Society / Manipur

Imphal, June 28: The proscribed Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL) has waged a war against the drug menace in Bishenpur, one of the four valley districts of Manipur. The banned outfit, in a statement today, said it would “liberate” Bishenpur, one of the worst drug-hit districts of the state, from “the deadly scourge of drug addiction by December this year”. The outfit asked traffickers, peddlers as well as addicts to shun drugs by December.

The outfit also confirmed that it had killed a peddler, one Ningthoujam Raja alias Inaothi, a resident of the district, on the eve of the International Day...

IMPHAL, June 20 – All the important roads and colonies were filled with kangs (chariots) of various shapes and sizes on Saturday afternoon as the Manipuri Hindus celebrated ‘Kang Chingba’, one of the biggest festivals of this border State. Despite the seasonal downpour, Kang Chingba (known as rath yatra in other parts of the country), this time too the festival was celebrated throughout the State with traditional fervour.

The main festival was held at the complex of the Shree Shree Gobindajee temple in Imphal East district with its traditional touch, unlike the one celebrated in Puri, Orissa...

Imphal, June 17: Call it the drama of survival. When not staging or rehearsing plays, one of Manipur’s acclaimed theatre groups makes sanitaryware to augment its meagre earnings. Imphal Banyan Repertory Theatre’s sanitaryware production unit is the brainchild of its director M.C. Thoiba, who was an engineer with the public health engineering department before theatre beckoned.

Everyday, after drama rehearsals are over, members of the theatre group shift focus to an entirely different creative process: making low-cost sanitaryware for the rural market.

It is an alternative source of income...

Imphal, June 3: Manipur’s royal boat was opened to the public at the state museum for the first time this afternoon. Art and culture minister Moirangthem Nara Singh inaugurated the boat, Hiyang Hiren, at a simple function, attended by Maharajkumari Binodini Devi, a member of the royal family. The 78-feet-long and four-feet-thick boat had been first inaugurated by Maharaja Churachand with a royal boat race on October 3, 1933. The last royal boat race organised in honour of the then Prime Ministers of India and Burma (now Myanmar) — Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and U Nu — who met here on April 14...

Imphal, June 2: The fledgling Manipur film industry is all set to get a boost with the finalisation of a new film policy, likely to be announced soon by the Secular Progressive Front government . The government will soon announce two separate policies for culture and film, art and culture minister Moirangthem Nara Singh said today while inaugurating a festival of foreign films at Imphal’s Gandhi memorial auditorium.

“The policies, drafted after consultation with eminent culture and film personalities of the state, have got the administrative approval, but are waiting for the final nod from...

IMPHAL, May 3 – After registering a record in the Guinnesss Book of World Records by Moiranthem Okendra by planting the tallest “topiary plant (duranta)” it is now the turn of doctors serving in a private hospital to claim a similar record by performing a record operation in this tiny State. A team of doctors from Shija Hospital and Research Institute, a high-tech private hospital located at the foothill of Langol Hill Range near Imphal, added another feather in the State’s cap in this competitive world by removing the largest neck tumour (1.2 kg) from a 12-day-old infant.

The leader of the...

Imphal, March 5: Having conquered the hearts of music lovers of Manipur, Salam Sophia, who is compared with the Nightingale of India, Lata Mangeshkar, for her sonorous voice, is all set to enrapture the south Indian film and music lovers.

Sophia, 26, will be lending her voice in a forthcoming Tamil film in a duet with the famous south Indian singer-cum-composer Hariharan. She has recorded the song, Arjuna... Arjuna... in the action film Hay at studio SASI, Chennai, owned by music sensation A.R. Rehman on February 25.

The lyrics have been penned by Kalai Kumar and the music is by Shrikant Dev...

Imphal, Feb. 27: A Manipuri play will shine in Athens ahead of the Olympics this year. Sanaleibak Nachom, a drama group, which stages sumang leela, a popular form of local theatre, will leave for Greece in June with Lidice-gee Gulap (Roses of Lidice) in hands.

The play, to be staged in seven cities of Greece during June and July, has been invited especially to the Peace Olympics. The World Peace Council, headquartered at Athonos in Athens, and the Greek Peace Movement are organising the event. The 17-day Athens Olympics kicks off on August 13.

World Peace Council secretary Irkish had shown...

Imphal, Feb. 23: If there is a place where the term Saturday night fever ever applies, it is Rupmahal Theatre in the heart of Imphal. With the ban on Hindi films by militants fully in force, the theatre has introduced a regular Saturday performance which is drawing packed houses every weekend.

The Rupmahal group, which also runs the theatre, came into existence from the debris of World War II bombing in the state capital. It has the distinction of being the only theatre group in the state that has been staging plays regularly since its inception.

Rupmahal?s first production Ningamdama was...

Imphal, Feb. 18: A students? organisation today imposed a ban on the sale of textbooks in Manipur citing ?mistakes and wrong facts about history? in the editions brought out by the Board of Secondary Education, Manipur.

The Democratic Students Alliance, Manipur, (Desam) war-ned stall-owners across the state against selling textbooks for Classes I to V. The board has taken the responsibility of publishing the textbooks for all the government and private schools, including missionary schools, from this year?s academic session.

The students had served an ultimatum to the Ibobi Singh government...