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Incident According to the state police, three Hindi-speaking traders had been shot dead by suspected Karbi Longri North Cachar Hills Liberation Front (KLNLF) militants in Central Assam’s Nagaon district on Monday morning. It has been said that a group of six heavily armed KLNLF militants descended upon a village named Sukghani under the Samaguri police station and targeted houses of two families. They brought two male members of one family and one from another family and shot them dead after queuing them up in a line. The killed people have been identified as Jogeswar Shah (55) and Mahesh Shah (60) and Paban Sarma (27). They all were small traders. It is being suspected that the extremists had come from the neighboring Karbi Anglong district. KLNLF militants are a group of tribal ultras who have the history of targeting the non-tribal and Hindi-speaking people. The non-tribal people of area are always targeted by the outfit with constant treat and extortion demands.

Recent Incidents A few days ago Assam was in international news after the serial blasts in its four districts in which 84 persons have died in and after the blasts. It was recovering from communal riots that had erupted in the state a few weeks ago in which more that a dozen people had been killed and hundreds of houses of a particular community had been burnt by the violent mobs. There are some tribal terrorist groups who are up in arms against the Indian government. In recent years the population of non-Assamese people have increased manifolds and tribal terrorist outfits oppose and scare the Hindi-speaking people to grab their land.

Missed opportunities The NDA government had initiated dialogs with all the terrorist outfits of the northeast and it had showed very positive signs. A decline had been noted in violence during the rule of NDA government. But the UPA government almost ignored the northeastern states of India. They did not go ahead with the dialog process with the terrorist outfits. Recent riots and other violence were the result of UPA government’s negligence to the northeast. A few months ago government had failed to engage the banned outfit ULFA into dialog when one of its major section had deserted it. Government has only followed the policy of ‘divide and rule’ instead of engaging the outfit into dialog. Tribal militant outfits and government are equally responsible for the recent increase in violence in the state.

Affect After creating a wide rift between North Indians and Maharashtrians now the affect of MNS’s anti-north campaign has been seen on the games also. In the third week of the October month, MNS workers had attacked the non-Maharashrian railway board examinees in Mumbai. A Bihari boy died after he was severely thrashed by some MNS workers. After that incident, violence had erupted in both the states. While in Maharashtra Hindi-speaking people were being attacked by the MNS workers, Patna had witnessed violent agitation by the Bihari youths who were demanding action against the MNS Chief, Raj Thackeray. But it has not ended here. These incidents have affected many other fields also, especially games.

Badminton Sub-junior national badminton championship is scheduled to be held in Patna from November 11-16. But some young badminton players who will represent Maharashtra in the championship are showing reluctance to travel to Patna to participate in the event. 20 players from Maharashtra will represent their state in the two categories: under-13s and under-16s. But there is fear among some of the players and their family members who are even asking the questions from the badminton association officers that whether it is safe to go to Bihar. Though they have been assured about adequate security arrangements but it can not be guarantied that their performance will not suffer because of the tension. Bihar government has also ensured the association about the adequate security arrangements. A few days ago office of a Bihar government officer, whose name resembled to Thackeray, was attacked and demolished by the violent agitators in Patna.

Approach We have seen that how Raj Thackeray’s decisive politics is affecting the other spheres of life. Though he has, to some extent, changed his approach but his anti-north campaign have already damaged the unity of the country. It is true that politicians use sensitive issues to increase their vote-band but his move have crossed the limits. He was being criticized not only in northern states but also in Maharashtra. Raj Thackeray’s campaign has not only widened the rift between the communities but also given an encouragement to the ‘goondah’ elements. Now we have seen that how adversely his campaign can affect his own people. It was a timely action by the centre and the state government that the situation had been handled before it could out of hands otherwise it would have affected the national unity a lot.

Aishwarya Two famous Bollywood stars Aishwarya Rai Bachchan and Shahrukh Khan celebrated their birthdays on the 1^st and 2^nd November in a ’style’. Aishwarya Rai celebrated her first birthday, after marriage, with her husband Abhishek Bachchan in the wilderness of Kochi, Kerala. She was shooting for a film there that is being directed by her favorite director Mani Ratnam. Aishwarya,who has turned 35 years on November 1^st had started her career as a model and had later on won the Miss World title in 1994. After that she had started her film career with the Hindi movie ‘Aur Pyar Ho Gaya’. Last year she had married Abhishek Bachchan who is also an actor and son of world-famous Bollywood actor Amitabh Bachchan.

SRK The charismatic Bollywood ‘Badshah’ celebrated his 43^rd birthday on November 2. He had debuted in the industry with the film ‘Deewana’ and was adjudged best male debutant actor in the year 1993. Next year he had won the Best Actor Award for his role in ‘Baazigar’. Till now he has won 13 film fare awards. He has started his acting career as a ’stage actor’ and had shot into fame with his performance in the TV serial ‘Circus’. Despite being an actor he is also a successful director and shows organizer.

Celebration He celebrated his 43^rd birthday in the company of his fans and some journalists. They all had gathered outside his home ‘Mannat’ to wish him happy birthday. He did not disappoint them and came out of the balcony and accepted the greetings from his well-wishers and fans and waved out to them. He celebrated by cutting the birthday cake, which some media men had presented him, in a press conference. Though he has turned 43 years old but he, still has the charm and energy of a 25 year old guy.

Contribution Aishwarya is the only Bollywood actress who is famous all over the world. Shahrukh too, has a very big fan following around the world.. Both Shahrukh and Aishwarya had worked together in ‘Devdas’ which had proved a big hit at the box office. After that they have not worked together. There are very few chances that they will come together in another movie. In recent years Bollywood films have become very famous all over the world and Aishwarya and Shahrukh have played a major role as the ‘ambassadors’ of Bollywood.