1. TMC Sweeps Bengal Rural Polls, BJP a Surprise No 2
Trinamool Congress has gained an unprecedented stranglehold on Bengal's three-tier village administrative system, gaining 95% of zilla parishad seats, 90% of panchayat samiti seats and 73% of gram panchayat seats that went for polling and for which results were declared on Thursday night.
More than a third of the seats didn't see any contest and the Calcutta High Court stayed announcement of those results in a directive last week. If and when those results are announced, Trinamool's victory percentage may improve as most of the "walkover winners" are, according to officials, likely to be Trinamool candidates.
(Source: The Times Of India)
2. Bengal Panchayat Poll: Ex-TMC MLA Wins While in Police Custody
Ex-TMC MLA Arabul Islam, who was arrested on CM Mamata Banerjee's directive after the murder of an independent candidate at Bhangar of South 24-Parganas, has won the panchayat samiti seat while in police custody.
Police had arrested him and seized scores of bombs from his house. However, his son Hakimul, who is also a candidate, is absconding. Hakimul too has won panchayat election.
Bhangar has witnessed victory of some independent candidates who had opposed the land acquisition movement for setting up a power plant. Bhangar block has five seats.
However, there were allegations that the police had attacked the land movement supporters and had given Arabul supporters a free run.
Meanwhile, food processing minister Rezzak Mollah's son Mustak Bappa was leading by a margin of over 12,000 votes in the zilla parishad seat.
(Source: The Times Of India)
3. Counting Centre Stormed, Ballots Stamped
Armed men allegedly backed by Trinamool raided a counting centre at Majhdia on Thursday, forced out the polling officials and the agent of an Independent of a panchayat seat and stamped the ballots to nullify the votes cast in favour of him as a mob kept watch outside.
The incident - the first of its kind in recent memory across Bengal, according to officials and political leaders - has prompted the state election commission to suspend the counting of votes for the particular seat of Shibnibas gram panchayat.
The rigging took place in the presence of police and polling officials and sources said it had taken 30 minutes for them to react to the situation.
The sources said the mob had stormed the counting centre at Sudhir Chandra Lahiri College as Independent candidate Niladri Sukul was leading over his Trinamool rival Partha Ghosh.
(Source: The Telegraph)
4. Body-in-Fridge Case: Hospital to Release Suspect
Almost 40 days after leather technologist Subhabrata Majumdar (46) was sent to Pavlov on court orders, a local court on Wednesday has ordered his release from the mental hospital. He will now be staying in the Tollygunge area along with his cousin sister, Ruma Chakraborty.
The court, however, has asked for a Rs 50,000 bond before the release of Subhabrata.
“We have not been able to go to the court on Thursday. We are trying to go there as quickly as possible. Subhabrata’s father Gopal Chandra Majumdar (89) is still weak after his return from hospital so we have brought him to stay with us. We have to ensure his health improves when we bring Subhabrata home,” Chakraborty told TOI on Thursday.
(Source: The Times Of India)
5.‘Draft Clean Air Plan a Paper Tiger’: Clean Air Collective
The Clean Air Collective network comprising citizens’ groups, civil society organisations and farmers’ bodies have labelled the draft National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) a paper tiger without time-bound targets. On Thursday, the collective sent recommendations to the ministry of environment forests & climate change, including introduction of sectoral emission targets and interim milestones.
Greenpeace India campaigner Sunil Dahiya felt the first and foremost priority for the ministry should be to set time-bound emission targets to reduce air pollution. “NCAP is the ultimate framework to ensure compliance to their commitment towards tackling air pollution from the source. If the document does not have emission and sectoral targets, it makes NCAP not only redundant but pointless,” he said.
Ritwick Dutta of Legal Initiative For Forest & Environment (Life) accused the government of choking the 2015 emission standards for coal-based power plants.
(Source: The Times of India)
6. Police Verification for Passports Slowest in WB
Bengal is back in pole position among the laggards in police verification for passports despite help from technology.
According to the latest data, 46,967 passport applications are awaiting police verification in the state.
Compared to the national average of 10 to 15 days, police in Bengal take 41 days on an average to send a verification report against each application. Some states take more time to finish the verification process but none has as many pending applications as Bengal, a senior official in the ministry of external affairs said.
"Pendency depends on two factors — total volume of applications and the response time of the police," the official said.
(Source: The Telegraph)
7. Coolest May in 10 Years
The mercury has not touched the 35-degree mark for most days this month, making it the coolest May in a decade.
Every time the temperature has started climbing over the past fortnight, a thunderstorm has dragged it down.
The city is usually at its sweatiest in the first half of May with heatwaves, when the temperature crosses 40 degrees Celsius, recorded in at least four of the last 10 years.
The average maximum temperature in the first 16 days of the month is usually above 36 degrees Celsius, according to meteorological records.
But this year, the figure is 34.9 degrees Celsius as the temperature has stayed normal for this time of the year or below it on all days except 11 May, when it soared to 37.1 degrees Celsius.
(Source: The Telegraph)
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