Election will be held in 60 out of the total 294 seats in the first two phases of the eight-phased polls which is slated to stretch from March 27 to April 29. The date for the second phase of election is April 1.
The British national was serving a life sentence in Kolkata for his involvement in the 1995 Purulia arms drop case.
At least 12 companies of Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) reached West Bengal on Saturday morning as the state prepares to go to elections, officials said.
Dr S Bhattacharya of Indian Institute of Chemical Biology, Kolkata, said the drug has been developed from a plant found in West Bengal's Purulia Hills.
At Begun Kodar in West Bengal, a mysterious woman in a white saree walks along the tracks of a lonely railway station.
Banerjee said the state is targeting to shift at least 10 lakh people to safer places in a bid to avoid any loss of life.
Bengal will surge ahead on the path of development. Industrial infrastructure is being developed, said West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee.
Vicky Roy ran away from home as a child and became a rag-picker. Rescued by a non-governmental organisation, he got his hands on a camera and started taking pictures. Here is a selection of his works
Caught on television cameras casting a vote for another person, a Trinamool Congress candidate lamely admitted that he did so to help the voter who was 'inebriated', during the first phase of the panchayat elections at Jhalda in West Bengal's Purulia district on Thursday.
All eyes were as India as it celebrated its 69h Republic Day on Friday with the 10 ASEAN leaders as chief guests. The mood was upbeat across the country. Rediff.com brings you glimpses of the celebrations.
He said that out of anxiety of losing the general elections, the chief minister is insulting the Constitution.
Denmark on Tuesday assured India that it would undertake further techno-legal examination of its request for the extradition of Danish national Kim Davy, the main accused in the 1995 Purulia arms drop case, and initiate discussions on that basis.
Vikash Metal & Power says it lost a building and other stuff worth Rs 90 cr to an "incident of robbery" and auditors endorsed it
Shah, who was accompanied by BJP national vice-president Mukul Roy, national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargya, was greeted with slogans of 'Amit Shah zindabad', 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' by party workers at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata.
In a prize catch, joint forces have arrested top Maoist leader Bikram, who was wanted for a string of killings including that of a CID inspector and two political leaders, from Purulia district.
With suspected Maoists gunning down two Trinamool workers in Purulia district, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday dismissed the Maoist letter on their ceasefire withdrawal and said joint-operations would be intensified against the ultras.
After a Denmark court rejected its plea for extradition of Purulia arms drop case prime accused Kim Davy, India is likely to push for his trial within the Indian Embassy premises in Copenhagen.
Heat wave conditions continued to prevail in the southern districts of West Bengal with 48 persons succumbing to the heat till Wednesday, official reports from the districts said.
Against the backdrop of the Lok Sabha results, a much larger scale of desertion was anticipated from the TMC. 'It seems, people don't believe that the ship is sinking.'
India has decided to make fresh efforts for the extradition of Kim Davy, the prime accused in the Purulia arms drop case, after a Danish court turned down a plea for sending him here to face trial in the 17-year-old case. The decision was taken after Union Home Secretary R K Singh discussed the issue of extradition of Kim Davy to India with Indian Ambassador to Denmark Ashok Attri last week.
>The BJP's star campaigner could not help even half the number of candidates for whom he campaigned in his aggressive 'Didi-o-Didi' style in Bengal
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who will complete a year in office on May 20, has claimed that her government has been able to restore peace in Junglemahal with not a single death reported so far this year.
The IMD has also issued a red-coded warning alert to the Odisha and West Bengal coasts.
Readers tell us how they celebrated the festival of lights this year.
It's a political gambit aimed at the BJP's Suvendu Adhikari who won the seat in 2016 as a TMC candidate, while also retroceding to the land movement that catapulted her to power.
The government may make a fresh diplomatic move with Denmark after it refused to file an appeal in its Supreme Court for the extradition of Kim Davy, an accused in the Purulia arms drop case, to India.
As West Bengal readies for its sixth and final phase of the assembly election, rediff.com's Sanchari Bhattacharya visits the Maoist-affected districts West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia, to find that talk about poriborton is the last thing on the villagers' minds as they struggle each day to make ends meet.
As West Bengal readies for its sixth and final phase of the assembly election, rediff.com's Sanchari Bhattacharya visits the Maoist-affected districts West Midnapore, Bankura and Purulia, to find that talk about poriborton is the last thing on the villagers minds as they struggle each day to make ends meet
For Jai Balaji, the state had already handed over 1,130 acres earlier.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi once again led the BJP's campaign holding several rallies and stepping up his attack on Opposition parties, particularly the Congress.
India on Wednesday termed as "disappointing" a Denmark court's refusal to allow the extradition of Purulia arms drop case mastermind Kim Davy and strongly rejected the argument that prisoners are subjected to torture in India. "The Kim Davy verdict is very disappointing. We reject the argument that prisoners are subjected to torture or that human rights of the accused will be violated," said Home Minister P Chidambaram.
Nearly 20 days after it withdrew the 'most wanted' list from its website after one person mentioned in it was found lodged in a prison, the Central Bureau of Investigation on Friday uploaded a pruned list having 143 names.
The CBI sleuths were left red-faced after Davy's counsel pointed out during the court proceedings in Copenhagen that the arrest warrant issued by a special CBI court against his client had expired in January this year.
India is expecting a favourable verdict from a Denmark high court on Thursday on the extradition of Purulia arms drop case prime accused Kim Davy, leading to his trial here.
A eight-member central team, headed by Joint Secretary in Union Agriculture Ministry E K Majhi, will visit drought-hit districts of West Bengal on Wednesday.
Nandigram, 126 km south of Kolkata, is Suvendu Adhikari's bastion, where he has vowed to defeat Mamata Banerjee by 50,000 votes or quit politics.
The Central Bureau of Investigation on Friday said there was no evidence linking any Indian politician or government agency with the Purulia arms drop case of 1995, dismissing claims of accused Kim Davy that the clandestine work was carried out by "political forces" at the Centre to destabilise the Left front Government of West Bengal.
After spending 40 years in the Indian Army, Lieutenant General Subrata Saha marches into the electoral battlefield as the BJP candidate from Rashbehari.
Three Forward Bloc activists were shot dead by armed Maoists in West Bengal's Purulia district on Sunday night. According to sources, nearly 50 armed Maoists raided Chirogora village late on Sunday night and dragged out the three activists from their houses and shot them dead. The deceased were identified as Leru Majhi, Dasrath Majhi, and Choto Majhi.
West Bengal Governor M K Narayanan, who had earlier expressed anger at the state's law and order situation following the Lalgarh killings on January 7, on Wednesday visited Netai village and also Maoist-hit Baghbinda village in Jhalda in neighbouring Purulia to assess the situation. The former national security adviser said he was aware of the Maoist problem in this region.
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