In Bihar, where a bandh had been called, a railway station and a police vehicle were torched, an ambulance attacked and security personnel injured in stone-pelting incidents on the fourth consecutive day of the agitation, while protesters vandalised Ludhiana railway station in Punjab and blocked roads and rail tracks in West Bengal, Haryana, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh.
Two incidents of hurling of crude bombs were reported in Sealdah and Khanna areas of Kolkata, and police contingents were rushed to the spot to bring the situation under control, a State Election Commission official said.
The amended Act has put the entire Northeast region and West Bengal on the boil as people fear that it might exacerbate the problem of illegal immigration.
Flood situation in south Bengal turned grim on Saturday with 1.19 lakh people taking shelter in relief camps in 12 districts of the state even as weatherman forecast more heavy rains in the next two days.
The sound of the dhak is an essential part of Pujo celebrations, says Indrayanee Mukherjee.
Floods in West Bengal have claimed over 40, with water levels rising arlamingly in East Midnapore, North and South 24 Parganas, Hooghly, Howrah, Birbhum and Burdwan districts.
The railways have selected 50 stations to be outsourced for cleanliness drive across the country.
Sources at the private hospital where Mitra was admitted to said he died due to heart and age-related ailments.
The toll in the Wednesday's Sealdah market complex fire in Kolkata rose to 20 with one of the victim succumbing to his injuries on Friday even as police registered a case against four persons.
Araria accounted for 20 flood deaths, followed by Sitamarhi (11), West Champaran (9), Kisanganj (8), Madhubani and Purnea (5 each), Madhepura and Darbhanga (4 each), East Champaran (3), Sheohar (2) and Supual (1), said Anirudh Kumar, special secretary in the state disaster management department.
Five south Bengal districts including Kolkata were lashed by gale and heavy rains on Tuesday evening which disrupted train services in Eastern Railway's Sealdah main line section.
Services of about 300 trains, including premier ones like Rajdhani, Shatbadi and Duronto, were severely affected due to collapse of the Northern grid in the early hours on Monday, causing inconvenience to passengers.
Fifty-seven new trains were proposed by the railways minister Mamata Banerjee as she presented he Railway Budget for 2009-10 in Parliament on Friday.
19 persons were killed and many others sustained serious burns when a major fire engulfed a market housing a godown-cum-office complex in central Kolkata's Sealdah area early on Wednesday, fire officials said.
The railways on Wednesday rescheduled 15 trains from New Delhi as it remained busy normalising passenger services badly hit due to the back to back power failure in several states since the last two days
Three crude bombs were recovered inside a compartment of the Sealdah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express on Monday night after the train reached Dhanbad station in Jharkhand, police said.
The Railways cancelled three trains from Howrah and diverted as many in view of the train accident in Sainthia, which has claimed 60 lives. The cancelled trains include the Howrah-Amritsar and Howrah-Rampurhat-Howrah passenger, according to the Eastern Railway.
The police lodged a suo motu case against unknown persons in connection with their involvement in the mishap, a police officer said.
As many as 13 people, including a jawan of the Government Railway Police, were injured when armed robbers opened fire and beat the passengers of an express train with rifle butts near Bhalui halt in Bihar early on Friday morning. The robbers also looted cash and other valuables, worth Rs 2 lakh, from the passengers traveling on the Sealdah-New Delhi Lal Quila Express, Railway officials said. The condition of the jawan, who received a bullet injury, is said to be critical.
Union Minister of Railways Mamta Bannerjee, who is extremely perturbed by the disastrous train mishap in West Bengal early on Monday morning, has asked her ministry to carefully oversee the postmortem of M C Dey, the driver of the New Coochbehar-Sealdah Uttarbanga Express, which rammed into Bhagalpur-Ranchi Vananchal Express in Sainthia station of Birbhum district, killing 62 people and injuring 92 others.
CST Mumbai, Pune, Nagpur, Howrah, Sealdah, Thiruvanathapuram, Chennai, Bhopal, Madhura Junction, New Jalpaiguri and Kochi are some of the stations that will be modernised.
The stations are Secunderabad, Howrah, Sealdah, Kolkata, Chennai Central and Anand Vihar, Minister of State for Railways K H Muniyappa said in a written reply in the Lok Sabha.
"We have some doubts in our mind. Whatever has happened is not a casual thing. We will take strong steps against those who are behind this," she said.
As part of efforts to revamp its services, the Indian Railways have decided to take over the catering charge of two prestigious trains from Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation.
The National Investigation Agency on Saturday arrested Abdul Mazeed Momin, an absconder, in connection with the Burdwan blast, taking the total number of arrested persons to 17.
Preliminary probe into Monday's train mishap has indicated that Uttarbanga Express was moving at a speed of over 60 km per hour, nearly 40 km per hour more than the limit, and overshot the signal resulting in the fatal incident.
Acting against the wishes of the entire state unit of the Congress and even senior central leaders, Gandhi decided to give two prestigious Assembly seats, Sealdah and Bowbazar, to the TC, on Saturday night. Byelections to these seats are slated for this month.
Irked over a 14-minute delay in the departure of a passenger train, travellers on Friday detained Howrah-bound Rajdhani Express for about two hours, 15 km from Kolkata.
'Had it collapsed on the railway tracks a major disaster could have occurred if a train arrived at that time'
The train is expected to take 28 hours to complete its journey, about 20 minutes less than the time taken by Chennai Rajdhani.
Maoists blew up a railway track near Gaya late on Friday night, disrupting traffic on the Gaya-Mugalsari route of East Central Railway.
14 coaches of the Indore-Patna Express was derailed near Pukhraya in Kanpur Dehat district on November 20. The findings showed that it was a "conspiracy".
Police said passengers travelling in coach number 95411 noticed two abandoned suitcases near the toilet and immediately informed the Government Railway Police and railway officials.
As part of the modern facilities, new technology LHB design passenger coaches have been proposed in Patna and Sealdah Rajdhanis, besides equipping four popular trains with world class passenger amenities and interiors.
An eyewitness said some people in a minibus and private cars were trapped.
35 people were injured when a passenger train collided with a goods train in Nadia district of West Bengal.
Train services resumed on Thursday through Chhapra line under Sonepur division after debris was cleared from the track in the wake of derailment of the New Delhi-Dibrugarh Rajdhani at Goldenganj station which killed four persons and left 23 others injured on Wednesday.
Though taxi owners body Bengal Taxi Association called an indefinite strike, drivers under the banner of Progressive Taximen Union were opposing the strike.
A section of the over 50-year-old bridge on the arterial Diamond Harbour Road in south Kolkata collapsed on September 4 in which three people lost their lives.
© 2026 Rediff.com - Investor Information - Advertise with us - Disclaimer - Privacy Policy - Sitemap - Feedback - About us - Terms of use - Grievances