GUWAHATI, April 1 – The failure of the Union Ministry of Water Resources to release funds for both the ongoing and new schemes since 1999-2000, has brought implementation of 71 flood management schemes in the State to a grinding halt, said State Water Resources Minister Nurzamal Sarkar here today. He was addressing a press conference.

Moreover, the Minister said, the Union Water Resources Ministry in its budget for 2002-2003 had kept a meagre provision of only Rs 10 crore for the State, which had a liability of Rs 54 crore for the ongoing and completed flood management schemes. However, these...

ITANAGAR, April 1 ( APNEI) – Tired of pollution ? We gave you methane petrol , now take “Bio diesel…was the kind of assurance the union minister of state for rural development” Annasaheb MK Patil, a technocrat turned politician having a coveted American university engineering degree, gave to the northeasterners.

Talking to the media persons here Patil made a sensational disclosure that the entire northeast, Arunachal Pradesh in particular, was the hub of jetropa plant, found also in south India, which has already proved its potential in virtually substituting diesel.

Experiments were...

Dimapur, April 1: Condemning the abduction of German social worker Heinrich Wolfgang by Kuki militants in Manipur, the National Socialist Council of Nagalim (Isak-Muivah) today appealed to the abductors for his safe and unconditional release at the earliest in the interest of peace and justice for all.

The German national, working for the Financial Management Service Foundation as peace trainer, was abducted by militants of the Kuki Liberation Army (KLA) on March 23 near Maphou dam area in Imphal East district.

Though it was initially believed that the abduction was carried out for ransom...

Guwahati, March 31: The abduction of Meghalaya-based customs inspector Deepak Mahanta and six others by the National Democratic Front of Boroland (NDFB) has led intelligence agencies to suspect that the outfit is “desperate” for funds to sustain a massive recruitment drive along the Indo-Bangladesh border.

The focus of the NDFB’s new recruitment drive is Haluaghat in Mymensing district, an area that is home to a sizeable population of Bodos, Rabhas and Garos. Intelligence sources said the outfit was extorting money from people on either side of the border in a bid to collect enough funds to...

Shillong, March 31: The Scotland of the East could soon become the hottest herbal-cure destination in the country after Kerala. Thirty Meghalaya-based practitioners of traditional medicine will exhibit their skills here tomorrow and validate their claims about the medicinal value of certain plants that are abundantly available in the state.

“Practitioners of traditional medicine have accepted the challenge to prove that the best cure to many diseases is natural therapy. We will probably see some of the evidence tomorrow,” Besterwell Kharbuli, a scientist at the North Eastern Biodiversity...