Youth wish to be politically empowered and act responsibly as dynamic leaders
Our Correspondent
KOHIMA, AUGUST 29
THE Nagaland Baptist Church Council (NBCC) in partnership with Development of Human Potential, Imphal today held Nagaland 2025 – Development consultation, wherein the resource persons Chief Secretary Alemtemshi, YouthNet Director Hekani Jakhalu and Rev. Dr. W. Pongsing Konyak presented the Nagaland Development Vision 2025 as per the perspective of the state government, youth and the church.Jamir while expressing that it is not easy to visualize the vision 2025, said that the Vision should be based on the generation who would leading the state at that period. He pointed that despite the decades of violence in the state, the process of development that taken place all throughout years is immense even as there are rooms for improvement.
He said one of the aspects of vision development is to give serious though tax and taxation by the government, which presently is not implied in the state. “Lack of income tax is a big lacunae in the process of development,” he said.
He also said that besides the age old method of agricultural practice, new technologies should be brought in to make sustainable efforts and be self sufficient and also work towards human resource development and capacity building of the younger generations and inculcating industrial culture.
He conveyed that the state government having brought out the state Vision 2020 document is working towards achieving the goals. He also said that Vision Documents of all the districts in the state would be completed within next few months so that each district would move forward as per their requirement and potentials. He further assured the gathering that Church should work towards coming up with Vision Document 2025 while also asserting all possible help from the government.
On behalf of the youth, Hekani said “Our vision for 2025 is to see Nagaland as peaceful, strong and a self-sustaining state and march on the path of economic, social and cultural progress towards prosperity and well-being”.
She said the youths aspire to be politically empowered to be able to evolve responsive governance which would help us to achieve social and economic empowerment.
“We hope poverty would be driven out and that every family in the region has the opportunity to live a healthy and secure life with dignity and self- respect,” she said.
The YouthNet Director also expressed that the youths aspire to achieve 100% functional literacy and every Naga can read and write and boast of active employable workforce and skilled people.
“We hope to see a gender-equality society where man and women share equal opportunities,” she said while also adding that “Our environment preserved and natural resources sustainably developed helping our state to be economically sound and socially equitable”.
The youths hope to move away from the dependency syndrome and to enjoy freedoms – the freedom to exercise choice in vocations, income-earning and spending decisions, and political, economic and social freedoms.
Speaking on the NDV 2025: Church perspective, Rev. Dr. Konyak said, “Churches in Nagaland should work towards making Nagaland factional conflict free by playing peace and reconciliatory roles”.
He said it should work towards making Clean Election Campaign gains maximum maturity – provide comprehensive political education to all the citizens of the state and begin to produce positive results.
He said that it should have vision to implement liquor prohibition in letter and spirit and introduce prohibition law in schools, colleges and Sunday schools.
Church should create awareness among the rural masses about various government programs and projects available for ulpiftment of the rural poor,” he said.
He said that vision 2025 should also be to equip and prepare rural poor by providing business education to take up business activities relevant to them in order to increase their income and thereby improve quality of life.
Efforts should be made towards directing peoples’ vision and energy to make use of land, he said adding that new methods of cultivation should be explored to replace shifting cultivation by taking the help of the government departments.
“Environment and ecological education should be given completely to rural villages by the churches for environment protection,” he added.
