Advani has called a meeting of all the Chief Ministers of the North-East states to tackle the problem of growing insurgency. Observers term it the best possible move he could have made after taking control of the Kashmir affairs as well as the J&K cell from the Prime Minister's Office (PMO).

Due to the coming Budget session of Parliament, the meeting, it is learnt, will be held in the first fortnight of June, immediately after the session.

The Ministry officials are already on the job preparing necessary groundwork for what promises to be an action-oriented brainstorming session. And they are expecting, yet again, announcement of some tough, no-nonsense measures in regard to this ``generally neglected area'' from the new Home Minister.

Thetiming of the meeting is significant in more ways than one, coming as it does on the heels of a similar meeting of the North-East CMs that Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee held here on May 8. Ministry officials, however, insist that Advani is not playing one-upmanship with the the PM. Explained one of them, ``Vajpayee's meeting with the CMs dealt only with the development issues concerning the North-East areas. It had nothing to do with the insurgency. In contrast, Advani will be meeting them purely on law and order front. The focus will be insurgency.''

In a parallel development, the Ministry is busy giving finishing touches to the Department of North-East states. Though a climb-down from the earlier demands of several parties for the Ministry of North-East, the department will serve as a nodal agency which will keep track of the goings-on in North-East from New Delhi. The move, it is argued, will also empower Home Ministry to take ``quicker, time-bound'' decisions on problems dogging thesestates.

Already, claim officials, the Home Ministry's recent hard-approach to North-East militancy have started paying handsome dividends.As the latest statistics show, in contrast to 32 insurgents (both ULFA and Bodo) killed during encounters in Assam in 1996, and 130 in 1997, at least 77 have already died at the hands of security forces during the first four months of this year alone. As for the insurgents held captive, the figures speak for themselves: 322 in 1996, 1479 in 1997 and 354 till the end of April '98.The situation, it is claimed, is similar in Tripura, Nagaland and Manipur where of late the security forces have been on an offensive. The Assam success is also important, point out officials, because unlike in Manipur, Tripura and Nagaland where over 90 percent of security agencies consist of Army and para-military forces, the Army's presence here is barely 50 percent. In Assam, the state police too takes the credit for accounting fairly large number of insurgents.

As a senior Ministry officialmonitoring insurgents' movement in Assam -- arguably the most badly hit state in the region, if only for its sheer size -- remarked, ``The rising casualty of its members is really hurting ULFA. We won't say it is on the run. But the outfit is definitely under tremendous pressure...This is surely the time to go in for the kill.'' Who knows it better than LK Advani?