The Bodo peace accord which was signed between the Government of India and now disbanded Bodo Liberation Tiger in February 2003 to pave the way for formation of Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Districts Council is now under question with non-Bodos living in the BTC areas raising objections to it in the wake of Bodo pressing for their demand for a separate Bodoland state.
Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa on Tuesday said that the Centre is likely to sign a peace accord with militant organisations from the state's Adivasi communities within September.
The situation in Kokrajhar escalated late on January 19 after a Scorpio vehicle carrying three Bodo individuals hit two Adivasi persons at Mansingh Road under the Karigaon police outpost.
He said the accord will lead to transformative results for Bodos as it successfully brings together leading stakeholders under one framework and would help Bodo people get access to development-oriented initiatives.
The tripartite agreement was signed by Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, top leadership of the four factions of the NDFB, ABSU, Joint Secretary in the Home Ministry Satyendra Garg and Assam Chief Secretary Kumar Sanjay Krishna in presence of Union Home Minister Amit Shah.
The Bodoland Territorial Region in Assam is slowly picking up the pieces and finally finding peace after being subjected to decades of insurgencies and violence.
Twenty odd important political figures and civil society leaders from Assam's conflicts-ridden Bodo heartland have joined Bharatiya Janata Party that has started its 'Mission Bodoland' with bang announcing its intention to provide an alternative to Bodoland people who are fed up with misrule of Bodoland People's Front where has been in power in Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Council over ten years on the trot.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Thursday vowed to hunt down each and every terrorist involved in the Pahalgam attack and said all of them will be made answerable for the heinous act.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Monday said all clauses of the Bodo Accord signed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Government last year will be implemented within two-and-a-half years.
The movement for a separate state of Telangana in the south is having its repercussion in northeast India too. Now, the Bodoland People's Front, a tribal political group comprising former insurgents, has stated that a separate state for the Bodo tribe in Assam would be a must if the Centre grants a Telengana state.
Shah said the ULFA, the oldest insurgent group of Assam, agreed to abjure violence, disband the organisation and join the democratic process.
The Assam police and security forces have seized 344 illegal weapons from extremists from the troubled Bodoland Territorial Autonomous District Council areas in Assam from 2012 to July, 2014.
Former women militants are being trained in making sanitary napkins by the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) administration, with commercial production of a unit expected to commence soon.
The death toll on Wednesday climbed to 68 in the series of attacks by suspected Bodo militants belonging to the National Democratic Front of Bodoland faction in Sonitpur and Kokrajhar districts of Assam while the Centre was rushing additional forces to the state.
BSF Director General R S Mooshahary would handover the appointment letters to the surrendered militants at the Kokrajhar District Sports Association indoor stadium, they said.
Addressing a massive public rally to celebrate the signing of the accord on January 27 that is expected to bring lasting peace to the troubled state, Modi said now the time was to work together for peace and development of the North-East.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday alleged that if the Congress-All India United Democratic Front combine come to power in Assam they will open 'all gates' to welcome infiltrators.
While the BPF and the UPPL are considered rivals in the Bodo-dominated areas, there was no pre-poll alliance among other parties as well.
AFSPA can be safely lifted from almost 90 per cent of Nagaland, argues Shekhar Gupta.
"We did not vote for the BPF (Bodoland People's Front) candidate in Lok Sabha polls, that's why we were attacked," alleged 75-year-old Iman Ali.
The prime minister told the MPs that the northeast is very close to his heart and his love for the region is very natural. Quoting Modi, Rijiju saidthe PM asserted that he doesn't look at the region from the prism of politics.
'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.
'Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Rajnath Singh will have to treat these militias for what they are: Criminals armed with deadly weapons. Otherwise, nothing will distinguish the National Democratic Alliance government from the ten-year long perfidy of the UPA in Assam.'
Speaking at the Annual Prime Minister's National Cadet Corps Rally 2020, Modi said the problem in Jammu and Kashmir persisted since Independence and some families and political parties kept issues in the region "alive", as a result of which terrorism thrived there.
'The Bodos and the Assamese were at each other's throats, the Assamese Muslims and the Bengali Muslims were at each other's throats, the Bengali speaking Muslims and Hindus were coming together against the Assamese speaking caste Hindus and the plains tribes and vice versa.'
The AGP, an ally of the BJP, voted for the Citizenship Amendment Bill in the Rajya Sabha, after Amit Shah's assurance. However, the scale, intensity and, persistence of the anti-CAA protests since then have taken it by surprise.
Here's the full text of President Ram Nath Kovind's customary address to the joining sitting of Parliament on the first day of the budget session.
Replying to a debate on Motion of Thanks to the President's Address in Lok Sabha, Modi also attacked the Congress for its politics in the last seven decades, saying the party's politics of last 70 years has been such that no Congress leader can be self-sufficient.
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.
In his last column for Rediff.com, Praful Bidwai joins issues with those lauding India's covert operation against Naga rebels based in Myanmarese territory.
'In today's India very few would, of course, stand Basavanna's test. This led Professor Kalburgi to not only take on casteist and conservative forces in general, but also some powerful conservatives among Lingayats.' 'Conservatives found him polarising and some researchers disagreed with his speculations while admiring his scholarship, but he posited that culture studies and historians have to perforce join the dots, speculate, interpret, interpolate, extrapolate and take leaps to make progress even if some of them later turn out to be wrong.' Shivanand Kanavi salutes Professor M M Kalburgi, the scholar who was assassinated in Dharwad on Sunday, August 30.
The inspiring story of Birubala Rabha who will go to any lengths to protect the 'witches'!