Eighty-seven days after the body of a woman medic was found at state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, a Kolkata court on Monday framed charges against the prime accused, Sanjay Roy.
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.
Despite Banerjee's promise of a transparent investigation, the protesters criticised the delay, demanding a judicial inquiry, capital punishment for the culprits, and adequate compensation for the victim's family.
The decision followed a petition by former deputy superintendent of the medical establishment, Akhtar Ali, who sought an investigation by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) into alleged financial misconduct during the tenure of the college's former principal, Sandip Ghosh.
A Kolkata court on Saturday convicted prime accused Sanjay Roy of raping and murdering an on-duty doctor at the state-run RG Kar Medical College and Hospital, 162 days after the crime that sparked nationwide outrage and led to prolonged protests.
Ending the logjam persisting for 42 days in the wake of the rape and murder of a young doctor at RG Kar hospital, the agitating medics withdrew the 'cease work' after holding a march to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) office in Salt Lake in Kolkata from the state health department's headquarters, where they had been demonstrating for over a week.
The state police have called the scheduled rallies, support for which has been mainly garnered over social media platforms, as "illegal" and "unauthorised", and said they have taken necessary precautions to allay apprehensions about potential law and order situations during the march.
Although no fresh arrests were reported in the case, the Central Bureau of Investigation continued with its questioning of top officials of the RG Kar Hospital.
The top court on Monday directed the protesting resident doctors to resume work by 5 pm on Tuesday, observing that if "there is continued abstention from work, there may be a likelihood of adverse action".
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.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will conduct a psychological assessment of Sanjay Roy, the accused in a rape-and-murder case of a doctor in Kolkata that has triggered nationwide protests, officials said on Saturday.
The court directed the Kolkata Police to hand over the case diary to the central probe agency by Tuesday evening, and all other documents by 10 am on Wednesday.
The Trinamool Congress on Thursday refuted accusations of a police cover-up by the parents of the woman doctor who was allegedly raped and murdered, insisting that a newly surfaced video contradicts their claims by showing the family previously satisfied with the investigation.
The top court also questioned the West Bengal government's decision to hire contractual employees for the protection of doctors and other staff in hospitals.
The government on Saturday said a committee will be formed to propose safety measures for healthcare professionals even as OPD services were hit across the country as doctors joined the 24-hour nationwide strike called by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) to protest the alleged rape and murder of a trainee medic in Kolkata.
The minister urged the doctors to rejoin work by respecting the Supreme Court's direction to them, but refrained from giving a direct reply on whether the state government would take any punitive action for violating the apex court's order.
'Although there is a visible dent in TMC's urban votes, especially among women, the CPI-M and the BJP are unlikely to benefit from this'
'Sanjay Roy is not alone.' 'If he's kept alive, maybe we will know what happened.' 'Why was he in the chest medicine department that night when he never went there earlier?' 'Nobody will parade in front of a CCTV camera and then go and murder someone.' 'There are several people who are involved in this heinous crime. They have to be identified and punished.'
According to the cause list of August 20 uploaded on the apex court website, a bench comprising Chief Justice DY Chandrachud and Justices JB Pardiwala and Manoj Misra is scheduled to hear on Tuesday.
He indicated his conviction will remain firm even if that "uprising" ultimately puts the party he faithfully served for 13 years in the dock.
Terming the rape and murder case of a medic at Kolkata's RG Kar Medical College and Hospital as horrific, the Supreme Court on Tuesday came down heavily on the West Bengal government over delay in filing first information report (FIR) in the matter.
'A murder has occurred in the room, but there were no signs of struggle.' 'RG Kar says the body was discovered at 9:30 am. But the media was informed at 8:30 am.' 'We realised that crucial evidence was being destroyed.' 'She had several bite marks on her neck, but no swab was collected.' 'My daughter had 28 injuries on her body. But there was no DNA of the assailant under her nails.' 'Are you saying she did not try to defend herself?'
'Justice may or may not happen, but who are those people who did this to her?' 'If the hospital authorities had helped us that day, or the police, then the real culprits would have been caught.' 'Getting justice for my daughter is my goal now and I want the CM to remember that.'
'I often wondered while watching the film/trilogy, what if Durga had lived. What if Ray made The Durga Trilogy.' Sandip Roy looks back at Pather Panchali's Durga and the woman who brought her alive, Uma Dasgupta.
West Bengal is home to 43,000 Durga Pujas, and the business around it is a major economic driver.
A Durga idol in Kolkata in which the 'Mahishasur' was replaced by a crudely-crafted Mahatma Gandhi lookalike created a controversy on the birth anniversary of the father of the nation.
'I met him in September, just days before he was hospitalised for Covid, for a documentary that his daughter was making.' 'He was in the pink of health, conversing with everyone the whole day.'
'As the demand for transferable skills that can be remotely applied increases, the need for tech-based courses is on the rise/'
There is a world that Satyajit Ray created in his films that I wanted to be a part of -- as Durga bathed in the rain to Ravi Shankar's music; when Charulata sat on the swing regretting she never had a child; and Aarti stood up in defence of her colleague. Aseem Chhabra shares interesting memoris of Satyajit Ray on the latter's birth centenary on May 2.
Satyajit Ray would have been a hundred years old on May 2. To mark the legendary film-maker's birth centenary, Rediff.com bring you a treasure trove of features from our archives.
>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
'I realise that in some ways the Census is a peephole into a changing India. It's not just about transgenders or the disabled. This time marital status includes separate categories for divorced and separated. Mental illness has been separated from mental retardation. For the first time, the census taker is asking for the date of birth.'
While the state of West Bengal attempts to recover from the devastation caused by the combination of the coronavirus pandemic and the Amphan cyclone, a consortium of 38 footballers have decided to pool in their resources to help the affected people. This consortium -- named 'Players for Humanity', include the likes of Subrata Paul, Mehtab Hossain, Arnab Mondal, Subhashish Roychowdhury, Sandip Nandy, Pronay Halder, Pritam Kotal and Shouvik Ghosh amongst others.
Sandip Roy visits a flock of wanna-'bees' at an all-Indian spelling bee in Milpitas, California and is transported back to India.
Urvashi Vaid dreamed of a common movement for social justice that could address them all: Racism, gender oppression and homophobia. Sandip Roy salutes the memory of Urvashi Vaid, one of America's most prominent LGBT activists, who passed into the ages this month.
While Calcutta has transitioned to Kolkata, Satyajit Ray's detective, Feluda, has remained unchanged in the Bengali consciousness
In a pre-Budget meeting with Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, the corporate leaders highlighted several issues, including certain income tax matters which were coming in the way of mergers and acquisitions or slowing them down and roles that need to be played by state businesses to prosper at the ground level.
The immediate concern for all companies is to prepare themselves - and their vendors and suppliers - for the new GST return filing mechanism, being test piloted from April 1.
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