Eighteen years ago the government of India signed a truce with the NSCN-IM to facilitate prolonged peace negotiations, which culminated in the August 3 peace accord.
Major differences among different factions of the National Socialist Council of Nagaland, NSCN(K) and NNC have come out into the open over the issue of NSCN (IM) general secretary Th. Muivah's extensive tour in Nagaland and his 'style of functioning.' Muivah is currently visiting districts of Nagaland and both the state police and the Central paramilitary forces are manning his security affairs besides, his trusted cadres.
China has long coveted Arunachal Pradesh, which it calls Southern Tibet. But, as Venkataraghavan Subha Srinivasan explains, in 1947, the present state of Arunachal Pradesh constituted the North East Frontier Tract of Assam. When India adopted its Constitution on 26 January 1950, NEFT became 'a separate politico-administrative entity' although it was constitutionally still a part of Assam. Its administration was brought directly under the President of India with the Governor of Assam acting as his agent. A revealing excerpt from his book The Origin Story of India's States.
The 87-year-old chairman of Nationalist Socialist Council of Nagaland- Isak-Muivah was undergoing treatment for almost a year at a private hospital in South Delhi where he breathed his last on Tuesday afternoon, Nagaland government spokesperson Kuolie Mere said.
Exploiting the killings to ratchet up the tension in the region and harden negotiating positions with the central government serves nobody, least of all the people of Nagaland. The peace process must not be stalled because of this incident or distracted by calls to repeal the AFSPA, argues Vivek Gumaste.
'The Naga Hills region, Nagaland and Manipur, have had the most uncaring and corrupt state governments with little to show on the ground despite the nation's highest per capita development expenditure,' says Mohan Guruswamy.