The AASU and the GOA are now in the process of fixing a timeframe for the implementation of the Accord, with discussions slated with the PM.
***"The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) had recently sought clarification on the term "Assamese" from Dispur in a bid to know which indigenous communities were identified by the term"*** The other thing is that the PMO had sought the definition Assamese, and these discussions (AASU and GOA) tend to come to such a definition. --Ram http://www.telegraphindia.com/1050503/asp/northeast/story_4687682.asp Time-frame for accord clauses A STAFF REPORTER Guwahati, May 2: Twenty years after the signing of the Assam Accord, Dispur today finally decided to fix a timeframe for implementing all the clauses of the pact which capped the eight-year-long anti-foreigners agitation in the state. A decision to this effect was taken during a meeting between the state government and the All Assam Students Union (AASU) at Dispur today. The meeting was convened by chief minister Tarun Gogoi as a prelude to the May 5 tripartite talks among Dispur, the AASU and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on implementation of the accord. Though there was broad agreement on most of the issues in the meeting, opinions of Dispur and the AASU remained divided on the contentious Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act. While the students' union insisted on its scrapping, the state government cited "technical problems" in doing so. Today's meeting will be followed by another one with the chief minister and the state government officials before May 5 to prepare a blueprint for parleys with the Prime Minister. Both the sides today expressed optimism that something concrete would emerge out of the tripartite talks with the Prime Minister. AASU general secretary Tapan Gogoi said after the meeting that the government was very positive in its approach today. Both the sides agreed to fix March 2006 as the deadline for completing fencing along the porous Indo-Bangladesh border and decided to jointly press the Centre for adhering to the deadline. Besides, the meeting also agreed to press the Centre for installing floodlights there and construction of border roads within the stipulated one year. It also stressed the need to enhance border vigil to check infiltration. Setting the agenda for the discussions with the Prime Minister, the 26-member AASU delegation stressed the need for a special economic package for Assam to resolve the unemployment problem. The meeting agreed to raise the matter during the discussions with Singh. Besides the chief minister, the meeting was also attended by Assam Accord implementation minister Bhumidhar Barman, minister of state for finance Himanta Biswa Sarma and director general of police P.V. Sumant. There was also unanimity on the need to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC) keeping March 1971 as the base year. The Prime Minister's Office (PMO) had recently sought clarification on the term "Assamese" from Dispur in a bid to know which indigenous communities were identified by the term. The PMO had also asked the state government to clarify the difficulties in updating the NRC. The Prime Minister agreed to hold the tripartite meeting after the students' union threatened a mass agitation protesting Dispur's alleged failure to uphold its commitment to arrange the meeting. The AASU has been insisting that the problem of illegal migrants in the state could be resolved only if the accord signed in 1985 was implemented in toto. It also maintained that since both the state government and the Union home ministry had failed to implement it during the last 20 years, it would hold discussions on accord implementation only at the Prime Minister's level. _______________________________________________ Assam mailing list [email protected] http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/listinfo/assam Mailing list FAQ: http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/assam/assam-faq.html To unsubscribe or change options: http://pikespeak.uccs.edu/mailman/options/assam
