New Delhi: The tiny village of Aliba in Nagaland’s Mokukchung district hosts a unique club for children — one that teaches not only football, cricket and athletics but also folk songs and traditional handicrafts, aiming to help children learn discipline.
Known as the Zongza club, it was formed in November last year by a retired ONGC engineer named Imkongchiba Pongen. There are a total of 49 children, aged five to 15 years, in the club today, who are trained for two-three hours every morning and evening in football, cricket and athletics.
The children are also taught how to sing Naga folk songs. On Tuesdays, the children sit with the village elders to learn weaving and make handicrafts. All coaches and trainers train the children free of cost.
Yanglo Ao, a retired second Naga regiment personnel, who coaches the children, told The Morung Express, “We don’t just train the kids to excel in sports. We teach them folk songs and handicrafts. We also take them to church and monitor them so that they learn to be disciplined in every aspect of life.”
Also read: National anthem plays in Nagaland assembly for the first time in 58 years
18-year-old Manipur cyclist wins gold hat-trick in national championship
Khariksing Adonis Tangpu, an 18-year-old from Manipur, has won three gold medals at the 17th National MTB Cycling Championship held at Gadag in Karnataka from 19-21 February.
Tangpu, who is from Peh village in Manipur, won a gold each in Men Junior Time Trial (XCT), Men Junior Cross Country Race (XCO), and Mixed Relay events. He also won the ‘The Best Cyclist Award’ at the championship.
MTB Cycling Championship is organised by the Cycling Federation of India.
Tangpu had also represented India at the 25th Asian Mountain Bike Championship in 2019 in Keferdebian, Lebanon in the under-18 category.
Two roommates-turned friends running Nagaland’s first e-waste collection centre
To tackle the menace of e-waste in Nagaland, two friends named Bendangwala Walling and Sowete Letro have been running the state’s first-ever e-waste collection centre.
Called e-CIRCLE, the centre was set up in September 2018 and has since aimed at sensitising residents on e-waste management. Both women also do door-to-door visits for awareness programmes and e-waste collection.
“We visited local repair shops and scrap dealers, hotels, garages, colleges, schools, colony councils, and conducted sensitisation programmes, to make people aware of the nuances of e-waste and its disposal,” Walling told EastMojo.
While Walling did her masters in social work, Letro studied human rights at Panjab University in Chandigarh. “We were roommates during our university days… It was during our solid waste management internship in Shillong that we received the nudge needed to work for our state as well,” Walling was quoted as saying.
Mizoram band narrates folk tales, advent of ‘western culture’ via 15-min song
A group from Mizoram called ‘Sound From The Hills’ has come up with a song on Mizo folk tales and the advent of western traditions into the state. Called Liandoa Te Unau, the song is 14 minutes and 52 seconds long. It was released last month and has garnered over 46,000 views so far.
The song talks about how the “white man” (and the plains’ dwellers) came to Mizoram and helped the people adopt a more “modern” concept on society.
“We at ‘Sound From The Hills’ have spent the better part of the past few years trying to compose a musical drama through the narrations that we grew up with. So, it is essentially a culmination of our roots, the stories that have been a part of our culture for centuries now,” the band’s guitarist and composer of the song, Booma Hangsing, was quoted as saying.
Also read: China video on last year’s Galwan clashes turns this Manipuri Army captain into a hero