Nagaland Governor La Ganesan and the 3 Corps GOC, Lt General Harjeet Singh Sahi with the finalists of the Fusion of the Bands at the Bhagat Stadium, Rangapahar Military Station, Dimapur on March 28. (Morung Photo)
Morung Express News
Dimapur | March 28
Noisy Neighbours won the Fusion of the Bands, a Hindi music ‘Talent Hunt’ organised by the 3 Corps for music talents of Nagaland under the Indian Army’s Operation Sadbhavna. The finale on March 28 saw 6 bands performing at the Bhagat Stadium, Rangapahar Military Station, Dimapur, to a fairly big turnout of civilian audience.
Nagaland Governor La Ganesan was among the crowd as the chief guest, besides the General Officer Commander (GOC) of the 3 Corps, also known as the Spear Corps, Lt General Harjeet Singh Sahi.
The winner Noisy Neighbours won Rs 3 lakhs, the first runners-up– Kunwang Wanghum won Rs 2 lakhs and second runner-up– Lies & Lullabies won Rs 1 lakh.
All the six finalists were further awarded Rs 25,000 each.
The journey to the finale of the talent hunt comprised of a three-stage process which brought together musicians from all genres from the 16 districts to compete. The preliminary stage, conducted online, had 29 bands auditioning.
After a rigorous selection process, 12 bands were shortlisted by a jury of three judges, to compete in the semi-finals. The jury comprised of Obed Kath of Divine Connection; Sunep Lemtur, singer, songwriter and producer; Akum Jamir, bassist of XTC, proprietor of Crescendo and a member of the Business Association of Nagas.
The semi-finals, which took place on March 26, in Dimapur, saw Sideline (Mokokchung), Raag (Dimapur), Kunwang Wanghum (Dimapur), Tribals Indian (Dimapur), Lies & Lullabies (Kohima) and Noisy Neighbours (Dimapur) making it to the finals.
The evening was peppered with performances from guest artistes like Imna Yaden, Eva Rongmei, NK Naga, Akumsen Lemtur, Aloboli Kinimi and Prashant Tamang, winner of the Indian Idol Season 3.
According to a press handout, the Operation Sadbhavna of the Indian Army executes diverse initiatives on the basis of 'Felt Need' of the population. The projects are selected after taking local aspirations into consideration, in collaboration with the civil administration and it is ensured that there is no duplicity in the projects being shortlisted. Projects like the National Integration Tours (NIT), besides women empowerment, employment generation, education, opportunities to youth for showcasing talent and development activities towards nation building are planned and executed under Operation Sadbhavna, the handout said.
