Newspaper coverage of peace process in Nagaland

Ever since the cease-fire agreement was signed in 1997 between the Government of India and the NSCN (IM). There has been a hectic parley between the two parties to resolve the Naga issue. The peace talk has attracted the attention of the media in the Northeast region particularly in Nagaland. Unlike those days when such talks were held behind closed doors and the understanding of most of the Indians about the Naga problem was through the eye of the media especially from Assam based newspapers, as there was no newspaper publication in Nagaland till it became a separate state in 1963. A few newspapers were published intermittently after 1962. The Nagaland Post is the first and the only newspaper in the state which started its regular publication in 1990 followed by other newspaper such as Eastern Mirror and The Morung Express. All these newspaper began to intensively cover the Naga issue from its inception. The present study focuses on the role of newspapers coverage in the peace process between the Govt. of India and both the NSCN groups, with a brief historical background of the Naga and its conflict. The study also analyses the role and initiatives of the Naga social organisations in the peace talk and the extent of the use of media space by Naga social organisations to facilitate the peace process. The techniques of theoretical as well as empirical methods have been adopted by analyzing some of the concept of conflict and peace.