Kohima, May 20: One of the biggest challenges before Prime Minister-designate Manmohan Singh is only weeks away. The NSCN (I-M) has announced that its top leaders, Isak Chishi Swu and Thuingaleng Muivah, will visit Delhi next month to take up the contentious demand for integration of all contiguous Naga-inhabited areas with the next government at the Centre.

The militant group’s deputy kilonser (minister) of information and publicity, Kraibo Chawang, said the visit was scheduled before the Congress-led alliance was invited by the President to form the government. He said the NSCN (I-M) was not...

AIZAWL, May 20 – The situation in Aizawl was now normal and the district administration Wednesday lifted night curfew clamped in the city since Saturday following ethnic flare-up triggered by the murder of a Mizo girl by two non-tribal coolies.

Aizawl district superintendent of police L.T. Hrangchal said following the lifting of curfew against non-Mizos, a few non-tribals were seen on the streets and most of them had resumed their normal avocation.

Aizawl Deputy Commissionr C Tawnluaia also informed his counterpart in neighbouring Silchar in Assam that the situation in Aizawl was completely...

DIMAPUR, May 20 – Breaking his silence after release from captivity of the NSCN-IM, noted Naga scholar, writer and activist Kaka Iralu Wednesday expressed gratitude to God and all individuals and organisations that pleaded for his safe release.

Speaking over phone from his residence at Kohima, Kaka Iralu, still recuperating from the mental ordeal he had to undergo in captivity, told that he was “grateful to God for delivering me and to all those people, friends and well wishers who have pleaded for my safe release”.

“I was abducted by the orders of the civil set up of the NSCN but was in...

IMPHAL, May 20 – Security forces in Manipur are gearing up for a massive combing operation to flush out insurgents who have set up camps in the interior areas of Chandel district bordering Myanmar, official sources said today, reports PTI. Senior security officials have studied satellite maps and topography of hilly and inaccessible places surrounding militant-infested Sajik Tampak areas and Chakpikarong where headquarters of 44th brigade of the army had been set up recently in the district, the sources said.

Army units had also been opened recently at Sugnu, Serou, Sangaikhong and nearby...

GUWAHATI, May 20 – With Dr Manmohan Singh, who has been elected to the Rajya Sabha from Assam thrice all set to take over as the Prime Minister tomorrow, the State unit of the Congress and the Assam Government are in an upbeat mood hoping that the State would get special attention from the new Prime Minister. On the other hand, the Asom Gana Parishad (AGP) is of the view that there was nothing to be elated over the election of Dr Singh as the Prime Minister.

Talking to The Assam Tribune, the Education Minister Pankaj Bora, who is also the State Government spokesman, said that Assam and the...