The IMD has also issued a red-coded warning alert to the Odisha and West Bengal coasts.
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 Election Commission Wednesday decided to defer proposed by-polls to three Lok Sabha and eight assembly seats in view of the prevailing coronavirus situation in the country.
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.
Over one crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise to decide the political fate of 342 candidates.
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.
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.
Suspended Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Nupur Sharma, in the eye of a storm over her remarks against Prophet Muhammad, Monday sought time to appear before the Maharashtra police to record her statement, while more than 300 people have been arrested in Uttar Pradesh in a crackdown on protesters who indulged in violence after the Friday prayers on June 10.
Although the TMC, which controls nearly 80 per cent of the state's panchayats, has been at the receiving end of the public ire, the opposition BJP and the CPI-M have also faced protests in some areas over allegations of fraud related to the 'Amphan' aid delivery.
He had several complications related to the heart and the kidney, the sources said.
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.
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.
Trinamool Congress supporters held demonstrations defying lockdown norms in various places, while Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee offered to court arrest on Monday against the arrest of two West Bengal ministers in the Narada case by the CBI.
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.
The active cases now comprise 2.35 per cent of the total infections, while the national COVID-19 recovery rate has improved to 96.36 per cent, the data updated at 8 am showed
An angry Nadda called the attack 'unprecedented' and alleged the state has slipped into 'complete lawlessness and goonda raj'. He also said the violence reflected the 'frustration' of the Mamata Banerjee government. West Bengal Chief Minister and Trinamool Congress supremo Mamata Banerjee insinuated the attack was staged.
Union Home Minister Amit Shah will be on a two-day political tour of poll-bound West Bengal from Thursday during which he will launch the fifth and final phase of the Bharatiya Janata Party's 'Poriborton Yatra' from the South 24 Parganas district and attend several other programmes.
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 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.
The TMC chief has been complaining for long alleging that her rivals have brought in goons from other states to intimidate voters.
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.
Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra on Wednesday sought answers from Narendra Modi on CNT/SPT Acts, starvation deaths and 'divisiveness',a day after the prime minister threw challenges to Congress on citizenship, Article 370 and triple talaq. She also attacked the prime minister on economic slowdown, Citizenship Act, National Register of Citizenship and alleged assaults on women in different parts of the country.
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.
Riding a scooter, Union minister Smriti Irani led a rally of the Bharatiya Janata Party on Friday as she campaigned for the upcoming West Bengal elections in the South 24 Parganas district.
Those leaving were mostly engaged as masons, maids and housekeepers in the country, another BSF official said.
The union minister went to the residence of Sanatan Singh at Balijhuri and had lunch there, sitting on the floor of the thatched house.
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.
Harsh Vardhan said that 51 crore COVID-19 vaccine doses will be made available by July and 216 crore more between August and December.
'I welcome Droupadi Murmu as the first Adivasi woman President of India, but her track record has not been good as a politician and governor of Jharkhand when it came to helping Adivasis,' points out activist Gladson Dungdung.
The state government, however, has not sent any report as sought by the Union home ministry on "serious security lapses" during Nadda's two-day visit to West Bengal.
From small restaurants to mighty software companies, it is businesses, not the government, that create jobs. Yet, in a cruel irony, they have to fight extortive and brutal State power every step of the way, says Debashis Basu.
Money, apparently, doesn't matter in a place where service is not a dogma but a way of life.
"I appeal to everyone to maintain peace. I hope to be back on the field in the next few days," Banerjee said.
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.
Questioning the eight-phase assembly elections in West Bengal, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said on Friday that she suspects that the dates were announced as per the suggestions of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for better management of the BJP's poll campaign.
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.
Moved by the plight of those affected by the natural calamity, Indian archer Rahul Banerjee immersed himself in relief work for victims of cyclone Amphan.
The byelections are of critical importance to Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who lost the assembly poll to Bharatiya Janata Party's Suvendu Adhikari in Nandigram.
Senior TMC leader Subrata Mukherjee sought to know if it was an attempt by the BJP to divert attention from 'the historic launch' of the ruling party's report card.
She was kidnapped by child traffickers when she was 14. Today, this 17 year old wants to become a lawyer so that she can help the survivors of such henious acts.
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