1. Chhath At Calcutta Lake Despite NGT Order
Thousands of devotees performed Chhath Puja at Rabindra Sarobar on Tuesday with the administration seemingly an ally in the mass-scale violation of an order by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) prohibiting any such activity in the sprawling lake.
A police team stood at the main entrance but didn’t stop anyone walking in with a basket of offerings to make as part of Chhath rituals. Even noisy firecrackers being burst by some revellers couldn’t break their reverie.
The arrangements along the bank of the lake, including halogen lamps to illuminate the area after dusk and ladders every few metres to make stepping into the water easier, suggested that the beeline of devotees wasn’t exactly unanticipated.
(Source: The Telegraph)
2. Why Bengal Rasogolla Makers Won’t Use GI Tag
Bengal will be commemorating the first anniversary of winning the GI (geographical indication) tag for Banglar Rasogolla with a bitter truth distracting from the sweetness of victory.
Not one sweetmeat producer out of one lakh-odd registered establishments in the state has yet applied to the food processing and horticulture development department for permission to use the GI tag on a product.
A senior official of the department said most manufacturers wanted to flaunt their brands as Banglar Rasogolla but were unwilling to adhere to the specifications and benchmarks for GI tagging.
(Source: The Telegraph)
3. Whistle Extracted From Child’s Lung
An eight-year-old girl who had part of a whistle stuck in her right lung for 12 days underwent surgery at Calcutta Medical College and Hospital on Tuesday to remove the 2cm long object that doctors say might have eventually caused respiratory failure.
Rima Khatoon from Tarapur village in Nadia district had mistakenly swallowed a portion of the whistle that came loose while she was playing with it at home. “There would be a whistling sound whenever she took a deep breath. Rima was so scared that she hardly ate anything the past few days. She has become very thin,” said the girl’s aunt, Shahnara Khatoon.
(Source: The Telegraph)
4. Bengal Safari Tiger To Raise Count At Zoo
Atiger from Bengal Safari near Siliguri will be brought to Alipore zoo in December to help increase the big cat count.
Alipore zoo has four male and three female tigers. But the males are more than 12 years old and their vitality is on the wane, a zoo official said.
Snehasish, the four-year-old male to be brought from the North Bengal Wild Animal Park (Bengal Safari), is not unfamiliar with Alipore zoo.
(Source: The Telegraph)
5. Cable-Stayed Bridge At Majerhat Gets Govt Nod
The state government has given its nod to a cable-stayed Majerhat bridge and sanctioned an additional Rs 21 crore scaling up the project cost to Rs 200 crore. The final design, however, will require a clearance by the ministry of railways for a part of this sanctioned plan has an inbuilt component of road overbridge.
A high-powered committee headed by chief secretary Malay De has given its “in-principle nod” to the new design, the feasibility report for which is expected before year-end. The earlier proposal of a bow-string bridge was estimated to be around Rs 179 crore. PWD engineers, however, fear that the project cost might escalate and even touch Rs 250 crore once the details are finalised and work on the ground begins. S P Singhla Constructions Private Limited has already been awarded the contract, a source said.
(Source: The Times Of India)
6. Abandoned Widow Finds Shelter After CM Intervention
The 60-year-old widow, Sapna Chatterjee, whom police rescued from Howrah station on Monday morning, was sent to a home run by the state social welfare department at Pancharul in Howrah’s Udaynarayanpur on Tuesday. Sources said the initiative was taken on the chief minister’s intervention.
Sapna, the widow of a bank employee, was found in a semi-conscious state near Howrah station’s Gate No. 1 on Monday morning by a GRP team. She told them that she had been abandoned by her middle-aged unemployed son below the Howrah station clock tower about 10 days ago. On Tuesday, police sources said a case was registered against Sapna’s son and daughter-in-law after the widow lodged a complaint accusing them of neglecting her. On Monday, Sapna had told police that her son had promised to take her back from the station once he got a job.
(Source: The Times Of India)
7. Dhauli Express Coach Derails Near Panskura
A wheel of a chair car coach of the 12821 Howrah-Puri Dhauli Express derailed between the Bhogpur and Panskura stations on Tuesday morning, causing severe inconvenience to passengers.
Though nobody was injured, the train was delayed by nearly six hours. South Eastern Railway (SER) accommodated some passengers on trains like the Falaknuma Express, but others waited for a new coach to be attached.
“The train was on the middle line between the Bhogpur and Panskura stations, about 67km from Howrah when the accident occurred around 7.10am. An accident relief train was dispatched with senior officers. It took some time for the train to be hauled to Panskura,” SER CPRO Sanjoy Ghosh said.
(Source: The Times Of India)
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