Northeast India

For more than a century women and women’s organisations and movements have mobilised support for social empowerment, economic justice, democracy, human rights and conflict prevention.

The Heinrich Boll Foundation, in collaboration with Zubaan and India Habitat Centre organized a two day programme titled ‘Cultures of Peace: A festival of the Northeast’ which showcased a multitude of aspects about the Northeast – culture, writing, photography, art, poetry, and music of India’s northeastern states.

Civil society organisations, women activists, youth and violence survivors from the Northeast, scholars, parliamentarians and members of several think tanks and policy makers came together for the Fourth Conclave of Northeast India Women Initiative for Peace during a two day meet at the India International Center in New Delhi on 19th and 20th January 2011

This ‘HBF Report’ is an advocacy document derived from the recently completed project on “Text, Image and Vision: Media Representation of India's Northeast and Democratic Space”. The project was undertaken in cooperation with Dhiren Sadokpam. He is Executive Editor, Eastern Quarterly and Member, Manipur Research Forum. 

Ms Binalakshmi Nepram, Founder of Manipur Women Gun Survivors Network and Secretary General of Control Arms Foundation of India has been conferred the Sean MacBride Peace Prize for the year 2010

A one day conference on Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act of 1958 (AFSPA) was held on 8th September 2010 at India International Centre. All government of India ministries - Home, Defence and External Affairs attended the meeting along with several experts - military as well as academic, civil rights groups and most importantly women survivors

The Garo Hills, the site of famous Balphakram National Park and Nokrek Biosphere Reserve, in Meghalaya is facing threat of deforestation due to illegal mining of resources like coal, limestone and recently uranium mining by NPCIL

To the people of the Northeast their world is central to themselves; to ‘mainland India’ it is a borderland. Locating a region by placing oneself at a point one sees as the ‘centre’ is both arrogant and potentially dangerous. Many younger writers continue to grapple with these issues. Having grown up in the shadow of the gun, their desire to analyse the common people’s reaction to insurgency is as strong as ever

The incessant conflict scenario in the Northeast seems to be far away from the “mainland” of India, not only from the geographical perspective, but also from the notion of how it is perceived. To engage in the region is a great challenge for the Central Government of India (GoI), as well as a necessity. Therefore, this paper aims at reviewing the Central Government involvement in the Northeast. However, due to the scope of the paper it will focus only on particular aspects of those broad and complex issues surrounding the North Eastern Region (NER)