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GUWAHATI, May 29 – More than six months have passed since the day the interim body of the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC) assumed office, but till date, the State Government has not been able to complete the process of transfer of departments to the Council. BTC spokesman Khampa Borgoyari, who is also an executive member of the Interim Council, told The Assam Tribune that as per the Memorandum of Settlement (MoS) signed between the Central and State Governments and the Bodo Liberation Tiger (BLT), the State Government would have to transfer 40 Departments and subjects to the Council and the...

Dibrugarh, May 29: Talks between the Consultative Committee of Planters’ Associations (CCPA) and the Asom Chah Mazdoor Sangha (ACMS) remained inconclusive today on the demand for hiking daily labour wages of the tea gardens located in the Brahmaputra Valley. ACMS general secretary Madhusudhan Khandait, who has already demanded a 40 per cent hike in the daily labour wages, said here today that the three-hour-long meeting could not yield significant results. The members representing the CCPA strongly opposed the hike in any form.

The last three-year bilateral agreement between the CCPA and...

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...

IMPHAL, May 28 – Manipur Government has decided to extend “disturbed area status” of the state for another six months from June 1 in spite of strong protests from various social organisations and communities, official sources said today, reports PTI. The decision to prolong the status under Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958, was taken at a Cabinet meeting chaired by Chief Minister O Ibobi Singh here yesterday in view of the deteriorating law and order situation, the sources said.

They said the Act which was first imposed in September 1980 in the state had been in extension from time to...