West Bengal

The pressure of local politics has prompted the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha to demand that tea garden workers should be given rights to the entire land under their possession.

The Bengal Safari Park has come up with an offer for animal lovers to adopt its animals and birds - for an annual fee.

Protests erupted against the forest department at two places in the Dooars on Saturday, one denouncing a move to open the jungles to visitors during the monsoon and the other accusing the officials of not doing enough to rein a rampaging elephant.

It all begins when we see the sweeper at a local beauty parlour stuffing a blue plastic bag with hair. What is it for? Wigs, he replies. How much does it sell for? As much as Rs 5,000 for a kilo, he answers absent-mindedly. "But not all hair can be sold; only those bits measuring a minimum of six inches. There are other parameters as well," he continues. And who would buy all this? This time, he visibly stiffens. "I don't know" are the words that come out of his mouth, but his expression says something else. After much prodding, all that he reveals is this - there are some men who do rounds of the neighbourhood parlours once or twice a week, they are the ones who buy the wasted hair. He has no idea who they are or who they work for, but one thing he can say for sure - women's hair is used to weave wigs and men's hair goes towards making headpieces for mannequins.

Veteran actor Soumitra Chatterjee on Friday criticised demonetisation for having thrown up a "lot of practical problems", doing so when BJP national secretary Rahul Sinha visited him at home to seek support for Narendra Modi's re-election.

The Centre has ordered completion of two key international highways in north Bengal by the end of this year, hoping to showcase the projects ahead of next year's general election.

Subham Agarwal, a young environmental activist, has started a campaign against single-use plastic in Sikkim by providing biodegradable alternatives and spreading awareness about the harmful effects of plastic pollution on the environment.

Classes will start at the new Alipurduar University this year on temporary basis on the premises of Alipurduar College, local Trinamul MLA Sourav Chakraborty said here on Friday.

The Southwest Monsoon has arrived in north Bengal and Sikkim, with most areas reporting showers in the 24 hours till Friday evening.

A "mentally challenged" youth "roaming aimlessly" was lynched on suspicion of being a child-lifter in a Malda village rife with rumours of such abductors, days after two sightseers were killed by a mob over similar fears in Assam.