Source: Chronicle News Service

Senapati, January 28 2022: A two-day national sem-inar on bio-diversity and tribals of North East India, which is being organised by Research Commit-tee Mount Everest College (MEC), Senapati has commenced at the college premises from Friday with MU department of anthropology professor MC Arun attending the inaugural function as chief guest.

In his address, professor MC Arun said that tribals are pro-tectors of bio-diversity and com-munity identity, mother tongue and beautiful culture will be in vain without a good biodiversity.

Today many tribal communities are no longer bonded by tribal mindset due to advancement in modern technology and different factors, he said and called upon the gathering to preserve biodiversity.The professor encouraged the young students to think out of the box and contribute to the society.

He reminded the participants that the seminar is the platform for ex-changing knowledge and ideas and one should take advantage of it.MEC principal Dr Samson S Chiru, in his keynote address, said that the state has 38 different languages of which 35 are trib-al languages but only 17 tribal languages are recognised by the government.

It is unfortunate that the state government is neglecting the mother languages of the state unlike in Nagaland where they give due importance to promoting language of different tribes, he lamented.In the technical session moderated by KL Vashti Khou and Donkaolung Ma-langmei, Manipur University research scholar Surbala Loushambam spoke on 'Prevalence of arbuscular mycorrhizal and dark septet endophytic association'; NB College deputy executive director Dr Manganba Phairembam on 'Ecological impacts in health of north east tribal'; Kohima Science College Jotsoma's depart-ment of zoology's Dr Vethselo Doulo on 'Beetles (Coleoptera) of Tuensang town and its vicinity Nagaland'; MEC department of history HoD Dr Holkhongam Haokip on 'prospect of adventure tourism in the hills of Manipur with special reference to Bol-len'; MU research scholar Rajkumari Lunphasana Devi on 'estimation and com-parison of the content of Indigo in different parts of Strobilanthes cusia Nees (Kuntz) by using UV-vis spectroscopy'; and MU research scholar Sanasam Thoibi Devi on 'comparative analysis of phytochemical content in five different species of Zingiber found in Manipur' as resource persons.