As the first phase of assembly elections was underway, rediff.com's Indrani Mitra Roy toured north Bengal only to find that the Trinamool-Congress alliance has a few takers here. Most voters swore by the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha, a few referred to them as extortionists.
Congress General Secretary Rahul Gandh on Thursday asked the people of West Bengal to end the 34-year-old 'misrule' of the Communist Party of India-Marxist and elect a government of the aam admi that would bring development and prosperity to the state.
Dubbing the NPR exercise as 'a dangerous game', Banerjee said the form, which seeks birth details and residential proof of parents, was nothing but a precursor to NRC implementation.
"We are for alliance (with Congress). But we are not for the Siliguri model alliance (in which Congress formed the board in the municipal corporation with CPI-M support). If there is alliance, we will welcome it. If not, we are prepared for election if it is held tomorrow," Trinamool secretary general Partha Chatterjee told reporters after the party's core committee meeting.
CID sources said the inspector in charge of the case, Ardhendu Sekhar Pahari, was removed and departmental proceedings were being drawn up against him over the incident. Nicol is a close aide of GJM president Bimal Gurung and a central committee member of the party
Nicol Tamang, main accused in the murder of All India Gorkha League president Madan Tamang, escaped from CID custody in West Bengal's Darjeeling district, police said. Tamang was arrested on August 16 and kept in CID custody at Pintal village near Siliguri after he was produced in Darjeeling district court the next day.
It was the state government which has violated human rights and slapped false cases against the GJM, he claimed.
Banerjee, also the TMC supremo, said in a sarcastic way that personnel of security forces such as the CRPF, BSF, CISF and the Army are present at convoys of every BJP leader visiting West Bengal.
The death toll in the MIG 27 fighter crash in West Bengal's Jalpaiguri district rose to four with three more persons succumbing to their injuries while the black box of the jet was recovered on Sunday. Ranjit Roy, 25, died at the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital in Siliguri today evening while teenager Purnima Rai and ten-year old Latika Roy succumbed to their burn injuries on Saturday evening, Jalpaiguri Chief Medical Officer (Health) Radharan Banik told reporters.
The accused, identified as Sabar, is a teacher at a government school at Rajouri. He was arrested on Saturday morning and booked under provisions of the Official Secrets Act, said Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Ravindra Yadav.
After the reconvened Court of Inquiry (COI) was completed earlier this month, the army initiated the summary of evidence against him at the Eastern Command headquarters in Kolkata from Tuesday and General Prakash was slapped with five charges.
The Gorkha Janamukti Morcha today rejected West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's offer of more autonomy, power and funds for Darjeeling hills, saying it would not rest till its demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland is met.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday flagged off the new Kolkata-Agartala bus service via Dhaka, hoping this would bring both India and Bangladesh closer.
): Tea exporters in Siliguri in West Bengal are upbeat thanks to the new provision bringing the tea industry under the Vishesh Krishi Upaj Yojana in the new foreign trade policy.
Kanu Sanyal, one of the founders of the Naxal movement in India, committed suicide on Tuesday. The veteran leader hanged himself in his residence at Seftullajote village, 25 km from Siliguri, on Tuesday.
The much-hyped winds of change may not be blowing strongly enough for North Bengal, which seems reluctant to give up its red awning, finds Indrani Roy Mitra
Full-fledged operations will soon start in Trivandrum, Coimbatore, Vijaywada, Vishakapatnam, Lucknow, Jaipur, Ludhiana, Chandigarh, Patna, Siliguri, Rajkot and Surat. Medybiz' current network across 10 cities include Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Chennai and Ahmedabad said a release.
Undoubtedly India's first choice in the longest format, Saha has been unable to make an impact with the limited-overs sides
The Indian Army on Monday decided to issue show cause notices to a top General and three other senior officers named in a land scam in Darjeeling, amidst speculation that soon-to-retire Military Secretary Lt Gen Avadesh Prakash may escape sacking.
The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha activists demanding release of some of their supporters went on the rampage on Friday, setting ablaze the house of a Gorkha National Liberation Front leader in Darjeeling district and hurling stones at the police when they intervened, leading to a baton charge on them.
Most of the coded signals and communications were in Nepali and Tibetan languages.
Hours ahead of the second-phase strike, Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) president Bimal Gurung on Monday sought intervention of the Centre for resolving the crisis in the Darjeeling Hills of West Bengal.
Sikkim was cut off from the rest of the country when Gorkha Jan Mukti Morcha activists blocked the National Highway 31A early on Saturday as part of their 24-hour strike in the Darjeeling Hills region. Vehicular traffic between Sikkim and Siliguri via the NH-31A has been totally paralysed since early morning, police officials at Rangpo inter-state border checkpost said. Only a few vehicles belonging to the military forces, press persons and some ambulances were seen.
West Bengal on Sunday recorded 79.70 per cent voting in the second phase of assembly polls in 56 constituencies.
India goes all out to welcome US President Barack Obama to India for his three-day visit.
Candidates appearing for the exam in Kolkata were seen standing in queues while abiding by the social distancing norms.
State Tourism Minister Bratya Basu said that Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had directed the Tourism Department to go ahead with the setting up the board.
The election campaign finally ended on Friday, May 17. Arindam Majumder reveals what he discovered on the election front on a long rail journey.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddadeb Bhattacharya on Sunday said the Communist Party of India-Marxist would guard against the creation of a Nandigram-like similar situation anywhere in the state.
Controversial Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen was not driven out of West Bengal as published in a section of the press and was free to return when she liked, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya said in Siliguri on Sunday.
Narrowing of differences on competing territorial claims along the un-demarcated LAC might take weeks, if not months, of hard-nosed negotiations. Without some give and take on both sides, the impasse will be hard to resolve, observes Virendra Kapoor.
Bhaichung Bhutia, India's iconic former football captain, is set to try his political luck again, this time in his native state of Sikkim, as he plans to contest the assembly elections due this year.
Two persons -- one of them a Bangladeshi and believed to be linked with a Gujarat blasts suspect -- were arrested on Friday by a team of the Delhi police in Bhaktinagar area near Siliguri in West Bengal.Five crude bombs and one country-made fire-arm and some rounds of ammunition were recovered from the duo, who were picked up from Santipara under Bhoktinagar police station area in Jalpaiguri district in the wee hours of Friday.
The number of contributors was 46.4 million in July and 44 million in September.
Normal life in the three hill sub-divisions of Darjeeling district was paralysed on Tuesday as the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha enforced a second spell of indefinite bandh in the area, to press for its demand for a separate state of Gorkhaland.Shops, markets, business establishments, banks and post offices were closed and vehicles remained off the roads after the bandh resumed from 6 pm on Monday after a five-day break.
Bengal restricted Punjab at 210 runs for seven on the first day of the Ranji Trophy Super division match.
The Supreme Court has restrained the West Bengal Police from executing an arrest warrant issued by a Darjeeling court against radio jockey Janardhan Nitin Brady, whose comments on Indian Idol Prashant Tamang sparked large-scale violence in Siliguri.
A teenaged girl was on Sunday shot dead outside her home in Jalpaiguri district allegedly by a stalker who was arrested along with his associates within hours of the crime, police said.
'If the nub of India's sensitivity over the Chinese presence in Doklam is the enhanced threat to the Siliguri Corridor, a vital link to the northeast, does it serve the national purpose to have the districts along it, and then much of the tribal northeast, in turmoil?' asks Shekhar Gupta.
A spokesperson of the Delhi-based FM channel said that RJ Nitin has tendered, "an apology if he had unintentionally hurt the sentiments of anyone."
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