A large number of people on Wednesday blocked the NH-37 burning tyres and felling trees on the road at Borsapori, Borjuri and Kuruwabahi in protest against the police action in Rongajan in Golaghat district.
Darjeeling is on the boil over the demand for a separate Gorkhaland state. June and July are bad months to have a strike. Tea picking during its most valuable season has been affected. Those consequences will be felt all over the world and ultimately damage Darjeeling tea.
In its manifesto, the Congress also promised five lakh government jobs and 200 units of free electricity per month for all, besides hiking the minimum wages of tea garden workers to Rs 365.
'With tears in his eyes, he told me in Gujarati, "What have they done to this country? It has so much potential." That feeling for the country -- it was striking.'
Out of the 745 gardens in Assam, which accounts for over 55 per cent of total tea production, an alert has been sounded for 88 gardens, while for West Bengal, out of the 377 gardens, 65 have been cautioned.
Former chief minister Tarun Gogoi demanded a CBI inquiry into the episode
Being a victim of recurring political unrest over three decades, low productivity and escalating production cost, the Darjeeling tea industry has not been in good financial health over a long time.
The unrest in the hills has led to the tea sector losing its entire second flush, and Rs 200 crore of its annual earnings.
'It feels like Assam is good just as a tourist spot and not a place to earn and live.'
The CM also said that to prevent the sale of land from the indigenous communities like tribals and Adivasis to others in undivided Goalpara district, a strong law will be brought.
The Kathalguri Tea Estate in the Dooars, is now closed. Situated 40 km from Jalpaiguri, on the India-Bhutan border, it was a big garden with more than 1,200 acres of plantation and 1,479 workers. The annual output of the garden used to be 12 million kg of processed tea and sources in the Dooars Branch of the Indian Tea Association say it could have yielded up to 16 million kg of tea if it had been run properly..
While addressing a rally at Alipurduar, Banerjee accused the Election Commission of removing the deputy inspector general of police of Murshidabad at the behest of the BJP.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on accused the Gandhis of disrupting Parliament to avenge defeat in 2014 Lok Sabha polls.
The industry began to upgrade its practices even before the NGO alleged Indian tea contained harmful pesticides.
Discontentment seems to be increasing by the day in sections of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Trinamool Congress in West Bengal with several leaders of both camps expressing displeasure over the selection of candidates for the upcoming Lok Sabha elections.
Twenty-one people, including two women, were burnt alive on Thursday when unidentified people set ablaze a house in a tea garden in Jalpaiguri district of West Bengal.
The All India Bank Officers' Confederation has condemned the purported "unsavoury attack" on SBI chairman Rajnish Kumar by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman during a banking event last month in Guwahati. The association claimed that an audio clip has gone viral on social media that revealed the finance minister coming down heavily on the SBI chief, accusing him of poor credit uptick, during an outreach programme in late February.
Rough estimates from plantation companies have pegged production loss in excess of 100 million kg (mkg) across India which is valued at around Rs 2000 crore. Usually, plantation companies in Assam and West Bengal produce around 15 per cent of the total tea during March-April.
In the last of a six-part series Sanjay Jog discovers that if the government and beedi employers don't act now, there could be social unrest soon.
'Now that there is an election in the offing, she is repeating the same old promises. Does she think the people of Bengal are fools to fall for her lies?'
As the world awaits the end of the global pandemic, rural Bengal might be witnessing a recession unfolding in bits and pieces. With factories and tea gardens closing down, agricultural income falling and storm Aila ravaging a large part of deltaic West Bengal in 2010, migration gradually became a norm.
India has been put in lockdown to halt the spread of the coronavirus outbreak. People have been told to stay indoors, but for many daily-wage earners this is not an option.
Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Friday assured that the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) will not be implemented in Assam if the party is voted to power in the state in the coming assembly poll.
"Those who ruled for decades since Independence believed Dispur was too distant from Delhi. 'Dilli ab door nahi aapke darwaaze par hai' (Delhi is not far now, it stands at your doorstep," he told a massive gathering.
'Modi had promised to deposit money in the accounts of people, but he has done it only in the case of some rich businessmen like the Ambanis'
At least 2 persons were killed and over 15 injured including several policemen when police opened fire on a mob of protestors on Wednesday afternoon.
The BJP would want that by March 2022, when UP votes, the economy starts looking up and it heads into the polls with no other issue distracting from its main poll plank of the construction of the Ram temple in Ayodhya.
The election campaign finally ended on Friday, May 17. Arindam Majumder reveals what he discovered on the election front on a long rail journey.
Singh also claimed that the insurgency situation has improved considerably in the last 18 months since the BJP came to power at the Centre and appealed to all militant outfits in Assam to give up arms and come forward for talks.
The All India Congress Committee has barred all ministers and MLAs in Assam from speaking to the media about dissidence in the Assam Congress Legislature Party headed by Chief Minister Tarun Gogoi.
The Duncans Goenka group is in a spot of bother over the death of workers and non-payment of dues to employees.
International Tea Day is a good occasion to brew a special pot of chai.
Days after a number of families were evicted from 'encroached land' in three districts of Assam, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Thursday urged the minority community to adopt a 'decent family planning policy' for population control to reduce poverty.
The argument between the two leaders in the virtual space began after Kejriwal had on Wednesday tweeted that a closure of schools is not a solution and there is a need to open more schools across the country, and shared a link to a news report claiming a "closure" of some schools in Assam.
Tokyo -- the songs Japan, Love In Tokyo and Sayonara from the 1966 Hindi film automatically pop up in the mind -- is buzzing and crowded like any other metropolis, discovers Deepa Gahlot. The modern apartment blocks are built cheek by jowl, so close together that one can open the window and borrow sugar from the neighbour in the next building. One of the fears of the Indian traveller is the unavailability of vegetarian food. Every city and town in Japan has an array of Indian restaurants that serve every variety of cuisine, right from Gujarati to Punjabi to Andhra and Kerala meals.
With the first salary date after demonetisation around the corner, will India's labourers be able to take their hard-earned wages home?
Mounting an attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party, United Progressive Alliance Chairperson Sonia Gandhi on Sunday said the Opposition party "talks big" and believes in the "politics of hate."
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Sunday warned unscrupulous elements not to play with the lives of the poor by depositing illegal money into their accounts as stringent law against 'benami' transactions were in place to deal with them, as he asked the youth and other sections to move towards a "cashless society".
He also accused her of nepotism by choosing to play the limited role of "bua" (aunt) to her "bhatija" (nephew) instead of becoming "Didi" (elder sister) to the people.
