The Centre has cited three shortcomings in the implementation of the rural job scheme in Bengal and linked the next instalment of grant to the resolution of the problems. In a letter sent to chief minister Mamata Banerjee yesterday, Union rural development minister Jairam Ramesh has identified the critical areas as low completion rate of works, delay in e-transfer of wages and inadequate action on complaints of irregularities. “Let me make it...

-The Hindustan Times   Two days after members of a local club at Baruipur thrashed retired scientist Aparesh Bhattacharya and his daughter, Aditi, allegedly at the behest of the owner of the rented house where they used to stay, the police swung into action and slapped a case under bailable sections against the accused. "We've received a complaint from Aditi and started a case against the owner of the house, Gautam Pal,...

-The Telegraph Damayanti Sen, who broke the glass ceiling at Lalbazar to become the first woman to lead the detective department, is likely to be transferred out of the city police headquarters. The buzz in the police corridors is that Sen will be appointed deputy inspector-general (DIG) of training, a post where there is far less chance of her word being pitted against the chief minister’s, as had happened in the Park...

The case of 18-month-old Sumi in West Bengal received adverse media publicity The government on Friday confirmed that an 18-month-old girl from West Bengal, who developed Acute Flaccid Paralysis (AFP) earlier this month, tested negative for polio. Her stool samples tested negative for wild polio virus in the examination conducted in the Institute of Serology here. A section of the media flashed the case of Sumi Naskar from South 24 Parganas as polio...

-The Telegraph   Farmers in Bengal left around 2.8 lakh hectares uncultivated in the just-concluded boro crop season, a silent expression of no-confidence in the state government’s paddy procurement process and a fallout of rising fertiliser prices. The area cultivated in the boro season (January to end-February) can be considered a barometer for man-made farming systems because farmers largely depend on irrigation during this phase. The bigger aman crop (June to August) still...