Manipur, April 22 -- One of the best known contemporary thinkers, economist Jeffrey Sach's statement made in jest, that it would not be correct for anybody to pretend that Afghanistan's problems started with the Taliban and will end with the Taliban, for the problems actually started with Vasco de Gama in 1498, when he put the Silk Road out of business by showing the sea route from Europe to Asia and back (quoted in Sanjib Baruah's book "Durable Disorder"), might as well have been a remark about the Northeast. The problems of the Northeast, Manipur included, did not begin with the current spate of insurgency, or for that matter is likely to end with a resolution of insurgency either. The problem began with some momentous shifts in geopoliti...