Sumit Bhattacharya listens in to conversations in poll-bound Kolkata.
All the major parties contesting the forthcoming elections in West Bengal have fielded candidates with criminal cases pending against them.Of the 253 candidates scrutinised by the West Bengal Election Watch so far, 49 are facing criminal charges. As many as 27 candidates have serious charges pending including murder, attempt to murder, theft and extortion. Ten Congress candidates face criminal charges. Both CPI-M and Bharatiya Janata Party have filed 8 such candidates.
Defying Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee's warning of expulsion, two party members of legislative assembly, who decided to contest the assembly election as Independents after being denied tickets, on Monday said under no circumstances they would withdraw from the fray.
In an endeavour to give a hi-tech touch to the party's poll campaign and to appeal to the young generation, the Trinamool Congress has roped in information technology wizard and Hotmail co-founder, Sabeer Bhatia, for a better internet campaign for the April-May West Bengal assembly polls. Bhatia, who will guide the party's cyber team, said, "The Leaders will be able to communicate with people through the internet."
Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's son Abhijit Mukherjee on Monday quit his job from Steel Authority of India Limited to join politics and contest the upcoming West Bengal assembly elections.
Union minister Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was on Friday booked by police, a day after Congress workers vandalised the Murshidabad district magistrate's office in his presence, and remained defiant saying he stood by what he did and was ready to go to jail.
Praful Patel, Vice-President of the World Bank, visited Pakistan on a 3 day tour. He said the economic picture of Pakistan is not good and the country should carry out necessary reforms to avert an economic crisis. There has been robust growth over the past few years and there has been a significant reduction in poverty. However, the growth can only continue if Pakistan adjusts itself to the new global reality including high prices of oil, commodities & foodstuffs like wheat.
A woman was molested by miscreants in the presence of her father who was beaten up near the main market in Suri, Birbhum district headquarters town on Monday which led to street protests, police sources said.
Poultry deaths due to the dreaded bird flu reached over 1.18 lakh in West Bengal on Thursday as the culling operations were sped up with teams fanning out to three more districts.
The video also showed protests by locals at Garia, a suburb in the southern fringes of the city where the incident had allegedly taken place, who claimed that the bodies were those of novel coronavirus victims. West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar expressed concern over the video and sought a report regarding the incident from the state home secretary.
A powerful cyclone packed with wind speed up to 280 kmph on Thursday night crossed half of Orissa's vulnerable areas without causing any damage and veered off the coast of West Bengal, bringing a sigh of relief to the two states where thousands were evacuated.
With almost $ 1.815 billion out of the fund's bucket for the bridge, the fate of Bangladesh's most important bridge has now become uncertain.
Former West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi dubbed Reliance Industries as a "parallel state" that exercised power "brazenly" over natural and financial resources.
The committee, which was formed by the National Human Rights Commission chairman on a direction by a five-judge bench of the high court, also said that these cases should be tried outside the state.
West Bengal Pradesh Congress Committee President Pradip Bhattacharjee is a busy man. Between answering calls from the Prime Minister's Office, he tells Rajat Roy about how the Congress is on an upward trajectory in West Bengal.
Sources in the party have been maintaining that Congress will induct at least one minister from West Bengal during this reshuffle.
Elaborating on the reason behind the state government not enforcing the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act passed by Parliament, she said "We are not implementing it here as it is harsh. The fine proposed will be very hard on the poor."
Security forces arrested 11 suspected Naxals and recovered a huge cache of explosives from them. According to sources, a squad of the Central Reserve Police Force apprehended eleven Naxals from Kalsi Bhanga village in Midnapore district and recovered two Improvised Explosive Devicess, 44 kilograms of explosives, six detonators and 14 metres of wire.
In Jodhpur district, the Army was alerted and IAF helicopters were kept on stand by as cracks developed in in the main wall of 118-year-old Jaswant Sagar dam following heavy rains in its catchment areas.
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.
Road blockade by the Congress at Bandal in Hooghly district in protest against the murder of a local leader turned violent on Wednesday leading to injury of nine persons including four policemen.
'Just because there is some misunderstanding, you cannot recall the chief secretary.' 'This is not a good development. This is an assault on federalism.'
The Supreme Court on Friday took suo motu cognisance of a horrific incident of gang rape of a young tribal woman by 13 villagers in West Bengal's Birbhum district and issued notice to the state government.
Four suspected Naxalites were arrested in Jhargram, West Bengal, on Wednesday for their alleged involvement in the Gyaneshwari train derailment which claimed 148 lives and left over 200 injured.
Buoyed by the remarkable showing of her party in the civic elections in West Bengal, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday demanded immediate Assembly elections, saying that Left Front major CPI(M) has lost all right to continue in power.
The derailment of the Lokmanya Tilak Gyaneshwari Super Deluxe Express in West Midnapore district, which left at least 75 passengers dead on Friday, threw up a number of contradictions on what caused the mishap. Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, who flew to the accident spot in a helicopter, said the derailment was caused by a bomb blast and indicated that Maoists were behind it.
Fishplates were found and removed at the spot where the Mumbai-bound Gyaneswari Express derailed early on Friday morning leaving several dead, a senior police official said.
Questioning the eight-phase assembly elections in West Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Friday that she suspects that the dates were announced as per the suggestions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for better management of the BJP's poll campaign.
The West Bengal government ordered an inquiry into the killing of All India Gorkha League president Madan Tamang in Darjeeling on Friday.
Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen on Monday made an impassioned plea to her "second home" India to grant her citizenship and blamed the government of West Bengal, her current residence in exile, for delaying the process.
Amid an outcry over the death of a 16-year-old girl who was gang-raped twice and had set herself ablaze, the West Bengal government on Thursday condemned politics over her body and claimed that it had fully cooperated with the bereaved family.
Signing a memorandum of understanding in this regard with Confederation of Indian Industry's deputy director general Indrani Kar, World Bank President Robert Zoellick said the India Wildlife Business Council would lead the efforts to save tiger from becoming extinct.
The West Benga l Class X results 2012 are out and are now available on Rediff.com.
Buoyed with its success in the municipal election in West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress on Tuesday said the poll results have demonstrated that the party has enough strength to rule the state alone.
Mamata Banerjee accused Modi of trying to mislead the people with half-truth and distorted facts.
A major fire broke out early on Friday in one of the largest ammunition depots of the Indian Army at Panagarh in Burdwan district of West Bengal, gutting a store house containing a large number of small arms and ammunition.
Two persons died and seven others were injured in a stampede after a fire broke out in Murshidabad Medical College Hospital in Berhampore district of West Bengal triggering panic among patients and their relatives.
central team has been sent to Belakoba station, where the blast occurred on the Haldibari-Siliguri passenger train on Monday, to ascertain which extremist group was behind the blast, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharya said.
Rejecting IMF and World Bank's "unduly" pessimistic projections, Prime Minister's key economic advisory council chairman C Rangarajan on Thursday exuded confidence that the growth would be around 5.5 per cent in the current fiscal.
Former Union home minister Shivraj Patil has been appointed the Governor of Punjab while National Security Advisor M K Narayanan has been appointed the Governor of West Bengal.Senior Congress leader M O H Farooq has been appointed the Governor of Jharkhand and Urmila Singh has been appointed the Governor of Himachal Pradesh, according to a statement by the Rashtrapati Bhavan.Erstwhile Chhattisgarh Governor E S L Narasimhan will take charge as the Governor of Andhra Pradesh.
