ASSAM

Assam Seba opens portal to store internal exam marks

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The Board of Secondary Education,Assam(Seba), on Monday launched a digital portal for schools to save marks of internal exams for an error-free formula-based evaluation in case the final or board exams are disrupted in the future due to Covid or any other circumstances. The portal will store marks of internal examinations conducted by schools and district-level internal examination committees.

State education boards faced great difficulty this year after the Class X and XII board examinations were cancelled as the boards did not have compilations of past records of the internal assessment examinations.

The Assam governmentannounced free power supply to new oxygen plants

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The Assam government announced free power supply to encourage setting up of new Oxygen Plants as well as revival of the closed ones to avert any shortage of the live-saving gas amid the coronavirus pandemic.

sources said the decisions will not only help enhance the production capacity to fight the challenge posed by Covid-19 but will also help Assam in its efforts to become the oxygen hub of the Northeast.

The demand for medical oxygen has gone up with the increase in Covid-19 cases in Assam and the Northeast.

Assam to frame new coal policy

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Assamcabinet ministersJogen MohanandBimal Borahheard the views of the stakeholders for formulating a policy for easy import of coal in various industries ofBarak Valleyand export of betel nuts produced in this southern Assam area.

Taking part in the meeting, the two ministers said a policy would be formulated to facilitate the import of coal from Barak Valley by protecting the interests of all.

Uday Shankar Goswami, on behalf of the brick kiln industries, said 400 metric tonnes of coal were needed to produce 1.5 million bricks a year in each of the 100 brick fields in Cachar district. He also said brick kilns need coal from November to February.

On behalf of the tea planters, it was stated that 25,000 metric tonnes of coal were required for 57 tea gardens in Cachar district alone. The betel growers also proposed to formulate a policy to facilitate betel export outside the valley.

130-km long Indo-Bangla Friendship Pipeline likely to be commissioned in FebruaryThe 130-km long international oil pipeline, known as the Indo-Bangla Friendship Pipeline (IBFPL), which will carry fuel from Assam-based Numaligarh Refinery Ltd’s (NRL) marketing terminal at Siliguri in West Bengal to the Parbatipur depot of Bangladesh Petroleum Corporation (BPC) is likely to be commissioned by February, said reports. The seed of the ambitious project was sown in 2017, when Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his meeting with Hasina in 2017 had agreed to finance this pipeline with a capacity of one million metric tonne per annum (MMTPA).

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Following the ceremonial inauguration of the IBFPL which was held in September 2018 was completed on December 12 last year. The total project cost for construction of the IBFPL is Rs 377.08 crore. Out of this, NRL’s is Rs 91.84 crore for the India portion of the pipeline, while the remaining Rs 285.24 crore for Bangladesh portion is being funded by the Indian government as grant-in-aid, said reports.

Assam: CM opens Rs 8 crore Atal Udyan with ampitheatre, gym at Adabari

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Chief ministerHimanta Biswa Sarma inauguratedAtal Udyan, a park with an amphitheatre, atAdabariin the city, in memory of formerPrime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

The park, set up byGuwahati Metropolitan Development Authority(GMDA) at a cost of over Rs 8 crore and covering an area of 8 bighas of land, has a meditation hall, open air gym, a playground for children, murals with a dais besides an amphitheatre with capacity to hold 250 people.

The has been constantly striving towards developing open spaces to turn Guwahati into a modern city with lots of greenery and recreational avenues and with these parks, Guwahati will have five big parks.

Guwahati to get its first gateway ghat terminal by December 2024In a bid to increase the development of waterways of the region and use it as a mode of transport for both people and goods, the Inland Water Transportation Department has announced the construction of the Guwahati Gateway Ghat Terminal. The city is going to get the first modern and state-of-the-art ferry terminal in the region by the end of 2024.

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This project will be undertaken on the south bank of the Brahmaputra river in Guwahati and the funding will be done by the . According to reports, this project will incur a total cost of Rs 304 Cr and come up in the Fancy Bazar area of the city, opposite the existing multilevel parking project of the GMDA. It is also said to have an all-weather working capacity meaning travellers will be able to catch ferries to multiple locations from this point.

Assam removes AFSPA from 1 more district

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TheAssamgovernment has withdrawn the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act from one more district, West Karbi Anglong, but retained it in eight other districts bordering Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and one sub-division bordering Manipur for six more months from October 1.

The had withdrawn the Act from 23 districts and one sub-division five months back from April 1.

The eight districts where AFSPA will continue to be in force are Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, Charaideo, Sivasagar, Jorhat, Golaghat, Karbi Anglong and Dima Hasao and one sub-division, Lakhipur, of Cachar district of the state.

AFSPA was removed from some areas of Meghalaya and Arunachal Pradesh and now under Amit Shah, more recently, the act was completely removed from 23 districts of Assam, and from areas under 15 Police stations each in Manipur and Nagaland.

Drones to map 700 villages in Assam

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TheAssam governmenthas launched the process of mapping 700 odd villages through drones, which in future could help in demarcating borders with other states in the region.
There are around 22,724 villages in Assam, of which 700 had no maps so far and so posed hurdles in executing government projects and buying and selling of land. The project, assisted by theSurvey of India, started this week at No. 1 Singimari village under Hajo revenue circle in lower AssamsKamrup district. Once the neighbouring states settle the inter-state border dispute with Assam, drones will also demarcate the borders of frontier villages once for all, government sources said.

While the Survey of India has given the drones for the exercise, the rest of the work is being done by the Kamrup administration and Assam Survey. The size of No. 1 Singimari is 2.98 sq km, but it may take about a month to complete the survey here.
Maps of a large number of villages were prepared in the state in the 1960s and 70s through the conventional mode, but several hundred, including many in the border areas, remain unmapped. Though survey pillars are lacking in many inter-district, inter-state and international borders in Assam, the plan in the future is to erect these crucial demarcation pillars with a scientific drone survey. But a lot depends on the goodwill of bordering states, a government source said.

The Centre on Thursday signed an agreement with eight tribal militant organisations based inAssamto bring a lasting peace in some areas of the state.The tripartite agreement among the central and state governments and the eight groups, including All Adivasi National Liberation Army, Adivasi Cobra Militant of Assam, Birsa Commando Force, Santhal Tiger Force, and Adivasi People’s Army, was signed here in presence ofUnion HomeMinisterAmit Shahand Assam Chief MinisterHimanta Biswa Sarmaamong others.

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The groups are in ceasefire since 2012 and living in designated camps.

Assam to give protected-class tag to Ahoms in tribal blocks, belts

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Ahoms, who ruled most of theBrahmaputra valleyin present-dayAssamfor about 600 years till the coming of the British in 1826, will be accorded protected-class status in tribal blocks and belts of the state.

This was announced by chief ministerHimanta Biswa Sarmaduring a meeting with several leading organizations of the Tai-Ahom community.

The All Assam Tribal Sangha, the apex body of the tribal organizations of the state, have been critical about enlisting six more communities in the ST category which it feels will severely hamper the political interests of the existing tribal communities. The Centre introduced the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Amendment) Bill, 2019 in the Rajya Sabha on January 9 the same year with the aim of granting ST status to six communities in Assam, which are currently enjoying OBC status. The names of six communities Koch Rajbongshi, Tai Ahom, Chutia, Matak, Moran and Tea Tribes featured in the Bill for granting ST status.