Eye on polls, youth leader quits AASU
Youth leader Lurinjyoti Gogoi, who rose to limelight during the CAA protests due to his fiery speeches, has quit the apolitical All Assam Students’ Union. He was the general secretary of the body. Gogoi is expected to lead the Asom Jatiya Parishad, a political party which AASU and Asom Jatiyatabadi Yuva Chhatra Parishad floated in September. The AJP is expected to contest the assembly polls due early next year. Gogoi said his fight for the cause and interest of the state’s indigenous populace would continue. “There is negative politics in the society but we need quality and development-oriented politics,” he said.
IIT-Guwahati’s free-space optical communication
A research team from the IIT-Guwahati has developed a free-space optical communication system for information transfer. Under this, data in the form of voice, text or image is transmitted using light wirelessly. The results of the work were recently published in “Communications Physics”, a well-known journal. The research team was led by Dr Bosanta Ranjan Boruah and Dr Santanu Konwar of IIT-Guwahati. “...Data transmitted wirelessly using light/laser beams, can become corrupted when transmitted through atmospheric turbulence such as wind. To overcome this, researchers used orthogonal spatial light modes called Zernike modes to encode the data and to transmit the same robustly in the form of the phase profile of a laser beam,” the institute said in a statement.
Kamakhya temple gets golden dome
The Kamakhya temple has got a new look, thanks to the construction of golden dome unveiled last week. Earlier, the Reliance Industries Limited had donated 19 kg gold for the dome and work had begun in mid-September. RIL had also sent engineers and artisans for the gold-plating work. The temple, perched atop the Nilachal Hills in the heart of Guwahati, opened for devotees in October after being closed for months due to the pandemic. According to the available records, the temple was rebuilt by Nara Narayan, the last ruler of undivided Koch kingdom of Kamata. The priests believe it existed from the time of The Mahabharata.
Graffiti protest demands release of jailed activist
The police in Guwahati had detained four artists for painting the graffiti of jailed activist Akhil Gogoi. However, the act triggered a wave of art works on public walls the next day. Several graffiti, posters and slogans demanding Gogoi’s release surfaced in several parts of the state. The artists detained in Guwahati were from a group called “Anga Arts”. Their art work depicted Gogoi being taken away by the cops. Gogoi, a leader of peasants’ body Krishak Mukti Sangram Samitee, was arrested by the police in the wake of violent CAA protests in December. Later, the NIA took his custody for alleged linkage with the CPI (Maoist) and charged him under the UAPA.
prasanta mazumdar
Our correspondent in Guwahati prasantamazumdar@newindianexpress.com