'The life of his political career is dependent on success in this constituency.'
Sandeshkhali, a village in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, has been at the centre of a political storm for nearly a month and has witnessed unprecedented protests over allegations of sexual abuse by scores of women against a local Trinamool Congress leader.
Bharatiya Janata Party's Sandeshkhali leader Gangadhar Koyal on Friday moved the Calcutta high court, claiming that technology-aided videos mimicking his voice were being circulated in a bid to defame him, and prayed for security be provided to him by central agencies.
This Muri Ghonto recipe has its origins in former East Bengal, present-day Bangladesh.
The ruling Trinamool Congress on Thursday hailed the arrest of absconding party leader Shajahan Sheikh, accused of torturing villagers in trouble-torn Sandeshkhali area, and said it was possible only after the court cleared the decks and accused the opposition of exploiting the earlier 'embargo' on his arrest.
The welfare schemes of the government, particularly Lakshmir Bhandar, have had a major impact on the electoral outcome.
The Bharatiya Janata Party surprised many with its latest list of Lok Sabha candidates for West Bengal, nominating a protester from Sandeshkhali for the Basirhat constituency and changing the seats of its two incumbent MPs -- the party's former state chief Dilip Ghosh and ex-Union minister Debasree Chowdhury.
The CBI during its probe got inputs of a large cache of arms hidden in Sandeshkhali. On Friday morning, a CBI team started a search operation during which the arms, including foreign-made pistols, were seized, the officials said.
Amid a raging controversy over first-year students of Medical College Hospital, Kolkata, being administered the 'Charak' oath instead of the traditional Hippocratic oath, Dr Raghunath Mishra, principal of the prestigious college, said on Tuesday it was a mistake as officials of the 187-year-old medical college misunderstood a communication by the National Medical Commission.
The central probe agency's letter was dispatched a day after it had sent a notice to the TMC MP asking him to appear before its sleuths at its Kolkata office for questioning in connection with the school jobs scam following certain allegations of arrested Trinamool Congress youth leader Kuntal Ghosh.
"The NIA categorically refuted allegations of mala fide in its Bhupatinagar blast case," an agency spokesperson said.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday received wholehearted support from a group of women from the troubled Sandeshkhali area who met her after a Trinamool Congress rally in Kolkata, party sources said.
A Sikh Indian Police Service officer, who was deputed at Dhamakhali to prevent senior West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party leader Suvendu Adhikari from visiting restive Sandeshkhali in North 24 Parganas district, got agitated after a group of activists of the saffron party allegedly hurled the 'Khalistani' jibe at him.
Wearing his infectious goofy grin, 'Samba Magician' Ronaldinho cast a spell on the football-crazy denizens of Kolkata as his arrival for a two-day visit in Kolkata ushered in an early onset of the Durga Puja festival.
West Bengal police arrested Bharatiya Janata Party leader Rakesh Singh from Galsi in Purba Bardhaman district, about 130 km from Kolkata, on Tuesday night in connection with his alleged involvement in a drug seizure case, a senior officer said.
A look at the some of the top football stars who have visited Kolkata in the past.
Close to 20 regional stock exchanges, including the big exchanges of Delhi, Chennai, and Bengaluru, have voluntarily exited in the face of SEBI's stringent regulations. Namrata Acharya finds out what makes CSE continue to fight its lone battle.
While some reports suggested that the laser show of Sribhumi Sporting Club, helmed by state minister Sujit Bose, was suspended after some pilots complained of obstruction in viewing due to it, organisers of the puja situated close to the Dumdum airport claimed that the measure was taken as the crowd was not moving forward, creating COVID and security hazards.
The National Human Rights Commission, in its report, also observed that the "pervasive fear of reprisal, coupled with the power dynamics at play, acted as a formidable barrier", preventing individuals from voicing their grievances.
A bench of Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice P S Narasimha allowed Banerjee to avail available remedies under the law but refused to interfere with the May 18 order of the Calcutta high court.
The raging controversy over the fake COVID-19 vaccination camps in parts of Kolkata snowballed into a political storm ensnaring into it several TMC leaders, prompting the opposition BJP to demand a CBI probe into a 'larger conspiracy' in the case.
Yeh Hai India: Capturing Events And Moods Across Our Incredible Country.
The bench agreed to hear the plea on Friday and told Singhvi to ask his junior counsel to go to the mentioning officer.
Anuradha Saha had died in 1998 allegedly due to negligence by doctors attending on her.
Kumar, who is currently the West Bengal CID additional director general, was part of a special investigation team set up by the West Bengal government to investigate the scam before the Supreme Court handed over the case to the CBI in 2014, along with other chit fund cases.
The PM's visit comes at a time when West Bengal has been witnessing widespread protests against the contentious Citizenship Act.
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a plea from the BJP seeking a direction to the West Bengal government, state election panel and other functionaries to prepare a comprehensive action plan and deploy sufficient central police forces to ensure free and fair municipal polls in Kolkata.
Geopolitical headwinds leading to lower demand from export markets, coupled with lower domestic buying, have dragged the auction average of Darjeeling tea to its lowest level since 2015. Data from Calcutta Tea Traders Association (CTTA) shows that the average price of Darjeeling tea at Kolkata auctions for January-December 2023 was Rs 319.74 per kg. The last time it dipped below this level was in 2015 at Rs 285.71 per kg.
The Army was deployed in Kolkata and its neighbouring districts on Saturday, hours after the West Bengal government sought its help for immediate restoration of essential infrastructure and services in the state.
An FIR lodged at the police station alleged that the actor had used dialogues like 'Marbo ekhane lash porbe shoshane' (Will hit you here and the body will land in the crematorium) and 'Ek chobole chobi' (A snakebite will turn you into a photograph, meaning will kill you) at a rally after joining the BJP on March 7. The complainant alleged that these dialogues caused post-poll violence in the state.
Taking potshots at the Bharatiya Janata Party, some opposition leaders also wondered if Goel resigned to contest the Lok Sabha polls on its ticket like former Calcutta high court judge Abhijit Gangopadhyay.
Manoj Tiwary, who made a century against the West Indies in Chennai in 2011, was dropped for the next 14 matches under Mahendra Singh Dhoni.
The top court, however, did not stay at this stage the part of the high court order which had said that central probe agencies could quiz the Trinamool Congress general secretary in connection with these cases and fixed his plea for hearing in July.
The bench said this is not an appropriate case for custodial interrogation of the petitioner.
Who owns a recipe, and should one fight over its origins?
Before appearing before the CBI this morning, Abhishek Banerjee wrote a letter to the CBI informing them he is moving the Supreme Court challenging the High Court order which allows investigative agencies CBI and ED to question him.
A team of CBI officers reached his residence in south Kolkata's Chetla area along with a large contingent of central forces in the morning, officials said.
The Enforcement Directorate has arrested West Bengal minister Jyotipriyo Mallick in a money laundering case linked to an alleged multi-core ration distribution scam in the state, official sources said on Friday.
In Phase 6, indications are that the BJP, which is defending 40 seats, will lose in double digits and gain in single digits. Not good, if you are the ruling party scrambling to earn a working majority, with just one phase left to go, argues Prem Panicker.
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