GUWAHATI, May 2 — A nefarious design has been orchestrated by the Pakistani ISI to bring about a change in the demographic composition of the North East in general and Assam in particular. The design is being implemented by encouraging illegal influx from Bangladesh and propping up fundamentalist militant outfits imbued with a dream of a Islamic homeland.

Security sources told The Assam Tribune here that the infiltration problem in Assam is becoming graver by the day with little signe of any ebb in the flow of Bangladeshis crossing over into India. Most of them head for Assam and West Bengal...

GUWAHATI, May 2— Taking Indo-US military cooperation to a new height, special forces of the two largest democracies recently held a joint combined exercise in Mizoram. The US will host Indian Special Forces in Guam in June for the next leg of the cooperation. Balance Iroquois 03-1 (Vajra Prahar), a three-week long joint exercise involving the personnel of the US Special Forces and an assault team from the Indian Special Forces Battalion concluded at the Counter Insurgency Jungle Warfare School (CIJWS) at Vareingte in Mizoram last Saturday, a press release from the Public Affairs Office of the...

ITANAGAR, May 2— Arunachal Pradesh Minister for Rural Works Department Tingpong Wangham and a former minister T L Rajkumar were arrested by police under Arunachal Pradesh Control of Organised Crime Act, 2002 for their alleged nexus with ultras of NSCN factions active in Tirap and Changlang districts, official sources said.

Wangham and Rajkumar were arrested on Wednesday from their official residences and hunt was on to nab another former minister Lwanglat in connection with the case, the sources said. The two leaders were produced during the day before the designated court of special judge...

KOKRAJHAR, May 1 – The Chirang-Ripu reserve forest has been declared as an elephant reserve under the guidelines of the Centre’s “Project Elephant”. The reserve convers an area of 2600 sq km comprising six districts of Kokjrajhar, Bongaigaon, Barpeta, Nalibari, Kamrup and Darrang with seven forest divisions.

Meanwhile, senior forest officials said the Chirang-Ripu reserve has a minimum of 650 elephants and the number of pachyderms had registered a rise in the Haltugaon, Kachugaon and Aie valley wildlife division after the elephant census conducted in 2002. The officials were hopeful that...

Kohima, May 2: The NSCN (I-M) today threatened to “reconsider” its truce agreement with the Centre if security forces continued to raid its camps and arrest activists. However, the threat had little effect on the Assam Rifles, which said the outfit should stop endangering peace in “civilian-populated areas” if it wanted to be left alone.

A team from the 10th battalion of the Assam Rifles had raided a camp of the “UT-1 battalion” of the NSCN (I-M) in Dimapur town early yesterday and arrested three activists, including the “camp commander”. It also seized a huge cache of arms and ammunition and...