Way back in the 1960s when the then Lushai Hills district of Assam was at the peak of insurgency and the security forces burnt down villages by the dozen to teach the insurgents a lesson, hundreds

At least nine persons were killed and over 40 injured in a storm and lightning which hit different parts of Tripura and Mizoram, official sources said today.

Tripura continues to be the leading state in the country in terms of average employment under the rural jobs scheme, with the state providing 72.39 person-days of work in the current fiscal, state’s Rural Development Minister Jitendra Chaudhury said Thursday.

Chaudhury told reporters that Tripura has been providing the highest average employment for the past three years under Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA).

Gangtok: The poverty level in Sikkim has gone down with 80,000 people now living below poverty line, according to the new official estimates for 2009-2010 released by the Planning Commission.

While in 2004-2005, poverty level in Sikkim stood at 30.9 per cent with 1,70,000 people living under BPL, in the wake of the intense poverty alleviation programme initiated by the government, it has been significantly reduced in both urban and rural areas, official sources said.

Mizoram Finance Minister H Liansailova today presented an Interim Annual Budget for 2012-2013 in the Assembly to seek a vote on account for the first four months of the next fiscal amounting to Rs

Almost two years after it was passed by Parliament, the Clinical Establishments (Registration and Regulation) Act, 2010, has now been notified by the Union Government.

Notified on February 28, it has come into force in Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Sikkim and all Union Territories from March 1.

Despite all tall talks of development, level of poverty in Northeastern states including Meghalaya has increased even though the same has declined in the rest of the country. More alarmingly, poverty level among the rural tribals, who mostly inhabit in North-East, is as high as 47.4 per cent.

This was revealed in the Planning Commission report — Poverty Estimate, released on Monday.

The Planning Commission on Monday released the latest poverty estimates for the country showing a decline in the incidence of poverty by 7.3 per cent over the past five years and stating that anyone with a daily consumption expenditure of Rs. 28.35 and Rs. 22.42 in urban and rural areas respectively is above the poverty line.

The new poverty estimates for 2011-12 will only add to the furore triggered by the Commission's affidavit in the Supreme Court in October in which the BPL cap was pegged at an expenditure of Rs. 32 and Rs. 26 by an individual in the urban and rural areas respectively at the going rate of inflation in 2010-11.

New Delhi: In the face of a gloomy economy at home and global crisis abroad, the lowly services sector proved a savior with the backward Northeast region registering the highest growth in this segment, the much-awaited Economic Survey released on Thursday said.

The Economic Survey for 2011-12 tabled by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee in Parliament, on the eve of presentation of the general Budget, projected a 7.6 per cent growth for the next fiscal.