GUWAHATI, Feb 24 — The Coordination Committee of Tribal Organisations, Assam (CCTOA), a united platform of some 25 tribal organisations in the State, has decided to launch an agitation against the reported move of the Centre to grant Scheduled Tribe (ST) status to the 70-lakh strong Koch-Rajbongshi community in the State.

Terming the Centre’s move as ‘politically motivated’, CCTOA co-ordinator Milon Sonowal told presspersons here today that the CCTOA will organsie a sit-in demonstration in New Delhi on March 13 to oppose the Centre’s move. The CCTOA has also threatened to call a state-wide...

Guwahati/Shillong, Feb. 24: Angry over the administration’s failure to prevent the audacious mortar attack on the Indian Air Force base at Borjhar, defence minister George Fernandes has sought a detailed report on the incident and said that Dispur had some explaining to do about lapses in security.

Fernandes made the statement in Shillong even as Assam police rounded up 25 people for interrogation and recovered a mortar left behind by the militants involved in the attack last night.

The defence minister, who was in Meghalaya to boost the National Democratic Alliance’s electoral campaign, said...

KOHIMA, Feb. 24 – The Naga National Council, while ‘unreservedly’ condemning the forthcoming State Assembly elections called by the Government of India reasserted “in the strongest possible terms its rejection of any such elections in the absence of a settlement of the Naga political problem of invasion”.

The NNC in a release on Sunday issued by its acting president Gen. (retd) I. Panger Walling reminded the Government of India and the Naga people that “the imposition of the Indian state elections in the Naga country completely contravenes and countermands the Naga plebiscite of 1951”...

Guwahati, Feb. 23: Suspected Ulfa militants today targeted the Indian Air Force for the first time since launching the guerrilla campaign, firing a mortar on the air base at Borjhar on the outskirts of the city. Fifteen airmen having dinner at their mess had a narrow escape when the mortar pierced the roof and fell on the verandah before exploding. The incident took place around 8.30 pm.

The mortar not only caused “considerable damage” to the building but also dented the confidence of the Congress government, which had been claiming an improvement in law and order since it assumed office. City...

GUWAHATI, Feb 23 — A 1967 batch Telco-made steam locomotive came alive on Saturday chugging along the 64-kilometre-long metre gauge route from Lower Haflong to Maibong set in the picturesque surroundings of North Cachar Hills, as the NF Railway ventured into promotion of tourism along its 100-year-old Lumding-Badarpur Hill Section.

As the vintage locomotive steamed in and out of numerous tunnels along the route dotted by a large number of bridges standing since British days, it relived the memory of old-age train safari for many of the small group of tourists converging from different parts...