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                  Vol.2, No.42  [*] September 12, 1997
                  ------------------------------------

          If you can't answer a man's arguments all is not lost;
                     you can still call him vile names. 
                            - Elbert Hubbard
   ---------------------------------------------------------------------
     

                   
1  DR BROJEN GOGOI TRACED IN CHICAGO		         [AT:12-SEP-97]
   ---------------------------------
   
   Senior Tata Tea executive Dr Brojen Gogoi, wanted for his involvement
   with  the  ULFA,  by  the  Police, has been traced in Chicago, highly
   placed sources revealed.  Intelligence agency has on  late  night  of
   September  9  intercepted  a  call  made  by  Dr Gogoi to a friend in
   Guwahati from the US city.  Assam Government has confirmed Dr Gogoi's
   involvement with the  banned  outfit  charging  that  he  accompanied
   Pranati  Deka, the cultural secretary of the ULFA, to Mumbai, besides
   acting as a go between the tea company and the outfit.  Dr  Gogoi  is
   believed  to  hold  the  key  to  all his Company's dealings with the
   underground outfit.
      
   Meanwhile, Jalukbari police on September 11 arrested Dr Anjan Saikia,
   a senior medical officer of the NF Railway, for accompanying  Pranati
   Deka to  Mumbai.   He was charged with aiding and abetting insurgency
   and sheltering ULFA cadres.  NF Railway authorities confirmed that Dr
   Saikia had been unauthorizedly absent from his duty for about a year.
   They said, no disciplinary action was taken  against  him.    Sources
   said  that  Dr  Saikia is a close friend and a former classmate of Dr
   Brojen Gogoi.  Dr Saikia was picked up on the basis of a confessional
   statement made by arrested ULFA woman cadre Rani Khaklari.
   

2  TATA TEA EXECUTIVES GRILLED BY SIT		       [S+AT:12-SEP-97]
   ----------------------------------
   
   Two  senior  executives  of  the  Tata  Tea,  Director S.N.Kidwai and
   General Manager in-charge of the Northern India Plantation, S.S.Dogra
   were grilled for more than eight hours  by  a  Special  Investigation
   Team (SIT) of the Assam Police on September 11 in connection with the
   Tea Company's action of sponsoring the treatment of the ULFA cultural
   secretary Ms Pranati Deka in Mumbai.
   
   The  executives  who  arrived at the Borjhar Airport in Guwahati were
   whisked away under tight security to  the  Office  of  the  Inspector
   General  of  Police  (Special  Branch)  in Kahilipara where they were
   grilled.  It is understood that the SIT has managed to  get  hold  of
   the  vital documents it needed from the Tata Tea executives to clinch
   the case, but they are still closely scrutinizing the papers to  help
   narrow down on their objective.
   

3  MAHANTA MADE CCM MEMBER				  [S:12-SEP-97]
   -----------------------
   
   Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta has been included as  a  member
   of  the  Committee  of  Chief  Ministers  (CCM)  constituted  by  the
   Government of India for the  purpose  of  accelerating  the  pace  of
   devolution  of  powers  in  various  states  and  union  territories.
   Constituted on September 1 with the Prime Minister as  the  chairman,
   the  other  members  of  the  committee  are  the  chief ministers of
   Rajasthan,  Madhya  Pradesh,  Uttar  Pradesh,  Andhra  Pradesh,  West
   Bengal, Assam, Kerala and Orissa.  The Secretary to the Government of
   India, Rural Development Department is the convenor of the committee.
   

4  AJIT BHUYAN IN JUDICIAL CUSTODY		       [S+AT:12-SEP-97]
   -------------------------------
   
   The editor of Sadin and Asomiya Pratidin and MASS activist,  Mr  Ajit
   Kumar   Bhuyan  was  remanded  to  14-day  judicial  custody  by  the
   sub-judicial magistrate of Majuli  on  September  11.    Earlier,  Mr
   Bhuyan  was interrogated by the Jorhat SP in connection with a letter
   recovered from a slain ULFA activist, wherein Mr Bhuyan's advice  was
   sought  to  minimize  the damage to the banned organisation caused by
   the killing of social activist Mr Sanjoy Ghose.
   

5  CM'S LETTERHEADS RECOVERED FROM APSC CHAIRMAN	 [AT:10-SEP-97]
   ---------------------------------------------
   
   The  Assam  Government has been requested by the State Police to take
   necessary steps in view of recovery of a large number of  letterheads
   of  the  State  Chief  Minister from the Chairman of the Assam Public
   Service Commission, Dr T.P.Das. The APSC Chairman stated  before  the
   police  that  he  had  prepared  all  the  letterheads with the noble
   intention to gift these to the Chief Minister and was awaiting for an
   appointment with the latter. But the Chief Minister's  letterhead  is
   considered  to be an official document and unlikely to be accepted as
   gift.
   
   Following the arrest of Dhurba Deka for possessing forged letterheads
   of  the  Chief  Minister  on  September 6 in Guwahati, and subsequent
   interrogation by the police, Deka revealed about the availability  of
   similar letterheads  with the APSC Chairman.  Since Dr Das is holding
   a quasi-judicial post, the State Police could not proceed against him
   and requested the Government to take necessary steps to pave way  for
   his prosecution.    Dr  Das  was nominated as a Member of the APSC in
   1991 and appointed as the Chairman in 1994.
   

6  CBI TO PROBE TELECOM CGM CASE			  [S:12-SEP-97]
   -----------------------------
   
   The Assam Government is likely to hand over the probe into the arrest
   of the Chief General Manager (Task Force) of  the  Telecommunications
   department,  Mr  K.Ganesh,  along  with  the  cash  of Rs.2.5 million
   recovered from him at  the  Borjhar  Airport  recently  to  the  CBI.
   Meanwhile,  the  sleuths  of  the  Income Tax Department have started
   investigations into the case and examined the papers  recovered  from
   Mr Ganesh.
   

7  MOBILE TELEPHONES IN JORHAT SOON		         [AT:11-SEP-97]
   --------------------------------
   
   The Blue  Chip  Company  (Reliance  Group)  will  launch  the  mobile
   telephone  services  in  Jorhat  town  before the ensuing Durga Puja.
   Reliance is one of the two licensees authorised by the Department  of
   Telecommunications to  start  this  service  in  the  Northeast.   Mr
   Debojit Baruah, the approved dealer  for  Jorhat  said  that  he  has
   already received   200   applications  for  connections.    A  single
   connection will come  for  Rs.4,500  while  the  receiver  will  cost
   anything between Rs.10,000 to Rs.75,000.
   

8  ARTFED EXPO IN CHANDIGARH			           [S:9-SEP-97]
   -------------------------
   
   The  ARTFED  has  organized  a  national-level  'Handloom  Expo'   in
   Chandigarh  from  November  12  to December 2, with financial support
   from the Union Textiles Ministry. All the  north-eastern  States  are
   expected  to  take  part  in the Expo. This is for the first time the
   Union Ministry has sponsored the ARTFED to organize a  national-level
   handloom  expo  outside  the  region  to  give thrust to marketing of
   handloom products of  the  region.  A  tentative  budget  of  Rs.3.42
   million has also been prepared for the expo.
   

9  A REACTION OF EMPTY STOMACH!			         [AT:10-SEP-97]
   ----------------------------
   
   Dispur  police  arrested two school teachers following an incident of
   stone-pelting in the Kahilipara office premises of  the  Director  of
   Elementary Education  in  Guwahati on September 9.  A group of school
   teachers went to the Director's office to  demand  release  of  their
   salaries  when  some  of the demonstrators became violent and started
   pelting stones damaging some of  the  window  panes  of  the  office.
   School teachers of the State have not been getting their salaries for
   several months.
   

10 THIRTEEN MEDICAL SEATS GO WASTE IN ASSAM	         [AT:11-SEP-97]
   ----------------------------------------
   
   As  many  as 13 seats in the three medical colleges in Assam remained
   vacant during the current academic year as the State  Directorate  of
   Medical Education  failed  to  take  timely action.  The seats became
   vacant since the students discontinued their studies after  attending
   their classes for a short period after their admission.
   

11 US SCHOLARSHIP FOR NIBIR HAZARIKA		          [AT:9-SEP-97]
   ---------------------------------
   
   Nibir  Hazarika  of  St Xavier College, Mumbai has received US dollar
   40,000 as scholarship from the  American  College  Board  for  higher
   studies  in  computer  science and has already left for the US. He is
   the son of Mr Parama and Mrs Sobha Hazarika of Rupnagar, Guwahati.

______________________________[Mozz-BG]_________________________________
Compiled from newspaper and agency reports for private circulation only.
      [S=Sentinel, AT=Assam Tribune, Agencies = UNI, PTI, PIB]
              http://www.cyberspace.org/~mozz/aol.html  
  http://piglet.uccs.edu/~kalita/assam/news/news-from-assam-index.html
________________________________________________________________________