News

Jorhat, May 30: Minister of state for defence Bijoy Krishna Handique today said the Manmohan Singh government was not averse to peace talks with militant groups of Assam on foreign shores, provided there were no more strings attached. “When you look at the world as a global village, holding talks in another country should not be a problem,” he said during the first visit to his constituency, Jorhat, since being included in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government.

Handique said starting a dialogue with any militant group was more important than deciding where to talk.

“Why...

GUWAHATI, May 30: Keeping 2006 Assembly elections in view, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) has started the process of rebuilding the party and a thorough review of the performance of the party in the last general elections will be held in a four-day meeting to be held from June 1. In the last general elections, the regional party under a new leadership managed to win two seats and the most notable achievement for the party is the victory of Sarbananda Sonowal from Dibrugarh constituency, known as the stronghold of the Congress. Sonowal managed to defeat the Assam Pradesh Congress Committee...

GUWAHATI, May 30 – India has 130 million tonne of bamboo resources that has been exploited only partially. Covering an area of ten million hectare, bamboo has a huge commercial potential. It is to translate this potential into reality that the Centre had set up the National Mission on Bamboo Applications (NMBA) under the Department of Science and Technology (DST). The Northeast produces two-thirds of the country’s total bamboo. Naturally, the NMBA has focused on this area. Since it was set up some two years ago, the Mission has initiated several steps to bridge the gap between the latest...

Imphal, May 29: The Revolutionary Peoples Front (RPF), political arm of the banned Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) of Manipur, today brushed aside any idea of talks with Delhi, saying peace would return to the state only after withdrawal of “the colonial rule of India”. Immediately after assuming charge, the new Union minister for department of development of northeastern region, P.R. Kyndiah, had appealed to the militant outfits of the region to shun violence and come to the negotiating table.

Assistant publicity secretary of the RPF, Lily Leima, alleged in a statement issued here today that...

SHILLONG, May 29–The North Eastern Council (NEC) will not be ‘downgraded’, Union Minister for Tribal Affairs P R Kyndiah has assured.

“There was a move for down-grading the NEC in the recent past but I can now assure that the importance of the Council will never be undermined,” Kyndiah promised at a meeting with NEC officials in Shillong on Saturday. It may be mentioned here that the creation of a separate Central Department for the Development of the North Eastern Region (DoNER) by the then NDA regime at the Centre had given rise to misgivings in official quarters to the effect that the...