Nine bodies, recovered from the debris of the unauthorised building in Shil Phata area in the district, which crashed on Thursday killing 74 people, are yet to be identified.
At the height of the agitation against Tata Motors and after, the decibel level at Singur has always been high. The coronavirus scare, however, appears to have tempered it. The lockdown has hit Singur's inhabitants hard in more ways than one, reports Ishita Ayan Dutt.
'With the appeal of both the Left and the Congress fading, Banerjee fears the saffron brigade's inroads into her citadel,' says Sunanda K Datta-Ray.
'We cannot leave our entire unorganised sector to the vagaries of market forces.'
Militant labour policies compounded a poor security environment for capital in West Bengal and encouraged the business community to relocate. constraining the private sector's right to hire freely could well be the coup de grace. As with Calcutta/Kolkata, it will probably take a decade for Gurgaon/Gurugram to feel the difference, says Kanika Datta.
Migrant labourers in South 24 Parganas who lost their jobs due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown are left with nothing due to the monstrous cyclone now.
Wails of grief shook West Bengal's Sangrampur and neighbouring villages as the toll in the state's worst-ever illicit liquor tragedy shot up to 143 amid fears that this may rise further with over 100 victims including labourers, rickshaw-pullers and hawkers battling for life.
Talking to PTI Amarjeet Kaur, General Secretary of All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), said, "The two-day nationwide strike by the joint forum of central trade unions has begun this morning". About the impact of the agitation, she said that the entire coal belt (mining area) is affected in Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh. She also said that there is a good response in industrial areas of Assam, Haryana, Delhi, West Bengal, Telangana, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Bihar, Punjab, Rajasthan, Goa, Andhra Pradesh and Odisha. The AITUC official noted that the banks and insurance sectors are affected all over India, while steel and oil sectors are also seeing partial impact due to the strike. Kaur said that she has got preliminary reports that markets are closed in Odisha.
Ten central trade unions except Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh are observing one-day general strike on Thursday to protest against various government policies.
Workers who had gone to their hometowns and did not return for work after Diwali vacation owing to the demonetisation impact have now started trickling back to the industrial hubs in Gujarat, say Vimukt Dave & Sohini Das.
These are early reports and situation can change later in the day.
'The handling of the pandemic, under this totally constitutional and legal three-level dictatorship, has begun to show its downside,' observes Shekhar Gupta.
As the country prepares to celebrate Durga Puja from Monday, here are some colourful avatars of the deity.
Factories are shutting down owing to a shortage of labour and raw materials, and a lack of logistical support amid the ongoing nationwide lockdown against the coronavirus pandemic.
Tainted by a doping offence a year ago, Indian footballer Rana Gharami has now become a hero in his home town, by lending a helping hand to those struggling to survive the coronavirus pandemic. The 29-year-old former Odisha FC defender hails from Garalgacha in West Bengal's Hooghly district.
On September 7, the trade unions have called a dawn to dusk bandh to protest against rise in price of daily commodities and, once again, fuel price hikes.
'The power sector accounts for much of the financial burden of state governments in India.'
A total of 77 deaths were reported since Thursday evening of which 27 fatalities were reported from Maharashtra, 17 from Gujarat, 11 from West Bengal, seven each from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan, three from Delhi, two from Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh and one from Karnataka.
With the bodies of all the missing workers recovered, the two-day rescue operation ended late on Saturday evening.
The left-front-ruled West Bengal government may be pulling up its socks to woo IT and BPO companies to the state, but the left trade unions have raised their banner against the alleged violation of worker's rights in the sector.
Over five million man-days were lost last year due to strikes and lockouts in the country, while 61 units were closed down affecting around 2200 workers, an official report has said.
In the last three years, 20 gardens have changed hands, and 90 per cent of the buyers are from non-tea background.
India's COVID-19 tally climbed to 6,48,315 on Saturday, while the death toll rose to 18,655 with 442 new fatalities.
Bharatiya Janata Party MP Nishikant Dubey on Thursday raised in the Lok Sabha the issue of TMC's Mahua Moitra allegedly calling him a 'Bihari Gunda' during a Parliamentary committee meeting.
Hindustan Motor's Uttarpara unit in West Bengal which was shut since April 11 due to labour unrest, reopened on Thursday following an agreement between company management and trade unions.
With 1,209 new deaths reported across the country, the toll due to the disease stands at 76,271.
The country's unemployment rate in July fell to 6.80 per cent, the lowest level in the last six months, amid rising agriculture activities during monsoon, according to Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) data. The unemployment rate dropped to 6.80 per cent in July from 7.80 per cent in June, the CMIE data said. Rural unemployment declined 6.14 per cent to 272.1 million last month from 265.2 million or 8.03 per cent in June, it said.
The celebratory mood that is often displayed by a rapidly growing middle class (aided and abetted by chest-thumping protagonists in the media) may not suggest it, but in truth the rest of the world looks at India with greater detachment and therefore with a clear eye, whether it is its infrastructure inadequacies or Jammu & Kashmir. And what it probably sees is a society that is a long way from being accident-free.
'The Bihar verdict has shown that the people of Bihar don't desire to go back to the mandir-masjid rhetoric.' 'Jobs, wages and development are the aspiration of the people of Bihar and we hope the next government will keep that in mind.'
RSS-aligned Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh (BMS) on Monday expressed disappointment over the government's budget proposals with regard to divestment and foreign direct investment, especially in the insurance sector. The BMS, however, lauded the government for its current efforts on the massive vaccination programme, a special scheme for tea workers in West Bengal and Assam, labour oriented push on infrastructure projects in construction sector and development of five major fishing harbours viz. Kochi, Chennai, Visakhapatnam, Paradip, and Petuaghat as hubs for economic activities etc. On other Budget proposals, it said in a statement that "mixing the beautiful concept of Aatmanirbhar Bharat with FDI and disinvestment in the Union Budget is disappointing for the employees".
Several migrants in Bengaluru were desperate to return home as they were out of job and money.
Social activist Medha Patkar and Trinamool Congress chief Mamta Banerjee continued their hunger strike on Tuesday while TC threatened to launch a long-drawn movement against the Tatas' proposed car project on a farmland in Singur.
Chairman Emeritus of Tata Sons Ratan Tata said shifting the Nano car plant from Singur in West Bengal was a prudent move in hindsight but gave the group a high negative cost.
Pranab recalled how she once stormed out of a meeting, leaving him feeling "humiliated and insulted".
Paper traders in West Bengal need to foray into paper production and also explore the market beyond the state to boost their trade, said Anadi Kumar Sahu, the state minister of state for labour. Sahu was addressing the members of the Calcutta Paper Traders Association at the association's 89th annual general meeting.
Dunlop & Jessop head for closure & new ventures abroad yet to inspire but tycoon says he's still going strong.
Of the 418 deaths reported in the last 24 hours, 181 are from Maharashtra.
The country's textile industry is concentrated in a few pockets of Gujarat and Maharashtra in the west and Tamil Nadu and Karnataka in the south.
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