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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...

SHILLONG, June 17 – The Social Welfare Department of Meghalaya failed to utilize 85 per cent to 100 per cent of the Central funds available under the National Programme for Rehabilitation of Persons with Disabilities in the State, the report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India placed in the State Assembly has pointed out. Despite the nominal budget allocation of eight per cent from 1998 to 2003 for implementing the People with Disability (PWD) Act, 1995, the department failed to utilize 55 per cent of the same, the report stated.

The CAG report observed that this showed the Social...

Kohima, June 17: A regional space centre would be set up in Nagaland, officials of the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) have promised chief minister Neiphiu Rio. Top Isro scientists, including executive director Satyanarayan and director of its satellites communications programme, Bhaskaranarayanan, visited Kohima earlier this week.

“We hope to initiate quite a few projects here,” Satyanarayan told Rio. “If the space centre is established, several other projects, such as disaster management systems, can be designed,” said an assistant scientific officer here.

Isro scientists...

SHILLONG, June 16 – In its bid to undo the ‘saffronisation’ of education initiated by the previous NDA regime, the present Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government has started a ‘detoxifying’ process, Union Human Resources Development Minister Arjun Singh said on Tuesday, reports PTI. “The process got underway with the setting up of a three-member panel of eminent educationists of the country three days ago,” Singh told reporters here.

“We are not desaffronising education but detoxifying it. The panel was asked to look into the issue and give reports by 15-20 days,” he said...

SHILLONG, June 16 – Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga, who was a ‘negotiator’ between the Centre and several underground outfits in the North-east for talks during the NDA regime, today said he was ready to offer his services to continue the process, if invited, reports PTI.

“If my service is needed, I will be glad to offer it for the good of the country...But I don’t like to be an uninvited guest,” Zoramthanga told reporters before flying to New Delhi. He said the present Congress-led Government had not discussed the issue with him so far. Asked if he would take up the matter during his...