Land of Jewels (Sana Leibak)

Sanamahi followers want constitutional recognition: Imphal, Dec. 26: The followers of the Sanamahi faith, the traditional religion of the Meiteis in Manipur, are set to launch a campaign demanding Scheduled Tribe status. Nearly 200 leaders of the faith assembled in Imphal East last week and resolved to launch a campaign for constitutional protection. “We will soon approach the Centre and seek ST status,” president of the Laiyingthou Sanamahi Thougal Kanglup, an organisation of the Meitei community, Oinam Menjor Khuman said. A majority of the Meiteis converted to Hinduism nearly 300 years ago following Bengali missionary Santidas Gosai’s influence on King Pamheiba. After the king declared Hinduism as the state religion, the Meities who practised the traditional Sanamahi faith were forced to convert to Hinduism. Descendants of a few families who continued to practise the faith secretly have now launched the movement for reviving the traditional Meitei religion. The number of followers ...

Development initiatives make 2007 eventful: Agartala: Tripura witnessed a remarkable achievement in containing a two-decade-old militancy and several resource mobilisation initiatives in 2007, while political activism and corruption in the state administration made the year gone by eventful. Tripura signed as many as six bilateral trade treaties with Japan, Germany, China and Thailand-based enterprises for utilising forest and agricultural resources for sustainable economic development of the state. As part of the mission, Tripura hosted two international seminars on development of infrastructure and agricultural productivity with world renowned experts. After one and a half decades of attaining statehood, Tripura published a comprehensive Human Development Report (HDR) at the end of the year, which revealed among north-eastern states, Tripura ranked second after Mizoram in the literacy rate; at the same time, there was a substantial improvement in school attendance rates. In terms of ...