Shillong, Nov 12: The North East Students’ Organisation (NESO) today the 11th November 2020 conducted an online meeting between its members and the constituent students’ organization representing the seven North Eastern states viz Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur and Nagaland.
After thorough deliberations the meeting resolved that due to the prevailing situation arising out of the COVID-19 pandemic, the house unanimously agreed to further extend the tenure of the current Executive Council of NESO to be in office for another year.
The house voiced its strong opposition and vehemently condemn the recent statement of the Union Home Minister with regards to the Citizenship Amendment Act. As had been expressed earlier through different mediums, NESO once again reiterated its stiff opposition to this draconian act which is clearly detrimental to the indigenous populace of the North East region.
The NESO would like to mention that even though the case is pending in the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India, yet the constituent organisations of NESO are at full liberty to design their own course of agitation taking into account their respective ground situation, in coordination with NESO.
The NESO is expressing its anguish and grave concern of the situation arising out of the border dispute between Assam and Mizoram. NESO is strongly of the opinion that such unfortunate circumstances evolves due to the failure of the successive governments to solve this long pending issue in the past and present.
Despite the ongoing stalemate, NESO strongly opines that there should be normal and free flow of goods, materials and essential commodities between the two states. Even though talks are initiated between the two states at the level of the respective Chief Secretaries, yet no improvement was observed on the ground.
Therefore, NESO demands that talks should be conducted at the level of the two Chief Ministers so as to bring a lasting and permanent solution thereby ensuring safety and normalcy to the people living on both sides of the border at all times.
The Pandemic has brought untold miseries to people from all walks of life due to the restrictions and lockdowns imposed by the Government. At the receiving end are many entrepreneurs and self-employed youths who are availing loans from various financial institutions.
The NESO appeals to all financial institutions in the region to exempt monthly loan payments during the restricted and lockdown periods and extends the deadline to a further date so as to ensure that entrepreneurs and self-employed youths do not suffer in their struggle to make ends meet.
Similarly, students are also largely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic whereby there is a long and abrupt disruption of classes and examinations. The Union Ministry of Education had recently announced that examinations should be conducted at all costs and states have to devise mechanisms to ensure that all students are able to appear in their respective examinations.
At present, all North Eastern states are complying with the direction by conducting exams preferably through online mode. However, certain anomalies were detected with regards to the online examination conducted.There are many areas in the North East region which have very poor network connectivity and some are yet to be connected online.
Owing to this fact, the NESO highly recommends the respective governments and educational institutions to facilitate both online and offline mode of examinations so as to ensure that not a single student is left out of the examination process conducted in this pandemic. Said Mr. Samuel B Jyrwa Chairman and Mr. Sinam Prakash Singh Secretary General of the North East Students’ Organisation in the press statement issued today.
