Social stigma and low testing are the key reasons for the high mortality rate among COVID-19 patients in West Bengal, where the disease, like elsewhere in the country, is still an urban phenomenon, experts say. The state's Trinamool Congress government has been drawing consistent criticism from the Centre and opposition parties over the way it has tackled the pandemic, and has been accused of under-reporting data about the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths.
Suspended Trinamool Congress MP Kunal Ghosh on Monday alleged that West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee was the biggest beneficiary of Saradha Media, an arm of the Saradha Group embroiled in a multi-crore chit fund scam, during his deposition before a city court.
A court in Kolkata has rejected the interim bail plea of Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Srinjoy Bose, arrested by CBI in connection with the Saradha chit fund scam case, and remanded him to four days police custody
Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Srinjoy Bose was on Friday arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation after a marathon interrogation for five hours for his alleged involvement in the multi-crore Saradha chit fund scam.
The move came after West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee directed Kolkata Police commissioner Anuj Sharma to deploy a nodal police officer in every hospital.
Banerjee had on Saturday invited the agitators for closed-door talks, but the offer was turned down by them.
The child after returning home on Thursday from her school - G D Birla Centre for Education - kept on crying and complained of severe pain. Her mother spotted blood stains on her clothes, he said. The girl told her mother that the physical training teacher had taken her to the washroom but could not narrate what happened thereafter.
Launching a blistering attack against the Centre, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee termed state Transport Minister Madan Mitra's arrest as "political vendetta" and "dirty conspiracy" by the BJP and dared the NDA government to arrest her.
'This proved that whatever was growing in the mosquito's gut was a parasite -- it was almost certainly the malarial parasite.'
A 10-time Lok Sabha MP, Chatterjee was a central committee member of the Communist Party of India-Marxist, which he had joined in 1968. He was the Speaker of the Lok Sabha from 2004 to 2009.
The police lodged a suo motu case against unknown persons in connection with their involvement in the mishap, a police officer said.
Suspended Trinamool Congress MP and Saradha scam accused Kunal Ghosh on Friday allegedly tried to commit suicide by taking sleeping pills inside the Alipore Central Jail, West Bengal Correctional Home Services Minister H A Swafi said.
Rediff.com's Indrani Dey digs up chilling details of the ongoing investigation in the Bardhaman blast case, which exposed the a militant network that had been operating in West Bengal since many years.