Akhil Gogoi
Akhil Gogoi came to national attention after he was awarded the Shanmugam Manjunath Integrity Award in 2008 for his relentless fight against corruption and attempts to bring transparency in government functionings. In 2010, he was awarded the national Right to Information (RTI) Award by Public Cause Research Foundation (PCRF) for his for his role in exposing the 1.25 crore scam in Sampoorna Gram Rozgar Yojna (SGRY) and Rs 60 lakh scam in the Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) in Golaghat district of Assam by using the RTI Act. He donated the entire sum of Rs. 2lakhs of the Award to his organisation KMSS.
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In April 2010, a secret report of the Assam government alleged that Akhil Gogoi had close connections with CPI-Maoist. Gogoi challenged the report and dared the Assam government to prove the allegation. Intellectuals across the country including Magsaysay Award Winner Sandeep Pandey and Medha Patkar condemned the government for trying to implicate the activist. In an interview with NDTV, Akhil Gogoi said, "I am a Marxist and I do believe in social transformation. But I am not a Maoist. They don't believe in mass activities. We at KMSS are trying to organise the masses for revolution. But the attempt of the government to implicate me as a Maoists shows their frustration because they have been unable to contain the growing popularity of KMSS". It created an embarrassment for the Assam government and finally the government had to withdraw the charges.
Early life and other activities
Akhil Gogoi attended Cotton College, Guwahati in English literature in 1993-1996. He was the general secretary of the students union United Revolutionary Movement Council of Assam(URMCA), a mass organisation of CPI-ML-PCC under the leadership of naxalite leader Santosh Rana. However, by the end of 1990s he broke with Rana and devoted himself as an editor of Notun padatik, an independent Marxist journal published in Assamese, along with [[Hiren Gogoi lives in Golaghat district of Assam along with his wife.
For an academic treatment of some of the movements led by Akhil Gogoi and his KMSS, see "Forest Land and Peasant Struggles in Assam 2002-2007" by Arupjyoti Saikia
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