The alpona (artwork) on the steep, winding road leading to Makaibari bears testimony to the visit of G20 delegates for the second tourism working group meeting in April last year. The lush tea bushes, the delegates joining in for the moonlight plucking of Silver Tips Imperial first flush, a favourite of late Queen Elizabeth II, cut a picture of mystical magic. But it's not the Kurseong tea garden's only shining moment - the last few years have been busy for the estate and its bungalow.
In yet another jolt for the Trinamool Congress dispensation, West Bengal forest minister Rajib Banerjee quit the Mamata Banerjee cabinet, joining the growing list of dissenters who have put the ruling camp in a tight spot ahead of the assembly elections.
'Yaas' is likely to cross the Odisha-West Bengal coasts between Paradip and Sagar Islands around noon on May 26 as a very severe cyclonic storm with wind speeds of 155-165 kmph, Kolkata's Regional Meteorological Centre Deputy Director Sanjib Bandopadhyay said.
Bill Aitken came to India nearly 60 years ago. He never returned. An Indian citizen since 1972, he tells Rediff.com's Archana Masih how India changed his life forever.
Debmalya Mazumder shares photographs from a recent trip to Mukutmanipur in West Bengal.
The agency said the first-of-its-kind attachment under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act "enabled" the zoo authorities to retain the animals as the smuggler was making attempts to take them away.
Five Eastern Frontier Rifles were among those killed in the landmine blast in Belpahari forest.
Here's your travel guide to exploring some of India's most beautiful villages.
With its age-old fascination for education, southern states have done better than the North. Start-ups, IT hubs, and industry majors setting up shop have changed the face of the South. Nearly 79% of global offices set up by international conglomerates in India are in the South. Almost 46% of tech unicorns are from the South. The GDP per person in the South is 4.2 times higher than the North. None of these indicators can be ignored by any central government, whatever the political compulsions, notes Ramesh Menon.
Top Maoist leader Prashant Bose alias Kishan Da, who was carrying a bounty of Rs 1 crore on his head, has been arrested in Jharkhand along with his wife Sheela Marandi, a senior police officer said on Friday.
Senior MHA officials referred to intelligence inputs regarding a possibility of a sudden surge in the activists of the Maoists and issued an alert for the police of the four states.
Amphan was the fiercest Cyclone to hit West Bengal in the last 100 years. A large part of the state was without power as electricity poles have been blown away. Mobile and internet services were also down as the cyclone has damaged hundreds of communication towers.
Sixteen people in five Jharkhand districts have been killed by a tusker in the past 12 days, with four in a single block of Ranchi district on Tuesday, forest officials said.
The survey was conducted in 88 major industrial clusters in the country.
Govt looks to take cooking gas to tiger reserves, Naxal-hit areas
On a day a sexual abuse case was registered against actor Siddique based on a complaint by a woman actor, the Left government appears to have adopted a cautious approach in the case of MLA Mukesh, with two ministers indicating that further action hinges on the findings of the probe by the special police team.
'The temple's construction is the result of collective wisdom of some of the best brains in the country. Water and sacred soil from almost all pilgrimage sites in India, including Gangotri, Yamunotri, Kailash Mansarovar, Prayags (there are seven Prayags) and all 'puris' (seven holy towns in India, besides Ayodhya) have been used in the making of the temple'
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 government may claim planted trees compensate for forests lost, but that does not mean complex flora and fauna destroyed have been restored, points out Himadri Ghosh.
Kerala is the only state, other than West Bengal (2001 and 2007), in India to have reported Nipah virus cases. Kerala is the only state, other than West Bengal (2001 and 2007), in India to have reported Nipah virus cases. The previous outbreaks in the state were in May 2018, June 2019 and September 2021. This explains the anticipation and readiness this year, reports Shine Jacob.
Over 1.54 crore voters in the eastern states of West Bengal and Assam will exercise their franchise in the 1st phase of polling
Three police vehicles were also torched by the mob. The policemen could only leave the area by a road that passes through the Jaldapara forest
With a 50 per cent increase in the last four years, Madhya Pradesh has the maximum number (785) of tigers in the country, followed by Karnataka (563), Uttarakhand (560), and Maharashtra (444), according to the data.
These human interventions in nature, along with climate change, are responsible for the disaster faced by the pilgrim town of Joshimath in Uttarakhand, which is sinking, he said.
Looking for fun things to do as family during this sunny season?
Heavy rains in the last three days triggered flash floods in parts of Bihar, where 41 people have died so far, and inundated large areas in Assam and North Bengal, paralysing normal life and snapping rail link to the Northeast from the rest of the country.
The WWF had earlier asked for halting movement of night trains in the New Jalpaiguri-Alipurduar section passing through wildlife sanctuaries and National Parks and restricting their speed.
A day after Cyclone Yaas tore through coastal Odisha and Bengal to cause havoc as far as Jharkhand, tornadoes, torrential rains, bridge collapses and swelling rivers continued to plague eastern India as people tried to pick up their lives amid the debris of swept away mud homes and swamped farmlands.
Development economist Jean Dreze said the Indian democracy is currently navigating a crisis that is not only limited to the 'recent wave of authoritarianism' but also suppression of opposition voices by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
An ecological disaster is in the making in the Sunderbans, the world's largest mangrove forest spanning across the Indo-Bangla border, after an oil tanker collided with an empty cargo vessel. The incident spilled nearly 350 tonnes of oil into the Sela river, threatening the survival of multiple species of flora and fauna.
With militants belonging to anti-talks faction of National Democratic Front of Bodoland and Kamatapur Liberation Organisation trying to strike fresh routes along the thickly forested and rugged terrain on the India-Bhutan border in North East and North Bengal (West Bengal), both the countries have decided to mount vigil along the border.
India offers travel adventures no other country can offer.
The Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad has seized 75.3 kg of heroin estimated to be worth Rs 376.5 crore from a container near the Mundra port in Kutch district, an official said on Tuesday.
Bose, who was earlier a Lok Sabha MP, pointed out in an interview to PTI that members of all the three communities had joined Netaji's INA in 1944 and fought shoulder to shoulder in the battlefields of Bishnupur and Ukhrul districts in an advance into India.
Observing that there are "definite and proved" allegations that complaints of the victims of violence in the aftermath of the West Bengal assembly polls were not even registered, the Calcutta high court on Thursday ordered a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into all alleged cases of heinous crimes like rape and murder, while accepting the recommendations of a National Human Rights Commission panel.
With over 3,000 species of plants, 26 interconnected lakes and the 250-year-old Great Banyan Tree -- the largest in the world -- the Indian Botanic Garden is a veritable treasure, discovers Payal Singh Mohanka.
A statement from the Army's Northern Command said its personnel have been conducting 'relentless intelligence-based operations to flush out a group of terrorists involved in an ambush on an Army truck in the Tota Gali area of Bhata Dhurian in Jammu region last month'.
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