1. Somnath Chatterjee Passes Away
Former Lok Sabha speaker Somnath Chatterjee passed away on Monday, 13 August at a Kolkata hospital. He was 89 years old.
He passed away at 8:15 am, reported IANS.
“He made our Parliamentary democracy richer and was a strong voice for the well-being of the poor and vulnerable,” Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in a tweet offering condolences to Chatterjee’s family.
President Ram Nath Kovind, Congress President Rahul Gandhi and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal were among the thousands who poured out their condolences, in response to the news of Chatterjee’s passing.
Chatterjee’s condition had deteriorated after he suffered a heart attack on Sunday, 12 August.
(Read the full story here)
2. TMC Sends Legal Notice to Amit Shah
Trinamool Youth Congress president Abhishek Banerjee, nephew of West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, on Monday sent a legal notice to BJP president Amit Shah alleging defamatory statements against him at a public rally on 11 August.
The legal notice demanding an apology from Shah for allegedly making defamatory statements against Abhishek Banerjee, a Lok Sabha MP, was sent to the state BJP headquarters here, his lawyer Sanjay Basu said.
Basu asked Shah to "issue an unconditional apology in an appropriate press conference within 72 hours from receipt of the instant notice retracting the virulent and mala-fide statements made against my client."
The notice to Shah said, "In the course of your speech you had made various allegations against my client by making a flimsy and thinly veiled reference and/or insinuation to the "bhatija" (nephew) of the Hon'ble Chief Minister of the State of West Bengal.
"Since, it is well known that my client is the nephew of CM Mamata Banerjee and is actively involved in politics, the contents of your speech left little to the imagination of my client's well-wishers that you were referring to my client."
The lawyer claimed that the "false statements" against his client has caused grave loss and prejudice to his client's reputation among his well-wishers and the citizens of India.
(Source: PTI)
3. Contract Killers Held for Planning to Murder Trader
The West Bengal CID on Monday arrested three persons from the industrial town of Durgapur in West Burdwan district when they assembled to murder a businessman there, a senior officer said.
Acting on a tip-off, CID sleuths picked up "most wanted contract killers" Rabi Chowrasia Ajit Singh and Jitendra Kumar during a raid at Durgapur's Uttarpally.
Two pipe guns, one pistol, seven rounds of 8mm cartridge, two rounds of 7.65 mm cartridge and 280g of heroin were seized from their possession, the officer said.
"Rabi Chowrasia brought the two others to kidnap and murder one businessman of Durgapur after he was hired by a criminal in Jamshedpur who is now absconding," he said.
Preliminary interrogation revealed that the trio had planned to flee to Balasore in Odisha after the crime.
(Source: PTI)
4. Presi Teachers' Offer to Protesting Students
Teachers at Presidency University have offered to monitor the renovation of Eden Hindu Hostel with students to try and end a sit-in by them protesting the delay in repairs.
Thirty-six teachers from various departments handed a statement outlining their proposal to the agitating students on Monday evening.
The overture came a week after Presidency vice-chancellor Anuradha Lohia had stood in front of the protesters, owning up to her "only mistake" – failure to complete the renovation of Hindu Hostel in more than three years.
(Source: The Telegraph)
5. Probe into TMC Leader Murder
Police on Monday, 13 August, took the prime suspect in the murder of Trinamul leader Sudhir Das to the factory in Madhyamgram, in North 24-Parganas, where his body was found to try and reconstruct the sequence of events leading to the killing.
"Surojit Patra described how he hit Das on his head with an iron rod before dragging the body and throwing it into a septic tank," an officer of Madhyamgram police station said.
He said he plotted Das's murder after he had seen him stealing iron rods from the factory premises.
Das, in his mid-50s, was president of the Trinamul Congress committee of ward 1 of Madhyamgram Municipality and worked as a guard at the factory.
(Source: The Telegraph)
6. Infosys to Go Ahead with City Project Worth Rs 1 Bn
Infosys has finally decided to go ahead with its plan to set up operations in Kolkata without the proposed centre getting the SEZ status, a key demand which has made the IT services major delay the project for quite some time.
The Bengaluru-based IT major on Monday, 13 August, announced the commencement of work for building a software development centre with an initial investment of Rs 1 billion without any kind of tax sops from the state government.
The West Bengal government had allotted 50 acres of land in Rajarhat township near Kolkata to Infosys in 2010. Despite paying Rs 750 million to acquire the land, Infosys didn't start construction for the project due to differences over taxation issues.
(Source: Business Standard)
7. Govt Land to Be Freed of Illegal Occupants
The urban development department, Bidhannagar Municipal Corporation and the Salt Lake police are drawing up a list of encroachers on vacant government plots in the township.
More than 50 plots are lying vacant in all three sectors of Salt Lake and most of them have been taken over by encroachers who have set up nurseries, motor repair garages and shanties, an official of the urban development department said.
Notices will be handed out to the encroachers, asking them to vacate, the official said.
(Source: The Telegraph)
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