West Bengal

Kolkata, April 8 (PTI) West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Wednesday slammed those doing "communal politics" over the Tablighi Jamaat event in New Delhis Nizamuddin and asked them to eschew it at a time of national crisis.

Thousands of people across the country and abroad had attended the religious event between March 13 and 15 after the Delhi government had promulgated orders prohibiting gatherings of more than 200 people. Many of the attendees later tested positive for COVID-19 and several of them died.

Kolkata, Apr 5 (PTI) Virtual classes will be held on a private television channel for students of standards 9-12 of the West Bengal boards for a week beginning April 7, an official said on Sunday.

The classes, which will be broadcast by ABP Ananda, will be held from 3 pm to 4 pm, he said.

"The TV channel's studio will be converted into a classroom. Students will ask questions to the teachers through WhatsApp and phone calls, numbers for which will be given before the classes start," the official told PTI.

Kolkata, Apr 6 (PTI) Around 35 people are presently staying at isolation rooms set up at various hotels in Kolkata, which have been earmarked by the Hotels and Restaurants Association of Eastern India (HRAEI) following the outbreak of COVID-19.

Following a request from the West Bengal government, 31 two-star, three-star and four-star hotels across the state have offered a total of 640 rooms at subsidised rates to people who have been directed to live in isolation for 14 days.

Kolkata, Apr 4 (PTI) A day after announcing one week-long virtual classrooms on DD Bangla for Class 9 to 12 students from April 7, West Bengal Education Minister Partha Chatterjee on Saturday said the state has shelved the plan for the time being due to logistical reasons.

Chatterjee told reporters in videoconferencing that while the state had fixed the 4-5 pm time slot on certain subjects for class 9 to 12 students in state-run/aided schools, that timing was not mutually acceptable to both teachers and guardians.

Kolkata, Apr 3 (PTI) At least 1,000 undertrial prisoners have been released from various correctional homes in West Bengal on interim bail in keeping with the Supreme Court's directions to consider decongesting the jails in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak, a senior official said here on Friday.

The process of granting bail to the undertrials commenced on March 23, State Legal Services Authority secretary Durga Khaitan said.

Kolkata, Apr 2 (PTI) The budget of big-ticket Durga Pujas is set to take a hard knock due to the economic impact of the COVID-19 outbreak as sponsorships by corporate advertisers would be reduced, leading to scaling down of the grandeur, organisers said on Thursday.

The Durga Puja, the biggest festival in West Bengal, will be held in October this year.

Kolkata, Mar 31 (PTI) She walks briskly into a crowded marketplace, admonishes people for the unnecessary hubbub, picks up a broken brick and draws a circle around her.

One more circle and then the other, and brusquely asks people how to exercise social distancing in the trying times coronavirus has brought in its wake.

Kolkata, Mar 30 (PTI) A woman has been arrested here for allegedly sharing fake information pertaining to COVID-19 on WhatsApp, a senior police officer said on Monday.

She had apparently claimed in her post that 15 people have tested positive for novel coronavirus in New Alipore area of the city and that the state government was suppressing the information, the officer said.

Kolkata, Mar 28 (PTI The three-week-long lockdown might have made people annoyed being forced to stay indoors, but this has become a boon to the inmates of the Kolkata zoo as there is nobody to disturb the animals now and they appear to be cheerful.

After the authorities of the Alipur Zoological Garden barred entry of visitors on March 17 to avoid large gatherings, the compound has become unusually empty.

Kolkata, Mar 27 (PTI) More than one lakh sex workers of Sonagachi in north Kolkata, Asia's largest red light area, are now staring at an uncertain future and possible starvation as the COVID-19 outbreak has thrown them out of business.

The Durbar Mahila Samanwaya Committee, an umbrella organisation of the state's sex workers having over 1,30,000 registered members, is in talks with the government seeking unorganised sector workers tag for them so that they can get free ration that the state has offered to the sector.