of the scar?

We all know how the AIR project was stalled. Many of us were just growing up then. But the disease has recruited more victims. Sometimes I wonder what the role of our divisive politicians and bureaucrats would be in this matter, in their quest of erecting a hero-tombstone by conveniently exploiting our stinking divisions in the name of that elusive “nation” and its “glory”. Eventually, it is us, the common people who sacrifice and suffer, to further quench their thirst and hunger for that already overdosed power and glory, which they quest for more. Pandering behind them, the multiplying tribe based organizations and actors sought their own crown by fielding their innocent people who could go hungry and deprive anytime. I think we have given too much for that vain quest where nothing trickles down for us. For Paris blunder, thousands died for the “nation and land”. Remember we are not here on earth to re-live the battle of Troy. Forget the sick demagogues. Let us stop their destructive power-game.

We cannot forget our realities in the small landscape of Manipur’s Churachandpur district. The colonial divide and rule policy had divided and “scheduled” all of us equally as “tribe”. Their seed of divisions were further oiled by their ignorance of our collectivity and emphasizing on our dialect/language that further fragmented us. When shall we realize the sick game? Forgetting everything, we sell and surrender ourselves like desperate prostitutes who even failed to wear protection in such vulnerable times. We clap with thunder as long as it fulfils our sordid quest. After the great division, the controversial project cannot be isolated, but has to be seen as a government’s experiment to further plumb the society by pitting demagogues ordained confrontationists. We are mere victims of hollow clichés.

While saying that the AIR project cannot be isolated, it is, again, important for us to see the entire developments from the perspective of the Resource Mobilization Theory (RMT). The theory attempts to explain social movements by viewing individuals as rational actors that are engaged in instrumental actions that use formal organizations to secure and aggregate resources and foster mobilization (McCarthy and Zald, 1987). In a communally divided society, the “instrumental actions” of any “rational actors” is always discounted and interpreted as an attempt to incur resource for a minority by leaving out the greater collective. This is when the concerned authorities ought to be sensitive to the complex developments.

As it is visible, the aspirations of the engaged actors is to secure a win-win situation respectively. Knowing this, policy maker’s need to walk that extra mile to explore ways and means to make the existing laws flexible and inclusive to accommodate conflicting interests. Imposing an archaic legislation without opening up space for necessary change that could, otherwise, stir constructive collective participation and foster peace and unity, would merely point to the absence of any democratic process. What if we collectively pursue that pursuit and widen the content of existing policies, terms and conditions that are already taming our recognized divisions. That would inevitably allow us to aspire for a fertile avenue where every language/dialect is evenly accommodated.

On the part of the government, instead of waiting and designing to plant the old seed of discord in a communally dormant society, it will do good to everyone if they could grow out of their stagnant boxes and devise an empowering strategy in the form of community radio that is already building healthy communities in different parts of the country. If policy makers/decision makers could not adopt new workable strategies and policies, it is high time they realize that their mugging-up of history and geography to score marks for significant post is already an outdated leverage that only act to polish their matrimonial column. It is high time they stop their pandering role as watchdog of repressive government policies. They ought to be responsible for any outcome of their insufficient policies, rules and conditions. They should also be responsible for their silence. Let them know that their experiment is not an intellectual drama tuned to a Shakespearean history play. Otherwise, Shakespeare also believed that the debasement of language, which is a prelude to violence, is the curse of modernity. Let them not invite a Shakespearean tragedy out of their adventurous weakness.

And us, who are always seeking that elusive chaff of power and glory in everything, we are living the pain of that vain painted veil. I’d rather choose a clean, unpolluted air in a distant corner and not one clogged by AIR airwaves with innocent stains of my own brothers and sisters. Let everything happen for good. For virtue. For Progress. For Peace. For Unity. For justice.