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India & the Northeast

Heinrich Böll Stiftung | India Office •

India Election 2024: Foreign Policy Now a Key Plank as India Pursues Global Power | Heinrich Böll Stiftung | India Office

The Indian government scored an important diplomatic win when it secured pardon for eight former Indian naval officers working in Qatar, who had been sentenced to death following allegations of espionage. With the country at the time readying for the general elections, which began on 19 April 2024, and foreign policy now high on the agenda, the rescue, effected on February 12, earned India’s Prime Minister, Narendra Modi, heart-felt gratitude from those brought back home. “Without the interventi...
Himal Southasian •

Under Modi, the Northeast is more united with India, but more divided within

In March, India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, said at an election rally in Arunachal Pradesh that previous governments had not cared for states that sent only two representatives to the country’s parliament, as Arunachal and several others in the Indian Northeast do. Modi failed to see the irony of his claim given that he has not visited Manipur, which has only two representatives in parliament, since the outbreak of an armed ethnic conflict that has raged on for nearly a year. The toll from...
People's Archive of Rural India •

Kangpokpi farmers: waiting to be rehabilitated

Two men are making their way up a hill, cutting through dense thickets as they trek towards their farms in Ngahmun Gunphaijang, a small village of 40 Kuki-Zo tribal households in Manipur's Kangpokpi district. The sky is overcast on this September day in 2023, and all around them is a hillscape overrun with wild shrubbery.


Just a few years ago, though, these hills were covered with striking white, mauve, and pink flowers belonging to the poppy plant (...
Nikkei Asia •

India's deadly Manipur conflict highlights impact of internet cuts

NEW DELHI -- A court battle in the violence-wracked northeastern Indian state of Manipur has highlighted authorities' penchant for shutting down the internet, which some experts argue fuels the spread of misinformation rather than curbing it.This past weekend, the high court in Manipur ordered a partial lifting of an internet ban that has lasted more than two months since fighting broke out between two tribal groups, the Kuki-Zo and the Meitei, in the state in early May. Well over 100 people hav...
New Lines Magazine •

Indigenous Politics Leads to Ethnic Clashes in India’s Far Eastern Corner

At the same time that Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, senior ministers and the national media focused their attention and energies on the high-profile elections in the southern Indian state of Karnataka — which the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) eventually lost — intense ethnic clashes took place in the easternmost corner of India. Since early May, in India’s state of Manipur, a deadly conflict between native Hindu Meiteis living in the valley and predominantly Christian tribals in the...
The Juggernaut •

How Bhut Jolokia, the Ghost Pepper, Took Over the West | The Juggernaut

While traveling in Joensuu, a sleepy town in eastern Finland, Mirza Zulfiqur Rahman came upon a curious ad at a local burger joint. The Naga burger on the menu came with the disclaimer, “somebody call the fire department.” Rahman, 39, grew up eating bhut jolokia, also known as the ghost pepper, in Assam, most often pickled with lime and other veggies. When he saw the burger again while traveling in Brisbane, he signed the required waiver to give it a try. “It was not as spicy as it is in northea...
Nikkei Asia •

Insurgents from India add fuel to fire in Myanmar's restive north

AIZAWL/CHURACHANDPUR, India -- Violence is spiraling in northern Myanmar, as ethnic Chin rebels fight not only the country's military regime but also armed insurgent groups from India.The situation in Chin, the poorest state in Myanmar, has escalated alarmingly. Raids and airstrikes by the Tatmadaw, as the Myanmar military is known, have wiped out entire villages. Muddying the picture is the presence of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and the Eastern Command of the Zomi Revolutionary Army (ZR...
The Juggernaut •

Northeastern Actors are Finally Getting Their Shot at Bollywood Stardom | The Juggernaut

Millo Sunka never imagined acting on screen until it happened by chance four years ago in New Delhi’s Humayunpur. Home to thousands of migrants from India’s eight northeastern states, the neighborhood was a natural setting for shooting Axone, the first Bollywood film that exclusively portrayed the experiences of Indians who fit “India’s imagination of a Chinese person.” Being on a movie set, although cramped in a small apartment with a crew of 100 people in the middle of Delhi’s sweltering summe...
Good Food Jobs •

A ‘Stinky’ Ingredient Is the Soul of Northeast India’s Tribal Cooking - Good Food Jobs

In Dimapur, India, 32-year old Inali Aye is living her best life as a food entrepreneur and blogger in Nagaland's Dimapur city, where she natively belongs. Her vast one-storied house stands in a large compound encircled with trees springing new leaves in Chekiye village, just a few miles away from the newly developed Asian highway connecting India's Northeast to South East Asia via Myanmar.
Inside her kitchen, divided into a dining area and a cooking space where the family uses both a modern gas...
Vox •

The long road to India’s unparalleled pandemic catastrophe

It was a Saturday: May 1, 2021. The massive second wave of Covid-19 cases in India, driven by the emerging delta variant, was peaking. At Gupta’s 500-bed private hospital, 80 percent of beds were reserved for Covid patients. Oxygen use was up to four times higher than normal, and the hospital’s reserves were dwindling. The local government had taken over the oxygen supply during the emergency, and Gupta pleaded with officials for more. Nurses tried to reassure panicking patients and their loved...
Nikkei Asia •

Myanmar journalists granted sanctuary in India

MOREH, India -- An Indian court has granted sanctuary to two Burmese journalists, a colleague and some relatives a month after they fled across the border from Myanmar into Manipur state. They had been lying low in Tengnoupal district.On April 20, the Manipur High Court granted the group safe passage to Imphal, the state capital, and protection from Indian authorities until further notice. They left for Imphal the following day.

MOREH, India -- An Indian court has granted sanctuary to two Burme...
VICE •

Ex-Myanmar Soldiers Look to ‘People’s Army’ To Fight the Military

Former Myanmar soldier Vanzomang* rummaged through the backpack that he carried while crossing the border into India on foot in the dead of night. He pulled out notebooks containing instructions from his army training on how to plant landmines, a technique he wants to remember after joining in the resistance against the coup back home.
“I thought I would need them for the federal army,” he said, referring to an informal grouping of forces taking shape in and outside Myanmar in opposition to the...
Vogue Business •

How Covid-19 encouraged India to shop secondhand

Growing up in the 1990s, Linnotha and Lumri Jajo fondly remember shopping for secondhand clothes at women-run stores in their home town of Ukhrul. Clothes were sold out of bundles instead of on hangers or shelves. Each shop would keep several piles of clothes that they rummaged through to find dresses, jeans, jackets, shoes and bags. “Secondhand shopping is all about having a good eye. It’s a slow process of sieving through clothes and checking for damages,” says Linnotha, now 32. “But we were n...
Al Jazeera •

In India’s Assam, ban on madrassas may force girls to drop out

Educators and activists fear a mass dropout of female Muslim students in India’s Assam state as madrassas are converted into general schools.Barpeta, India – It has been nearly a year since 12-year-old Ayesha Siddiqa has been confined to her house in India’s northeastern state of Assam due to COVID-19 restrictions.
Her school in Gomafulbaru in the Barpeta district offered online classes, but the grade 6 student could not attend, as her parents cannot afford a smartphone.Siddiqa lives with her pa...
Sojourners •

Religious Freedom in India Is Deteriorating. Will Biden Help?

Throughout the past four years, President Donald Trump has found a great ally in India’s Narendra Modi. The right-wing prime minister praised Trump to a crowd of 50,000 Indians in Houston at the “Howdy Modi” event in 2019, the largest-ever gathering headlined by a foreign leader in the U.S., according to the Washington Post. And Trump returned the favor in February 2020 by speaking to a crowd of 125,000 at a Modi-rally branded “ Namaste Trump” in Modi’s home state of Gujarat. Though religiou...
Dialogue Earth •

Victims of Assam gas explosion fear mounting health costs 

Sitting 300 metres from the burning gas well, Oitendra Das’s house has been shaking from constant loud vibrations since May. Because of the dhap dhap sound, dust from the roof keeps falling on his head. He’s afraid that it will collapse one of these days.Like other fishers in the area, Das has stopped fishing in the Dibru river since Oil India Limited’s gas well 5 blew out in a maintenance mishap on May 27. But months later, he and his family are still drinking water from the hand pump, which dr...
VICE •

How a Dog Meat Ban in An Indian State Exposed the Country’s Cultural Biases

On July 9, a member of the Legislative Assembly of the Northeast Indian state of Nagaland uploaded Facebook photos of him with his dogs. In his post, Dr. Chumben Murry said, “I am a Naga and I do not eat dog meat but even if I do, so what? It’s my culture. Learn to live to respect other cultures.”Murry was among hundreds of people in Nagaland who flooded their social media accounts with pictures of them with their dogs after the state government banned the sale and trade of dog meat in the state...
CNN •

The only form of gambling allowed in this Indian state is based on dreaming | CNN

A retired employee of the Indian Air Force, Tej Gurung now spends his days at the archery shooting ground in the city of Shillong, in northeast India.



The 80-year-old grandfather goes there to play teer, the only legal form of gambling in Meghalaya state.



But this isn’t like betting on a normal sport. Wagers in teer are based on the world of dreams.



The game works like this: Squatting in a semi-circle with their bows, 20 or s...
Al Jazeera •

India’s Kashmir move alarms rebels in the northeast

Veteran Naga leader Muivah says New Delhi’s abrupt decision to strip Kashmir’s special status was ‘unacceptable’.Camp Hebron, Nagaland – Thuingaleng Muivah, leader of India’s oldest rebel organisation, has told Al Jazeera that he felt the Indian government’s abrupt decision to strip Kashmir’s special status was “unacceptable”.
The 85-year-old leads the National Socialist Council of Nagalim – Isak Muivah (NSCN-IM) – northeast India’s largest rebel outfit with an estimated 5,000 to 15,000 members...
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