Agartala Mar 30 PTI The Tripura Pradesh Congress Committee TPCC will stage a twelve-hour sit-in here on April 7 as part of the partys countrywide campaign against price rise of petrol and other commoditiesSenior Congress leaders have held a meeting chaired by All India Congress Committee secretary Zsarita Laitphlang to chalk out the strategy for the sit-in the partys state president Birajit Sinha said on WednesdayThe government has turned a blind eye to the problems faced by common people due to the spiralling price rise of commodities The COVID-19 pandemic has already adversely affected the lives of many marginalised people The price hike will make their lives even more miserable he maintainedSinha said that thousands of party leaders workers and supporters will join the Congresss Mehngaimukta Bharat Abhiyaan to register their protestThe TPCC president further stated that the party was working on an organisational revamping programme with an eye on next years assembly pollsTomorrow a convention will be held at Kailashahar in Unakoti district to mobilise party leaders and workers Similar events will be organised in other districts too he added PTI PS RMS RMS

Agartala Mar 26 PTI A new airport would be coming up at Kailashahar the headquarters of Unakoti district in Tripura to boost air connectivity Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb said on SaturdayThe state government will provide 500 acres of land in Hiracherra tea estate to build the new airport at Kailashahar about 140 km from here at an estimated cost of Rs 500 to Rs 700 crore he saidDeb was speaking at a programme of the Indian Medical Association IMA hereA Memorandum of Understanding will be signed with the Central government to hand over land for the new airport in place of the abandoned airport the chief minister saidOnce the land is transferred Prime Minister Narendra Modi will give another airport to the people of the state he said The area of the abandoned Kailashahar airport is very small and there is hardly any scope for expansion of the runway and other facilities Deb saidThe old airport located near the Indo-Bangla border has been shut down since the early 90s on account of a lack of adequate passengersHighlighting the development in air connectivity in the state over the past four years the chief minister said there was a time when people had to stay overnight in Kolkata to reach DelhiBut the scenario has completely changed now as one can reach Delhi within two hours and 20 minutes Tripura is connected by air with big cities like Bangalore Hyderabad Chennai Kolkata apart from Guwahati and Imphal he saidDeb also mentioned the states strategic location with Bangladesh and other Southeast Asian nationsPointing out that Sabroom will become a prominent industrial belt in the future the chief minister said with Maitri Setu friendship bridge constructed over river Feni between Sabroom in South Tripura district and Ramgarh in Bangladesh a Special Economic Zone all set to be created and an Integrated Check Post to be set up in the border town one can easily imagine how much the trade volume will become at Sabroom in the days to comeDeb added the state has witnessed a major change as far as connectivity is concerned be it rail national highways waterways or airwaysThe Ministry of Shipping has already sanctioned Rs 25 crore for setting up 10 jetties from Udaipur to Sonamura and undertaking dredging in the river Gomati to operationalise the Indo-Bangla waterway project he said PTI PS MM MM

Agartala (Tripura) [India], March 23 (ANI): Survey for several railway projects in Tripura including the second Indo-Bangla railway link through the Belonia sub-division of the South Tripura district have been completed by the officials.

Agartala (Tripura) [India], March 1 (ANI): Tripura Chief Secretary Kumar Alok in a series of tweets on Tuesday informed the parents anxiously waiting for their children stuck in conflict-ridden Ukraine that a total of 32 students from the state have already been identified and the safe evacuation process by the part of the Indian government is underway.

Agartala Feb 28 PTI Around 24 per cent of injecting drug users IDUs in Tripura mostly young aged between 24 and 27 years have been found HIV positive health department officials said on Monday The state has identified 3547 IDUs and 860 of them have been afflicted with the human immunodeficiency virus What is more alarming is that 320 students have become habitual IDUs as per the statistics compiled by Tripura State AIDS Control Society TSACS the official said Of them 120 students have already been detected with HIV positive Around 66 per cent of HIV positive cases among IDUs are in the age group between 24 and 27 years the official said This stands at 239 per cent for such people in the age group of 25-30 years the report finds The number of HIV positive cases among IDUs is growing because they take drugs in a single syringe inviting danger Dr Radha Debbarma the director of Family Welfare Preventive Medicine said She also said We have increased the number of testing across the state to identify IDUs so that they could be brought under treatment as early as possible This is also the reason behind the increase in the number of IDUs and HIV positive cases Keeping the development in mind TSACS has chalked out a strategy to bring all the identified IDUs under a prescribed treatment protocol- Oral Substitute Therapy OST Currently OST is available in Vangmun and Damcherra in North Tripuras Kanchapur subdivision to offer treatment to IDUs A satellite OST is also working at Kumarghat in Unakoti while one more facility is set to come up at Jirania in West Tripura district she said She appealed to all guardians and the society to come forward to address the problem before it slips out of the hands PTI PS BDC BDC

Agartala Jan 18 PTI Tripura registered its biggest single-day spike in COVID-19 cases as 1385 more people tested positive for the infection a health bulletin said Four more patients have succumbed to the infection taking the states toll in the last four days to 12 West district registered the highest number of new cases at 610 followed by 145 in Unakoti it said The positivity rate stood at 1486 per cent as 9321 samples were tested it added A total of 492 patients recovered from the disease in the last 24 hours We are sorry to note that COVID appropriate behaviour protocol is often ignored in public places If people dont respect the guidelines the situation will turn worse by next month COVID surveillance officer Deep Debbarma told reporters Meanwhile due to the surge in coronavirus cases the state government increased the night curfew duration by one hour to 8 PM to 5 AM from the previous 9 PM to 5 AM state Information Minister Sushanta Chowdhury said PTI JOY ACD ACD

Agartala Dec 29 PTI A team of the Airports Authority of India AAI visited the Kailashahar Airport in Tripuras Unakoti district to explore the feasibility of resumption of air service officials said here on Wednesday The airport located near the Indo-Bangla border has been shut down since the early 90s on account of lack of adequate passengers The six-member AAI team led by joint general manager Operations Dubdulal Chowdhury on Tuesday inspected the old airport and also Hiracherra tea estate an alternative place for setting up a greenfield airport in presence of District Magistrate DM of Unakoti Uttam Kumar Chakma Later they held a meeting with the DM Sub-Divisional Magistrate of Kailashahar Shanti Ranjan Chakma and Vice-Chairperson of Kailashahar Municipal Council Nitish Dey as part of a feasibility study on setting up a greenfield airport at Hiracherra tea estate instead of reviving the old airport The AAI team visited the old airport and the proposed site - Hirapur tea estate - to conduct a feasibility study on setting up a greenfield airport the District Magistrate said We had a detailed discussion on setting up a greenfield airport at Hiracherra tea estate because the old airport is so small and possibility of expansion is very remote because of land scarcity he said However the AAI team is not satisfied with the possible site for establishing greenfield airport at Hiracherra tea estate because the place is hilly which doesnt suit the AAIs guidelines for setting up a new airport the DM said They said they will submit a comprehensive report to the higher authority to take a final call on Kailashahar Airport Chakma added After visiting the proposed site the AAI team told reporters that they will submit the report to the higher authority within next few days On December 15 Tripura Chief Secretary Kumar Alok had said that he had a meeting with the Union Civil Aviation Secretary for setting up a greenfield airport at Kailashahar followed by a meeting between Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb and Union Civil Aviation minister Jyotiraditya Scindia Member of Parliament MP East Tripura Parliamentary Constituency Rabati Tripura has already demanded before the Consultative Committee of DoNER for resumption of air service from Kailashahar and Kamalpur in Dhalai district under Udaan scheme PTI COR JOY RG RG

.Unakoti (Tripura) [India], December 26 (ANI): Acting on a tip-off, Tripura Police on Saturday arrested a Rohingya family consisting of six members from Unakoti district of Tripura for illegally crossing the Bangladesh border and entering Indian territory.

Agartala (Tripura) [India], December 19 (ANI): Tripura Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb on Saturday flagged off a consignment of 40 metric tons of processed pineapple for Hamburg, Germany. This is the first such big shipment sent to any foreign country in recent times.

Khowai (Tripura) [India], December 12 (ANI): After spending more than 10 months in a jail in Bangladesh, two Indian nationals from Tripura returned safely to their homeland on Sunday.