Without purpose of existence, a state ceases to exist in due course

 Everyone is wondering ‘Why so many complex issues one after another?’, and ‘when everything will be alright in Manipur?’ Reading concepts from sociology and public administration literatures (with specific emphasis on Manipur rather than Indian Union) can help us to enable Manipur state transformed back into a peaceful and prosperous land. ‘Poorly planned transition from traditional kingship model (i.e. rule by a king) to democratic Westminster model (i.e. representative MLAs/MPs supported by civil servants such as IAS, IPS) as way of public governance seems to be the source of all these chaos in current Manipur’. Transition, itself, is neither good nor bad; but rather it was too quick and inadequate change management programs for people during the transition phase were not seriously taken into consideration. Moreover, the then Manipur merging into Indian Union has added another new dimension to the transition complexities.

Institutional Failures:

If we have a quick glance at Manipur map showing assembly constituencies (spreading across entire villages in Manipur), we may feel as if there seems a well-balanced democratic representation from all ethnic groups and regions within Manipur. There ought not to be so many pending issues in Manipur (including demand of autonomies and homelands). So, what exactly went wrong with the transition phase as well as merging of Manipur into Indian Union. The answer seems rather simple than difficult – ‘Institutional failure of democratic and innovational systems within Manipur is the root cause of entire chaos in current Manipur State’.

Mindsets of people in Manipur (born and lived during 1891 to 1971) are yet to come out of the norms and way of thinking during Kingship of Meitei kings in then Manipur country. Lack of rapid expansion of educational and innovation institutions in villages/towns in order to catch up with impact of changes in public governance approach has indeed led to current chaos. Religious preaching by missionaries (with own vested interests) to various ethnic groups within Manipur has also seriously increased complexity of issues in Manipur. People have failed to recognize that ‘Religions are less to do with Spirituality, but rather are just political forums just like a social association’. When one follows a religion, they follow the culture, thinking and norms practiced in those foreign lands instead of local traditional values. Christianity followers will look toward West, Islam followers towards Arab, while Hinduism followers will look towards Hindi Mainland India. If there does exist GOD (supernatural almighty), isn’t it to do with SELF and HIM only? How is that prayer to our forefathers and traditional customs in Manipur not considered as a form of spirituality? Though we may lack in many concepts of GOD/spirituality as compared to other religions, what we indeed practice is about humanity instead of political forum (i.e. religion). Reading books and practices of religions are indeed good for enhancing societal knowledge and another perspective of thinking. Yet, we (as people of Manipur) ought to prevent mixing religion to our communities and state institutions.

Penetration by Christian missionaries in hill regions prior to setup of democratic and innovational institutions has highly intoxicated mindset of tribal groups with religious preaching as compared to modern scientific/logical mindset. Representations of tribal groups are supposed to be done by tribal leaders or village chiefs; instead church leaders (with one-sided myopic perspective of world as per their religious boundaries) are coming out to represent tribal ethnic groups. Among Meitei group, many have just started to come out from being blind followers of Vaishnavism and started to reason self with the inflow of education (scientific way of thinking). Spread of Hindi language and Hinduism in Manipur (and North East India) seems like tactics to bring NE Indian states within the current Indian Nationalism concept [created by Hindi Mainland India]. Growth of Muslim population in Manipur with influx immigrants from Bangladesh and Myanmar brings in non-local way of thinking creating fallout to the very existence of Manipur state as it is. In the past centuries, colonization of nations happened after spread of religious missionaries to foreign nations.

Societal Issues:

Prior to merging with Indian Union in 1949, public governance of then Manipur country starts and ends with the King. Though it may be a Meitei king and majority population was of Meitei group, there were also many other tribal ethnics groups. In the past 2000yrs+ civilization, there were mechanisms under the rule of King to include different ethnic groups into Meitei group by inserting them into one of 7-Meitei clans under a surname or exclude a current ethnic group by out-casting from 7-meitei clans. In fact, current Meitei group under a 7-clans structure is found to be final outcome of assimilation of different ethnic tribal groups spanning across centuries. Similar example that can be cited is the recent effort to form a ‘Naga group’ by clubbing many different small tribal groups. If we wish to know further on cultures and tradition of various tribal groups in the then Manipur country (including current Meitei group), we’ve to explore other ancient civilizations existed in current landmass of Manipur state such as the then ‘Moirang Kingdom’. In Moirang Kingdom era, the earliest Meitei sect is found to comprise only few smaller tribal groups unlike the current Meitei group. Only after downfall of Moirang Kingdom in 17th century, there came to exist only one kingdom of Meiteis with capital at Imphal (in various names such as Kathee/Kathey/Munnipoor). Thus, there was some control on social composition under the King’s reign. It is a fact beyond doubt that all tribes and Meitei group in current Manipur have common ancestors. But since 1950 (merging into Indian Republic), no insertion into or removal of ethnic tribes out of Meitei group is further taken care of (with the loss of kingship governance model). Complexity in Manipur’s society got increased further by inflow of new ethnic/religious groups from Indian Union into Manipur. Also, rule of law (for societal governance) starts following constitution of Indian Union rather than Manipur specific requirements and people are yet to adapt completely to the transition.

Insurgency Issues:

Underground militant groups along with their overground support organizations seem just fighting for own vested interests of power/control over people. Bargaining vested interests by these groups will only lead to the scenario of drowning themselves together and dying along with all civilian ethnic people within current Manipur state. Under current social complexities (in 2013), it seems to hint that time has already slipped for Meitei nationalism (as promoted by Meitei militant groups since 1964) to reclaim the ancient Meitei country by just emphasizing on the merger of Manipur kingdom into Indian Union in 1949 and story of Anglo-Manipur War of 1891. Meitei militant groups need to broaden their thinking by understanding that Manipur’s ancient history and culture isn’t only about current Meitei group, but also for various tribal groups which are not yet inserted into Meitei group. Thus, their vision of Meitei country (under the banner of ‘Manipur’ brand) isn’t likely to be a reality; because every ethnic group (under the Indian Union) has got their desire to lead and not follow other ethnic groups.

Resurgence of Naga militant groups in current Manipur state around 1980 by trying to regroup different smaller tribes into Naga nationalism seem just only a reactionary measure to mistreatment in the past to those Naga militant leaders at Imphal city by few Meiteis (who were born and still living with kingship era mentality i.e. attitude existed prior to merger of Manipur state to Indian Union in 1949). Kuki militant groups trying to create Kuki nationalism seems another reactionary measure to Naga group’s ethnic cleaning in 1990s. Also, appearance of other tribal militant groups seems reactionary measures to Kuki and Naga militant groups for their survival and dominance within current Manipur state. Emergence of Muslim militant groups in Manipur may be also because of religious fundamentalists among Muslim community by copying militancy activities happening in other parts of India and abroad by Muslims.

A Way Out from Socio-Economic-Politico Issues:

Individuals (from all ethnic groups) born after 1970s (i.e. after statehood of Manipur state within Indian Union) are likely to be of different mindset (far away from ideologies prevalent in those Meitei kingship era), exposed to global thinking (by understanding diversities in different countries), inspired with knowledge (of scientific logical thought process toward humanity), and majority living as working professionals (in various part of India and abroad). Those non-resident groups of Manipur people are the best bet to bring socio-economic-political transformation in Manipur, because they are experts in own professional careers and think reasonably on logical ways. Amidst current complex mistrusts among ethnic and religious communities in Manipur, the biggest onus to bring change in Manipur state lies with the state govt; since majority of Manipur’s population still consider govt as the only impartial form of public governance.

Manipur State govt needs to facilitate sharing of knowledge and experiences among Manipuris (i.e. those non-resident people and local people) under a systematic approach to support and maneuver the impact. Govt ought to organize ‘Global Manipuris Summit’ annually similar to ‘Pravashi Bharatiya Divas’ (conducted by central Indian govt) to bring global Manipuris together again for sake of Manipur state. Also, ‘KEN-Manipur’ ought to be created by state govt to systematically support virtual Knowledge Exchange Networks per industry/knowledge sector wherein professionals of Manipur origin (from all ethnic groups across the globe) can share experiences and knowledge thereby making a huge socio-economic-political impact to the future of every village/town in Manipur. Thus, Manipur State govt has to initiate creating a mechanism for people to people interaction supporting activities of Govt’s public services and also facilitate people’s willful contribution on logical/humanity terms (instead of vested religious or ethnic or political contribution by a party).

Thus, we (the people of current Manipur) have to create a common vision for future Manipur State and the purpose of existence of Manipur in the future, if Manipur and Manipuris are to remain existing on Earth

 

About the Author:

Shanjoy Mairembam (BEng, MBA) is a Business Strategy Consultant based at London (UK). He supports mentoring of young entrepreneurs in ‘conceptualization of ideas into business case’, and offers role of a ‘Business Doctor’ to local NGOs/SMEs in Manipur.

For further info, visit http://www.shanmaiconsulting.com; E-mail: shanjoym (at) gmail (dot) com

 

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Employability & Enterprise – A Must Agenda in Higher Education Policy

Education is imparted in a systematic approach worldwide for a purpose which is ‘sharing knowledge to inspire minds’. Though School Education may be rather about teaching and learning, but, Higher Education in college/university is more about empowering students to get a job or start a new business in their post-degree career. Unless graduates are exposed to skills and experiences during their studies (thereby finding utility latter in the job market and social environment), the time spent in college/university will amount to waste of time and effort in today’s competitive world. Thus, teaching may be considered as the main theme of education, yet ‘Employability & Enterprise’ tends to be the main objective of education from the ‘performance measure’ perspective.

 

 The current education policy in Manipur state has been focusing mostly on providing teachers to schools/colleges and their transfers management, creating infrastructure, and student intake numbers; instead of any new innovation and growth aspects in education to deal with local societal needs and changing global environment. This approach may work with management of school level (up to 10^th or 12^th standard) institutions but ought to fail drastically when dealing management of colleges and universities. Students out of school level institutions feed into colleges and professional institutions for higher studies or on-the-job studies. If there is no better college, Manipuri students just need to leave Manipur state in post 10^th or 12^th std for higher studies and thus, we are seeing thousands of students leaving every year (thereby also affecting state’s economy). For higher education institutions to survive, presence of vibrant industries around to provide jobs and business setup opportunities to graduates out of those colleges/universities is also essential. Higher education institutions are source of inspiration and guide to our society by producing responsible adults with add-on values in addition to the book knowledge. Thus, education policies for school level and higher level ought to vary drastically and both need serious attention by using different approaches to deal with.

Private schools (if not govt schools) within Manipur can survive successfully; because ‘score-card and pass % of students’ (which is within the control of school management with less/no influence from other external sources) are the only benchmark used for rating schools and no other measuring aspects are currently used (e.g. extra-curricular activities, staff profile, diversity of staffs as well as students intake, health and safety on school premises, financial fees and scholarships offers, support for disability students, religious tolerance, focus on sports facilities, and promotion on traditional culture, etc). State govt also seems to focus more on school education as compared to higher education and even indicated its intention to create ‘Manipur Education Services (MES)’ similar to Manipur Civil Services (MCS) just to look after school education services. Though it may be innovative, the focus has been not yet clarified on what exactly will be role and accountability of MES officers. One MES official can be assigned per a group of schools or per zone or per district to manage the non-academic aspect of school administration; e.g. management of school infrastructures to maximize utilization factor and timely maintenance (thereby cost saving), budget management and local social impact of school to maximize benefits of govt funding and school education objectives, etc. Thus, school teachers can focus on teaching part while state education officials can focus on non-academic aspects.

State govt seems to get no clue what to do with higher education sector in Manipur. Manipur University may be responsible for academic aspects of its affiliated colleges (e.g. updating course materials, checking mandatory quantity and quality of academic staffs per college, conducting exams under the new semester system, providing certificates to graduates, etc), but, its role starts and ends with affiliation of colleges only. Also, since Manipur University is now a central university and not under state govt, it may say anytime to any govt colleges to seek for de-affiliation if unsatisfied with what/how they function. Yet, Higher Education officials seem pleased only with task of govt colleges in Manipur just getting affiliation certificate from Manipur University. State govt are supposed to work more closely than before with Manipur University to devise far-reaching higher education strategies for Manipur and transform colleges into innovation houses; thus, helping villages/towns across Manipur getting the benefits from nearby colleges apart from local youths getting college education. Because, Manipur University has already gain autonomy from state govt on what/how it likes to function, thereby state govt can’t just direct whatever it used to in the past. Thus, Higher Education officials ought to be clear on what is within their role and what is delegated to Manipur University regarding the management of govt colleges within Manipur.

We are yet to see much discussion on ‘what happens to students graduating out of colleges in Manipur (affiliated to Manipur University and other universities outside Manipur) and universities in Manipur (i.e. Manipur University, Central Agricultural University)’, and ‘how colleges/universities in Manipur ought to support students for their future careers’. National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) does take employability (i.e. students getting a job on graduation) and enterprise (i.e. student enterprises in college, new startups by students, new innovation ideas/products from college, engagement with local businesses and industry professionals/alumni) as part of their rating approach for colleges and universities in India, though in less priority and less percentage focus. Sadly, ‘Employability & Enterprise’ agenda has not yet been  seen as one of the main priority areas of Higher Education policy in Manipur, though the agenda is very essential for the survival of colleges within Manipur and can transform colleges into innovation houses for benefits of local people in Manipur.

Looking from the perspective of ‘Education as a system of input, operation, and output’, questions arise like – ‘Why do we create products (degree courses) for consumers (college students) which got less utility (applications) in the local market (industry jobs)?’; ‘how much % of course contents is about hands-on application of knowledge being taught?’, ‘how much budget % is allocated per college on career development aspect as compared to staff salaries and infrastructure maintenance?’, ‘what is the policy of local business engagement for each college around course design and skill development aspects?’, ‘what is the involvement policy of alumni to support back colleges/universities?’, ‘how is other ministries in state govt (e.g. Industries & Commerce, Science & Technology, regional development agencies in each district and panchayat zones) coordinating with higher education department and various colleges from the aspect of innovation for enterprise and employability agenda?’, ‘how about satisfaction surveys from graduates every year on each college by defining performance metrics to rate each college and accordingly provide innovation funding for relevant support?’, ‘how much responsibility and accountability is assigned to the management team in each college for welfare of students and college infrastructure as compared to education ministry itself?’, ‘how the aspect of student unions in colleges currently focused on political aspects can be reoriented towards innovations around course studies?’, ‘why no plans are made to make buildings and equipments of colleges available for students’ career and skills development activities instead of leaving under-utilized in non-working hours (of evenings, weekends, and holiday breaks), ‘why no delegated staffs assigned to provide career development and enterprise creation support in each college/university?’ and, so on.

On the ‘Employability and Enterprise’ agenda, state govt may implement a hybrid model of funding and operation for higher education institutions in Manipur e.g. a centralized depository of support services (in terms of course contents, business startup funds, on-demand enterprise support services, advisory consultants/academics, equipments, a web-based knowledge resource to be accessed by representative of each college if not by every students, etc) and a localized support services per college (e.g. one-to-few teaching staffs be delegated after relevant trainings to advise on entrepreneurship and deliver enterprise support activities, or appointment of management graduates having experience in such enterprise activities).

‘Manipur Innovation Council’ chaired by Chief Minister setup in 2011 ought to look into overall higher education scenario and enable colleges and other higher education institutions to transform themselves into innovation houses to cause effective socio-economic impact to the village/town wherein they are located. Also, upcoming ‘Manipur Innovation Roadmap 2012-2020’ whose design work is currently advertised by Planning Department in Manipur State Govt through a tender process needs to incorporate concepts of making all the higher education institutes in Manipur contribute towards innovation culture in Manipur, and integrating other innovation related govt ministries with higher education institutes to empower youth as well as local businesses in easy access to necessary business support and technical know-how.

About the Author:

Shanjoy Mairembam (BEng, MBA) is a Business Strategy Consultant based at London (UK). He supports mentoring of young entrepreneurs in ‘conceptualization of ideas into business case’, and offers role of a ‘Business Doctor’ to local NGOs/SMEs in Manipur.

For further info, visit http://www.shanmaiconsulting.com; E-mail: shanjoym (at) gmail (dot) com

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Why not ‘Global Manipuris Summit’ similar to ‘Manipur Sangai Festival’?

A recently published news article about ‘Manipur Sangai Festival 2012’ reads as:

“The festival has been organized with a total cost of Rs 2 crore – Rs 1.50 crore from the Ministry of Tourism, GOI and Rs 50 lakhs from the state government. Construction of the stalls for the festival which will have 500 stalls will be handled by the Directorate of Commerce and Industries for which Rs 30 lakhs have been allotted. Rs 30 lakhs have been allotted to the Arts and Culture department for the preparation of the cultural programmes, while Rs 5 lakhs have been sanctioned for the Youth Affairs and Sports department, the Manipur Mountaineering and Trekking Association has been allotted with Rs 25 lakhs for the adventure sports, informed sources.”

If the state government is willing to invest (or say ‘spend’ instead, because of little visible Returns On Investment) a whopping ‘2 crores’ on conducting ‘Manipur Sangai Festival’ to promote tourism in Manipur and attract tourist visits to Manipur, why state government does not seriously consider organizing ‘Global Manipuris Summit’ annually (as a semi-professional event, similar to Pravashi Bharatiya Divas) to connect to Manipuris residing nationally and internationally for socio-economic development of Manipur state through their contributions back to the motherland.

Tourism itself doesn’t do anything but the associated services/products created around tourism sector benefits or affects people and places. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people “traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes”. Though tourism promotion incurs a cost, we also ought to consider the opportunity cost (i.e. the cost of an alternative that must be forgone in order to pursue a certain action) for having those tourism promotion activities. Thus, promoting tourism or growth of tourism ought to refer to something concrete out of tourism sector having an impact on the associated services/products in other relevant industries.

State govt should be able to answer ‘what actually determines the success or failure of conducting Manipur Sangai Festival’. Is it just about celebrating few days by showcasing few cultural and adventurous programs by incurring a heavy cost (e.g. 2 crores for 2012 event)? If only local people in Manipur comprises major % of consumers attending in the event, does the money spent for conducting the event justified? Who exactly are the target consumers for the event (e.g. other Indian state nationals, or foreign nationals) and how effective are the various marketing channels used to attract these consumer segments (i.e. contractors/partners used for the event)? How many local businesses benefits from the visit of tourists (local or national or foreign) during the event and what is the incremental economic impact in the following year after this year’s event because of increase in customers/tourists visit in Manipur? Are major % of tourists spending only at Imphal market places and how much % of tourists visits far-flung locations (in other districts of Manipur) making a spending to local businesses therein? Thus, state govt ought to have an ‘Impact Analysis framework’ by identifying relevant KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) prior to conducting the event and measuring result against the pre-indentified performance metrics. This would give a clear understanding to judge if we’ve made an effective and efficient usage of the allocated money. Thus, unless we can show that local businesses and people (not just in central Imphal municipal areas but also in other valley and hill districts areas) are benefited in some ways out of the ‘Manipur Sangai Festival’ and proven via statistical data, we ought to introspect other new ways of tourism promotion approach to cause socio-economic impact in Manipur state.

Going by the definition of ‘Tourists’, it may not be improper to consider thousands of Manipuris already working/migrated to various cities of India and foreign countries as ‘Tourists’ intending to visit Manipur state occasionally every year. In addition, thousands of Manipuri students studying outside Manipur may be also considered as ‘Tourists’ in the sense that they visit once or twice back home in Manipur annually for few days of holiday breaks and they spend money buying some services from local businesses during their stay in Manipur state. Moreover, these consumers are almost ‘Confirmed tourists’ who’ve the most likeliness to visit Manipur state as compared to other tourist categories, since being Manipuris they have got a purpose to make a visit and spend their money while in Manipur state. It may be harder to ask a non-Manipuri or foreigner to visit Manipur state as compared to asking a Manipur origin. Going by the actual volume of Manipuri tourists visiting Manipur annually from outside the state (within India) and from foreign countries, the number of Manipuri tourists may be in the order of lacs thereby contributing in few crore Rupees to the state economy annually. Thus, it also makes a common sense to focus on ‘Manipuri Tourists’ (from outside the Manipur state and abroad) as one of the key potential consumer segments while planning for any tourism festivals and events of Manipur (thereby catering to what these consumers may like as their holiday-break options).

Considering overall socio-economic development in Manipur state, state govt needs help more from people and private firms (apart of using its own govt officials and resources) to rejuvenate the current situation for a positive change. State govt has been facing difficulties to attract national/foreign companies to invest in Manipur due to law and order situations. Also, entry of non-local companies and professionals may cause unseen socio-cultural impacts to local communities in Manipur. Moreover, it is hard to evaluate long term benefits of having those non-local entities since there is the tendency for non-local companies to take away profits earned elsewhere to their own pockets and native localities. Thus, Manipur state would need to groom local firms to grow ready enough to compete on national/global markets and still embed Manipuri ethics and culture within these organizations.

Since last 2 decades (90s and 00s), Manipur state has had export of its high-skilled manpower to other states of India and abroad due to lack of opportunities and unhealthy social security conditions in Manipur. These Manipuris have mostly migrated and settled with a job and family in those locations with a bleak intention of returning back to Manipur. Also, the next Manipuri generations are going to be exported similarly (right after their 10^th or 12^th standards of education) outside Manipur state with no choice to return back in the coming two decades (say 2030 or so). Thus, fate of Manipur state is likely to go from bad to worse considering that potential pillars of the future are already migrating away in search of better prospects and leaving behind a huge generation gap of 40years (i.e. 1990-2030) to take care of Manipur. Unless state govt seriously consider a long term strategy right now to reconnect to those lacs of Manipuris already migrated to other states of India and foreign countries, Manipur state is going to face a huge crunch of high caliber manpower resources and passionate industrialists/professionals wishing to develop Manipur state in future.

Realizing the importance of maintaining ‘India’ brand globally and getting tremendous contributions from NRIs/PIOs (as investors to India and lobby groups for India in foreign countries), central Indian govt has been conducting ‘Pravashi Bharatiya Divas’ (PBD) annually from 7-9 January by welcoming Overseas Indians for a semi-professional gathering since 2003. Similarly, it is need of the hour for Manipur state govt to consider conducting ‘Global Manipuris Summit’ annually similar to PBD focusing on socio-economic development of entire villages/towns within Manipur state through active contribution of Overseas Manipuris and Manipuris already migrated to other Indian states. Such a global Manipuris focus festival is not just intended for socio-economic development but also for tourism growth in Manipur (if compared to ‘Manipur Sangai Festival’).

Interestingly, few pioneers among Overseas Manipuris has already initiated actively engaging with Manipur state govt after their attendance to PBD 2011 to create a global Manipuris platform focused on socio-economic development of Manipur by integrating with activities of state govt ministries and though support of relevant officials in each industry sector. An initiative named ‘KEN-Manipur’ has been spearheaded by overseas Manipuris (with support from few self-dedicated state govt officials) to create a Knowledge Exchange Network (KEN) that links every Manipuri professionals living across the globe in various industry sectors and plugging into the network of Manipur state govt officials in each department/ministry. State-wide socio-economic development and integrity of Manipur among various ethnic communities can be expedited in a short span of 5yrs or so, if state govt enables the flow of best brains and personal money back to Manipur state by allowing engagement among local and non-local Manipuris through such KEN approach. Also, organizing annual ‘Global Manipuris Summit’ in Manipur just after PBD event in January (similar to ‘Manipur Sangai Festival) will allow Overseas Manipuris to attend both the events while visiting India from abroad. Thus, the real onus lies now in the hands of Manipur state govt to consider the prospect of connecting to Manipuris outside the state SERIOUSLY as HIGH PRIORITY with a STRATEGIC PURPOSE.

About the Author:

Shanjoy Mairembam (BEng, MBA) is a Business Strategy Consultant based at London (UK). He supports mentoring of young entrepreneurs in ‘conceptualization of ideas into business case’, and offers role of a ‘Business Doctor’ to local NGOs/SMEs in Manipur.

For further info, visit http://www.shanmaiconsulting.com; E-mail: shanjoym (at) gmail (dot) com

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Embedding ‘Entrepreneurship=Success’ Culture into School Education

We seemed to come out more worried when we got out of schools and different from how we used to be when we got in. In schools, we seemed to have pick up lots of phobia and been hardcoded to do only few predefined tasks ahead in our lives. As a kid, we used to be carefree to try new things, naughty to explore ideas out of curiosity, and daring to go roads not yet taken. For humanity to progress, we do need balancing the attitude in our school education system between protectiveness for security in future and creativity for innovation.

The complete education system ought to be seen as a structure enabling multiple entry and exit doors. Reading about ‘Qualifications and Credit Framework (QCF)’ of UK and European Qualifications Framework (EQF) of European Union (EU) may throw some ideas about the need to have an education framework that maps various learning programs we’ve got (such as certificate, diploma, degree, etc) into a tiered-leveling structure specifying knowledge, skills and competence imparted in each level. Not all kids go to college after schools and thus, we can visualize ‘passing out from school’ as an exit door to the society (and from the education system). So, the schools ought to impart relevant skills and visions to the kids before they pass out of school to be able to fit and contribute into the society we live.

Entrepreneurship is not merely about a course to be studied but a philosophy that needs to be embedded into our mindsets in every field of activities or studies. There isn’t a better place and time to embed entrepreneurship principles than inspiring to young minds during the school days through the school curriculum and extra-curriculum activities. Teenagers out of schools ought to feel empowered enough to explore the career each one desires with the underlying principle of ‘Entrepreneurship = Success’. Interestingly, European Commission has been investing huge time and money (in millions of Euros) to its constituent EU countries since a decade on ‘Enabling teachers as a critical success factor towards entrepreneurship education in schools’ and ‘Embedding entrepreneurship education at school in Europe through national strategies, curricula and learning outcomes’.

Latest news about inclusion of vocational courses at various schools in Manipur may seem like a welcoming thrust for socio-economic development in nearby towns/villages where the schools are located. Yet, it should not be implemented as dislocated add-on arrangement to the current educational system in place. Otherwise, strategy to implement vocational courses in schools may turn out to be a failed programme after investing huge funds in crores, time and efforts. No matter how useful the vocational courses may be, most parents will not wish their wards to study vocational courses as compared to general Science/Commerce/Arts courses in schools. We got to understand that every parents dream of their wards to be doctors, or, engineers, or, IAS officers in future; and the current implementation approach of vocational courses do not show the feasibility of vocational students to be groomed towards a long-term career than a low-level ad-hoc jobs after undertaking those vocational courses.

We need to review the current approach of school education system and come up with a combined framework that provides an appropriately balanced structure of (1) hands-on vocational skills learning, (2) embedded entrepreneurship principles, (3) instilled social responsibility ethics, and (4) imparted basics of knowledge for future. Manipur state can be the first state in India to come up with a standard education framework before other states in India (instead of just being followers always as in the past). It’s time to let go of the old concept of school being just only ‘a building with few teachers to teach local kids in pre-defined course books’.

Regarding course contents for primary school education, the basic set of courses may comprise of (1) Science & Technology, (2) Social Sciences, (3) Citizenship, (4) Languages, and (5) Physical Education. Teaching and learning methods in each course ought to have hands-on practical projects/workshops for applying theories into action both in individual as well as team modes. Inclusion of something like ‘Citizenship’ course subject (as in USA and EU countries) as part school education is very essential considering the diversity of India as a nation and Manipur’s history within India. This ‘citizenship’ course subject may focus on building social responsibility concept on growing up kids and imparting ‘common sense’ input to students for social impact locally. Also, imparting computer/Technology related contents in each of the subjects within school education is necessary to avoid viewing computer skills learning as a stand-alone subject. Lastly, inclusion of more workshops and project works in individual or team as part of school course structure is essential to apply entrepreneurship skills in action.

Regarding course contents for secondary school education, the basic set of courses may still packaged as now (science, arts and commerce streams) and yet include the aspects of (1) Applied Innovation (as add-on workshop or project works of the learned concepts in both individual and team modes), (2) Next-Career Ready Knowledge (to support students in preparing for various entrance exams to professional studies after 12^th standard), (3) Exit-to-Society Ready Skills (to include vocational skills which are still useful and relevant to serve jobs for industries within the scope of science, arts and commerce streams). Current school system tends to produce ‘top scoring students’ who lacks in professional personality attribute due to current school education system not focusing on soft-skills aspect too which is in fact found to be the most critical factor to instilling leadership and management quality in one’s future professional career. Course delivery approaches ought to contain feasibility of students to speak/debate/exhibit their learning out of the teaching in classes in open forum or competitive event as applied innovation.

As just like the saying ‘A happy family produces wonderful kids’ means, we should consider welfare and working aspiration of school teachers on the similar priority level as the need for students to be taught the necessary knowledge and skills for their future. Schools (at primary and secondary levels) can be made to be more enjoyable places to interact for not only students and teachers but also among local communities around the schools. Vocational courses aligned to already delivering school curriculum may be imparted out of schools by school teachers as certificate courses (on free mode or pay-as-you-learn mode) for public in the local community either as short-term course or annual course. School teachers may be also encouraged to apply bids for funding from state govt to undertake extra-curricular projects in the local community which may complement the learning and teaching of the respective school courses; such as supporting disable students to learn, guiding teenagers outside schools to apply school learning into social activities, etc. Thus, a career in school education for school teachers may be transformed into an exciting career option and local schools can also become self-sustaining institutions by generating revenues through delivering locally appropriate vocational courses for a fee to public.

To instill ‘Entrepreneurship’ passion into young minds, we first need to create a thriving entrepreneurship culture in the schools. Right from providing motivated teaching staffs (with clear and exciting career in school education) to creating course-contents package (for kids entering schools to exit as empowered teenagers ready to face whatever comes in future instead of phobic youth towards the complex world out there in future), we have to review the current school education system in a more holistic and transparent approach of ‘Cause-Impact’ analysis. Since education is to empower our younger generation to lead humanity towards a better world, we have to teach our kids that ‘Entrepreneurship equals Success’.

About the Author:

Shanjoy Mairembam (BEng, MBA) is a Business Strategy Consultant based at London (UK). He supports mentoring of young entrepreneurs in ‘conceptualization of ideas into business case’, and offers role of a ‘Business Doctor’ to local NGOs/SMEs in Manipur.

For further info, visit http://www.shanmaiconsulting.com; E-mail: shanjoym (at) gmail (dot) com

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How to simultaneously tackle local enterprise growth and Higher Education (HE) delivery in Manipur?

Understanding issues around Higher Education (HE) and local enterprises in Manipur today may be started by asking two most basic questions simultaneously – ‘Why does someone need to go college/university for HE studies’ and ‘What does industry sector need to grow in terms of manpower and skills’. We ought to look at HE sector and industry growth issues under the same umbrella for analysis and not in distinctively separate dimensions. The same fixed amount of input (i.e. Time, Money and Manpower) needed to tackle those two issues separately may be used collectively under an integrated strategy to simultaneously tackle the need to support growth of more local enterprises (thereby providing jobs to local people) and the need to revive higher education in colleges/universities (thereby satisfied academics, support staffs, and students).

Govt of Manipur ought to understand ‘the underlying implicit and explicit relationships between HE institutes and Industrial firms in a state/country’. The detailed analysis (though very critical) on how operation of state govt departments in HE sector (such as Education (U), Technical Education, and Adult Education) can be improved is beyond the scope of this article. Also, what’s excluded herein is how administration of colleges by respective college management can be enhanced and how liaising with Manipur University or Central Agriculture University as affiliated bodies may be made more efficient.

The approach of designing and delivering HE services in Manipur seems to ‘start and end with Education only’, without looking beyond and considering the local environment in which HE services operate. Graduates and post-graduates with traditional degrees are produced within Manipur who may be of least relevance to local needs or lack enough course experience to cause social impact locally. Moreover, it looks like as if colleges and universities in Manipur are just created to produce few finest graduates to be then exported to other Indian and foreign cities for better jobs and follow-on studies. Thus, return on investment (ROI) in terms of social and economic impact by having 70+ colleges and two universities within Manipur currently seem below expectation on ‘continued business justification’ rating and underperforming as a public service proposition.

On the other hand, state govt departments servicing to social and business organizations (such as Commerce and Industries, Cooperation, Income-Tax) are yet to show confidence on local people about their ability to bring about visible sustainability support to local companies and growth of new startups. Unhealthy law and order issues in Manipur (cited as a result of insurgency) may likely not attract big companies from outside Manipur to open up offices within Manipur and also, locally grown-up businesses may not successfully survive for continued operation after startup.

State govt has initiated some programmes recently to provide skill-based trainings in various industry sectors to youths/students in Manipur by financially sponsoring to third-party institutes within and outside Manipur state. Such initiative does help Manipuri youths/students to get employment in companies outside Manipur. Yet, there is huge vacuum to enable local companies to grow so as to absorb such trained individuals for the benefit of local economy. Thus, this current approach of state govt seems just like a one-sided policy to invest public fund meant for Manipur state on training few local Manipuris youths/students and then exporting them as quality manpower resources to feed into the need of other cities/states in India.

So, What if, for once, we look the spectrum of Higher Education from the perspective of need by industry and local market?

Universities in most global locations (esp. in UK) are now exploring extensively on various HE concepts to serve needs of industry clients proactively – such as Work-based Learning, Bespoke Training, Contracted Research and Consultancy, Modular-based course Programmes, etc. In order to outsmart the upcoming huge competition from various private training business companies on teaching similar course offers as universities do normally, UK universities are now more inclined towards the Research and Knowledge Transfer aspect for survival and income generation while maintaining a reasonable income generation through teaching degree/post-graduate courses.

In UK, Modular-based course Programmes are highly successful because courses are delivered in block modular mode. As an example: A 5-weeks modular course of a subject paper looks like 1-week face-to-face class plus a 4-weeks (away from classroom) academic experience period to reflect the learning by self. Students are either asked to write a written exam or online test or submit a project assignment by the end of the 5^th week. After successful completion of the 5-week period, academic credit is awarded for the module. The student receives the degree after completion of all the mandatory course modules (including projects). In this approach, students (from nearby the university, within the UK and foreign countries) can travel to the university campus to attend the 1-week face-to-face class and then return back home to complete the next 4-weeks academic experience period. These students are still considered to have done the course study in Full-Time mode (though in modular approach).

If one explores the business model of large ‘training business’ companies: (1) these companies pick up the demand of particular skill sets needed for companies in an industry in a geographical market, (2) they hire industry professionals and academic experts to devise course contents and structure of delivery, (3) they advertise the courses for delivery in particular date/month of a year and recruits students accordingly, (4) they hire large classrooms or offices on rent for a specific period in line with the course delivery schedule, (5) they also hire trainers/lecturers on contract to deliver the planned courses. Thus, global companies in training business get the necessary income inflow from students’ fees and the profit after deducting the payment for classrooms hire and contracted staffs. This model is likely to be successful as long as these training companies are able to provide trained students who can get job in a company after studying the course with them.

For HE delivery in Manipur, we can reuse some concepts from both UK universities’ modular course delivery approach and global training business companies’ course delivery approach. Some state govt departments (e.g. as Commerce and Industries) can identify specific industry sectors that need to be groomed for growth within Manipur for social and economic impact locally. Other state govt dept (e.g. Education (U), Technical Education) can be entrusted with the responsibility to design and develop specific courses (in degree and post-graduate levels) by hiring industry professionals and academic experts to meet the likely demands of skills needed in job profiles available in that specific industry, and also include academic aspects of reasoning and creative thinking in the course design for students. This course development can be done in consultation with competent academic governing bodies (such as UGC, AICTE) and universities (in Manipur or outside the state or abroad). State govt departments (e.g. Sericulture, Agriculture, Fisheries, Science and Technology) can provide funding incentives/vouchers to local SMEs and business owners to recruit local candidates as their employees to undertake relevant jobs in their businesses, and at the same time, allow to access those funding grants only to directly reimburse some percentage of course fee/expense of their sponsored employees who are undertaking such specially created degree/post-graduate courses in their industry sector. This approach enforces business owners to be more responsible and accountable in both business growth and HE delivery. Also, students paying fees on own to study such courses are more likely to get a job on graduation in the local market. Already available buildings of local colleges in various towns in Manipur or other state govt offices or Manipur University or Central Agricultural University can be hired in advance for delivery of the degree/post-graduate courses in a modular fashion. Also, lecturers/staffs can be hired on contract for the course deliveries from industry and academic institutions in Manipur.

This suggested approach does involve (1) developing such course programmes after agreeing on a teaching and learning pedagogy (thereby, extensive consultation among industry, academia, academic standard bodies, and govt) (2) applying Project Management and Programme Management methodologies to ‘create and dissolve’ the entire design and delivery activities as multiple projects in a programme mode (thereby, saving money and administrative headache because of not having to build new costly classrooms and incur maintenance cost for infrastructures, not to continue providing salary and maintenance cost for teaching and non-teaching staffs after the duration of course delivery, etc), (3) efficiently managing resources needed for supply and demand to higher education delivery and industry growth (thereby, matching HE delivery services to current needs of industry in a ‘pull mode than push mode’).

Thus, state govt must undertake drastic changes in the current approach of HE delivery and Enterprises support in Manipur. Also, an in-depth research by hiring competent HE-Sector strategists is essential along with consultations with all stakeholders involved in HE delivery and Business Support services.

About the Author:

Shanjoy Mairembam (BEng, MBA) is a Business Strategy Consultant based at London (UK). He supports mentoring of young entrepreneurs in ‘conceptualization of ideas into business case’, and offers role of a ‘Business Doctor’ to local NGOs/SMEs in Manipur.

For further info, visit http://www.shanmaiconsulting.com

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IT Growth in Manipur: ‘Where to focus’ by Graduates and Tech-Entrepreneurs?

In simple words, Information Technology (IT) can refer to ‘anything that we use in modern daily-life to communicate with each other using technology globally’. Technical experts who work in various aspects of developing and supporting the IT products/services can be broadly called as IT Professionals; while business firms who work to serve people’s need using IT products/services can be collectively named as IT companies. Yet, have we really understood ‘what IT growth may mean for us in Manipur?’

Setting up of proper infrastructure in the entire country (i.e. back-bone network connectivity such as laying fiber-optic cables, installing core routers and switches) is the duty of the government for socio-economic development (by tendering projects to private firms). Interested private companies (such as Internet Service Providers) may then bid for govt licenses to do business of providing IT network services (e.g. 2G/3G spectrum allocation). In Manipur, Department of IT and Department of Science and Technology (Govt of Manipur) are entrusted with infrastructure building responsibilities. Creation of a Software Technology Park of India (STPI) at Imphal and ongoing development of an IT park at Imphal are some activities that govt of Manipur has been taking up to provide localized IT infrastructure for having offices of IT companies. In the past, BSNL has undertaken such laying fiber optic cable activities in various parts of Manipur. Also, IT infrastructure development activities are often carried out within large corporate firms whose business may or may not be within IT domains.  Network engineers and server administrators work in such IT sectors with skills of telecom/networking (e.g. Cisco certified courses, Sun certified courses). Since Manipur and other North East Indian states are yet to have proper IT infrastructures in place, IT graduates can focus to be Network engineers and server administrators while Tech-Entrepreneurs can focus on such IT industry sectors for supply/sales of network/server devices to govt offices and startup companies in Manipur. Cabling of wires/fibers and installation of network/desktop devices for setup of new offices also require support of experience IT network engineers.

On non-infrastructure oriented IT sectors, there are many IT software/hardware companies which develop products/services meant for end-user customers at home or office. Nature of products/services in a region does depend on the available IT infrastructure and social usage habit of tech-gadgets in that locality/state. There are already many distributers/Tech-Entrepreneurs in Manipur doing business for selling IT products (such as laptops, desktops, mobile phones, tablets, printers, scanners, high-end smart phones) for general consumers (end-users). In bigger business scale, Tech-Entrepreneurs can even think of sourcing components from global manufacturers (in Taiwan, Thailand, China, Malaysia, etc) and assemble in Manipur for sales distribution across NE India and neighboring countries. This is the similar business model adopted by Dell (and Indian companies such as HCL, Wipro, etc) for their company branded PC/printers/office-accessories products. IT graduates can also aim to be technicians who can fix issues on such IT products (software/hardware). Yet, it may be hard for local IT graduates from Manipur to get recruited into product development companies located in big Indian cities (such as Nokia, Samsung, Cisco) to design such tech-gadgets, since such companies used to have the recruitment norm of having only high quality Bachelor degrees in Electronics/Communications/IT from top-reputed engineering colleges in India. Interestingly, there are very few Indian companies focusing on hardware design and manufacturing of IT products due to not wishing and inability to compete (in terms of marketing and sales) with IT products of global multinational product companies; though some Indian IT companies may have the skills and experts to develop hardware products.

The IT knowledge areas wherein startup IT companies in Manipur may focus are development of end-consumer-based applications software such as mobile apps (for iPhone, iPad and other smart phones), enterprise management software (for resource utilization and check), video games/animations (for fun) and serious games (for simulation and modeling), website/intranet/ecommerce portal, etc. It’s worth to remember that ‘Responsibility for programmers/engineers is to deliver the technical aspects of the client’s requirement, whereas the owners of a startup IT company is to deliver the overall IT solution catering to business need of the client’.

On business aspects, the key hurdle in setting up startup IT companies around consumer application-based software domains will be finding clients who will offer the IT projects. Also, most Indian companies (including big ones) procure such IT projects from western countries and other developed nations (wherein society has more usage of modern gadgets and technologies/infrastructures are in place). Also, more the organizational maturity of the IT company more is the confidence to advise clients on IT solutions that serves the business problems of clients. On technical aspects, skills required for undertaking such IT projects may be experience on some programming languages, database management, web-development scripts, graphic designing, etc. Learning materials (and demo programs) are extensively available on internet for free in various websites and books can be bought by want to-be techies to develop apps and software programs by self. Most of the software programmer/developer or IT geeks in the world are often self-created masters through self experiencing rather than out of university teachings. Though having studied courses such as Bachelor of Engineering (B.E.) or Master of Computer Application (MCA) are always useful during handling IT projects, any IT graduates and techies can still be able to master the programming skills though self hands-on learning enabling them to take up such end-consumer-based applications development.

IT companies are in fact just firms providing technology solutions (products/services) enabling efficient operations for businesses in other industry companies. So, only having engineers and project managers with technical skills within the company isn’t sufficient. Running a successful IT company requires having experienced business managers to identify which industry sector and which business issues of targeted client segments – their company is going to provide solutions through their IT products/services. Ability to source IT projects and manage effective potential client engagement is also critical to survival of an IT company (just similar to other companies in other industries). Building list of project portfolio undertaken in the past and embedding organizational maturity/processes so that potential clients can rely on are also essential for sustainability of an IT company’s existence.

In addition to software development businesses, IT-Enabled Services (ITES) such as BPO (Business Process Outsourcing), KPO (Knowledge Process Outsourcing) are feasible for setup in Manipur, if provided there is uninterrupted broadband service and power supply. Such ITES projects are often sourced from western countries and other developed nations (though those projects can be from within India as well), and their business model is based on providing low-cost and 24hrs IT enabled support to clients need/business. Such ITES businesses may provide jobs/money to local employees, but they don’t create much meaningful values on local knowledge market since their project activities doesn’t involve any software or hardware development.

Thus, Graduates and Tech-Entrepreneurs in Manipur should first evaluate which industry to serve and what skill-sets are necessary to work in IT industry. Rapid IT growth in Manipur can be achieved by focusing on supporting local application-based software development IT companies that serve businesses in other industries (including e-governance projects of Manipur govt).

About the Author:

Shanjoy Mairembam (BEng, MBA) is a Business Strategy Consultant based at London (UK). He supports mentoring of young entrepreneurs in ‘conceptualization of ideas into business case’, and offers role of a ‘Business Doctor’ to local NGOs/SMEs in Manipur.

For further info, visit http://www.shanmaiconsulting.com

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How much is enough for my future – Education Vs Common Sense?

Our basic need is survival and rest of other activities is around making that living comfortable. Thus, ‘Education’ is about enlightening us the best appropriate way of doing things from past experiences, while ‘Common Sense’ is the knowledge about applying past experiences on day-to-day realities happening around us.

 

Like in most countries, India follows a system of imparting knowledge to students in the form of a tier-system of education (e.g. 10+2+3 for general studies) so that necessary level of teaching and learning is provided to only those sections of people who actually require that level of knowledge. There are also various skill-based training and vocational education system in place in India. There are reasoning behind the form of pedagogy developed for education system chosen by govt in own countries. The question each student/youngster should be asking self is ‘How much education is enough for self and future career making?’

Logically, we can consider all forms of profession being comprised of two types of education needs – Business aspect and technical aspect. For example, rice is an essential food needed in our daily lives. Knowledge is required to understand how to cultivate and get rice – thus, that’s about technicality and there are students learning courses on Agriculture (e.g. Bachelor of Science in Agriculture). Also, knowledge is required to obtain rice from fields, transport rice to storage, distribute rice bags to wholesalers, sell rice to consumers – thus that’s about business and there are students learning courses on Management of Agriculture businesses (e.g. Master of Management in Agro-based business). Similarly, for better healthcare system, we got education systems on becoming doctors, nurses, paramedics, pharmacists, social carers, dentists, medical technicians, etc. In order to systematize the know-how to cater to needs around us, we create ways of educating the learners in a leveling tier approach. Thus, if we try to see the bigger picture around a profession and the related environment within which the profession operates, we can realize that education is rather about providing a common sense way of dealing with our societal needs.

Having a basic level of education (10^th Standard in India) is sufficient for someone to understand the society’s common sense better. Having intermediary level of education (12^th standard in India) is about preparing someone to have an interest in a segment of industry/knowledge with more focus; while having a graduate level of education (12+3 standard in India) is about giving the specific required level of knowledge to someone to execute the most tasks necessary in that industry segment. Further level of education (Masters or doctorate levels in India) are to provide specialization study to understand with more depth why things happen as they are and what new approaches can be created/discovered to do things in a better way. Thus, one does not need to go to college or university for higher study ‘as mandatory need’, but rather based on ‘situational need’. Just to reemphasize this view, globally reputed firms such as ‘Apple’ and ‘Microsoft’ are founded by College drop-outs (whom latter employs qualified engineers/managers with degrees and doctorates to run the companies). Even locally within Manipur (and in other parts of India), we can see large businesses run by not even 10^th standard pass entrepreneurs and yet these able-industrialists manage to run their businesses by employing skilled engineers and managers accordingly.

Youngsters (under guidance from parents) often proceed to study popular courses in professional undergraduate level such as MBBS, BE, BPharm, BSc-Nursing, and also in general studies such as BCom, BA, BSc. Some youngsters directly get entry to job or on-the-job related courses in central and state govt services such as paramilitary forces, NDA, banking, state police, etc. Very few youngsters in Manipur (and even in entire India) deviate to think about setting up own businesses or learning knowledge/skill that will help themselves in setting up that business of own dreams.
In countries like UK, the approach of ‘Learning by Doing’ is followed more in the society in the form of youngsters taking up apprenticeship jobs in companies just after completion of GSCE (similar to Class 10 in India) or A-level (similar to Class 12 in India), and growing their careers henceforward from bottom to management level. Most organizational managers and CEO/COO do not even possess universities degrees, yet they are expert in their technical or business skills. Also, senior managers are often found coming back to universities at the age of 30+ to study in some degree courses related to their already experienced industry to have the skill of critical thinking with academic learning approach.

Though one needs not necessarily go to colleges/universities to make a living or successful profession/career in life, one can gain a lot by going to colleges/universities once in a lifetime. Education is rather meant to give away experience of ‘various know-how’ collected over years to the future generation in a very simple and concise format in a very short period of time. Colleges/universities are not just meant for getting higher education in various knowledge domains or industry sectors, but also a platform/forum for meeting people (like-minded as well as non-like-minded) to share ideas and experiences to learn from each other for own future. By being in colleges/universities, one can get access to libraries (having tons of knowledge contents), professors (having vast experiences in the areas one may have interest to explore), colleagues (having similar interest to work together in future projects), and professional networks (having industry experts and business support groups), friends (having similar social and emotional behaviors), etc.
Successful people in every profession never stop learning about things that may be useful in their lives irrespective of having gone to study in school or college or university. What may be effective about preparing self to learn about a profession is to start thinking in backward from that chosen future dream to present situation in order to evaluate how much education and what skill-sets one may need in order to realize the dream. Thus, first need in life is ‘survival’; then next need come ‘food’, shelter, clothes, etc; and then, educating self is to find a way out to earn money through a job/task to cater to the cost of surviving in style.

Thus, students/youths in Manipur should focus on having ‘Common Sense’ in life more than running after ‘Education’; because, education (in some appropriate form) is just only a means to acquire knowledge that is needed for having ‘common sense’ in one’s life.

About the Author:
Shanjoy Mairembam (BEng, MBA) is a Business Strategy Consultant based at London (UK). He supports mentoring of young entrepreneurs in ‘conceptualization of ideas into business case’, and offers role of a ‘Business Doctor’ to local NGOs/SMEs in Manipur.

For further info, visit http://www.shanmaiconsulting.com

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Do we really need an MLA for our Constituency

Out of curiosity, two self-puzzling questions often arise to many:
1) Do we really need an MLA for socio-economic development of our Constituency?
2) How relevant is ‘who is the MLA for the Constituency’ to You & I in our day-to-day lives and during the entire 5-yr duration of an MLA’s tenure?

General people tend to mix up personal emotions and relationship with the purpose to VOTE in the assembly election!!! If one votes without asking to self – ‘Why I vote?’ and ‘Whom I vote for which specific reasons?’, then it only shows ‘HOW STUPID & WHAT AN IDIOT I AM?’

The post of MLA is just intended as a Professional VOLUNTEERED post for the number of people in the constituency. His/her main responsibility and purpose of existence is to check, to reason, to suggest input to the administrative system of the Govt functionary so that people’s emotions are taken into consideration. So, technically, he/she is just like a ‘RECEPTIONIST’ for receiving people’s feedbacks; nothing more n nothing less.

A strong and effective administrative services system (comprising of IAS, IPS, directors, Commissioners, etc) is the key to bringing overall social development and NOT just via the presence of MLAs. Again, even if there is no MLAs, society can still EXIST with prosperity as long as each individual knows what’s own social responsibility.

Technical deliveries of projects (such as dam construction, school supervision, road development, electricity supply, etc) are the mandated duties of officials working in the administrative section of the GOVT. Again, PEOPLE as individuals need to own up activities in all means of livelihood by working in respective industry sector; because govt administrative officials are just like ACCOUNTANTS and SUPERVISOR who are there to note down what’s completed and what’s next to execute in the overall development plan of the society. Interestingly, those development plans are not just created by these IAS officers out of nowhere, but most contents in those plans are from strategists and thinkers from industry and academic policy researchers.

So, if the presence or absence of MLA does not impact YOU & I, then ‘WHY SHOULD You & I EVER BOTHER WHO IS ELECTED AS MLA?’ Moreover, if something is not working in the society, You & I can just go to the concerned department and sort out directly!!!! The only reason to give little extra emphasis for MLA (to VOTE or not VOTE) is ‘MLA has the legal right to steer the wheels of these IAS n other officials in govt administrative services to the emotion of people’. So, choice of MLA ought to focus on BIGGER PICTURE if he/she can listen to public and question those administrative officials about what’s best for people (though actual task execution ought to be left to the concerned govt officials).

Then, how do YOU & I decide whom to vote? Is there any simple logical tool help me exercising my legal right to vote?

Let’s have a table with columns and rows. Let’s write down the key points for comparison and analysis in the first column from 1st row to the last row. Lets’ also write the candidate names competing for MLA post in the constituency on the columns of the first row. Let’s use a scoring approach [from 1 (low value) to 10 (high value)] for each of the key points of comparison to the boxes of respective MLA candidates. The one which scores highest may be your choice to give your VALUABLE VOTE.

Thus, for example:

Point of Comparison (i.e. Core values) >> Use a number to score between 1 and 10	Candidate-1	Candidate-2
SELF INTEGRITY
EMPOWERING OTHERS
VISION FOR LOCAL PEOPLE
PEOPLE FIRST & PARTY LAST
HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE of Govt administration
SOCIAL TOUCH & LISTENS to poor as well as rich
LEADERSHIP & IN-COMMAND among Peers
NO RECORD OF PAST CORRUPTION
SOMEONE YOU FEEL PROUD TO TELL ‘It’s our MLA’ GLOBALLY even to foreign nations
WHO CAN BRING IN NEW JOBS, MONEY, PROJECTS 4PEOPLE
Total Score	???	???

Again, one way to check HOW CORRUPT the local MLA is
1) CHECK THE FINANCIAL SELF DECLARATION FILED BY EACH CANDIDATE DURING MLA NOMINATION
[Explore documents from the website of Election Commission of India]
2) THEN, COMPARE THAT FIGURE TO ACTUAL EARNING HE/SHE COULD HAVE MADE REALISTICALLY

By the way, an MLA has the following PAY and PERKS for the MLA position they occupy.
1) An allocated funds in the amount around INR 50 Lacs – 1crore for the constituency to be used in the 5yr term. — BY DEFAULT
2) Annual salary of around INR 12 Lacs with add-on perk of say INR 1000 per day during assembly session, free petrol [allocated litres], free travel [some number of air/trains including foreign travel], free telephone calls [including ISD], secretaryship allowance, pensions, driver allowance, medical allowance, family allowance, house/rent allowance, constituency visit allowance, postal allowance, etc. So altogether approx around 30 lacs per annum — BY DEFAULT

Anyone can make use of Right to Information Act [RTI] to find the details of following info from local District collector or Magistrate and other relevant state govt departments.
1) How much money has been spent out of the allocated MLA fund (INR 50 Lacs – 1Crore) into what projects? And what is the IMPACT (i.e. visible benefits or feedbacks) from the project implementation?
2) Whenever a project funded by govt is to be sanctioned in a constituency, the MLA has a big say in terms of finance and project deliverables since the project is likely to impact local people of that constituency.
So, how much money has been spent on each of development project taken up in the constituency and what’s the visible IMPACT?

Thus, a voter ought to be able to check HOW CORRUPT the local MLA is. ‘MORE THE MONEY A CANDIDATE SPEND OUT TO WIN DURING ELECTION CAMPAIGN, HE/SHE WILL BE MORE CORRUPT AS AN MLA IN ORDER TO RECOVER THE SPENT ELECTION EXPENSES’; then, ‘What kind of development activities, that MLA can do then for the constituency?’

Thus, if one votes without asking to self – ‘Why I vote?’ and ‘Whom I vote for which specific reasons?’, then it only shows ‘HOW STUPID & WHAT AN IDIOT I AM?’

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“Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) 2011: a Non-Resident Overseas Manipuri (NROM)’s experience”

Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) 2011, conducted at Vigyan Bhawan, Delhi on 7-9 Jan, has indeed became a national event of global importance with an astonishing participation from 2000+ delegates of Non-Resident Indians (NRI) and People of Indian Origin (PIO) across the globe. This year’s event was organised by Dept of North East Regions (DoNER) and Confederation of Indian industries (CII) with a focus on socio-economic development of North-East Indian states (via involvement of NRIs/PIOs from these regions in policy making and service delivery of the local governments).

As soon as the invitation to attend the PBD 2011 from the Manipur State Government was received by European Manipuri Association (EMA) and North American Manipuri Association (NAMA), Manipuris in Europe and USA saw the golden opportunity to interact with distinguished NRIs/PIOs from other Indian states to build partnerships for business relationships and social responsible projects in North East India. In fact, it was also the right moment to convince central govt ministers/officials, Manipur State Govt and DoNER ministry that ‘Engaging Non-Resident Overseas Manipuris (NROM), right now, can hasten the socio-economic-political development of Manipur exponentially and also reduce the number of complex problems faced within Manipur currently (including insurgency, unemployment, myopic closed-thinking, etc).’

On Day-1, seminars on Education and Healthcare were conducted with huge participation by NRI/PIO experts (e.g. companies, universities, academicians, govt planners, students, ministers, etc) from across the globe. These seminars are eye-openers to everyone for possible investment and involvement with projects impacting the entire country (rural and urban) e.g. what new business model is needed for meeting the demand for education (at university as well as school levels), Public Private Partnership (PPP) models for establishing universities and student studies/career support firms, how cost effective healthcare services can be delivered to rural patients, how govt can provide support to firms opening up new hospitals/clinics/medical colleges in North-East Indian states, etc.

In addition, a seminar on ‘Learning experiences from few successful NRIs/PIOs from North-East India’ was conducted wherein students and people of North-East Indian states got the opportunity to engage directly with one another (via question and answers sessions). NROMs strongly believe that such activities would surely help in building confidence on youths and people of North-East Indians to aim big dreams and achieve big realities.

In the evening (after official sessions were over), Lakshmikanta Laikangbam (IT professional from Boston, USA), Bishwajeet Okram (Financial Controller from Ireland) and Myself (Business Consultant from London, UK) had the opportunity to interact with two honourable ministers of Manipur Govt at the Manipur Bhawan , namely L. Jaiyantakumar Singh (Education Minister) and Bijoy Koijam (Deputy Chairman, State Planning Board). We shared our thoughts for socio-economic development of Manipur and discussed the benefits of engaging with NROMs proactively for the improvement of public service delivery.

On Day-2, NRIs/PIOs (for the first time on a global platform) were able to engage directly with the Chief Ministers (CMs) of North-East Indian states on investment opportunities and involving in delivery of public sector services. NROMs saw the genuine effort from CMs / Deputy CMs of some North-East States (i.e. Assam, Meghalaya, Nagaland and Tripura) engaging with the global audience to attract investments and get involvement from NRIs/PIOs in various business and social development areas in their home states. Also, these CMs / Deputy CMs tried confidently to ward off stereotyping of their respective states by media as insurgency affected regions which were not supportive to investment activities. But, there was none to represent Manipur as ‘a vibrant and investment friendly state’ during that session. So, NROMs were very disappointed at the fact that honourable Chief Minister of Manipur could not attend the PBD 2011.

In another session, NROMs were able to ask queries to the Cabinet Ministers of Indian Govt (especially to Kamal Nath, Minister of Transport & Highways, wherein the entire global media and audience were present) – (1) how serious is Central govt to develop National Highway 53, since National Highway 39 is continuously subjected to illegal blockades affecting entire population of Manipur frequently? (2) How is Indian govt planning genuinely to develop roads and state highways in Manipur (and North East Indian states) to connect India to the South-East Asian countries under the ‘Look East Policy of India’?

In another session with B.K. Handique, Minister of DoNER, Lakshmikanta Laikangbam (on behalf of NAMA) submitted a memorandum for socio-economic development of Manipur (especially the upgrading of National Highway 53 urgently) and Bishwajeet Okram (a member of EMA) submitted a proposal of interest in the wind-turbine power generation by engaging European companies in renewable sector.

At another evening session, NRIs/PIOs from North-East India had a conference with Sam Pitroda (Advisor to the Prime Minister on Public Information Infrastructure & Innovations); wherein NROMs learnt that Govt of India had declared 2010-2020 as the ‘Decade of Innovation’ and invested hugely (above 5000 crores) to enable India become a global superpower (socially, politically and economically) via IT infrastructure & innovation councils. Govt of India genuinely also urged NRIs/PIOs (from North-East Indian state) to exhort their influences to respective state governments to form State level Innovation Council via support/guidance from National Innovation Council and Sectoral Innovation Councils for spearheading innovative thinking and development activities.

On Day-3, NROMs were amazed at the excellent speeches of CMs from other Indian states such as Gujarat, Punjab, Rajasthan, Goa, Haryana and Bihar in a session of ‘Inclusive Growth’. We realised a huge difference in attitude and confidence level (on political leadership for socio-economic development) between the CMs of North-East Indian states and those of developed Indian states. Each CM confidently showcased how they undertook various development projects and enacted new policies / programs for improvement of public service delivery in their respective states with supporting facts and figures.

In an evening interaction session, NROMs and NRIs from other North-East States were also able to engage one-to-one with officials of each state govt. I (an executive member of EMA) was able to hold one-to-one meeting with minister of DoNER to implement a business proposal on how to engage NROMs (i.e. high quality human resources residing in global locations) for transforming Manipur into a developed state in a few years (5-10 years) time frame from 2011 onwards. Also, I recommended a 3-points suggestion to T.N. Haokip (Honourable Minister of PHE, IPR & Tourism of Manipur Govt) during one of the Interaction sessions – (1) To send a strong instruction from state govt to all overseas Indian Consulates not to discourage foreign tourists visiting Manipur by stereotyping Manipur as disturbed and unlawful area and instead should provide proactive support for their visit to Manipur, (2) To develop a customer friendly and professionally designed website for the tourism department to provide easy-to-access tourist info (since tourists in other countries will often get to know about Manipur first via web only), (3) To organise annual event for NROMs (similar to PBD in national level) to invite Manipuris residing at other countries proactively, which in turn will fuel the inflow of international friends and colleagues of NROMs (since it will be too much of an imagination to hope that foreign tourists will visit Manipur when NROMs are even not ready to visit Manipur currently).

Apart of engagement sessions and seminars on various topics, North East Indian states were able to show the culture, dance, foods, and hospitality of the North East Indian people through various programs throughout the 3-day event to the 2000+ strong global audience. Stalls are erected for sales of handicraft items of Manipur (and of other North-East Indian states) in selected exhibition centres within the venue. Interestingly, it may be the first time that 2000+ global delegates (who are free from messy Indian political mindset) are able to know that unexplored beauty of North-East Indian states do exist within India and, thus it may open up enormous possibilities of investment/friendship with people of North-East India.

In fact, India is changing in its approach toward national integration and development strategy. India has already been undergoing transformation at a faster rate towards a wonderland of opportunities. Because, youths of India at present know only about development and they care less about petty ethnicity issues. Interestingly, the current proportion of population under 25 years in India is 51% and the proportion under 35 is about 66%. In the past decades, majority of elderly Indian/Manipuri/North-East Indian citizens rather had a misperception of ‘what India was as a country’ (or what Manipur was as a state, or what North-East India was as group of states inhabited by mongoloid looks) because of their closed mindset. Let’s broaden our thinking mindset from the centuries old myopic protectionism towards a global outlook. Thus, it is the right time for youths and people of North-East Indian states to take the lead initiative of change in India by engaging with other Indians/non-Indians in a broad-minded attitude. North-East Indian states can indeed become the powerhouse of India in the coming decade just not only on cultural aspects but also on developmental leadership aspects.

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Why govt projects often get failed or stuck incomplete in Manipur?

Planning on various govt projects in Manipur state are conducted by dignified (IAS & MCS) officials on consultation with external professionals. Then, the curiosity arises ‘why govt projects often get failed or stuck incomplete in Manipur?’ A first glance on this issue leads to the key probable answers – ‘Poor Project Management’ and ‘Unskilled Operational Structure’. Some of the areas within project management worth giving more focus by planning officials are as follows:

Project Management (PM) Skills: PM skills are achieved after extensive hands-on work experience via continuous improvement and knowledge sharing with other experts in the similar fields of work. Planning officials need to update their PM skills for better project planning and execution with global outlook. Govt should consider providing training courses for few officials in top management institutes within the country and aboard. In addition, officials should have access to reputed online research databases (such as Harvard Business Review, Business Source Premier, EBSCO Electronic journals, etc) for better planning. New online/offline forums should be created for interaction with public/professionals on various govt projects to provide suggestions/inputs. E.g. students of MU (such as MBA graduates) can be employed to conduct analysis and consultancy services of govt projects at low cost via customize internship projects.

Project Management Team: The chain of commands/management from planning till implementation seems unclear and unspecific to everyone involved. The flow of concept and responsibilities are not imparted properly in the entire govt administration, thereby most officials do not know their crucial roles toward the bigger picture. The very critical aspect herein to be remembered by the entire team is ‘Believe self first to succeed before asking others to believe on the brilliant idea’. Wonderful business presentations mostly do not lead to successful end results due to practicality of implementation and execution issues. There needs to be something similar to a corporate strategy group in the administration which evaluates the entire picture and guides the various divisions toward the goal. Such step will help in eradicating the prevailing concept of “Never ending govt project’, and overcoming likely implementation issues.

Stakeholder Analysis & Project Scoping: These two key areas seem missing often in most govt project plans. These documents do show the general contents of a business plan such as the planning team, resources required, execution plans, industry/sector research report, budgeting, timeline, etc. Yet, stakeholder analysis is the most critical activity of any project and it needs to be conducted periodically (not just only at the start of the project initiation phase, since stakeholders may keep changing their views on the project thereby impacting the project completion). Project scoping also helps in defining the focus areas for the project team to achieve the goals and it closely relates to stakeholder analysis. E.g. Stakeholders can be local people, central govt funding authorities, nature/season, private contractors, etc. Yet, one of the key stakeholders in most projects found often missing in the analysis is the underground militant organisations and how to deal with this key stake holder. The project team can’t satisfy all the key stakeholders throughout, but it should still move towards the completion of the project goals in a balancing mode to the stakeholders.

Risks & Uncertainty Management: Officials are often found wanting in most govt projects on how to deal with possible risks already recognized and any uncertain situation in the future. Moreover, there seems to be no special focus area in the planning documents for risks and uncertainty management. The officials should also be trained more on conflict management/negotiation skills (to manage the govt ministers, local people, non-state agents, etc). E.g. What is the value of building a hydro electric power plant on that river this year if the river is going to dry up soon in 6-7yrs in future?, why do thermal power plant need to be build in that year if continuous fuel supply can’t be sustained in future and also if the per unit power cost produced can’t be achieved lesser than the likely market sales energy unit price?, etc.

Opportunity Costs: Various project plans are created by officials under the influence of some great minds or learning from the visits to developed cities, etc. But, officials are again found wanting to provide business justification – why they choose to take up those projects?, Have they really considered ‘the Opportunity Costs’?, Which project would have been the best suitable or best value for money invested?. There should be a discussion room before initiating on any development project by inviting several drafts of possible solutions. The govt should choose one among all the project draft solutions which justifies with higher value to the people and state. E.g. Wasn’t there any other alternatives than building a fly-over in the middle of small Imphal city (with the huge money already invested) to ease the traffic issues?, etc.

Project Closure/Exit Strategy: Officials seem more concerned to complete the plan created by higher authorities without providing valuable feedbacks and timely inputs to the planning team so that the projects can deliver more value even after the project completion or expiry. The timeline of the project has to be clearly defined and monitored. There must be an option or strategy to exit at certain points of the project phase if the planning team feels the project is not worth investing. E.g. What is the business justification of building an entire game village homes with crores of rupees if those homes can be used only for one time during the sports competition?, etc.

(Detailed analysis on Manipur Government’s planning activities can be done by accessing the link: http://www.planningmanipur.gov.in/.)

The latest Manipur State Development Draft Report can be accessed via the link: http://www.planningmanipur.gov.in/Draft_MSDR.htm

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