West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday attacked Union Home Minister Amit Shah over violent protests against the new citizenship law, saying his job is not to set the country on fire but to put it out. Taking a dig at Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas' slogan, she said the BJP government has brought "satyanaash" (disaster) for everyone in the country.
Topics like 'Boycott China', 'Go China' and 'Go Chinese Go' have been trending on Twitter.
The nationwide protests on Wednesday against fuel price hike and Foreign Direct Investment in retail brough life to a standstill in major cities. The strike call has been given by both the National Democratic Alliance and the Third front parties. Here's what the situation was like in major cities across the country.
Asma Khatoon said it is not biryani that has attracted women to the protest at Shaheen Bagh, while holding that such vilification campaigns will have no effect on the agitation.
The West Bengal chief minister has described her protest as a non-political one and welcomed all anti-BJP parties into it.
Shah also said that India has now joined the league of countries like the United States and Israel in carrying out surgical strikes.
A total 21 people, mostly belonging to Maoist groups, were arrested from near the hotel where visiting Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi had an interaction with industrialists during the day.
Vellore is one of the two seats that the DMK alliance won by the narrowest of margins in 2019. For the DMK's vote-score to be so low in a constituency with a substantial Muslim population has not missed the BJP strategists' eyes, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
The West Bengal government on Saturday sought support of the Indian Army, railways and port for restoring essential infrastructure and services in the cyclone-ravaged areas of the state. It also urged private entities to provide manpower and equipment for the purpose.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, however, termed the autopsy report of the 17-year-old girl, who was the sister of a BJP activist, a 'cover-up' and reiterated its demand for an impartial probe into the incident. The ruling Trinamool Congress accused the BJP of trying to 'make an issue out of a non-issue'.
Police personnel in adequate strength were deployed across the state to maintain law and order, officials said.
Nobody bothered to articulate the upsides; instead, the four-year tour of duty and denial of life-long pensions got played up.
Job-seekers for government and related opportunities found that their future was at risk, points out Shreekant Sambrani.
Taking a cue from similar campaigns in the past for Jessica Lall and Priyadarshini Mattoo, the netizens are planning an online petition addressed to West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadev Bhattacharjee, seeking "justice" for Rizwanur.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday demanded a referendum by an "impartial organisation" like the United Nation to see how many people were in the favour of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
The Samyukta Kisan Morcha (SKM), an umbrella body of over 40 farmers' unions, on Friday urged agriculturists and other people of West Bengal not to vote for the Bharatiya Janata Party in the upcoming elections.
All that happened in India in the past week, in photos.
Days after senior West Bengal minister Partha Chatterjee was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in connection with the school recruitment scam, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday slammed the media for allegedly launching a "malicious campaign" against her party.
West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar was on Tuesday prevented by protesters from entering Jadavpur University to attend its annual convocation, following which he left the varsity premises. Protesters of the Trinamool Congress Employees' Union showed black flags to Dhankhar, who is the chancellor of the varsity, and blocked his car at gate number 5 of the campus at 10.30 am on Tuesday.
BJP president J P Nadda drew a parallel between the post-poll result violence in West Bengal with the bloodshed during India's Partition, while his colleagues compared the Trinamool Congress with Nazis, as the saffron party's leaders protested in different cities on Tuesday against attacks targeting its workers in the state.
Banerjee, addressing a rally in Siliguri following her protest march over LPG price hike, said the prime minister made many "empty" promises over the years, and people no longer trust him.
A fresh strain in the Trinamool Congress-Congress alliance came to the fore on Friday when Youth Congress workers took out a silent procession in Kolkata denouncing "attacks" on Congress by the alliance partner in West Bengal.
'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.
Once a reviled practice in the state, both the parties seem to have endorsed a record number of turncoats this time -- triggering a wave of discontentment among their loyalists.
Several students organisation, civil society groups and parties cutting across political lines took out rallies in various parts of Kolkata and the state to protest against the violence that rocked JNU.
'It doesn't help to transpose the Hindi heartland model on Bengal. Bengalis don't understand its dynamics. They won't comprehend the impact of Modi's dip in the Ganga because Bengal's political culture is different. Even in the Ramakrishna Mission Ashrams, Christ is worshipped on Christmas. It's difficult to polarise Bengal religiously'
Mamata set 6 conditions for the state government to withdraw their four-day-long stir.
With the talks between the Centre and the agitating farmer unions stalled since January, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Wednesday expressed readiness to resume the dialogue to resolve their objections to the three new agri laws, but the unions remained adamant on their demands for a repeal of the legislations and a legal guarantee on the minimum support price.
Shah is scheduled to address a rally at Kolkata's Shaheed Minar Ground, where the state unit of the BJP will felicitate him for the passage of the CAA in Parliament, they said. Shah is also scheduled to inaugurate a new building of the NSG at Rajarhat and hold closed-door meetings with state BJP leadership along with Nadda.
The chief minister skipped meals and remained awake the entire night on a makeshift dais along with some senior ministers and party members.
The budget carrier has reported a series of incidents involving engine glitches, mainly in its A320 Neo planes, which has resulted in non-availability of some of such planes for operations.
"The space for dissent and debate is shrinking. People are jailed without trial through arbitrarily imposed charge of sedition," the Nobel laureate alleged.
An officer on Friday said that the police registered suo motu first information reports also against state BJP president Dilip Ghosh, national secretary Arvind Mennon and MPs Arjun Singh and Locket Chatterjee. They were charged with unlawful assembly, rioting, destruction of public property, criminal obstruction and assault on government servant and breaching the disaster management act, he said.
After winning awards at Sundance and Cannes, Director Shaunak Sen's All That Breathes has now been nominated for an Oscar in the Documentary Feature Film category.
Addressing a press conference in Siliguri as part of the BJP's 'Shahid Samman Yatra', Union minister John Barla said he would discuss the issue at the appropriate level to bring to fruition for creating a separate state.
'It's a classic conflict between the old and the new BJP. The new BJP is made up of turncoats and the old of veterans who slogged for decades when the BJP barely existed in West Bengal'
'This chauvinistic attitude, what they call nationalism in the name of religion, is sad.' 'It is a tragic state that we are all in currently.'
Active citizenship through peaceful protest is a powerful tool, says Merril Diniz, who was part of a peaceful march that was struck down by police and CRPF personnel, while protesting against church attacks in Delhi.
The Central government has also sent a communication to Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar, seeking a detailed report on law and order situation and the steps being taken by the state government in maintaining peace and tranquility after Thursday's attack on Nadda's convoy, government officials said in New Delhi.
The Supreme Court said no coercive steps, including Police Commissioner Rajeev Kumar's arrest, will take place during the course of the investigation.
Most of the bullion markets and jewellery showrooms remained closed in major cities.
