Shillong, Jan. 6: After Assam, it is Meghalaya’s turn to join the elite group of primate conservation region in the world. A Indo-US joint project on primates for conserving the endangered hoolock gibbons of Meghalaya will be launched this year. Initiated under the great ape conservation fund, the project is likely to be launched in and around the Nongkhyllem wildlife sanctuary in Ri Bhoi district and parts of Garo Hills.

A team from the Wildlife Institute of India and the US fish and wildlife service division recently surveyed the project area. Chief conservator of forests (wildlife) Sunil...

Dibrugarh, Jan. 6: In the biggest arms haul in the history of the Northeast, troops of the 2 Mountain Division, in charge of counter-insurgency operations in Upper Assam and parts of Lower Assam, had recovered a huge cache of arms here in August and September 2002. Disclosing this to newspersons at the divisional headquarters of the 2 Mountain Division in Dinjan today, Maj. Gen. H.S. Batra, GOC, said, “The haul was a result of the offensive launched by the force in the region.” The arms hauled included eight Universal machine guns, 42 AK-56 rifles and a large quantity of small arms and...

Poilwa (Peren), Jan. 6: On a chilly December morning on a mist-covered hilltop of the Poilwa range, armed cadre go about their daily drills with their usual military precision. But despite the razor-sharp glares of the NSCN (I-M) activists at “outsiders”, there is a kind of warmth in their body language. They say it is all due to the “end of the long wait”. At the council and general headquarters of the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) here, the visit of their “collective leadership” to Delhi for starting the talks at the political level has raised the hopes of the “Naga...

Kokrajhar, Jan. 6: Giving vent to its frustration over the impasse in Assam’s Bodo belt, the Bodoland Liberation Tigers (BLT) today accused the Tarun Gogoi government of deliberately delaying the formation of a new administrative set-up. The outfit’s secretary general, Derhasat Basumatary, said the state government need not have convened an all-party meeting to discuss the issue of constituting the proposed Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC). “The state government began a never-ending process by convening an all-party meeting. It was nothing but a delaying tactic.”

Basumatary criticised the...

GUWAHATI, Jan 6 — While cellphone users in the rest of the country can celebrate the over 66 per cent reduction in STD call charges, those in Guwahati and Shillong will have to wait a while before they can join the celebrations. There is no immediate chance of a fall in current rates in the two North East cities, the only two in the region to have cellular phone services.

According to sources here, a rate-cut is possible only if the Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL), which carry the STD calls, decide to reduce its tariff. Currently, the BSNL peak STD rate is Rs 9 on an average. Last week...