Lalrindika Resurfaces

By Mihir Vasavda

Baichung Bhutia once described Lalrindika Ralte as a 'prodigy' with 'skills that can't be taught'.

Two years back, the then national coach Armando Colaco preferred him over the likes of Steven Dias, Clifford Miranda and Anthony Pereira in the senior squad.

In Ralte, or Dika India had found a new star. Unfortunately Dika failed to live up to the hype. His quick climb was followed a sudden drop. Dika just disappeared. On Tuesday, as East Bengal played Kuwait SC in the AFC Cup semifinals, he resurfaced.

It was refreshing to see him leading a fairly experienced East Bengal side from the front. So where had Dika disappeared? While at a crossroads early in his career, the youngster took a wrong turn and thus got lost.

He first made a big-money move from Arrows, where he first got noticed, to Churchill Brothers. Subsequently, he went on to sign another lucrative contract with East Bengal, rumoured to be in the range of Rs 75 lakh.

Regulars on the circuit say that this proved to be his undoing. They still say, Dika swapped the all-important playing time on the field for a hefty paycheque.

After joining the star-studded big teams, the youngster became a regular on the bench. Out of sight resulted in him going out of mind. Dika was soon out of the national team reckoning too.

Dika's situation isn't unique. The current state of Indian football is such that there are many other young players like him, showered with money, praise and promise but denied the chance to play.

Think of defender Raju Gaikwad, striker Manandeep Singh (both East Bengal), Joaquim Abranches (ex Dempo, now East Bengal) Jewel Raja (ex Mohun Bagan, now Dempo) and Jeje Lalpekhlua (ex Pune, now Dempo).

All these players, including Ralte, were a part of the Indian team at the 2010 Asian Games that entered the pre-quarterfinals.

However, their careers have stagnated instead of taking off from there, being restricted to a substitutes' role after lured by the big clubs who do not mind splashing the cash.

Assam: Truck Slams into Minivans; 13 Children Among 28 Killed

Guwahati, Oct 3 : Police say a massive road accident involving a cargo truck and two minivans in Assam has left 28 people dead, including 13 children, and another 20 injured.

Barpeta district police say the 10-wheeler truck slammed into the oncoming minivans just after dawn Thursday about 160 kilometers (100 miles) west of Guwahati.

The minivans had been carrying workers, some with their children, to a local brick kiln. The truck was traveling to West Bengal.

TV channels showed a huge crowd surrounding 28 bodies covered in white sheets and lined up on green grass.

Police have yet to account for the truck driver, though one of two people who were in the truck is believed to be among the dead.

Manipur tour service revisits forgotten Battle of Imphal through its historical sites

By Joanna Lobo

A new tour service in Manipur revisits the forgotten Battle of Imphal through its historical sites, reports Joanna Lobo

The year was 1944. A battle was raging across Manipur, with the British-led Allies defending themselves against the Japanese invasion. The ultimate defeat of the Japanese at Imphal and Kohima, halted their progress to Delhi and proved to be a turning point in the Burma Campaign in World War II.

For Japan, this loss marked the end of its invincible era and imperialist ambitions.

The battle of Imphal, which will complete 70 years next year, and the battle of Kohima, were recently voted “Britain’s Greatest Battles” in a contest run by Britain’s National Army Museum. And yet many Indians are unaware of these battles, which involved soldiers of the Indian National Army (INA). To change this, Eastern Heritage Trails (EHT), founded by Hemant Singh Katoch and his friends, introduced the Battle of Imphal and four other tours. “It is a half or full- day tour that takes you to all the important sites in and around Imphal that are related to the Battle,” shares Katoch.

The Victoria Cross Tour takes you to the battlefields where five Victoria Crosses (the highest British military award for bravery) were won in Manipur, and includes stories of the men who displayed outstanding courage. It ends with a visit to the graves of two Victoria Cross recipients in Second World War.

The Imphal Walk goes through Mapal Kangjeibung, the world’s oldest polo ground where the game is still played; Khwairamband Keithel or  Ima Market, one of Asia’s largest markets run entirely by women; the Kangla Fort, seat of an ancient Manipuri kingdom for 2000 years; and the lanes of Paona Bazaar.

The Tiddim Road Tour visits the only Japanese War Memorial in India, battlefields such as Ningthoukhong’s where two Victoria Crosses were awarded in June 1944; Loktak Lake, the largest freshwater lake in north east India; Keibul Lamjao National Park, the only floating national park in the world, and INA’s only Memorial Complex in the world at Moirang.

The Battle of Imphal Tour is a half-day excursion that covers a Second World War-era airfield (Koirengei or Imphal Main), two war cemeteries, a battlefield (Nunshigum) and the colonial-era Slim Cottage, which was once the headquarters of the British 14th Army in charge of operations in Burma.

The Shenam Saddle Tour treats people to trenches and spectacular views from Shenam Saddle, a series of hills, between the villages of Shenam (Sinam) and Tengnoupal, along the road on which British forces had established defensive positions to prevent the Japanese from advancing towards the Imphal Valley.

Also included are the Kakching Garden and a visit to the Khongjom War Memorial.

Katoch, previously a project manager in a research organization, is the only guide and has permanently moved to Manipur from Delhi.

He researched about Manipur and the battle for years, poring over dozens of books related to the state, and visited all the places to see their current condition. The research made him realise the enormity of the war and inspired him to start the tour. He says, “It seemed like the right time to put a spotlight on it, and a heritage tour in Imphal has enormous advantages because the battle was mostly in the countryside and the hills still look the same. Trees maybe fewer and one may sight the odd mobile phone tower, but the sites are largely untouched.”

EHT has conducted nine Battle of Imphal tours, for 50 people, including a man whose brother fought in Kohima and an old Japanese man who was knowledgeable about their side of the war.

Katoch plans to encourage and train more locals to carry out the tours. At present, Leishangthem Chengleinganba Meetei, pursuing Masters in History, takes people for the Imphal Walks.
If you know of someone linked to the battle, Katoch will try and “retrace their steps.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin nominated for Nobel Peace Prize

If Obama Can Do it, So can Putin
Russian President Vladimir Putin attends the launch ceremony of the Nyagan power plant in Nyagan.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize by an advocacy group for his efforts to prevent an attack on Syria.

Putin was nominated by the International Academy of Spiritual Unity and Cooperation of Peoples of the World.

During a news conference in Moscow on Tuesday, members of the group said Putin was far more deserving of the peace prize than U.S. President Barack Obama, who received it in 2009.

The group said while Obama had continued to lead American military operations abroad, Putin has consistently opposed military intervention throughout the two-and-a-half year Syrian civil war, which was left more than 115,000 dead according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

Putin, a former KGB agent, is credited with commanding a war against separatists in Chechnya and approving a full-scale attack on Georgia over a minor border dispute.

The 2013 Peace Prize recipient will be announced in Oslo on Oct. 11; nominations for this year’s prize had to be postmarked by Feb. 1.

In the shadow of AFSPA – Not so uncommon lives: Chonchuirinmayo Luithui

By Nivedita Menon

Article on Armed Forces Special Powers Act in Nagaland by CHONCHUIRINMAYO LUITHUI received via Repeal AFSPA list

My father was picked up from home by the Indian Army late one evening, tortured till dawn, he was pushed down a slope and left for dead. It was a miracle that he survived that night. I had just started kindergarten and was learning the Alphabets. I remember screaming the A B Cs outside the window of his room at the hospital so that he could hear me because I was told not to make noise inside. I wanted him to know what I was learning at school. I was a few months shy of my fourth birthday.

It was from that age that my idea of the ‘enemy’ was drawn. Any big guys in uniform were the real life villains. Dogra Regiment, Sikh Regiment, Assam Rifles, etc were common names. You could only hate them. But this was not an exceptional situation. It was common to most of the children from my generation in the Naga areas. We grew up knowing of, at least, one person tortured or killed by the Indian army and associated them with everything that we were scared of. Parents would frighten us when we were out of line that the ‘shipai’ (soldiers) were coming or that they would give us to the ‘shipai’. Not the best way to discipline a child but it worked. We might never witness the violent acts of the Indian army but we heard and knew when the grownups talked in hush hush manner. Children are smart that way.

My father was targeted because of his human rights activism. I am sure he was prudent enough to know the risk he was getting us all into. He simply refused to have the choice of staying away. So, the Indian Army became regular visitors, raiding our house all too frequently. Probably, they knew more about its creaky floors and dark corners than all our family members combined. This again was not uncommon. It was happening to many ‘activist’ families. The ‘unlucky ones’ gets picked up and beaten and some did not come back or come out alive. My father died eleven years later because of internal injuries.

1980s and early ’90s were a time when the underground movement was at its strongest. The Indian government responded with military power. The army would go on a rampage: shot at anything and anyone, destroyed property, burnt granaries, picked up anyone, beat and maimed them for life, raped and sodomised. My maternal grandfather was killed in one of their shooting sprees. He was cow herding. They seem to be doing all these, as if by doing so, they would scare away even the scariest devil.

I know of families where the parents made their children put on their school uniforms in the middle of the nights so that they won’t be targeted when the army comes for ‘combing operation’ (another common phrase). Even so, the army seldom spared anyone.

Looking back, I would say that the Indian army was probably more terrified than us. Yet, my parents’ and my generations have been living with a fear psychosis for a long time. It is not uncommon to see many of us look for places to hide when we hear fire crackers during diwali in the Indian cities (yeah that is where we go for studies, work and entertainment). It is worst back home to hear any kind of bursting sounds. There is never enough space to hide. Again, it is not uncommon to hear on the public address system not to burst fire crackers. As much as I hate to admit it, we are a terrified people.

All these happen because the Indian state sanctions it. It has legalised and institutionalised army attrocities against civilians through the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act. For a nation built on human dignity as one of its founding principles, AFSPA should be the last legislation on its mind. No human should be forced to carry a life long fear psychosis waiting for the next gun shots or for the army to swarm your house destroying anything they want. Our mothers should not be made to stay up all night worrying about losing their husbands and sons to the Indian Army, afraid for their daughters of getting raped. No four years old should be counting her ‘enemies’ and thinking of revenge (I did that for a long time) because a law creates a space for that. For all these and more, AFSPA has to go.

I recall having a conversation with a friend that the lack of sense of humanity had given room to all those brutalities. On reflection, we should give some credit to the army. They had the capacity to annihilate the whole community, had all of them acted depravedly.

This did not happen. So, I suppose there were a few nice guys in the army. But, this does not make good the tyranny of the majority.

Our argument against AFSPA often gets diluted by or is lost in the rhetoric played out in the media and public arena. Yet, it is cleared that the movement against the Act is not born out of fiction but out of realities that people from areas affected by it are living everyday. I should know because everyday,

I imagine my life with my father and struggle against anger that refuses to leave me. There has to be something seriously wrong in a law that lets such thoughts to become part of the collective imaginations.

Delay in Bru Repatriation

Aizawl, Oct 3 : The second stage of repatriation of Bru refugees from Tripura to Mamit district in Mizoram has been put on hold by Mamit deputy commissioner V. Lalremthanga till October 14.

The process, which was resumed after nearly one-and-a-half years on September 30, was halted after a Mizo student outfit, Mizo Zirlai Pawl (Mizo Students’ Front) raised an objection on the ground that many non-Mizoram Brus were moving to Mizoram along with the refugees.

Lalremthanga said over telephone from Mamit that he had asked Bru Co-ordination Committee convener Elvis Chorki to survey refugee facilitation centres at Kanhmun and Zomuantlang, along with Mizoram government officials to find out if any non-Mizoram Brus have managed to enlist themselves as refugees.

He said only those Bru refugees, whose names were in voters’ lists prepared between 1990 and 1995 in Mizoram or those who could trace their parents or forefathers in such lists, would be accepted as the genuine refugees.

The deputy commissioner said volunteers and government officials found 20 doubtful Bru evacuees in the facilitation camps after the first phase of repatriation on Monday.

In the first batch of evacuees, which crossed over to Mizoram from Tripura after 16 years on Monday, there were over 86 Bru families comprising 558 refugees.

Another batch is now waiting its turn to return to Mizoram.

The Centre has also arranged food and ration, for a year, for the returning refugees.

Nearly 34,000 refugees in North Tripura’s refugee camps were driven out of their homes in November 1997 from Mizoram in the aftermath of an ethnic riot between the majority Mizo population and minority Reang people, which was sparked off by the Bru militants.

Between 2009 and 2011, as many as 3,000 Bru refugees were repatriated to Mizoram from six relief camps in North Tripura.

Mizoram To Buy Private Land For Landslide Victims

By Adam Halliday
Aizawl, Oct 2 : The Mizoram government has plans to buy plots of private land and donate them to landslide victims within Aizawl city so they can build houses there.

The decision was taken at a meeting of the State Disaster Management Authority headed by Chief Minister Lal Thanhawla Tuesday.

Officials in the state have often complained that the compensation package given to victims of natural calamities, especially those whose houses are damaged, does not factor in the situation peculiar to hilly areas where entire plots are often lost with no chance of rebuilding houses there.

In May, a landslide in Aizawl's Laipuitlang neighbourhood killed 17 people and swept away 11 buildings (nine were homes), leaving behind a near-vertical cliff where it would be impossible to construct any buildings.

The victims were, under the central scheme, entitled only to compensation for damaged houses but not loss of landholdings and residential plots.

Free Irom Sharmila Chanu, says Amnesty

The detention of Manipur activist i for close to 13 years for her dragging hunger strike betrays India's intolerance to dissent, Amnesty International India said Tuesday.

"Irom Sharmila is a Prisoner of Conscience, who is being held solely for her peaceful expression of her beliefs," said Shashikumar Velath of Amnesty International India. "Authorities must drop all charges against her, and release her immediately and unconditionally."

Irom Sharmila has been on an indefinite fast since November 2000, demanding the lifting of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958, widely known as AFSPA.

She was arrested by Manipur Police shortly after she began her hunger strike and charged with attempting to commit suicide - a criminal offence under Indian law.

In March 2013, a Delhi court also charged Sharmila with attempting to commit suicide in October 2006, when she staged a protest in New Delhi for two days.

Irom Sharmila has never been convicted of attempting to commit suicide. However, as the offence is punishable with imprisonment for up to one year only, she has been regularly released after completing a year in judicial custody, only to be re-arrested shortly after as she continues her fast, Amnesty said.

Irom Sharmila is being detained in the security ward of a hospital in Imphal, the capital of Manipur, where she is force-fed a diet of liquids through her nose.

Anyone wishing to meet her, including her family and friends, have to go through a lengthy process of obtaining permission from the Manipur government.

"India has a long history of activists undertaking hunger strikes for noble causes. Authorities must consider the validity of Irom Sharmila's demands, not demean her protest by charging her with attempting to commit suicide," said Shashikumar Velath.