Kolkata: Mandatory insurance for all Bengali films and a model code of conduct for shooting units are set to be key measures of Tollywood’s proposed Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), following the death of actor Rahul Banerjee during a serial shoot in Talsari on March 29.Representatives of the Eastern India Motion Picture Association (EIMPA) and the…
Singur: As the morning mist settles over lush green patches of Hooghly, the rhythmic sound of tillers in Singur is punctuated by the loud, competing echoes of campaign microphones. As this historic semi-rural constituency — once at the centre of political upheaval in Bengal — heads to the polls, Singur remains a landscape defined by…
Kolkata: As the sun beat down, Munsi Rezaul Karim boarded a Khanakul-bound bus on Tuesday, armed with an appointment letter from EC, assigning him to Booth 140A at Basantapur Prathamik Vidyalaya as the third polling officer.What would have been a routine civic duty turned out to be a strange one this year. The EC may…
Kolkata: Several Indian citizens living in the city for generations had knocked on the door of the tribunal appellate authority when the SIR, conducted by the Election Commission, struck their names off the electoral roll. A judicial scrutiny later, when a number of them still found their names missing from the inclusion list issued on…
Kolkata: Lucky electors, whose appeals for restoration of their voting rights were cleared by the tribunals, felt they had a “much bigger responsibility” now as they could finally be able to vote despite the initial hurdles. In the previous elections, some of them had skipped voting but this time, they said, they would definitely vote…
Kolkata/Kharagpur: “I am dying, my body will be in the room. I’ve left the security number. Call them to take my body from the room.” A fourth-year IIT Kharagpur engineering student’s chilling message to his family, informing them of his death in the hostel room, led to the discovery of the 22-year-old’s hanging body. The…
Kolkata: Over 2.3 lakh CAPF, 38,297 Bengal police personnel, 142 general observers, 95 police observers and 100 expenditure observers, and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) have thrown an unprecedented security blanket in seven poll-bound districts, including Kolkata, ahead of Wednesday’s election. In the past 72 hours alone, 2,348 ‘trouble mongers’ have been put behind bars…
Kolkata: Central forces moved into residential complexes across the city on the eve of polling, taking charge of booths set up inside community halls — part of a first-time experiment that will see 57 gated complexes hosting polling stations this election.At Silver Spring off Bypass, a four-member contingent of central forces took control of booth…
Kolkata: Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) jawans led by a commandant knocked on the doors of Kolkata mayor Firhad Hakim well past Monday midnight to have an interaction with him relating to the second-phase poll scheduled on Wednesday. The unscheduled meet proved to be ‘uncomfortable’ for the first citizen as he kept on finding the…
Kolkata: After liquor, Election Commission has asked eateries that are within 100 metres of polling booth to stay closed. However, the 100-metre rule would vary from constituency to constituency. This has resulted in closure of more than 400 prominent eateries across the city on April 29 and, for some, both on April 28 and 29.According…
