Cricket legends Sourav Ganguly and Brian Lara joined the Durga Puja festivities in Kolkata on Sunday.
A Durga Puja committee in Ranchi modified its Vatican City-themed marquee after objections from a Hindu group. The image of Jesus Christ was replaced with Lord Krishna.
Heavy rains in Kolkata have disrupted Durga Puja preparations, causing damage to pandals and delaying inaugurations. Organizers are working to restore decorations and ensure the festivities can proceed.
West Bengal is home to 43,000 Durga Pujas, and the business around it is a major economic driver.
Forum for Durgotsab, an umbrella organisation of 550 community Durga Pujas in Kolkata and neighbouring areas, also published guidelines to ensure that the festivities are held following COVID-safety protocols.
The organisers, however, remained unfazed, insisting it was in line with the 'communal harmony' theme chosen by the committee for this year's puja.
Unesco on Wednesday accorded heritage status to Kolkata's Durga puja festival, bringing glory to the country, with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee lauding the move.
A division bench of the high court comprising Justices Sanjib Banerjee and Arijit Banerjee, while hearing a public interest litigation, said that no visitors will be allowed to enter the marquees. For small pandals, barricades will have to be put up five metres from the entrance, while for the bigger ones, the distance has to be 10 metres, the court ordered.
Taking corporatisation of Durga Puja festival to a new height, a prominent puja committee in Kolkata has sold the rights of the celebrations to a US company and roped in a Bollywood superstar as its brand ambassador.
A comfortable temperature and a clear sky added to the joy of the festival of autumn, Durga Puja in Guwahati and other parts of Assam especially urban areas where hundreds of colourfully decorated and illuminated pandals are waiting to welcome the puja crowd over the next four days.
Braving intermittent rain, hordes of people were seen flocking big-ticket Durga puja pandals in the city on Monday morning with little or no regard for social distancing norms.
A halogen light at the pandal overheated, causing an electric wire to catch fire at multiple points simultaneously. Soon the fire engulfed the wooden scaffolding and the tent, Rathi said.
The Bharatiya Janata Party on Tuesday accused Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who is Trinamool Congress's Bhabanipur bypoll candidate, of violating the model code of conduct (MCC) by participating in a programme where the West Bengal government announced a grant of Rs 50,000 to each Durga puja organising committee ahead of the state's biggest festival.
A Durga Puja pandal in New Delhi turns literature into art.
'Perhaps the greatest curse that modern technology has inflicted on the people during the pujas is powerful public address systems that blare out songs which you have no option but to listen to,' says Subir Roy.
All the 450 plus puja celebration committees in Guwahati city have been asked by the police to install close circuit television cameras to monitor and videograph crowd moverment in and around the puja pandals.
Members of Joint Platform of Doctors, in their letter to Banerjee, referred to the steep rise in coronavirus cases in Kerala after the recent Onam festival, and a similar situation in Spain following International Women's Day celebrations and a football match to make their point.
The Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, an NGO in the heart of Kolkata's red light district, has decided to celebrate Durga Puja, reports Indrani Roy/Rediff.com.Speaking to Indrani Roy/Rediff.com, the sex workers say that they want to get rid of ostracisation and be allowed to celebrate Durga Puja just as others do.
The Delhi government on Monday permitted the use of loudspeakers and public address systems till midnight during Ramlila, Durga Puja, Dussehra and related events.
This Puja-typical behaviour invariably tells you how enthusiastic Bengalis are when it comes to Devi Durga and dhunuchi naach and everything in between.
The emotional high point of the glittering ceremony came when Shreya concluded her performance with Zubeen's iconic song 'Mayabini Ratir Bukut'.
This Durga Puja, the world's largest Durga idol will be installed at Deshapriya Park in south Kolkata.
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had last week announced the scheme, and said many priests were reeling under financial crisis and her government was doling out sops to support them. "The Cabinet has given its nod to the 'Rajya Purohit Kalyan Prokolpo' which the chief minister had announced a few days ago," state home secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay said at the secretariat.
A noted Durga Puja pandal in Kolkata this year will depict the agitation over the farm laws in the country, besides the killing of farmers in Lakhimpur Kheri in Uttar Pradesh.
'Durga Puja is also a time to catch up on the gossip and when the girls of the family get together it's a beautiful feeling that is hard to describe.'
There are many puja committees in Kolkata that are heard to have spent more than 10 lakhs on pandals.
Famous clay modeller Mintu Pal is sculpting the fibreglass idol at his Kumartuli studio draping the 'deity' in the Trinamool Congress supremo's favourite white coloured tant saree and her trademark flip-flop slippers to boot.
Agitating junior doctors in West Bengal resumed their indefinite 'total cease work' on Tuesday to press for various demands, including ensuring their safety and security at all medical establishments.
India's Deepavali (Diwali), the festival of light, has been inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity during a meeting held at the Red Fort in Delhi.
Protests continue in Kolkata against attacks on minority Hindus in Bangladesh. BJP leader Suvendu Adhikari threatens a large-scale protest if the attacks are not stopped.
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While some reports suggested that the laser show of Sribhumi Sporting Club, helmed by state minister Sujit Bose, was suspended after some pilots complained of obstruction in viewing due to it, organisers of the puja situated close to the Dumdum airport claimed that the measure was taken as the crowd was not moving forward, creating COVID and security hazards.
As their parties are locked in a fierce battle for Bengal, Tathagata and Saugata Roy, siblings who belong to the BJP and the TMC respectively, answer the same questions put to them about the assembly election.
Bandyopadhyay, eminent playwright and director, said in a statement that he is returning the award conferred on him earlier this year by the Paschimbanga Natya Akademi and the Rs 30,000 monetary grant.
'Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina is sincere about maintaining religious harmony in the country.' 'But for mysterious reasons, it does not reach the grassroots activists of her party.'
Trinamool Congress MP Mahua Moitra has written to the ethics committee of the Lok Sabha stating that she cannot appear before it on October 31 in connection with the allegations against her due to prior engagements and will be available only after November 5.
As a child, Sufal Das used to dream of becoming a dhaki. But a life full of adversities, and dwindling popularity of the dhak, has made him regret his dream.
There's a lot more to the festival than just five days of celebration; that is something you can only experience when you live in Kolkata. And that's what every Bengali living outside the state misses, notes Chitrangada Datta Chaudhuri.
The violence broke out at Maharajganj under Mahsi tehsil on Sunday over the alleged playing of loud music outside a place of worship during a Durga Puja immersion procession, in which Ram Gopal Mishra (22) died of gunshot injuries.
Candid moments at the Durga Puja pandal.
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