GUWAHATI, February 28: A seminar on 'Politics and Reorganisation of Northeast India' was held recently at Diphu Government College under the auspices of the university Grants Commission. It was organised by the Department of Political Science of which BC Bhuyan, Head of the Department, was the chief co-ordinator. It was inaugurated by professor Anuradha Dutta of Gauhati University on February 1. In her inaugural speech, Dutta remarked that the Northeast was going through a process of turmoil and attributed the crisis to the Constitutional machinery. She pointed out that neglect by the Centre...

NEW DELHI, February 28: The Union Budget has gone the Railway Budget's way with the Finance Minister, Yashwant Sinha also turning a cold eye towards the north eastern region. The general Budget 2001-02 may prove to be just as hard hitting on the region as Mamata Banerjee's Budget, as barring a few concessions here and there, Sinha took no extra care to bail out the financially-starved Northeastern States from the ongoing financial mess. The only redeeming feature was that almost all central ministries have separately earmarked 10 per cent of their budgetary allocations for the region, a rule...

GUWAHATI, February 28: Although the Union budget 2001-2002 has been widely hailed by the industry and commerce sector in the State, the Federation of Indian Industries and Commerce of Northeastern Region (FINER) has expressed its disappointment that the budget has failed to address the demand of removing of locational restrictions existing in the Northeast industrial policy. The FINER, however, termed the budget as a whole as "positive and growth oriented" and a reflection of the Government's pro-active attitude towards economic reforms. The FINER president SK Jain said the Finance Minister...

AGARTALA, February 28: Long spells of drought, low price and poor demand have hit Tripura tea industry badly. According to the Tea Association of India (TAI), the Tripura tea industry is concerned over the acute drought situation prevailing from the beginning of 2001. Lack of any rainfall affected the plantations most, especially the young plants in the garden nursery. In many gardens, young tea leaves have dried up for non-availability of rain, it said. During last year by this time of the season, there was about four inches rainfall, whereas this year till date the rainfall recorded was only...

GUWAHATI, February 28: The Designated Court, Guwahati today acquitted all the three persons chargesheeted in the case relating to murder of the then Superintendent of Police of Dibrugarh district Daulat Singh Negi. Negi, an Indian Police Service officer, was killed in an ambush by suspected United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) militants near Panitola in Dibrugarh district on July 29, 1990. The case was later handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the central investigating agency filed the chargesheet of the case in 1991. The central investigating agency chargesheeted...