KOKRAJHAR, April 18— About 3250 families, residing in relief camps since the outbreak of ethnic riots in Kokrajhar, have been recently sent back home under a rehabilitation package by the Kokrajhar district administration. Their rehabilitation has been made possible after the release of Rs 3 crore in February. So far, about 5,100 families have been rehabilitated. According to Kokrajhar deputy commissioner Dr Ashish K Bhutani, the recently rehabilitated families have been drawn from the Sapkata, Dorogaon, Patgaon, and Sonapur relief camps. The rehabilitation process was completed in the first...

IMPHAL, April 18 –The Citizens Concern for Dams and Development(CCDD), a common platform of various bodies belonging to different communities, has strongly reacted to Chief Minister O Ibobi’s statement on the proposed construction of controversial Tipaimukh dam. The convenor of the common body and an eminent Naga women activist Aram Pamei while talking to reporters at the white palace hotel here said that the recent statement of the Chief Minister is “totally against interest of the people”.

Quoting reports Pamei said, ‘‘He should not make such a statement if he really felt the sentiment...

JORHAT, April 18 – Taking a cue from the mutually beneficial experience of several State governments following constitution of eco-development committees in villages located at fringe areas of national parks and sanctuaries, the authorities at the Kaziranga National Park too have followed suit and submitted a proposal to the Government for setting up a ‘forest development agency,’ which could pave the way for better coordination with villagers living around the periphery of the 860-sq km park.

With a number of eco-development committees already having taken shape in fringe villages under the...

New Delhi, April 17: The Union home ministry has traced the genesis of the bloody Dimasa-Hmar ethnic feud in Assam to a resolution adopted by the North Cachar Hills District Council to rename the district as “Dima Halali”.

Sources in the ministry said the resolution was the first of several “deliberate attempts” to create a chasm between the Dimasas and other communities of North Cachar Hills district and adjoining Cachar.

There was an “uneasy calm” in North Cachar Hills immediately after the resolution was adopted in January. The restive atmosphere boiled over in the next couple of months...

April 17: As Cachar and North Cachar continue to burn, another ethnic conflict is brewing in neighbouring Karbi Anglong over granting of Scheduled Tribe (hill) status to the Bodos living in the hill district.

Assam home commissioner B.K. Gohain told The Telegraph that security in Karbi Anglong has been beefed up in view of the indefinite road and rail blockade called by the militant outfit, the Karbi Anglong and North Cachar Hills People’s Resistance — a frontal organisation of the anti-talks faction of the United People’s Democratic Solidarity.

The blockade is scheduled to begin on April 25...