West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer Manoj Agarwal on Saturday requested the Election Commission of India to extend the final date of hearing under SIR of electoral rolls by seven days, after several district election officers reported delays in completion ...
7 February 2026 TelegraphThe civic body has issued notices to 17 rooftop bars and restaurants for violating a standard operating procedure (SOP) that mandates at least half of the terrace of each establishment remain open and free of structures. The SOP, published in ...
7 February 2026 TelegraphSocial media influencer Shamik Adhikary, accused of confining a 22-year-old woman at his Behala apartment for over 12 hours and allegedly raping her, was remanded to 10 days of police custody after his production at the Alipore court on ...
7 February 2026 TelegraphThe office of Naba Durga Puja Committee in Garia, one of the popular pujas in south Calcutta, was allegedly vandalised, robbed, and its members beaten up by a gang on Friday morning. Club members blamed a developer for the attack, ...
7 February 2026 TelegraphEden Gardens has been decked up for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup, with West Indies set to take on minnows Scotland on Saturday, the opening day of the tournament at the venue. The first match of the competition ...
7 February 2026 TelegraphA booth-level officer (BLO) died in Murshidabad district on Friday, with her family alleging that relentless work pressure related to the special intensive revision (SIR) of the voter list led to her death. Maya Mukherjee, 58, a resident of Shripur ...
7 February 2026 TelegraphCPM state secretary Md Salim on Friday accused chief minister Mamata Banerjee of trying to “hijack” a petition filed by a party worker in the Supreme Court over the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of the electoral roll. “The chief ...
7 February 2026 TelegraphLeaders of the BJP and the Trinamool Congress on Friday engaged in a war of words inside and outside the Assembly over the vote-on-account tabled by the Mamata Banerjee government. While the BJP sought to portray the vote-on-account as an ...
7 February 2026 TelegraphSikkim was jolted 33 times in a span of 13 hours since 1am on Friday, and even though the magnitude of the quakes was 4.5 and less on the Richter scale, experts warned that the tremors were a grim ...
7 February 2026 TelegraphThe Siliguri Mahakuma Krira Parishad (SMKP), the subdivisional sports body of Siliguri, will organise the Kiran Chandra Night Football Tournament at the Kanchenjungha Stadium here from February 8, marking the return of the prestigious event after a 10-year gap. Mayor ...
7 February 2026 TelegraphSiliguri mayor Gautam Deb on Friday called the proposed Varanasi-Siliguri high-speed rail corridor a “political gimmick” of the BJP and questioned the project’s viability in the absence of key details in the Union budget. Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman had ...
7 February 2026 TelegraphMobile forensic laboratories will be operational in all eight districts of north Bengal soon, ensuring swift collection of samples from crime scenes and their timely examination. Highly advanced vehicles equipped with forensic labs have already reached the eight districts, officials ...
7 February 2026 TelegraphPeople visiting the mini zoo at Rasikbil in Cooch Behar may soon see a wide range of animals, such as the Bengal tiger, Himalayan black bear, wild dog (dhole), anaconda, Bengal fox and pangolin. The state forest department has drawn ...
7 February 2026 TelegraphA tube in his mouth, fear on his mind. A 25-year-old male nurse who tested positive for the Nipah virus said that despite irritation in the throat and uncertainty about what lay ahead, he had faith in his doctors and ...
5 February 2026 TelegraphThe tunnel ventilation system of the underground stretch of the north-south corridor (Blue Line), Calcutta’s oldest and most popular Metro link, is being overhauled. Fifteen underground stations between Belgachia and Rabindra Sarobar will be part of the facelift. A majority ...
5 February 2026 TelegraphA standardised “sarkari chhap” building that looks like the letter L with a humongous bottom line and an undernourished top has come up at 85 AJC Bose Road in the Moulali area. The building has a glass spine that divides ...
5 February 2026 TelegraphCalcutta University has decided to defer the third-semester examinations at the undergraduate level as the syllabus could not be completed, said vice-chancellor Ashutosh Ghosh. The examinations were scheduled to commence on February 23. “We have decided to defer the exam as ...
5 February 2026 TelegraphBengal BJP leaders on Wednesday dismissed chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s three-day-long legal and political offensive in New Delhi against the special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls as a failed bid to derail the process and warned that any ...
5 February 2026 TelegraphThe Mamata Banerjee government has started reaching out to people across Bengal by distributing its booklet — “Unnayaner Panchali (development report card)" — from ration shops before the Assembly polls. From Tuesday, the state food and supplies department began distributing ...
5 February 2026 TelegraphThe orange cultivators in the Darjeeling hills should be provided with clean, disease-free planting material to revive production of the famed Darjeeling Mandarin Orange, say agricultural experts. The Darjeeling Mandarin Orange has recently received the Geographical Indication (GI) tag, which ...
5 February 2026 TelegraphMamata Banerjee won unlikely admirers on Wednesday when she became the first serving chief minister to argue in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, alleging that Bengal was being "targeted" and its people were being "bulldozed" by the special intensive ...
5 February 2026 TelegraphMamata Banerjee on Wednesday became the first serving chief minister in the country to argue a petition in the Supreme Court. Then Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal had last year argued his own bail application before a sessions court in ...
5 February 2026 TelegraphChief minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday herself argued her case against the Election Commission in the Supreme Court, accusing the poll panel and the BJP of targeting Bengal and “bulldozing” its citizens through the SIR drive. Appearing as petitioner-in-person to ...
5 February 2026 TelegraphMultiple roads across Calcutta, dug open for infrastructure projects, remain unrestored, raising concerns that Madhyamik candidates could encounter snarls, dust and uneven stretches on their way to exam centres. The Class X board examinations began on Monday and will continue ...
4 February 2026 TelegraphA new washroom block has been built at the Calcutta airport for passengers arriving on flights and entering the terminal via aerobridges. The facility became operational on Monday, officials said. Previously, arrival passengers using aerobridges had no washrooms on the ...
4 February 2026 TelegraphThe Supreme Court on Tuesday adjourned to February 10 the hearing on the Enforcement Directorate’s plea accusing the West Bengal government, including Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, of obstructing searches linked to an alleged coal pilferage scam. A bench of Justices ...
3 February 2026 TelegraphThe Congress on Tuesday stepped up its attack on the Modi government over the India-US trade deal, demanding that the Centre place the details of both the US and European Union agreements before Parliament and allow a full discussion ...
3 February 2026 TelegraphA dispute between two groups at Kankulia, close to Golpark, on Sunday night resulted in shots being fired in a residential community, leaving at least one person wounded. Ten people were arrested during a night-long raid. Sources have reported that ...
3 February 2026 TelegraphThe academic council of the Indian Statistical Institute said in a resolution adopted at a special meeting on January 20 that it “was not consulted as a stakeholder during the drafting of the ISI Bill, 2025”. The resolution stated that ...
3 February 2026 TelegraphA project to upgrade a road in Kalimpong has been stopped by the contractor after the Gorkhaland Territorial Administration (GTA) allegedly failed to make payments against submitted bills, raising questions on the fund flow from the Bengal government to ...
3 February 2026 TelegraphThe Union budget presented by finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in Parliament on Sunday left a bitter taste in the brew belt of north Bengal. Many tea planters said there was nothing for the tea industry whereas other cash crops found ...
2 February 2026 TelegraphBoys can cook, girls can play kabaddi. In the Sundarbans delta, where social prejudice often hardens into tradition, a programme initiated by a Calcutta-based social organisation is challenging deeply rooted notions of what boys and girls are “meant” to do, ...
2 February 2026 TelegraphThe absence of a special package for Bengal in Sunday’s Union budget has caused major embarrassment for the state BJP ahead of the Assembly elections, with the party fielding its leaders to defend the allocations and argue that Bengal ...
2 February 2026 TelegraphAmit Mitra, the principal chief adviser to chief minister Mamata Banerjee, on Sunday termed the Union budget as anti-farmer, anti-youth and anti-weaker sections and asked who the budget was presented for as there was nothing for the middle-class too. “I ...
2 February 2026 TelegraphChief minister Mamata Banerjee has moved the Supreme Court against the Election Commission of India and the Bengal chief electoral officer over the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls in the poll-bound state. Sources said the petition was ...
2 February 2026 TelegraphImport duty on drugs for seven more rare diseases would be abolished, Union finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman said in her budget speech on Saturday, paving the way for easier availability of the prohibitively expensive medicines. Historically, patients or their families ...
2 February 2026 TelegraphThe Union Budget's promise of an easier income-tax return process and the prospect of cheaper foreign tours got a thumbs up from many. Several others, however, alleged that the budget lacked concrete measures to tackle unemployment and alleviate the distress ...
2 February 2026 TelegraphFire and emergency services officials who were engaged in the search operation at the warehouse fire site in Anandapur off EM Bypass were withdrawn on Sunday. The search operation is over, sources said. “We have withdrawn our men from the spot. ...
2 February 2026 TelegraphMadhyamik, the state’s Class X board examination, will start on Monday and will continue until February 12. Around 9.71 lakh students will appear in the exams to be held from 10.45am to 2pm. Candidates must enter the exam venues by 10am. The ...
2 February 2026 TelegraphBaruipur police constituted a special investigation team (SIT) on Saturday to probe the cause of the fire that engulfed two warehouses on Nazirabad Road, off EM Bypass near Anandapur, early on Republic Day morning, and to identify those responsible ...
1 February 2026 TelegraphA Trinamool Congress councillor on Saturday protested at an SIR hearing centre in Bhowanipore after officials failed to provide receipts to voters submitting documents, despite a Supreme Court directive mandating the practice. Ashim Bose, councillor of Ward 70 of the ...
1 February 2026 TelegraphUnion home minister Amit Shah on Saturday renewed his attack on chief minister Mamata Banerjee and the Trinamool Congress over their alleged non-cooperation in stopping infiltration along the Bangladesh border, linking the issue to nationalism and internal security. Citing a ...
1 February 2026 TelegraphThe leader of the Opposition, Suvendu Adhikari, on Friday demanded the resignation of Bengal fire services minister Sujit Bose and the arrest of the owner of the momo factory, who had allegedly accompanied chief minister Mamata Banerjee on one ...
1 February 2026 TelegraphHumayun Kabir, the suspended Trinamool Congress MLA from Bharatpur and the leader of the Janata Unnayan Party, on Saturday claimed he had to deliver provocative speeches before the 2024 Lok Sabha polls “on chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s instructions”. Addressing a ...
1 February 2026 TelegraphAbhishek Banerjee, the Trinamool Congress national general secretary, on Saturday dismissed Union home minister Amit Shah's claim of securing over 50 per cent vote share, saying it was only meant to motivate BJP workers. “Amit Shah claimed his party would ...
1 February 2026 TelegraphThe city’s new police commissioner, Supratim Sarkar, took charge on Saturday and asked officers to return to “traditional policing”. On his first day in office, Sarkar urged the force to increase “visibility” and “mobility”. He also had a word of advice ...
1 February 2026 TelegraphA non-profit publisher dedicated to children’s literature, founded by the doyen of political cartooning in India, has launched a campaign to wean children away from the mobile screen. The countrywide campaign aims to highlight the importance of cultivating reading habits ...
1 February 2026 TelegraphStakeholders of the tea industry have flagged a dip in auction prices of tea in 2025 while underscoring the need for financial sustenance of tea estates in north Bengal. “The average auction prices have dropped in 2025, as compared to ...
1 February 2026 TelegraphThe most crucial piece in the AI puzzle is not the right data but the right context behind it, an expert told a Calcutta audience. “If you think about doing things in real time, you have to capture context. That ...
30 January 2026 TelegraphSteps to recover salaries paid to “tainted” teaching and non-teaching staff appointed through a “vitiated” recruitment process were initiated after a case was filed in the Supreme Court alleging non-compliance with its order, sources in the education department said. The ...
30 January 2026 TelegraphThe archives of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation have records documenting a critical phase in India’s pre-Independence history, and they should be available to common people, a Trinamool councillor proposed at the civic body’s council meeting on Thursday. Arup Chakraborty, the ...
30 January 2026 TelegraphThe classic Bengali bhadralok must embrace “the other” to survive, a Bengali bhadralok said at the Calcutta book fair on Thursday. Women, Muslims, backward classes, Dalits and tribals must be welcomed by the bhadralok, insisted Alapan Bandyopadhyay, chairman of the ...
30 January 2026 TelegraphThe school service commission (SSC) has published a detailed list specifying the reasons for the termination of teaching and non-teaching employees identified as “tainted” in government-aided schools. The list, uploaded late on Wednesday, explains how many of the 1,806 tainted ...
30 January 2026 TelegraphWater supply will be disrupted across large parts of south Calcutta on Saturday as the Garden Reach waterworks will be shut from 9.30am to carry out repairs in the supply network. Apart from south Calcutta and Garden Reach, areas including ...
30 January 2026 TelegraphWork to dismantle the mangled iron structures of the two warehouses, where a fire killed more than a dozen employees on Monday morning, began on Thursday. Police recovered body parts and sent them for post-mortem examination, bringing the total number ...
30 January 2026 TelegraphBengal director-general of police Rajeev Kumar, one of the most talked-about officers in recent years, said in his farewell address on Thursday that “courage and conscience” were the most important qualities for a police officer. Kumar, a 1989-batch IPS officer, ...
30 January 2026 TelegraphJalpaiguri: Workers of the closed Ambari tea estate in the Banarhat block of Jalpaiguri staged a protest on Thursday by setting fire to a copy of the tripartite agreement signed with the garden management, demanding that a fresh contract ...
30 January 2026 TelegraphNew BJP national president Nitin Nabin, on a visit to poll-bound Bengal, chanted "Jai Bangal" and claimed that Rabindranath Tagore had won the Nobel for peace while addressing party workers in Durgapur on Wednesday, prompting the Trinamool Congress to ...
30 January 2026 TelegraphThe Election Commission has appointed 25 Bengal bureaucrats, including the home secretary and the police commissioners of Howrah and Asansol-Durgapur, as central observers for Assembly elections in three states and a Union Territory “without consulting” the state government. The bureaucrats ...
30 January 2026 TelegraphUnion home minister Amit Shah will address select BJP workers from five organisational districts in north Bengal behind closed doors in Siliguri on Saturday. Darjeeling MP Raju Bista said on Thursday that BJP workers from Siliguri (organisational district), Darjeeling, Jalpaiguri, ...
30 January 2026 TelegraphThe Bengal government sent a letter to the Election Commission on Thursday requesting that it spare nine officers, including the home secretary, who were appointed as central observers for Assembly polls in four states. The government has proposed the names ...
30 January 2026 TelegraphShravan Kumar Kahar, a 48-year-old booth-level officer, died on Thursday here allegedly by suicide because he could not handle the workload of the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) of electoral rolls. Kahar's body was found floating in the Teesta river ...
30 January 2026 TelegraphBare scaffolding and silent construction sites are fast becoming a common sight in parts of Darjeeling hills, as the ongoing special intensive revision (SIR) process has slowed down the construction industry by drawing workers and contractors into electoral hearings. In ...
30 January 2026 TelegraphA 10-member team from Cooch Behar, comprising family members of those who died allegedly due to the “SIR panic”, those marked dead in the draft electoral roll and two Trinamool Congress leaders, reached Delhi on Thursday. They are likely to ...
30 January 2026 TelegraphBengal CPM secretary Md Salim met Humayun Kabir, who had recently launched the Janata Unnayan Party and started the initiative to construct a Babri Masjid in Murdishabad district, without the knowledge of the Left party's state secretariat, on Wednesday ...
30 January 2026 TelegraphA Trinamool Congress (TMC) delegation led by party chief and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee is scheduled to meet Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Gyanesh Kumar in New Delhi on Monday evening. Election Commission officials said CEC Kumar has agreed ...
29 January 2026 TelegraphMamata Banerjee on Wednesday broke her silence over the Anandapur fire, which claimed many lives, saying that she had sent her ministers to the ground and ensured a civic volunteer job for one member of each bereaved family, along ...
29 January 2026 TelegraphNobel laureate economist Abhijit Banerjee has described the recently concluded India–EU free trade agreement (FTA) as “a strategic alignment” that sends a signal to Washington amid the high tariffs imposed by the Donald Trump administration that “we don't need ...
29 January 2026 TelegraphThe air quality was marginally better on Monday than it was on Sunday. An environmental scientist said reduced volume of vehicles on the road and closed construction sites may have helped. It was, however, still far from what is desired. At 3pm ...
27 January 2026 TelegraphThe city feasted on books for much of Monday. The lawns of Alipore Jail Museum, the venue for the Exide Kolkata Literary Meet, partnered by The Telegraph, were brimming with people. The 400-odd seats arranged by the organisers were occupied ...
27 January 2026 TelegraphThe BJP on Monday alleged that supporters of the ruling Trinamool Congress attempted to set fire to a puja pandal housing an idol of ‘Bharat Mata’ in the Khardah Assembly constituency on the northern outskirts of Kolkata. Union minister Sukanta ...
27 January 2026 TelegraphThe Election Commission of India on Saturday night uploaded a list of around 30 lakh voters categorised as “unmapped voters”, whose records could not be linked with the last special intensive revision (SIR) conducted in 2002. It also uploaded another ...
27 January 2026 TelegraphRajya Sabha member Harsh Vardhan Shringla has unveiled a vision document, which he hopes would transform Siliguri from a mere transit corridor into a national hub for growth, connectivity and innovation. Titled ‘Vibrant Siliguri – Vision 2047’, the vision document ...
27 January 2026 TelegraphIn a major step to protect Jalpaiguri from floods and waterlogging, the state irrigation department has invited tenders to dredge the Karala river which flows through the town "at no cost". According to official sources, dredging will be carried out ...
27 January 2026 TelegraphThe railways have finally decided to serve non-vegetarian food on the newly started Howrah-Guwahati (Kamakhya) Vande Bharat Sleeper Express following persuasion from the Bengal BJP. The sleeper service, inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 17, had triggered controversy ...
27 January 2026 TelegraphRaju Bista, the BJP MP of Darjeeling, has alleged that the Darjeeling district administration is delaying the release of funds for two jobs for which he had made allocations out of his MPLAD fund. In a social media post on ...
27 January 2026 TelegraphThe BJP’s leader of the Opposition in the Bengal Assembly, Suvendu Adhikari, on Sunday said Nobel laureate-economist Amartya Sen — often critical of the saffron regime and recently of the special intensive revision (SIR) in poll-bound Bengal — need ...
27 January 2026 TelegraphThe Oberoi Grand has written to the Kolkata Municipal Corporation and Kolkata Police, seeking their help in moving hawkers out of the Grand arcade so that repair work on the arcade’s columns can begin. A lawyer representing the hotel, who ...
26 January 2026 TelegraphThe Alipurduar district Trinamool Congress leadership has stepped up its attack on the BJP as the Assembly election approaches, accusing the saffron party of making tall promises every election without delivering on key development projects. Prakash Chik Baraik, president of ...
26 January 2026 Telegraph“Hattimatim tim Tara mathe pare dim Tader khara duto shing Tara Hattimatim tim” (Hattimatim tim They lay eggs on the field They have two straight horns They are Hattimatim tim) A chhora most Bengalis grew up reciting is having a moment on Instagram, thanks to a reel ...
25 January 2026 TelegraphThe Election Commission has pulled up district election officers (DEOs) for failing to upload documents related to voters whose hearings had already been completed, reminding them that further delay would deprive ineligible voters of the opportunities to appeal before ...
25 January 2026 Telegraph“All of India is in Kolkata anyway.” That was how Jhumpa Lahiri described the City of Joy during a session on her novel Roman Stories at Kolkata Literary Meet on January 22 — a brief remark that suddenly popped up ...
25 January 2026 TelegraphFilmmakers Sudhir Mishra, Nandita Das and Chaitanya Tamhane on Saturday reflected on the long-running tension between art and commerce, Indian cinema’s engagement with world cinema, and the forces that shape what films get made and travel globally, at a ...
25 January 2026 TelegraphActor-director Nandita Das, on Saturday, said India’s fast-growing convenience economy is built on “deeply unequal” structures that expose gig workers to risk, insecurity and loss of dignity, even as consumers are increasingly pampered by app-based platforms. Speaking at the Kolkata ...
25 January 2026 TelegraphClimate change cannot be reduced to carbon numbers or recycling habits, but represents a fundamental transformation of life on Earth, writers Barbara Kingsolver and Amitav Ghosh said at the Kolkata Literary Meet on Sunday. In conversation with writer and editor ...
25 January 2026 TelegraphFilmmaker Sudhir Mishra on Saturday said Ritwik Ghatak cannot be boxed into categories such as “art cinema” or “parallel cinema”, asserting that the late auteur’s work continues to shape Indian filmmaking through its uncompromising cinematic language and deep engagement ...
25 January 2026 TelegraphThe Election Commission failed to meet the January 24 deadline to display the list of voters with logical discrepancies at the gram panchayat, block, subdivision and civic ward offices, prompting the Trinamool Congress and other parties opposed to the ...
25 January 2026 TelegraphThe management of Raja tea estate in Jalpaiguri’s Malbazar subdivision announced suspension of work in the garden on Friday evening, citing non-cooperation by a section of workers and paucity of funds. The decision has left 921 workers jobless. A source said ...
25 January 2026 TelegraphLeaders of Gorkha parties and the BJP on Saturday called on Pankaj Kumar Singh, the retired IPS officer appointed by the Centre as the interlocutor to look into the issues of the Darjeeling hills, the Dooars and the Terai. Bimal ...
25 January 2026 TelegraphThe CPM said on Saturday that industries had died and corruption had taken deep roots under the Trinamool Congress regime in Bengal, and the BJP was busy dividing the nation on communal lines. Minakshi Mukherjee, a state committee member of ...
25 January 2026 TelegraphA slice of Kolkata’s cultural history resurfaced recently when Trincas shared a reel showing that the legendary Park Street restaurant appeared in Satyajit Ray’s 1980 short film Pikoo. Shot for French television channel France 3, the film unexpectedly preserves rare ...
25 January 2026 TelegraphMetro Railway has introduced, on an “experimental basis”, a provision to buy return tickets at the time of booking an onward journey. It means a commuter travelling back and forth between two stations can now buy a single QR-coded paper ...
25 January 2026 TelegraphPolice on Saturday issued a public advisory on its X handle asking mobile users not to download files received from unknown numbers “on WhatsApp or other messaging platforms”. The advisory was issued within hours of Kolkata Police arresting a group ...
25 January 2026 TelegraphSubhas Chandra Bose’s unwavering commitment to secularism and inclusiveness came to the fore repeatedly at the celebrations marking his 129th birth anniversary at Netaji Bhavan on Friday. Bose had deep admiration for the ideology of his political guru, Deshbandhu Chittaranjan ...
25 January 2026 TelegraphNetaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s daughter, Anita Bose Pfaff, has said that she wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi “at least twice or thrice” seeking his support to bring back her father’s ashes to India, but received neither a reply ...
25 January 2026 TelegraphA blue Skoda Octavia rammed into guardrails placed on Red Road to restrict traffic for rehearsals for the Republic Day parade early on Saturday, police said. The accident was reported at 7.35am, barely half an hour before the rehearsals were ...
25 January 2026 TelegraphThe ISI Calcutta representatives on the ISI council have opposed a proposed Bill seeking to overhaul the institute’s governance structure, while representatives from some other ISI centres support the changes. The council, ISI’s highest administrative decision-making body, met on Saturday ...
25 January 2026 TelegraphThe Council for the Indian School Certificate Examinations (CISCE) has introduced a new subject, entrepreneurship, at the ISC level from exam year 2028. In a circular issued to principals on Friday, the CISCE said changes had been made to regulations ...
25 January 2026 TelegraphPulitzer Prize-winning Bengali-American author Jhumpa Lahiri returned to Calcutta’s favourite literature festival after 12 years, championing the short story form. “Two things make the short form really magical and unique. One is that it pays attention to every word and ...
23 January 2026 TelegraphThousands who felt cheated after failing to get a glimpse of football great Lionel Messi at the Salt Lake Stadium on December 13 are still awaiting a refund for their tickets, one and a half months on. Bidhannagar police had ...
23 January 2026 Telegraph