Conflicts in the North East: analysis and dialogue

The Centre for North East Studies and Policy Research in association with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, a German foundation working in India, collaborated on a two-day workshop in New Delhi that brought together many young students and professionals from the North-eastern region as well as senior figures from Government, academia, business and the media.

The effort of the workshop was threefold viz., to help develop synergy between different groups from the region working in the National capital region and look at issues which could become a focus for their joint activity in the next years, to enable better informed official perceptions and the development of sensitive policies, based on ground realities.

Titled Conflicts in the North East: analysis and dialogue, the workshop was held at the Indian International Centre, New Delhi, on September 26 and 27, 2004. It drew over 70 students, professionals and others in a set of discussions which were intense, passionate yet realistic.

The following are excerpts of its proceedings. C-NES has been working in the field of developing better understanding of northeastern issues across the country through a process of workshops, lectures, publishing and inter-action sessions with policy makers, field researchers, scholars and practioners and other stakeholders.

It proposes to continue these campaigns as part of its focus on governance, public policy and building bridges of understanding between different parts of the country. This past year, it has conducted such workshops in Bhopal and Pune, Mumbai and Bangalore and earlier in Chennai.

We would like to thank the FES for its support to the program and the participants for their involvement and concerns, which are reflected in detail in this publication. We are pleased to publish this monograph, the third in our series on issues relating to the North-east and wish to point out that the second was also in collaboration with FES and looked at lectures and papers presented during the visit of a prominent Bangladeshi team to the North-east. I would like to thank Manjeet Baruah for his hard work in transcribing and editing the tapes of the discussions.