The Northeast Notebook

Seizing the fortFOR Manipuris, the Kangla Fort in Imphal is special. For decades they have asking the authorities to shift the Assam Rifles ...

Seizing the fort
FOR Manipuris, the Kangla Fort in Imphal is special. For decades they have asking the authorities to shift the Assam Rifles headquarters from the Fort and preserve it as a heritage site.

While the government allotted a polt of land to Assam Rifles outside Imphal, the process of shifting is yet to begin. NGOs in the state are threatening to launch an agitation. The government, meanwhile, has made matters worse by setting up an India Reserve Battalion post inside Kangla.

On the jumbo trail
ELEPHANTS in four wildlife sanctuaries in the Northeast will soon feel safer than before. The four elephant reserves that spread across Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Arunachal Pradesh, will soon be monitored with sophisticated global positioning system GPS that will cover, among other aspects, poaching.

Since elephant habitats in the Northeast are contiguous with forests in Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan and Myanmar, these countries too stand to benefit from this plan.

8216;Resolve Chakma issue before polls8217;
WITH elections nearing, the demand for evicting the Chakma and Hajong refugees of Bangladesh origin is being raised once again in Arunachal Pradesh.

Leading the campaign is chief minister Gegong Apang who has sought a 8216;8216;timely8217;8217; decision on the issue from New Delhi before the Lok Sabha elections are held.

Tales from the woods
FILMMAKING is not be a profitable venture in Tripura, that too in the Kokborok language which is spoken only by a few thousand tribals in the state. But that has not deterred Hiralal Debbarma from making his third film Suari The defender of the earth, a film that talks about nature conservation.

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The story revolves around three city bred students who venture into a forest and encounter a gang of timber smugglers who are trying to involve the villagers in tree-felling. The students build up a resistance movement and finally overpower the smugglers.

Manipur8217;s Greek tragedy
A MANIPURI play is heading for Greece this June. Sanaleibak Nachom, the Imphal-based drama group is staging Lidice-gee Gulap Roses of Lidice, a play based on traditional Manipuri folk theatre, in seven cities of Greece.

The play tells the story of a village called Lidice in the Czech Republic, where in June 1942 Hitler ordered that the entire village be executed. The play has been a big hit in the Manipur capital with the group already staging it more than 100 times.