Category: NORTH EAST

• ASSAM
• MANIPUR
• MEGHALAYA
• MIZORAM
• NAGALAND
• ARUNACHAL PRADESH

The police said on Tuesday that Jonali Nath, a woman BJP leader from Assam's Goalpara district whose body was discovered on Sunday night next to the highway, was murdered by her partner Hasanur Islam.

A petition in the court on this issue claimed that those who are actually running the illegal coal businesses in Meghalaya are based in Assam. They are well-known people and are roaming freely in Guwahati. Several Benami transactions have also come to light.

In a significant development, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, as part of the efforts to restore peace and normalcy in violence-hit Manipur, has held a closed-door meeting with the state's Kuki tribal leaders and Kuki rebel groups in Guwahati.

Though not many sedition cases have been reported from the northeastern states, lawyers and experts in the region felt that the law must be abolished so that the party in power could not use sedition to suppress voices of dissent.

Both Union Home Minister Amit Shah and Chief Minister N. Biren Singh have earlier appealed to people to surrender their weapons and no legal action would be taken if the people deposit their arms voluntarily.

Singh, a former member of the now abolished Planning Commission, in his report had said that the northeastern states must accelerate their own resources and revenue to build up sustainable fiscal situations while each northeastern state has unique features and challenges.

Also on Saturday, the Central government announced that it has constituted a Peace Committee with Manipur Governor Anusuiya Uikey as the Chairperson in an effort to bring normalcy to the violence-hit state.

The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has filed six FIRs and formed a special team to probe the alleged conspiracy related to the ethnic violence in Manipur, officials said.

A vacation bench comprising Justices Aniruddha Bose and Rajesh Bindal noted that the Manipur High Court is already hearing the matter, therefore there is no need to duplicate the proceedings.

Assam Assembly Speaker Biswajit Daimary, who earlier advised people to sit under trees to combat soaring power bills amid the scorching heat wave conditions that are sweeping the state, has been found to have installed at least twenty-two air conditioners at his official residence.

To flush out the militancy and their hideouts, the Army and other central forces continued their counter-insurgency operation and to avoid mistrust, 'executive magistrates' will accompany the forces during the operations.

The Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), an apex body of valley-based civil society organisation, said that local youths were not willing to surrender arms as attacks by militants are intensifying.

S.P. Singla Construction Pvt. Ltd has come under the scanner for its ongoing and completed projects in Assam after the Aguwani-Sultanganj bridge it was developing at a cost of Rs 1,710 crore over the Ganga river in Bihar's Bhagalpur district collapsed twice in just 14 months.

A senior police officer said that they had got a tip-off about probable drug peddling and a joint team of police and the CRPF launched an operation near Nambor Forest bridge that comes under Barpothar police station.

Arunachal Pradesh Assembly Speaker Pasang Dorjee Sona said on Monday that migration of people from villages to urban areas has not only stopped, but "we are witnessing a reverse migration towards the areas bordering China".

Security forces and mobs destroyed camps of Kuki militants in different districts even as sporadic incidents of violence were reported from different parts of violence-hit Manipur, officials said on Monday.

Amidst the Assam government's ongoing efforts to completely eradicate child marriages in the state, two villages in Cachar district were declared 'zero child marriage' areas, an official said on Monday.

Security forces in Manipur have recovered 790 sophisticated and automatic arms and 10,648 ammunition that were looted from the police and various other establishments during the ethnic riots that broke out on May 3, an official said on Monday.

Social scientists and activists predicting an increase in love centric killings in the future said that parents and guardians must be more careful about their children and try to resolve their issues at the very beginning.

Those non-tribal Meiteis living on the hills have fled to the valley and the tribal Kukis who inhabited the valley moved out to the hills clearly showing a trust deficit between the two communities and different geographical locations further widening differences.

The security forces in Manipur have recovered 40 sophisticated automatic arms that were looted when the ethnic riots broke out, from the police and various security forces, an official said on Saturday.

Dibrugarh-bound IndiGo flight with Union Minister Rameshwar Teli on board experienced some mechanical issue and had to make an emergency landing at Lokpriya Gopinath Bordoloi International (LGBI) airport in Guwahati's Borjhar on Sunday.

Padma Shri awardee (2007) and prominent theatre artiste Sabitri Heisnam said on Friday that the Kuki militants, who are under Suspension of Operation (SoO) agreement, are targeting the common villagers residing in the nearby foothills in Manipur.

After Union Home Minister Amit Shah's appeal, 140 various types of weapons, looted earlier from the police and various security forces, have been surrendered at different districts in Manipur, officials said on Friday.

Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Pema Khandu on Thursday said that his government is constructing about 50 small hydropower projects in the border outposts (BOPs) along the China border under the border village illumination programme.