Glimpses of Northeast's rise in Nagaland's Hornbill fest

The region's wealth of natural reserves, spiritual heritage, sports, skills, ecotourism, food and agriculture, and cultural vibrancy is not rhetoric, rather it is lived every day

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As the year draws to a close, reflection comes as a duty, a ledger of triumphs tallied against the unyielding march of time.

My recent immersion in Nagaland, surrounded by the energy of the 26th Hornbill Festival, crystallised the truth I have carried since assuming charge: The blueprint for Viksit Bharat blooms defiantly in the emerald folds of the country's frontiers, where Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi's vision of the Northeast as Bharat's Ashtalakshmi states becomes real. The region's wealth of natural reserves, spiritual heritage, sports, skills, ecotourism, food and agriculture, and cultural vibrancy is not rhetoric, rather it is lived every day. If the Northeast is my second home, Nagaland is the warm seat by the fire. It is a connection forged through the raw, unfiltered kinship I feel with its people with their guardianship of 17 vibrant tribes' legacies, their unbowed resilience amid historical tempests, and their fierce embrace of progress.