New Delhi, Jan. 7: Swivelling the spotlight back on foreigners overstaying in India, the Centre today obtained concurrence from states on issuing citizens’ identity cards and announced the launch of a three-month drive from April to flush out illegal immigrants. The multi-purpose identity cards will be issued on the basis of a proposed national citizens’ register.

A pilot project for the identity cards will be launched in specific areas in 13 states, including Bengal, Assam and Tripura, which have a sizeable number of immigrants from Bangladesh. If the finance ministry releases Rs 14 crore...

Shillong, Jan. 7: Former Meghalaya chief minister and state Congress president, S.C. Marak, today said his party would maintain “a safe distance” from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) after the end of the current term of the People’s Forum of Meghalaya (PFM) government. Both the Congress and the NCP are part of the PFM coalition. The Congress has 16 MLAs while the NCP has one less in the ruling coalition.

Ruling out the possibility of forming an alliance with the NCP before or after the next Assembly elections, Marak said his party would concentrate on making a “big comeback” in the...

Kohima/New Delhi, Jan. 7: Beneath a pastel portrait of Angami Zapfu Phizo, the architect of the Naga movement, Kevitsielzo Gu-u sits in silence, recounting the past and pondering the future. To Phizo’s son, a resident of Kohima village near the state capital, the much-hyped visit of the NSCN (I-M) leadership and their proposed talks with the Prime Minister do not “mean much”. His sister Adinno, who lives in London, feels “talks are meaningless without the participation of the Naga National Council (NNC)”. Phizo had founded the NNC in 1946.

Though members of Phizo’s immediate family live far...

Guwahati, Jan. 7: When a KLM flight from Amsterdam carrying Isak Chisi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah — the two leaders of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) — touches down at the Indira Gandhi international airport in New Delhi tomorrow, it will be the cynosure of all eyes in Nagaland. The reason for this is the belief that the negotiations will be a “giant leap forward for the talks but a small step towards the Naga cause”.

The meeting between the NSCN (I-M) leaders and the Prime Minister would set the tone for future parleys, but it would be too early to assume that a final...

GUWAHATI, Jan 7 — The proscribed Dima Halam Daogah (DHD) will demand a separate State for Dimasas whenever it sits for the peace talks with the Government of India (GoI) as a sequel to the truce. Talking to this newspaper here, the self-styled commander-in-chief (C-in-C) of the outfit, Pranab Nunisa declared, “our primary demand before the Government of India during the peace negotiation will be creation of a separate State (Dimaraji) for Dimasa tribe. We feel, the problems of our people will never get resolved sans a separate State within the territory of India.”

The C-in-C said it took...