Time's Person of the Year: You
"In 2006, the World Wide Web became a tool for bringing together the small contributions of millions of people and making them matter".
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| Manipur welcomes 2006 World Boxing Champions MC Mary Kom & L Sarita |
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The above statement by TIME probably sum up the philosophy of e-pao and what we have been re-iterating year after year. It is you who make e-pao happen and TIME's recognition of YOU as the person of the year is indeed well due. Our heartfelt gratitude to the regular contributors: N Sanajaoba, Abel Hmar, Oken Jeet S, Mohen Naorem, Thohe Pou, N Megnanath, RK Shiva, Pengba Aruba Esingee, Awungshi, Ringo, Dr B Elangbam, Shanjoy, Anjan, RK Babina, David Buhril, Kavitha Joshi, Nehginpao, Gin Gangte, J Neitham, Dr. SwastiCharan, James V to name a few. And hats off to all who writes back to us after reading a story or an article. You dont want to sit and watch anymore. You want to step in and offer ideas of change or point to a better way. Our well wishes to you who reads stories and articles here and found motivation to start their own small movement to bring about changes in their own small way. 2006 has seen re-inforcement of common people's ability of contribution using the world wide web as the medium.
And E-Pao is happy to be your e-platform.
We also have to add with deep sorrow that Issac Hmar, one of our regular contributor, left us for his heavenly abode. He was missing since 18 April 2006 until the body was recovered on 20 April 2006.
Incidently, his last contribution was about the remembrance of
Jesus on the Good Friday which was webcasted on 14 April 2006.
We still maintain his corner. Rest in peace.
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| Gin Gangte presenting a shawal to President Dr. Abdul Kalam on his historic visit at Bunglon, CCpur |
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The most notable addition to the e-pao.net in 2006 would have to be the E-Pao Radio. Its come-to-life of a plan that was floating in our heads for almost a year. It took off very succesfully on the first day itself. Our statistics shows that our listeners lap up all the new breed of singers but the oldtunes are not so behind. Pahari is still an all time favourite. What could be interesting is that the Original Rock tunes (usually) sung to English lyrics remains the most popular. The number one track of a day is being streamed anywhere from 2800 to 3500 times a day. We are happy to be propagating these original tunes to you.
Does this mean Singing english songs with a western ensemble (rock) band is on it's way to not to be considered a 'wasted' activity? That, only time will tell. On our part, we are happy to be bringing these talented groups to you for your evaluation.
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| Manipuris protesting against the bomb blast at ISKCON |
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This brings us to the next topic of YellOut. We showcased 2 more talents on it in 2006 - Tarun Sharma and Kradle O' Beats. Their songs are now being streamed through the e-pao radio too. We get some inquiries and are also aware of some bands who should feature in this section. We are working on their information so that we could put them in front of you for you listening pleasure and evaluation. If you come across any such band, please do write to us at: feedback at e-pao dot net.
Under the Education section, we started two new sub-sections on the Math Initiative and Drug Awareness. While Math Initiative is an initiative of Shantha Laishram to promote lateral thinking using basic mathematical knowledge, Drug awareness is a collection of anectodes and essays by doctors, campaigners, health workers, etc on how drug abuse come about to the present face of AIDS. There are some alarming facts about HIV and AIDS relating to our state Manipur in that section.
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| Irom Sharmila - a living icon |
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The Manipur Channel got re-organised. We have re-grouped several existing articles and added new ones into "History of Manipur", "Religion and Manipur", "Ethnic Races/People of Manipur", "Festival of Manipur", "Shumang Lila & theatre culture", "Sports and Manipur". A series called "Merger of Manipur with the dominion of India" by Waikhom Damodar is an educative peice of a history lesson. There exists a KshetriMayum Imokanta narrative on the history and development of Manipuri Theatre in the "shumang Leela" sub-section.
The E-Pao Incidents sub-section has Robert Baite corner and a Oinam Anand corner filled with their interesting annectodes and observations. There are new poets that gets added to the Poems section while the older guys marches on. We also regularly bring you the favourite english editorial from Manipur, The sangai Express Editorials. There are new Manipuri blogs come to existence regularly. We list many of them here.
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| First Pitch: The United States–Manipur Baseball Project |
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Last year we predicted on a change in average Manipuri mind with Manipur Manipuris accepting and adopting new approaches and technologies and Out-of-Manipur Manipuris(or NRM) starting to bring the new approaches and technologies back home. We are happy to note that there has been lots of discussions on Brain Drain and reverse Brain Drain in these pages. Efforts by past students to help present students of their alma mater also is a positive direction to this effect.
As usual, a little statistic before we sign off. on 26th Dec since the new year 2006, we have had approximately 25 lakh (2.5 million) sessions or visitors with some 1.35 crore (13.5 million) of pageviews running up to a 6.63 crore (66.3 million) hits and 674 Gigabyte of transfers(not counting the media files).
We have some 300 odd collection of songs and increasing and some huge numbers of pictures, which we have decided not to count.
They are all yours to enjoy.
Team E-Pao wishes you happy tidings in 2007.
See a flash presentation on this occasion
here.
