PTI, KOLKATA, May 28, 2024 : The Bangladesh Police will be conducting DNA tests of the blood specimen found in a flat in New Town near here and match the results with that of one of the relatives of Bangladesh MP Anwarul Azim Anar to confirm that the politician was murdered, an officer said on Tuesday.
It is suspected that Anar, who has been missing for a fortnight, was killed in that flat and his body parts were thrown into a canal.
The DNA tests would be conducted as the last option in case the body parts of the Awami League MP could not be found, an officer of the Dhaka police visiting Kolkata as part of the investigation said.
“In case the body parts are not found, then we will conduct DNA tests on the blood samples and match the result with the DNA of one of Anar’s family members to establish the identity and start a case according to the law,” the officer said.
A three-member team of Dhaka Metropolitan Police’s Detective Branch is in the city to investigate the death of Anar. The team is being led by the Detective Branch chief Mohammad Harun-or-Rashid.
The Disaster Management Team of the Kolkata Police on Tuesday resumed search in the Bagjola canal adjacent to an amusement park near Rajarhat, an officer said.
Kolkata Police officers, however, said that finding the body parts would be a tough job due to heavy rainfall following Cyclone Remal on Monday.
“It’s been over a fortnight that the crime was carried out. The body parts were chopped into smaller parts and there was a high chance that those were eaten up by aquatic animals. The Bagjola Canal has dirty water and the body parts could be swept away by the flow,” the police officer said.
Divers were employed to spot the body parts as well as the murder tools from the canal, he added.
Assuming that blood was drained out from the bathroom of the flat, where the lawmaker of the Bangladeshi ruling party, was suspected of being murdered, a team of police officers were testing the drain pipes, he said.
The search for the missing MP, who reportedly arrived in Kolkata on May 12 to undergo medical treatment, began after Gopal Biswas, a resident of Baranagar in north Kolkata and an acquaintance of the Bangladeshi politician, filed a complaint with the local police on May 18.
Anar had stayed at Biswas’s house upon arrival.
In his complaint, Biswas stated that Anar left his Baranagar residence for a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon of May 13 and that he would be back home for dinner.
Biswas claimed that the Bangladesh MP went incommunicado on May 17, which prompted him to file a missing complaint a day later.
PTI, Kolkata, May 28, 2024 : Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee led roadshows in different part of Kolkata and its surrounding on Tuesday to garner support for their respective party candidates as the Lok Sabha elections approaches its final phase.
Prime Minister Modi led a vibrant roadshow from Shyambazar Five Point Crossing here on Tuesday.
The roadshow was in support of BJP candidate Tapas Roy, who switched to the saffron camp just months ahead of the elections. Before the event, Modi visited Maa Sarada’s residence at Bagbazar and paid homage to her. He also paid tribute to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose at his statue at Shyambazar Five Point Crossing.
Accompanying him were prominent West Bengal BJP leaders, including Sukanta Majumdar and Suvendu Adhikari.
The roadshow started around 7:10 pm. Modi stood atop a decorated vehicle, resplendent in saffron hues and adorned with flowers, images of the PM and BJP’s election symbol, the lotus.
As the convoy made its way through the bustling streets, the Prime Minister waved at the crowd, which gathered on both sides of the street. Women supporters, dressed in saffron saris, also participated in the colourful procession.
Chants of ‘Jai Shri Ram’ and ‘Phir Ek Baar Modi Sarkar’ reverberated in the air as the vehicle passed by, with many onlookers capturing the event on their mobile phones. On the other hand, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee held two road shows in support of Trinamool Congress candidates in Dum Dum and Kolkata, walking nearly nine kilometres in a day.
In the first road show, the TMC supremo walked from Birati Banik More to Airport gate number two on Jessore Road, a distance of nearly four kilometres, along with party leaders and workers.
The roadshow in Dum Dum Lok Sabha constituency was held in support of the TMC’s veteran leader and candidate Saugata Roy, who is seeking a fourth consecutive term from the seat.
Apart from Roy, TMC ministers Sujit Bose and Chandrima Bhattacharya accompanied Banerjee in the Dum Dum roadshow, while in south Kolkata, city mayor and minister Firhad Hakim walked along with her. In the second road show, Mamata walked nearly five kilometres from Entally Market to Ballygunge Phari in south Kolkata, treading a total of nearly nine kilometres in a single day.
This rally was in support of TMC’s Kolkata Dakshin candidate Mala Roy, who is seeking a second term from the constituency, and Kolkata Uttar candidate Sudip Bandyopadhyay, fighting for a straight third term from the seat.
The fate of all these BJP and TMC candidates will be decided on June 1, the closing day of the Lok Sabha elections.
Narendra Modi being handed a Trishul by Adityanath. Photo: X/@narendramodi
Prabhat Patnaik, Jacobin.com and The Wire,
27 May 2024 : As India’s leader, Narendra Modi has deepened the neoliberal framework in place since the early 1990s. The social crisis arising from that model drives Modi’s government to rely more and more on a dangerous, authoritarian discourse of social division.
The decade during which Narendra Modi has been the prime minister of India has witnessed a sharp increase in income and wealth inequality. According to the World Inequality Database, the share of the top 1 percent in national income, at 22.7 percent in 2023, is higher than at any time over the last century.
This increase in inequality has been accompanied by a rise in the ratio of the population facing absolute nutritional deprivation. India’s quinquennial surveys on consumer expenditure show a significant rise between 2011–12 and 2017–18 in the percentage of the population unable to access a minimum daily calorie norm per capita, which is 2,100 for urban and 2,200 for rural areas.
India is believed to be one of the fastest growing economies in the world, although growth rate figures are known to be highly exaggerated. However, it currently ranks 111 out of the 125 countries in the Global Hunger Index — a rank that has worsened over the last decade.
Neoliberal Continuity
Liberal opinion tends to put the entire blame for this extraordinary increase in inequality on the Modi government. It is certainly true that the government has pursued policies that palpably favor monopoly capitalists — especially some relatively new business houses that constitute Modi’s “cronies” — while unleashing a crisis for petty production, above all small-scale agriculture.
However, these policies are not the government’s own innovations. It has only carried forward the established neoliberal agenda faithfully and blindly. Blaming the Modi government alone, therefore, wrongly exonerates neoliberalism from the charge of impoverishing the working people.
In fact, the trends toward increasing levels of inequality and nutritional deprivation have been evident ever since the introduction of neoliberal policies in 1991. The share of the top 1 percent in national income, for instance, is estimated to have risen from 6 percent in 1982 to over 21 percent in 2014. Nutritional deprivation had increased quite substantially between the 1993–94 and the 2011–12 Consumer Expenditure Surveys.
Some measures are considered to be the specific follies of the Modi government, such as the sudden demonetization of nearly 87 percent (in terms of value) of the country’s currency notes in 2016 in the name of fighting “black money,” or the introduction of a Goods and Services Tax in 2017, in lieu of the earlier sales tax, which was supposed to facilitate “unifying the national market.”
Yet while the government has implemented these measures mindlessly, they are generally drawn from the tool kit of the international financial institutions. Moreover, Modi’s government has had the support of those institutions for such moves.
Neoliberal Crisis
The Modi government can be faulted for adhering doggedly to the neoliberal agenda even at a time when neoliberalism had run into a crisis and was generating massive unemployment. Nowhere was this more evident than in its enactment of three farm laws that would have eliminated the regime of support prices provided by the government for food grains.
Support for cash crops had been removed earlier, exposing farmers to wide fluctuations in world market prices, and thereby increasing their debt burden, which in turn has resulted in mass suicides among them. A remarkable year-long struggle by farmers forced Modi to backtrack on these laws, which if implemented would have destroyed the country’s self-sufficiency in food grain production (admittedly at low levels of consumption) and exposed it to even greater food insecurity.
An increase in economic inequality, both within countries and for the world as a whole, is an immanent tendency under neoliberalism. This is because the mobility across countries of capital-in-production that neoliberalism entails exposes real wages in all countries, including those in the Global North, to the downward drag exercised by the vast labor reserves of the Global South.
These reserves do not dwindle, despite the relocation of activities from the Global North to the Global South, because the introduction of freer trade among countries — another feature of neoliberalism — intensifies competition among them. It also accelerates technological-cum-structural change that increases the rate of growth for labor productivity in each country.
This in turn keeps down the rate of employment growth, often even to a level below the natural rate of growth of the labor force, thereby even increasing the relative size of the labor reserves. Thus, the level of real wages is suppressed under neoliberalism while labor productivity increases rapidly everywhere, raising the share of surplus in total output within countries and also globally.
The crisis of neoliberalism is directly linked to this growth in inequality. Since working people consume a much larger share of their incomes than those to whom the surplus accrues, the rise in the surplus share creates a tendency toward overproduction. This has revealed itself internationally after the collapse of the housing bubble in the United States.
Slowdown
In India, the effects of this collapse were temporarily kept in abeyance through an aggressive fiscal policy that violated the limitations on the fiscal deficit-to-GDP ratio. With the reimposition of this limit, which came roughly around the time that the Modi government took over, the slowing down has affected India as well.
The clearest manifestation of the crisis in India today is the extremely high rate of unemployment. Unemployment, as we noted earlier, was growing under neoliberalism even before the crisis, because the rate of employment growth was below the natural rate of growth of the labor force. In the Indian case, one must also mention the distressed farmers flocking to cities in search of jobs. With the onset of the crisis, we see the further addition of unemployment due to inadequate demand.
Unemployment is the single most acute problem facing India today. Because of large-scale casualization of the workforce, it takes the form of a reduction in the hours of employment for most people, rather than a complete lack of work for some. As a result, it is difficult to capture through conventional measures.
However, the results of surveys asking people about their own employment status show a significant jump in the unemployment rate during the post-pandemic years. There has also been a significant increase in the demand for jobs under the government-run rural relief program, known as the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme, which also confirms the phenomenon of rising unemployment.
Unemployment is particularly severe among young people — 44 percent in the twenty to twenty-four age group, according to an International Labour Organization report — and in rural India. Real wages of rural workers have remained at best stagnant since 2014–15, and perhaps even declined (depending on the deflator used). In the case of construction workers, a numerically large segment of the labor force, wages certainly have declined, which further confirms the phenomenon of growing unemployment.
Indeed, the two phenomena — greater unemployment and stagnant or reduced real wages — together explain the increase in absolute nutritional deprivation mentioned earlier. This increase is only partially alleviated, but not negated, by the government’s scheme to provide five kilos of free food grains per month to about eight hundred million beneficiaries. This scheme has been continued from the pandemic years, against the professed convictions of those in power.
Corporate-Hindutva Alliance
The Modi government’s wholehearted embrace of neoliberalism, even when the crisis of that economic model is causing mass distress, is precisely what constitutes its attraction for Indian monopoly capital.
Earlier support for neoliberalism in the belief that it would bring about rapid growth that would ultimately benefit everyone disappears when there is mass unemployment and acute distress. That is when neoliberalism requires a new prop to sustain itself, for which it forms an alliance with neofascist elements.
In India, this neoliberal/neofascist alliance has taken the specific form of a corporate-Hindutva alliance. The Modi government is an expression of this alliance.
Its purpose is to bring about a change in discourse so that issues of unemployment, inflation, and economic distress are pushed to the background. Meanwhile, Hindu supremacism comes to the forefront, even as the government continues to pursue an aggressive neoliberal strategy to the benefit of globalized capital and the domestic monopoly capital integrated with it.
Neofascism displays all the features of classical fascism: state repression subverting democratic institutions and abrogating democratic rights; an attack on the hard-won rights of workers and peasants; the combination of state repression with street violence by fascist thugs; and the “othering” of a hapless minority group and the fomenting of hatred toward it.
We can also observe a close nexus with monopoly capital — especially with a new stratum of monopoly capital constituted by the cronies of the government — as well as the apotheosis of a supreme leader and an immense centralization of powers and resources. This enables the carrying forward of an agenda of social counterrevolution, which in India means reversing the progress made toward overcoming caste and gender oppression.
In the current international context, one must add to this list of features adherence to neoliberalism and the accommodation of globalized capital, of which domestic monopoly capital constitutes an integral part.
Discourse of Division
However, in contrast with classical fascism, neofascism cannot overcome the problems of economic crisis and mass unemployment. This is because increased state expenditure for raising aggregate demand can work only if it is financed either by a fiscal deficit or by taxing the rich.
State expenditure financed by taxing working people, who consume most of their incomes anyway, does not add to aggregate demand. In today’s context, globalized finance frowns upon the idea of a larger fiscal deficit or higher taxes on the rich.
If the state does not accede fully to the caprices of globalized capital, it exposes the economy to the danger of capital flight, which it can ill afford. The Modi government can thus do little to overcome unemployment, which makes it all the more dependent on a divisive and diversionary discourse.
This approach is clearly evident during the present Indian elections. While observers confirm that there is great public concern about unemployment, and the main opposition parties have been addressing it in their campaigns, one can find no mention of unemployment in the speeches of Modi and other Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders.
Instead, they harp on the Ram temple that has been built at Ayodhya and foment animosity against Muslims (calling them “infiltrators”). They have been systematically propagating the myth that the Congress, if elected to power, will take wealth from the Hindus for distribution among Muslims!
It is hard to imagine a more divisive, dangerous, and false discourse that diverts attention from pressing issues of material life and livelihoods. But that is what the BJP offers, while a pusillanimous Election Commission merely looks the other way.
The current parliamentary elections are of extraordinary importance for the future of the country. For the BJP, they are a means of legitimizing, consolidating, and perpetuating its neofascist rule.
The party has immense financial resources at its command, donated by its monopoly capitalist backers. It controls India’s central investigative agencies, which it uses to imprison opponents on false cases that do not even come to trial for years, and to terrorize them with the threat of incarceration. It has also infiltrated the Indian judiciary or intimidated its officials.
With such resources at its disposal, and its religious appeal, the BJP hopes to tighten further its grip on power. Will India’s working people allow it to do so?
Prabhat Patnaik is an Indian economist and the author, with Utsa Patnaik, of Capital and Imperialism: Theory, History, and the Present (2021) and A Theory of Imperialism (2016).
Even as the impact of Cyclone Remal’s landfall started subsiding, parts of West Bengal, including Kolkata, continued to receive heavy to very heavy rainfall on Monday.
Cyclone Remal impact: Widespread rainfall, red alert in two districts: Cyclone (Photo:IANS)
IANS | Kolkata | May 28, 2024 : Even as the impact of Cyclone Remal’s landfall started subsiding, parts of West Bengal, including Kolkata, continued to receive heavy to very heavy rainfall on Monday.
On the basis of predictions, a red alert continued to be in place in two adjacent districts in south Bengal — Nadia and Murshidabad. The weather office has also predicted the wind speed to be high in these two districts.
Similarly, orange alert continued in eight districts — Kolkata, North 24-Parganas, South 24-Parganas, West Burdwan, East Burdwan, Birbhum, Howrah and Hooghly. There are predictions of heavy rainfall in these districts.
All these districts are located in south Bengal.
However, at the same time, the weather office has given some good news about the further weakening of Remal, which has already lost much of its strength and has converted into a cyclonic storm in the latter part of the day.
The more it weakens in the day, the more the weather conditions in the state will improve accordingly but gradually. As per forecasts, the possibility of heavy rainfall since Tuesday morning is minimal.
In Kolkata, scattered rainfall was witnessed since Monday morning, and the wind speed was more or less normal.
With train services in the south division of Sealdah and flight services at Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport having resumed after being suspended for a long time, city life started springing back to normalcy.
However, train service was disrupted at Kolkata Metro on Monday morning following waterlogging at the tracks in certain places.
The India Meteorological Department on Monday informed that the Cyclonic Storm ‘Remal’ over Coastal Bangladesh and adjoining Coastal West Bengal moved nearly northwards, with a speed of 15 kilometres per hour.
“Severe cyclonic storm Remal over Coastal Bangladesh and adjoining Coastal West Bengal weakened into a cyclonic storm at 0530 p.m. on 27 May about 70 km northeast of Canning and 30 km west-southwest of Mongla. The system is likely to gradually weaken further,” IMD posted on X earlier.
Following the landfall of cyclonic storm Remal, waterlogging was witnessed in parts of Kolkata with heavy rain.
The IMD earlier informed that the storm Remal would continue to move nearly northwards for some more time and then north-northeastwards and weaken gradually into a cyclonic storm.
In Memary of East Bardhaman district a father and his son were electrocuted when they touched a banana tree connected with a live wire at their village Kalanabagram. In another case of electrocution, a 47-year-old man died on Raja Road in Panihati in North 24-Parganas this morning when he touched a live wire snapped during the cyclone and was found lying on the road.
The relentless heavy rain is hampering these operations in most of the affected areas in Hingalganj, Frazerganj, Jharkhali, Bakkhali etc. The state government has initiated relief operations, providing food, drinking water and medical assistance to the people affected.
Citing its investigation, the Enforcement Directorate said there is reason to believe that the person, Purshottam Chavan, is guilty of the offence of money laundering
PTI, Mumbai, 28.05.24 : A special court dealing with cases under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) here on Monday sent a man to 14-day judicial custody in a Rs 263-crore income tax refund fraud linked money laundering case investigation.
Citing its investigation, the Enforcement Directorate said there is reason to believe that the person, Purshottam Chavan, is guilty of the offence of money laundering.
He is “actively involved in crime” and played a “crucial role” at various stages in laundering the proceeds of crime, said ED.
The agency arrested Chavan on May 20, a day after the agency raided his premises in Mumbai.
He was produced before special PMLA judge MG Deshpande at the end of his remand on Monday. The court sent him to judicial custody as sought by the probe agency.
The ED told the court that the accused has destroyed evidence which could lead to unearthing the end utilization of the funds received by him.
The accused, during his custodial interrogation, did not share details about the amount of funds he actually received, its mode and manner as well as further utilization of the money, the ED said.
Further, in respect of property documents recovered from his residence, the probe agency said the accused did not disclose facts.
Therefore, his judicial custody is very essential as his release at this stage will definitely hamper the ongoing investigation, the ED said.
The court then remanded the accused to judicial custody.
The investigation pertains to alleged fraudulent generation and issuance of TDS (tax deducted at source) refunds from the Income-tax department to the tune of Rs 263.95 crore.
A case registered by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is the basis of the ED’s money laundering case.
The ED has earlier arrested the main accused and a former senior tax assistant Tanaji Mandal Adhikari, Bhushan Patil, Rajesh Shetty and Rajesh Brijlal Batreja in this case.
Batreja and Chavan were “in touch regularly and shared incriminating messages related to hawala transactions and diversion of the proceeds of crime”, the ED alleged.
Assets worth Rs 168 crore of various accused have been attached till now and a charge sheet was filed in September 2023 by the ED against Adhikari and ten others.
With government schools in a state of neglect, parents in small towns, cities and rural areas send kids to private institutions that charge high fees
Basant Kumar Mohanty Kannauj, TT, Yavatmal, 28.05.24 : Ankit Dixit, 30, from Uttar Pradesh’s Kannauj has a child who will enrol in nursery next year. The high fee that private schools charge is giving Ankit sleepless nights.
“In Kannauj, parents pay Rs 3,000 a month in nursery fees for schools affiliated to the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE). This is a heavy burden on parents,” Ankit said.
With government schools in a state of neglect, parents in small towns, cities and rural areas send kids to private institutions that charge high fees.
“If someone asks about the school where your child is admitted, you feel ashamed to say that he or she is in a government school. Private schooling has become a normal affair as they are perceived to offer quality education,” Dixit said.
He said the central and state governments have not taken any step to regulate school fees.
“Private schools are not the solution. The new government at the Centre must take steps along with the states to improve the quality of education in government schools,” he said.
The government had in 2010 enforced the Right To Education (RTE) Act, which stipulates free and compulsory education to children up to 14 years of age, a trained teacher for every 30 children and at least one classroom for every teacher.
The lone government school at Krishnapur village under Ralegaon Tehsil in Maharashtra’s Yavatmal district has only two dilapidated rooms.
Deorao Sitaram Thackeray, 72, said nearly 25 children are enrolled in the school, which has classes up to the fifth standard.
“The nearest government school is in Ralegaon, which is 2km from here. We send our children to the village school even though it is in dilapidated condition,” Thackeray said.
According to a Public Education Manifesto released by civil society groups RTE Forum, Alliance to Right to Early Childhood Development and the Campaign against Child Labour, only 25.5 per cent of schools in the country are RTE-compliant. Nearly 8.4 lakh teacher posts are vacant in about 10 lakh government schools in the country. One in seven schools is run by a single teacher.
Apart from the quality of education, access to schooling is another issue for the students.
Rasoolpur village under Badaun tehsil in Badaun district has a government school where children from 300 families can study up to Class VIII. The children either have to drop out after Class VIII or go 5km to Kheda Bhamora village to continue their education.
“Many children, particularly girls, drop out after Class VIII,” said Vinesh Yadav, a shopkeeper.
The report said there had been a steady growth in the number of private schools across the country. Seven of 10 new schools in India are now private.
Prof Ranjan Welukar, former vice-chancellor of Mumbai University, said the increase in private schools meant a rise in discrimination among children.
“The quality of education should be equal for all children. If the children of the rich and the middle class go to private schools, they will have different types of education. This leads to discrimination. Education should be inclusive,” Welukar said.
He said health and education should remain in the public sector for the development of the nation.
Prof C.B. Sharma, former chairman of the National Institute of Open Schooling, a central government school board, harped on stringent regulations to check fee structure in schools.
“There should be an independent school education commission, which will vet curriculum and books and prescribe fee structure that the private schools have to adhere to,” Sharma said.
Prajwal, 33, who is seeking re-election from his Hassan Lok Sabha constituency, had flown abroad just as the accusations against him became public, triggering allegations that he was fleeing justice
Prajwal Revanna.: File picture.
K.M. Rakesh, TT, Bengaluru, 28.05.24 : Janata Dal Secular MP Prajwal Revanna on Monday released a video announcing he would return to India and, at 10am on May 31, appear before Karnataka police’s special investigation team that is probing sexual abuse allegations against him.
Prajwal, 33, who is seeking re-election from his Hassan Lok Sabha constituency, had flown abroad just as the accusations against him became public, triggering allegations that he was fleeing justice.
“I will appear before the SIT on May 31 at 10am and fully cooperate with the investigation,” Prajwal, grandson of JDS patriarch and former Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda, says in the video.
“I am confident of coming out clean against these false allegations through the courts, since I have complete faith in the judiciary.”
It appears unlikely that Prajwal would have the chance to appear before the SIT by himself. A city court issued an arrest warrant against him on May 18, which would enable the SIT to detain him at the airport itself.
Prajwal has not, however, revealed his flight details or his current location. His father and Holenarasipura MLA, H.D. Revanna, has said Prajwal flew to Germany on a prescheduled trip.
A former domestic help of Prajwal has accused him of sexual abuse. Father and son are also accused of having abducted her to intimidate her against accusing Prajwal.
The SIT probing Prajwal is also investigating pen drives containing 2,976 files — including video clips and pictures of suspected sexual abuse of multiple women — that were found discarded in Hassan just days before the April 26 election there. While the Opposition has alleged the man in the clip is Prajwal, the SIT hasn’t yet officially confirmed it.
Prajwal begins the nearly three-minute video message saying: “I apologise to my parents, grandfather, my Kumaranna (uncle and former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy), the people of my state and all the party workers.”
He claims he had no idea about the charges against him until a few days after leaving Bengaluru, which he did early on April 27.
“There was no case against me when the election was held on April 26. There was no SIT, either. My overseas trip on April 26 was already planned,” he says. “Three or four days after I reached overseas, I happened to see news on YouTube about this.”
He says he sought seven days from the police to respond, contacting the force from abroad through his lawyer, but slipped into depression after the allegations were widely discussed in public forums.
“But even after that (his May 1 tweet saying he had sought time from the police) Congress leaders including Rahul Gandhi started discussing this issue in open forums. I slipped into depression and went into isolation,” he says.
Prajwal’s announcement comes after repeated appeals to him from Deve Gowda and Kumaraswamy to return and face the law.
In a public statement on X recently, Deve Gowda had warned Prajwal that he would have to face the anger of his family if he did not return to India.
At least seven people died across south Bengal, including a father in Entally, hit by a falling piece of cornice as he stepped out to look for his son, who was at a friend’s place to watch the IPL final
Overhead cables being restored on a waterlogged Camac Street on Monday after Cyclone Remal had caused widespread destruction in the city: Bishwarup Dutta.
Debraj Mitra, TT, Calcutta, 28.05.24 :
Cyclone Remal struck Calcutta at 91km an hour and brought up to 260mm of rain in 24 hours.
If you are wondering how much 260mm of rain means, here is a sample. Data from over 30 years say the average rainfall that Calcutta receives in May is around 120mm. In Calcutta’s rainiest month, July, the average monthly rainfall is around 370mm.
The downpour triggered a deluge and the gusts of wind brought down over 400 trees in just Calcutta and its neighbourhood.
At least seven people died across south Bengal, including a father in Entally, hit by a falling piece of cornice as he stepped out to look for his son, who was at a friend’s place to watch the IPL final.
A father and son died of electrocution in Memari, East Burdwan. An 80-year-old woman died inside her home on Mousuni Island in South-24 Parganas when a tree crashed on the house. Two more died of electrocution, at Panihati in North 24-Parganas and Maheshtala in South 24-Parganas. The seventh death was reported from Haldia.
Many parts of Calcutta faced power cuts between Sunday night and the early hours of Monday as the rain and winds peaked.
Metro services were crippled till Monday afternoon as the overnight rain flooded Park Street and Esplanade stations.
Remal started making landfall — as a severe cyclonic storm — in the Sunderbans in Bangladesh around 8.30pm on Sunday. The storm was around 25km from the tip of the Indian Sunderbans, 110km from Canning and approximately 140km from Calcutta. The Sunderbans are spread over roughly 10,000sqkm, of which around 4,000sqkm are in India and the rest in Bangladesh.
Coordinates shared by the Met office suggest the point of landfall was Mandarbaria, a coastal pocket in Satkhira district of Bangladesh. It is 130km south-southwest of Mongla port in Bagerhat district of Bangladesh.
The core of the storm entered land between 10.30pm on Sunday and 12.30am on Monday, unleashing winds at 110kmph to 120kmph, with gusts clocking 135kmph.
The raging winds, storm surge and blinding rain breached several embankments and flattened homes, poles and trees in the coastal pockets of South-24 Parganas and North-24 Parganas.
A tree uprooted on Cathedral Road near the Birla Planetarium on Monday afternoon.: Bishwarup Dutta
By Monday morning, Remal had weakened from a severe cyclonic storm to a cyclone. The northward movement brought it closer to south Bengal and, around 5.30am, it was 70km northeast of Canning. Around 8.30am, Remal was 90km east of Calcutta, the closest it came to the city.
“By then, it had weakened into a cyclone. The maximum impact in Calcutta and neighbouring areas was between 11.30pm and 4.30am, when it was a severe cyclonic storm,” said H.R. Biswas, head of the weather section at the Regional Meteorological Centre, Calcutta.
The Met office recorded a maximum wind speed of 74kmph in Alipore around 12.45am. In Dum Dum, the maximum recorded wind speed was 91kmph around 12.15am.
Between 1pm on Sunday and 1pm on Monday, Ballygunge received 264mm of rain, Taratala got 206mm and Behala recorded 204mm, according to the readings at the booster pumping stations of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation.
The Met office recorded 190mm of rain in Alipore between 8.30pm on Sunday and 8.30pm on Monday. Alipore serves as the official record keeper for Calcutta. When Cyclone Amphan struck Calcutta on May 20, 2020, Alipore recorded 250mm of rain and windspeeds of over 100km an hour for several hours. Amphan had made landfall on Sagar Island, around 100km from Calcutta.
The rain brought by Remal continued well into Monday. The effect was visible in the fallen trees and branches, tilted poles and roads with knee-deep water.
Cyclone Remal is likely to move north-northeastwards and gradually weaken further into a deep depression by Tuesday morning.
The rain in Calcutta subsided in the evening, with the system around 150km from the city around 7.30pm.
The weather in Calcutta is likely to improve on Tuesday morning. But north Bengal is going to get drenched as the remnants of Remal move northeast. “On Tuesday, heavy (60mm and more) to very heavy rainfall (120mm and more) is likely in the districts of Jalpaiguri, Alipurduar and Cooch Behar. Heavy rain is likely in Darjeeling and Kalimpong,” said Somenath Dutta, deputy director-general at the India Meteorological Department, Calcutta. Scattered rainfall is expected in south Bengal, he added.
MP, 28 May 2024, Kolkata: After remaining suspended for 21 hours due to Cyclone Remal, flight operations at the Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International (NSCBI) Airport, Kolkata resumed on Monday morning.
The airport authorities wrote on its social media handle: “Flight operations resumed at Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport, Kolkata at 08:59 hrs, after it was closed for flight operation yesterday in view of Cyclone Remal.”
The first flight to depart on Monday was IndiGo’s Kolkata-Port Blair flight at 8.59 am while the first one to land in Kolkata was SpiceJet’s flight from Guwahati. It landed at 09.50 am, an Airports Authority of India (AAI) top official said.
According to information shared by the airport officials, there were about nine flight diversions. Three Air India Kolkata bound flights were diverted to Varanasi, Bhubaneshwar, Guwahati. The authorities of Kolkata airport have decided to suspend flight operations for 21 hours from Sunday noon in view of the possible impact of cyclone Remal.
The authorities had suspended flight operations for 21 hours from Sunday noon in view of the possible impact of cyclone Remal.
On May 26, about 394 flights that were scheduled for arrival or departure, including domestic and international flights, were suspended from Sunday noon to Monday 9 am. This included 170 domestic tentative departures and 26 international tentative arrivals.
According to the information shared by Kolkata airport, from 9 am to 3:30 pm on May 27, the total number of domestic flights in both arrival and departure was 77.
The total number of international flights in both arrival and departure was 9.
EOI, DARJEELING, MAY 27, 2024 : The civic body in Darjeeling on Monday formed a committee to keep vigil on people dumping their garbage in areas outside those which had been allocated for the dumping of garbage at the stipulated time. Violations may result in penalty on the defaulters.
This step by the Darjeeling Municipality has been taken because some residents of Darjeeling are in the habit of throwing their garbage throughout the day. The conservancy department staff collect wastes and garbage on a daily basis from residential houses and shops, but only at a stipulated time. .
Darjeeling Municipality, conservancy department In-charge Nitesh Gurung said: “An order was issued by the Municipality chairman today that as per the meeting held on May 3 there will be three teams made for the purpose of inspection of all hotels, restaurants and areas in the municipal area. These three teams have been made to check if the waste and garbage being disposed of by them are being done properly or not.
They will also check if the local people are disposing garbage at the proper time or not and in the proper place.
”“We have made a schedule for the hotels, restaurants and the local people to dispose of their garbage. People can only dispose of their garbage after seven in the evening till five in the morning in the respective allocated place in their area. If we find the people are not throwing their garbage in the allotted time and in the proper place then a penalty will be issued on them,” he added.
Gurung said people caught not following these rules would be fined on the spot to the tune of Rs 500 to Rs 1000. He said that the new rules also applied to the tourists who would behanded over seizure list and fined on the spot, if they were found littering wastes. “As far as the tourists are concerned, they will not know about the rules here so we are making a brochure ready which will be handed to them indifferent places, informing them about the do’s and don’ts,” he said.
“At present we are seeing that as soon as the municipality collects the garbage from different areas then people go and dispose of their garbage there. It gives the wrong impression that the civic body is not doing their work,” he said, adding that they have also received videos showing people throwing garbage soon after their waste collection vehicles have collect the wastes.
The civic body had removed garbage vats from most places in the recent past in an effort to minimize waste being thrown there as people used to throw garbage all around the vat area, making the whole area filled with garbage.
The civic body had the vats replaced with dustbins along with the introduction of a door-to-door collection of garbage.
However, what is being seen at present is people throwing more garbage than the dustbins can hold, making the area look filthy while in some areas the dustbins are missing.“ This is also to do with the mentality of the people. The civic body is doing its work, but the people should also be conscious and think that it is their Darjeeling and it is also their duty and responsibility to keep it clean. Everyone should be involved in keeping Darjeeling clean,” said Gurung.
PTI, Kolkata, May 27, 2024 : Nearly 15,000 houses in 24 blocks and 79 municipal wards, mostly in the southern coastal areas of West Bengal, were affected by Cyclone Remal, a senior official of the state government said on Monday.
At least 2,140 trees were uprooted in different parts of the state which also witnessed the falling of 337 electric poles, he added.
According to the initial evaluation, at least 14,941 houses were damaged, out of which 13,938 were partially affected while 1,003 were destroyed, he said.
“The figures will probably increase after another round of evaluation. Our officials in the districts are working and the process of evaluation is still on. The estimation of the damage is being calculated,” the official told PTI.
The administration had shifted 2,07,060 people to the 1,438 safe shelters, he said, adding that at the moment there are 77,288 people.
“There are 341 gruel kitchens being operated at the moment. We have distributed 17,738 tarpaulin to the affected people in the coastal and low-lying areas,” he said.
The affected areas included Kakdwip, Namkhana, Sagard Island, Diamond Harbour, Fraserganj, Bakkhali and Mandarmani.
At least two persons were killed in West Bengal and its coastal areas suffered extensive damage to infrastructure and property, as Cyclone Remal tore through the state and neighbouring Bangladesh with winds speeds reaching 135 km per hour, officials said.
The home minister said earlier charge sheet meant submission of volumes of documents, but once the new laws come into force the charge sheet will be contained in a pen drive and the response to it can also be delivered digitally on a pen drive.
PTI NEW DELHI: Technology will be a key enabler for the new criminal laws that come into effect July 1 as summons will be issued by SMS, 90 per cent witnesses will appear through video calls and courts will issue orders within three years of filing of an FIR, Union Home Minister Amit Shah has said.
“I can tell you with confidence that after three years, our criminal justice system will be the most modern criminal justice system in the world,” he told PTI in an interview over the weekend.
Piloted by the home minister himself, the newly enacted criminal laws — the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Act will come into effect from July 1, replacing the colonial-era Indian Penal Code, the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Indian Evidence Act of 1872 respectively.
In the interview, Shah laid out for the first time many details of the new criminal justice system, which he said are almost entirely driven by technology. For example, all court matters will become online and FIR, court diary and judgement will be digitised. Already, officials have collected finger prints data of nine crore criminals across the country in the last five years.
After lifting finger prints from a crime scene, police will be able to identify the criminal and also if the crime has been committed by a repeat offender from that data base of finger prints within seven and half minutes, Shah said.
“We have brought very big reforms (through the new criminal laws). After the laws come into effect, 90 per cent people will not have to go to courts. The witnesses will appear online,” he added.
Earlier, he said, summon meant physically serving it to someone at their home.
“Many such changes have been incorporated (in new laws). Similar is the case with regards to the charge sheet too,” he said. The Home Minister said earlier charge sheet meant submission of volumes of documents, but once the new laws come into force the charge sheet will be contained in a pen drive and the response to it can also be delivered digitally on a pen drive. “All these matters will now be online.
The FIR, court diary, judgement will also be digitised. We have made forensic evidence compulsory in cases where there is a provision for imprisonment for a period of minimum seven years,” he said.
Asked about the preparation for rolling out the new laws, the Home Minister said it is going on full swing and training of officials is almost over.
PTI & Agencies, New Delhi, May 27, 2024 : The Supreme Court on Monday refused to entertain a plea filed by the BJP challenging a Calcutta High Court order that had refused to interfere with a single-judge verdict restraining the party from issuing advertisements that are allegedly violative of the model code during the Lok Sabha polls.
A vacation bench of Justices J K Maheshwari and K V Viswanathan refused to interfere with the high court order.
“Prima facie, the advertisement is disparaging,” the bench said.
Senior advocate P S Patwalia, appearing for the BJP, sought permission to withdraw the matter after the bench expressed disinclination to entertain the matter.
The matter was dismissed as withdrawn.
On May 22, a division bench of the high court had said it was not inclined to entertain the appeal against the interim order passed by the single-judge bench.
The single-judge bench on May 20 had restrained the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) from publishing advertisements that violated the MCC until June 4, the day the Lok Sabha poll results are scheduled to be declared.
The court had also restrained the saffron party from publishing the advertisements mentioned by the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in West Bengal, in its petition claiming unverified allegations against it and its workers.
The two-judge bench of the HC, headed by the Chief Justice T S Sivagnanam and also comprising Justice Hiranmay Bhattacharyya, refusing to grant any relief to the BJP, directed that the party should not to publish any advertisement violating the MCC during the Lok Sabha election process.
While refusing to interfere to the single-judge bench order, the two-judge bench had observed that all political parties needed to follow healthy electoral practices, as the ultimate victim of misleading electoral campaigns was the voter.
The division bench also observed that a “Laxman Rekha” should be adhered to, and added that there should not be any personal attack on the part of any political party.
The order had been passed by the single-judge bench, after hearing a petition filed by TMC to restrain the BJP from carrying such ads. The TMC had objected to certain ads published by the BJP in certain newspapers against the Mamata Banerjee- led party.
This single-judge order was challenged by the BJP in the two-judge bench of the HC, which also refused to entertain BJP’s prayers on May 22.
A vacation bench of Justices J K Maheshwari and K V Viswanathan refused to interfere with the high court order.
“We have seen the advertisements. Prima Facie, the advertisements are disparaging. We don’t want to lend our hands to promote further acrimony,” the two-judge vacation bench of the top court, led by Justice J K Maheshwari and Justice KV Viswanathan said.
The top court further remarked that such ads will not help the voter. It asked senior advocate P S Patwalia, appearing for the appellant party (BJP) not to precipitate the matter, saying the advertisement was not in the interest of voters and the rival party was not your enemy.
After hearing these remarks and observations from the top court, Patwalia then preferred to withdraw the petition, saying he would prefer to file a reply before the High Court’s single judge bench which passed the interim order.
Earlier on, May 24, mentioning the matter before the two-judge vacation bench of the top court, led by Justice Bela M Trivedi and Justice Pankaj Mithal, senior advocate Saurabh Mishra, for the BJP, sought urgent hearing into the case.
The judges of the top court, did not fix any date to hear the case, but said, “We will see it.”
Initially, on May 20, the Calcutta HC’s single-judge bench of Justice Sabyasachi Bhattacharyya, in its order had restrained the BJP from publishing such ads until further orders, after finding the advertisements in question to be in violation of the MCC.
Justice Bhattacharyya, in his order, had also pulled up the Election Commission of India (ECI) for “grossly failing” to address the complaints filed by the TMC against BJP advertisements that targeted the ruling party in West Bengal.
Flight and suburban rail services resume after temporary suspension
PTI, Kolkata, May 27, 2024 : Nearly 15,000 houses in 24 blocks and 79 municipal wards, mostly in the southern coastal areas of West Bengal, were affected by Cyclone Remal, a senior official of the state government said on Monday.
At least 2,140 trees were uprooted in different parts of the state which also witnessed the falling of 337 electric poles, he added. According to the initial evaluation, at least 14,941 houses were damaged, out of which 13,938 were partially affected while 1,003 were destroyed, he said.
“The figures will probably increase after another round of evaluation. Our officials in the districts are working and the process of evaluation is still on. The estimation of the damage is being calculated,” the official told newspersons.
The administration had shifted 2,07,060 people to the 1,438 safe shelters, he said, adding that at the moment there are 77,288 people.
“There are 341 gruel kitchens being operated at the moment. We have distributed 17,738 tarpaulin to the affected people in the coastal and low-lying areas,” he said. The affected areas included Kakdwip, Namkhana, Sagard Island, Diamond Harbour, Fraserganj, Bakkhali and Mandarmani.
At least three persons were killed in West Bengal and its coastal areas suffered extensive damage to infrastructure and property, as Cyclone Remal tore through the state and neighbouring Bangladesh with winds speeds reaching 135 km per hour, officials said. One person died and two others were injured in Kolkata following heavy rain triggered by Cyclone Remal that pummelled the coasts of West Bengal and neighbouring Bangladesh with devastating wind speeds, officials said on Monday.
A man died of his injuries when a wall collapsed due to relentless downpour on Sunday at the Bibir Bagan area of Entally in central Kolkata, a state disaster management official said. Two others suffered injuries in Maniktala area after the cyclone struck, though the exact cause is yet to be known, he said.
Kolkata recorded 150-mm rainfall in 24 hours till 8.30 am, while neighbouring Salt Lake received 110-mm rain during the period. Tarakeswar in Hooghly received the highest amount of rainfall in south Bengal at 300 mm, the Met office said. Vehicular traffic movement was disrupted in several pockets of Kolkata since Monday morning, the first working day of the week, as trees lay uprooted and streets overflowed with water on account of the incessant rain the cyclonic system brought over the city. Reports of uprooting of trees were received from Southern Avenue, Lake Place, Chetla, D L Khan Road, Dufferin Road, Ballygunge Road, New Alipore, Behala, Jadavpur, Golpark, Hatibagan, Jagat Mukherjee Park and College Street, as well as the city’s adjoining Salt Lake area, the officials said.
Around 68 trees were uprooted in Kolkata, and another 75 in nearby Salt Lake and Rajarhat area. “Water-logging was reported from various places including Southern Avenue, Lake View Road, Pratapaditya Road, Tollygunge Phari, Alipore and Central Avenue, resulting in traffic diversion,” a senior officer of Kolkata Traffic Police said.
Major arterial roads like Central Avenue and College Street in central Kolkata and pockets of Ballygunge, Dhakuria and Behala in the south continued to remain waterlogged during the later part of the day as well.
Meanwhile, train services in the Sealdah South section of Eastern Railway resumed at 9 am after remaining suspended for three hours in the morning, an ER official said.
Flight services from the Kolkata airport also resumed on Monday morning after being suspended for 21 hours in view of the cyclone, a senior Airports Authority of India (AAI) official said. Metro Railway services in the north-south corridor were disrupted in parts for four-and-a-half hours on Monday morning.
Kolkata Mayor Firhad Hakim said the municipal corporation was trying to address the situation on war footing. “The situation is not that worse compared to what it was when Cyclone Amphan hit.
The trees are being removed to make way for traffic. The drainage pumps are also operating at full strength,” Hakim told PTI. Salt Lake Mayor Krishna Chakraborty said the uprooted trees have been removed and roads are clear for traffic movement.
Meanwhile, Governor C V Ananda Bose said in a message issued by the Raj Bhavan:
“We are all greatly relieved that no reported casualty is there. Cyclone Remal is weakening. The people of Bengal are able to brave it with courage. We are keeping a watch on the situation. If there is any need, Raj Bhavan’s doors are open for all.”
The Governor has also constituted a task force at the Raj Bhavan.
KalimNews, Kalimpong, 27 May 2024 : In a heart-wrenching incident today at approximately 11:45 AM, a small passenger vehicle with registration number SK04J 0916 collided with a truck bearing registration number SK02D 0732 at Tar Khola 10th Mile of West Bengal under Kalimpong Police Station.
The small passenger vehicle Bolero was en route to Gangtok Sikkim from Jorethang when the collision transpired, resulting in ten passengers sustaining injuries. The injured were promptly transported to Rangpo Sikkim Hospital for urgent medical attention.
Amidst the chaos and rescue efforts, one passenger succumbed to their injuries. The deceased has been identified as Subash Pradhan, aged 38, son of Bhanu Kumar Pradhan, hailing from Tharpu, Mansara, Ratopani of West Sikkim. The driver of the Bolero along with other three seriously injured are referred to Singtam district Hospital.
This tragic incident has sent shockwaves through the community, leaving many in mourning and praying for the swift recovery of those injured.
Authorities are currently investigating the circumstances surrounding the collision to determine the root cause and prevent similar tragedies in the future.
While several pockets of Calcutta remained waterlogged on the morning of the first working day of the week, suburban train services from the Sealdah terminal station remained partially suspended for at least three hours, adding to commuters’ woes, before operations limped back to normal
Commuters wade through a waterlogged road amid rains in the aftermath of Cyclone Remal’s landfall, in Calcutta, Monday, May 27, 2024.: PTI
PTI, Calcutta, 27.05.24 : At least two persons died in West Bengal and its coastal areas suffered extensive damage to infrastructure and property, as Cyclone Remal tore through the state and neighbouring Bangladesh with winds speeds reaching 135 km per hour, officials said Monday. A man died of his injuries when a wall collapsed due to the relentless downpour on Sunday evening at the Bibir Bagan area of Entally in Central Calcutta, a state disaster management official said.
An eldery woman in the Mousuni Island near Namkhana adjacent to the Sunderbans delta also succumbed to injuries on Monday morning, following a tree collapse on her hut that resulted in the roof caving in, the official said.
After tearing through the coasts of Bangladesh and West Bengal, Cyclone Remal left a trail of destruction with pictures of devastation becoming evident across the state’s coastal areas, with extensive damage to infrastructure and property, soon after daybreak on Monday.
Roofs of thatched huts were blown away, uprooted trees blocked roads in Calcutta as well as in the coastal districts, and electricity poles were knocked down causing significant power disruption in various parts of the state, including in the city’s outskirts, the officials said.
While several pockets of Calcutta remained waterlogged on the morning of the first working day of the week, suburban train services from the Sealdah terminal station remained partially suspended for at least three hours, adding to commuters’ woes, before operations limped back to normal.
A commuter at a railway station during rain in the aftermath of Cyclone Remal’s landfall, in Calcutta, Monday, May 27, 2024.: PTI
Flight services at the Calcutta airport resumed on Monday morning after remaining suspended for 21 hours in view of Cyclone Remal. Airport sources, however, said it will take some more time for the situation to become normal.
The cyclone ravaged adjacent coasts of the state and Bangladesh between Sagar Island and Khepupara, near the southwest of Mongla in the neighbouring country, after its landfall process began at 8.30 pm on Sunday and lasted for a good four hours.
In a later update, the Met office said ‘Remal’ weakened into a cyclonic storm at 5:30 am on Monday, about 70 km northeast of Canning and 30 km west-southwest of Mongla. The system is likely to gradually weaken further.
Efforts to restore normalcy are underway, with emergency services working to clear debris and restore power in the affected areas.
However, the relentless heavy rain is hampering these operations in most of the affected areas, the officials said.
The state government has initiated relief operations, providing food, drinking water and medical assistance to the people affected.
The authorities have urged residents to remain indoors and take necessary precaution till the heavy rain persists.
Calcutta recorded a rainfall of 146 mm in the period between 8.30 am on Sunday and 5.30 am on Monday, the weatherman said.
The metropolis logged a maximum wind speed of 74 kmph, while Dum Dum in the northern outskirts of the city recorded maximum wind speed of 91 kmph, the weather office said.
Several areas of Calcutta remained waterlogged, compounding the misery of the affected residents. Streets in significant pockets of Ballygunge, Park Circus, Dhakuria and Alipore in South Calcutta, Behala in the West and College Street, Thanthania Kali Bari, CR Avenue and Sinthi in the North remained inundated till late in the day.
Reports indicated that trees were uprooted in several areas, including Southern Avenue, Lake Place, Chetla, D L Khan Road, Dufferin Road, Ballygunge Road, New Alipore, Behala, Jadavpur, Golpark, Hatibagan, Jagat Mukherjee Park, College Street, and the adjoining Salt Lake area.
Around 68 trees were uprooted in Calcutta, with an additional 75 trees downed in the nearby Salt Lake and Rajarhat areas.
The cyclone caused rainfall with strong winds in areas such as Digha, Kakdwip and Jaynagar, which intensified on Monday morning.
Other places in south Bengal which received heavy rainfall during the period are Haldia (110 mm), Tamluk (70 mm) and Nimpith (70 mm), the Met office said.
The storm and accompanying heavy rain flooded homes and farmlands. In some regions, salt water from the adjoining Bay of Bengal breached embankments and gushed into farmlands, damaging crops.
The West Bengal government evacuated more than one lakh people from vulnerable areas ahead of the cyclone’s landfall.
The North and South 24 Parganas and Purba Medinipur districts reported widespread damage. News footage from the coastal resort town of Digha showed tidal waves crashing into a seawall, with surging waters sweeping fishing boats inland and inundating mud-and-thatch houses and farmlands.
People during a storm at the Bakkhali beach in the aftermath of Cyclone Remal’s landfall, in South 24 Parganas, Monday, May 27, 2024.: PTI
The weatherman has forecast more rain in Calcutta and the southern districts including Nadia and Murshidabad, with one or two spells of intense downpour, along with gusty surface winds till Tuesday morning.
State Power Minister Aroop Biswas said the disruptions and damage to the power supply infrastructure caused by Cyclone Remal will be addressed soon.
He noted that there had been one or two incidents of power outages in the CESC area, due to fallen trees.
A total of 14 National Disaster Response Force teams were deployed for relief and restoration work across districts in south Bengal, including Calcutta, North and South 24 Parganas, Howrah and Hooghly.
Relief materials, including dry food and tarpaulins, have been dispatched to the coastal areas and quick response teams comprising trained civil defence volunteers and equipped vehicles are in place, the officials said.
In the Terai belt, elephant herds come out of forests located in Bagdogra and Naxalbari areas in search of fodder. The animals cross the four-lane highway and the railway tracks that connect Siliguri Junction with Naxalbari to move into tea gardens and villages for fodder
Wild elephants cross the railway tracks near Bagdogra.: File picture
TT, Jalpaiguri, 27.05.24 : The Kurseong forest division of the state forest department has installed CCTV cameras across various locations of Siliguri subdivision to monitor the movement of elephants in rural areas under its ambit, on railway tracks and Asian Highway-II.
Elephant herds regularly walk up to the highway that connects Panitanki (at the India-Nepal border) with Fulbari (at the India-Bangladesh border).
“The cameras have been installed to track the movement of elephants and other wild animals in some parts of Kurseong forest division. In due course, such a mechanism will be introduced in other forest areas,” said Bhaskar J.V., the chief conservator of forests (wildlife), north Bengal.
In the Terai belt, elephant herds come out of forests located in Bagdogra and Naxalbari areas in search of fodder. The animals cross the four-lane highway and the railway tracks that connect Siliguri Junction with Naxalbari to move into tea gardens and villages for fodder.
“Over the past few years, incidents of elephant depredation have increased in Siliguri subdivision. Elephants have even moved into far-flung areas like Kharibari block. The installation of CCTV cameras along elephant corridors will help to check such incidents,” said Animesh Bose, a wildlife conservationist based in Siliguri.
The herds, which move out of forests of Bagdogra forest range, amble on the highway and enter human habitats like Ghoshpukur, Tukuriajhar, Uttamchand Chat and tea estates like Kiran Chandra and Atal.
“Because of elephant movements, traffic often gets halted on the highway. Also, there had been incidents of crop and property damage and even human casualty,” said a source.
With the CCTV cameras in place now, foresters can now have an idea about the movement of elephants from the control room opened at the range office in Bagdogra.
Along with the CCTV cameras, the department has also introduced the wireless radio telecommunication system in six forest ranges of the division to share information for prompt intervention.
The ranges are Bamanpokhri, Panighata, Bagdogra, Tukuriajhar, Ghoshpukur and the elephant squad at Taipoo.
“Usually, it takes 35 to 40 minutes for an elephant herd to reach the Asian Highway from the forests. Once their movement is tracked, all the range offices and our vehicles at these ranges can be informed of necessary steps,” said Bhupesh Biswakarma, the additional divisional forest officer of Kurseong.
The technology, he said, will be effective in curbing man-elephant conflicts. “The communication system will work even in locations without cell phone connectivity,” the forester added.
Elephant corridors apart, CCTV cameras have also been put up in Tipukhola, a popular ecotourism spot, and the Junglee Baba temple area where hundreds of people visit every day.
“For the safety of the visitors, the CCTV cameras will help us act promptly if elephants enter these locations,” Biswakarma added.
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