Aizawl, Dec. 15: The Mizo National Front heaved a sigh of relief as Mara Democratic Front president and legislator P.P. Thawlla was sworn in by governor A.R. Kohli this afternoon as the sixth minister of state in Zoramthanga?s ministry.

The MNF desperately needed another MLA to consolidate its simple majority in the Mizoram House. Thawlla, till Sunday noon, had said he would sit as an Independent MLA until and unless the political affairs committee of his party, the MDF, decided otherwise.

Driving a hard bargain, a deal was reached late on Sunday night according to which the MDF will support...

Dawki, Dec. 15: Two years after Pyrdiwah, a border conflict of similar proportions is brewing near Dawki. Thousands of Bangladeshi boatmen have transgressed into a disputed area 150 yards from the Zero Point in Meghalaya and are trying to make further inroads with the Bangladesh Rifles? backing. Some have entered parts of Dawki and nearby Rongkhum.

The infiltrators were recently spotted collecting boulders from Dawki Khal with Bangladesh Rifles personnel deployed across the border keeping watch. The BSF reacted to the intrusion only after learning that a group of journalists were witness to it...

New Delhi/Guwahati, Dec. 15: India today lavished praise on Bhutan for launching a military offensive against Northeast militant groups operating from its territory, but senior bureaucrats remained sceptical about its ability to keep the rebels out for good.

A senior official said Bhutan?s military manpower and equipment might be inadequate to maintain control over the areas from where militants of the Ulfa and the National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB) were being shunted out.

He claimed the top leaders of both groups fled the Himalayan kingdom before the operation began.

?With their...

GUWAHATI, Dec 14: Existing tribal land holding practices in the Northeast may be depriving the people from availing bank loans to bring about agricultural development in the primarily agrarian economies of the States here. Suitable modifications need to be made in the rules to enable the tribals to bring about a transformation in their lives.

A team from the Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes Commission (SA&STC), led by its chairman Dileep Singh Bhuria, which is currently visiting Assam and Nagaland, has observed that the individual cultivators should easily get the soft loan assistance...

ITANAGAR, Dec 14: Union Minister for Forest and Environment TR Balu assured Arunachal Power Minister Lijum Ronya that stringent laws might be relaxed to facilitate the Lower Subansiri hydro electric project. Ronya, said in a press release here on Saturday that during his meeting with Balu in New Delhi on Wednesday, the Union Minister assured him that he would see that the condition put forth by the National Wildlife Board that the catchment area of Lower Subansiri should be declared as a National Park to net forest clearance for the 2000mw first phase of the hydro-electric project was relaxed...