AIMIM supremo Asaduddin Owaisi on Sunday arrived at Futura Sharif in Bengal's Hooghly district and held discussions on the state's political scenario and upcoming assembly polls with prominent Muslim leader Abbas Siddiqui, sources in his party said.
Metro Railway is likely to do away with e-passes from mid-January, when the contract with the developer of the technology behind the e-pass ends. The colour-coded e-passes, generated from a URL and booked in advance to access the north-south line, were key to controlling crowd when Metro resumed services after a 176-day Covid-induced lockdown on September 14.
Hostels and paying guest accommodations across Kolkata, which thrived on thousands of students from the districts and neighbouring states enrolling in city colleges and coaching institutes before the pandemic, are witnessing huge losses and many are even contemplating shutting business.
This year, the inauguration of the Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF) will move from Netaji Indoor Stadium to Nabanna Sabhaghar. On January 8, chief minister Mamata Banerjee will inaugurate the festival in the presence of all the committee members in charge of organizing the 26th edition of KIFF. Though attempts are being made to get outstation celebrities to join the inauguration virtually, there hasn’t been any confirmation so far.
One more flyer who returned to Bengal recently from overseas has tested positive for Covid-19. This takes the number of Covid patients under the scanner for possibly carrying the UK strain to three. Till now, the strain of the novel coronavirus has been found in only one returnee, who travelled from the UK. But there is concern over KMC’s inability to trace 20 people who arrived by the same flight as the one with the new, more infectious strain. Also, seven others have left their addresses in Kolkata and gone somewhere else.
A higher discharge rate and fewer Covid deaths in the second half of 2020 have raised the city’s hopes. Kolkata’s active cases, now nearly at a six-month low, is at 2.1% of the 1.2 lakh cases the city has reported since March 17. The discharge rate has also scaled the 95% mark, but Covid fatalities remain at 2.3%.
The state education department has asked schools to be prepared to open at short notice, at least for senior school students, particularly those appearing for Class-X and Class-XII board examinations. Though a final decision will be taken only at the state secretariat, the department has asked schools to prepare for such an eventuality.
A 69-year-old retired government employee, Subhomoy Banerjee, died after allegedly being pushed by his 31-year-old son, who is reportedly mentally unstable, on the concrete passage of their Jadavpur home in January 1.
The act of pulling his mask down to scratch his face landed a thief in police net.
West Bengal's Covid-19 tally mounted to 5,54,079 on Saturday as 863 more people tested positive for the infection, while 28 fresh fatalities pushed the state's coronavirus death toll to 9,766, a health bulletin said.
A man was killed allegedly for refusing to pay extortion money to miscreants in West Bengal's Jalpaiguri district, police said on Saturday.
New Town will get a Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose theme park that is scheduled to be inaugurated on January 23 to commemorate Netaji’s 125th birth anniversary.
