ASSAM

Ratan Tata will receive the state’s highest civilian honour, the ‘Asom Baibhav Award,’ from the Assam government.

Highlights:

Assam’s chief minister, Himanta Biswa Sarma, told the media that Ratan Tata has made a significant contribution to cancer treatment in the state.I am delighted to announce that the Government of Assam has decided to bestow the Assam Baibhav, the state’s highest civilian honour, on Ratan Tata, Chairman of TATA Trusts, in recognition of his outstanding contribution to cancer care in Assam.

The Tata Trust Board of Trustees announced in 2017 that it has sanctioned Rs 540 crore for the establishment of a three-tier cancer treatment grid at the state, capital, and district levels.

A total of Rs 1400 crore is planned for the project. A South Asian Cancer Research Centre is also proposed as part of the initiative, with the goal of doing research into the causes of cancer and developing treatment procedures with a focus on South Asia.

TheAssamgovernment on Wednesday told Gauhati during a hearing of a batch of PILs on the eviction drive carried out in Sipajhar in Assam’s Darrang district in September that the only those evicted families who have their names in the National Register of Citizenship (NRC) will be rehabilitated.

One condition is whether the families are truly landless and the other is if they are erosion-affected,” he said, adding that the petitioner will file a rejoinder raising objection to the condition of the inclusion of names in NRC for rehabilitation. The NRC, which is unique to Assam in the entire country, was first made in 1951, which was updated and published in 2019 but is yet to get the apporoval from theSupreme Courtor the Registrar General of India.
He also said the state told the court that it would not take any coercive action against any person it seeks to evict, unless it is compelled to do so.

In his monthlyMann Ki Baatradio programme, PM Narendra Modi laudedProject Sampoornainitiated byAssams Bongaigaon district for fighting Malnutrition there. As part of the intiative, a mass awareness drive was undertaken in the district that helped eradicate nutritional deficiencies in 90% of its malnourished children.

The PM said the project has helped eradicate malnutrition in the region in the last one year. He was speaking on the ahead of the Poshan Maah to be celebrated in September.

Earlier also Bongaigaon district was selected for the Prime Ministers Award for Excellence in Public Administration, 2021 for its initiative Sampoorna.

The project employs a decentralised, technology-based model using community participation and Women Empowerment as positive deviance factor to achieve the result. The District Administration stated that it has successfully brought over 90% malnourished children to normal state in just one year after assessment of 2,416 malnourished children and mothers.

This accord is significant because insurgency by Karbi group has a long HISTORY in Assam which is marked by killings, ethnic violence, abductions and taxations since 1980s.

Karbi is a major ethnic community in Assam and are dotted by several factions and splinters.

About 200 Karbi terrorists will be present while signing of the agreement. These 200 Karbi terrorists are part of 1,040 terrorists who surrendered before the Assam government in February 2021.

Around 1,040 terrorists from five insurgent groups of Karbi Anglong district ceremonially put down their arms at an event in Guwahati in February, in the presence of then Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal. This development further bolstered the terrorism-free Assam image of present BJP-led government. Surrendered terrorists belong to Karbi Longri NC Hills Liberation Front (KLNLF), United Peoples Liberation Army (UPLA), Peoples Democratic Council of Karbi Longri (PDCK) and Kuki Liberation Front (KLF). They had come to surrender their weapons a year after signing of Bodo Peace Accord to end the long-run violence in Bodoland.

Bodoland region is an autonomous territorial region, administered by the Bodoland Territorial Council, which is an elected body. Bodo Accord was first signed in 2003 in a bid to maintain peace in the region. In 2020, it was extended by central government.

These outfits were originated from the core demand of establishing a separate state. Karbi Anglong Autonomous Council (KAAC) is an autonomous district council, which is protected under Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution. Karbi National Volunteers and Karbi Peoples Force joined together to form United Peoples Democratic Solidarity (UPDS) in 1990s. UPDS put down arms and signed a tripartite memorandum of settlement, in November 2011, with Centre and Government of Assam in return of enhanced autonomy and special packages for the KAAC.

Assam is a well known place for all the pork lovers. If we only talk about north-east, there are many star entrepreneurs residing in this area because of pig . Therefore, the state is now the pioneers of pig and pork production making it the largest pork yielding state, not just in the Northeast, but also in India.

The future of pork industry is very bright. This industry has soul potential especially in this region where people consume lots of pork. The birth of many “solopreneurs” or small scale businesses run by a single entity.

It is a mater of satisfaction because Women living in various remote areas earn through this business for their day-to-day expenses like Education, healthcare and other belongings which indirectly contributes in their Empowerment.

Everything was going good, out of nowhere pandemic COVID-19 happened and like as all sort of business, pig industry suffered a lot. The sudden onset of the deadly and highly contagious African Swine Fever (ASF) poses a serious threat to not only the pig industry in the North-eastern states but the entire economy of this region as pig breeding is the principal Source Of Income for the rural inhabitants in Assam and other states of Northeast India region.

The ASF is said to have originated in Tibet; the virus reached India primarily via Arunachal Pradesh and Assam wreaking havoc on the pig industry. It spreads due to close contact with infected pigs, food waste, garbage, and biological carriers like ticks. Thankfully, the disease doesn’t pose any threat to humans but it is highly fatal and contagious for pigs (alive or dead). Usually, the animals symptoms are nausea, diarrhoea, hemorrhaging of the skin, poor appetite and many others.

The major problem at hand for the Assam State Government of late is the ire it faces from the local pig farmers. The reason being the government banning the transportation, buying and selling of Livestock for farming, pork and other meats to prevent transmit of the fatal virus (ASF) to stop the contagion to other North-eastern states.

The joint pig Population of Punjab and Haryana is over 1.5 lakh. Assam’s pig production is the highest in India which is over 21 lakh. The total pig production of the Northeast (excluding Sikkim) is over 42 lakh which is almost 50 per cent of India’s entire pig population. And the entire pig population of the rest of India (excluding Punjab and Haryana) is more than 89 lakh, according to The 20th Livestock Census Of India, 2019.

One can infer that the nations entire pig population is at risk due to fulfilling the interests of a few farmers of Punjab and Haryana. So the feeling of being ignored by the Central government gives us an insight into the heart-wrenching scenario of the helpless pig breeders in the Northeast.

The floods in Assam have undone all the good work to curtail the outbreak of ASF as incessant rains have made it very tough to completely discard the contaminated corpses of the livestock.

It won’t be wrong to say that a complete ban is essential on movement of pigs to the Northeast with immediate effect to prevent it from further escalating into a national crisis along with the COVID-19 pandemic.

The developed world has also struggled to control ASF. Bio-security and culling is the most common method. The right Infrastructure is must to carry out culling efficiently as expenses are there and many farms are in remote areas; so they don’t have access to medical care. There is a plan in place with the right technical ability to check the culling process.

Assam and the other North-eastern states have faced Unemployment since very long time. But the news of pig supply to this region from other states has created a sense of disgrace to all the small-scale pig farmers. Fact of the matter is we are heading towards large-scale unemployment.

Steps should be taken to overcome ASF as well as COVID-19 by government so that up to some extent our indigenous people can survive and this industry can revive it’s own potential in NE region.

Assam government inked two pacts with the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics (CDFD), Hyderabad, in presence of Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma to forge collaboration in the field of forensic sciences, healthcare and diagnostics here on Tuesday. Principal Secretary (Home and political) Niraj Verma on behalf of Assam government and Dr K Thangaraj on behalf of CDFD signed the agreement.

In a bid to make the state crime free, the Assam government has initiated several steps to bolster forensic science and thanked the CDFD for entering into an agreement.

The MoU on healthcare and diagnostic Services will help in joint research programmes where faculty from both the Assam government and CDFD can collaborate on projects based on mutual interests

The ITE Education Services ofSingapore formally handed over the reins of North East Skill Centre to theAssamSkill development Mission (ASDM). A ceremony was held in presence of visiting senior minister of Singapore Tharman Shanmugaratnam and Assam minister for skill development EMPLOYMENT & Jayanta Malla Baruah.

Indias connection with Singapore dates back to the Chola dynasty period when they shared strong commercial, cultural and people-to-people links.

Assam CM Himanta Biswa Sarma said theCentreand the are trying to find a “middle path” to carry forward dialogue with Ulfa (I) led by Paresh Baruah, which wants talks on its Sovereignty demand. He, however, added that the whole process will take time.

The discussions were held primarily to give the final shape to a peace accord with rebels ofKarbi Anglongdistrict of the state.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has identified seven black spots that have taken many lives in road accidents over the years inAssam, from central to western part of the state. Frequent accidents for successive years has compelled NHAI to give refurbishment to ease flow of traffic in these black spots to avert road accidents.
According to the ministry of road transports definition, a stretch of road is tagged as a black spot if five road accidents or 10 fatalities are reported for consecutive three years in a stretch of 500 metres.

Scattered from Nagaon district in central Assam to Bongaigaon in lower Assam, these seven black spots Tihujunction, Society Chowk Rangia, Changsari-Madanpur stretch, Dabaka junction,Kishanbazar,Manikpurand Sundari will soon witness infrastructure revamp as a long-term measure.

The Assam government has decided to re-introduce free food and drinking water for Covid patients at government hospitals and Covid care centres.

Health minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said committees are also being set up with members of civil Society to enforce the mandatory 7-day Home quarantine for those who are returning home by air and train and have tested negative for Covid on arrival. We have fixed Rs 300 for each patient daily and deputy commissioners have been asked to provide each patient in government hospitals and Covid care centres with breakfast, lunch, evening tea, dinner and bottle of water. There will also be a canteen in the Covid care centre premises where patients can buy additional items on their own, Sarma said.