In a recent Order of the High Court of Meghalaya dated 2.11.2015 has made a suo motu suggestion to the Central Government for the imposition of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958, in the Garo Hills area of Meghalaya. It is shocking and deeply disturbing that a draconian law like the AFSPA is being sought to be imposed through a judicial order.
Category: Commentary
In these days of endless hatred and violence based on religion, it is a frequent refrain that the secular character of our society is under threat. However ‘secularism’ has become a word that has been so abused that it is now seen with cynicism, if not utter disgust.
With all the world at stake, it’s not good enough for us to paste the word sustainable in front of the deceptive word development when what we really mean is “continue this exploitative and destructive way of life a little bit longer.” That destroys the words sustainable and development and, of course, contributes to the ongoing destruction of the world.
As filmmakers from India who have gathered to share our work at the Film South Asia in Kathmandu this week, we would like to place on record our solidarity with the people of Nepal who are presently reeling from a grave humanitarian crisis, arising from what is tantamount to an economic blockade.
‘In Defence of our Present – On giving up the National Awards’ is a booklet released by Solidarity with FTII, a group of filmmakers who came together to protest against the blatant disregard by this government for plurality, tolerance and secularism in the country as well as their attempts to destroy the excellence of institutions like Film and Television Institute of India. The booklet brings together statements by filmmakers on returning their National Awards as well as essays on the struggle of FTII students. You can download the booklet
On 16th November 2015, I went to take part in the protest march called by the Garo Students’ Union (GSU), Thma U Rangli-Juki (TUR), CSWO along with a few other activists from Meghalaya. I went not because I was instructed to by ‘party high-command’, not because I was threatened or coerced by anyone…
On October 25 2015, the Editors of five Nagaland-based media houses were issued a notification by a Colonel of the General Staff for Assam Rifles. Given the gravity of the matters raised in the notification we, the Editors of various English and Indigenous language newspapers of Nagaland have taken the communication as an opportunity to reflect, consult and critically examine what our role is in these circumstances.
As India celebrates the National Press Day and the very freedom of press that has liberated us, we the Journalists, Newspapers and media houses in Nagaland faces a difficult challenge of delivering transparent and free communication and expression to our own people.
Although the buzz around TED has died down but its bastard lowbrow child called TEDx stalks the provincial countries and towns like a persistent salesman.
Shillong with its vanity number plates of ‘educational capital’, ‘rock capital’, ‘cliche capital’ has had many of these TEDx full of 18minutes of wannabe celebrities, failed politicians, music evangelists, development messiah, crumbling royalty with useless insights and bad powerpoint slides. It is high time to cap this crap.
We need a hundred Lalus. Without the willingness of leaders to change the structure of society, forcibly if necessary, there can be no development. Without Laloo, there would be no Nitish either.
“Where is all that foreign food?” asked the middle aged gentleman. “Wasn’t there supposed to besome cuisines from across the world? I had Thai food when I visited my son in Bangalore and that Austrian stall has run out of sausages. I guess I will go make a run for the Bhoi stall.”
Brutal attack by Meghalaya Police on the students of Kiang Nangbah College, Jowai, a government college, for demanding better educational facilities. Video via Wyrta and a statement by TUR
For the urban middle-class of Shillong, Indigenous Terre Madre (ITM) was a chance to enjoy themselves, flirt with foreigners, a day to relax and unwind, all-in-all an event to savour (literally). For the rural poor, it meant some money coming their way, some photos taken of them and for the rural elites it meant that they could show up their ”traditional” knowledge and open up ‘their’ villages to outsiders.
Raiot is excited at publishing first of the extracts from Eat Dust : Mining and Greed in Goa by Hartman de Souza. For a zine published from Meghalaya, the other frontier of Mining in India, it is fitting that we learn from Goa – that raving beach infested greed fest.
It is fair to say that in any writing of the history of western music in India, Shillong would deserve a chapter. It is just that the writing of this chapter has become way too problematic – too many loose ends, too many grand unifying theories. The culture of western popular music in Shillong has no shortage of hagiographers. In fact most of the writing on this field has been gushy, uncritical and downright fallacious (there have been so many that it would be worthwhile to bring out a compendium of these).
National Film Award, Best Screenplay / In which Annie Gives it Those Ones, 1988 Although I do not believe that awards are a measure of…
We, the citizens of the Indian Union, cannot afford to forget the year 1965. The world we live in was shaped in no small way…
Newspaper: Say, Knock…Knock…Knock….Knock
Me: Knock…Knock…
Newspaper: Ask who has now turned non-vegetarian
Me: Who?
Newspaper: Cow. Today, she tried to eat two more men in Mainpuri (Uttar Pradesh).
Kylli na ki heh ka NESFAS kiba ieid eh ia ki nongrep ba haduh katno tylli ki jait jhur ki tip khnang ba ma ki ruh ki dei ban poi sha khlaw ban leit kheit hi ia ki? U Bah Phrang Roy ne kiwei pat kiba kam ba ki ieid ia ki nongrep ne ia ki bam tynrai (indigenous food) jong ki Trai Ri kim lah ban shu kren khlem da pynlong ialade ka bynta jong ka system kaba ki kam ba ki ieid palat.
Ha ka 35 snem ka sngi iap u khlur ka RI, Ka RAIOT ka kynmaw sngewieid ia U Bah Shlur Nongbri, uwei na ki khlur kynjat bol (Football star) uba don nam jong ka Wahingdoh Sports Club bad ka Shillong, u la khlad noh na ka pyrthei ha ka 3 tarik November 1980. U long U Captain ba wanrah jingjop ym tang ha ka kynjat ball hynrei U la dei uwei na kiba la wanrah ka jingpawnam ka jaitbynriew hi baroh kawei.
While state seems in no mood to repeal bloody AFSPA and continue oppression on people by killing dissident voices with impunity, people are bound to revolt. A continuous humiliation and torture of people living under AFSPA is just unbearable. This colonial rule and bloody thrust of power and resources must end.
Last week on 26th October, we encountered an innocent looking ad in a local newspaper Meghalaya Basin Development Authority, for those who are not into these things,…
Only aspect of this work that depicts matriliny and what it does to girls lies in the context behind the pictures. Without that background, this is, sad to say, a blatant exhibitionism of the girls of the village, culminating in a series that doesn’t quite capture the empowered status of these girls but antithetically subjugates them to the desired outcome of the viewer who in this case is Karolin Klüppel.
Has “freedom” turned into one of those buzzwords honoured more in the invocation than in its exercise?
The BJP’s victory in the Lok Sabha elections of 2014 has ushered in an unprecedented attack on India’s democracy and injected new elements of intolerance and authoritarianism in the lives of people living in the country.
Capitalism doesn’t assist us in destroying itself. Should we actually become effective in building an anti-capitalist mass movement, they won’t issue us a paycheck. Instead, they will do everything possible to discredit, neutralize, imprison and kill us.
One has to wonder what kept these literary “stars” from this praiseworthy gesture of returning their state-given awards when the Gujarat pogrom was going on in 2002, or against the pogroms that followed the demolition of Babri masjid in 1992/3, or against the genocide of Sikhs around 1984, or heck, against the ongoing genocide in Kashmir or that of Dalits
“Natural” Conservativeness in Shillong and Khasi-Jaintia Hills could be due to the fact that most of their encounters with Modernity are given directly by the Church or ”reviewed” by it.
I would repeatedly press the rewind button on my small grey Akai tape to listen to these songs. With the audio cassette, patience matters and one would be duly rewarded and satisfied in the end.
Wanphrang Diengdoh’s photo essay on protests against New Shillong Township by villagers who are being displaced by the project.
Same day, the Draft Bill on the Meghalaya Grassroot Institutions Governance Act, 2015, will be officially discussed in DD Lapang committee, Raiot places the document before the citizens of Meghalaya
Is Babri and Dadri really an anomaly in the “idea of India”? The Dadri lynching has given the recently dethroned faction of the “idea of India” establishment an opportunity to denounce the “idea of India” faction that is in power now. What is the politics of this 2-way mockfight and what other possibilities of politics does it want to suppress?
With the government trying to re-start its attempts to mine Uranium in Meghalaya – a basic faq about the impact of Uranium mining
Our contemporary political foes are utilitarian fixers. They constitute a crafty, marauding band. Mushrooming like festering weed, they are particularly severe on all forms of political art.
To say that the article published by The Northeast Today about the relationship between ‘African nationals’ and ‘North-Eastern women’ is drivel would be to do injustice to drivel.
Ka lamkhmat halor ka jingthoh shaphang kaei ka Panchayati Raj da ka Raiot: Wat la ka Dorbar Thaw Ain (Parliament) ka Ri India, lyngba ka…
While driving back home in evening, the remark “How much free time does Modi, our honourable prime minister and his cabinet have to impose such bans?” kept buzzing in my head
A far greater threat to the jaidbynriew is within and not from outside. The external fear is an alibi so that the internal problems are not exposed. There is self denial and pretentiousness of the real problems. All problems are blamed on the mynder ri (outsider)
What US Diplomatic Cables leaked by Wikileaks reveal about Uranium mining and other issues in Meghalaya
What drives The Northeast Today to be a Racist magazine? Are they stupid? Gertrude Lamare goes behind the dangers of clickbait racism
Jean Drèze examines the curious absence of Anarchism from Indian revolutionary discourse and possibilities of a space for anarchist ideas in the matrix of Indian resistance cultures
Conversion to Christianity among the Nagas
The decennial census data for the Naga Hills (later, Nagaland) between 1881 and 1981 shows that the most dramatic religious change occurred after 1947, when foreign missionaries had left the field.
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