Senior Bharatiya Janata Party leader and the tribal face of the party, Vishnu Deo Sai, on Wednesday took oath as the chief minister of Chhattisgarh, 10 days after the saffron party returned to power after a gap of five years by unseating Congress in the assembly elections.
Several states declared a holiday for schools, while government offices, other establishments and public sector banks remained closed for half a day.
Accusing the BJP of adopting an anti-Assam policy, Mahanta said, "Let the BJP form a new government alone. We will welcome that".
For the chief minister and Assam alike, the road ahead is full of challenges, notes Aditi Phadnis.
The police on Thursday booked litterateur Hiren Gohain, Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti chief Gogoi and senior journalist Manjit Mahanta under sedition charges for their comments on the Citizenship Amendment Bill.
Apart from the ULFA, the National Democratic Front of Bodoland, which is now in truce with the government of India, also demands sovereignty for Bodo tribe living in Assam.
The All Asom Koch Rajbongshi Students' Union activists stopped the bus, which was traveling from Cooch Behar in West Bengal to Assam's North Lakhimpur, on National Highway 31 near Golakganj late on Friday. The activists pelted stones at the private bus, hurled two petrol bombs and locked the doors of the burning vehicle with the passengers inside, Mahanta said. The injured said they broke the front windshield and window panes to get out of the burning bus.
The All Adivasi Students Association of Assam has called for a 36-hour Assam bandh from Monday morning in protest against Saturday's attack on Adivasi protestors in Guwahati by locals and the failure of the police to safeguard the protestors.
'If there are provocations and people try to exploit and manipulate the situation along linguistic, religious lines, then Assam might relapse into its troubled past.'
Two more bodies were found in trouble-torn districts of Assam, taking the toll in the mayhem unleashed by ultras there to 36, even as the curfew clamped in the area was relaxed on Tuesday as no fresh violence was reported from anywhere.
Bodos, the largest tribe ethnic to Assam, on Saturday hold a massive rally at North Assam tea town Dekiajuli reviving their long-standing demand for a separate Bodoland state and warned that in case the United Progressive Alliance government gave consent to Telangana statehood, Bodoland must also be created.
Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad Sangma on Thursday said Union Home Minister Amit Shah has given firm assurances at a meeting held in Delhi of acting on his request for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the 'firing by Assam Police' along the states' border.
The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear a plea challenging the constitutional validity of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act filed by an activist. A bench comprising Chief Justice S A Bobde and justices B R Gavai and Surya Kant issued notice to the Centre on activist Saket Gokhale's plea and tagged them along with over 160 petitions challenging the CAA which are listed for hearing this month.
The youngest in the CWC is 31-year-old Neeraj Kundan, who is an ex-officio member of the body as the president of the National Students Union of India, the students' wing of the party.
AAKRSU supporters claimed the violence was triggered by a conspiracy hatched by people opposed to a separate Kamtapur state.
A day after violent protests in the state capital, a silent sit-in demonstration was organised on Monday against the brutal killing of the two men in Karbi Anglong.
Three persons were injured in police firing at Donkamokam, in the violence-ravaged Karbi Anglog Hills district on Friday, even as the army staged flag march in the affected district headquarter town of Diphu.
The Eastern Command General Officer Commanding-in-Chief also said India is giving shelter to anyone from Myanmar seeking refuge, including common villagers, army or police, in Mizoram and Manipur, but not armed cadres of militant groups of drug traffickers.
Life was hit in lower Assam for the second day on Tuesday in three bandhs called to press for Bodoland and Kamtapur, while Karbi Anglong, which had erupted over statehood demand on the lines of Telangana, was slowly limping back to normal.
On the New Year's day, Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi will present the state's first bravery award to Gunjan Sarma, a 14-year-old girl and a Class VIII standard student of Nazira Central School in Sivasagar district of Assam for showing exemplary courage in saving lives of another children from her school who was taken hostage by a gunman on December 4.
The ULFA has always been seen as being insensitive to children. Two years ago, they bombed to death 16 students at Dhemaji in an Independence Day programme.
Assam Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi on Thursday appealed to students and people from Assam and other parts of the north-east to refrain from rushing back to their home states in panic. The chief minister made the comment in the wake of reports of mass exodus of people, particularly students, who are afraid of a backlash following the widespread violence in lower Assam.
As the counting begins on Friday the public focus in Assam will be mainly on how helpful the 'Modi Wave' has been for the Bharatiya Janata Party to challenge a confident Congress in Assam. Both the parties have contested in 13 out of 14 parliamentary seats.
The abducted 12-year-old Rajat Agarwalla, the Class VII standard student of St Joseph School at Sonari in Sivasagar district of eastern Assam was released by kidnappers on Tuesday.
Security presence which has been bolstered by flying in more army troops and rapid action force and central police forces was clearly visible at all major areas and roads.
Several organisations, including the All Assam Tai Ahom Students Union, the Hindu Yuva Chatra Parished and the All Assam Motok Yuva Chatra Sanmilani have opposed today's day-long bandh.\n
In a notification, the Registrar General of India said the decision has been taken as the exercise to enumerate citizens in the NRC, a list of Assam's residents, could not be completed within the specified date of June 30.
Mizoram's director general of police Anil Shukla held a high-level meeting on Sunday to assess the security arrangements, a statement said.
The Assam government has decided to take stringent measures against medical students who graduate from government colleges but shy away from joining government hospitals to serve the people of the state.The government has already slapped legal notices on 32 such post-graduate doctors to join government hospitals, failing which they will have to pay back the full cost of their medical education. The state has faced a serious shortage of specialist doctors in govt hospitals.
The final list of the NRC will be published on August 31.
Commercial vehicles kept off the roads in Assam due to protest called by the All Assam Motor Transport Association.
Police informed that all the family members were sleeping when a huge volume of rain-inflicted mud mass fell on their house located in a hilly area buried all of them alive.
Dhruvraj Bhartia along-with Jyotirmoy Chatterji, co-founder of Project Chirag, singlehandedly set up 165 solar lamp units in the four villages
More than ever before, women voters can make or mar a political party's electoral fortunes.
The Central Bureau of Investigation arrested Assam Education minister Ripun Borah, while he was trying to offer a bribe of Rs 10 lakh to an officer investigating Daniel Toppo murder case
Tribal activists killed a teenager and seriously injured two others and set their vehicle ablaze on Monday morning as the 36-hour Assam bandh called by the All Assam Advisai Students Association began.
ULFA's self-styled commander-in-chief, Paresh Baruah, in a statement warned that the outfit is planning retaliation for the attack.
Madhya Pradesh, Uttaranchal, Assam results on SMS
'The violence that shook Assam was a direct outcome of the state's ethnic problem... The tension that created a rift between the Bodos and the non-Bodos for years found a blood-spattered expression.' Former NSG chief Ranjit Shekhar Mooshahary, the Trinamool Congress candidate from Kokrajhar, speaks to Indrani Roy/Rediff.com about last week's carnage in Assam.