'A prohibition is not going to have any influence on our party's activities. In fact, it will only infuse into us a new sense of grit to counter the government opposition,' says Gour Chakraborty, the CPI (Maoist) spokesman.
The United States' Central Intelligence Agency, perceived to have the best spy network in the world, appears clueless about a crucial Indian political development."Privatisation of government-owned industries remains stalled and continues to generate political debate; populist pressure from within the UPA government and from its Left Front allies continues to restrain needed initiatives," says the World actbook section of the CIA website about the state of the Indian economy
The Communist Party of India-Marxist should apologise to the people of West Bengal for its "policy mistake" in Singur and Nandigram that was reflected in the Left Front's debacle in the Lok Sabha polls in the state, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation) general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said in Ranchi on Monday.
The Left Front' economic policies may continue to haunt the UPA government.
Is it the intermittent strikes or the never-ending political turmoil, is it the 32-year-old Left Front 'mis'-rule or the laid-back work culture of the state -- it is difficult to ascertain what plagues the West Bengal economy that is not really showing much sign of improvement.
Lakhs of commuters in Kolkata and adjoining districts had a harrowing time on Monday as a rally by the ruling Left Front in the city sent normal life into disarray with arterial roads closed and public transport taken over to ferry participants.
The West Bengal government said the situation was under control in Baduria, Swarupnagar, Deganga and Basirhat, which had witnessed violence. Prohibitory orders are in force there. No untoward incident was reported.
All the newly elected MLAs have been invited to Patna after the Chhath festival for a joint meeting with Nitish Kumar and Lalu Prasad Yadav.
Mass agitations are not particularly uncommon in India. But a mass agitation led by an environment-related issue that has gone out of hand is not something that can be easily recalled.
Leaders of the Left front, Bahujan Samaj Party, Telugu Desam Party and other parties on Tuesday met President Pratibha Patil to demand immediate convening of the monsoon session of Parliament, accusing the government of 'concealing' information regarding the Indo-United States nuclear deal.They charged the ruling coalition with subverting the Constitution by deciding to do away with the monsoon session and convening a combined session.
Developments in Nandigram and Singur, where the government's bid to acquire farm land for industrialization ran into stiff resistance from locals and main opposition Trinamool Congress, have given enough worries to the ruling alliance.
There are limits to the support offered by the Nehru-Gandhi family, and they have become only too evident in the ongoing Budget session of Parliament.
If the Third Front -- currently comprising nine parties opposed to both the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party -- manages to get more seats than the Congress, the Communist Party of India - Marxist led Left Front will work towards ensuring that the next prime minister is made from this bloc.But if the Congress' own tally turns out to be larger than the cumulative strength of the alternative-seekers, the Left will support a Congressman for the top slot.
With barely a month left for Lok Sabha polls in Kerala, both the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist-led Left Democratic Front and Congress-spearheaded United Democratic Front opposition, are yet to start their election campaigns in the state following issues related to seat-sharing and selection of candidates.
The Trinamul Congress on Sunday night formed an alliance with the Congress in West Bengal to fight the Left Front in the Lok Sabha elections in a significant development that gave the UPA one more ally weaning Mamata Banerjee's party away from the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance.
Upadhyay submitted the resignation to Governor K N Tripathi at the Raj Bhavan.
Though the ruling Left Front in West Bengal recorded its worst performance in the recent Lok Sabha polls, industrialists appear to be unperturbed by the changing political wind in the state and believe industrialisation will continue.
The fresh allegations of carrying out retail trade have come from the Forward Bloc, a constituent of the Left Front government in Bengal, which had been opposing the entry of Metro on this ground. Forward Bloc-controlled APMC in the state has submitted a report stating the instances of violations of the terms of the Regulated Market Committee licence, said sources.
Senior Communist Party of India-Marxist leader Anisur Rahman has triggered a controversy by allegedly making derogatory remarks against West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and her cabinet colleagues, drawing angry reaction from Trinamool Congress leaders on Sunday.
She wondered why PM Modi is not removing his own cabinet secretary or the Union home secretary, if he was so 'fond of making last-minute changes'.
'Since the rise of the Modi-Shah paradigm, the BJP has followed a simple formula.' 'Sweep the Hindi heartland and the two big Western states, and you can rule India with a majority by just adding some little bits on the platter from here and there,' points out Shekhar Gupta.
The resolution said the state will be called Bangla in three languages -- Bengali, English and Hindi.
West Bengal, the chief minister said, cannot be compared with other states and despite all hurdles it had an increased revenue generation over the last three years from Rs 21,000 crore (Rs 210 billion) to Rs 40,000 crore (Rs 400 billion).
'The strategies outlined in Jaitley's Budget won't create the millions of jobs needed to dispel the despair and cynicism of militant youth in the Red Corridor running from Nepal to Tamil Nadu.'
At a crucial meeting on the alliance of the Left Front in Kerala, furious CPI leaders walked out of the discussion as the CPI-M stuck to its position to field an independent candidate from Ponnani in northern Kerala's Mallapuram district. The CPI wants to field its own candidate as the constituency has been traditionally with it according to the seat-sharing agreement between the Left partners.
The first phase of the crucial panchayat polls in West Bengal will begin on Thursday even as the ruling Trinamool Congress kept up its attack against the State E1lection Commission.
Capping weeks of hard bargaining, Congress finally accepted Trinamool Congress' seat-sharing formula and will contest 14 of the 42 seats while Trinamool Congress would be in fray in 28.
The party president also said that India's self-confidence, pride and scale of ambition have grown manifold in three years.
The three major parties will use the next 15 days for housecleaning. But what price must they pay for keeping their allies happy? As things stand today the Congress and the BJP are hard put to summon even a simple majority in the Lok Sabha. When the new House reconvenes in summer could we see a situation where not two but even the three largest parties will be pressed to reach the magic number of 272?
After its drubbing in West Bengal in the recent Lok Sabha elections, the state unit of CPI-M today began a two-day meeting to analyse reasons behind its poor performance in the Left Front-ruled state.
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.
'Even before the Left could come to terms with the disastrous results of the Lok Sabha election, Cyclone Aila wreaked havoc in West Bengal, exposing the callousness and inefficiency of the state machinery.'
Syed Firdaus Ashraf traces the trajectory of Lal Kishan Advani from the highs of the 1990s to the present, when he may have to watch the elections from the sidelines.
A 120-acre city centre in Kharagpur, about 100 km from Kolkata, became the first casualty of the CPI-M-led Left Front government's poor showing in the recent general elections. More such projects are likely to be cancelled as the four-party Left coalition, which has ruled the state since 1977, decided to opt for a "standstill policy" on industrial projects.
'The Congress's arrogance and unrealistic claims have weakened the anti-BJP movement at the national level.'
Hours ahead of the second-phase strike, Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) president Bimal Gurung on Monday sought intervention of the Centre for resolving the crisis in the Darjeeling Hills of West Bengal.
The company is facing resistance on renewal of its Agriculture Produce Market Committee license to buy farm produce directly from farmers for its Kolkata store. The ruling Left Front partner Forward Bloc is opposing its bid to renew the license as it is of the opinion that this would affect small traders.
Infosys has asked the West Bengal govt to give them land or repay the token amount the former had paid earlier.
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.
The fate of 961 candidates, including Union ministers Giriraj Singh, Subhash Bhamre, S S Ahluwalia and Babul Supriyo of the BJP and former Union ministers Salman Khurshid and Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury of the Congress, will be decided by about 12.79 core voters in the fourth phase.
