Sheikh Sajed Ali doesn’t dare leave the Jamshed Ali Bhawan party office in West Midnapore’s Keshpur. It’s the only refuge the sharecropper has been able to find since the Left Front led by the Communist Party of India-Marxist, or CPM, got wiped out in the recent assembly elections by the Trinamool Congress and its allies. Ali is terrified to venture out. He says his family is being asked to pay `2...
More »SEARCH RESULT
Industry out of poll plot by Madhuparna Das
The Tatas pulled out of Singur; the Salims of Indonesia out of Nandigram. What is still ticking is the Jindals’ Rs-35,000-crore, 10-million-tonne steel plant at Salboni. It has the potential to churn out the first industrial success story for whoever captures power in West Bengal after May 13. Along with the steel plant, a 1,000-MW power project to is coming up. At one point, Salboni had appeared to have the makings of...
More »Confident TMC & anxious Left shun Netai by Naresh Jana
A deathly silence hangs over Netai. In neighbouring areas, poll campaigning is on in full swing but the village where nine persons were killed in firing from a CPM camp on January 7, is untouched by it. The Trinamul Congress is not canvassing in Netai as it is “confident” that nobody will vote for the CPM in the area. The CPM, on the other hand, is avoiding campaigning in the area...
More »We will scrap Haripur nuclear project: Mamata
Hours after West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said his government would review the proposed nuclear plant at Haripur, Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee Sunday said she will scrap the project if her party came to power in the state. 'Haripur is not the proper place for setting up a nuclear power plant because it is a densely populated area. Fishermen will also be affected. We will do it elsewhere,' Banerjee...
More »Nayagram threatens to burn hole into Bengal govt claims by Romita Datta
Extreme poverty and clamour for firewood have forced some people in Nayagram into extreme occupations. One such is gathering kolmipoka, an insect with medicinal value After walking almost 30km along rutted roads since the morning, middle-aged Bonchu Nayek returns to his humble home, a two-room hut, as darkness descends on Nayagram—one of West Bengal’s poorest villages—with his day’s earning of Rs10. Nayek, whose forefathers were hunters, belongs to the Lodha-Sabar tribe. With...
More »