The Luckies
The Labelled, Urban, Chilled, Kicked-with-life Indians are here. The most fortunate ever if only for the choices before it, this generation is glib, global, cocky and informed-and chases success with an awesome spending power.

Wages Of Peace
The Centre's decision to extend its cease-fire with the NSCN(I-M)
to three other north-east states leads to large-scale violence
in Manipur.

Man Of Letters
Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's skill with the quill has the PMO busy acknowledging his missives. And on occasion agreeing to his demands.

Civil Lines
Pervez Musharraf's assuming the office of President is being seen as a bid to legitimise his position. A look at what this means in the context of his India visit.

Peace In Pipeline
India wants to put on Iran the onus of ensuring safe transit of gas.

STATES: MANIPUR

Breach Of Trust

The politics has not ceased. In Delhi, the BJP and Samata Party have been viewing each other with suspicion. If the BJP linked trouble in Imphal to Samata leader Radhabinod Koijam, who was ousted as chief minister less than four months into his term, the Samata frowned upon the Union Home Ministry's efforts to install a popular government in the state.

That may be easier said than done considering the popularity politicians seem to be enjoying in Imphal at present. With bureaucrats doing a shade better in the popularity stakes, the blame game is on. Predictably, K. Padmanabhiah, the Centre's chief interlocutor with NSCN(I-M), is the cynosure of attention. He succumbed to pressure from the ultras, say Home Ministry officials. "The NSCN(I-M) didn't trust him. He tried to win them over by conceding to their long-pending demand. He failed to get anything in return," says a senior official.

The issue of a cease-fire without territorial limits has dogged the peace process ever since it was initiated in 1997. The NSCN(I-M) claims Delhi offered a truce in the first round of talks then without setting territorial limits. Then prime minister I.K. Gujral reneged on it by making a statement in Parliament limiting the cease-fire to Nagaland, they allege. However, both Gujral and former Union home secretary N.N. Vohra who led the peace talks at the time both deny this. "The NSCN(I-M) was asking for it but we could not agree as both Nagaland and Manipur opposed it," says Vohra. This time too Koijam, who was chief minister of Manipur at the time Vajpayee held consultations with chief ministers of the north-eastern states, says he had opposed the cease-fire proposal.

Home Ministry officials now say the extension was a fait accompli. "Two years ago when the cease-fire was extended it was specified it would be against the NSCN(I-M) as an organisation. This meant wherever the group existed. The armed forces had an informal truce in Manipur's hill districts between 1999-2000," says a Home Ministry official.

MOB RAGE: Police battle protesters

The cease-fire has its supporters in other places as well. Mizoram Chief Minister Zoramthanga, who was sent to Bangkok as Delhi's emissary to restart the peace process last year, is not sure Manipur's fears of being carved up are justified. "The NSCN(I-M) is serious about peace. So is Delhi. Cease-fire without territorial limits is about creating an atmosphere conducive to peace," he says. Former army chief and Rajya Sabha member General Shankar Roy Choudhury, who is credited with preparing the ground for dialogue in 1996, says "I had reccomended a cease-fire against the NSCN(I-M) in the entire region."

In his defence, Padmanabhiah says he gave nothing away. "We have told the rebel leadership in no uncertain terms that the extension of the truce jurisdiction and the demands cannot be linked," he says. Vajpayee was more categorical: "There will be no change at all in the borders of Manipur or any other state". The clarifications came a little late in the day.

Vajpayee's comment suggest there will be no redrawing of state borders in the north-east. This means the NSCN(I-M) dream of a Greater Nagalim can never be conceded by Delhi. A war-weary Muivah, released from a Bangkok jail in September last year, has tacitly acknowledged this. In agreeing to talks with the Centre the rebel group has shown it may be prepared to let go of its demand for independence.

But that has not pacified the sceptics, some of whom have other, completely unrelated, scores to settle with Delhi.

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