Our Correspondent
Imphal, Sep. 4 (EMN): Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama has been invited to attend an International Peace Conference scheduled to be in Imphal, Manipur, this year.
This was informed by the speaker of Manipur Assembly, Yunnan Khemchand, while addressing reporters in Imphal on Monday after meeting the spiritual leader during his recent visit to Dharamsala in Himachal Pradesh.
Khemchand had met the Dalai Lama on the sidelines of a conference on “Tribals of India and Social issues”, held recently at Himachal Pradesh University in Shimla. “The tentative date for the (peace) conference will be finalised soon according to the convenience of the spiritual leader and others,” said Khemchand. The primary objective of the conference was to bring peace in the north eastern states.
It may be recalled that the Dalai Lama had conducted a 12-day visit to Assam and Tawang (Arunachal Pradesh) in April this year.
Elaborating about the conference he attended in Himachal Pradesh University on the invitation of its Vice Chancellor Dr. Kuldip Agnihotri, Khemchand said the gathering had discussed the “burning issue of protection of indigenous people.”
But interestingly, according to law of their land, the non-Himachalis cannot buy agricultural land in Himachal Pradesh (as the state is fully dependent on agriculture), he added. “So it would be interesting to study such kind of land laws at this juncture,” he felt.
Manipur has been experiencing widespread public movement for simplementation of the Inner Line Permit system (or a similar mechanism) as implemented in Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram to monitor the influx of non-locals, which has been seen as threat to the indigenous people.
Expressing satisfaction over the good condition of the roads in Himachal, said to be one of the wettest places in the world, Khemchand appealed to the engineers and contractors in the state to make such kind of all-season roads in Manipur as well.
Meanwhile, the Manipur assembly authority is all set to organise the first ever one-day seminar on ‘Media and Parliamentary Reporting’ at the conference hall of the assembly complex in Imphal on September 6. Manipur’s Information and Public Relations minister, Th Biswajit, speaker Khemchand and MLA TN Haokip will attend the seminar while former chief minister Radhabinod Koijam and former opposition firebrand, O Joy will deliver lectures.
