-The Times of India GUWAHATI: The ethnic violence between Bodos and Bengali-speaking Muslims, which sparked off in Kokrajhar on July 20 and soon affected neighbouring Chirang and Dhubri districts, has spread to new areas with fresh incidents of violence being reported from Baksa, Nalbari and Kamrup (rural) in the past 12 hours. There was no report of any loss of life. On Wednesday midnight, after miscreants set a Tata Nano car on...

-The Friday Times How are demographics changing in Assam and Bengal? And what does this mean for 'indigenous' communities? Garga Chatterjee considers the argument for territorial purity The Assam state of the Indian Union has seen violence flare up suddenly from July 6th. With more than 40 people reported dead and upwards of one and a half lakh displaced in a week, the Kokrajhar riots between Bodos and Muslims have again brought...

-The Economic Times Ethnic conflict in Assam, like in some other parts of the north-east is decades old, but has increased in frequency since the late 1970s. An extremely militant agitation ostensibly to throw out 'foreigners' , but targeted more generally against all non-Assamese people, gripped the state from 1979 to 1985 . It was led by the All-Assam Students Union (AASU). One of the factors that gave the agitation ground support was...

-The Times of India GUWAHATI: The death toll in the ongoing ethnic clash between Bodo and Bengali Speaking Muslims in the Bodo heartland in Kokrajhar district since Friday, rose to 20 as additional central paramilitary forces from different parts of the country are on their way to the troubled area. Over 50, 000 people belonging to both the communities have been affected in the spate of violence so far. The population of...

The Jaipur Literary Festival, a giddily chaotic celebration of the written word set on the grounds of a Rajasthan palace, ended in misery and embarrassment today, with the organizers bowing to pressure from local security forces and scotching plans for Salman Rushdie to “appear” at the festival, finally, by video link. Rushdie had already been forced to cancel plans to come to Jaipur after he had received intelligence reports—bogus intelligence,...