Bishnupriya Manipuri Online

RK Rishikesh Sinha Front cover of Firaal magazine À magazine could be brought out without an office, without a dedicated team of writers and copyeditors, and even without a body; hitherto without any whereabouts of fund. A team of faceless persons connected by World Wide Web participate, contribute and collaborate and they come out with a magazine. All the planning and strategy has taken place over Internet and the release of the magazine is simultaneously held in Guwahati and Silchar. Firaal , the publication of Facebook group Bishnupriya Manipuri Discussion Forum (BMDF), is a classic example of crowdsourcing. Firaal has the composition of 21st century elements: Speed and Mass. Speed at which the magazine has been processed and made public, and the mass of people involved makes Firaal a truly 21st century magazine. Any reader would find in it the continuity of the past, but at the same time would find a tinge of experiments done for the future. The contents of the magazine w...

GUWAHATI, April 19 – Bishnupriya Manipuri Discussion Forum (BMDF) celebrated a historic event by releasing the inaugural issue of its bilingual publication titled Firaal . This publication is a collective team effort of the cyber-savvy generation of the community where they have tried to express their revolutionised thought process and deep concern for their community and culture by creating a global village on the web world, thus reducing mental barriers. The function was brainstorming with active participation of the members of BMDF, intellectuals and litterateurs of the community. Releasing the magazine, Dr Smriti Kumar Sinha of Tezpur University appreciated the initiative taken by the BMDF group. He highlighted the advantages of internet and the communication media. Litterateurs and social workers Dils Lakshmindra Sinha, Col (retd) Bijoy Sinha, former Prof Kamini Mohan Sinha, Sushil Sinha, Sunil Kumar Sinha, Ramlal Sinha, Ranjit Sinha, Narendra Nath Sinha and Prof Dr Nalini...

Post Bureau GUWAHATI, April 17 The Bishnupriya Manipuri Discussion Forum (BMDF) programme on the occasion of the release of the inaugural issue of its magazine, ‘Firaal’, turned out to be a brainstorming session with active participation by the members of the cyber-savvy yuppie generation in the community. The Generation Y tried their best to gauge the pulse of senior members of the community, some of whom are decision makers when it comes to wellbeing of their fellow members. Releasing the magazine, Tezpur University professor Dr Smriti Kumar Sinha reflected on the internet and the benefits of its application in all spheres of personal and community life. On the current divisive wave that is delivering a near deathblow to the wellbeing of the community, Dr Sinha said: “It’s emotional illiteracy that always drives a wedge among the community members at a time when they badly need to work and fight unitedly. Emotional literacy is an area that we need to cultivate so as to be able to ...

P Das, Agartala (Apr 7): Agartalites were left spellbound by a scintillating performance of a young artist of the Bangladesh Manipuri theatre group that staged Tagore’s poetry play ‘Debotar Grash’ at the Nazrulkala Sethra. The show was a part of the joint celebration by India & Bangladesh to showcase the works of Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore on his 150th birth anniversary. The story, based on a simple theme, incorporated a message that humanity is a sublime virtue. The tale depicts the epic voyage of a group of people in which a widowed mother and her son were returning home after attending a ritualistic festival but faced a tempest. Among the travellers was a priest who was caught in a dilemma. He tried to divine if the cause of the tempest was a result of his failure to keep his word to God. The priest, in order to appease the gods, threw the child into the waters but realising his mistake jumped in the churning waters to save the child, but his efforts went in vain....

KOLKATA: The second lap of Maitree Bandhan, the joint initiative between The Times of India and Bangladesh's leading newspaper Prothom Alo, kick-started with a bang on Saturday and the timing - a Nobobarsho evening - couldn't have been better to bring blood brothers India and Bangladesh together. So if the first part of the initiative was celebrated with music of the two countries, the second phase promises to be a literary festival where there will be the best of theatre, literary discussions, readings and performances. The festival started with two plays - Kahe Birangana, an adaptation of Michael Madhusudan Dutta's Birangana Kabya based on the leading women of Mahabharata, and Samudrer Mouna, a play by Koushik Sen's theatre group Swapna Sandhani. Kahe Birangana - a Bishnupriya Manipuri play - has been created by Shubhashish Sinha from Bangladesh. Since it is difficult to translate Michael's Bengali idioms into Manipuri, the original Bengali verses were used ...

From our Special Correspondent SILCHAR, April 12: Bishnupriya Manipuri Students’ Union, Bishnupriya Manipuri Ganasangram Parishad and Bishnupriya Manipuri Krishak Sangstha have demanded high level inquiry into the affairs of Bhubaneswar Nagar ME school in Katigorah area of Cachar district. These organizations have brought to the fore various irregularities and anomalies of the school in question in respect of the administration as well as the management. The demand for inquiry was raised in a memorandum submitted by these bodies to the Chief Minister of Assam, Tarun Gogoi, on Wednesday here. Gopi Das Sinha, member, Assam State Linguistic Minorities Development Board and Chief Adviser of Bishnupriya Manipuri Students’ Union, has alleged corruption in connection with the provincialization of venture schools in Cachar district in which the district elementary education officer, Kabil Uddin Ahmed, block elementary education officer of Katigorah block, Dilip Kumar Deb and other cleric...

Winners of PC Borooah Age Group Chess Championship. GUWAHATI, April 8: Amlan Mahanta of Kendriya Vidyalaya, IOC, Ritwick Sinha of Don Bosco Guwahati and Rishita Sinha of St Mary’s High School clinched titles in the U-17, U-11 and U-7 categories respectively of PC Borooah Age Group Chess Championship concluded here today. The championship was organised by PC Borooah Chess Academy at its own premises where 52 students from the city based schools took part. The meet was organised in six-round Swiss League. In under-17 category Amlan Mahanta of Kendriya Vidyalaya, IOC won the title with 5.5 points from 6 rounds while Simran Ahmed of St. Johns School scored 4.5 points from same number of round to claim second position. Anubhav Deva Sarma of Maharishi Vidya Mandir and Rishav Deuri of Don Bosco School, Guwahati scored 4 points each and placed 3rd and 4th respectively on the basis of their tie-break score. In Under-11 category Ritwick Sinha of Don Bosco School scored 5.5 points from six ...

Shuvashis Sinha Shuvashis Sinha had formed a theatre group in Bangladesh when he was 18. Now, at 33, he is coming down to Kolkata for the first time to stage " Kohe Birangana" - an adaptation of Michael Madhusudan Dutt's "Birangana" - as part of the Maitree Bandhan Literary Festival presented by The Times of India. Excerpts from an interview with the director: How did your journey of forming Manipuri Theatre being? I am a Manipuri based in Bangladesh and there are close to 70,000 Manipuris in this country. Soon after clearing my Class XII exams, I decided to form a theatre group. At present, my group has 50 members between the age group of 15 and 40. In our 15 years of theatrical journey, we have staged 27 plays, including "Sree Krishna Kirtan", "Bhanubil" and "Debotar Gras". Isn't language any barrier when you are performing to an audience that doesn't understand Manipuri? We perform in a language called Bishnupriya ...

Delhi Diary By RK Rishikesh Sinha In the din and bustle of Mukherjee Nagar in New Delhi, the throng of Civil service aspirants rejuvenates every passerby. The innumerable bookstalls, Photostat centres and the boys distributing leaflets for various coaching centres makes one get easily into the groove of competitive examination fever. 25 gaj homes with one room and one kitchen, crowded lanes and markets, all witness the conquering vigour of young minds in the form of unending discussion. If you eavesdrop, you will hear tricks and fundas to crack almost all examinations whether it is Civil service or SSC. You will read handwritten messages like “Need a roommate/ flatmate. Only Civil service aspirant, Call…”. Their endless conversations stretch to diverse fields from politics to economy, from history to literature…you take a walk and you will surely hear various topics of discussion that are brewing around you. You feel these examinations are not hard to crack. You have to just follo...

Post Bureau, Silchar/Guwahati (Mar 31): Renowned Shastriya Sangeet (Uchchangik) exponent from the Barak Valley and gold medalist (1983-84) from the Bangiya Sangeet Parishad, Calcutta Guru Motilal Sinha breathed his last at 10 pm on Friday at his Bhakatpur residence on the outskirts of Silchar town. Born in the family of Ojha Deveswar Singha and late Kusumleima Devi on Poush 11, 1330 Bangabda, Motilal Sinha had his graduation in vocal music (Bisharad in Shashtriya Sangeet) from Bhadkhande, Lucknow and master’s degree (Nipun with gold medal) from the Bangiya Sangeet Parishad, Calcutta. In 1960, he started teaching classical music (vocal) at Silchar. He had a long stint in the Silchar Sangeet Vidyalaya as its honorary principal since 1960. He also worked in Government Higher Secondary and Multipurpose Girls’ School, Silchar, and retired in 1985. He had received the Assam State Award as an ideal music teacher. He had a stint in conducting a programme on the teaching of Rabindra Sangeet ...

By RK Rishikesh Sinha The UNESCO paper Language Vitality and Endangerment identifies many factors to characterize a language’s overall situation. The one factor among it that is the Response to New Domains and Media is very interesting at the present moment for the Bishnupriya Manipuris to vitalize the language. Since Internet as a new domain for engagement has recently come up frenziedly; and other probable new domains like school, media, and new work environments that the paper mentions has not being created yet. The only new domain that has been participated vigorously is Internet. According to recent Google’s search report, a tsunami of Bishnupriya Manipuris have reached the Internet shores and they have googled “Bishnupriya Manipuri” in the search engine. The “Bishnupriya Manipuri” search term starts appearing from February 2010 onwards and reached its peak in December 2011. Before 2010, the volume of search (people searching the term “Bishnupriya Manipuri”) was not enough ...