Insurgency down by 89% in Northeast: Anurag Thakur

Guwahati, Feb 8 (PTI) Insurgent activities in the Northeast have come down by 89 per cent and cases of civilian deaths declined by 85 per cent during the last eight years, Union Minister Anurag Thakur said on Wednesday.

Addressing the concluding session of the three-day Y20 summit here, the Union Youth Affairs and Sports Minister said that peace has returned to the region, and many developmental works are being carried out at present.

“Peace has returned to Jammu and Kashmir, and Northeast. In the case of Northeast, insurgency incidents came down by 89 per cent and civilian deaths are down by 85 per cent during the last eight years,” he added.

Thakur said that with gradual improvement in the law and order situation of the region, the stringent Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (AFSPA) has been withdrawn from most parts of the Northeast.

In the case of Jammu and Kashmir, he said that the government formed district development committees, which was never done since India’s Independence.

“We have got a very good response from the local people of the valley. Peace is always possible with the participation of people in developmental works,” the minister said.

As part of India’s G20 Presidency, the Youth20 group’s first inception meeting was held at Guwahati, deliberating ideas for a better tomorrow and drafting an agenda for action on five identified themes.

“During the meeting, 21 foreign delegates and 200 Indian delegates participated. In the run-up to the event, 10,000 youths in 36 colleges of Assam participated in seminars, debates, workshops and quiz competitions on Y20. Over 10 lakh students from around 4,000 schools also participated,” Thakur said.

He claimed that nowhere else in the remaining 19 member nations of the G20 people’s participation was so huge.

At the closing ceremony, the ‘White Paper’ on the five themes of Y20 was launched by Thakur, while Assam Education Minister Ranoj Pegu presented the ‘Research Papers’ on the five themes.

The themes were Peace Building and Reconciliation: Ushering in an Era of No War; Future of Work: Industry 4.0, Innovation and 21st Century Skills; and Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction: Making Sustainability a Way of Life.

Shared Future: Youth in Democracy and Governance and Health, Well-being and Sports: Agenda for Youth were the two remaining themes on which Y20 delegates brainstormed in a series of sessions.

The minister said the themes were carefully chosen to be deliberated upon for a shared future for the global community and these issues present an extraordinary opportunity for the youths to create, contribute and collaborate with the development agenda of G20.