In a group that features Saurashtra, Andhra, and Karnataka, a revamped Punjab will have no qualms in kicking off its Ranji Trophy 2026-27 season against Assam at the New PCA Stadium here, starting Sunday.

Assam picked just three points last season and barely avoided a drop to the Plate division, making it the ideal team to face for a newly-assembled unit.

Besides roping in a new head coach in Amit Uniyal, Punjab has placed its bets on a young batting core. International commitments keep Prabhsimran Singh and Naman Dhir out of the first two rounds, and their absence will be another chance for Harnoor Singh Pannu to establish his credentials. The southpaw opener struck 170 against Kerala on his Punjab debut last season but ended with a slew of middling scores.

The new additions have not come at the expense of Punjab’s trademark attacking flair, as IPL stars Ramandeep Singh and Salil Arora have retained their spots.

Emanjot Singh Chahal, who was the Under-23 captain last season, takes a leap into First-Class this year. He joins the senior side on the back of a 10-for for Rest of India against Tamil Nadu U-23 last week.

In the two games played at the venue last year, pacers returned better yields, averaging 27, than the tweakers, who averaged close to 37, making Punjab’s pace salvo of Umesh Yadav and Gurnoor Brar an enticing prospect to watch out for.

While Punjab has dared to change, Assam begins its new season with its core intact. Its top four run-getters last season — Sibsankar Das, Swarupam Purkayastha, Sumit Ghadigaonkar and captain Denish Das — all retain their places.

Pacer Mukhtar Hussain had replaced Akash Deep in the Duleep Trophy in 2025, but has since faded from memory. He had just 11 wickets at an average of 56 last season, and needs a drastic upturn to be in the reckoning again, even at the zonal level.

India’s tea production declined 1.7% year-on-year (YoY) to 658.3 million kg during January-July this year, according to data shared by the United Planters’ Association of Southern India (UPASI).

While the country’s tea output in 2025 had grown 7.1% YoY, production during the first seven months of this year sw pressure across major tea-growing regions. Output in South India declined 4.4% and production in North India fell 0.9% largely due to climatic conditions linked to changing weather patterns.

India’s tea exports shrank 16.11% YoY to 128.56 million kg between January and July this year.

Meanwhile, the Tea Board of India’s newly launched Tea Mark certification programme has gained initial traction, with 25 producers and mini factories receiving certification so far.

The initiative, introduced in July, aims to promote speciality teas produced by small tea growers and bought-leaf factories by enhancing quality standards, branding and market access.

The Tea Board has also introduced an online marketplace for certified teas and is undertaking awareness campaigns across the country to boost consumer recognition and demand for Indian speciality teas.

The Gauhati High Court has issued notice to the Assam government based on a petition challenging the third extension of a former Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF) as Special Chief Secretary (Forests) after his retirement in February 2024.

Chief Justice Ashutosh Kumar and Justice Arun Dev Choudhury issued the notice on Friday (September 11, 2026).

Eastern Assam-based conservationist Rohit Choudhury had filed the petition, arguing that the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change found lapses when M.K. Yadava was Assam’s PCCF.

The petitioner said the lapses included diverting forest land for non-forest use without the Central government’s approval, for which the State government was asked to proceed against him under Sections 3A and 3B of the Van Sanrakshan Adhiniyam 1980.

“This Public Interest Litigation is directed against the post-retirement engagement of respondent No. 3 (Mr Yadava), a retired Indian Forest Service officer of the Assam-Meghalaya cadre, as Special Chief Secretary (Forest) in the Department of Environment and Forest with full financial and administrative powers,” the court notice said.

It further said that Mr Yadava’s post-retirement engagement was “notwithstanding the fact that the Office Memorandum of 2018 allows contractual engagement of retired Government officers only in rare and exceptional circumstances”.

Underlining the “requirement of assessment of satisfactory performance for any continuation or re-engagement”, the court sought a response to the petition by October 15.

Advocates Abir Phukan and P. Sharma represented the petitioner.

The ongoing wave of floods in some eastern districts of Assam has been the worst in 60 years, the State government said on Wednesday (July 22, 2026). The floods have affected more than 8 lakh people and claimed at least 30 human lives in less than a month.

Replying to a brief discussion on the flood situation in the 126-member Assam Assembly, State Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pijush Hazarika said the disaster in Sivasagar, Charaideo, and Jorhat districts, “which rarely experience floods of this magnitude”, has been unprecedented. He said the authorities in these districts were caught off-guard after a cloudburst in neighbouring Nagaland had triggered a massive inflow of water.

The cloudburst in Nagaland’s Mon district had caused multiple landslides, killing at least nine people on July 19.

“These areas are witnessing such a devastating flood in more than 60 years. This is a natural calamity of an unprecedented scale,” Mr. Hazarika said.

Unimaginable scale

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma, who toured the affected districts on Wednesday, said more than 8 lakh people have been affected by the floods so far. “The areas that normally experience high floods every year are not affected much this time. We have to get to the bottom of the problem [in Sivasagar, Charaideo, and Jorhat districts]] and discuss with Nagaland how to deal with it,” he said.

He also said the damage has been on an unimaginable scale. “There have been several deaths, and more bodies are being recovered,” he added.

High fatalities

In its update at midnight on Tuesday (July 21, 2026), the Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) said 21 people had died during the previous 24 hours, in one of the highest single-day flood-related fatalities recorded in recent times. According to official estimates, 31 people have died so far in the current wave of floods, almost half of them in Sivasagar district.

The ASDMA said the situation had worsened after a brief let-up by Tuesday evening. Floodwaters hit 872 villages across 16 districts, all except five in the eastern part of the State, affecting 5.65 lakh people and a crop area of 24,210.35 hectares.

More rains forecast

The neighbouring districts of Sivasagar, Charaideo, and Jorhat continued to be the worst affected. Of the 21 fatalities, 13 were reported from Sivasagar, five from Charaideo, two from Golaghat, and one from Jorhat district.

“Sivasagar, Charaideo, and Jorhat have accounted for 25 of the 31 people who died due to floods so far. The six others died in Dhemaji, Golaghat, Karbi Anglong, and Sonitpur districts,” an ASDMA official said.

Meanwhile, the India Meteorological Department predicted moderate to heavy rainfall along with thunderstorms at isolated places in Guwahati and other districts across Assam over the next four days. It warned of “aggravated water-logging, flooding, flash floods, slow vehicular movement, and increased risk of localised landslides in vulnerable pockets” in Guwahati.

GUWAHATI

The Assam government has included tea and plantation class landholdings in the farmers’ registry portal, which Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said would prove to be a “game-changing” move for small tea growers (STGs) in the State.

He said the facility, formalised on June 26, would enable the STGs to obtain a Farmer ID and ensure the timely, requirement-based availability of fertilisers, government scheme benefits, and other services on a single platform.

“This will also allow credit with better terms for the STGs and eliminate middlemen who exploit our tea growers,” the Chief Minister said, calling the onboarding a major leap for the tea community.

The tea industry has hailed the Assam government’s initiative.

Also Read: For Assam tea, erratic climate and stagnant prices present a crisis

“Officially, there are 133,626 small tea growers in Assam, although the actual number is estimated to be more than 1.5 lakh. Assuming an average household size of four, this well-conceived initiative of the Chief Minister will directly benefit more than six lakh people,” Bidyananda Barkakoty, the adviser to the North Eastern Tea Association, told The Hindu on Saturday (June 27, 2026).

A former vice chairman of the Tea Board of India, he said the step would strengthen and empower the STGs, who contribute nearly 50% of Assam’s total green leaf production.

A farmers’ registry portal is a centralised digital database created by government agricultural departments to establish a verified Farmer ID or unique digital identity for individual farmers. It links a farmer’s personal details, Aadhaar, and land records to streamline access to subsidies, crop insurance, and agricultural schemes.

Once registered, farmers do not need to provide repetitive paperwork to prove their identity or land ownership for government benefits. The registry also integrates with land records to map ownership, allowing farmers to view their land records, update linkages, and log their seasonal crop surveys online.

“By creating a transparent, verified database, the government can directly transfer financial aid, fertiliser subsidies, and other scheme benefits to eligible farmers without leakage,” an Agriculture Department official said.

A day after arresting 14 people for organising a midnight birthday bash on a busy bridge across the Brahmaputra River, the police in Guwahati have booked a couple for a similar offence.

Personnel at the Bharalumukh police station detained Surajit Mandal and his wife, Bijaya Mandal, on Wednesday (June 24, 2026), residents of Guwahati’s Fatashil Ambari area, after a video of their birthday celebration on the Kumar Bhaskar Varma Setu went viral on social media.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the ₹3,030-crore bridge, connecting Guwahati and North Guwahati, in February. It is the northeastern region’s first extradosed—somewhere between a traditional girder and a cable-stayed span—bridge.

The video showed Mr Mandal, accompanied by a few friends, celebrating his wife’s birthday by allegedly blocking a portion of the road and using electronic sparklers and firecrackers. Police did not specify the date of the celebration.

The couple was booked under Sections 285 (danger or obstruction in public way or line of navigation), 270 (public nuisance), and 125 (act endangering life or personal safety of others) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. “An SUV used during the celebration was seized,” an officer at the Bharalumukh police station said.

The approach to the bridge is about 300 metres from the police station.

Meanwhile, businessman Gautam Baruah and 13 others, who participated in a birthday celebration on the same bridge on the night of June 21, were granted bail on Wednesday (June 24, 2026).

“The accused were released after medical examinations, biometric verification, and other procedural requirements, as the offences registered against them were bailable in nature,” the police officer said.

The Congress on Saturday (March 14, 2026) released its second list of 23 party candidates for the upcoming Assam Assembly elections.

It has also left 15 seats for its alliance partners in the northeastern State, where Assembly polls are slated in April.

With this, the party has released the names of 65 candidates for the 126-member Assembly in the State.

In the second list of candidates, released by Congress general secretary (organisation), K.C. Venugopal, Nurul Islam will contest from Srijangram seat, Abdul Khaleque from Mandia, Rakibuddin Ahmed from Chamaria, Devid Phukan from Tinsukia and Bipul Gogoi from Tingkhong.

The Congress has set aside the Assembly constituencies of Bajali, Palasbari, Guwahati Central, Goreswar, Morigaon and Barhampur, among others, for the alliance partners.

The Congress released its first list of 42 candidates for the upcoming polls in the State on March 3, fielding State party chief Gaurav Gogoi from the Jorhat seat.

Taking a lead in announcing the names of its candidates even before the declaration of the polls, the party said Congress Legislature Party leader in Assam, Debabrata Saikia, will contest the election from the Nazira constituency.

Former Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) president Ripun Bora has been fielded from the Barchalla constituency.

The Congress has been out of power in the northeastern State since 2016.