He also accused the TMC government of politicising the administration and criminalising the police.
The BJP released its first list of 57 candidates for the West Bengal assembly polls and fielded Suvendu Adhikari from his home turf of Nandigram, from where Trinamool Congress president and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has already announced her candidature.
For now, the DMK can be expected to sound the bugle for Opposition unity at the national level, predicts N Sathiya Moorthy.
Priyanka said though she had been summoned by the police after her marriage to Rizwan on August 18, 'no police officer had ill-treated her,' a member of the Women's Commission said on Wednesday on condition of anonymity.
Chandra Bose said he is unable to pursue the brand of politics Netaji had preached and might rethink over continuing in the party if his concerns over 'inclusiveness and secularism' are not addressed.
'I could have joined the BJP in 2014, the doors were open.' 'I stayed on with the TMC, a party I was involved with since its very inception.' 'But today enough is enough.'
A staple in Bengali households, Maachher Kaalia is a rich fish curry made with sweet-water fish.
Dressed in traditional clothes, the couple offered prayers to Goddess Durga and also played dhaak, a musical instrument, as part of Durga Ashtami celebrations on Monday.
Siddiqui, a Muslim cleric who launched the ISF last month, addressed a mega rally at the Brigade Parade Ground in Kolkata on Sunday, expressing gratitude to the Left for keeping 30 seats for his party to contest as part of the alliance.
Addressing her first press conference after the election results were declared, she accused the Bharatiya Janata Party of polarising the people on religious lines to garner votes in West Bengal.
Violent agitations continued to rock parts of West Bengal for second consecutive day on Saturday as people protesting against the amended Citizenship Act set several buses on fire and torched portions of a railway station complex, officials said.
Adversarial Harmful Networks -- India Case Study, cited in Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen's SEC complaints, revealed, among other things, that Facebook was a preferred platform for 'fear-mongering anti-Muslim narratives' in India, observes Devangshu Datta.
Shiv Sena MP Sanjay Raut on Sunday hit out at the BJP for opposing Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray's directive to state police to keep a record of migrants coming here from other states, claiming the BJP was raking up the 'outsider' card with an eye on the Uttar Pradesh Assembly and Mumbai civic elections due next year.
'If Mr Modi and Mr Shah have made a poisonous, polarising campaign their brahmastra for 2019, Mamata Banerjee is showing them its limitations,' says Shekhar Gupta.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday demanded a referendum by an "impartial organisation" like the United Nation to see how many people were in the favour of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
Former India cricketer Aakash Chopra said images of students clashing with police at various institutions over the contentious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) are deeply disturbing and crushing voices of dissent will only turn the agitators against India.
Shifting positions on religiosity and Covid may confuse the Hindutva citizenry, but you can rely on Bengal to turn a non-arguable issue into a raging controversy, notes Kanika Datta.
'Politicians insist on focusing on the North even though the rest of India offers a better way of engaging with our Muslims namely, live and let live.'
With a staff in one hand and the other on his granddaughter's shoulder, the old man briskly takes the lead as the sun breaks over the horizon.
It may well be possible to defeat Modi. But nobody seems to know how, points out Vir Sanghvi.
'The BJP while being in government in Gujarat continues to campaign like an Opposition party whereas the Opposition does the opposite.'
In the unlikely event of the BJP-NDA losing all five states going to the polls in February-March, the Presidential electoral college numbers could be significantly altered, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
'From chaiwala he has now become Rafalewala. He speaks a bunch of lies,' the West Bengal CM said.
It is time the current leaders who swear by 'cultural nationalism', that is religion neutral, assert that Bharatiyata is at the core of our nationalism and India was never a 'Hindu Rashtra', argues Colonel Anil A Athale (retd).
Those who have 'sold their souls to outsiders from Gujarat' are insulting the Nandigram movement by playing the communal card, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Tuesday, and rejected the claim that she was an outsider in Nandigram.
Reacting to the charge by Banerjee, the Congress held her responsible for the growth of RSS in the state.
'The BJP will take time to come to power in Andhra.'
'...to come back to power because it was not doing well.'
'More than losing Bengal, the worry for their national leadership is the current crisis.' 'If people perceive that the government does not do enough, then there's trouble.'
'Only when you are close to the party, will you understand what the BJP stands for.'
'Modi is still immensely popular and, therefore, he can sustain any number of policy failures.' 'Modi himself has worn multiple faces so it would be naive to think that the Modi of 2021 will be the same Modi that will be campaigning for re-election in 2024.'
Stunned by the sudden saffron surge, daggers seems to have been drawn in the Trinamool Congress camp with local leaders blaming those holding top party posts for their "lack of foresightedness" and "arrogant approach" as primary reasons behind the poor poll show.
Cricketer-turned-politician Gautam Gambhir on Tuesday criticised the use of force against students but said police will have to retaliate if "unwanted elements" indulge in violence. Scores of protesters, including Jamia students, police personnel and locals were injured, four DTC buses torched and over 100 private vehicles and 10 police motorcycles damaged in the violence that took place during the protest against the controversial bill on Sunday.
The mood in the tribal heartland in the east and in central India spread over Odisha, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh and parts of West Bengal and Assam, is upbeat.
On Wednesday, Bengal's own daughter she firmly pitched herself as, was sworn in as the chief minister of the turbulent state for the third successive term amid raging fires of political violence and a rampaging pandemic.
'Didi' became the real 'Dada' as she got past the post, on a wheelchair and a foot in cast, a souvenir from the Nandigram battle against former protege-turned-rival Suvendu Adhikari.
'The current BJP leadership believes the party's expansion across India, and thus their own survival at the top, depends on injecting communal tension into areas where it has so far been largely controlled,' argues Mihir S Sharma.
At this time, sixty years ago, Brigadier John Parshuram Dalvi and a majority of his men were captured as prisoners of war by the Chinese during the 1962 war. His son Michael Dalvi, 77, has preserved his father's memory and the story of the gallant men of the 7th Infantry Brigade with honour.
The Congress's share has almost halved, down from 12 in 2014 to six now.
Let us see the problem for what it actually is: Illegal Immigration plain and simple, confined to the northeast with a definite communal slant that poses a national security risk and one that needs to be dealt with firmly and promptly by stringent identification (and deportation), says Vivek Gumaste.
