Media prioritizes some of the news originating from key places and kills the other. No matter how important is the news or its nature, the story is rebuked to sit silently in a corner only because the news is from an ‘aliened world’.
Interestingly the story illustrated below is of greater importance than Katrina’s New Year resolution, son of BJP MLA firing gun at a bar in Delhi, Vladimir Putin showing his excellence in martial art.
Since July 23, 09, Manipur is in disorder following an alleged fake encounter death of 27-year-old Chongkham Sanjit and a pregnant woman in the heart of state capital Imphal. The immediate provocation for the string of protests was the publication of a set of photographs that punctured the security forces’ claim that they had killed the youth following a gunfight. The photographs revealed that security forces took the youth, Chongkham Sanjit, inside a pharmacy in Imphal and then his dead body was brought out.
There are some 20 militant groups active in Manipur, bordering Myanmar. Their demands range from secession to greater autonomy.
Since Sep 9, all educational institutions in India’s agitated northeastern state of Manipur have been shut for the past three months. There have been no classes and students are on the brink of losing a vital academic session.
The indefinite closure of all academic institutions was called by the All Manipur Students’ Union (AMSU), demanding the resignation of Chief Minister Okram Ibobi Singh to protest against the alleged extra judicial killing the youth. The Manipur government has failed miserably to break the impasse and the AMSU has adopted an aggressive posture. Students are at risk of losing an academic session as there have been no classes for exactly three months now.
Manipur is becoming a lawless region with both state and non-state actors wreaking havoc - militants pulling down hospitals, killing government officials and Hindi-speakers, extorting money from temples, while fake encounter killings continue to rock the region. Almost 400 locals have died in militant related violence in 2009.
What is media doing at a time when abduction is routine and ransom threats are part of daily life in Manipur? Isn’t all the news of Manipur talked about is of less or no importance? Why has the northeastern part of India been kept aloof from the mainstream media?
However, on 27th Dec news flashed on internet that a non Manipuri is killed by militants. The outfits have warned transport companies in Guwahati to stop issuing tickets to non-Manipuris. To add to the general fiasco, NDTV 24X7 was a rare channel that offered a news time of two minutes to the story.
The turmoil in Manipur is bigger and needs to be handled sensitively and exclusively. An intermediation by media can surely help in exposing the issues, the cynical region, panicky people and rectify the tourism breakdown. When we know that elements prominent on the media agenda become prominent in the public mind, news/reports from northeastern region should be carried in the mainstream media.
By Jayant Bormudoi
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