1. Mamata Banerjee Revives Opposition Unity Bid
Trinamool Congress chief and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee renewed opposition unity moves on Tuesday as she met party leaders across the opposition spectrum in Parliament House and said she would like to meet Congress leader Sonia Gandhi before leaving for Kolkata.
“I sent Dinesh da (Trivedi) to the Congress office but she had left by then. But I will speak to her before I leave if there is an opportunity as she is not keeping well,” Banerjee said. It was later learned that Banerjee will meet Sonia on Wednesday evening.
Asked about Rahul Gandhi, she said, “I am also in touch with him on text messages sometimes.”
After backing Congress MP Abhishek Manu Singhvi’s Rajya Sabha election from West Bengal last week, Banerjee’s message seemed clear that all opposition parties “including Congress” should do business together to defeat BJP.
(Source: The Times of India)
2. Parents’ Protest Against Fee Hike Puts Brakes on Park Street Traffic
Traffic movement in Park Street was disrupted on Tuesday morning when around 200 guardians demonstrated – twice for 10 minutes each – outside Assembly of God Church School protesting the 31 percent fee hike, which the institution justified as a once-in-three-year effort for the school’s overall development.
The state government, the school education boards and even the Church have been insisting on several infrastructural upgrades in schools to preempt rising complaints of sexual abuse within school compounds.
Guardians alleged the school authorities had hiked the fees by around 34 percent along with a 35 percent hike under “development fees” section. “The school can’t increase the fee by such a high margin without any prior intimation. We met the principal and asked to review the fee structure. We will have another meeting with the school on Thursday,” said the father of a Class II student. The guardians of both junior and senior sections gathered outside the school around 11:30 am on Tuesday and demanded to meet the principal after the new fee structure was published last week.
(Source: The Times of India)
3. 6-Day Week for University, College Teachers?
College and university teachers may have to forgo their three day offs a week and conform to the state’s push for a six-day scheme, as applicable to remaining state employees.
Higher education minister Partha Chatterjee has, however, left it to the state universities to enforce the six-day week regimen for teachers.
Vice-chancellors present at the West Bengal Higher Education Council meeting on Tuesday pointed to the huge leave provisions that have come in the way of introducing choice based-credit-system (CBCS) in state institutions. As of now, teachers in most colleges and departments at state universities stick to a five-day week routine, with no classes on Saturdays and Sundays. They also enjoy another unofficial day off as preparatory leave that adds up to three offs a week.
(Source: The Times of India)
4. Kolkata Clubs Eye Bar Shutdown to Beat Excise Fee Blues
The city’s premier heritage clubs are evaluating the feasibility of running multiple bars on their premises following the hefty sum they have had to pay this year with the 10-fold hike in excise licence fee.
Bengal Club, one of the oldest and most prestigious clubs, has decided to shut down six of its 10 bars. “We have already informed the excise department of our decision to close down six bars. Had we continued with 10 bars, our fee payment would have gone up from Rs 3.2 lakh last year to Rs 23 lakh. With only four bars now being retained, the fee will be Rs 13 lakh,” a Bengal Club official told TOI.
This isn’t the only club toying with the idea of closing down a bar or two. Sources in the club circuit said Tollygunge Club, which has 14 bars, is also taking a hard look at the revenue earned from each bar so that a decision can be taken by the management about the “worst performers”.
(Source: The Times of India)
5. Study Blocks Esplanade Flyover
Two stretches of road notorious for high traffic density and multiple choke points might have to live with snarls after engineering consultancy RITES found flyovers unfeasible at both places because of impediments that include a Metro tunnel.
A flyover from MG Road to New Market over Central Avenue would have helped motorists skip at least five traffic signals that on an average consume up to 20 minutes, not counting the time lost in snarls that often appear out of nowhere.
But RITES has informed the state government that its workaround of building a nearly 3-km-long flyover across Central Avenue would not work because of the Metro tunnel underneath and the presence of high rises along either side of the road.
A second flyover proposal for the stretch from Haldiram's on VIP Road to Gate No. 1 on Jessore Road is not feasible with the road width available near the intersection, the report points out.
(Source: The Telegraph)
6. Pumps Yet to Restart
The pumping station at the Garden Reach water treatment plant that shut down on Saturday after a pump burst open could not be restored even on Tuesday. Normal operation is expected to resume on Thursday, civic engineers said.
Mayor Sovan Chatterjee had said on Monday that the motors of three pumps had been sent for repair and the pumping station was likely to be back in action on Tuesday.
"We would be able to start the affected pumping station on Wednesday or Thursday," Chatterjee said on Tuesday evening.
The engineer said Thursday seemed a more realistic option as once the motors are back at the plant, they would have to be connected with the two other pumps at the station.
(Source: The Telegraph)
7. Taekwondo Teen Hands Tease Lesson
A 17-year-old trained in taekwondo unleashed her blue belt fury on three boys who teased her on a Sainthia street until they fell at her feet pleading "you are like my sister".
The girl, a Higher Secondary examinee, handed the boys over to police after the Monday evening thrashing and requested all girls to learn martial arts for self-defence.
Witnesses in Chatripara, the area where the incident occurred, said the boys often teased girls. Two of them are minors.
The taekwondo girl shared details of the episode with Metro.
"On Monday evening, around 500 m from my home, I found three boys (two of them are minors and appeared for Madhyamik this year and the third is a college student) pointing at me. They then started teasing me.
(Source: The Telegraph)
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