Word: assam
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...NORTH EAST FRONTIER AGENCY (pop. 450,000) is almost completely isolated from the rest of India. Though nominally part of the state of Assam, the rambling (31,000 sq. mi.) region is administered directly by the central government because Prime Minister Nehru wants to preserve its primeval aboriginal character. In some of N.E.F.A's valleys are nightmarish rain forests where animist tribesmen invoke among their deities a Dysentery God who, when angry, racks their guts with a quick but painful death...
...millions pinned their hopes on the coming of the annual summer monsoon. But they sniffed the night air vainly for signs of relief. The monsoon, which had been expected to spread its cooling rains over the north by mid-June, chose perversely to settle far to the east over Assam, and so far has refused to budge...
...force of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake was 8.3, and that of the worst quake on record, the one in Assam, India, in 1950, was 8.7. -In the wake of the seismic wave, the Philippines' main island of Luzon was swamped by an 18-hour downpour caused by Tropical Storm Lucille. In the floods that followed, 108 were drowned and 150 were missing...
Eighteen months ago, when the Mizo Hills burst into spectral bloom, the frightened tribesmen-70% of whom are Christians, mostly Baptist converts-frantically appealed to the Assam state government for help. When the bamboo last bloomed, in 1910-11, and before that in 1860-62, they said, the rats came. Assam's bureaucrats dismissed such prophecies as superstition. But the prophecies have come true: thousands of rats have left the jungle, attacked the clearings, and stripped everything bare. Too late, the state government sent in rat poison; what was not "lost in transit" fell into the hands of profiteers...
...from the Misamari refugee camp in the steaming jungles of Assam came bitter complaints of Indian neglect in the care of thousands of Tibetans who had fled the Red Chinese terror in their homeland. The refugees were reportedly crowded as many as 60 to a room, suffering from malnutrition, infected sores, malarial fevers and systematic looting by rapacious guards. Some had even given up in despair and returned to Communist-run Tibet...