Assembly elections in Assam used to be a quiet affair and people outside the state would take little interest in the outcome. This time, even in faraway Delhi, people are keeping tabs on political developments in Assam.
It is 10 years since Bandhan Financial Services became the first microfinance institution (MFI) to receive the universal bank licence. A year later, in 2015, it started operations. Bandhan's entry into banking was seen as a vote of confidence by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for the country's microfinance sector. Subsequently, the RBI awarded small finance bank licences to nine MFIs.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah arrived in strife-torn Manipur on Monday night to try restore peace by hammering out a solution between the warring communities.
Ajmal in an interview to a media house on Friday had commented on women and Hindu men as well as Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, purportedly as a rejoinder to his remarks on 'love jihad'.
A senior official of the Union water resources ministry said it was an unprecedented situation on the Chinese side where Tsangpo broke a 150-year record with swollen waters and hence China has shared the information with India.
According to sources the army was all set to conduct operation in the disturbed 'ULFA infested' districts of Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, Sibsagar and Jorhat.
According to officials, the Union health ministry had received complaints about alleged corruption at the regional branches of the Red Cross Society in Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Assam, Karnataka and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
At least 70 persons were injured, several of them seriously, when four coaches of the Guwahati-Puri Express were derailed and four others capsized due to a powerful explosion at Dhatkuchi between Rangiya and Goghrapar railway stations in Assam at 8.20 pm on Sunday. Railway authorities have rushed a relief train with a medical team to administer first aid to passengers at the accident site, while the seriously injured ones are being shifted to hospitals in Rangiya and Guwahati
'Manipur is critical to India's Look East policy.' 'It's a strategic state. In the Second World War, the Japanese entered Manipur through Burma.' 'China can use the same direction to approach India.'
The villagers were venting their anger after militants burnt down at least 100 abandoned houses including the residence of Sugnu Congress MLA K Ranjit at Serou in Kakching district on Saturday midnight.
Hima Das has been provisionally suspended by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA) for three whereabout failures in 12 months.
IOA approached the Olympic Council of Asia, seeking an extension of the July 15 deadline for providing details of the country's wrestling squad for the Asian Games.
The Congress government in Assam and the opposition, the Bharatiya Janata Party, are engaged in war of words over a purported visit of Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh to the troubled Assam-Nagaland boundary areas where situation is limping back to normalcy.
The flood situation remained critical in Assam, affecting over 7.35 lakh people from 1,597 villages have been inundated by the surging waters.
The situation in the state remained grim on Monday.
The Election Commission of India has announced that elections for 10 Rajya Sabha seats in Goa, Gujarat, and West Bengal will be held on July 24.
'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.
The mob also tried to snatch weapons from the police, forcing them to fire at the crowd. No casualty was reported so far, the sources said.
The real brilliance of this RSS campaign, therefore, lies in building a dominant power base with, and for, a mostly non-RSS leadership. That is why the rise of the BJP in Assam is their stand-out victory, says Shekhar Gupta.
The security agencies have been warning that militants belonging to United National Liberation Front, People's Liberation Army and other banned groups had become part of the mobs and carrying out sneak attacks on security forces as well as giving directions to the agitators.
It said there is anger among Mizo youths, who are deeply anguished over the "barbaric and atrocious act of Meiteis" against Zo or Kuki ethnic people in Manipur.
Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu on Wednesday expressed concern over China's proposed mega hydropower project on the upstream of Siang River in Tibet, stating it will have a cascading effect on India and Bangladesh in the near future.
More than ever before, women voters can make or mar a political party's electoral fortunes.
The barbed wire fencing of the Indo-Bangladesh border in Assam will be completed by December 31, Assam Accord Implementation Minister Bhumidhar Barman has said.
The probe report has estimated the cost of damage due to the accident at more than Rs 52 crore.
Tribal militants from the anti-peace talk faction of Dima Halam Daogah called Black Widow, abducted three employees of a Delhi-based construction company from a place called Muktacherra in Cachar district of South Assam on Friday.
According to two separate notifications, the decisions have been taken after review of the law-and-order situation in both the states.
Labelling All India United Democratic Front chief Badruddin Ajmal as the 'enemy of Assam', state minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Sunday asserted that he is an extremist in protecting Indian and the Assamese culture.
Government headhunter PESB on Friday did not find anyone suitable from nine candidates, including two serving IAS officers, to head India's largest oil and gas producer, ONGC. The Public Enterprise Selection Board (PESB) interviewed 9 out of the 10 candidates who had applied for the post of chairman and managing director of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC). "Keeping in view the strategic importance and vision for the company and its future, the Board did not recommend any candidate and decided to constitute a Search Committee," PESB said in a notice after interviews. Those interviewed included senior bureaucrats Avinash Joshi and Niraj Verma.
Assam Environment and Forest Minister Rakibul Hussain has said that as many as 193 one-horned rhinos have been killed in various protected forest areas in Assam between 2001 and August 3, 2014.
The flood situation remained critical in Assam with 30 more villages reeling under water on Tuesday, taking the total number of affected people in this season to around 1.1 lakh in 11 districts.
According to an official source, suspected Dimasa tribe militants from Dima Halam Daogah (Jewel Garlosa) or Black Widow outfit swooped down on Borchenam basti inhabited by the Zeme Naga tribe and fired indiscriminately before torching the entire village.
As thousands of Meiteis and Kukis are in relief camps in violence-torn Manipur, a group of doctors that visited the state has expressed concerns about the issue of nutrition and mental health situation of the inmates.
Security forces took out flag marches at several places including Ferozepur, Bathinda, Rupnagar, Faridkot, Batala, Fazilka, Hoshiarpur, Gurdaspur, Moga and Jalandhar in a show of strength.
Four teams of the National Disaster Response Force have been deployed for relief and rescue operations in the worst flood-affected districts of Assam. The floods have affected nearly two lakh people and claimed four lives. According to the NDRF control room, relief and rescue operations in the districts of Lakhimpur, Dhubri, Sonitpur and Jorhat have been assisted by the force by deploying one team in each of these districts.
Sanjive Narain, owner of Assam's oldest news channel, and Sanjay Aditya Singh, promoter of a cabin crew training academy, are coming together to launch a regional airline providing business and premium economy services in the Northeast. Jettwings Airways will be based in Guwahati and will connect places with twin-class Embraer E175 aircraft. The airline has secured an initial no-objection clearance from the civil aviation ministry and plans to launch services in October.
The BJP chief also sought to know whether the Congress wanted to protect the "illegal Bangldeshis".
It will be presented in the Lok Sabha next week in its original form.
There are three things you never do in a small North East state: Undermine local leaders, divide and rule, push homogenisation, asserts Shekhar Gupta.
