E- Sports Library : a Means for Making Library Services
- Reaching the Unreached Section of the Society -
- Part 2 -

Ningthoujam Dhiren *

Manipur Sports persons at the Queen's Baton Relay for Commonwealth Games 2010 - Manipur Leg :: 27 July 2010

Reason for E-library an urgent need in the hills

There is a great threat at our doorstep that with the commission of Trans - Asian Railway lines in the state by the year 2014, there will be a non stop migration of people from the neighboring state as well as mainland on various pretexts. When we are saying Manipur is not a safe and good place to live on earth, outsiders will snatch away your house and this is not a joke, it is happening at present in the Imphal city and its surrounding vicinity.

But, what will we do when the hills are going to be at the hands of the migrant people. There is no inner line permit system in the state and anybody can purchase land in their names here. On the other hand, the valley people especially the meiteis aren't allowed to purchase land in the hills while the tribal can do in valley.

The hills have been tonsured since time immemorial and there has been no forestation process in this long time from now but deforestation only. The once blue dark mountain ridges full of natural resources are becoming highland deserts and no more rich resources are there to live on and people began to practice inter district migration activities and Imphal is becoming a population bomb which is near about to have a population explosion.

Coming to the point, when such frightful interstate and international migration activities have started, the rich indigenous aboriginal traditional culture, rites and rituals, myths and mythology and other colorful practices will be totally wiped out. The maligned cultures will form the cause of a cultural erosion process and entire Manipuri community will be living on the edge of incessant threat of extinction from its own soil of their birth just like the fate of Tripuris and Cachcharis in the North- East India at the hands of Migrants.

Why library cum sports movement in the Hills?

The hills offers natural physical resistance exercises to its population every now and then & that is in their daily life while going up and down for carrying out daily chores and other activities. They are always fighting against the gravity while going down the hills towards their work places and going up the hills towards home. Most of the times they have to travel far and wide distances to reach their nearest bus stand or work places on foot may be with or without any load and as per situation and circumstances demand. It forms a daily exercise routine and through the ages there developed a genetically strong muscular athletic body which are very much required for becoming world beaters..

Above all, the warm alpine temperate climate offers them enough energy for sustenance even in the extreme conditions so, their harsh real life exists in a very congenially adjustable nature with the surrounding environment. Sports experts always spoke the existence of abundant untapped and unexploited sports talents in the hills but no one in the state dares to do the needful instead spending life in the name of social workers by doing little for the common people and more for themselves.

It is in the knowledge of all the people including the common people that hill people has more explosive power in their muscles in comparison with the valley base athletes and if they are train in a more suitable atmosphere, they will surely become national champions and world beaters as well in some select sports like martial arts, boxing, basket ball, volley ball and football.

To make them what the nation has wanted, infrastructures along with sports equipments and instructors or coaches must go there instead of calling them down the valley. All the more important requirement is the construction of multipurpose sports complexes in all the five hill districts so that it can house different sports houses cum library facilities in a more secure way from where a team of well train professionals form by sports coaches and librarians can work out from such places at regular interval or at the same time. In this way only, valley people can live with the hill people in a peaceful co-existence atmosphere. Without reaching out ones heart towards the other, no heart will reach out to him or her and the meaning of integration means reaching ones heart to the other.

Required Action Plan.

The state authority much draw an action plan in collaboration with state youth affairs and sports department and national sports houses like Sports Authority of India (S.A.I) with Autonomous District Council (A.D.C) as the nodal agencies as well as monitoring cells for the materialization of such action plans in their respective districts. This is the most efficient and reliable way for bringing the knowledge and talents of the hills down the valley for the development of a more closure tie through the introduction of e-library and sports movement as one common entity i.e E-sports library for the hills and far flung remote areas.

The hill people are deprived of the must avail facilities and their respected leaders are also very much concerned with their political activities as the political situation in the state are always in a fluid state. Another obvious reason is the ever increasing criminalization of politics in the state and this is more visible in the hills and the common people are the victims of such unwanted environment and situation.

To avoid such hindrance, the state administration must practice federal administration system where the village chiefs, church leaders, political leaders of Autonomous District Councils, Members of the State Assembly and Members of Parliament must have a clear vision for the development in the hills with E- sports library as the main driving force at the grass root level. The following steps may be taken into consideration for the introduction E-Sports Library movement in the hills

(1) Construction of multipurpose sports complexes in all the district and sub- divisional head-quarters.

(2) People should be made available of all the required library facility through E-Sports library facilities.

(3) State youth affairs and sports department must do the needful in collaboration with the other related funding agencies through the related sports houses like Sports authority of India (SAI).

(4) Urgent and conceivable proposal may be send to the Union DONER Ministry and Union Human Resource Development Ministry for the provision of necessary fund required for the establishment and running of the said Multipurpose Sports Facilities.

(5) Library must be made an essential component of such project proposal and it must also be made to impart E-Sports Library facility to all the people living in different part of the state including educational institutes regardless of public, private run but as a whole.

(6) Tribal Research Institute (TRI), Imphal, Indira Gandhi National Tribal University, (IGNTU) Regional Campus Imphal and Tribal Development (TD) department, Imphal must be made active involvement for making such movement a success in the long run.

(7) Most of the require man-power must be recruited from the concerned hill districts and for the key post, it must be open to the entire qualified person belonging to the state population only. Care must be taken for duplication and entry of the migrant people in such services because only the local men/women have the knowledge of such areas and pulses of the general public.

(8) Such complexes must be made busy with different kinds of human resources development activities to ensure an air tight security surveillance action with active local participation.

(9) Power supply must be available through the easiest means of power generation scheme like mini hydro-power generation projects, solar power system, wind power generation system and personnel power generation scheme like Chinese Dynamo Facilities must be provided at the minimum manageable cost.

(10) Churches must be encourage to include library cum sports movement as a part of their religious organizations and goodwill missionary activities as people use to congregate in the churches in large number on weekends and other special occasions.

Conclussion.

In fine, the present era will be meaningless if we the people of Manipur and India have neglected E-Sports library movement at this critical hour because, play grounds are the displaying areas of human talents and it is another form of physical library where physical performance and excellences of human beings are frequently tested time and again and libraries are the temple of knowledge resources of human endeavor which is supported by different outsourcing channels like E- Library or digital library facilities etc. It is also the time for E-learning system which is going to be introduced in a short period from now and Virtual Class room will be the order of the days.

In his one of the recent official speeches of Prof S.N Puri, Hon'ble Vice Chancellor, Central; Agricultural University, C.A.U, Imphal, mentions, E- learning will be the destination of all the general, technical and other professional educational outsourcing and outreaching activities. Classes will be conducted through web base tele-communication mode and facilities, students from across the nation and globe may get register themselves to get access to such facilities.

At that time, no one will be able to identify who are the teachers and who are the students and everybody will be looking alike. It will be very difficult to the service providers as the number of students will increase manifold day in and day out. Therefore, different kinds of digital or E-library facilities will be becoming hubs of busy activities and we must be prepared ourselves to feed the ever increasing knowledge hungry community around the globe.

The above statement throws a clear light of virtual classroom and its mode of outreach services supposed to be provided. According to the above statement- it is again noteworthy to mention here that Library is the only vital source from where an individual can get whatever information he/she required to fulfill his/her search.

Another thing is that Library is a universal umbrella and all the institutions and establishment existing on earth comes under its roof and it must not be treated for the select few but as a common property for national posterity.

Concluded ...