Fierce gun battles took place on Monday between the Maoists and combined security forces at three places in West Midnapore district, a day after four Eastern Frontier Rifles jawans were gunned down by the extremists at Gidhni bazar in Kolkata.
Two Communist Party of India-Marxist workers were reportedly hacked to death by the Maoists in West Bengal's West Midnapore district on Wednesday night.
Ending uncertainty and suspense, the Maoists have released Atindranath Dutta, the police officer, whom they abducted last week.
Last year, the World Bank Group launched South-South Experience Exchange Facility to promote the idea that the development sucesses in one country can pull people out of poverty in another.
The video also showed protests by locals at Garia, a suburb in the southern fringes of the city where the incident had allegedly taken place, who claimed that the bodies were those of novel coronavirus victims. West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar expressed concern over the video and sought a report regarding the incident from the state home secretary.
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.
A coach attendant was killed and another seriously injured when they were shot at apparently by two ticketless travellers inside a running express train in Burdwan district in the wee hours of Saturday.
In case of emergency, a user can send sms to 10 loved ones with a call.
West Bengal minister Nure Alam Chowdhury was on Sunday seriously injured by a mob which took him hostage following a dispute over a piece of land owned by a college in Rampurhat of Birbhum district, the police said.
Mamata Banerjee accused Modi of trying to mislead the people with half-truth and distorted facts.
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.
Elaborating on the reason behind the state government not enforcing the Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act passed by Parliament, she said "We are not implementing it here as it is harsh. The fine proposed will be very hard on the poor."
The flood situation in West Bengal continued to be grim with most of the major rivers in spate following increased discharge from DVC dams and barrages as the death toll shot to 47 on Saturday.
The revised projection comes after a 17% rise in the April-June.
A day after Communist Party of India-Marxist member of legislative assembly Sushanta Ghosh was apprehended by the Criminal Investigation Department in a murder case, the West Bengal Assembly on Friday witnessed uproarious scenes on the issue with the ruling bench demanding the arrest of former Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.
"On a larger scale we've got to think about how we can integrate this technology into a massive effort to scale up access to financial services," the bank said.
A report on South Asian countries released by the World Bank on Wednesday said that India's continuing slowdown is broad- based across sectors.
Doctors were on Friday keeping a close watch on the condition of children at a premier state-run hospital in Kolkata where 18 babies died in the last two days triggering large-scale protests and demonstrations.
With no immediate solution in sight, over 2,500 petrol pumps in West Bengal remained closed on Tuesday following a three-day strike.
West Bengal government hopes that Infosys Technologies will follow in the footsteps of other IT majors in setting up its development centre in the state.
In the last five years, price increases of global commodities, especially those of oil, metal and food, budget deficits widened and trade balances worsened. With this, the growth softened and inflation reached double digits.
"Land is limited, land is precious, land holds a special value to farmers and their families. We have to be sensitive to those who lose land to the industry knowing fully well that the industry also needs space. Emprical evidence shows that options other than compulsory land acquisition are also possible," said West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi. Without mentioning Singur even once, his speech at the ICC highlighted the farmers' interest.
The state government was under a mammoth debt of Rs 2 lakh crore.
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Friday stepped down as West Bengal chief minister following the Left Front's drubbing in the Assembly election at the hands of the Trinamool Congress-Congress combine that saw the collapse of the 34-year-old red bastion.
Ahead of the crucial third phase of assembly polls, Home Minister P Chidambaram on Monday said that West Bengal was the 'worst-governed' state in the country and blamed the CPI-M and its cadres for spreading violence and turning the state into a 'killing field'.
Five years after the Tatas abandoned their small car factory in favour of Gujarat frustrated by the land acquisition controversy, politics in the Singur assembly constituency still revolves around the failed project.
Security personnel allegedly lathicharged photo journalists at a polling station in Malda district when they tried to photograph state Environment Minister Sailen Sarkar after he entered the booth to cast his vote on Monday. The incident occurred when Sarkar entered the booth at Malda Women's College and the waiting photo journalists followed him. The security personnel objected to their entry into the booth.
Two persons -- one of them a Bangladeshi and believed to be linked with a Gujarat blasts suspect -- were arrested on Friday by a team of the Delhi police in Bhaktinagar area near Siliguri in West Bengal.Five crude bombs and one country-made fire-arm and some rounds of ammunition were recovered from the duo, who were picked up from Santipara under Bhoktinagar police station area in Jalpaiguri district in the wee hours of Friday.
Sumit Bhattacharya listens in to conversations in poll-bound Kolkata.
Though the mandate is seen largely an outcome of Banerjee's welfare schemes, she has promised to industrialise at a faster pace, or so read the manifesto.
All the major parties contesting the forthcoming elections in West Bengal have fielded candidates with criminal cases pending against them.Of the 253 candidates scrutinised by the West Bengal Election Watch so far, 49 are facing criminal charges. As many as 27 candidates have serious charges pending including murder, attempt to murder, theft and extortion. Ten Congress candidates face criminal charges. Both CPI-M and Bharatiya Janata Party have filed 8 such candidates.
Union minister Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury was on Friday booked by police, a day after Congress workers vandalised the Murshidabad district magistrate's office in his presence, and remained defiant saying he stood by what he did and was ready to go to jail.
Defying Congress leader Pranab Mukherjee's warning of expulsion, two party members of legislative assembly, who decided to contest the assembly election as Independents after being denied tickets, on Monday said under no circumstances they would withdraw from the fray.
The Army was called out on Wednesday to assist the administration in West Midnapore district where the flood situation remained grim affecting 1.5 lakh people.
In an endeavour to give a hi-tech touch to the party's poll campaign and to appeal to the young generation, the Trinamool Congress has roped in information technology wizard and Hotmail co-founder, Sabeer Bhatia, for a better internet campaign for the April-May West Bengal assembly polls. Bhatia, who will guide the party's cyber team, said, "The Leaders will be able to communicate with people through the internet."
Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee's son Abhijit Mukherjee on Monday quit his job from Steel Authority of India Limited to join politics and contest the upcoming West Bengal assembly elections.
A woman was molested by miscreants in the presence of her father who was beaten up near the main market in Suri, Birbhum district headquarters town on Monday which led to street protests, police sources said.
Praful Patel, Vice-President of the World Bank, visited Pakistan on a 3 day tour. He said the economic picture of Pakistan is not good and the country should carry out necessary reforms to avert an economic crisis. There has been robust growth over the past few years and there has been a significant reduction in poverty. However, the growth can only continue if Pakistan adjusts itself to the new global reality including high prices of oil, commodities & foodstuffs like wheat.
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