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Guwahati, June 16: Assam chief minister Tarun Gogoi said his government was in favour of according Sixth Schedule status to all the tribes even as Dhemaji district witnessed some recent communal flare-ups between the Mising and non-Mising communities over the move to grant the former recognition under the Sixth Schedule.

The demand for Sixth Schedule status for different tribes gathered momentum after it was granted to the Bodos.

The chief minister, talking to the media at his official residence today, said the cabinet sub-committee, formed under the chairmanship of health and family welfare...

DIMAPUR, June 16 – In the countdown of downsizing of ministry, Nagaland Chief Minister Neiphiu Rio in his first -ever statement on the issue after his return from the national capital on Tuesday at Kohima said: “It will be inconvenient but we will make it”. “It is not that we will just take 12 ministers and function, but we will take a collective decision and work out a collective strategy for the welfare of the people”, Rio reiterated.

The Chief Minister said that a team of ministers and party leaders led by him had recently met the Central leaders at New Delhi and requested them not to...

Kohima, June 16: Nagaland has decided to downsize its ministry. Chief minister Neiphiu Rio said the Centre was informed of the state’s problems in implementing the parliamentary legislation. “They told us that an amendment would be required if the demands of the states were to be met,” Rio told reporters last evening. “For now we will have to implement it.”

Several members of the current ministry fear being excluded from the new council. After July 7, there will be 12 instead of 36 ministers, including the chief minister.

Nagaland will reportedly save more than Rs 20 crore after the ministry...

GUWAHATI, June 16 – The proscribed ULFA has shown the “first signs” of coming to the negotiation table to solve the vexed insurgency problem in the State, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said here today, reports PTI. “Somebody (ULFA leader) has come forward. It is a good sign and we are hopeful of a new beginning,” Gogoi told PTI in an interview.

“We have been always asking them (ULFA) to come for talks and it is a very positive sign that they have responded,” Gogoi said. Without identifying the ULFA leader who he said has “come forward for talks,” the Chief Minister said, “at least let there be...

GUWAHATI, June 16 – Union Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh today assured that the Centre would accord top priority to human resource development in the north eastern region. The Union Minister, during a meeting with Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi here today, also assured that the Centre would provide all possible help for developing the infrastructure for improving the standard of education in the region, an official release said here.

The Chief Minister, on his part, thanked the Union Minister for the decision taken by the Ministry to spend 10 per cent of its budgetary allocation...