Supply of essential commodities to the Upper Assam districts and Mokokchung, Tuensang, Mon and Dimapur in Nagaland is mostly controlled by traders of the Jorhat wholesale market. "There is enough stocks to last two weeks, but Hindi speaking truck drivers are not willing to come to Upper Assam," said Duli Chand Agarwalla, general secretary, Upper Assam Chambers of Commerce. "The shortage of Bihari labourers has compounded the situation." At least seven buses of Bihari labourers left the Upper Assam towns in a Bihar-bound bus yesterday.

"Maithunam paramam tatvam

Shrusti stithi, anya karanam,"

(Coitus is the ultimate principle behind

creation, preservation and destruction)

- Lord Shiva in the Kailas Puraan

With the Government of Bhutan threatening to initiate military action to flush out Indian militants holed up in the Himalayan kingdom, Maoist rebels of Nepal have extended an invitation to the Indian outfits, including the United Liberation Front Asom (ULFA), the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) and the Kamatapur Liberation Organisation (KLO), to set up camps in their territory in Nepal, intelligence sources in Bhutan said. The ULFA, in return, would have to train Maoist cadres, the sources said.

Having held four rounds of talks with the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) leaders, including its self-styled commander in chief, Paresh Baruah, and chairman Arabinda Rajkhowa in Thimphu, the Bhutanese Government “will consider the fifth as the last and final before moving in its army”, should the negotiations fail, Bhutanese Prime Minister Jigme Yoezer Thinley has said. The fifth round of talks are to be held “soon” in an undisclosed destination in Bhutan.

Sahara TV's programme of the above name, for all its effort, is not without its tell-tale errors: fresh young journalists often parachuted, for all purposes, into an alien North-east, where he reports on the hot "jolokia mirch" of Assam (jolokia, incidentally, is mirch in Assamese), and how Guru Tegh Bahadur converted the first Sikhs in Assam during the time of King Ahom (in reality, the Ahoms were the dynasty that ruled the region between 1228 and 1826, the word Oxom, the Anglicised version of which is Assam, is, according to one school of thought, derived from 'Ahom'); the Ahom king referred

According to highly placed intelligence sources, while Dhaka has so far remained tight-lipped about the recent developments, the operation against the Indian militants has been on since last week. There are a number of camps of the ULFA, along with those of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB), the National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) and the Kamatapur Liberation Organisation (KLO) in Bangladesh. The government of Bangladesh, according to the sources was contemplating such a move for a while now to restore peace on its "eastern front".

Respected President,

Peoples of Assam are screened, assaulted and the women are molested by the Indians in Bihar state without any provocation. It was later on stated by a Hindi vernacular daily that Bihari candidates were debarred from appearing an interview conducted by Guwahati Chapter of Indian Railway Board. It was a false and fabricated story and so had escaped the eyes of all news media even the Indian oriented ones.

Long known to target the tea industry for their financial requirements, the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) has, in a sudden upsurge, issued extortion notices to at least two major tea companies in the state. Close on the heels of the notice reportedly issued to Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL) last month, a second tea major, Warren Tea Limited in the Tinsukia district of Upper Assam, has said that it received a Rs 25 lakh demand notice from the outfit recently.