GUWAHATI, May 23? About 300 employees of the Assam State Cooperative Agriculture and Rural Development Bank Ltd (ASCARD) have been going without regular salaries for the past 22 months. The headquarters of the bank in a highrise building at Ulubari is in a state of utter despair. A sense of gloom prevails everywhere. For years, the bank has done little. For years, the bank has been unable to recover crores of rupees due to it from its creditors. Among the defaulters are some of the ?respectable? persons of the state. According to office bearers of the ASCARD bank employees union, over Rs 6.81...

GUWAHATI, May 23 ? A study conducted by the Soil Conservation Department recently, reveals that the degradation status of the city hills is ?almost directly related? to encroachments upon them. The study also reveals that the city?s 18 hills are covered by 75 villages, consisting of 26,985 households with a total population of 1,23,979. Ironically, this was the total population of the city in 1971, said the study.

The hills like Sunsali, Kalapahar, Khanapara, Nabagraha, Gandhibasti are subjected to ruthless devastation by the encroachers, while Basistha, Sonaighuli, Kamakhya etc, hills have...

GUWAHATI, May 23?Poachers last night killed two rhinos ? a mother and her calf at Pobitora wildlife sanctuary, home to the second largest population of the endangered great Indian one-horned rhinoceros after Kaziranga National Park, and decamped with the horn. The two rhinos were killed by electrocution near the Kamarpur camp, adjacent to the roadside, the Pobitora ranger said. This is the second time in the last two-and-a-half-years that poachers electrocuted a rhino, but failed to take away the horn. Mentionably, Pobitora, situated at a distance of just 52 km from the city, shelters nearby...

AIZAWL, May 23 ? India urged Myanmar to rein in the North-east insurgents who have taken shelter in that country and make efforts to stop arms smuggling by the rebel groups, reports PTI.

Rajeev Agarwal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Home Affairs, who led the 17-member Indian delegation in the two-day sectoral level Indo-Myanmar talks here, sought the cooperation of Myanmar government in curtailing the operations of the insurgent groups from across the border.

Agarwal said that North-east insurgent groups like the NSCN(K), PLA, UNLF and ULFA have camps in Myanmar from where they create...

KOHIMA, May 19? The NSCN(I-M) has claimed it does not have any relation with Nagaland Transport Minister Yeangpong Konyak and clarified that the arrested activist of the outfit had forcibly used the State government?s vehicle to carry explosives for his personal interest. Assam police had earlier arrested Arun Wangchuk, personal secretary of the Transport Minister and three others, including an NSCN(I-M) activist, on the inter-State border check post in Karbi Anglong district on May 6 and seized a huge cache of explosives.

An NSCN(I-M) release issued here Saturday said the organisation...