Odisha, Tripura to participate in annual theatre fest at Guwahati
Guwahati:The 8th Annual Brajanath Sharma Memorial Drama Festival by amateur theatre group Samahar Natya Gosthee will be held here from November 7 to 13 next. Informing this, Drama Festival Committee president Lalit Sarma said, ‘We are very happy to formally announce the programme of the festival. Since the last eight years, this has become a very important and landmark cultural event of the state. Now, it is a big responsibility on our shoulder to make it a grand success every year.’ Since 2007, Samahar has been organising this annual theatre extravaganza in the hallowed memory of Brajanath Sharma . He was pioneer of modern Assamese theatre and had first brought women on the stage to introduce co-acting in the state in 1933.Sharma, the unique firebrand freedom fighter, had destroyed and set ablaze the British aerodrome at Bornagar, Sarbhog police station, post office, etc in Barpeta district.The inaugural lamp of the theatre festival will be lit by Brajanath Sharma’s daughter Nirmala Mishra and grand daughter Neelakshi Mishra Sharma and the festival will be inaugurated by renowned theatre personality Ratna Ojha. The souvenir of the festival ‘Kohinoor’ will be released by Oil India Limited General Manager (Pipeline) Rahul Chaudhury.Besides theatre groups from the state, plays will be staged by two troupes from Odisha and Tripura. (UNI)
Territorial Army personnel killed in Manipur grenade attack
Imphal:A personnel of Territorial Army was killed when suspected militants attacked 165th TA post by exploding grenades in Imphal West district of Manipur, police said on Wednesday. The incident occurred on late Monday night but it was reported to the police on Tuesday. Suspected militants hurled two grenades at the TA at Koirengei on the outskirts of Imphal at around 9 PM on Monday, the police said. While one grenade exploded seriously injuring Lance Naik Jagga Singh, the other did not explode, the police said. Singh died on way to Army hospital at Leimakhong, 25 km from here.Singh of 165th TA was attached to 107 Engineer Regiment under Red Shield division of the Army for some construction work. His body would be sent to Punjab, his native state. No individual or group has claimed responsibility for the attack. (PTI)
Mizoram minister says rice flow normal
Aizawl:Mizoram Minister for Food, Civil Supplies and Consumer Affairs John Rotluangliana on Wednesday said that the flow of foodstuff to Mizoram remained normal despite the disruption caused by widening of railroad at the Lumding-Badarpur sector in Assam continued for more than a month. Rotluangliana told PTI that due to stoppage of procurement of rice by railways due to the ongoing work, the state government continued to lift more rice from Guwahati by road. “At present, we are having stock of foodstuff to last for two months and the procurement of rice continued unabated,” he said. He, however, said that the government was making efforts to procure rice from neighbouring Myanmar in order to ensure non-stop flow of rice even if there are road blocks due to natural disaster or bandhs and economic blockade in neighbouring states like Assam. Lalrindika, the contractor appointed by the state government to procure rice from sources other than the FCI said that he had procured almost 10,000 quintals of rice so far. Lalrindika has been selling rice at the rate of Rs 25.25 per kilo to the state government and said that he would even procure rice from Myanmar if the need arose. (PTI)
Three drug peddlers arrested in Tripura, heroin seized
Agartala:Tripura Police arrested three members of an inter-state drug peddlers’ gang and seized around 900 grams of heroin from them, police said here Wednesday.The value of the seized heroin in the international market is around Rs.10 crore.A police official said: “Acting on a tip-off, police arrested three youths from two different places in Agartala city. Arrested drug peddler Paltu Acherjee, 42 is from Tripura while the other two peddlers Firoz Ahmed Chowdhury, 47, and Sarainam Ingou, 51, are residents of Silchar in Assam and Bishnupur in Manipur respectively. The official said: “The detainees have confessed that they procured the heroin from drug smugglers of Myanmar.” Manipur, Mizoram and some other northeast Indian states are being used as corridors to smuggle drugs and arms to other parts of the country and abroad. Four northeastern states — Arunachal Pradesh (520 km), Manipur (398 km), Nagaland (215 km) and Mizoram (510 km) — share a 1,643-km unfenced border with Myanmar. The eight northeastern states — Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim – share a 5,437 km international boundary with China.(IANS)