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New Delhi, January 7: Even as the leaders of insurgent group NSCN(I-M) arrive on Wednesday for talks with Prime Minister Vajpayee and Deputy PM L.K. Advani, the Government is not pinning hopes on a major breakthrough. The focus, apparently, is on building confidence between the two sides.

‘‘At this stage, the biggest concern of the Government is to conduct peaceful elections in Nagaland. This is the least it wants to ensure through parleys with NSCN(I-M) chairman Isak Chisi Swu and general secretary Thuingaleng Muivah.

Though the talks are, no doubt, a major step towards resolving the...

Jan. 7: A day after the NSCN (Khaplang) declared that the much-awaited Naga peace talks in Delhi would be an exercise in futility, an organisation representing the Kuki community of Manipur pleaded with the Prime Minister and his deputy not to sign any agreement with the Isak-Muivah group. In identical memoranda to Atal Bihari Vajpayee, L.K. Advani and government interlocutor K. Padmanabhaiah, the Kuki Inpi, Manipur, charged the NSCN (I-M) with killing over 900 Kukis and displacing members of the community from 350 villages.

Holkholet Khongsai, president of the Kuki Inpi, said the Kukis...

New Delhi, Jan. 7: Swivelling the spotlight back on foreigners overstaying in India, the Centre today obtained concurrence from states on issuing citizens’ identity cards and announced the launch of a three-month drive from April to flush out illegal immigrants. The multi-purpose identity cards will be issued on the basis of a proposed national citizens’ register.

A pilot project for the identity cards will be launched in specific areas in 13 states, including Bengal, Assam and Tripura, which have a sizeable number of immigrants from Bangladesh. If the finance ministry releases Rs 14 crore...

Shillong, Jan. 7: Former Meghalaya chief minister and state Congress president, S.C. Marak, today said his party would maintain “a safe distance” from the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) after the end of the current term of the People’s Forum of Meghalaya (PFM) government. Both the Congress and the NCP are part of the PFM coalition. The Congress has 16 MLAs while the NCP has one less in the ruling coalition.

Ruling out the possibility of forming an alliance with the NCP before or after the next Assembly elections, Marak said his party would concentrate on making a “big comeback” in the...

Kohima/New Delhi, Jan. 7: Beneath a pastel portrait of Angami Zapfu Phizo, the architect of the Naga movement, Kevitsielzo Gu-u sits in silence, recounting the past and pondering the future. To Phizo’s son, a resident of Kohima village near the state capital, the much-hyped visit of the NSCN (I-M) leadership and their proposed talks with the Prime Minister do not “mean much”. His sister Adinno, who lives in London, feels “talks are meaningless without the participation of the Naga National Council (NNC)”. Phizo had founded the NNC in 1946.

Though members of Phizo’s immediate family live far...