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.
The West Bengal government's report to the Election Commission on Friday on the incident at Nandigram in which chief minister Mamata Banerjee was injured has no mention of the 'four-five persons', who she had alleged had attacked her, an official of the state CEO's office said.
The cyclone, according to an IMD report early Sunday, is developing into a severe cyclonic storm over the Bay of Bengal and can potentially become a very severe cyclonic storm in the next 24 hours, S N Pradhan, the chief of NDRF said in New Delhi.
Two of the injured were rushed to a Kolkata hospital in serious condition, while the rest are out of danger.
The home minister called up the chief minister to express serious concern over the reports of large-scale violence.
Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday unveiled a 'development-oriented' manifesto for the upcoming assembly polls in West Bengal, promising an income scheme for all families, a student credit card and constitution of a task force to examine the inclusion of several communities under the OBC category.
Posters projecting West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee as an 'outsider' surfaced in Nandigram on Wednesday, the high-profile constituency from where the Trinamool Congress supremo filed her nomination for the assembly polls.
'With sufficient gaps between polling dates, the BJP will have time to convert the 'fence-sitter' votes,' observes Payal Mohanka.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah will be in the state this weekend, while his colleagues Gajendra Shekhawat, Sanjeev Balyan, Prahlad Patel, Arjun Munda and Mansukh Mandaviya will be visiting in the next few days, sources in the party said on Thursday.
A huge controversy erupted on Sunday amid the polling for 30 assembly seats in West Bengal, with the Bharatiya Janata Party releasing an audio clip where Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is purportedly heard cajoling a BJP leader from Nandigram to rejoin the Trinamool Congress and help her win the seat.
Bharatiya Janata Party's West Bengal unit president Dilip Ghosh said on Sunday that his party would "restore democracy" in the state if voted to power, warning Trinamool Congress cadres to mend their ways or they will have to either visit hospital or crematorium.
3 others were seriously injured when miscreants opened fire at them.
Voters in 30 assembly constituencies of West Bengal and 47 of Assam exercised their franchise on Saturday.
Alleging that the Bharatiya Janata Party was bringing in goons from outside to stop people from exercising their franchise in Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee urged women to 'confront the hoodlums with ladle, spatula' and other cooking utensils.
Former India captain Sourav Ganguly on Monday revealed that he has received 'death threat' warning him against attending an inter-college cricket meet in Midnapore on January 19.
The overall average till 5 pm was 84.24 per cent.
Nine persons have lost their lives in the recent floods in five districts of West Bengal, state disaster management department sources said on Thursday.
A day after Cyclone Yaas tore through coastal Odisha and Bengal to cause havoc as far as Jharkhand, tornadoes, torrential rains, bridge collapses and swelling rivers continued to plague eastern India as people tried to pick up their lives amid the debris of swept away mud homes and swamped farmlands.
The IMD has also issued a red-coded warning alert to the Odisha and West Bengal coasts.
It's a political gambit aimed at the BJP's Suvendu Adhikari who won the seat in 2016 as a TMC candidate, while also retroceding to the land movement that catapulted her to power.
Scattered incidents of violence, including torching of buses and clashes, occurred and 1,600 people were arrested during the 12-hour bandh.
This is the first time in the history of Jharkhand that it is facing such a severe cyclonic storm.
The West Bengal government on Saturday sought support of the Indian Army, railways and port for restoring essential infrastructure and services in the cyclone-ravaged areas of the state. It also urged private entities to provide manpower and equipment for the purpose.
The weatherman said when 'Amphan' makes the landfall between West Bengal's Digha, some 180 km from Kolkata, and Hatiya island in Bangladesh on Wednesday afternoon or evening, it will pack sustained wind speed of 155 to 165 kmph, gusting at 185 kmph. The gale-force wind, blowing at a speed of 240 to 250 kmph and gusting to 275 kmph at one point, had lost intensity and was moving at a speed of 200 to 210 kmph, gusting to 230 kmph on Tuesday evening.
Once a reviled practice in the state, both the parties seem to have endorsed a record number of turncoats this time -- triggering a wave of discontentment among their loyalists.
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The Central Reserve Police Force and the police have seized a huge cache of arms from Maoist hideouts during a search operation in West Bengal's West Midnapore District.
The system moved north-northeastwards at 20 kmph in the last six hours and is over west-central Bay of Bengal, 90 km from Gopalpur, 120 km from Puri and 210 km from Paradip, the weather office said in its 11.30 am bulletin.
Hundreds of people complained that they had to go without food and sleep in the aftermath of cyclone, which has wreaked havoc in Bengal, as their homes lay inundated amid heavy showers that continued to pummel several parts of the state.
Seven more deaths were reported on Friday from interior villages of the flood-hit East and West Midnapore districts, raising the toll to 53, even as the situation further improved.
The flood situation has eased considerably in both West and East Midnapore districts in West Bengal with the major rivers flowing below the danger mark, but the outbreak of diarrhoea in some of the worst-hit areas has become a cause of concern.
A blood-soaked Nandigram made Mamata Banerjee what she is today and underpins the hopes of the combustible West Bengal leader of clinching a third straight term in office.
IMD Director General Dr Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said that 'Yaas' is likely to intensify into a Very Severe Cyclonic Storm by Tuesday evening and Chandbali is likely to witness the maximum damage caused by it.
While man and a woman were reported killed when trees came crashing down on them in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, a 13-year-old girl died in a similar incident in adjoining Howrah. No casualties have been reported from Odisha yet.
Slain Maoist leader Kishenji's body was identified by his niece Deepa Rao at Midnapore Medical College and Hospital morgue on Saturday morning as preparations were on for the post-mortem in the presence of forensic experts, police said.
Laxman Chandra Seth, believed by the vast population of the area to have been the villain of the historic anti-farmland acquisition movement in 2007, said the two built their political careers by misleading the innocent people of Nandigram. Now their lies are back to haunt them.
A quick look at the 66-year-old leader's political journey in the mid-1970s shows how injuries and physical assaults have shaped her political career over the years.
The severe cyclonic storm, which brought in its wake heavy rain coupled with gale wind till early Sunday, uprooted hundreds of trees and snapped cables in Kolkata and in the coastal districts of North and South 24 Parganas and East Midnapore, bring life to a near-halt.
Maoist top leader Kishenji's body was flown to Hyderabad on Saturday afternoon by a cargo plane, hours after it was identified by his niece Deepa Rao and handed over to his relatives at the Midnapore Medical College and Hospital. The body, kept in a wooden coffin, was transported from Midnapore by an ambulance, nearly 150 km from Kolkata, with security escorts in accordance with the state government's decision to send the body to his native town in Andhra Pradesh.
Prime accused in the Jnaneswari Express train sabotage Asit Mahato, who was carrying a cash reward of Rs 1 lakh on his head, was arrested on Sunday from Gorneta village in West Midnapore district of West Bengal.
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