We saw the finance minister in a new avatar, donning the priest's mantle at his ancestral home on Friday and Saturday. Here are some glimpses. . .
"The puja is around 100 years old. Pranab's grandfather late Jangaleswar Mukherjee started the puja," said Goutam Roy, who has been looking after puja arrangements for the last couple of years.
A division bench of justices Biswanath Somadder and A Mukherjee said the government's silence on the permission is 'astonishing and astounding'.
Calling upon all Indians to get involved in the 'Swachh Bharat Abhiyan', President Pranab Mukherjee on Thursday said the government alone cannot do it without people's involvement.
In New Delhi, state Congress president Anil Kumar and party workers were detained by police at a petrol pump near Parmanand hospital.
A CPI-M leader was stabbed to dead and two others seriously injured by unknown persons in a procession early Monday at Nischintapur in Rampurhat of Birbhum district.
'The TMC did not bother telling me, a sitting MLA for 20 years, why I was not being given a ticket.'
The death toll due to Monday's havoc caused by Cyclone Aila in West Bengal rose to 45 on Tuesday.
To honour and support the cause of 'bauls', whose stringed 'ektara' is unique worldwide strumming up 'earthy' tunes embodying the soul of Bengal, we are bringing 80 'bauls' under the Rs 1,50,000 medical insurance scheme every year, Amitabha Samanta of Bolpur-based Sobuj Potro initiative, the name inspired by Tagore's confidant Promothonath Bisi's Sobujpotro, said.
At least seven people were killed and several others injured in clashes between supporters of the Communist Party of India Marxist and Congress supporters in Murshidabad and Birbhum districts, as polling for the third and final phase of the Panchayat elections was underway in seven districts of West Bengal on Sunday. Altogether 62 persons were arrested in Murshidabad district, the stronghold of the Congress.Following violence in the second phase, security has been beefed up
'You may be an MP or an MLA; when we go to Bengal, we go as cadre.'
Some birds were found dead in southern and eastern parts of Kolkata on Friday, triggering panic among residents even as culling operations in bird flu-hit areas of Birbhum and South Dinajpur districts continued at a slow pace.
The death of thousands of homebred chickens in Birbhum region over the past week has prompted district authorities to sound a bird flu alert in two blocks.
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 ban was lifted considering that there was no fresh outbreak of bird flu, no case of human infection or fresh death of birds anywhere in the state in the last few days.
Bird flu has spread to fresh areas in affected West Bengal districts of Howrah, Birbhum and Nadia, while a large number of chickens died in North 24 Parganas, which is still not among the 13 affected districts.
Around 35,000 to 40,000 chickens have died in Birbhum district alone.
In the letter to the BJP, the West Bengal government said, "The areas proposed to be covered by the yatra are, because of publicity and propaganda, gradually turning into communally sensitive pockets. Intelligence reports indicate that public perception is that the religious overtones of the yatra will be turned into communal propaganda."
The elections are not only a means for TMC to prove its wide, unopposed mass allegiance but also a way to bargain for national leadership among regional political parties in the road to New Delhi.
Procuring ration card, passport, voter ID cards and documents to establish their Indian citizenship are easy and sleeper cells help illegal immigrants in getting them.
Six Communist Party of India leaders, including a legislator, were beaten up, five ration shops were ransacked and two houses set ablaze as the violence against corruption in the public distribution system went on unabated in Bardhaman, Birbhum and Murshidabad districts of West Bengal.
No human beings had been affected by bird flu in India so far and no cases have been reported, Union Health Minister Dr Anbumani Ramadoss said in Chennai on Sunday.
Three persons were killed, while three were injured and at least five houses were set on fire when Trinamool Congress and Bharatiya Janata Party supporters fought a gun duel at Makra village in Birbhum district on Monday.
'If the chief minister says there are areas in her home state where she cannot enter, where has she driven the state to!'
Senior Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Anisur Rahman has triggered a controversy by allegedly making derogatory remarks against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her cabinet colleagues, drawing angry reaction from Trinamool Congress leaders on Sunday.
Here's a recap of the events from the past 24 hours.
Here's a recap of events that occurred in India in the past 24 hours.
The fourth phase of the Lok Sabha elections will go to polls on April 29. The voting will be held for 71 seats spread across 9 states.
A Congress delegation led by the party's state unit chief Adhir Chowdhury was not allowed to enter trouble-torn Makra village in Birbhum district, which was made out of bounds for politicians by the Trinamool Congress government.
The Election Commission's decision is "unfortunate", highly arbitrary, motivated and "biased" and was taken at the behest of the Bharatiya Janata Party, she said in the letter.
The PM, who is the 'acharya' or chancellor of the central university, inaugurated Bangladesh Bhavan with Hasina on this occasion.
Mamata announced that over Rs 10,000 crore (Rs 100 billion) would be invested in developing the Aerotropolis project which, she felt, would ultimately change the industrial scenario in the region comprising Burdwan, Birbhum, Bankura and Purulia distracts.
The chief minister, speaking at her first major political rally after the Lok Sabha polls, also said the party will launch a statewide protest on July 26, demanding return of black money "siphoned off" by the BJP.
Here's a recap of the events from the past 24 hours.
The suspected terrorist arrested from Viswabharati fast passenger train at Burdwan station has links to terror groups Islamic State and Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh, a top Crime Investigation Department officer said on Tuesday.
Cutting across party lines, chief ministers and others leaders urged the people to follow the self-imposed curfew from 7 am to 9 pm, noting that "social distancing" was key to breaking the chain of infection, as the number of coronavirus cases rose to 283 after 60 new cases were detected on Saturday, the highest so far in a day, and states like Maharashtra, Odisha and Bihar imposed partial lockdown till month end.
In a communication sent to Kumar, the EC asked him to be cautious in future while making statements.
Rezaul Karim was the custodian and courier of bombs and explosives for Jamaat-ul Mujahideen Bangladesh modules in Burdwan.
'It is nobody's contention that uncomfortable questions regarding national security should not be raised. But that is a topic for another day and another time when the immediate threat has faded,' argues Vivek Gumaste.
'No right thinking student of politics can name one state where the BJP gains in double digits.'
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