The southern districts of West Bengal, including Kolkata, woke up to light rain and an overcast sky on Monday as cyclone 'Sitrang' moved towards north Bay of Bengal, raising the likelihood of a downpour during the day and threatening to dampen Diwali festivities.
Exporters on Thursday demanded fiscal incentives, tweaking in customs duties on certain products and credit at affordable rates in the forthcoming Budget to boost exports and create jobs. In a pre-budget virtual meeting with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) said the depreciation of the rupee against the US dollar is affecting exports' competitiveness and the sector requires more support. "Creation of employment is the biggest challenge faced by the country...We would urge the government to provide fiscal support to units which provide additional employment in the export sector," the exporter's body said.
Unidentified armed militants abducted a senior official of the National Hydro Power Corporation in Sonitpur district of north Assam while the official was coming from his work site at Tawang on Arunachal Pradesh on Saturday evening.
A jawan of the Indian Army and a militant of the banned ULFA were killed in a fierce gun-battle that took place at Dalangghat village in north Assam late on Thursday night. A fierce encounter took place once the team of Army men came face-to-face with a three-member group of ULFA militants. One of the militants was killed and another injured while the third militant managed to flee.
The Army shot dead two militants of the United Liberation Front of Assom in an anti-insurgency operation in North Assam on Sunday. A satellite phone as well as arms and ammunition were recovered from the slain militants.
'Assam is not a dumping ground for Bangladeshi Hindu refugees,' says Assamese actor Ravi Sharma who joined the BJP in August and quit the party on December 10 in protest against the Citizenship Act.
The Assam government will file a criminal case over the shocking incident of several patients getting infected with the AIDS virus after receiving blood from the blood bank in a government civil hospital at Mangaldoi in North Assam.
An Additional Superintendent of Police was killed and five other policemen were injured, three of them seriously, in an ambush by militants belonging to National Democratic Front of Bodoland-Sangbijit at Batachipur near Dhekiajuli town in Sonitpur district of north Assam at around 8.00 am on Tuesday morning.
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.
A group of armed militants from the proscribed National Democratic Front of Bodoland went on a rampage at Bhimajuli in Sonitopur district of North Assam kiling at least six persons and injuring many others on Sunday evening, initial reports said.
Following the arrest of the United Liberation Front of Asom chief Arabinda Rajkhowa and nine others on Friday, two senior ULFA cadres who were trained in Myanmar surrendered to the Indian Army on Saturday at Thakurbari in Tezpur in north Assam.
The Indian Army on Monday staged a flag march at violence-affected Bishwanath Chariali area in north Assam, where the death toll after the Sunday night's attack on villagers at Bhimajuli by the banned tribal militants of National Democratic Front Bodoland went up to 12.
The Assam United Democratic Front, a conglomeration of minority political groups, has decided to field a young Adivasi woman, who had hit the headlines in 2007 after being brutally assaulted in Guwahati, as one of its candidates for the forthcoming Lok Sabha election in Assam.The AUDF, led by perfume tycoon Badaruddin Ajmal, will field Lakshmi Orang from the prestigious Tezpur constituency in north Assam.
The strategically located Tezpur Air Force Station in North Assam is all set to host the Sukhoi-30 aircraft which will arrive in the second week of June. This will make Tezpur the third air force base to host Sukhoi-30 combat aircrafts in the country and the first one in the North East India.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday stated that the situation in riot-affected districts of Darrang and Udalguri in north Assam was still tense and warranted imposition of President's Rule in view of the 'failure' of the state government to tackle the station in the right way to instill confidence among the affected populace.
Civilian aircrafts touched down the tarmac of Tezpur airport, basically a base of Indian Air Force in North Assam, after a gap of about two years since the airport was closed down for air traffic since September 2007 to carry out work on up gradation of infrastructure in the air base.
Devastating floods in north Assam districts of North Lakhimpur, Dhemaji and Sonitpur have so far taken lives of 17 flood-hit, besides causing misery to over eight lakh people.
Police informed that the grenade went off amid a 500-strong crowd that was celebrating the spring festival of the Mising tribe inside the premises of a local cultural centre. In a statement issued on Sunday, ULFA denied its hands behind the blast and stated that it was the handiwork of 'forces' that were out to defame the image of the ULFA and trigger conflicts between different groups of people in the state.
Two suspected United Liberation Front of Asom militants were killed in an encounter with the army in north Assam's Lakhimpur district while two other persons were injured in a blast that rocked a small western Assam town in two separate incidents violence in the state on Saturday. Security sources informed that two suspected ULFA militants were killed following a gunbattle with a team of personnel from the 2nd Bihar Regiment.
Unidentified militants shot dead a senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader in Assam and a dealer of LP Gas, Munindra Singh Lahkar (62) at his residence at Rangiya on Thursday night.
As the state Wildlife and Forest Department's all 'efforts to gear up vigil in the habitats of endangered one-horned Asiatic rhinoceros' has come to a naught, the All Assam Students Union alleging nexus between rhino poachers and a section of people in power in the state has demanded an investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation into incidents of rhino poaching in the state.
The militant group has a strong bastion in the forest areas along the border areas of Golaghat and Karbi Anglong district of Assam. It has recently spread its tentacles to the tea belt area of the Udalguri district of North Assam.
A militant of the banned United Liberation Front of Asom was killed in an encounter with police under Dhekiajuli police station area in north Assam's Sonitpur district at around 8 pm on Friday night.
Flood-ravaged Dhemaji district where surface communication is in shambles, is infested with ULFA militants taking advantage of interior locations.
Tezpur is the last of the IAF bases in the country to phase out the MiG 21.
Noisy scenes prevailed in Assam assembly on Tuesday with opposition MLAs belonging to the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Asom Gana Parishad staging walk-out after the speaker rejected their demand for an adjournment motion to facilitate discussion on the deteriorating' law and order situation in Assam.
While main political parties especially Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party are engaging in high-voltage campaign in Assam, young voters, especially the first timers, sound at a loss about which party or the candidate to choose, as they are hardly convinced about the poll promises and have not been swayed by histrionics of poll candidates.
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