'Yaas' is likely to cross the Odisha-West Bengal coasts between Paradip and Sagar Islands around noon on May 26 as a very severe cyclonic storm with wind speeds of 155-165 kmph, Kolkata's Regional Meteorological Centre Deputy Director Sanjib Bandopadhyay said.
Assam witnessed violent protests against the Citizenship Act since December 11.
Three people were also injured in the incident and are undergoing treatment, a police officer said. The BJP denied the charges and said their members were in no way connected to the incident.
"Convict him or acquit him," an anguished Supreme Court observed on non-framing of charges on an accused jailed for 11 years over serial blasts in multiple Rajdhani Express and other trains in 1993.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Assam and West Bengal to lay the foundation stones of several projects.
Violent agitations continued to rock parts of West Bengal for second consecutive day on Saturday as people protesting against the amended Citizenship Act set several buses on fire and torched portions of a railway station complex, officials said.
Within hours of assuming office, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday initiated a major reshuffle in the police hierarchy, transferring 29 top-level police officers, mostly those who were shifted by the election commission prior to the polls.
'All Shatabdis and Rajdhanis should be converted to this type of high-speed train.' 'There should be a sleeper version of the train.' 'Right now, there is only a day version of the train.' 'Unless you develop a sleeper version, it will not be possible to replace the Rajdhani.' 'Work on the sleeper version was stopped for some reason. It should be revived now.'
The cyclone expected to weaken gradually over the next two days.
The projects - Delhi-Varanasi, Mumbai-Nagpur, Delhi-Ahmedabad, Chennai-Mysore, Delhi-Amritsar, Mumbai-Hyderabad, and Varanasi-Howrah - are expected to cost around Rs 10 trillion.
Polling began at 7 am on Saturday for 44 seats in the fourth phase of the West Bengal assembly elections amid tight security, officials said.
In two separate attacks, suspected Maoists triggered a blast on the railway tracks in Jharkhand's Giridih district, damaging its fish plates, and also blew up a mobile tower in Hazaribag, the police said.
An officer on Friday said that the police registered suo motu first information reports also against state BJP president Dilip Ghosh, national secretary Arvind Mennon and MPs Arjun Singh and Locket Chatterjee. They were charged with unlawful assembly, rioting, destruction of public property, criminal obstruction and assault on government servant and breaching the disaster management act, he said.
A portion of the Bardhaman Railway Station building collapsed on Saturday evening, an Eastern Railway official said. Work is on to remove the debris and look for people who might be trapped under it, he said.
Protests broke out in some states on Friday, including Delhi's Jama Masjid and stone-petling at policemen in Uttar Pradesh's Prayagraj and Saharanpur, over the controversial remarks on Prophet Muhammad by two now-suspended Bharatiya Janata Party functionaries with demonstrators in Jharkhand injuring a few policemen while authorities in Jammu imposed a curfew in few areas and parts of Kashmir observed a shutdown.
Calling the political condition prevailing in West Bengal "horrible and frightening", Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar alleged on Tuesday that the people of the state do not have the freedom to exercise their franchise fearlessly.
Principal Secretary of the state health department Bibek Kumar, in his letter to the secretary of the Union ministry of health and family welfare on Friday, described the list as "an erroneous assessment" and said Bengal, keeping in view the parameters set by the Centre, has earmarked four "red" zones -- Kolkata, Howrah, North 24 Parganas and East Midnapore.
Shukla in his resignation letter to Banerjee expressed his willingness to "retire" from politics
In the early part of 1800, a 30-acre plot next to Fort Gloster on the banks of river Hooghly in Howrah district of Bengal was the nerve centre of industrial activity; it housed India's first steam-powered cotton mill, Bowreah Mills, which was set up by a British merchant and went on to become a hub of factories - a rum distillery, foundry, cotton yarn factory, an oil mill and a paper mill, et al. Spearheaded by Dwarkanath Tagore, the industrialist grandfather of Rabindranath Tagore, the commercial complex was possibly the first of its kind in the country. Close to 200 years later, after much ebb and flow of history, the hub is set for a resurgence of sorts.
The price will vary depending on the size of the station, but it will be Rs 50 at big stations such as the Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) in Mumbai, a Central Railway spokesperson said.
The ruling TMC in West Bengal was rocked by a fresh bout of desertions on Friday with Banerjee quitting the party and several other leaders rallying behind him.
Amid outrage over the controversial remarks on Prophet Muhammad by the Bharatiya Janata Party's now-sacked two functionaries, Congress leader Shashi Tharoor on Sunday said it is high time Prime Minister Narendra Modi broke his silence on the 'proliferation of hate speech and Islamophobic incidents' in the country, asserting that his silence is interpreted by some as condoning what has been happening.
'Kavach', which literally means armour, is being promoted by the railways as the world's cheapest automatic train collision protection system.
Suspended Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Nupur Sharma, in the eye of a storm over her remarks against Prophet Muhammad, Monday sought time to appear before the Maharashtra police to record her statement, while more than 300 people have been arrested in Uttar Pradesh in a crackdown on protesters who indulged in violence after the Friday prayers on June 10.
A total of 1,177 passengers are booked on the New Delhi-Bilaspur special train, which departed at 4 pm, while 1,122 passengers are booked on the New Delhi-Dibrugarh special train that departed at 4:45 pm.
With Cyclone Phailin set to hit Odisha and Andhra Pradesh coasts on Saturday evening, rail, road and air traffic has been badly disrupted in the states.
4 EVMs and a similar number of VVPATs were found at the house of a TMC leader in West Bengal's Howrah district, following which a poll official was suspended.
A Bharatiya Janata Party leader, who the Trinamool Congress said is a brother-in-law of the saffron party's national vice-president Mukul Roy, rejoined the ruling party of West Bengal on Wednesday.
The Election Commission has decided to set up a panel to identify the experiences and shortcomings during the recently-held five assembly polls.
The BJP could win only 16 out of 57 seats where Shah campaigned.
Protests were held in different parts of Kolkata, North 24 Parganas, Hooghly, Howrah, Birbhum, South 24 Parganas, Jalpaiguri districts, and Trinamool Congress supporters briefly blocked roads in some areas.
According to BJP insiders, every Union minister has been given 3-4 seats to mentor and has been told to work hard on these constituencies in the next 20 months to ensure the party's victory.
"We have firmed up an action plan to increase the train speed to up to 160 km per hour on the total 9000-km main trunk routes across the country as part of the Mission Raftaar project. To begin with we have started the work on two major busy routes of Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah," said a senior Railway Ministry official involved with the project.
An African footballer was found dead on railway tracks on the Mumbai-Howrah route in Janjgir-Champa district of Chhattisgarh, police said.
These trains will be run as special trains from New Delhi station connecting Dibrugarh, Agartala, Howrah, Patna, Bilaspur, Ranchi, Bhubaneswar, Secunderabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Thiruvananthapuram, Madgaon, Mumbai Central, Ahmedabad and Jammu Tawi.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday attacked Union Home Minister Amit Shah over violent protests against the new citizenship law, saying his job is not to set the country on fire but to put it out. Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas' slogan, she said the BJP government has brought "satyanaash" (disaster) for everyone in the country.
Healthcare workers at the frontline of India's COVID-19 battle got their first jabs after Prime Minister Narendra Modi launched the world's biggest drive via video conferencing.
In yet another jolt for the Trinamool Congress dispensation, West Bengal forest minister Rajib Banerjee quit the Mamata Banerjee cabinet, joining the growing list of dissenters who have put the ruling camp in a tight spot ahead of the assembly elections.
And proud BCCI chief Sourav Ganguly posted pictures from the city as landmarks were adorned in the bright hue.
The railways has, however, capped the waiting list on these trains -- up to 100 for AC 3 tier, 50 for AC 2 tier, 200 for Sleeper Class, 100 for chair cars, and 20 each for First AC and Executive Class.
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