In the wake of the joint operation against the Naxalites in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and West Bengal, the chief minister of West Bengal, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, will meet the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on October 11. On the same day, he will have a separate meeting with the Union home minister P Chidambaram on the joint operation against the extremists in the state. Both the meetings are scheduled to be held in the morning.
"I own up responsibility for the lapses in Nandigram on behalf of the state government. I don't want any more deaths."
The West Bengal government has denied before the Supreme Court all allegations regarding the reported excesses committed by the state administration in Nandigram where 14 people were killed in police firing in March last year.
Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on hit out at West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee for claiming that she was taking her job as railway minister lightly and said it was he who did not have "vision" for setting up the small car project at Singur.
Germany is keen on investing in specific areas in West Bengal as part of a bid to strengthen Indo-German bilateral ties.
"Bhattacharjee has said his Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi is a fundamentalist, but what is he doing here? He hounded Taslima out of the city to get Muslim votes in the coming Panchayat polls in the state," the Magsaysay award winning writer told a press conference in Kolkata on Wednesday.
He told the state party conference that West Bengal now stood at the crossroads and there was no prior model for industrialisation available to it.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) contention that capitalism was the only way to industrialise West Bengal has made Left Front partners aghast.
Bhattacharjee added that he regrets the March 14 police firing in Nandigram and said no government in a civilised country can send the police to kill people.
"We cannot squander away the Rs 1,50,000 crore investment proposals. We have to generate employment for our young generations," Bhattacharjee told a district conference of the Communist Party of India - Marxist.
Sources in the Prime Minister's Office said the meeting lasted for about 30 minutes.
"The chief minister has written to Tata requesting him to restart work at the Nano plant at Singur," Industry Minister Nirupam Sen told reporters in Kolkata. In his letter, Bhattacharjee promised to extend all help and cooperation to the Tatas. On speculation that the Tatas might shift their project from the state, Sen said the company had not yet taken the decision.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Wednesday said he had called Tata Motors Chairman Ratan Tata and urged him to resume work at Singur.
Saying the CPI-M has nuked the farmers in Nandigram and the UPA government, LK Advani says the NDA will raise the Nandigram issue in Parliament.
Tata's Nano project sinks back into crisis. While Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee hinted at reviving her agitation at Singur, the Left Front came down heavily on her demand that ancillary units be shifted across the highway opposite to the project site.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee would meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on June 19 to discuss the demand for Rs 1000 crore for relief and restoration work in cyclone Aila-hit areas.
Asked about rumours that the Chief Minister was holding talks with key investors on the Singur controversy, Dhoot said, "The CM calls me every three months to know the progress. The Videocon group was hopeful of land acquisition with its compensation package which includes land price, job assurance and equity in the project.
India recognised the right to strike in its Industrial Disputes Act of 1947, but this law is confined to 'industries'. There was a time when the term was extended by the courts to mean even universities and hospitals, but more recently the Supreme Court held that government employees could not go on strike. The International Labour Organisation has some conventions on the subject.
In a sharp deviation from his party, the Communist Party of India (Marxist) or CPI(M), West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Tuesday described gheraos, the practice of disrupting work by intimidating managements, as "illegal and immoral" and said he was opposed to bandhs, or full-scale closure of state services.
In a repeat of Sunday's mob fury during West Bengal Chief Minister's visit to cyclone-hit Gosaba, hundreds of cyclone victims on Tuesday heckled and jeered at Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, as he came out of a relief camp in Hingalganj in North 24-Parganas district. "You are an inefficient chief minister. You deserve a garland of shoes. What have you done for the development of the Sunderbans in the last five years," the hungry victims shouted at Bhattacharjee.
The ruling Left Front constituents and opposition parties in West Bengal on Tuesday hailed the Calcutta High Court order directing the Central Bureau of Investigation to investigate the death of Rizwanur Rehman, who married the daughter of a Hindu industrialist.
In view of the recent attacks on its agri retail stores, the Reliance Industries group company on Tuesday said it will go slow on the roll out of Reliance Fresh outlets in the state.
The opposition's hue and cry over Singur and Nandigram would not adversely affect investment prospects in West Bengal, state Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said on Saturday.
In 2006, the Left Front won the Assembly elections in West Bengal on the basis of its pro-industrialisation campaign led by Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.
West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Thursday turned down the Trinamool Congress' demand that the land of the unwilling farmers at Singur, acquired for the Tata Motors small car project, should be returned.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi on Monday criticised the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee led-government in West Bengal for its handling of the situation in Nandigram, and said that she was concerned over the law and order situation in the area. She said that the Congress officer-bearers in the state had complained of repeated torture and atrocities against the people, adding that in a democracy, there was no place for political violence.
Three Bhopal gas tragedy survivors' organisations have opposed West Bengal government's move to invite Dow Chemicals to the proposed chemical hub in Haldia after the state government failed to acquire land at Nandigram.
Speaking about fleet strength of the Indian Navy, Suthan said that it had a strength of about 150 ships, of which nearly 50 were in Eastern India.
Shortly after scrapping the proposed IT township project -- Vedic Village -- at Rajarhat near Kolkata, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said late on Wednesday that the two IT majors must be retained in the state, reports the Indian Express.
Communist Party of India-Marxist politburo member Sitaram Yechury on Sunday said that Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee will remain West Bengal's Chief Minister, laying to rest speculation that he would be replaced.
The state government's stand on land acquisition for industries and the Nandigram police firing on March 14 is understood to have figured at the meeting.
This is the sixth day that Parliament has been disrupted.
Underscoring the importance of industrialisation, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said on Tuesday its pace would have to be increased to match the flow of investment, both from domestic and foreign ones.
Billionaire L N Mittal, who runs the steel behemoth, is keen to set up a central office in Rajarhat near the city, for which the company has sought land from the state government, Bhattacharjee said in Kolkata, inaugurating the 36th World Congress on Housing Science.
On January 3, Bhattacherjee had strongly advocated capitalism and not socialism as the only way to industrialise the state.
The visit is being viewed as a politically significant event with Bhattacharjee being at the centre of a controversy, over the bloody recapture of Nandigram early last month by his party cadres, and the turmoil in the area since January over the state government's move to acquire land for a mega chemical hub project. The chief minister's visit has already created a great deal of enthusiasm among the Communist Party of India Marxist workers in Nandigram.
Facing all-round attack over Nandigram, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee sought on Wednesday a 'fresh look' into the Centre's policy on SEZs, which he felt should be restricted to select industries. He also wanted the Centre to fix a ceiling on land for a particular type of SEZ and work out the percentage of land area to be compulsorily utilised for industries within that limit.
Choosing the next Dalai Lama is too profound a tradition to be controlled by the Communists in Beijing.
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