NIPP for Constitutional provision for NE
Source: The Sangai Express

Imphal, December 12 2017: A plenary session of North East Indigenous People's Parliament (NIPP) held on December 11 at State Guest House, Sanjenthong has unanimously reaffirmed the recommendations adopted on the 1st NIPP, 2015 also known as Imphal Declaration and endorsed nine recommendations, including seeking necessary Constitutional and legal measures to detect, delete and deport illegal immigrants from North East region .

NIPP working committee convenor Wangkhem Saratchandra informed this to reporters during a press meet held today at Manipur Press Club here .

NIPP for Constitutional provision for NE

Conveying that the nine recommendations were endorsed by Parliament yesterday, the convenor said that altogether 20 delegates from different indigenous communities of North East States participated at the plenary session held in connection with the 3rd anniversary of NIPP .

The recommendations endorsed by yesterday's NIPP include seeking a special Constitutional provision exclusively for the North East States to check and control the transfer of population into North East Region from other States of India besides amendment of Indian Citizen Act, 1955 and relevant provisions of the Indian Constitution relating to citizenship to protect the rights of the indigenous peoples of North East, he said .

Initiation of any development project and acquisition of land as well as exploration and exploitation of natural resources in the North East Region should be done only after obtaining free, prior and informed consent of the indigenous peoples of the region through a special provision of the Constitution, framed exclusively for the North East in conformity with the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, 2007 .

The indigenous communities of the North East region should offer collective resistance to the continued imposition and introduction of any form of racially discriminatory legislation like the AFSPA, 1958 in the North East Region.

A regional Human Rights Commission should be established to check human rights violation in the region.

These are some other recommendations endorsed at the NIPP held yesterday .

It also endorsed the proposal that the education system of the North East should be re-structured by introducing a separate compulsory stream/subject on social, historical, geographical, economic and cultural contents of the States and the region in both the existing State and Central institutions .

Another recommendation says that the North East region should be elevated to the status of a Special Administrative Region by granting more autonomy .

Stating that another sitting of NIPP will be conducted during the end of January next year, Saratchandra informed that the nine recommendations would be designed in the form of a memorandum at the sitting for submission to the Centre and Governments of all the North East States .

Tripura People's Front president Patal Kanya Jamatia who attended yesterday's plenary session as a delegate underscored the need for the indigenous people of the North East to work collectively while demanding their rights .

She lamented that the indigenous people/tribes of Tripura comprise only 19 per cent of the State's total population and added that all the social, political and educational rights of the indigenous people have been hijacked by the dominant immigrant Hindu-Bangladeshi people.