Dhubri, June 7: It finds mention in the Directory of Asian Wetlands as a global biodiversity hotspot, but Sareswar Beel, 15 km off Dhubri town, has yet to make it to the Assam forest department’s list of priorities. Repeated pleas by non-governmental organisations to conserve this repository of ecological diversity have fallen on deaf ears. Nature’s Friend, one of the organisations that have been trying to protect the wetland, advocates turning it into a bird sanctuary.

Encroachment upon the adjoining forest reserve, rampant denudation of the green cover and heavy siltation caused by erosion...

Guwahati, June 7: The United Progressive Alliance’s commitment to carve out a new state called Telengana from Andhra Pradesh has led leaders of Assam’s Bodo tribe to question why the community should be content with just an autonomous administrative council. The Bodo community had only recently settled for a new administrative council, constituted under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.

Lok Sabha member from Kokrajhar Sangsuma Khungur Bwismutiary, however, said there was no reason for the Bodo community not to aspire for a separate state.

The Independent MP said over phone from New...

IMPHAL, June 7 – People’s Revolutionary Party of Kangleipak (PREPAK) militants ambushed an Army post at Khonmunliyan Kuki area at Chandel district in Manipur resulting in heavy exchange of fire, official sources said on Monday, reports PTI. Casualties, if any, on both sides were not immediately known, the sources said. Army personnel were still combing the area after the exchange of fire yesterday, near Sajik Tampak village, to flush out the insurgents.

Suspected PREPAK insurgents had earlier attacked an Army post at Paldai area near the same village on May 5 last but no casualty was...

GERUKAMUKH (Dhemaji), June 7 – For the power-starved Assam, the delay in the projected commissioning date of the Lower Subansiri Hydro Electric Power Project, an undertaking of the National Hydroelectric Power Corporation (NHPC), is bad news. Though dams in the seismically active North East are a cause of serious concern among sundry environmental groups, the positive side of the proposed power station is that once completed, it will feed an additional 2000 megawatts of power into the electric grids of the region.

And while the environmental groups are fuming and fretting over their...

GUWAHATI, June 7 – The Speaker of the Assam Legislative Assembly, Prithibi Majhi, today reserved his ruling on the prayer of the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) for disqualification of two legislators – Ali Akbar Mian and Abdul Jabbar. The AGP filed a petition for disqualification of the two legislators for disobeying the three-line whip of the party in the last Rajya Sabha polls for two seats from Assam.

The Chief Whip of the AGP Legislature Party Hitendra Nath Goswami told this correspondent today that the Speaker today heard both sides and kept his ruling on the issue reserved. “We are waiting...