1. Visva-Bharati Teachers Explore Legal Help For Bangladeshi Girl
A section of Visva-Bharati teachers and students has pledged legal and moral support to a Bangladeshi girl who was asked by the Centre to leave India for “anti-government activities” after she had posted on Facebook pictures of protests against the CAA at the varsity.
The foreigners’ regional registration office of the Union home ministry had on Wednesday served a notice on Afsara Anika Meem, a first-year undergraduate student at the central varsity’s Kala Bhavan, asking her to leave India within 15 days.
The girl from Kustia in Bangladesh had come to India in late 2018 to pursue her Bachelor of Design degree at the department of fine arts.
(Source: The Telegraph)
2. Bengal Says No to ‘One Nation, One Ration Card’
Ahead of the 1 June rollout of the Centre’s ambitious ‘One Nation, One Ration Card’ scheme, Bengal on Thursday cited “differences of opinion” to stress that it will not implement the scheme in the state. Under the scheme, beneficiaries can buy subsidised foodgrain from ration shops in any part of the country.
Rolled out in June 2019, the ONORC scheme involves 12 states — Haryana, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Tripura, Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Goa, Karnataka, and Kerala. Union minister for consumer affairs, food and public distribution Ram Vilas Paswan had earlier indicated a 1 June time-frame to implement ONORC across the country.
(Source: The Times of India)
3. Bengal Gets Best-Ever Voter Sex Ratio Over ‘NRC Fears’
In Bengal, woman power seems to be driving voter awareness. The state’s final electoral rolls for 263 of its 294 assembly constituencies, published on Thursday, has thrown up its highest ever gender ratio: 956 women for every 1,000 men. Registration of new voters also witnessed a 1.5% rise from the draft voter rolls. Of these new voters, 55.6% are women.
Experts attribute the percentage spike to the ongoing debate over CAA-NPR-NRC. Not only has there been a rush to get identification papers, a larger number of eligible adults want to let their voice be heard by stepping out to vote.
Bengal has nearly always had a healthy — and gradually growing — voter gender ratio. It was 934 in 2016 and rose to 938 the following year (a rise of 0.4%), followed by 942 in 2018 (also a 0.4% rise). In 2019, the figure rose to 949 (a 0.7% rise), followed by a similar rise this year. At the same time, of the nearly 18 lakh new voters who have registered in the final list, 10 lakh are women.
(Source: The Times of India)
4. Migrant Workers From Murshidabad Rescued From Delhi
Delhi police have rescued 11 migrant workers from Murshidabad, who were stuck at a violence-torn locality in the national capital and they all have returned home on a Howrah-bound train.
The workers, who were forced to survive on a few packets of biscuits over three days in northeast Delhi, were rescued by a team of Delhi police after several interventions were made from various quarters, political and apolitical.
“We were rescued by police from our rented home around midnight on Wednesday. We were brought to the New Delhi railway station early in the morning. We boarded the Kalka Mail at around 7am. We finally feel safe again,” Kalam Sheikh, one of the workers, said over the phone from the train on Thursday evening.
(Source: The Telegraph)
5. New Cracks Surface in Bowbazar Homes, KMRC Allays Concerns
As tunnelling for East-West Metro began under Bowbazar after a hiatus of 170 days, fresh cracks appeared in some houses on Thursday, claimed residents. Engineers of Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC), the implementing agency of the project, visited the affected houses and promised to repair the cracks and ensure no damage was done afresh.
Though the tunnel boring machine has been moving slowly and digging less than 10m a day and implementing agency Kolkata Metro Rail Corporation (KMRC) has been taking all safety measures to avoid a repeat of the tunnelling disaster, some residents alleged the borer’s movement had already started taking a toll on their houses. TOI visited 11, Chaitan Sen Lane, where Aditya Dutta, who is appearing for this year’s ICSE, pointed at a hairline crack at the corner of his study. “The crack wasn’t here earlier. We noticed it four or five days ago,” he said. His father, Sukalyan Dutta, sounded anxious: “As you can see, our house is well maintained. The interiors are painted every September because we have Durga Puja in the house. The cracks you saw upstairs are new.”
(Source: The Times of India)
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