The Centre has sought a detailed report from the West Bengal government on the circumstances leading to the violence.
'A loss of seats for the Trinamool in this election will weaken its hold in Bengal, which will not augur well before the assembly election in 2021.'
Senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress were stopped by police on Friday from visiting the trouble-torn Sandeshkhali, escalating the political tensions in the state as the leaders accused West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of fostering a 'lawless situation' and attempting to 'communalise' the issue.
India has received 20 per cent less rainfall since the start of the monsoon period on June 1, with the rain-bearing system making no significant progress between June 12 and 18, according to the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
A team of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Friday held on-spot inquiries in Sandeshkhali to ascertain facts about alleged sexual abuse by some Trinamool Congress leaders even as fresh agitation rocked the trouble-torn village, where locals torched the property of accused Trinamool leaders and held demonstrations against the delay in arresting the main accused, Shahjahan Sheikh.
Here are glimpses of famous faces who got their fingers inked.
The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a PIL seeking a court-monitored CBI or SIT probe into the violence in West Bengal's Sandeshkhali village, saying the incidents cannot be compared to the savagery in Manipur.
Heavy rains continue to lash several parts of Andhra Pradesh as the severe cyclonic storm 'Michaung' looming over the Bay of Bengal sea close to Andhra Pradesh and adjoining Tamil Nadu coasts is moving closer by the hour to its landfall area.
'Yaas' is likely to cross the Odisha-West Bengal coasts between Paradip and Sagar Islands around noon on May 26 as a very severe cyclonic storm with wind speeds of 155-165 kmph, Kolkata's Regional Meteorological Centre Deputy Director Sanjib Bandopadhyay said.
The riverine Sandeshkhali area in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district -- situated on the borders of the Sunderbans, about 100 kilometres from Kolkata -- has been on the boil for more than a month with protests against Trinamool Congress (TMC) leader Shahjahan, who is absconding, and his supporters.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday asserted that the Union government is making record investment for railway infrastructure modernisation.
At least 22 more people succumbed to the infection, raising the toll in the state to 10,480.
Modi, while addressing a rally in Barasat, said whatever happened with women in Sandeshkhali "is a matter of shame".
'Usually the average rainfall per day is around 8 mm and India is receiving 10 to 11 mm per day since the last one week.' 'July seems to be very good for the entire country.'
West Bengal and Odisha have evacuated lakhs of people from vulnerable areas to safety as severe cyclonic storm 'Yaas' is nearing the coast and is expected to make landfall near Dhamra Port in Bhadrak district early on Wednesday morning.
'The estimated expenditure is expected to be more than double the Rs 60,000 crore spent in 2019'
A four-member team of the Union home ministry, tasked with looking into reasons for the post-poll violence in West Bengal, met Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar at the Raj Bhavan.
The quake was at a depth of 10 km in the Bay of Bengal and was about 296 km south-south east of Kakinada, Andhra Pradesh and 320 km east north east of Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
Nature therapy package launched ahead of Nathu-La traffic.
An elephant which had strayed from nearby Baikunthapur forest to Siliguri town went on a rampage for around seven hours damaging over 40 houses and some vehicles before it was tranquilised.
Bharatiya Janata Party's Sandeshkhali leader Gangadhar Koyal on Friday moved the Calcutta high court, claiming that technology-aided videos mimicking his voice were being circulated in a bid to defame him, and prayed for security be provided to him by central agencies.
The results for bypolls to seven assembly seats in six states will be declared on Friday in what is being seen as a major test for the opposition's Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance against the Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance ahead of the polls in five states later this year and Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
The seven seats -- Bageshwar in Uttarakhand, Ghosi in Uttar Pradesh, Puthuppally in Kerala, Dhupguri in West Bengal, Dumri in Jharkhand, and Boxanagar and Dhanpur in Tripura -- went to poll on September 5.
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.
Even if the BJP gets 60, 70, or even 100 per cent of the votes in the seats where it scored more than 50 per cent in the 2019 Lok Sabha election, these will still add up to only 224 seats, argues Shekhar Gupta.
A total of 113 teams were deployed by the federal contingency force in the two states and adjoining areas for launching relief and rescue in the wake of the cyclone.
Voting for the bypolls in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Tamil Nadu were held on Wednesday.
The Narendra Modi wave seems to have reached the Bengal shores, indicated by the more than two-fold increase in the membership of the Bharatiya Janata Party's state unit.
Gurung vowed to support the TMC in the 2021 Bengal assembly elections.
Former Bongaon Municipality chairman Shankar Adhya was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate on Saturday midnight in connection with an alleged ration scam case.
The report put India's 'stored' nuclear warheads at 172 in January this year while the number for Pakistan was 170.
Besides Defence Minister Singh (Lucknow), Minister of Women and Child Development Irani (Amethi), those in the fray are Minister of State for Housing and Urban Affairs Kaushal Kishor (Mohanlalganj) and Minister of State of Consumer Affairs Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti (Fatehpur).
The accused was identified and caught after the footage from more than a thousand CCTV cameras in and around the JNU campus was analysed, police said, adding Dolai was arrested while he was entering his rented house.
Alleging that there had been politicisation and criminalisation of government officers in the state, the BJP leader, who was on a two-day visit, said the TMC government had stopped sending crime statistics to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) after 2018.
Meanwhile, ED officers faced resistance again during the arrest of TMC leader and former Bongaon Municipality chairman Shankar Adhya on the intervening night of Friday and Saturday.
Asked about the possibility of imposition of President's rule in West Bengal, he said there was no such discussion during his meetings.
The BJP, which contested more seats this time than in 2019 but is likely to fall short of the magic figure of 272, garnered 36.91 per cent of the total votes polled, a drop of around 0.39 percentage points as of 6.15 pm.
Trinamool Congress supporters held demonstrations defying lockdown norms in various places, while Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee offered to court arrest on Monday against the arrest of two West Bengal ministers in the Narada case by the CBI.
'With sufficient gaps between polling dates, the BJP will have time to convert the 'fence-sitter' votes,' observes Payal Mohanka.
