GOLAGHAT, May 31 – The forests in Golaghat district are facing a virtual wipe out. The roads along which trees were beautifully lined now look much the worse for a malady of epidemic proportions – timber smuggling. This practice has taken its toll on the entire area even if families live life to the fullest from profits earned through this clandestine trade.

In Golaghat district, till a couple of years ago, huge trees, planted in the pre-independence time, would stand clustered nicely on both sides of the highways. Those trees would not only protect the highways from erosion but are...

GUWAHATI, May 31 – It seems that the State’s efforts at power reforms may go haywire as the Assam State Electricity Board (ASEB) authorities’ failure to include a sum of around Rs 1,900 crore for the terminal benefit of the Board employees. The Board had earlier formulated a proposal for introducing reforms in the power sector worth Rs 1,200 crore for the purpose of availing a loan worth 250 million dollars from the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

The latest stand-off in the ASEB following the agitational programme announced by the State wing of the National Coordination Committee of...

Jorhat, May 30: Minister of state for defence Bijoy Krishna Handique today said the Manmohan Singh government was not averse to peace talks with militant groups of Assam on foreign shores, provided there were no more strings attached. “When you look at the world as a global village, holding talks in another country should not be a problem,” he said during the first visit to his constituency, Jorhat, since being included in the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government.

Handique said starting a dialogue with any militant group was more important than deciding where to talk.

“Why...

Guwahati, May 30: The BJP today decided to serve a showcause notice to music maestro Bhupen Hazarika for his absence from the party’s crucial two-day brainstorming session. Hazarika was invited to the meeting, but did not attend and gave no reason for staying away. “We will send him a letter seeking his explanation for not attending the meeting that concluded today,” Indramoni Bora, the party’s state unit president, said. The meeting was convened to analyse the party’s performance in the recent Lok Sabha elections.

Hazarika was the party’s only Lok Sabha candidate who did not attend the...

Guwahati, May 30: Powerful cameras aboard Indian remote sensing satellites are zooming in on the Northeast to find out the wealth hidden in its bamboo grooves. It is for the first time that remote sensing satellites are being used to assess and quantify the bamboo resources of the seven states of the region. The idea is to help these states utilise the stock before the debilitating phenomenon of bamboo flowering occurs.

Bamboo flowering usually occurs once in every five decades. Two-thirds of the country’s growing stock of bamboo is in the Northeast. The raw stock is estimated to be worth Rs 5...