Geopolitical headwinds leading to lower demand from export markets, coupled with lower domestic buying, have dragged the auction average of Darjeeling tea to its lowest level since 2015. Data from Calcutta Tea Traders Association (CTTA) shows that the average price of Darjeeling tea at Kolkata auctions for January-December 2023 was Rs 319.74 per kg. The last time it dipped below this level was in 2015 at Rs 285.71 per kg.
In the last three years, 20 gardens have changed hands, and 90 per cent of the buyers are from non-tea background.
A high alert has been sounded in Uttar Pradesh's seven districts bordering Nepal. The districts are Maharajganj, Siddharthnagar, Balrampur, Shravasti, Bahraich, Lakhimpur Kheri and Pilibhit.
'Anyone they don't like can be potentially arrested and thrown in jail for 30 days to induce regime change.'
'If the INDIA bloc ever forms the government, they will be more than tempted to use such provisions to bring about regime change in BJP-ruled states.'
'While the concept was introduced globally over four decades ago, branded residences have taken off now in India.'
A consumer redressal commission in Mumbai has said if meat-based food hurts a "strictly vegetarian" person's religious sentiments, why should the individual opt to order from a restaurant serving both veg and non-veg items.
Strong demand for cultural and spiritual hubs is expected for destinations like Varanasi, Kolkata during Durga Puja, and Pushkar for the camel fair, besides leisure destinations like Goa, Udaipur, Jaipur and Coorg.
Darjeeling has 87 tea gardens spread across roughly 19,000 hectares, employing about 52,000 permanent workers.
'Most of Tagore's important correspondence is held in institutional archives. So offerings like this in the public domain are few and far between.'
'Very rarely does a film give you the opportunity to do this, I was constantly improvising and adding scenes on the set.'
Scanty rainfall, last year's lockdown, growing competition from Nepal and the disaster of the 2017 Gorkhaland agitation are steadily weakening exports and sales of Darjeeling tea.
The newly launched tri-weekly Toy Train with a Vistadome coach and restaurant coach on the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway.
Krystle has a question for you...Pooja is ready for Sankranti...at home with Karisma...
The visitor returns not just with the jewel-like beauty of the country imprinted on the mind, the body rejuvenated by hot stone massages, but also with the captivating stories and myths that are built into every important structure -- whether a tourist magnet or an off-the-beaten track spot.
'Life does not change in such a way that everything becomes easy. Struggle and hustle is there for everyone. 'The difference is that people have started knowing me.'
Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari on Thursday fell ill after attending a programme at Siliguri and was attended by doctors, BJP MLA Neeraj Zimba said.
'I have always looked at people and said, 'You just have to accept. You just have to love. You just have to let this person be and the trouble would be less.' 'But we keep complicating things, and that is the tragedy -- our desire not to understand.'
The mesmerising hill station located in West Bengal is a must visit place for every travel enthusiast, says Hitesh Harisinghani.
Being a victim of recurring political unrest over three decades, low productivity and escalating production cost, the Darjeeling tea industry has not been in good financial health over a long time.
A hamper of fresh Darjeeling tea takes the author back to warm days and cold nights in this colonial town.
Darjeeling is on the boil over the demand for a separate Gorkhaland state. June and July are bad months to have a strike. Tea picking during its most valuable season has been affected. Those consequences will be felt all over the world and ultimately damage Darjeeling tea.
Standing at the edge of Dholavira is witnessing history textbooks crammed in school coming to life. One is suddenly standing face to face with a 4,000-year-old civilisational site that is now but a ruin.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday said India has never attacked any country out of hatred or contempt but if its interests are threatened, 'we will not hesitate to take a big step'.
The unrest in the hills has led to the tea sector losing its entire second flush, and Rs 200 crore of its annual earnings.
'I will never ever forget Paatal Lok 2 because I left for the shoot the night I got married!'
Officials said the personnel of the force stopped about 120-140 Bangladeshi citizens who were attempting to cross over to the Indian side from multiple locations in the eastern state.
On paper, the Via Darjeeling guys had a pretty neat idea. Literature and cinema have played with the idea of the unreliable narrator for ages, fooling us and then making us applaud how well we've been fooled. Yet the script, despite its footloose ambition, is eventually as half-baked as the characters.
Six persons were killed in a series of landslides in Darjeeling district while the Army was called to rescue flood-hit families in Kalimpong sub-division
Dr Theyiesinuo Keditsu, a professor of English Literature with PhD and MPhil degrees, was spotted at a restaurant. The next day she was offered Paatal Lok 2.
The alpona (artwork) on the steep, winding road leading to Makaibari bears testimony to the visit of G20 delegates for the second tourism working group meeting in April last year. The lush tea bushes, the delegates joining in for the moonlight plucking of Silver Tips Imperial first flush, a favourite of late Queen Elizabeth II, cut a picture of mystical magic. But it's not the Kurseong tea garden's only shining moment - the last few years have been busy for the estate and its bungalow.
Production between January and mid-March declined by about 5.85 million kg.
'After the 2024 election results, I have had the realisation that electoral politics is simply not for me. I am therefore quitting all forms of electoral politics with immediate effect.'
Gurung is worth his weight in gold to the BJP which is trying hard to make inroads in West Bengal
GJM president Bimal Gurung has been holding meetings in Darjeeling district claiming that none could resist the formation of Gorkhaland, while urging partymen in the plains in the Dooars to ensure that the government assessment team returned convinced that people there area wanted to be under the new hill council.
The bird flu scare on Thursday gripped Darjeeling where 38 chicken were found dead even as culling operations continued in the 13 affected districts of West Bengal.
The statehood issue and implementation of the sixth schedule of the Constitution have been the major demands in the hills since the beginning of the protracted Gorkhaland movement in 1986.
The exotic brew from West Bengal is facing an onslaught from 'original' duplicates.
The indefinite shutdown in Darjeeling hills will be suspended from Wednesday morning.
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