AGARTALA, February 20: There are serious allegations from the public that the PCO owners here are reluctant to allow their clients to avail of the new STD rates. The Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has reduced the call charge within a distance of 200 km and charging it at par with local call but the PCO owners here are reluctant to allow the callers to utilise the facility for their own interests. With the new system, even places like Shillong, Aizwal and Imphal have fallen within the 200 km radius as a result of which telephone user here need not pay for STD call to ring up someone in...

IMPHAL, February 20: Government apathy has become the bane of the villagers of Nongpok Keithlmanbi located in Imphal East as the village is lacking in every aspect of basic amenities. Villagers complained that they have been neglected for more than 19 years by the Government resulting in the present condition. Villagers told this reporter that the people of the area are mostly hand to mouth farmers. The people are caught in a time warp as no Government facilities have reached them. The farmers go to the hills in the winter to cut firewood. However, the simple lifestyles are at most of the...

AIZAWL, February 20: The repatriation of Bru refugees from Tripura would begin after the activists of National Liberation Front (BNLF) come overground and lay down their arms, Mizoram Home Minister Tawnluia said. The State Government was ready for return of all the refugees, sheltered in Tripura camps, who were bonafide residents of Mizoram but the Bru rebel groups would have to lay down arms and return to normal lives first, an official release quoted Tawnluia as saying so on Friday. Leaders of the Bru Welfare Committee met the Minister on Friday and apprised Tawnluia of the miseries and...

SHILLONG, February 20: The ongoing Census 2001 operations in Meghalaya is in jeopardy following a threat issued by the banned militant outfit Hynniewtrop National Liberation Council (HNLC) to eliminate enumerators. The HNLC, local newspapers reported on Monday, has warned that unless the Government of India came out with a clear policy to solve the long-standing political problem of the State, the Census operation sponsored by the "Colonial forces" shall be termed as an illegal activity. Publicity Secretary of the outfit M Diengdoh asked the Census enumerators not to resort to pressure tactics...

GUWAHATI, February 20: All the indigenous people of Assam must fight together to thwart the design to include Assam and other parts of the Northeastern region into Bangladesh with demographic invasion, said the adviser of the All Assam Students' Union (AASU), Samujjal Bhattacharyya. Referring to the reports that a section of intellectuals of Bangladesh mooted the idea of dividing India to form a confederation comprising Bangladesh and the NE States of India, Bhattacharyya alleged that the failure of the Central and the State Governments to check the demographic invasion was the main reason for...