There are more than 12 lakh households in Assam which have not had access to toilets. Despite the Total Sanitation Campaign, the practice of open defecation continues in the State.

The Total Sanitation Campaign (TSC) or Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan (NBA) is a community–led total sanitation programme launched by the Government of India in 1999. It is a demand–driven and people–centred sanitation programme. The main goal of the Total Sanitation Campaign is to eradicate the practice of open defecation by 2017. Villages that achieve the ‘open defecation free’ status receive monetary rewards and high publicity under a programme called Nirmal Gram Puraskar.

GUWAHATI: There are 731 brick kilns across the State. According to the Pollution Control Board (PCB), Assam till December 2012, 193 out of the 731 brick kilns were operating illegally and flouting environmental regulations.

According to PCB sources, the 193 brick kilns which have been set up illegally are flouting the guidelines mentioned in the Air (Pollution Control and Prevention) Act, 1981.

New Delhi: An eight-yearold child was killed in a mudslide in Assam on Tuesday as two earthquakes jolted the state along with other northeastern states and Odisha.

Three children, who had gone for fishing in river Beki at Kalgasia village in Assam’s Barpeta district, were swept into the waters by the mudslide during the first tremor, official sources said.

GUWAHATI, April 11: The main objectives of Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) are rural development and employment.

The induction of an unmanned aerial vehicle to carry out better surveillance of Kaziranga, the first time this is being done in the country, only underlines the failure of the Tarun Gogoi governmen

Guwahati: Assam government has launched a new healthcare scheme that is meant for providing substantial financial assistance to children upto the age of 12 years who are suffering from some critical diseases that require expensive treatment.

The scheme called ‘Sneha Sparsha’ (Touch of Love) will be set on the roll from the Ist Bohag (April 15), the first day in Assamese almanac. The government has already allotted the required fund (Rs 5 crore) for the scheme under the State Plan for implementation in the current fiscal (2013-14).

The Assam Government has launched a humane healthcare scheme for children from below poverty line (BPL) and low-income families to help them undertake medical treatment for some critical diseases.

Guwahati: Wildlife authorities are using aerial drones to oversee a natural game park in northeastern India to protect the one-horned rhinoceros from armed poachers.

World Bank, which is funding a $150-million project on integrated flood and erosion management in the Northeast, has called for a multi-sector approach towards management of water resources in the

Over 3,000 trees, including those falling within the Narpuh Reserve Forest in eastern Meghalaya, might face the axe for the proposed widening of the National Highway 44 which connects the state to