Trouble deepened for the ruling Left Front in West Bengal as it lost the Siliguri municipality to the Trinamool Congress-Congress combine after 27 years. The Opposition alliance bagged 29 seats of the 47-member board, while one seat went to an independent candidate. The Left Front won 17 seats.
The meet will be held in Delhi on November 20-22.
The Vedic Village scandal is now threatening to snowball into a major land scam involving both the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist and the Opposition TMC leaders, who were instrumental into facilitating the land mafias like Gaffar Molla and others to have free hand in forcibly acquiring farm land for a private realtor on the outskirts of the state capital.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee will seek Rs 15,000 crore from the Centre for building a "mini Chinese Wall" along the coastal area of the Sundarbans to protect the area's 4.1 million people from further cyclones and high tides. The area was recently hit by cyclone Aila.
As indicated by Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, the UPA government has already initiated process to make higher allocation in social sector.
The Union government is on a social sector roll. Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee had indicated that the United Progressive Alliance government was going to make the social sector the centrepiece of the upcoming Budget. According to Dilip Ghosh, special secretary, Panchayat Raj department of West Bengal, the Centre has indicated that the demand for grants for these projects should be hiked at least 50 per cent more than the present allocation.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee was on Sunday gheraoed twice by relief seekers in the state's South 24 Parganas, the district worst-hit by cyclone Aila, even as the government prepared a memorandum seeking assistance of Rs 1,000 for submission to the Centre.The chief minister had gone to Gosaba in the Sunderbans to see the extent of the disaster and distribution of relief materials.
A 120-acre city centre in Kharagpur, about 100 km from Kolkata, became the first casualty of the CPI-M-led Left Front government's poor showing in the recent general elections. More such projects are likely to be cancelled as the four-party Left coalition, which has ruled the state since 1977, decided to opt for a "standstill policy" on industrial projects.
© 2025 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances