Parliament histrionics implanted in Meghalaya Assembly
The scene in the Meghalaya Assembly on Friday 3rd October is somewhat like a Gangnam style performance minus the rhythm and music.
Running to the well of the house, banging tables and literally shouting slogans to the point of disrupting the proceedings is not a very common sight in Meghalaya.
The histrionics were meant to capture the eyeballs of local television channels.
And to get a sort of certificate from constituents that their MLAs have indeed discharged their duties.
It was a demonstration of legislative machismo to camouflage the loss of political virility. Without the Inner Line Permit (ILP) issues there would have been no agenda this autumn session. So the opposition MPF have a lot to thank the ILP protagonists for.
The Speaker was evidently taken off guard.
His facial expression and body language said it all. Of course this was also an opportunity for some of the wannabe Speakers to embarrass him.
Just as communal tension is an opportunity to settle personal scores so too the present political events facilitated the settling of political scores.
This is a sort of graduation day for MLAs- a graduation from silence to blustering. Many MLAs pass their five years careers without saying a word in the Assembly.
Such noisy opportunities also wake up the silent lambs.
If they don’t say anything they will at least shout! In Indian politics noise is equivalent to action.
RK Mission: Transforming young minds
When over a thousand active young people are gathered in an auditorium the atmosphere is electrifying. This was the ambiance at the Vivekananda Cultural Centre of the RK Mission as over a thousand young people gathered to receive their certificates at the end of a three-month computer course.
RK Mission provides training on different computer programmes from Tally to Corel, Photo-shop and what have you? The one-hour, 6-day week programme starts from the Intermediate section. It then goes on to higher courses depending on the willingness and capacity of the learners to cope. Many complete several courses before ending up with a job at the very Institute as teachers.
Interestingly Swami Yajnadharanandaji who is in charge of the computer programmes and has been here less than a year also sits through the classes as a student. He says that is the only way to understand the dynamics of learning here and to see how students interface with each other and with the teachers and how they cope with the learning processes.
With a captive audience of that kind there is so much that RK Mission can do to mould the thinking of students and make them thinking and reasoning self starters and leaders rather than those who just follow the crowd.
DDK Shillong or Delhi Doordarshan Kendra?
Many citizens who had opportunity to interact with Information & Broadcasting Minister, Manish Tewari complained to him that DDK Shillong sidelines the news from Meghalaya and the region and is obsessed with Delhi news.
It is learnt that the young Indian Information Service officer posted to Shillong who is also the news editor has a fixed mind about what constitutes news.
For him news is about the national capital and the shenanigans of politicians there. Said one observer to Mr Tewari, “If Delhi news is what we want then nothing can beat Times Now or Headlines Today.
At least we get different perspectives of what happens in Delhi and not just a sarkari version.” Many feel that the very idea of setting up a DDK Shillong is to meet the programmatic needs of the people of this State. But the slot for local programmes is so few and far between. Such attitudes deepen the sense of alienation that people of this region feel towards those who try to serve the interests of Delhi rather than what their profession actually defines.