News

NEW DELHI, March 12 – India is pushing for opening of a second border trading point through Champai-Rih sector, even as the Government is in the process of setting up a joint trade committee chaired by the respective Ministers of Commerce to promote bilateral trade between India and Myanmar. Minister of State for External Affairs Vinod Khanna informed this in the Lok Sabha today.

Expressing India’s keen interest to widen the list of items being traded between the two countries, the minister conceded that existence of only one border trading point is a constraint. Under the Boarder Trade...

IMPHAL, March 12–No new taxes were imposed in the deficit Budget presented for the next financial year in the Manipur Assembly Tuesday, reports PTI. Presenting the Budget estimates of Rs 3663.49 crore, the Chief Minister, O Ibobi Singh, who also holds the charge of Finance department, said that fresh initiatives would be made to augment revenue from existing tax and non-tax resources to fill the budgetary gap.

Also hard measures would be introduced to prune government expenditure like downsizing of the bureacracy, ban on direct recruitment and abolition of death in harness scheme, the...

Guwahati, March 12: Assam is becoming a costly place to live in, according to the economic survey for 2002-03. The survey, which was tabled in the Assembly today, showed an alarming rise in the prices of essential commodities, ranging up to 35 per cent. Probably keeping in mind the price rise and in an effort to raise their standard of living, the state government today announced a reservation of 30 per cent in official contracts and supply work for Scheduled Tribes and Scheduled Castes from this year.

The survey revealed that the monthly average of retail prices of a number of essential...

Kohima, March 12: The Democratic Alliance of Nagaland may have won the war, but the battles were pitted neck and neck. Twenty-seven of the 37 candidates fielded by the BJP forfeited their deposits while only three of the 60 Congressmen contributed to the government exchequer.

Seventy-eight of the 219 candidates whose results have been declared — the results of two seats are pending — have lost their security deposits of Rs 2,500, contributing Rs 1,95,000 to the exchequer.

The tally for forfeitures shows that 11 candidates of the Nagaland People’s Front, 10 of the Nationalist Democratic...

Guwahati, March 12: People for Animals (PFA), a leading animal rights organisation, has taken a serious note of the Assam government’s decision to “eliminate” two wild tuskers. Taking cognisance of a report published in The Telegraph northeast on March 11, chairperson of the organisation and former Union minister Maneka Gandhi said that she had learnt from “reliable sources” that the two tuskers ordered to be killed by the chief wildlife warden were in no way responsible for any human deaths.

The animal rights activist demanded that safe elephant corridors be created and the government...