Latest news with #Tangkhul
New Indian Express
01-06-2025
- Business
- New Indian Express
Beads, battles and Big breakthroughs
MANIPUR: A decade ago, Pamchuiwon Kashak, a 30-year-old woman from Ukhrul, a hill district in Manipur, began designing and crafting traditional Tangkhul Naga tribe jewellery — earrings, necklaces and other accessories using beads and glass stones. What started as a hobby soon transformed into a full-fledged business in 2019. Pamchuiwon's vision was clear: to revive the moribund tradition of Tangkhul jewellery, once popular among both men and women, but now largely confined to festivals and special occasions due to the growing influence of Western culture. Five years after beginning her business from home, Pamchuiwon opened her first retail outlet, Tangkhul_beads, in Ukhrul in 2020. The shop, located in the heart of the Tangkhul community, quickly flourished. Today, her customer base spans beyond Manipur, reaching cities such as Delhi and Mumbai, thanks to her social media presence on YouTube and Instagram, as well as her stall at the annual Shirui Lily Festival. The state-sponsored festival, dedicated to the iconic Shirui Lily flower, has played a crucial role in bringing her work to a broader audience. Pamchuiwon's journey to success has been far from easy. Born as the second of eleven siblings, she grew up in a poor family where daily survival was a struggle. When she was 9-years-old, her father died leaving behind her mother and six children to fend for themselves. As per his dying wish, her mother remarried his younger brother who too was a poor farmer. The family's financial difficulties only increased after the birth of five more children.
Scroll.in
24-05-2025
- Politics
- Scroll.in
Manipur: NSCN-IM objects to Meitei flag on peak held as sacred by Naga group
The National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah), the largest armed Naga group, on Saturday objected to armed Meitei group Arambai Tenggol allegedly displaying a Meitei flag atop a peak in Manipur held as sacred by the Tangkhul Naga community. The NSCN-IM raised objections to members of the Arambai Tenggol's Cobra Team-Unit 58 holding a seven-coloured Meitei flag on the Shirui peak in the Ukhrul district. The controversy erupted during the five-day Shirui Lily Festival, a cultural event organised by the state tourism department. The Naga armed group said that the Arambai Tenggol had 'courted controversy at the wrong time and wrong place' through the act. It said that the flag 'has no connection with the Tangkhuls whatsoever'. 'All said and done, Arambai Tenggol should tender 'unqualified apology' within 48 hours for their unwarranted intrusion at Shirui peak,' the NSCN-IM said. The Tangkhul Katamnao Saklong, the apex student body of the community, also described the act as a 'grave provocation', and claimed that displaying the flag on the peak was reckless and inflammatory. 'We will not tolerate any attempt to politicise our sacred spaces or challenge the historical and cultural ownership of our land,' the student body said. 'The Tangkhul Naga people have never and will never accept any imposed symbols, flags or slogans that undermine our identity and rights.' The Arambaii Tenggol, however, claimed that an image of its members holding the flag was being unnecessarily politicised. 'The flag symbolises the unity and peaceful co-existence of indigenous clans of Manipur and is a regular feature at expeditions, sporting events and cultural occasions – whether in India or abroad,' it said. The Meitei group said it holds deep respect for the indigenous Tangkhul community and their sacred hills. 'Our intent was never to offend or incite, but only to stand in solidarity with our traditions, just as others do across our diverse state and nation,' it said. The Shirui Lily Festival had courted controversy on May 20 as well, after security personnel allegedly stopped a group of 20 journalists in Imphal East district and directed them to hide the 'Manipur State Transport' sign on the government bus they were travelling in. The group was travelling to cover the festival in Ukhrul.
Business Insider
23-05-2025
- Business Insider
I spent a week traveling without my phone. I ran into surprising challenges, but it was the digital detox I needed.
I spent a week without my phone in the Tangkhul Naga villages of Manipur. Trusting strangers' handwritten maps over Google taught me to embrace uncertainty. I learned to appreciate all my phone provides without taking it for granted or using it too much. As I stood at a Himalayan crossroads clutching a paper map, I could feel my fingers twitching for a phone I'd vowed not to use. I'd traveled from Mumbai to the Tangkhul Naga villages of Manipur and decided to spend a week of my trip not relying on my phone. At first, the absence of notifications felt liberating — until I realized how much I'd outsourced my survival to technology. The first hour of my digital detox felt like stepping into a silent void. There was no Google Maps to decode winding mountain trails, and no translator to navigate conversations in the village's Tangkhul dialect. My heartbeat spiked when a fog rolled in, erasing landmarks. I'd romanticized the idea of "unplugging" — until reality hit. I was lost, alone, and utterly dependent on strangers and a paper map. Soon, though, the locals became my unexpected compass. An older woman brewing tea over a fire gestured for me to sit with her. As steam curled from the clay cup, she traced a route on my map with charcoal-stained fingers: "Follow the red prayer flags, then the goats." Her directions were vague, yet effective. By sunset, I'd traded algorithmic certainty for human intuition and found my guesthouse. Soon, I found myself slowing down and finding other ways to capture memories That night, I journaled by candlelight. And, with no phone to document my travels in photos, I sketched scenes from the day. My first drawing — a mist-cloaked valley — took 40 minutes. Instead of snapping dozens of photos of the valley from slightly different angles in seconds, I was forced to slow down and remember the details. It was a refreshing challenge to rely so much on memory and force myself to focus on one task instead of tapping around on my phone. The sketches also made me realize just how much I'd reduced travel to a series of Instagram snapshots. Now, each drawing captured my memories more profoundly, from the prayer flags flapping in the wind to the sunshine breaking through the clouds. Ironically, my phone-free "Kodak moments" became more immersive than any filtered photo. As the trip went on, I started to feel grateful and guilty for having a digital detox in the first place About halfway through my trip, a teenage girl approached me and asked if I could take her family's photo and put it on Facebook. Her family posed stiffly outside their home, clutching a prized smartphone — one of the few in the village. Their only internet access was a three-hour walk to town. The request gutted me. Here I was, romanticizing my "noble" detox, while they saw social media and connection as a lifeline to opportunity. For them, an online post has the chance to go viral, which might mean getting a scholarship or other meaningful resources. My privilege hit hard: I could afford to romanticize disconnection. I took the photo and promised to tag them later. Still, the guilt lingered: Who exactly was this detox serving? The more time I spent away from my phone, the more I realized how lucky I was to be able to have it as a resource — a way to navigate and to connect with friends around the world. Still, it's easy for a phone to become too much of a crutch and a distraction. Maybe I didn't need to go fully phone-free if I was able to find balance by setting mindful limitations and remembering to have gratitude for all it can offer me. Some of my lessons stuck with me, but it hasn't been perfect When I returned to Mumbai, I tried to take some of my technology-detox habits with me, from going on long hikes without a phone and spending Sundays offline. So far, it's been messy. I've missed emails, gotten lost in my city, and had arguments with friends who think I'm ignoring them on purpose. However, I've also rediscovered the art of waiting and taking in the world around me — staring out train windows, eavesdropping on market banter, and letting my mind wander without a screen to numb the boredom. I still keep one of the hand-drawn maps a local shepherd gave me during my trip above my desk. It's rice paper inked with jagged peaks, rivers like squiggled threads, and an "X" marking his favorite hidden spring. It's objectively useless for navigating Mumbai's chaos, but it reminds me that sometimes, the most unexpected paths — ones that force us to slow down, observe, and engage with the world around us — can best reshape our perspectives the most.
The Print
14-05-2025
- General
- The Print
Manipur can be India's next sporting hub. Financial security need not depend on politics
Kingdon-Ward had spent years traversing the frontier regions of the Northeast and had also been briefly arrested by the Tibetan government in 1935. His arrest led to British India reasserting its rights on areas demarcated by the McMahon Line that had been signed in 1914 in Shimla (then called Simla). Kingdon-Ward named the flower after his wife, Lilium Macklin. Situated at a height of 2,835 m above sea level in the predominantly Tangkhul Naga district of Ukhrul, the hamlet is 18 km from the district headquarters and 97 km from the state capital of Imphal. When the three-feet-tall, bluish-pink bell-shaped lily was first displayed at the Royal Horticultural Society exhibition at Chelsea, UK, by the world-famous botanist Frank Kingdon-Ward in 1948, it was described as a 'botanical marvel'. The Shirui Lily or Lilium mackliniae, the state flower of Manipur, grows best in its natural habitat – the hills of Shirui Kashung. The hills are also the source of the Maklang river system and its tributaries, important both for irrigating the rice fields and for the plentiful harvest of fish. The oral tradition about Kashong Timrawon In the Tangkhul oral tradition, the lily 'Kashong Timrawon', was named after Timrawon, the daughter of mythical goddess Philava, the protector of the hills. And then the story takes three different turns. In the first, Timrawon was also a goddess who blessed her devotees with prosperity, beauty, kindness, and fulfilment. In the second, she lived on the hill with her lover Shirui, and after her death, he appears every year to mark his presence on the soil where she lies buried. The third story is that as she was divine, but he was mortal, their love could never be consummated, and so the two lovers jumped off the cliff. The flower represents sacrifice and eternal love in the state of Manipur. The beauty of the oral tradition is that new stories are made and passed down over generations – but all tales hold the lily with wondersome awe, reverence, love, affections, and a sense of personal belongingness. When the flower blooms—from mid-May to the first week of June— the community holds an annual Shirui Lily festival. Over the years, the festival has received the support of the state government and now attracts thousands of music, art, and horticulture aficionados from across the country and abroad. As the 2023 and 2024 editions of the festival could not be held on account of the challenging law and order situation in the state, the interest and expectation for this year's conclave is quite high. The district administration of Ukhrul has now confirmed the participation of several bands from across the country. Inner Sanctum from Bengaluru, Arogya from Sikkim/Guwahati, Magdalene from Mizoram, Divine Connection from Nagaland and Gingerfeet from Kolkata. Then there is Alive from Meghalaya and High Volt from the state itself. The Israeli band Orphaned Land has also sent in its confirmation. Home Minister Amit Shah has been invited to the Shirui festival by Manipur Governor A.K. Bhalla and Ukhrul legislator Ram Muivah, a Tangkhul Naga and former IAS officer. Now that the ceasefire with Pakistan has been announced, it is highly likely that he will visit Ukhrul. As things stand today, representatives of all three major communities – the Meiteis, the Nagas, and the Kukis—have confirmed their participation in which a free, frank, and fair exchange of views, including their apprehensions about each other, can be discussed. The issues remain contentious: the Meiteis are concerned about the growing population of Kukis-Zos, especially in the three subdivisions of Senapati district, and both Nagas and Kukis are concerned about the extension of ST status to the Meiteis. They worry that if the extension is provided, it will reduce employment opportunities for the highlanders. When it comes to political representation, the Meiteis—who constitute 54 per cent of Manipur's population—hold 40 out of the 60 seats in the state assembly, giving them complete control over the state's financial resources. The highlanders who make up 43 per cent get only 20 seats. Manipur is not covered either under the Fifth or Sixth schedule, which deals with the administration of tribal dominated areas in the Northeast. Also read: U-16 football captain dreamt of 'hero's welcome' in Manipur after SAFF win. Stuck in relief camp instead Steps toward reconciliation This longstanding demand to include Manipur in the Fifth or Sixth schedule has merit, and can probably be the first step in the reconciliation process. This must be supplemented with a forceful crackdown on unauthorised cultivation of poppy. And replacing it with a financial and technical assistance package to promote remunerative high-value agriculture—replete with new market-friendly cultivars, high-density plantations, and micro irrigation. Additionally, the scope of discussion could include granting temporary refugee status to those displaced by political violence in Myanmar. Regardless of the nature of the regime in the neighbouring country, our engagement with it—for the swift completion of the 1,736 km-long Stilwell Road and to curb cross-border narcotics trade—is imperative for our own security needs. If required, India could offer a financial package for the return of refugees to their villages in Myanmar. We cannot look at the intersection of ethnicity and frontiers through the rigid Westphalian lens of the nation state. Arjuna Awardee, Padma Vibhushan, former (nominated) Rajya Sabha member, Mary Kom, best described the significance of tribal identity over all affiliations. 'One of the greatest motivating forces for me has been my desire to assert the identity of my tribe, Kom. Within my country, and world over,' she had said. Incidentally, Kom is neither Meitei nor Kuki-Zo – yet today she is the most recognised face of Manipur. Beyond political template More Manipuris deserve to become icons in the fields of sports and music. Legend has it that modern polo's origin story is linked to the state. Ashish Kundra wrote in his book, A Resurgent Northeast: Narratives of Change, that there are over 1,000 community-run sports clubs, with football being a big draw in Manipur. The state can become the hub of a new sporting culture with academies for polo, boxing, archery, football, rugby, and wrestling coming up in the different districts. How about schools of music and academies devoted to the classical Manipuri dance form? The government can establish learning and capability centres for taking up top emerging positions in the world of IT, pharma, and biotechnology. Recognition, fame, and financial security—for both individuals and communities—need not be linked only to political representation or government jobs. These are important, yes. But they are not the be-all and end-all of life. There is a world beyond the political template. Sanjeev Chopra is a former IAS officer and Festival Director of Valley of Words. Until recently, he was director, Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration. He tweets @ChopraSanjeev. Views are personal. (Edited by Ratan Priya)
Time of India
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Time of India
Kuki-Zos not to allow Meiteis to access their territory during Shirui Lily fest
Imphal: The Kuki-Zo village volunteers have announced their decision to "resolutely prohibit any individual from the Meitei community" from accessing Kuki territories during the Shirui Lily Festival .The Kuki-Zo Village Volunteers Eastern Zone (KZVV-EZ) information & publicity wing expressed their best wishes for the Shirui Lily Festival, scheduled from May 20 to 24, whilst acknowledging the lasting impact of the events from May 3, 2023, through an official organisation expressed support for Tangkhul brothers and sisters, alongside Naga brethren throughout the state, encouraging their participation in the celebrations. They offered assistance for any difficulties that might arise during travel."However, the Kuki-Zo community continues to carry the profound pain and trauma of the tragic events that unfolded beginning May 3, 2023—marked by grave acts of violence, atrocities, the destruction of homes and properties, and the burning of churches and villages in the Imphal Valley, perpetrated by elements within the Meitei community," the communiqué said. "In light of these unresolved grievances and until justice is duly served and a durable solution through the establishment of a separate administrative arrangement is realized for our people, we must resolutely prohibit any individual from the Meitei community from entering or accessing our villages or territories, including for the purposes of attending the Shirui Lily Festival," it organisation has cautioned the Meitei community against entering Kuki areas. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Google Brain Co-Founder Andrew Ng, Recommends: Read These 5 Books And Turn Your Life Around Blinkist: Andrew Ng's Reading List Undo "Any violation of this directive will be considered intentional, and individuals shall bear full responsibility for any consequences that may follow," it statement expressed confidence that Naga brethren, particularly the Tangkhul community, would comprehend the significance of their position and the necessity of this announcement during this crucial is notable that the state govt, under the DGP's leadership, has committed to providing comprehensive security and transport arrangements for festival attendees. Imphal: The Kuki-Zo village volunteers have announced their decision to "resolutely prohibit any individual from the Meitei community" from accessing Kuki territories during the Shirui Lily Kuki-Zo Village Volunteers Eastern Zone (KZVV-EZ) information & publicity wing expressed their best wishes for the Shirui Lily Festival, scheduled from May 20 to 24, whilst acknowledging the lasting impact of the events from May 3, 2023, through an official organisation expressed support for Tangkhul brothers and sisters, alongside Naga brethren throughout the state, encouraging their participation in the celebrations. They offered assistance for any difficulties that might arise during travel."However, the Kuki-Zo community continues to carry the profound pain and trauma of the tragic events that unfolded beginning May 3, 2023—marked by grave acts of violence, atrocities, the destruction of homes and properties, and the burning of churches and villages in the Imphal Valley, perpetrated by elements within the Meitei community," the communiqué said. "In light of these unresolved grievances and until justice is duly served and a durable solution through the establishment of a separate administrative arrangement is realized for our people, we must resolutely prohibit any individual from the Meitei community from entering or accessing our villages or territories, including for the purposes of attending the Shirui Lily Festival," it organisation has cautioned the Meitei community against entering Kuki areas. "Any violation of this directive will be considered intentional, and individuals shall bear full responsibility for any consequences that may follow," it statement expressed confidence that Naga brethren, particularly the Tangkhul community, would comprehend the significance of their position and the necessity of this announcement during this crucial is notable that the state govt, under the DGP's leadership, has committed to providing comprehensive security and transport arrangements for festival attendees.
