is in no mood to
celebrate ‘Avurudu’, or New Year, the biggest annual festival that Sri Lanka’s majority Sinhalese community observes mid-April, while Tamils celebrate the Tamil New Year around the same time.
Tensions are brewing between some Dalit groups and protesting farm unions. The latest trigger is the Samyukt Kisan Morcha’s plans to block Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s from unveiling a statue of B.R. Ambedkar on his birth anniversary on April 14.
The BSE Sensex tanked 1708 points or 3.44% driven by the fear of fresh pandemic effects, taking the Rupee past the ₹75 mark against the dollar on a manic Monday for the economy, even as inflation surged further in March and industrial output collapsed sharply in February as per official data.
West Bengal Assembly Elections 2021: Does a ‘Party Society’ Really Subsume the Politics of ‘Identity’ and ‘Development’?
While West Bengal’s “exceptionalism” is often touted to explain the claimed lack of communal and caste-based politics in the state, the rise of populist forces has somehow managed to take advantage of identitarian fault lines without creating space for democratic political mobilisation of marginalised sections.
Elections for 294 seats of the West Bengal Legislative Assembly are scheduled to be held between 27 March and 29 April 2021 in eight phases.
The key political players in the upcoming elections include:
(i) The All India Trinamool Congress (TMC) and its allies, including the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha;
The top court impleaded all the States on March 8 and issued notice on the plea filed by the Child Rights Trust and a Bengaluru resident seeking directions for the protection of the fundamental rights of migrant children amidst the COVID-19 pandemic.
The poll panel said it had received a complaint from All-India Trinamool Congress MP Derek O’Brien about the speech that was “an open threat” to Bengal and its people. Referring to the Central forces firing on a mob on polling day on April 10 in Sitalkuchi, Mr. Ghosh said the incident would be the start.
The internal debate is also prompted by the party’s experience in Tamil Nadu, where Mr. Kishor’s organisation, the Indian Political Action Committee or I-PAC, advised the DMK, which heads an alliance in which the Congress is a junior partner. Congress insiders claim they were witnesses to a “sense of disquiet” among senior DMK leaders as “core political activities” were decided by the external agency.
Opposition backs Mamata Banerjee as she sits on dharna alone
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Synopsis
The ECI had imposed a 24-hour ban on her election campaigning from 8 pm on Monday till 8 pm on Tuesday. Earlier, the All India Trinamool Congress (AITC) leader sat on a silent dharna to protest against the ECI s ban, drawing support from opposition leaders from parties such as the Shiv Sena, DMK and NCP.
In 2006, Banerjee had held a fortnight-long hunger strike during her protest against land acquisition for the Singur small car factory.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee slammed the Election Commission of India (ECI)’s decision to bar her for campaigning for 24 hours, saying at a rally after the ban ended on Tuesday evening that she would leave it to the people to judge why she was made to effectively miss out on 96 hours of campaign time.
West Bengal Assembly elections | EC notice to BJP leader Dilip Ghosh over Sitalkuchi comments thehindu.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from thehindu.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.