The Trinamool Congress on Monday appeared set to sweep the crucial panchayat poll in West Bengal with a huge margin in most of the districts, taking a comfortable lead in gram panchayat in 12 of 17 districts.
In the North Western Railway (NWR) zone, rail traffic was affected in some sections in Rajasthan and Haryana with 18 trains cancelled, 10 partially cancelled and one diverted due to the protest.
These 51 cases were detected from over 45,000 samples sequenced so far in the country.
A graduate by education, Santanu, the eldest son of former Trinamool Congress minister Manjul Krishna Thakur, was more into the development of the Matuas through various social services run by the Thakurbari in Thakurnagar and was never into politics.
Over one crore voters in West Bengal will decide the political fate of 342 candidates on Saturday, when 45 assembly constituencies go to polls in the fifth phase, amid a raging second wave of COVID-19.
The IMD has also issued a red-coded warning alert to the Odisha and West Bengal coasts.
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.
The location of the landfall is north of Dhamra and south of Bahanaga, close to Bahanaga block, on the coast, around 50 km of Balasore, he said.
Seventy-one parliamentary constituencies spread across nine states voted in the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections.
Harsh Vardhan said that 51 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses will be made available by July and 216 crore more between August and December.
Muslims across the country have joined the agitation, apprehending that the move could be a precursor to a country-wide NRC.
The suave actor of the world, sometimes called the last of the Mohicans and familiar to students of cinema anywhere in the globe, acted in 14 Ray films and over 300 others, gracefully transitioning into commercial cinema in a variety of roles.
Wednesday's expansion shows that Modi still has a keen eye on Bengal. The BJP is gearing up for the panchayat elections in Bengal next May and the Lok Sabha elections in 2024.
The EC has deployed 580 companies of central forces to man over 98 per cent of the polling booths in these constituencies to ensure free and fair polling.
The presumed remains of one of those killed were yet to be positively identified.
The group has more than 9000 fans from across the state and the masks have been sent out to the members in various districts like Bardhaman, Asansol, Nadia, North, South 24 Parganas. They will be sporting the masks on Wednesday.
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.
Police personnel in adequate strength were deployed across the state to maintain law and order, officials said.
Two presiding officers were removed following allegation of influencing voters and an election agent of Communist Party of India-Marxist detained for interrogation after postal ballots were recovered from him, the sources said in Kolkata.
The successful implementation of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act in parts of West Bengal has meant that fewer hands are available today to craft mud and straw into the idols that are central to goddess Durga's homecoming every autumn.
With these states imposing lockdowns anew, the health ministry emphasised that the restrictions should be utilised to focus on containment, surveillance and testing in the containment and buffer zones as the key strategy for early detection of cases and fatality management.
Rajeev Kumar, the Kolkata police commissioner, is known for his impeccable investigating and electronic surveillance skills.
TMC on a roll, wins 13 out of 17 zilla parishads in WB
Bird flu has spread to fresh areas in affected West Bengal districts of Howrah, Birbhum and Nadia, while a large number of chickens died in North 24 Parganas, which is still not among the 13 affected districts.
The issue of erecting fences along the international Indo-Bangla border was in cold storage for last several years.
Shah said Banerjee will not be in a position to oppose the implementation of the CAA as she will cease to be the chief minister after the assembly polls likely in April-May this year.
While man and a woman were reported killed when trees came crashing down on them in North 24 Parganas district of West Bengal, a 13-year-old girl died in a similar incident in adjoining Howrah. No casualties have been reported from Odisha yet.
Branding Trinamool Congress rebels as 'traitors' like Mir Jafar, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Friday took a swipe at the Bharatiya Janata Party for fielding the turncoats in the polls leaving saffron party old-timers shed tears.
Families of the 40 CRPF jawans, who were martyred in the dastardly terror attacks in Pulwama, have not yet been able to comprehend the huge void left behind.
Aggrieved by the violence that marked the panchayat poll in West Bengal which claimed at least 12 lives and left 43 injured, several candidates who were in the fray had met the SEC officials and demanded the repolling.
Though the BJP is running too close for comfort, populist schemes and support among Muslims may help Mamata Banerjee overcome the challenge, observes Aditi Phadnis.
The National Investigation Agency on Saturday arrested Abdul Mazeed Momin, an absconder, in connection with the Burdwan blast, taking the total number of arrested persons to 17.
The death toll due to Monday's havoc caused by Cyclone Aila in West Bengal rose to 45 on Tuesday.
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.
States spent much more in the first three months of the current financial year compared to the corresponding period last year.
Addressing a daily media briefing to give updates on the COVID-19 situation in the country, Joint Secretary in the Health Ministry Lav Agarwal said most of the Markaz event-related cases have been found in states with high burden of the disease, such as Tamil Nadu (84 per cent), Telengana (79 per cent), Delhi (63 per cent), Uttar Pradesh (59 per cent) and Andhra Pradesh (61 per cent).
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Thursday that at least 72 people have died due to Cyclone Amphan and urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to visit the affected districts and provide help to 'rebuild those areas from scratch'
Trinamool Congress member of Parliament Tapas Pal tendered an unconditional apology on Tuesday for his threat to kill Communist Party of India-Marxist workers and having their women raped after he was asked by an embarrassed party leadership to do so following widespread outrage.
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