ASSAM

Shinde, along with his ministers, MPs and their families, arrived in Guwahati on Saturday to offer prayers at the Kamakhya Temple here. Shindes visit came nearly five months after he led a rebellion from Guwahati to topple the Uddhav Thackeray government. All of them returned to Mumbai in a chartered flight from Guwahati airport.

Shinde and the party leaders attended a a dinner hosted by Sarma on Saturday evening that lasted for more than two hours. Some of the ministers from the Assam cabinet were also present.

The Guwahati Smart City Limited (GSCL) will begin 17 projects, including the Brahmaputra riverfront development and integrated traffic management system, soon in the city at a cost of over Rs 887 crore.

A number of offices like the Kamrup (Metro) deputy commissioners office, Guwahati Police commissioners office and the Guwahati commissioners office will have to be shifted from their present location to different parts of the city to accommodate the riverfront makeover work. The government has already identified new locations and preliminary work is on.

Under the integrated traffic management system, automatic traffic signal lights andCCTVcameras to monitor traffic rule violations will be installed across the city. This was announced by the urban affairs ministerAshok Singhallast week.

The development of the Borsola beel was the first project on the GSCL list. A total allotment of Rs 80 crore was made for the development of the beel, but the project was shelved.

On World Rhino Day on Wednesday,Assamset on fire a large stockpile of over 2,400 rhino horns, which were extracted from naturally or accidentally dead rhinos as well as those confiscated from arrested poachers and stored for over four decades in government treasuries, to stop the illegal trade in rhino horns.

Chief minister Himanta BiswaSarma, who personally supervised the event atBokakhatamid the chanting of Vedic rituals and blowing of conches, said they wanted to prove the common belief that rhino horns have miraculous medicinal properties is a myth. The horns, extracted by poachers after killing the animals, have a huge illegal market in several countries, especially Vietnam, where they are prized for their aphrodisiac qualities and command a high price.

Selling these horns would propagate the myth that rhino horns have medicinal values, which the wants to bust. As trade in human organs cannot be allowed, the state government is also committed towards not encouraging trade in wildlife animal parts, the chief minister added.

Acting on a cabinet decision, 2,479 horns were consigned to the flame. About 94 horns will be showcased in a museum to be set up at the Kaziranga National Park, while 29 will be kept for court cases.

Sarma added that the government has taken a zero-Tolerance policy towards poaching of wildlife. The one-horned rhinoceros Population in Assam has increased from 1,672 in 1999 to 2,652 as per the 2018 census, which has contributed to the greater one-horned rhino moving up the conservation ladder from the Endangered to the Vulnerable tag under the IUCN Red List of threatened species.

Assam is going ahead to complete 10 PICU in each of the district hospitals to treat children below 18 years, while the corresponding figure set for all medical colleges is a minimum of 30. However, the target is yet to be achieved.

Health department sources said five to eight per cent of the total Covid infections in the first and second wave were children in the state. But considering the warning from the Centre, this figure may go up further in a possible third-wave strike. During the fourth nationwide sero survey for antibodies against SARS-CoV-2, the Indian Council of Medical Research (Icmr) detected sero prevalence in children on a par with adults in Assam. During the study carried out in the second wave, children between six and 14 years were found to have similar sero prevalence in the range of 39.4% to 52.2%, as in adults.

An expert has questioned the findings of a National Family Health Survey (NFHS) which showed a fall in totalfertility rateofMuslim womeninAssam.

Speaking at a webinar organised by Janasankhya Samadhan FoundationUttar PurbaKhetra on “Population Explosion and Future of Assam” on the eve of World Population Day on Tuesday in association with University Students’ Union, professor Kalita said, “Census data and sample survey data vary. While census data is collected from survey of every household, sample survey data is based on located or identified samples. So the data reflected for various parameters with regard to Total Fertility Rate of Muslim Women shown National Family Health Survey (NFHS) as decreasing is doubtful.”

To substantiate, professor Kalita said if person has four wives, each giving birth to four to five children, are not taken into consideration during the sample survey. “Under the sample survey, only one or the last woman is considered,” he said.

He said teenage marriage amongst Muslims is 14.9, whereas, amongst Hindus, it is only 4.5 per cent. In Barpeta district, teenage marriage among Muslims is around 14 per cent, in Bongaigaon district it is 15 per cent while in Dhubri district it is 22 per cent, 16 per cent each in Darrang and Hojai districts, 23 per cent in South salmara district and 15 per cent in Nagaon district.

Delayed hospitalization of Covid patients from some of the designated governmentCovid Care Centres(CCCs) is among the reasons for the high death toll of 70-80 people succumbing to the virus or Covid-related complications every day inAssam.

This despite the Covid situation improving in the state marginally with the latest positivity rate further declining to 5.57% even as the total cumulative Covid tests crossed the one crore mark on Saturday, with 1,00,89,714 tests since last year.

The relatively high death count despite the falling number of cases is being attributed to the lack of timely Oxygen monitoring of patients in the CCCs.

Surprisingly, some of the cases came from CCCs managed by the .

Despite cases being reported from CCCs at the point of no return, the senior Health official said that in the institutional isolation (CCCs) the oxygen concentration is being checked at least three times a day.

Gohain was the first woman to graduate from UNSWs School of Chemical Engineering. She then completed her postgraduate degree from the same university on July 13, 1959.

The Assam government will extend the ‘disturbed area’ tag under the Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA) for another six months in eight districts of the state from April 1. It will be extended for Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, Charaideo, Sivasagar, Jorhat, Golaghat, Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao, according to a notification issued by the state Home and political department. The tag, however, would be lifted from Lakhipur sub-division of Cachar district from April 1, following a review of the law and order scenario in the state. The Centre had earlier announced removal of AFSPA from April 1, 2022 from the entire state of Assam barring nine districts and a sub-division of Cachar district. The state was declared a ‘disturbed area’ under AFSPA during the intervening night of November 27-28, 1990, and this has been extended every six months since then.

Assamis reeling under a rise in the number ofchild marriagesdespite aprohibition lawso much so that 32 girls among every 100 in the state in the 20-24 age bracket were under 18 years at the time of their marriages and 12 among every 100 such child brides were either pregnant or have already become mothers, as per the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) for 2019-21.
According to NFHS-5, West Bengal, Bihar and Tripura top the list of child marriages with more than 40% of Women aged 20-24 years married below 18. Five other states – Jharkhand, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Rajasthan and saw more than 30% child marriages in the said period.
The Percentage of child brides in the same age cohort in the state as recorded in NFHS-4 for 2015-16 was one per cent lower, but the percentage of child brides who were pregnant or mothers was one per cent higher than that recorded in the last survey.
While child marriages are on the rise in Assam, nationally this social menace has reduced from 47 in 2005-06 to 26 in 2015-16, registering a decline of 21% points during the decade. During 2019-21, it declined further by 3% points to reach 23%, against Assam’s 32%.

The NFHS, over the years, shows thatchild marriagein the country has been relatively lower among Christians and other religious groups.

Percentage of women in the country aged 20 to 24 years, who were married before 18 years of age, was 48 among the Hindus in 2005-06, which was one per cent higher than Muslims. But during 2019-21, the percentage was three notches higher for the Muslims (26) than the Hindus. The percentage for Christians declined from 26 in 2006-06 to 15 in 2019-21.

Assamgovernment notified the entire state as a disturbed area and extended the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (AFSPA) for six more months from February 28.

The earlier six-month term of the Disturbed Area status and enforcement of AFSPA in the state since August 28 last year expired on February 28.

The act empowers security forces to conduct operations anywhere and arrest anyone without any prior warrant. It also gives a certain level of immunity to the security forces in case of an operation going wrong.

The act was first imposed in Assam in 1990, byministry of Home affairswhen the state had witnessed large scale violence byULFA. In 2017 centre transferred its power to the to decide on further extension of the imposition of the act in the state.