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Nagaland Page, a prominent English daily newspaper published from Dimapur in Nagaland, shut operations after 25 years, its founder-editor Monalisa Changkija announced in a press conference on 7 January 2025. “Mine is not the first paper to fold, nor will it be the last,” Changkija told media persons.
Nagaland Page, launched in May 1999 as the state’s second English daily after Nagaland Post, celebrated its 25th anniversary in May 2024.
“The decision was taken due to financial and personal reasons, not necessarily in that order,” Changkija, the first woman in the state, and probably in the entire northeast, to launch and edit a daily newspaper, said.
The last issue of the tabloid-sized black-and-white daily was published on December 21 last year. Changkija said the online edition would stop as “managing an online platform was even more taxing than print.”
“But now I am back to being a journalist, I want to only write and, in the process, I will probably make some people more unhappy,” she announced.
At the same time, Changkija said she would be happy if any “interested” party bought the newspaper to take the brand forward. Nagaland Page, she said, had been through ups and downs, both financially and otherwise, but they managed to hold on with the small team. “I am grateful to my team which stood by me through all these years,” Changkija, known for her straightforward views, said.
In an article in The Print, Monideepa Banerjie quotes Patricia Mukhim, one of a few prominent women journalists in the northeast and editor of Shillong Times and Changkija’s contemporary, as saying, “I think it’s a great loss of a dynamic and liberal voice from Nagaland and northeast—a voice that fearlessly took on the power holders and held them accountable for decades. She (Changkija) was also unrelenting in taking on the non-State actors and at one point was even summoned by the NSCN(IM) for something she had written.”
