The accident involving three trains in Odisha's Balasore district has left over 230 people dead so far.
A deep depression over the Bay of Bengal intensified into a cyclonic storm, named Remal, on Saturday evening and is likely to turn severe before making landfall between the coasts of West Bengal and Bangladesh on Sunday midnight, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) said.
A 41-year-old man allegedly opened fire inside the Sealdah-New Delhi Rajdhani Express over an argument with a coach attendant for a seat, a railway official said on Friday.
According to Chief Secretary P K Jena, some bodies were counted twice.
The bench said it would be difficult for the poll panel to mobilise manpower for uploading the voter turnout data on its website.
Banerjee alleged that the BJP was maligning the name of Lord Ram by organising violence during Ram Navami processions.
Announcing the first list of candidates, Left Front chairman Biman Bose said that of the 16 names announced, 14 are new, of whom three are women.
The cyclone ravaged adjacent coasts of the state and Bangladesh between Sagar Island and Khepupara, near the southwest of Mongla in the neighbouring country, after its landfall process began at 8.30 pm on Sunday.
A source in the know said realistically two-three of the seven bullet train corridors could be included as a practical election promise.
Howrah resident Helaram Mallik travelled 235km to Balasore to recover his son alive from a makeshift morgue where he was kept with the bodies of those killed in the triple train accident.
Both were rescued from the Shalimar-Chennai Central Coromandel Express that derailed near Bahanaga Bazar Station on June 2 that had claimed 275 lives and left around 1,200 injured.
Former India skipper Sourav Ganguly inaugurated a Puja Pandal in Howrah on Wednesday and during the inauguration the former Indian skipper opened up on India's campaign in the ongoing ODI World Cup 2023.
The incident had happened in Bihar when the Howrah-New Jalpaiguri semi-high-speed train was passing through that state on January 3.
The Election Commission has opposed in the Supreme Court an NGO's demand to upload polling station-wise voter turnout data on its website within 48 hours of the conclusion of polling for each phase of the Lok Sabha elections, contending it will "vitiate" the electoral space and cause "chaos" in the poll machinery in the midst of the general elections.
Questioning the team's authority headed by a former Patna high court judge, Banerjee pointed out that Ram Navami processions organised by the Bharatiya Janata Party had carried arms and driven tractors and deliberately taken routes where 'Namaz' was being offered.
Internet services remained suspended as police urged people to maintain calm and not fall for rumours.
More than 80 per cent of Indians live in districts vulnerable to climate risks. Among these, Assam, Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, and Bihar are the most vulnerable states to extreme climate events.
Balasore district hospital looked like a war zone with the injured lying on stretchers in the corridor and rooms bursting at its seams with extra beds propped up.
Indian railways has developed its own automatic train protection system called Kavach for enhancing safety of running trains.
The Congress plans to ensure that even if its candidates fail to register a win in the Lok Sabha seats in West Bengal, the benefit should go to the Left Front and not to friend-turned-foe Mamata Banerjee's Trinamool Congress. Renu Mittal reports.
Preliminary investigations have revealed that a signal was given to Coromandel Express to enter the main line but it was taken off and the train entered the loop line, where it crashed into a goods train parked there.
Several trains under the purview of SER and ECoR were cancelled or diverted on Wednesday, including the premium Rajdhani Express and Vande Bharat Express, owing to the blockade by members of the Kurmi community in Jharkhand and Odisha, officials said.
As the final five phases of polls draw closer, rift among Indian National Developmental Inclusive Alliance (INDIA) partners, Congress-Left combine and the Trinamool Congress, which are fighting separately has intensified, triggering a fierce contest across half of the remaining 36 constituencies in West Bengal driven by local issues such as Sandeshkhali and the SSC scam.
The Railway Board also said several infrastructure projects are under progress with stringent targets and officers and staffers on the field need to be sensitised that the integrity of the signalling system is of utmost importance from a safety point of view.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday urged people to celebrate the Hanuman Jayanti festival peacefully, and said while religion is a personal choice, festivities were an occasion for all to join in.
Within a couple of hours after performing the last rites of his mother Hiraben, who died at 99 in a hospital at Ahmedabad, Modi inaugurated the Vande Bharat Express connecting Howrah and New Jalpaiguri, and other development projects in Kolkata via video link from Raj Bhavan in Ahmedabad.
Singh appeared before sleuths of the agency in its zonal office here in connection with the cash recovery from Jharkhand MLAs in West Bengal's Howrah district, he said.
Ranajit Giri, Biprada Bag, Asha Behera and Ashok Bera, all residents of Bahanaga Bazaar station area in Balasore district where the crash took place, were among the first to rescue the injured.
Mamata claimed that some political parties were behind the violent incidents that rocked Howrah district
Besides the MLAs, there were two other people in the SUV, which carried a board mentioning "MLA Jamtara Jharkhand" along with the Congress' election symbol, police said.
The railways also rolled out its first orange coloured Vande Bharat Express from Kasargod to Thiruvananthapuram, a high demand route which now operates two such trains, a senior Indian Railways official said.
The operations are being carried out in coordination with the railway authorities on the ground, he said.
Firecracker bursting till late Sunday night led to a spike in pollution levels amid low temperatures.
Communal violence took place in West Bengal and Bihar during Ram Navami
They described the functioning of the interlocking system which prima facie seemed to have been part of the problem which led to the accident, in which at least 275 people were killed.
The Railways cancelled 234 trains while 340 trains have been affected so far due to protests against the Agnipath scheme for recruitment in the defence services, the Railways said on Friday.
Following the direction of the Calcutta high court, the West Bengal government on Wednesday decided to deploy paramilitary forces in three districts of Hooghly, Barrackpore and Kolkata during Hanuman Jayanti celebrations, a senior official said.
Discontentment seems to be increasing by the day in sections of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal with several leaders of both camps expressing displeasure over the selection of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
The ruling Trinamool Congress in West Bengal demanded Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw's resignation over the horrific triple train crash in neighbouring Odisha.
The CBI has seized the log book, relay panel and equipment, a railway official said.
