Tripartite meeting on March 18 to review Assam Accord

Guwahati, Mar 8 : A tripartite meeting would be held in New Delhi on March 18 among Union Home Ministry, Assam Government and All Assam Students' Union (AASU) to review the progress of implementation of the Assam Accord.

The meeting would be held with Union Home Secretary G K Pillai, and the non-implementation of various clauses of the Accord would be discussed in detail, AASU advisor Samujjal Bhattacharya told reporters here today.

Bhattacharya said the sealing of the 272-km Indo-Bangladesh border was far from complete and the Central Government has to "answer for the delay".

"The government has failed to implement border sealing and as a consequence unbated influx was continuing causing immense threat to the indigenous Assamese," he said.

Besides, updating of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) was expected to be completed by December 31, 2010 but till now the modalities have not been worked out, Bhattacharya pointed out.

AASU seeks exams probe

Guwahati, Feb 28 : The AASU today sought an inquiry into alleged irregularities in the re-examinations of the higher secondary final conducted by the Assam Higher Secondary Education Council in 2008.

AASU adviser Samujjal Bhattacharyya said they had written to education minister Gautam Bora, demanding an impartial probe.

“From various sources we have received evidence of irregularities in the re-evaluation by a section of council officials, which is a matter of very serious concern for us, as it affects the interests of the student community,” he said.

Bhattacharyya said they were ready to share the evidence with the investigators if the state government orders a probe. He said they had taken up the matter with the council’s chairman, Mohsin Ali. “We were forced to seek the intervention of the education minister since the council chairman failed to respond to our demands,” he added.

AASU president Sankar Prasad Ray said they had reasons to doubt that money mi-ght have changed hands dur-ing re-exam. He demanded disciplinary action against the council’s controller of examinations, Pradip Kalita.

The AASU leaders said they had evidence to substantiate their allegations but refused to give details. “Our demand is very simple. Since there were allegations of serious irregularities during re-examination, let there be an independent inquiry to find out the truth,” AASU general secretary Tapan Gogoi said.

He said the council deviated from its pattern of showing original and revised marks and revised results in the result sheet of the re-examination.