Daily life was partially affected in West Bengal on Wednesday due to a 12-hour shutdown called by the Bharatiya Janata Party, protesting the police action against demonstrators during a march to the state secretariat.
Noted writer and human rights activist Mahasweta Devi has resigned as the chairperson of the Bangla Academy. The Magsaysay Award-winner decided to step down after expressing her disagreement with the government about some of the recipients of the state's prestigious literature awards.
Upset over the West Bengal government not accepting her recommendation of an author for the Vidyasagar award, activist-writer Mahasweta Devi today resigned as chairperson of Bangla Academy saying she felt humiliated.
The West Bengal Congress unit issued a denial and said the state president meant "TMC and BJP are just the opposite sides of the same coin as both are venomous and spread lies".
A member of the 1983 cricket World Cup-winning squad, Azad was suspended from the Bharatiya Janata Party for openly targeting the then Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley over alleged irregularities and corruption in the Delhi and District Cricket Association in December 2015. He joined the Congress in 2018.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Tuesday grilled arrested West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee and his alleged associate Arpita Mukherjee who were arrested in connection with the school jobs scam, sources said.
A Trinamool Congress leader on Sunday said UPA Presidential candidate Pranab Mukherjee had all along been a "close friend" of the Marxists from the beginning of his political career to its end.
The bandh call was initially given to protest against the spiralling prices of food items, but later issues like alleged terror by Communist Party of India-Marxist cadres ahead of next month's panchayat election and the alleged attack on Banerjee were added.
As Pranab Mukherjee was sworn in as the 13th President, a band of his friends in a corner of Bengal on Wednesday recalled with nostalgia the days spent with him.
The TMC and the Congress are at daggers drawn over the recent instances of 'poaching' by the Mamata Banerjee-led camp.
While the BJP distanced itself from the article, the TMC also rubbished allegations of "understanding with the saffron camp" but the Congress said that the "cat is now out of the bag".
Santu Pan, who works for Republic Bangla news channel, was arrested on February 19 on the basis of a complaint by a woman alleging that he had trespassed into her house in Sandeshkhali.
Uttam Ghosh offers his take on the unusual events that have occurred within Modi-Shah's BJP.
Issues ranging from fencing of the Indo-Bangla border to desilting of Hooghly river and spread of fluorosis among people in Telangana were among several issues raised in the Lok Sabha during Zero Hour on Wednesday.
The Election Commission of India has announced that elections for 10 Rajya Sabha seats in Goa, Gujarat, and West Bengal will be held on July 24.
It was a many splendoured political career, which ended at the presidential palace. But the prime minister's post eluded him, even though it was a position he openly aspired for.
'The Congress don't have the zeal to fight the BJP. The party is so bogged down by infighting that it hardly has time or energy to build an opposition. The UPA does not exist'
The resolution under Rule 169 was tabled in the assembly, proposing to observe Poila Baisakh, as "Bangla Diwas" and Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore's Banglar Mati, Banglar Jol (Bengal's soil, Bengal's water) as the state song.
The Congress has already announced 40 per cent reservation for women candidates in the 2022 Uttar Pradesh polls.
The Sena's remarks come in the wake of Mamata Banerjee's recent visit to Mumbai, in which she made a cryptic statement that 'there is no UPA now'.
'Life has been full of rewards, full of sadness.'
BJP chief J P Nadda on Thursday launched 'Lokkho Sonar Bangla' (target to build golden Bengal) manifesto crowdsourcing campaign to seek suggestions from more than two crore people in West Bengal ahead of the upcoming assembly elections.
Raut, however, didn't specify the number of seats the Sena will contest in Bengal.
Singh also claimed that the insurgency situation has improved considerably in the last 18 months since the BJP came to power at the Centre and appealed to all militant outfits in Assam to give up arms and come forward for talks.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Sunday unveiled its manifesto for the West Bengal elections, promising to build a 'Sonar Bangla' by providing employment, strengthening social security schemes and vowing to clear the implementation of the Citizenship Amendment Act in the first cabinet meeting of the new government.
The two actors-turned-politicians could not take oath as Nusrat Jahan recently got married to businessman Nikhil Jain and Chakraborty also attended the ceremony in Turkey.
Senior BJP leader and former state president of the party, Rahul Sinha, told PTI on Monday that all trains have either left from or would be leaving for their destinations in a few hours' time.
The Congress, which is not very keen on having an alliance with the TMC, called it 'an untrustworthy ally', which is trying to grow at its expense.
Kishor, whose team I-PAC is working in planning TMC's election campaign, in his latest tweet said that one of the key battles for democracy in the country will be fought in the West Bengal.
West Bengal's industry minister Partha Chatterjee, arrested in the SSC scam, should be removed immediately from his post and expelled from the Trinamool Congress, the party's state general secretary Kunal Ghosh demanded on Thursday.
Changing a state's name requires constitutional amendment and it is done after taking into consideration all relevant factors, he said.
Three persons, including the president and general secretary of the Assam Miya Parishad, have been detained for their alleged association with terror outfits, police said.
The BJP, which has emerged as the main opposition party in West Bengal after winning 77 seats in the assembly polls last year, failed to win even a single civic body.
Sources said the reshuffle will also aim at an image makeover for the party hit by school jobs scam probe.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday slammed Prime Minister Narendra Modi for 'spreading lies and canards' against the Trinamool Congress government, and said voters, this time, would witness 'Didi versus BJP' fight in all 294 constituencies of the poll-bound state.
Ambassador Venu Rajamony, who served as press secretary to President Pranab Mukherjee during his tenure, salutes the statesman and political legend, who passed into the ages on Monday.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday conducted raids in three locations in and around Kolkata and again recovered large stacks of cash from a flat linked to Arpita Mukherjee, considered a close associate of arrested West Bengal Industry Minister Partha Chatterjee.
The politicisation of ethnic sentiments in the state has coincided with the ascent of the BJP and increased activities of far right Hindu outfits, which organised rallies and other events on religious occasions such as Ram Navami a festival not very popular in West Bengal- unlike states in north India.
The TMC expects to emerge victorious by way of a majority of minority votes and a minority of majority votes, notes Arun Bhatnagar, a retired IAS officer.
The agency detected the fixed deposits in State Bank of India, Axis Bank and Bank of India during the questioning of several close aides of Mondal and other witnesses during its ongoing probe in the case, they said.
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