1. Hasina Seeks India’s Help in Sending Rohingyas Back to Myanmar
Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina chose the backdrop of the Visva-Bharati campus, established by a poet whose compositions are sung as National Anthems of India and Bangladesh, to seek India’s help in repatriating Rohingya refugees to Myanmar.
Over 11 lakh Rohingyas had taken refuge in her country, Hasina said at Friday’s inauguration of Bangladesh Bhavana in the presence of PM Narendra Modi and CM Mamata Banerjee.
“We could not have turned them away. We are a nation of 16 crore. Why could we not feed a few lakh more mouths? If need be, we will share our food. But we also want them to be expeditiously repatriated to Myanmar. We (Bangladesh and India) have to urge Myanmar to take its people back,” Hasina said.
(Source: The Times of India)
2. ‘Fan’ Breaches PM Modi Security Cover, Touches His Feet on Dais
A Nadia resident created a major scare, breaking through the elite Special Protection Group’s security cordon and going right up to PM Narendra Modi, India’s most heavily protected individual, just after the conclusion of the Visva-Bharati convocation on Friday, 25 May morning.
Swapan Marit, who came to Tagore’s campus from his Krishnanagar home about 120 km away, did not appear to have anything sinister on his mind: he touched Modi’s feet and presented the PM with a Tagore poster before he was apprehended and taken away by police.
(Source: The Times of India)
3. Mayor’s Wife Arrested After Night-Long Dharna
A 12-hour drama played out outside mayor Sovan Chatterjee’s new Southern Avenue address, where his estranged wife, Ratna Chatterjee, sat on a dharna for most of Thursday, 24 May night before being finally arrested by cops from the Rabindra Sarobar police station. The complaint was lodged by none other than the mayor himself, who cited “unlawful assembly” outside his residence to “cause harm to his life”.
The episode started to unfold a little after midnight on Thursday and finally, around 12.45pm on Friday, Ratna received bail from the police station. She has been charged with unlawful assembly, criminal intimidation and wrongful restraint.
Before that, with the mayor refusing to step out of his residence even as Ratna, along with their Class-IX daughter, spent most of the night on the pavement opposite the mayor’s home, the showdown was enough to keep the political circles and the common man agog.
(Source: The Times of India)
4. Strand Road May Get Metro Station
It is not on the plan of the East-West Metro but a station may come up on Strand Road, given the growing demand from residents and traders of Burrabazar and Posta.
Executive vice-chairman K Subrahmanian and managing director S Paramasivan of Afocons, the agency that has constructed the country’s first underwater tunnel for the East-West corridor, said it was a highly-doable proposal, provided Kolkata Port Trust (KoPT) parted with the land required for the purpose.
The gap between two stations generally depends on the passenger demand, and accordingly, the distance can be as little as 600m. Here, the distance between Howrah and Mahakaran stations are nearly 1.2km.
(Source: The Times of India)
5. CU Allots Funds for Workshop for B.Tech Students
Calcutta University has released funds for building a workshop for its B.Tech students on the Salt Lake campus, in the absence of which the seat count in the four-year course could not be increased this year.
"The construction of the workshop on the Salt Lake campus will start soon," vice-chancellor Sonali Chakravarti Banerjee said on Friday, 25 May.
"The university has got Rs 10 crore under Rashtriya Uchchattar Shiksha Abhiyan to develop its infrastructure. The money for building the workshop will come from the fund," the VC said.
The university had planned to increase the number of seats in the four-year B.Tech course from 165 to 210 in the 2018-19 academic year.
(Source: The Telegraph)
6. Mother, Daughter Trapped in Fire, Rescued
Two women who were sleeping were trapped for at least 15 minutes when their house at Gouranganagar on the fringes of New Town caught fire early on Friday, 25 May.
The fire started from a warehouse for signage adjacent to the house around 1am. The flames spread rapidly to two houses belonging to Nandkishore Saha and Swapan Halder.
Saha's wife, Sampurna, and their daughter were asleep and could not get out of the room as the wooden door had caught fire.
A police team from the Gobinda Nagar police outpost under New Town police station reached the spot. Constable Jayanta Pradhan and civic volunteers Narendra Nath Saha and Prabir Saha used a long iron rod to pry open an iron grille behind the door even as neigbours kept throwing buckets of water on the gate.
(Source: The Telegraph)
7. TMC Leader Stabbed to Death
A Trinamool Congress leader was stabbed to death in Hooghly district’s Dhaniakhali area, triggering violent protests by locals who set houses, vehicles and buses on fire Friday, 25 May.
Sources in the police said Mrityunjay Bera, who was the deputy panchayat pradhan of Gopinathpur block 2, was stabbed by some assailants near his home on Wednesday. He succumbed to his injuries at a hospital in Kolkata on Friday.
Following the death, a mob clashed with police and set houses, shops and vehicles ablaze to protest against the incident.
“The situation remained tense throughout the day in the area. Additional forces were called to contain the situation and four fire engines pressed into service,” said a police officer.
(Source: The Indian Express)
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