Holi was celebrated with pomp and splendor across India on Friday, with people soaking in the festivities by smearing 'gulaal' on each other and exchanging greetings and sweets. Homes and streets wore a colourful look as the revellers splashed colours and feasted on traditional delicacies. Public transport did not ply in the morning in most major cities while metro services started functioning from noon. As Holi coincided with the second Friday prayers during the holy Islamic month of Ramzan, security -- including increased patrolling and picketing -- was beefed up in several states. In Delhi, more than 25,000 security personnel were deployed. Police closely monitored about 300 sensitive areas with CCTV cameras and drones.
Union Home Secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla may have a video conference with West Bengal's Chief Secretary Alapan Bandyopadhyay and Director General of Police Virendra on Friday evening after they conveyed their inability to travel to the national capital, officials said.
Local women with sticks and brooms in their hands took out processions in different areas of Sandeshkhali as the protests intensified on the second day on Friday.
He was administered the oath of office and secrecy by Patna High Court Chief Justice J N Bhat, in a ceremony at the Raj Bhavan.
INS Vindhyagiri was launched by President Droupadi Murmu, the Supreme Commander of India's armed forces, in Kolkata on Thursday, August 17, 2023.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday urged people to celebrate the Hanuman Jayanti festival peacefully, and said while religion is a personal choice, festivities were an occasion for all to join in.
Communist Party of India-Marxist patriarch Jyoti Basu on Friday said West Bengal Governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi's action of self-imposed power cuts at the Raj Bhavan was not in consonance with the dignity of the post and that he was 'acting like a child'. He said that it was an act against the state government, adding that he should have consolted with the state's power minister on the matter.
Calling the political condition prevailing in West Bengal "horrible and frightening", Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar alleged on Tuesday that the people of the state do not have the freedom to exercise their franchise fearlessly.
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.
Banerjee, who was seated in front beside the driver, was injured after her head hit the windscreen, he said.
The message from Sunday's event will undoubtedly reverberate globally. It's a landmark occasion that will be remembered for generations and will inspire many other states to introduce the story of Rajendra Chola into school curricula, says Tarun Vijay.
The hard-hitting statement came a day after Gandhi indicted the state government and CPI-M, saying the manner in which the recapture of villages in Nandigram was being attempted was totally "unlawful and unacceptable".
On the 83rd anniversary of the Quit India movement, Utkarsh Mishra recalls the conditions under which the Congress, led by Mahatma Gandhi, launched the final struggle for independence.
Internet services remained suspended as police urged people to maintain calm and not fall for rumours.
A voter turnout of over 40 per cent was recorded till 1 pm on Monday in the fourth phase of Lok Sabha elections in 96 constituencies spread over 10 states and Union Territories amid incidents of violence in Andhra Pradesh and reports of poll boycott in some villages of Uttar Pradesh.
Alleging that there had been politicisation and criminalisation of government officers in the state, the BJP leader, who was on a two-day visit, said the TMC government had stopped sending crime statistics to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) after 2018.
She is the 21st chief minister of West Bengal and 8th person to hold the office.
The impact of the explosion "was so massive" that the factory, which was being run from a residential building, collapsed, the police said.
Questioning the team's authority headed by a former Patna high court judge, Banerjee pointed out that Ram Navami processions organised by the Bharatiya Janata Party had carried arms and driven tractors and deliberately taken routes where 'Namaz' was being offered.
Shah, who was accompanied by BJP national vice-president Mukul Roy, national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargya, was greeted with slogans of 'Amit Shah zindabad', 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' by party workers at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport in Kolkata.
Leader of the Opposition in West Bengal assembly, Suvendu Adhikari of the Bharatiya Janata Party, on Monday claimed that he was not invited to President Droupadi Murmu's civic reception on Monday evening.
Four new governors -- three of whom are Bharatiya Janata Party leaders including Tathagata Roy for Tripura and Draupadi Murmu for Jharkhand - have been appointed by President Pranab Mukherjee.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday reviewed the post-cyclone situation and damages caused by Cyclone Yaas in the state at a meeting in Bhubaneswar where Odisha government demanded long term solutions to mitigate problems of repeated cyclones and provision of disaster resilient power systems.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee will visit Chennai on November 2 and is likely to hold a meeting with her Tamil Nadu counterpart M K Stalin to discuss their strategies for the 2024 Lok Sabha poll, a senior government official said on Tuesday.
Temples across Uttar Pradesh were packed with devotees on Sunday for Ram Navami, with Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath leading prayers at the Gorakhnath Temple. Heavy crowds were witnessed at temples in Lucknow, Gorakhpur, and Varanasi, where security was heightened. In Gorakhpur, Adityanath performed the traditional kanya pujan ritual, while in Varanasi, a 51-foot statue of Lord Ram has become a major attraction. The festival was celebrated with enthusiastic fervor across the state.
BJP and RSS leaders are once again pushing to remove the words 'secular' and 'socialist' from the Constitution's Preamble, showing a deeper effort to change India's identity from a diverse, multi-religious republic to a Hindu-first nation, even though they don't have the numbers in Parliament to officially change the Constitution, observes N Sathiya Moorthy.
With the Opposition seeking to put up a united fight in the presidential poll, some leaders have reached out to former West Bengal governor Gopalkrishna Gandhi as a possible choice, sources said on Tuesday.
Uttrakhand Governor Aziz Qureshi, who had taken the Modi government to Supreme Court for alleged attempts to ease him out of office, was on Tuesday shifted to Mizoram.
Modi reviewed the situation in West Bengal and Odisha with chief ministers Mamata Banerjee and Naveen Patnaik, two days after the cyclone, the worst in years, devastated their states.
A 10-member delegation of Trinamool Congress (TMC) had announced the dharna after meeting a full bench of the Election Commission (EC) to press their demand.
West Bengal governor M K Narayanan said in Melbourne on Thursday that there has been no increase in political crimes in the state.
Senior leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Congress were stopped by police on Friday from visiting the trouble-torn Sandeshkhali, escalating the political tensions in the state as the leaders accused West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee of fostering a 'lawless situation' and attempting to 'communalise' the issue.
The division bench said it deemed it appropriate to stay the special court's order and direct that the "accused person shall be treated to be in judicial custody till further orders".
Kolkata experienced a unique and powerful display of civic solidarity when residents turned off their lights for an hour from 9 pm on Wednesday and came down to the streets with burning candles to protest the murder of the doctor at RG Kar hospital and to express support for the deceased doctor's family.
The Bharatiya Janata Party, however, said the governor is acting within his constitutional parameters while the "TMC is scared".
The TMC released a video, in which a man, claimed to be a BJP mandal president in Sandeshkhali, was heard saying that leader of the opposition in the West Bengal assembly "Suvendu Adhikari is behind the whole conspiracy".
An air of gloom hangs in the Bogtui village post-arson as most villagers have moved out from their homes and several others are making moves.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, who rushed to the district late on Sunday night, assured the people of all help from the administration.
The Governor invited the 'attention' of Chief Minister Banerjee to the preamble of the Indian Constitution.
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.
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