It was Haldar who had played a key role in making a peace process possible with a faction of the United Liberation Front of Assam. He is also negotiating with other tribal outfits in the region on behalf of the government of India.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Tuesday denied making any statement on making birth control mandatory but said he had only suggested a small family.
The Congress government in Assam hopes to implement the National Food Security Ordinance which has been passed by the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance government in the Centre, within six months, as desired by the Centre.
As Assam celebrated Rongali Bihu (spring festival) Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi took the opportunity to make a renewed appeal to armed insurgents groups still at large to come forward for dialogue with the government.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Thursday said some divisive forces were at work against restoration of peace in the state as a result of which violent incidents continued.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Wednesday said Army will be used in the state only for specific operations to seize illegal arms and restore peace.
In the wake of recent violence in Assam and the subsequent exodus of panic-gripped northeast people from some other states, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi convened a meeting with the editors of newspapers to elicit their views to bring about normalcy in the affected areas and to rehabilitate inmates in relief camps.
A couple days after Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi pledged to focus on ensuring security and welfare of women and girl child in Assam in the wake of ghastly Delhi-bus rape of a student and her subsequent death, a senior leader of his party (Congress) was Thursday arrested by Assam police on charges of rape.
As an undercurrent of tension continues to grip the violence-hit Assam, Chief minister Tarun Gogoi on Friday called a meeting of all the political parties in the state to work out a joint and all-participating strategy to deal with the situation effectively in the interest of restoring peace and communal harmony in the state.
A judicial inquiry will be held to probe the violence in lower Assam even as the Central Bureau of Investigation has taken up seven cases related to the clashes that have claimed 77 lives so far. "We have decided on a judicial inquiry. This will be done at a much larger scale and cover the entire gamut of issues, including lapses by administration and recommendations for preventing such incidents in the future," Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said.
The violence in lower Assam has once again brought to the fore the problem of illegal migration and its impact on the socio-economic situation in the state, which had witnessed prolonged unrest on the explosive issue back in the 80s.
The attack on the army convoy in Goalpara was the handiwork of the anti-talk faction of ULFA, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi said.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Friday agreed that presence of sufficient forces in time would have prevented the ethnic violence raging in the state from assuming such menacing proportions.
The latest flare-up in Assam is a wake up call for the Congress governments at the state and the Centre that they cannot afford to ignore ethnic equations that generate cyclical clashes, writes Anirban Ganguly
Amid continuing violence in parts of Assam, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will undertake a visit to the state on Saturday to take stock of the situation and the steps being taken to control it.
The Assam government has constituted a special task force to be headed by the additional director general of police (criminal investigation department wing) to tackle the rising trend of crime against women in the state.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi, facing flak for his remark that there are no illegal migrants in the state, on Wednesday claimed that he was misquoted as he had only mentioned that as per voters list, there are no illegal migrants post 1971.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Sunday said the insurgency situation in the state had assumed a new dimension with Maoists trying to strike an alliance with insurgent groups, and the involvement of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence in it.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Tuesday lambasted a section of the national television media for allegedly trying to paint a "negative picture" of the greater Assamese society in the wake of molestation of a girl in the city on July 9.
RTI activist and Team Anna member Akhil Gogoi on Tuesday claimed that the recent molestation of a girl in Guwahati, allegedly instigated by the reporter of a local news channel, may have been part of a greater conspiracy to tarnish the image of Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi and destabilise the state government.
Admitting that there have been lapses on the part of police in dealing with the molestation case of a girl in Guwahati, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi has given them a deadline of 48 hours to arrest youths involved in the incident. The chief minister issued the deadline on Friday night.
The Assam unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party has lodged a First Information Report with Assam police against Enamul Haque Laskar a Congress legislator, and former minister Nurjamal Sarkar for their alleged involvement in financial irregularity involving Rs 270 crore in the state Irrigation Department.
Normal life disrupted in Assam during a statewide bandh called by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and supported by the Bharatiya Janata Party and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad.
In the wake of massive surrender of militants from different insurgent outfits in the state in several spells of late, Assam government is finding it hard to mobilise resources to take care of the Himalayan task of rehabilitation of these surrendered militants who have responded to the call for peace from the government.
"My US trip has been criticised by some people. But they should understand that such visits are not pleasure trips. Until and unless we visit other countries and learn about the latest advancements, how can we introduce such things in our own country," he told media persons in Guwahati.
The flood situation in Assam remained grim on Wednesday with a railway track washed away in Lakhimpur district disrupting railway traffic with Arunachal Pradesh.
The anti-talks faction of the United Liberation Front of Assam has called for 12-hout Assam bandh on May 26 to protest the visit of the united Progressive Alliance chairman and Congress President Sonia Gandhi to Guwahati on that day.
Two days after all the doctors in the district civil hospital fled due to threats from insurgents, the Assam government on Monday shunted out Superintendent of Police in Kokrajhar district of western Assam, P K Dutta. Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Monday admitted that the situation in Bodoland Territorial Council areas, where Kokrajhar district is located, was deteriorating. Doctors of Rup Nath Brahma Civil Hospital in the district fled.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Monday announced a slew of stricter laws to fight corruption and amendments in the existing Lokayukta Act. Gogoi said, "The new anti-corruption legislations and the amendments to State Lokayukta Act will be tabled in the state assembly in the next budget session." "We were committed to tackling corruption even before Anna Hazare started his campaign. With that in mind, we will make amendments in the present Lokayukta Act," he said.
Two days after four Maoist leaders were killed in Sadiya in eastern Assam bordering Arunachal Pradesh in first ever major operation against Maoists in the state, Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Friday said that the Maoists have already set up bases in all upper Assam districts and were expanding towards other parts of the state.
A high-level delegation of Union Home ministry is in Assam to prepare the ground for starting political negotiations with various militant outfits including the United Liberation Front of Asom, United People's Democratic Solidarity, Dima Halim Daoga-Jewel which have come forward for dialogue to resolve their problems.
After the West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's decision to have state owned newspapers and TV channels, it is the turn of Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi to announce that his government would launch a TV channel of its own to highlight affairs in Assam positively as well as to counter "hyped-up news".
"The basic cause behind insurgency and Maoists activities or naxalism is frustration over lack of livelihood options. So we need to create jobs or source of income for youth in backward areas to prevent them from going astray. It is not true only in case of Assam but for the whole of the country," Gogoi said.
Finance Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma added to the mystery by declaring only that the next CM would be from the BJP, without naming Sarbananda Sonowal, the CM of the outgoing government.
Assam government on Thursday asked the Centre to appoint an interlocutor for peace talks with the anti-talk faction of National Democratic Front of Bodoland led by its jailed chairman Ranjan Daimary.
Tarun Gogoi, who steered the Congress to a spectacular win in Assam, will be sworn-in as chief minister for the third consecutive term on Wednesday, Pradesh Congress Committee sources said on Monday.
A day after the arrest of party Member of Legislative Assembly Pradeep Brahma by Assam police on charges of inciting mob violence in Kokrajhar district in the recent riot, the Bodoland People's Front on Friday clarified that it would continue with its alliance with the ruling Congress notwithstanding the arrest of the party MLA.
As political parties and the All Assam Students Union protest against the India-Bangladesh land pact signed on September 6 in Dhaka, the governor of Assam has called for a special one-day session of the Assam assembly on October 17 to discus the issue, as demanded by the opposition parties.
The highest percentage was reported from constituencies in Karimganj, Jorhat and Haflong districts ranging from between 35 to 40 per cent.
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