MUSE

T he NDPP has no relevance in Nagaland politics except that it is in power presently. It was born out of political necessity to reinstall the then Lok Sabha MP from Nagaland Mr. Rio back in to the state politics. If one can remember correctly Mr. Rio left the state in 2014 shortly a year after winning his consecutive third term as CM of Nagaland to make his debut in the national politics. Unlike the 2019 Lok Sabha election in Nagaland which was a very tight contest between the ruling government and the opposition Congress, Mr. Rio back then won with a comfortable margin of over 4 lakh votes. He was sent off with much grandiosity. Much hype was generated and the talk was in the air that Mr. Rio would be given Cabinet berth in the Modi 1.0 government. Rio could boast of his credentials as the lone seasoned politician from NER and also the Convenor of NERPF(Northeast Regional Political Forum). His speech in the Central Hall of Parliament on May 20, 2014 added a bonus point to it.  Acc...

O ver the last couple of weeks we have seen some truly terrifying and disturbing visuals as the second wave of covid raged over India unleashing its fury. With record new cases every day and thousands of deaths primarily due to lack of oxygen. India is literally gasping for breath! From people lined up in long queues outside the hospitals to just get a bed to dead bodies lined up outside the crematoriums waiting for the slot allotted to them for cremation. The situation is hell here in India. The health infrastructure particularly in the capital has completely collapsed. But how did it come to this? It couldn’t have happened just all of a sudden? It has been over a year since covid hit our country and many experts had suggested that the second wave will be hitting our country hard. So then, why were these warnings overlooked?  The problem is with the Mr. All knowing, megalomaniac who has utter contempt for scientific temper. When the first wave hit our country and lockdown was anno...

T axation- Does it not sound synonymous with Nagaland? The place where income tax is not applicable but every other tax under the sky is levied. In an attempt to outdo other parallel governments, the state government instead of working for the welfare of its people decided to impose the covid cess abrasively. Barely one month after the nationwide lockdown was imposed to contain the spread of Covid19. The state government wasted no time to impose covid cess in the state. The covid cess came into effect on 28 April, 2020 burdening the common people by levying Rs.6 on Petrol and Rs.5 on Diesel respectively. This is in addition to the Value Added Tax (VAT) which is already collected by the state as its share. Starting 2014, there has been a continuous drop in crude oil prices. Today it has dropped to a record low of $34/ barrel. The last time crude oil was purchased at such cheap price was in 2004 when Petrol was priced at Rs.35.71/- and Diesel at Rs.22.74/-. For the general understanding ...

I sincerely appreciate the work carried out by the CSOs and Churches to run the quarantine centre on their own although I'm skeptical that the government will fraudulently draw bills for the works done by the former as is the practice. Nevertheless, the community participation needs to be applauded👏. However, one thing which surprises me is that we seem to be in competition to outdo one another which is nothing but sheer vanity. We're being too extravagant. The running of quarantine centres is not akin to the 3-4 days general conference which we hosts in a village. We should keep in mind that there are more stranded people outside than the ones who have arrived. Accommodation may differ from centre to centre. However, with regard to the food, the govt may bring in nutritionists and make a uniform food chart for all the quarantine centres. Of late, we're being witness to the ostentation of food and the services provided by the different quarantine centres in the form of ...

There are countless of them. Their physical features resembles that of a human but their traits are nowhere near to that of a civilised being. They are worst than the leeches. For a leech stop sucking the blood of its prey once it is satiated. But these people will not stop till life is sucked out of its prey. They do not have an opinion of their own. The only job of these jabronis is to defend the actions of their masters. They do so because their survival depends on the crumbs thrown at them by their masters. They are active mostly on Facebook and WhatsApp. They will lambaste anyone who tries to raise voice against the establishment. 'Positive criticism' is what they pretend to advocate but in reality they detest all sorts of criticism. Their polemic writings are a testament to that. They cannot withstand the bitter truth for it is hard to swallow. 'You've sold your vote during the election, you have no right to raise your voice now' so 'SUFFER'. This i...

Today marks the second month of the nationwide lockdown which was necessitated to contain the spread of Covid19. But the pertinent question as to whether the unplanned lockdown served its purpose is in the open for all to see. There has been a spike in the number of active cases shortly after the ICMR announced that the curve has flattened. Just 3 months back the nation was merry-making welcoming the arrival of the POTUS to India. This event took place almost a month after the World Health Organization (WHO) signalled warnings about the impending danger and declared the novel Corona virus as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). Over 100 Crore Rupees was spent only for the arrangements! Today, India is at a shock battling the grim reality and Ahmedabad which hosted the Namaste Trump event with over one lakh crowds at the Motera stadium is the hotbed of Covid19 in Gujarat. Ironically, the recovery rate in Gujarat is also the lowest in India. Thousands of Crore...

T he cover page of the Time’s magazine with the portrait of Modi donned in a black Nehru coat with a saffron scarf was published on May 9, 2019. The article carried a compelling title which read as ‘INDIA’S DIVIDER IN CHIEF’. Shortly after it was published, it evoked widespread criticisms from the ruling party especially on Twitter with bots and fake handles of the ruling party making a scathing attack on the author as well as the magazine. But it managed to strike a chord with the many who have had enough with the supreme leader who absolutely had no remorse for the 2002 Godhra carnage and the incidents thereafter. The BJP, a far right extremist party rose to power in 2014 riding on the waves of Modi and again in 2019 banking on pseudo-nationalism after the Balakot airstrike was conducted discreetly. Mr. Modi, the man solely responsible for the pogrom while he was still the Chief Minister of Gujarat was denied visa by the United States barring him from entering the country in 2005 ...

“…At the stroke of midnight, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of nation a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance…” an excerpt from ‘Tryst with Destiny’, the maiden speech of independent India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru on the eve of India’s first independence day. A day earlier, Pakistan also celebrated its first independence day. The partition of the two dominions (dominion of India and dominion of Pakistan) was necessitated following the Lahore resolution and the two nation theory of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the ‘father of the nation’ of Pakistan. India went ahead to declare itself as the ‘Republic of India’ on 26th January, 1950 while Pakistan declared itself as the ‘Islamic Republic of Pakistan’. A good number of the BJP MPs with Mr. Amit Shah leading the charge have put the onus on the Congress for the partition of India and Pakist...

J ust before the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, there was hoo-ha from the opposition parties in protest against the issuing of party ticket by the BJP to terror accused Pragya Singh Thakur to contest the parliamentary elections. Nevertheless, not only was she granted the ticket but she also defeated the heavyweight Digvijaya Singh of the Congress Party with a margin of 364,822 votes. Currently, she is the MP from Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. This peculiar and controversial character has been in the headlines many a times for reasons obvious to everyone. A prime accused in the 2008 Malegaon bomb blast case which killed six people. She is on trial facing multiple charges under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act. She is now out on bail on health grounds. Pragya Singh Thakur is the same person who said that Hemant Karkare died in the 2008 Mumbai attacks because no she cursed him for treating her badly in jail after her arrest in 2008 blasts. Ironically, she is also the only cancer survivor w...

Winter has already set in and Dimapur plunges into darkness by 5.00 PM. By 8.00 PM there are barely any soul left on the street and the town wears a deserted look. It looks like as if the town is taken out straight from the Hollywood zombie movie. Dimapur is considered as the commercial hub and more so a city and it is pertinent for a city to have streetlights all over the town which is actually working! But except for one or two, none of the streetlights in Dimapur are functional. This gives rise to countless anti-social elements and they are more emboldened under the garb of darkness. The Municipal Council, Urban Development and the District administration should take up this this matter with utmost priority and ensure its citizens a safe place so that they can go out without having an iota of fear even at night.

E ver since the Narendra Modi Government came to power in 2014 the country has been running amok. The first stint ended drastically yet dramatically with the Balakot Airstrike in retaliation to the Pulwama attack which took place on 14th February, 2019. The Balakot airstrike which was considered as a preemptive by the Indian Air Force (IAF) targeting Jaish-e-Mohammed camp saw no casualties on both sides. The big blow to India was the shooting down of our own Chopper in Budgam, Kashmir on 27 February which was shot down by Indian Air Defense Missile killing all six Indian Air Force personnel on board and its information concealed until recently. Whether or not the IAF killed terrorist sbut the infamous ‘Cloud Radar Theory’ of PM Modi wherein he suggested that the clouds could have helped shield Indian Air Force aircraft from Pakistani radars during the Balakot airstrikes awed many to this day. The Pulwama attack left the country in shock and in great distress. And ironically, the leade...

A nd so it’s a wrap-up! The conclusion to one of the most dramatic and ostensibly the most sensational elections in the democratic world. Elections may be over but the fervor has not yet died down. The ostentation of show of strength by the political parties during the elections still rings in the ears of many. The 17th Lok Sabha elections were unprecedented. Because while the opposition chorused on the issues of unemployment, weak economy, agrarian distress, demonetization, GST and a host of other issues. The ruling dispensation for the first time chose to fight on the issues of terrorism, national security, and hyped nationalism! The Congress led by its president Rahul Gandhi rallied on the Rafale Deal accusing PM Modi of giving 30K Crore to Anil Ambani. Rahul’s jibe at PM Modi ‘Chowkidar Chor Hai’ almost became the de-facto slogan of the opposition parties. This further prompted PM Modi to prefix Chowkidar to his name which was follow suit by his Council of Ministers as well as su...

F ive years ago, exactly on this day I wrote an article titled ‘Democracy in Nagaland’ shortly after the Lok Sabha Election was over in Nagaland. And down the years, we have had a state general election and a bye-election to the lone Lok Sabha seat which was necessitated after Mr. Rio vacated the seat for reasons best known to everyone but sadly things haven’t changed yet! This Lok sabha election was no different from the past elections. The overall voter turn-out was 83.12% but there was a steep rise in the percentage only after 13.00 hours which usually is considered as the opportune time for proxy voting. Unlike other elections, this time the NBCC which had erstwhile spearheaded the Clean Election Campaign chose to remain silent and so does its affiliates and the students’ union which had earlier vociferously vouched for the same. The ECI’s directive to use an additional document along with the voter-slip was not complied in almost all the polling stations. The ECI should take co...

T he year 2018 unfolded dramatically with the dissent in the Country’s top court wherein four senior-most judges of the Supreme Court, one of whom was the incumbent Chief Justice of India held an unprecedented press conference against the arbitrary decisions of the then CJI Mr. Dipak Mishra a fortiori after the case of Justice H. B Loya’s death was assigned to a much junior bench. Barely nine months in to the year, what surprises us more is that we see an in fighting in one of the country’s premier investigation agency ‘The CBI’. The very agency which people trust more than any other institution. The ‘CBI vs CBI’ pseudonym as carried by the news agencies is not a recent issue. It is the outcome of a feud between the Number 1 and Number 2 of the CBI. It all started with the appointment of Mr. Rakesh Asthana as the Special Director of the CBI despite objection from the CBI Director which we shall see later. Dubbed as the ‘Blue-eyed Boy’ of the Prime Minister Mr. Narendra Modi by t...

A t a first glance, the title of this article seems pretty complicated to comprehend. But gradually as on reads on, it will untwine to be able to easily grasp the meaning. Presumably, we Nagas are the frontrunners in being lackadaisical in almost every aspect. Neither do we want to strive to bring change in our society nor do we bother to ask for ‘Change’ from the shopkeepers when we purchase something. We have the habit of bargaining a lot but we are reluctant to ask for Change. Any amount which is below Rs. 5 is returned in exchange for ‘Chewing Gum’ or ‘Toffee’ and at times we tend to tell the shopkeepers to ‘Keep the Change’ whilst trying to display the affectionate and generous side of ours which is nothing but absolute vanity! And this trait seems to persist in almost every Nagas. The world today is run not just by politicians but by business tycoons and industrialists. The might of a nation is determined by its economic strength and while every nation is making efforts to ...

W hen the USSR disintegrated in 1991 marking the end of the feud of two antagonistic blocs- the US and the USSR. There emerged two schools of thought. Francis Fukuyama, an American Political Scientist advanced his theory that there is literally no threat to the United States of America post-cold war through his publication ‘The End of History and the Last Man’  which was an expansion of his earlier publication ‘The End of History?’. Starting from the end of the Cold war till the Twin Tower attack; this era is often considered as the ‘Era of Uncertainty’ for the US Foreign Policy. He further opined that the fall of Communism in Central and Eastern Europe and the disintegration of the USSR has contributed to the triumph of Western Liberal Democracy as the sole Political Ideology and the ultimate form of Government. The other school of thought was led by Samuel P. Huntington, another renowned American Political Scientist who in his famous publication ‘The Clash of Civilizations’ arg...

F rom what I heard, our ancestors were men and women of great dignity. They were known for their honesty and simplicity. People honoured them for their simple yet elegant lifestyle. And this is quite evident from the scores of books which are readily available in the bazaars written by the early English people who had visited Nagaland. The General Election to the 1st Nagaland legislative Assembly was no exception. Unlike today’s election where only the rich and the powerful are considered qualified even to contest! There were no such criteria back then. Of course, there were only handfuls, who were educated but the common people were not spiteful of electing the deserving and the capable candidate nor were the candidates boastful of their candidature. Last year, during the latter part of November, I attended the funeral programme of Asu Kiyelho Phucho, Ex. MLA of Nagaland. During the course of the programme, a middle aged man came up to deliver a eulogy. My attention was caught w...

T he largest democratic country in the world was put to test following the Karnataka Governor’s abrupt decision to allow the BJP which emerged as the single largest party in the Karnataka election to form the Government when the Governor clearly knew that the BJP did not have the requisite number to stake claim to form the Government. Karnataka went to polls on 12 May 2018 in 222 constituencies of the total 224 constituency of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly. The counting took place on 15th May 2018 and amidst much fanfare, the BJP easily secured 104 seats to its kitty with a vote shareof 36.2%. The incumbent Congress was reduced to just 78 seats though it secured a higher percentage of vote share with 38 %. The third and the key player was the JD(S) which secured 38 seats in addition to one seat of BSP with which it had pre-poll alliance. Immediately, after the final counting was over. The Congress extended its support to the JD(S) to form the government in its bid to end the...

T he two most common word often heard in Nagaland is ‘CORRUPTION’ and ‘BACKDOOR APPOINTMENT’ although the latter also categorically falls under Corruption. The successive Government of DAN (Democratic Alliance of Nagaland) which was started by Mr. Rio who also now heads the PDA (People’s Democratic Alliance) Government has engaged in all sorts of exploitative means to devour Nagaland. Mr. Rio who after not only emptying the State Exchequer but also leaving it in deficit to the tune of thousand of crores has returned to Nagaland to continue his old tricks of deceit after his endeavor to graze in a green pasture was unsuccessful.  There was huge expectation when the PDA Government was installed amidst great pomp and gaiety. This was mainly because of the new faces in the Government particularly the Youths who were once vociferous to end Corruption in our State and not because of our faith in the PDA leader. This expectation was however, short lived starting with the 1st Cabi...

I t was a cold Friday afternoon. The rain was pouring incessantly and young Sashi was pacing up and down the hallways of the large living room retrospecting the sufferings and hardships that he had faced. In his mid-20s he had undergone a great tribulation which not even an adult could have imagined. And as he reminisced, tears of joy rolled down his cheeks unabatedly. Several years have passed but still he could recollect those incidents. Those memoirs were still afresh in his mind. In fact, it was etched deep in his heart never to be forgotten. Sashi was just 10 years when his dad passed away from Acute Respiratory Failure. His dad was a business tycoon. He remembered his dad engrossed in his work always and stayed away from home all the time due to the engagements with his clients. His mom was a fashion savvy who would spend days altogether on a shopping spree with her friends. She would sleepover at her friend's house for days. She wasn't the home maker that wa...