The Hindu : New Delhi News : Focus on North-East

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Wednesday, Feb 13, 2008
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Focus on North-East

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: Bringing the key aspects of the present situation in the North-East to renewed focus and making an attempt to clarify concepts and notions relevant to an understanding of that region, Jamia Millia Islamia is holding a daylong seminar on the campus here this Thursday.

The conference on “Contested Space and Identity in the Indian North-East” is being organised by the Academy of Third World Studies and Centre for North-East Studies and Policy Research with the support of the Heinrich Boell Foundation.

Ethnic diversity

“Conveniently lumped together as the North-East, the eight States of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura boast of a rare ethnic diversity and cultural heritage. But the complex societies in the eight ‘Sister States’ are not always fully understood and there is a fair amount of confusion about the root causes, the dynamics and the nature of civil strife in India’s borderlands,” said a University spokesperson.

“It is clear that the unresolved problems of the North-East pose a major challenge to the project of nation-building and put the viability of traditional concepts of security, development and autonomy to test. The conference will shed light on the regional geo-political environment and also provide a platform to discuss policies for responsive and accountable governance,” he added.

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