With this phase, election will be over in 424 seats and polling in the remaining 118 seats will be held on May 12 and 19.
There is so far no evidence that the second wave of COVID-19 in the country is due to variants of the virus, but it is possible, said noted virologist Shahid Jameel.
At least five bogies of three empty stationary trains were damaged as a major fire broke out in quick succession at Puri railway station on Thursday, triggering panic among passengers and affecting rail services.
More trains of South Eastern Railway are likely to be cancelled on Saturday if the flood situation deteriorates.
The weekly Yuva trains - Delhi-Mumbai-Delhi and Delhi-Kolkata-Delhi - meant for unemployed youth and economically poor sections became operational in January.
The New Delhi-Howrah Rajdhani Express was at a slow speed while it was passing through a platform of the Baruipara station, around 27 km from Kolkata, when two front wheels of the engine jumped the tracks, Eastern Railway CPRO Samir Goswami told PTI.
The ministry had sent the six previous teams to Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and West Bengal to review the implementation of the lockdown measures after the assessment of ground situation in identified select districts.
A brief information of trains that have been cancelled or partially cancelled or short-terminated on Friday and Saturday.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Friday held Jharkhand and DVC responsible for the current "man made" flood in the southern part of the state and contended that it was caused due to the unplanned and enhanced discharge of water from dams and barrages in the neighbouring state without information.
The ministry cancelled the caterer's contract following tweets surfaced of the incident.
Train services on the Khana-Rampurhat section of the Howrah division in Birbhum district, where a high speed express collided with another, were restored on Tuesday.
The railway is not operating trains on Kharagpur-Rourkela section between 10 pm and 5 am.
Rediff reader Showvick Bhowmick's love for photography is evident in his pictures.
The Manduadih-Rameswaram Weekly Express tops the list of latecomer trains, with the highest average delay time of 11.5 hours!
Passengers on the Howrah-Mumbai Duronto Express had a narrow escape on Friday when its engine and generator van got separated from the rest of the train. There was no report of any injury to any passenger. The central buffer coupling (CBC) that attaches the coaches and the engine along with the front generator van snapped.
Anxious relatives of passengers in the Howrah-Mumbai Express, which was targeted by Maoists on Friday morning, are desperately calling up helpline numbers in Mumbai to know the status of their near and dear ones.Maoists blasted rail tracks in West Midnapore district in West Bengal in the wee hours of Friday, derailing 13 coaches of the Mumbai-bound Howrah-Kurla Lokmanya Tilak Gyaneshwari Super Deluxe Express. Five coaches were hit by a goods train, leaving at least 65 dead.
Sporadic incidents of violence were reported on Tuesday in some areas where voting is underway in the third phase of the West Bengal assembly elections, even as the overall situation by and large remained peaceful with 34.71 per cent turnout recorded till 11 am, officials said.
Following the cancellation of regular train services to flood-hit Mumbai, the South Eastern Railway has decided to run five additional special express trains from Howrah to Manmad daily from Tuesday till August six.
Lakhs of people were rendered homeless as cyclone Amphan cut a path of destruction through half a dozen districts of West Bengal, including state capital Kolkata, Wednesday night, blowing away shanties, uprooting thousands of trees besides swamping low-lying areas.
'For around five hours the storm, reportedly the strongest one ever recorded in the Bay of Bengal, that mother of many a deathly vortex, shook Kolkata like a toddler playing with a rattling toy,' observes Debashish Chatterjee.
Suspected Maoists blew up a portion of railway tracks in Orissa in the wee hours on Wednesday causing derailment of a goods train and disrupting train services on the Howrah-Mumbai route.
'I have interacted with Muslim women in rural Bengal, they are scared of the BJP.'
Noting that the Trinamool Congress which boasts of the slogan 'Maa Mati Mansuh' (Mother, Land and people) actually indulges in extortion, corruption and appeasement, Shah exuded confidence of forming the next government in the state and take it to the path of development.
Ferrying migrant workers back to their states would be the largest special service by any railway network in the world in one go. Here's how the transporter manages it.
It is a complete mayhem in West Bengal, Manipur and Odisha with more than 60 dead
From offering free food to passengers to re-arranging train timings Railways Minister Piyush Goyal announced a slew of measures to make the Railways more efficient
Irked over a 14-minute delay in the departure of a passenger train, travellers on Friday detained Howrah-bound Rajdhani Express for about two hours, 15 km from Kolkata.
Jahan claimed she was returning home from her son's school on Wednesday when hundreds of local residents in Golabari area surrounded and intimidated her for attending the recital in a hijab.
35 districts have been reporting high active COVID-19 caseload and fatality rate. These 35 districts comprise all 11 districts in Delhi, Kolkata, Howrah, North 24 Parganas and 24 South Parganas in West Bengal; Pune, Nagpur, Thane, Mumbai, Mumbai Suburban, Kolhapur, Sangli, Nashik, Ahmednagar, Raigad, Jalgaon, Solapur, Satara, Palghar, Aurangabad, Dhule and Nanded in Maharashtra; Surat in Gujarat; Pondicherry in Puducherry and East Singhbhum in Jharkhand.
The death toll due to COVID-19 rose to 543 and the number of cases climbed to 17,265 in the country on Monday, according to the Union health ministry.
Banerjee said the state is targeting to shift at least 10 lakh people to safer places in a bid to avoid any loss of life.
Harsh Vardhan said that 51 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses will be made available by July and 216 crore more between August and December.
'All parties and the government acknowledge that there we are in trouble and there is more trouble ahead,' observes Aakar Patel.
With the introduction of the Howrah-Dhanbad double decker express, India joined the big league of European countries that run air-conditioned double decker trains.
The TMC claimed that the victims were supporters of the party and were targeted by miscreants hired by the Bharatiya Janata Party, a charge denied by the saffron party.
The weatherman said when 'Amphan' makes the landfall between West Bengal's Digha, some 180 km from Kolkata, and Hatiya island in Bangladesh on Wednesday afternoon or evening, it will pack sustained wind speed of 155 to 165 kmph, gusting at 185 kmph. The gale-force wind, blowing at a speed of 240 to 250 kmph and gusting to 275 kmph at one point, had lost intensity and was moving at a speed of 200 to 210 kmph, gusting to 230 kmph on Tuesday evening.
'The pandemic ends only when 70 per cent of the world is vaccinated with two doses.'
The banned Communist Party of India-Maoist rebels blasted railway tracks in Bihar's Jamui district and torched a portion of Ratanpur station in adjoining Munger early on Sunday during a bandh called by them, disrupting train services on the Patna-Howrah main line for more than 7 hours.
Only vaccinations can eliminate the threat of new waves, help raise sentiments and allow sellers and buyers to participate aggressively in the much awaited economic recovery, observes Mahesh Vyas.
Expressing 'pain' at his death and extending condolence to the family of the doctor, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said his contribution to fighting the COVID-19 outbreak would encourage others.
