GUWAHATI, March 31: The future of the four-party ruling alliance hangs in balance as the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) has initiated dialogue with the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for a possible poll tie-up. The Left parties - CPI and CPM have already made it clear that they would be forced to come out of the alliance if the AGP comes closer to the BJP, while, the Samajwadi Party yesterday ruled out the possibility of a poll pact with the AGP. Commenting on the reports of a possible AGP-BJP poll alliance, senior CPI leader and State Flood Control Minister Promode Gogoi said that his party took note...

NEW DELHI, March 31: A casual remark by Chief Minister, Prafulla Kumar Mahanta to the Union Home Minister, LK Advani that the Congress in Assam would stand to gain from the three-cornered contest between the AGP-BJP and Congress that set the ball rolling forcing the leadership of the BJP to re-think on its poll strategy. When Mahanta went to meet the Union Home Minister this Thursday, to talk about resolving the Bodo problem, even he had no idea that he would be triggering a chain of events that would turn around the political scenario in the State. A top BJP leader told The Assam Tribune that...

IMPHAL, March 29: The Gauhati High Court (Imphal Bench) has quashed the February 13 order of Manipur Assembly Speaker Sapam Dhananjoy declaring former Chief Minister Nipamacha Singh and seven others as "unattached' members of the House, reports PTI. Justice JN Sharma gave the ruling on Tuesday after final hearing of the writ petition filed by Nipamacha Singh, M Kunjo (present Manipur Industries Minister) and K Biren (present Civil Supply Minister). The petitioners had sought quashing of the Speaker's order on grounds that it was unconstitutional. While quashing the impugned order, the judge...

KOHIMA, March 31: Nagaland has recorded the highest decadal growth of population during 1991-2001 in the country, the provisional census figures released here on Saturday revealed, reports PTI. The provisional census figures of Nagaland with districtwise break-ups, including literacy rate and sex ratio were formally released here this morning by Chief Minister SC Jamir at a simple function at his official residence. The total population in Nagaland increased from 12,09,546 in 1991 to 19,88,636 in March 2001, recording the decadal growth at 64.41 per cent against the national average growth...

KOHIMA, March 31: The provisional figures of the 2001 census reveal that immigrant settlers from Assam and Tripura have swamped the hill states of the Northeast. The figures released here today showed that, except for Assam and Tripura, population growth in the remaining five states of the region was much higher that the national growth rate of 21.34 per cent during 1991-2001. Nagaland, like in the last census, emerged as the state with highest population growth rate in the country recording 64.41 per cent. Census officials said it was difficult to ascertain whether the migrants were legal...