Guwahati: Assam’s well-known businessman, film maker and a vivid social media user Luit Kumar Barman has lodged a complaint in the court of Kamrup (metro) chief judicial magistrate on Wednesday against Prateek Hajela, IAS (the former State coordinator for National Register of Citizens), Wipro limited and Integrated System and Services (ISS, represented by proprietor Utpal Hazarika) for their suspected roles in money laundering to the tune of Rs 155 crores in the NRC Assam updation process (May 2014 to October 2019). Barman, who introduced himself as a concerned & vigilant Indian national against corruption, cited the recently released report of…
Author: Nava Thakuria
Guwahati: Dibrugarh in eastern Assam is hosting Yoga Mahotsav of the Ayush ministry on 7 April to commemorate the 75 days to International Yoga Day. Union ports, shipping & waterways and Ayush minister Sarbananda Sonowal recently visited the Dibrugarh University campus to take stock of the preparation for the important event. He was accompanied by State health minister Keshab Mahanta along with concerned senior officials. “It is a moment of great pride as our beautiful Dibrugarh gets ready to host one of the biggest Yoga events in India. It is a wonderful connection that we also celebrate World Health Day…
Guwahati: Prateek Hajela, IAS, who faces a number of FIRs in Assam for alleged involvement in National Register of Citizens (NRC) updation scam in the State, has been relinquished by Madhya Pradesh government from the social justice department (also the chief executive officer in Atal Bihari Vajpayee Institute of Good Governance and Policy Analysis) in the central Indian State. Hajela, a 1995-batch IAS officer, who was sent to Madhya Pradesh in 2019 following an order of the Supreme Court (assuming threats to his life over NRC Assam fraudulent issues), is now bound to return back to his original Assam-Meghalaya cadre.…
Geneva: Press Emblem Campaign (PEC), the global media safety and rights body, expresses concern over the arrest of Evan Geshkovich, a Wall Street Journal reporter, by the Russian security agency and demands his immediate release as he was only doing his assigned job with the accreditation from the Russian foreign ministry. The American reporter was detained by the Federal Security Service from Yekaterinburg locality (around 1,800 kilometres east of Moscow). while he was trying to obtain classified information. The FSB alleged that Gershkovich (31) was acting on behalf of the US government to collect information about an enterprise in the…
Guwahati: Assam Governor Gulab Chand Kataria conferred State’s civilian awards namely Assam Baibhav, Assam Saurav and Assam Gaurav on 21 personalities at a solemn function held at Srimanta Sankardev Kalakshetra in the city on Friday. In presence of State chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, the awards were given to those personalities in recognition of their outstanding contributions in the field of health, art & culture, sports, science, agriculture, tourism, entrepreneurship etc. Assam Baibhav award was presented to Dr Tapan Kumar Saikia in recognition of his contribution in the field of cancer care and public service. Hails from Naharkatia in Dibrugarh…
Guwahati: Union ports, shipping & waterways and Ayush minister Sarbananda Sonowal attended the Uddipana award ceremony at Dibrugarh on Saturday during the Sonowal Kachari youth & cultural festival. Handing over Uddipana awards to Mousum Sonowal (Dibrugarh), Panchami Sonowal, Ditimani Sonowal (Dhemaji), Sania Dekari and Tanmay Sonowal (Tinsukia) making significant achievement in their respective fields, Sonowal also released a book titled ‘Sonowal Sambhar’, published on the occasion of Sonowal Kachari festival, in the program. Organised by Sonowal Kachari Autonomous Council, the festival is aimed to highlight various welfare activities for protection, education and skill development for youth so that they become…
Guwahati: Sarsanghchalak Dr Mohan Bhagwat and Sarkaryavah Dattatreya Hosabale inaugurated the three-day annual meeting of Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha (ABPS) belonging to Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) by paying floral tributes to a portrait of Bharat Mata at Panipat in Haryana on 12 March. RSS chief Bhagwat adored a Gamocha, the pride of Assam, while sitting on dais of the important annual event. As many as 1,474 Pratinidhis from 34 RSS-inspired organizations across the country participated in the ABPS meeting, which will conclude on 14 March. Speaking to media persons after the inauguration, RSS Sah-Sarkaryavah Dr Manmohan Vaidya informed that the…
Can we imagine a world of zero poverty, zero unemployment, and zero carbon emissions with a new approach in post-corona economics! Ask Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus and he will answer in the affirmative. The university professor turned revolutionary banker believes that the human race should not only dream about a safer world by reducing global warming, wealth concentration and unemployment, but also work in that direction with personal and collective capacities. In his latest book titled ‘A World of Three Zeros’, Prof Yunus proposes a new economic system focusing on every human being as an entrepreneur in the making.…
It was shocking and heart-breaking news. Within four days, we have lost two college days friends, both with ailments and gone too soon. Their untimely demise was mourned in the whatsapp group created for the 1985 – 90 batch of Assam Engineering College (AEC, Jalukbari, under Gauhati University). First it was Sandeep Goel, who breathed his last on 1 February 2023. I was his classmate in AEC with the same branch (Mechanical Engineering) and used to attend the classes where many acclaimed professors including our principal sir (AK Padmapati) guided us to solve mechanical problems from the textbooks. Sandeep was…
Guwahati: Assam is all set to host first sustainable financial working group (SFWG) meeting and Youth 20 inception meeting as part of India’s year-long G20 presidency, where it is meticulously chalked out various tour programs that would help in promoting the State’s rich biodiversity and socio-cultural heritage in international arena. The authorities have completed the preparation to welcome the foreign delegates to the State. Guwahati is adorned with digital wall painting, thematic gates, flags of G 20 countries, LED cut-outs, standees, hoarding, etc as part of branding and beautification. The government has also completed the arrangement for the visiting delegates…
The news is pleasantly breaking. Widely acclaimed Bangladeshi Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus is visiting Assam to grace the forthcoming Bodoland International Knowledge Festival to be held at Kokrajhar kick starting on 27 February 2023. Prof Yunus will address the inaugural function of the four-day unique festival, organized for the first time by the Bodoland Territorial Region in Bodoland University. Widely acclaimed as a banker to the poor, Prof Yunus was honoured with the Nobel peace prize (along with the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh in 2006). The soft-spoken Bangladeshi gentleman conceptualized the small (micro) loans to the women borrowers without…
Guwahati: Bangladesh’s lone Nobel laureate Professor Muhammad Yunus is expected to grace the forthcoming Bodoland International Knowledge Festival at Kokrajhar in western Assam scheduled for 27 February to 2 March next. Widely acclaimed as a banker to the poor, Prof Yunus is going to address the inaugural function of the unique festival, organized for the first time by the Bodoland Territorial Region, a territorial autonomous council in Assam, in Bodoland University. Thematic areas of the four-day festival, to be held in Bodoland University of northeast India, include Science & Technology, Livelihood, Indigenous Knowledge System, Gender Empowerment, Child Rights & Protection,…
Guwahati: Assam Governor Jagdish Mukhi, while attending the closing function of Sankardev Sishu-Vidya Niketan’s silver jubilee celebration at Ramdia in Kamrup district on Tuesday, commented that the success of any educational institution is determined by the impact it creates in young minds and its ability to teach its students to dream big. “I sincerely believe that a successful educational institution should be in a position to enable its students to dream big and helping them to translate their dream in reality”, said Governor Mukhi adding that Sankardev Sishu-Vidya Niketan, Ramdia being a premier centre of education has completed its glorious…
Guwahati: Reacting sharply on Assam chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma’s public statement over 1971 as the cut-off year (to identify illegal immigrants in the State following the historic Assam Accord signed in 1985 culminating the six years long anti-foreigners agitation), Upamanyu Hazarika-who leads an influential forum against infiltration- urges Sarma to come clean over the matter. The convenor of Prabajan Virodhi Manch (PVM) in a communique to this writer asserted that Sarma had given two sets of contradictory views on the issue of cut-off date for granting citizenship to migrants from erstwhile East Pakistan/ Bangladesh. In a press briefing on…
First thing first. Incidents of poaching related to rhinoceros in various forest reserves of Assam in northeast India have decreased drastically. Brutal laws against the poachers, strengthening of ground staff inside the protected forest areas and increasing public awareness in the fringe localities of national parks and wildlife sanctuaries across the State have positively impacted the mission to save the one-horned rhinos. Unlike other parts of the globe, common people of Assam irrespective of their political, ethnic or religious differences, maintain a strong will to protect the giant animals. For records only two rhinos were poached in Kaziranga National Park…