Nagaland CM bats for NE as 'single entity'
Source: Hueiyen News Service / NNN
Dimapur, October 19 2015:
People of the Northeast staying or studying in the National Capital Region should consider the entire Northeast as a single entity and should be united throughout so that the mainland can consider the region as not only a separate entity within the country but also a force to be reckoned with, said Nagaland Chief Minister TR Zeliang while interacting with a group of students from the region in New Delhi on Monday.
"Why should we segregate ourselves on the lines of States when the mainland considers the individual States as insignificant?" he asked.
"Nagaland, with a population of barely 20 lakh does not size up to a single Block in populous States like UP or Bihar.
Likewise, barring Assam, all the other seven Northeastern States have very limited population.
"Moreover, we have very similar racial, cultural and traditional practices.
Even our culinary tastes are similar," he commented to a delegation of the Northeast Students' Society, Delhi University, led by its President Hashokmi Kamkara who called on him this afternoon at Nagaland House, Aurangzeb Road in New Delhi.
He recalled his younger days and said he also hailed from a village and knew how it feels to be a student in the city.
"You must not consider yourself as a Naga, a Mizo, a Tripuri, or a Manipuri.
You must consider yourself as a Northeasterner and a proud citizen of our great nation India.
We may have our own differences back home, but these are petty matters and we must not let those differences hamper our peaceful co-existence here in the masses of humanity," said TR Zeliang.
The students informed him that presently there are more than twenty-five thousand students from the Northeast alone studying in various colleges under Delhi University (DU) and that every year, several thousand from the region throng to the University to seek admissions while several other thousand come to the Capital region in search of employment.
The student leaders also informed the Chief Minister that a Northeast Cell has been set up in all the colleges under DU to look after the welfare of students from the region.