Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi met Union Minister for Railways Dinesh Trivedi at Rail Bhawan here today and urged him to incorporate a slew of proposals in the forthcoming Railway Budget 2012-13, an official release said. Chief Minister Gogoi while stressing the need for 'good connectivity from Assam, so critical for the people of the State and also other North Eastern States' urged him to declare the North east Frontier Railway as a dedicated railway zone exclusively for the North Eastern States and announce the same in this year's Railway Budget.

Guwahati, Feb. 5: The Union power ministry has called a meeting on Wednesday in Delhi to break the impasse over the 2,000-MW Lower Subansiri hydroelectric project. There has been no work at the project site since December 16 — the longest halt to the project — thanks to the continuing agitation in Assam by the anti-dam brigade led by the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti.

“The revenue loss in terms of delay per day is Rs 6 crore, apart from claims of contractors and additional establishment and warehouse expenditure,” a top NHPC official told The Telegraph.

Despite rapid urbanization, the herpetofauna population of Guwahati has not been severely affected. There are some 63 species of herpetiles in this Assam city. "This is good news and can be termed as one of the best average populations," said herpetofauna researcher Jayaditya Purkayastha after release of his book "Urban Herpetofauna: Amphibians and Reptiles of Guwahati" on World Wetland Day on Thursday.

Dispur has decided to draft a new legislation to ban construction of multi-storied buildings in some areas like Sonapur, Chandrapur, Rani and Deepor Beel to save greenery as well as execute projects to attract tourists. An Assam government official told The Telegraph that chief minister Tarun Gogoi had already instructed the departments concerned to start preparing the draft bill of the proposed legislation. He said the legislation was expected to be tabled during the monsoon session of the Assembly.

GUWAHATI, Jan 24 – A state-level convention will be organised in the city on the demand for abandoning all the mega dam projects in the NE region and neighbouring Bhutan with a two-day programme on February 25 and 26. This decision was taken at a meeting of the several national and ethnic organisations, political parties and intellectuals held at the Bishnu-Nirmala Auditorium here today. The meeting was convened by the Brihat Nadibandh Birodhi Nagarik Samiti and it was conducted by journalist Ajit Kumar Bhuyan.

GUWAHATI– Accusing the State Government of totally failing to address the concerns of the farmers – especially in the matter of ensuring due remunerative prices against their produce – the Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti (KMSS) today demanded that the Government set up paddy purchasing centres in all the 2,400 panchayats of the State.

GUWAHATI, Jan 17 – The Guwahati Municipal Corporation (GMC) has assured people that the task of cleaning the drains of the lanes and by-lanes of the city would be completed well ahead of the monsoons season, to check the problem of waterlogging. Countering the allegations that it is due to the negligence of the Guwahati Municipal Corporation that the city is flooded after every rainfall, the GMC officials said that the work of drain cleaning in the city is done by three different government departments.

GUWAHATI: In an effort to reduce pollution in the crowded streets of Guwahati, Rickshaw Bank Project of Centre for Rural Development (CRD) in association with Electroplus launched a solar-electric rickshaw called the Deep Bahan for urban transport today.

CRD director Dr Pradip Kumar Sharma said that Deep Bahan, with its zero carbon foot print and the trend of widespread use, is expected to reverse global warming and protect the planet from the perils of the climate change.

GUWAHATI: North East Girl Students’ Association (NEGSA) is organizing a symposium on “Problem and Prospect of Big River Dam in North East India” on January 13 at State Museum Auditorium in Guwahati.

NEGSA president Munmi Dutta said, “The seminar is organized to discuss various aspects of big river dams in Northeast and to create awareness amongst the general public about the various problems and possible benefits of construction of big river dams in Northeast”. “The symposium will provide an opportunity to the general public and specially students to understand various aspects of big river dam,” added the president.

GUWAHATI: The Assam Sanmilita Mahasangha has expressed alarm at the fact that the indigenous people of Assam are slowly losing their land rights.

Assam Sanmilita Manasangha working president Matiur Rahman said, “It is the responsibility of the State Government to protect the land rights of the sons of the soil. But unfortunately, this government appears to ignore the issue of protection of the land rights of the indigenous people.