Wearing the inside out -
Removing the limited ways people read and see.

Speech of the Chief Minister, Manipur	Speech of the Chief Minister, Sikkim
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Speech of the Chief Minister, Assam	Speech of the Rural Works Minister, Arunachal Pradesh
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1. Chief Minister, Government of Manipur

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z6LvduslfmE

2. Deputy Chief Minister, Government of Meghalaya

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FEXPQ8XYB0E

3. Chief Minister, Government of Assam.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WbznNIuTGb8

4. India @60, NY.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nmck_CVgeQ

1. Simply put, the State Government does not have any agenda for developing tourism or attracting investments and for all practical purposes the trips to other parts of the country or to any foreign country end up being a paid holiday, at the expense of the tax payers.
2. Nothing wrong in undertaking a foreign jaunt to woo investors, but as the past has taught us, the bureaucracy and the political leaders of the State have not learned any lesson and such trips have always been reduced to a paid holiday.
3. The question that merits some answer is whether the State Government roped in the services of experts in different fields, whether their inputs were sought to portray Manipur in such a way as to invoke the interest of potential investors or whether the plans were drawn up by the Babudom known as the bureaucracy which have been trained not to think outside the box!
4. As we understand it, the State Commerce and Industries Department has been entrusted with the task of preparing the profile of Manipur which will then be presented during the Bangkok meet. While officials of the State Commerce and Industries Department may be entrusted with the task of working out a map to present Manipur in the right light, we wonder whether the State Government has sought the advice, suggestions and inputs from experts who can think outside the box.
5. Just as preparing the resume' of a job seeker or making the profile of an aspiring model is the first step to be taken; we are also of the opinion that presenting the State in the correct light is the first necessary step. For instance, can the State Government promise any of the investors, that there will not be any red tapism, if they decide to set up shop here?
6. To a certain extent the License Raj has been done away with, but what assurance can the Government give that the Babudom has come out from the mindset of such a Raj? For tourism, the less said the better. As one of our columnists, Amar Yumnam, pointed out in his column some days back, the Government should stop lying to the people whenever the topic of tourism comes up for the fact stands that the administration restricts the entry of foreigners to the State and tourist homes are occupied by security personnel. To put it bluntly, instead of going on a foreign tour, our Ministers and officials concerned should visit Sikkim and learn a lesson or two from this tiny State.

1. True to popular predictions, leave aside American businessmen, even neighbouring Thailand showed little tangible interest in partnering with the state or any of its enterprises. During a recent seminar in Guwahati on India’s “Look East Policy” organised by the ministry of external affairs, MEA, the Indian Ambassador to Thailand, Vijaya Latha Reddy, read out a list of 21 memorandum of understanding, MoUs, signed between various enterprises in Thailand with their counterparts in the different states of the northeast, and *there was not a single one* where Manipur figured.
2. Indicating their forward looking images, Sikkim, Assam and Meghalaya hogged the biggest shares.
3. For back home, in the press conference that Ibobi gave after his homecoming, he had nothing very much to announce in the regard.
4. The thinly disguised tone of mock in the reportage in some national dailies of the chief minister’s new found energy after his foreign jaunt may have been meant to amuse readers, but to somebody from the state whose skin is not too thick, the snide digs at the expense of the chief minister, hurt more than amused.
5. Nothing is working in the state, not even the distribution of piped drinking water in the Imphal municipal area and yet the government seems unperturbed.
6. It remains unperturbed that daylight murders and kidnaps are happening routinely under its very nose. It remains unperturbed that militants were using the ministerial colony of Babupara as their hideout.
7. Most of all, it remains unperturbed that the people have entirely lost faith in the capability of the government to achieve anything towards bettering the quality of life in the state.
8. Nobody has shown interest in putting their money in Manipur. Maybe there is a qualification to be made here. Maybe arms dealers and drug cartels would be interested. Jokes aside, it has to be only the armour of a thick skin that makes the government still capable of pretending everything is as it normally should have been. Meanwhile, Manipur remains a killing field.

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