The 2009 Parliamentary election returned the Congress party to power with more seats than even the most optimistic predictions. From 145 seats in 2004, the Congress increased its tally to 206 seats. No doubt, the five-year UPA rule had been characterised by unprecedented growth, but this is too simplistic an explanation since the Congress’s performance varied widely across the states in the elections. For instance, it won just nine out...

Violence is back in West Bengal's Purba Medinipur district as the polling date for the 16 Assembly seats here draws close: Communist Party of India (Marxist) cadres are returning, under police protection, to the villages from where they fled in the wake of the Trinamool Congress' stunning successes here in recent elections. In West Bengal's ground zero, Nandigram — located in Purba Medinipur district — the problem is particularly acute. The...

Family members and friends hail Supreme Court order granting bail to rights activist Friends, family members and Union Ministers on Friday hailed the Supreme Court order granting bail to rights activist Binayak Sen, with his lawyer Ram Jethmalani saying the verdict was an endorsement of the right to freedom of speech as “a principle of democracy.” Union Minister Salman Khurshid expressed happiness over the court decision to release Dr. Sen, who was...

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...

Questioning the call for ‘change' by the Trinamool Congress, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said on Thursday if this meant the return of the land distributed to the poor farmers by the Left Front government over the past years to the zamindars and jotedars, farmers across the State would never allow it. “The farmers will never let go off the land they have been given, however loud the call for...