Young minds speak
- Hueiyen Lanpao Editorial :: December 21, 2013 -
From their newly acquired Korean look and hairstyle and that 'I-don't-give-a-damn-to-what-is-happening-around' attitude while remaining busy either on their headphones or mobile phones which are stuck to their ears throughout the day and night, one could easily brush them off aside as the herd of young generation who are disengaged from the politics of the day and least bothered about the issues confronting the State today.
But that would be not just a hasty conclusion but a completely wrong notion about the youths of Manipur.
Underneath their Korean look and hairstyle, they have a heart and mind which is wide awaken to the myriad problems afflicting the State and they cry for change, even if not many people may hear them.
This is more than evident from the overwhelming response of young students from different schools in different parts of the State to our last weekly essay writing competition on the topic 'If I were the Chief Minister of Manipur'.
As there can be only one winner in a competition, we may have selected just one of the entry from among the hundreds and reproduced the same on our second page in the interest of the reading public, but it was very really interesting to note that in each of the entry, the students have not only understood and analysed the common issues of corruption, unemployment, bandh & blockade, law and order, widening gap between the poor and the rich or social inequalities, etc which have retarded, nay, reversed the progress of the State but also came up with some concrete measures they would take up to tackle these problems if they were the Chief Minister of Manipur.
Almost all the students looked upon the problem of corruption in Manipuri society today as their first and foremost mission to be tackled if they were the Chief Minister of the State.
Corruption, they said, is the root cause of most of evils afflicting the State.
If one of the students questioned, 'Who does not hate the evils of corruption in Manipur?', another observed that the wide spread corruption at every level is the main reason behind trust-deficit of the people in the governance.
For solution to this problem, they have suggested various measures ranging from legislation of stringent anti-corruption law that would ensure quick and exemplary punishment to corrupt officials to introduction of austerity measures like abolishing costly offices and putting a curb on all forms of extravagances by the Government.
Another issue that the students have highlighted in their essays unanimously is the problem of unemployment, for which they suggested encouragement of small scale industries, proper utilisation of the available natural resources and promoting Manipur as the destination for the tourists, which the State could afford all by itself, instead of thinking about big projects and investment from outside that would only enslaved an already impoverished State.
The problem of law and order, the culture of calling bandh & blockade at the drop of a hat by every sundry organisations in the name of public cause and interest, the road dis-connectivity which prevent the people from frequent interaction and social inequalities that we see around us, and last but not the least, promotion of communal harmony among all the warring ethnic communities, are some other common issues that the young students have expressed their willingness to take up the cudgel if they were the Chief Minister of Manipur, who they understand perfectly is not a king but just an elected representative of the people.
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