Didi will skip the meeting in protest against the violence unleashed in Bengal allegedly by Left Front and Congress workers during a trade union strike. She slammed the 'double standards' of the Congress and the Left.
West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee Thursday came down heavily on the Centre for alleged "politically motivated" questions asked at the CAPF (central armed police force) recruitment examination and said it proved that BJP has politicised the central forces to serve its political interests.
Justice Jay Sengupta directed that the probe will be monitored by it and the SIT will file a progress report of the investigation on February 12, the next date of hearing in the case.
The Bharatiya Janata Party dubbed the arrest as scripted and claimed he was in the safe custody of West Bengal Police.
Ms Banerjee's triumphal declaration of having attracted investments worth Rs 2.43 lakh crore at the summit, are numbers that no one but she and the enigmatic state finance minister Amit Mitra believe, points out Kanika Datta.
Over one crore voters are eligible to exercise their franchise to decide the political fate of 342 candidates.
Violence had rocked West Bengal's rural polls on Saturday, leaving 15 people dead while ballot boxes were vandalised, ballot papers torched, and bombs thrown at rivals in several places.
Terming the situation in violence-hit districts of Assam as 'deplorable', West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday said the state will provide shelter to refugees fleeing trouble-torn areas.
Speaking in the assembly, Banerjee, in an apparent reference to BJP president J P Nadda's recent remark on violence and corruption in Bengal, asserted that her state happens to have a better law and order situation than other parts of the country.
Trade between India and Bangladesh via land ports came to a standstill on Sunday as there was no movement of cargo trucks to and fro due to the ongoing student protests in the neighbouring country, officials said. The Bangladeshi side of the Petrapole landport remained non-functional, they said. Nearly one-third of land-based trade between India and Bangladesh takes place through Petrapole.
There are challenges galore before him, and it is not going to be easy. In the next four years, he has to conjure a system that changes the optics about him and the BJP both nationally and internationally so that he can ride back on his own, claim the top slot, and not have to lean on a coalition, asserts Ramesh Menon as Modi 3.0 completes a year in power.
According to the apex court, the disclaimer should say that 'there is no authenticated data to back up the suggestion on figure of conversion and the film represents the fictionalised version'.
The Calcutta high court on Thursday directed the West Bengal government to take all possible steps to ensure that no violence takes place during any protest over the controversial remarks made against Prophet Muhammad by now-sacked Bharatiya Janata Party spokesperson Nupur Sharma.
Raju Mahali and Geeta Mahali, who had hosted Amit Shah on April 25 during his visit to the area, on Wednesday joined the TMC in the presence of senior TMC leader and tourism minister Gautam Deb.
Night patrolling on hospital premises and regulating access for people to key areas are among the measures the Centre has asked states to implement to ensure the safety of medics at workplaces, following Supreme Court orders in the rape-murder case of a junior doctor in Kolkata.
Shah said BJP worker's family had complained that his body had been taken away forcibly.
Congress president Sonia Gandhi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and Nationalist Congress Party chief Sharad Pawar condemned the violence at the Jawaharlal Nehru University and said that it was a "disturbing and fascist strike" by the Bharatiya Janata Party.
Maoists in West Bengal have apparently been shifting base from their strongholds in Lalgarh and Belpahari in the last two months, with killings and violence increasingly taking place in Jhargram subdivision, 40 km away in restive West Midnapore district. Police sources attribute this to the strong security presence in Belpahari and Lalgarh.There are seven camps of the joint security forces in Lalgarh and nine in Belpahari while there are only three camps in Jhargram.
A group of locals set fire to Kaliaganj police station in West Bengal's Uttar Dinajpur district on Tuesday to protest against the death of a teenage girl whose body was found in a canal last week.
One was nabbed from the West Bengal-Jharkhand boundary in Birbhum, one from Rampurhat and the third from Malda district on Tuesday night, a police officer said.
Union ministers and opposition parties' leaders have condemned the assault on students and teachers of Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University.
'For the politics of patronage in West Bengal, it has always been important to have territorial control.'
Many individual states experienced higher inflation than the all-India figures during the financial year 2023-24 (FY24). Retail inflation figures in Telangana, Haryana, Rajasthan and Dadra and Nagar Haveli have been higher than national numbers every month of this financial year, shows a Business Standard analysis of state-wise figures, after the March inflation data was released on Friday. Experts noted that persistent high food inflation along with differences in the weights of rural and urban indices plays into the regional variation in inflation rates.
He said though the Bharatiya Janata Party wants to expand its influence in the Trinamool Congress-ruled state, its goal is to rid West Bengal of the 'environment of terror'. "Bengal is the only state in the entire country where the culture of political violence is flourishing," he told the BJP's virtual 'Jan Samvad' rally.
Internet connections remained suspended even as prohibitory order under CrPC Section 144 was still in place in and around the area where several shops and residences were vandalised during the clashes, he said.
The political war of words over Manipur intensified on Saturday with the BJP raising the incidents of atrocities against women in West Bengal and Rajasthan and questioning the 'silence' of the opposition, which termed it as a diversionary tactic to avoid debate on the situation in the north-eastern state.
The incident took place amid midnight protests by women against the horrific rape-murder of the doctor at the hospital.
When the BJP forms government in Bengal, the chief minister will be a son of the soil, he said at the rally amid loud cheers from his supporters.
With this phase, election will be over in 424 seats and polling in the remaining 118 seats will be held on May 12 and 19.
Six persons, including a woman, were killed and 18 were injured in violence and CRPF firing in the fourth phase of the West Bengal panchayat elections on Monday. Polling in four districts saw a voter turnout of 25 per cent.
The ministry also said it has asked the states and UTs to maintain law and order, peace and public tranquillity.
The government on Saturday said a committee will be formed to propose safety measures for healthcare professionals even as OPD services were hit across the country as doctors joined the 24-hour nationwide strike called by the Indian Medical Association (IMA) to protest the alleged rape and murder of a trainee medic in Kolkata.
The Supreme Court of India expressed deep concern over the rising drug abuse problem in the country, highlighting the impact on youth and the need for urgent intervention. The court emphasized the need for rehabilitation rather than demonization of drug users and called for open discussions to address the issue. The judgment came while granting bail to a man accused in a heroin smuggling case. The court cited a 2019 report that indicated a significant number of people in India use opioids, cannabis, and other substances, with alarming trends in opioid dependence.
Protesting against the attack on a Congress Legislature Party team in West Bengal, party activists clashed with the police in Kolkata and other towns across the state, leaving one person dead and several injured. Five Congress workers were injured in fresh violence in Mangolkot where a CLP team, led by Manas Bhunia, was attacked on Wednesday allegedly by supporters of the ruling Left Front. During the clash, Zia-Ur-Rahman Mullick, 40, died of a heart attack.
His comments come against the backdrop of a campaign by Opposition parties, including the Trinamool Congress, which has claimed that applying for CAA would turn legal citizens into foreigners.
BJP leaders in the state are either lying low or criticising the CAA move in hushed tones. Chandra Kumar Bose, vice-president of the BJP's state unit, is most vocal with his opposition to the Act in the current form. "The country is above petty party politics. How can I keep quiet when I see that something is happening which is wrong in its current form?" Other party leaders aren't as vocal as Bose but clandestinely have been questioning the merit of the CAA and its impact on the BJP's prospects in the state. In fact, at a time when the BJP started making deep inroads in the state, the fear of the CAA and the NRC appears to be ruining its prospects.
The Supreme Court has restrained the West Bengal Police from executing an arrest warrant issued by a Darjeeling court against radio jockey Janardhan Nitin Brady, whose comments on Indian Idol Prashant Tamang sparked large-scale violence in Siliguri.
Trinamool Congress on Wednesday called for a 12-hour general strike in West Bengal on March 16 in protest against alleged police atrocities in Nandigram.
The Trinamool Congress on Wednesday blamed the Communist Party of India-Marxist for the violence at Bamunghata in South 24 Parganas district with a party minister saying that the Marxist party would not have existed had not the TMC given a call for change.
