West Bengal Director General of Police Bhupinder Singh was on Friday summoned to the state assembly and ordered to pay Rs 1000 as 'punishment' by Speaker H A Halim for taking a photo in the House with his mobile. The Speaker asked the DGP, who was produced by the marshal in a temporary dock set up in the well of the assembly, whether he had taken a photo in the House with his mobile phone camera on Thursday.
In an apparent disagreement with his own party, senior CPI(M) leader and West Bengal Assembly Speaker H A Halim has said that had Jyoti Basu become the Prime Minister "the course of the country's history would have changed".
Since the visa of exiled Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, who has been barred from coming out in public, was given by the Centre, it was up to her to decide whether she would stay in India, West Bengal Speaker H A Halim said on Friday.