West Bengal

Villagers in Bhangar have decided to intensify their movement against a proposed power project while demanding the release of protest spearhead and CPI (ML) Red Star leader Aleek Chakrabarty.

The state forest department has decided to set up a training centre for mahouts and its pet elephants in north Bengal.

The Siliguri-Jalpaiguri Development Authority (SJDA) will remove from two prominent Siliguri markets encroachers who it claims have not been evicted by the Left-run civic body despite occupying government land.

That day when we call up Sukhamay Satpati, Jhargram district president of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), we can barely hear him. It is a week after the announcement of the panchayat poll results in West Bengal. From the sound of it, the BJP party office, 170 kilometres west of Calcutta, is still in the throes of euphoria. Dhamsa, madal and cymbal can be heard in the background. Lusty chants of "Vande Mataram" and "Bharat Mata Ki Jai" drown Satpati's voice and he asks us to call back; he is in the "middle of a historic event".

One of the kanthas made by Mahamaya Sikdar shows a woman talking into a mobile phone. Yes, unmistakably so. From a distance it looks like just another pretty pattern woven in red, brown and black threads, but if you look carefully it depicts a variety of scenes from urban as well as rural life. Someone at the computer, someone else climbing a date palm tree, crooners nattily dressed.

In a certain land at the confluence of cultural and political boundaries, tethered by impenetrable mountains, snow and thin air, and overseen by gods, kings and able ministers, thrives the collective consciousness of an entire people. And in that fantastic repository, through centuries and gradients of progression, lives on a fantastic creature.

Around 1,500 people joined a march in Bhangar on Friday, declaring that they would not be cowed down by the arrest of CPI(ML) Red Star leader Aleek Chakrabarty and vowing to intensify their opposition to a proposed power substation in the area.

Police have unearthed and illegal firearm unit in Malda's Naldubi village and seized semi-finished firearms along with machines.

Thirty-six defunct BSNL landline connections at Visva-Bharati were reactivated recently in the wake of chancellor and Prime Minister Narendra Modi's visit.

The Election Commission has ordered a pre-revision "clean-up" of Bengal electoral rolls by August to ensure removal of absentee, shifted and deceased (ASD) voters, the initiative coming after BJP delegations met the panel and voiced concerns.