West Bengal

Muslim villagers in Murshidabad's Samserganj have raised money to rebuild the houses of six Hindu families gutted in a fire, after an appeal for assistance to an Id congregation at a local mosque.

Trinamul tea union leaders have accused the BJP of "double-speak" on tea wages by opposing interim wage hikes in Bengal while pushing it in Assam.

Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) president Mann Ghisingh on Sunday told cadres to start a campaign to secure Sixth Schedule status for the hills.

The first batch of pilgrims bound for Kailash Mansarovar in Tibet left here on Saturday for the Nathu-la border on way to the Himalayan peak considered holy by Hindus, Jains and Buddhists.

A bus carrying a group of tribals on their way to a meeting fell into a trench on a state highway near Chitka forest in the Lalgarh area, resulting in the death of seven and serious injuries to at least 40 others.

Mamata Banerjee virtually sounded the poll bugle for 2019 on Saturday, urging a gathering of around 2 lakh after Id prayers on Red Road to defeat "those" that seek to spread hatred, divisiveness and violence and disintegrate India.

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.