Nine MLAs, including Babul Supriyo, took oath as ministers in West Bengal on Wednesday, in a major reshuffle of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee's cabinet.
The cyclone, according to an IMD report early Sunday, is developing into a severe cyclonic storm over the Bay of Bengal and can potentially become a very severe cyclonic storm in the next 24 hours, S N Pradhan, the chief of NDRF said in New Delhi.
The 60-year-old father of a chit fund company agent on Monday committed suicide in West Bengal's North 24-Parganas district. He was reportedly distressed over his son's inability to repay money to investors, taking the number of suicides after the Saradha Group bust to eight.
BJP national president, J P Nadda during his recent visit to the state had said that rules for implementation of the Act are being framed. CAA will be implemented in letter and spirit after it.
The death toll due to Monday's havoc caused by Cyclone Aila in West Bengal rose to 45 on Tuesday.
The MP, wearing a blood-soaked shirt and a bandage on head, said that Verma led a police contingent which attacked a "peaceful" protest by the BJP over the capture of its party office at Shyamnagar.
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 BJP, which has emerged as the main opposition party in West Bengal after winning 77 seats in the assembly polls last year, failed to win even a single civic body.
Shah accused the ruling TMC in Bengal of "spreading canards" about the Citizenship (Amendment) Act
Around seventy seven per cent voting was recorded in the third phase of West Bengal assembly polls in 75 seats covering Kolkata, North and South 24 Parganas districts on Wednesday.
Union minister Mukul Roy's son Subhranshu Roy, a Trinamool candidate, was on Sunday arrested by police in North 24 Parganas district after absconding since Tuesday after a first information report was filed by the Election Commission against him and others for allegedly assaulting its team members.
Normal life in West Bengal was partially affected on Friday due to the 12-hour state-wide bandh called by the Left Front in protest against police action on its activists during their march towards state secretariat Nabanna.
In a first such action in India's electoral history, the Election Commission had Wednesday ordered campaigning in the nine West Bengal constituencies to end at 10 pm on Thursday, instead of 6 pm on Friday, in the wake of violence between the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Trinamool Congress in Kolkata during Amit Shah's roadshow.
An unspecified number of people were evacuated from coastal areas of Odisha where Jagatsinghpur, Kendrapara, Bhadrak and Balasore were likely to experience heavy rainfall accompanied by high-velocity winds, particularly on May 19 and 20, IMD Director General Mrutyunjay Mohapatra said.
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.
Sporadic violence marked the third phase of panchayat elections in West Bengal on Friday covering three districts of Howrah, North 24-Parganas and South 24-Parganas where an average 25 per cent polling was recorded in the first four hours of voting.
Noted economist and senior Trinamool Congress leader Amit Mitra is likely to step down as the West Bengal finance minister and even retire from active politics due to ill health, party sources said on Sunday.
The union minister went to the residence of Sanatan Singh at Balijhuri and had lunch there, sitting on the floor of the thatched house.
The move came after a nine-member delegation of Bharatiya Janata Party MPs from West Bengal met Union Home Minister Amit Shah and sought his intervention and action against the perpetrators of the crime.
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.
BJP national vice-president Dilip Ghosh was allegedly manhandled while party MP Arjun Singh faced 'go back' slogans by ruling TMC workers while campaigning for party candidate Priyanka Tibrewal, who is pitted against Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee in Bhabanipur assembly constituency in the city on the last day of campaigning on Monday.
West Bengal and Odisha have evacuated lakhs of people from vulnerable areas to safety as severe cyclonic storm 'Yaas' is nearing the coast and is expected to make landfall near Dhamra Port in Bhadrak district early on Wednesday morning.
Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim, on his part, gave assurances that normalcy would be restored in a week, as government officials were working round the clock to improve the situation.
Locket Chatterjee, BJP MP from Hooghly, has threatened that the last rites will be done on the roads if the police don't allow them to move forward.
TMC on a roll, wins 13 out of 17 zilla parishads in WB
Social stigma and low testing are the key reasons for the high mortality rate among COVID-19 patients in West Bengal, where the disease, like elsewhere in the country, is still an urban phenomenon, experts say. The state's Trinamool Congress government has been drawing consistent criticism from the Centre and opposition parties over the way it has tackled the pandemic, and has been accused of under-reporting data about the number of COVID-19 cases and deaths.
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.
Harsh Vardhan said that 51 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses will be made available by July and 216 crore more between August and December.
Political commentators say the final outcome of the West Bengal assembly elections would depend on how some crucial factors play out this time. Mayank Mishra explains.
Security measures have been heightened in view of the violence in the previous phases, particularly the death of five people in Cooch Behar in the fourth phase of polling on April 10, an Election Commission official said.
State Chief Secretary Malay Kumar De wrote that 'firm and appropriate actions' were initiated in all cases of violence without any delay.
Over one crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise to decide the political fate of 342 candidates.
Adequate security and Covid safety measures have been put in place for the electoral exercise.
Migrant labourers in South 24 Parganas who lost their jobs due to the coronavirus-induced lockdown are left with nothing due to the monstrous cyclone now.
Six persons received gunshot injuries in a clash between Trinamool Congress and Communist Party of India-Marxist workers at Haroa in North 24 Parganas district, while Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee and a senior leader alleged their cars were intercepted by Marxist cadres while going to a rally in adjoining South 24 Parganas district.
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.
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 West Bengal government has taken a serious note of the situation in certain areas under the Barrackpore Police Commissionerate, including Bhatpara, which has witnessed a series of clashes since May 19, when the bypoll was held in the assembly constituency.
Famous clay modeller Mintu Pal is sculpting the fibreglass idol at his Kumartuli studio draping the 'deity' in the Trinamool Congress supremo's favourite white coloured tant saree and her trademark flip-flop slippers to boot.
One person was shot dead while another suffered bullet injury in Burdwan and North 24 Parganas districts as voting began in 91 municipalities across West Bengal on Saturday.
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