Guwahati: December 6: Manab Adhikar Sangram Samiti (MASS) condemns the brutal and senseless murder of innocent Naga wage earners and their protesting allies by the Indian armed forces. Even as our region prepares for the season of peace and festivities, special forces of the Indian army ambushed and killed young Naga men returning home to their village from working on the coal mines in the Mon district. News reports say that they were in a pick-up truck and singing songs, as they were happy to return home for the weekend on 4 December 2021. The army ambushed them between Lower Tiru, where they had gone to work in the mines, and Oking, where they lived. As per reports in the local media, six innocent Naga men died instantly, and two more succumbed to their injuries. Subsequently, the Indian armed forces opened fire on villagers from Oking and its neighbouring areas, who were searching for their murdered kin. The death toll now stands at 16 (sixteen), as per media reports.
This event is a reminder of the generational trauma that people of the Northeast, including the Nagas, continue to be subjected to. The Naga people were supposed to be safer following a ceasefire agreed upon by Naga armed opposition groups and the government of India in 1997. Instead, they have continued to suffer under threats made against them by the Indian security forces, who hide behind the grotesque law called Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA), 1958. The tragic loss of lives on 4 December 2021in Mon district, Nagaland, was a prime example of impunity that comes with AFSPA. Special forces units were emboldened by decades of immunity offered to them by this draconian law, so they saw no need to inform civilian authorities or even their paramilitary counterparts of the ambush of the innocent villagers.
In the meantime, this heinous action has elicited condemnation from every quarter, including India’s Home Minister, the Chief Minister, and Deputy Chief Minister of Nagaland. The government of Nagaland has constituted a 5-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) to investigate the massacre of innocent miners and their protesting kin. We welcome the elected representatives' effort and wish to sound a cautionary note about the fate of other investigations and commissions of inquiry following excesses committed by the armed forces against civilians in Northeast India. The Justice KN Saikia Committee report on extrajudicial executions in Assam and the Justice Upendra Singh Committee report on the killing of Thangjam Manorama has not been acted upon and have yet been acted upon to see the light of day. We cannot allow that to happen now.
MASS, therefore, makes the following demands as we stand in solidarity with our grieving Naga comrades:
The Government of India must repeal AFSPA immediately and without any prevarication.
There should be an impartial inquiry conducted by a sitting judge.
The guilty army personnel must be tried for premeditated murder in a court of law. Their names and designations should be made public, and the Indian armed forces should dismiss them from service to face the law as common citizens.
Families of the dead and injured must receive maximum compensation.
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Organized by the North-East Affected Area Development Society (NEADS) with support from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the event was held from March 24 to 26 under the Youth Basin Ambassadors (YBA) initiative. It aimed to connect youth working across the Ganges–Brahmaputra–Meghna Basin and deepen their understanding of river systems, governance challenges and community-driven solutions.
Participants included...
Tinsukia, March 22: Suspected militants of the banned outfit United Liberation Front of Asom (Independent) (ULFA-I) launched a pre-dawn attack on an Assam Police commando camp in the Jagun area of Tinsukia district, leaving at least four security personnel injured.
According to reports, the militants attacked the camp around 2 a.m., allegedly lobbing several grenades and opening fire with automatic weapons. Security forces retaliated, leading to an exchange of fire that lasted for several minutes before the attackers fled the scene. The injured personnel were later shifted to a hospital in Dibrugarh for treatment.
Following the attack, Army and police units launched a joint...
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The award-winning schools include Natun Fatasil Town HS (Kamrup Metro), Sakai Khangia High School (Jorhat), Bishnu Jyoti MES (Sonitpur), PM Shri Jamira HS School (Hailakandi), and PM Shri Gossaigaon Girls HS School (Kokrajhar). Tinsukia district was also recognised as the best-performing district.
Officials...
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APRCEM is a regional civil society platform that brings together organisations across Asia and the Pacific to engage with intergovernmental processes on sustainable development, particularly the implementation and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
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Chief Minister Conrad K. Sangma announced the decision on Wednesday, saying the state government reviewed the prevailing law-and-order situation in the Garo Hills region before deciding to defer the polls.
The unrest erupted during the nomination process in Chibinang in West Garo Hills, where clashes broke out between groups supporting and opposing the participation of non-tribal candidates in the GHADC elections. Two persons were killed...
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Delivering the judgment on March 10, Justice H. S. Thangkhiew ruled that the February 17, 2026 notification issued by the GHADC Executive Committee lacked legal authority and did not follow the procedure required under the Assam and Meghalaya Autonomous Districts (Constitution of District Councils) Rules, 1951.
The court observed that the notification effectively barred non-tribal voters and candidates from participating in the council elections...
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A significant milestone for literature from Northeast India has been marked with the publication of The Yellow Metaphor, a collection of poems by Assamese poet Jiban Narah, now released by Penguin Random House India.
The book is a translated anthology of Narah’s poetry and is considered a rare achievement for the region. It is reportedly the first translated poetry collection by a single poet from Northeast India to be published by Penguin, and among only a handful of works in a regional Indian language to receive such recognition from the global publishing house.
The Yellow Metaphor brings together 99 selected poems written over a span of 33 years, reflecting Narah’s long poetic...
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Several prominent personalities attended the meeting, including Manaranjan Baruah, president of the Mohan-Deodhai-Bailung Sanmilan; Vidya Phukan, president of the Mohan-Deodhai-Bailung Pandit Parishad; former president of Phra-Lung-Moung Assam Golap Gohain; secretary Pranjal Mohan; noted Tai cultural researcher Kamal Jyoti Mohan; Tai-Ahom scholar Nripen Mohan;...
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