The BJP cobbles up the numbers to stake a claim to form a government in Imphal. But ruling the restive state won't be easy, says Chitra Ahanthem.

Iconic rights activist Irom Sharmila on the highs and lows of her long fast, why she gave it up and her plans.

Irom Sharmila's decision to end her 16-year-old fast against the AFSPA continues to be hotly debated and contested in Imphal.

The woman whose lone fight against the establishment all these long years has only the state machinery to keep her safe from the public whose cause she championed all this while.

The incident became grist for media attention for people scanning 'cow' along with a Muslim name, regardless of the fact that in Manipur Muslims occupy a specific socio cultural and political positioning with the community having assimilated with the majority Meiteis, says Chitra Ahanthem.

At these 'relief camps' people had nothing to sleep on except for a piece of cloth and men and women, boys and girls all cramped together. Factor in the fact that Kakching in the 2011 census had a population of 28,746 people and that about 90 per cent of that population has been affected by the floods now, and one can work the math of the crisis at hand.

'Would not proudly showing President Xi Jinping that people from India's North-East are as much a part of India as those from anywhere else be like a slap on the face of Chinese aggression?' asks Chitra Ahanthem.