The Disaster Management Cell of the Kamrup (M) district organised a daylong workshop on disaster management for the corporate officials of Guwahati here recently.

The workshop, organised for the first time for corporate houses, was inaugurated by VK Pipersania, Principal Secretary, Revenue & DM Department. He laid stress on basic knowledge of disaster management to corporate houses, especially in a city like Guwahati, which comes under the most vulnerable zone for earthquake.

N Hazatika, State Programme Officer, DRM was also present on the occasion.

Terming the State Government as most inefficient in view of the unabated ravages of flood and erosion at Matmora, Majuli and various other places, the All Assam Students' Union (AASU) today said it would burn effigies of Water Resources Minister Bharat Narah throughout the State on July 28. In a statement, the AASU said that Narah had indulged in unprecedented corruption, which was at the root of the failure of flood-control measures in the vulnerable areas like Matmora.

The campaign to save Majuli

The State Assembly today passed the Guwahati Water Bodies (Preservation and Conservation) Bill, 2008, which aims at saving the city from flash flood by preserving, protecting, conserving, regulating and maintaining Sarusola, Borsola, Silsako and Deepor Beels of the Guwahati metropolitan development area. The legislation seeks to develop these wetlands as natural water reservoirs.

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In an ambitious bid to provide much-needed thrust to the State's horticulture sector, a national-level horticultural expo is being planned by the Assam Agriculture Department. The event would take place from February 10 to 14 next year at the Sankardeva Kalakshetra, where some permanent landscaping would also take place.

The event will involve not just the agriculture departments of all the States, but would witness the participation of private sector and NGOs, especially those organisations using new technologies.

Though the State Government has announced as well as initiated a number of measures to remove the flash flood-related woes of the Guwahatians, scores of residents of this premier northeastern city are still aggrieved. To them, the Government has not done anything scientific to remove their woes permanently. Whatever the Government has done and announced are mere knee-jerk ad hoc measures. Even the scientific documents, like the master plan of the Bharalu river prepared by the Brahmaputra Board, have not been given a damn by the Government while addressing these problems, they allege.

That the HIV/AIDS scenario in the State has undergone a sea change with concerted government and non-Government efforts was confirmed on Monday when Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi launched a book that recounts the real life narratives of people who have acquired the dreaded disease. The book, titled Positive in Rhino Land: Battle Against HIV/AIDS in Assam and authored by journalist Wasbir Hussain, brings the dreaded disease out of the closet by relating the struggles and determination of the affected people to live and keep smiling.

In order to contain the monkey menace in and around the city, the Forest Department is planting saplings of fruit-bearing trees in Basistha area. Sources in the Forest Department said that about a thousand saplings of different fruit-bearing trees had been planted in the area, and plans were afoot to plant more such saplings.

A free dog vaccination camp was organised by Blue Cross Society, Assam recently on the occasion of "World Zoonosis Day' in the Teaching Veterinary Complex, College of Veterinary Science, Assam Agricultural University, Khanapara. The World Zoonosis Day is celebrated to create awareness about the diseases communicable to animals to human and vice versa. Rabies, tuberculosis etc are some of the important zoonotic diseases that kill millions of people worldwide every year.

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