1. Rain Check On Crackers
Weather turned out to be the strictest referee in Salt Lake on Thursday and the cops did not mind.
The environment department of the state government had banned lighting of fireworks around the Salt Lake stadium during the FIFA U- 17 World Cup. The order did not specify any radius around the stadium. But state pollution control board officials had earlier clarified that any point within 5km of the stadium would fall in the prohibited zone.
The rain and clouds meant fewer fireworks burnt.
Fireworks lit up the sky over Salt Lake on Wednesday night. In comparison, Thursday night was darker.
Source: The Telegraph
2. Lapses Delay Firefight
Fire drills were allegedly never conducted.
The hosepipes did not have water. The sprinklers allegedly did not work. The path around the building had a tin shed that blocked the passage of fire tenders.
A long list of alleged lapses in basic fire- safety arrangements came to the fore as firefighters tried to battle the flames leaping out of Jeevan Sudha building on Thursday morning.
" We could not start our work immediately after reaching the spot because none of the bowsers worked," the leader of a team of firefighters told Metro . "We had to draw water from the underground reservoir by connecting the pipes and manually carrying them to the seat of the fire on the 16th floor. That took time." Members of Calcutta police's Disaster Management Group who reached the building minutes after the fire tenders said water did not initially come out of the pipes because of inadequate pressure.
(Source: The Telegraph)
3. Drug-Resistant Malaria Adds To City Dengue Sting
As the city battles a fresh outbreak of dengue, treatment of malaria has been hit by a growing resistance to chloroquine, the primary drug against the vector-borne disease.
Doctors across hospitals and clinics are worried by the inefficacy of the medicine that would treat malaria in 4-5 days till a few years ago. Around 40% of malaria patients in the city don't respond to chloroquine any more, say experts. The artemisinin group of drugs – administered both orally and through the intravenous route – is being used more frequently as an alternative.
(Source: The Times Of India)
4. Roshan Giri's House Ransacked, Documents Stolen
Miscreants broke open the door lock of absconding Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) general secretary Roshan Giri's house in the Chandmari area late on Wednesday night, ransacked the house and fled with Giri's computer and some incriminating documents.
It all happened when Giri's mother Deepa, the only family member living in that house, had gone to her neighbour's place to spend the night there.
The development has sprung a surprise among Darjeeling residents, because Giri's house came under police scanner hours within a Darjeeling court issued proclamation orders against Morcha president Bimal Gurung and five others including the party general secretary on Wednesday.
The development comes close on the heels of the attacks on Gurung loyalists' houses at the GJM strongman's own turf at Patlebas a few days ago.
(Source: The Times Of India)
5. Bid To Scuttle Mukul's BJP Entry
A section of the Bengal BJP is trying to throw a spanner in Mukul Roy's bid to join the party even after the proposal has got a go-ahead from party president Amit Shah.
A senior BJP leader from Bengal has put to use a portion of Namrata Dutta's rape complaint against expelled CPM MP Ritabrata Banerjee in which she alleged that a woman close to Mukul Roy had threatened her. Sources close to the BJP leader said that the party will examine the veracity of the complaint before taking Roy in the saffron camp. However, others in the BJP maintain that this could delay Roy's entry for a few days, but can't queer his pitch. A host of state BJP functionaries, including party state president Dilip Ghosh, have been meeting the former Trinamool leader since Sunday .
(Source: The Times Of India)
6. 85-year-old Thrashed By Robbers At Jorasanko Flat
An 85-year-old woman was attacked inside her residence by unidentified assailants and robbed of gold and jewellery in the heart of central Kolkata on Wednesday afternoon. The victim, identified as Hira Gauri Parekh, was busy inside her kitchen around 3:30pm when she was hit on her head from behind and knocked unconscious twice before being looted.
The incident took place at a second floor flat located on Tara Chand Dutta Street in Jorasanko that was bursting with Diwali crowd at that time. This is the fourth incident in as many months when a senior citizen who, was alone at her residence, was attacked, injured and robbed of valuables.
(Source: The Times Of India)
7. Police Lodge Rape Complaint After MP Prod
Trinamool Congress' Balurghat MP Arpita Ghosh on Wednesday came to the aid of a Kumargram housewife who was allegedly duped and raped with the lure of a government job.
The survivor, who had blamed two persons for her plight, had allegedly been turned away by the Women Cell of the Balurghat police station on 16 October. She then knocked on the MP's doors. An anguished Arpita intervened on her behalf, not only helping her to get her complaint lodged but prodding police to probe the charges she brought.
According to the FIR, the young housewife of Kumargram police station's Gopalganj village met Amar Das and Avijit Sarkar in Balurghat. While Das is a hotel owner, Sarkar works in Balurghat Hospital.They promised the housewife a hospital job. According to the FIR, the woman gave Sarkar Rs 45,000. Instead of receiving her appointment letter, she was invited in Das's hotel on various pretexts. She was allegedly raped there by the duo several times. “Even some of their friends raped me but I could not protest as I badly needed the job,” she said.
(Source: The Times Of India)
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