Booting out the old and heralding the new : Need to change mindset
- The Sangai Express Editorial :: December 23 2015 -

Booting out the old and heralding the new. Nothing new here for this is an annual affair.

In a few days time from now, the world will be bidding adieu to 2015 and welcoming the new year, 2016.

Again nothing new here for this is an annual exercise, but it is important that some efforts are put in to ensure that the dawn of a new year should also go hand in hand with the dawn of a new mindset.

This is where the people really need to come around to the idea that change can come only when they change their mindset.

Learn from yesterday so that tomorrow can be better.

The important question is whether the people are ready to learn anything from the past or not.

And to learn from the past, one has to be sincere enough to acknowledge that not everything is right.

Year 2015 should be more than enough indication that the deep distrust between the local people runs deep.

This should explain the huge uproar at Churachandpur after the State Assembly passed the three Bills on August 31.

Even today the bodies of the nine people killed in the huge protest there are lying in state while in the valley, the number of days lost during the street protests can never be made up.

The lost days will surely impact on the academic pursuit of the young students but there is nothing to suggest that some lessons have been learnt from the past.

When one talks about the coming of a new year, will it mean anything new for the young students ?

An old question it is but worth repeating again.

Why do thousands of students feel compelled to go outside the State to pursue higher studies ?

For parents and elders who are financially well placed, this question may not gain much currency but then not all parents are well off but feel constrained to send their children outside the State, for education is the pass word to the future.

This should pose a question on the state of education at the college level.

Not the time to put the onus on the Government alone for education is a collective responsibility.

This is where it needs to be acknowledged that education is something much more than what is taught inside the confines of a classroom but also on the overall environment.

Does Manipur really fit the bill of a place which encourages the youngsters to question ?

Why should young students be made to participate in affairs which are better left to the adults of society to handle ?

And why is it that educational institutions become the prime target during the course of any public movement ?

Let these questions then become the focal point for everyone when the world steps into 2016.