Attack on Congress Legislature Party leader fuels Bengal violence; bandh today

Violence erupted across West Bengal on Thursday as a spillover of the attack on a Congress Legislature Party team which was visiting trouble-torn villages in Burdwan’s Mongolkot, allegedly by CPM supporters, on Wednesday. As news of the incident spread, Congress workers blocked roads, railway tracks and set state buses on fire before calling a Bengal bandh on Friday.

In New Delhi, Union Home Minister P Chidambaram said he had been briefed about the situation in the affected areas. “We have sent a message to the state government and asked them to send a report. Let the report come,” he said, adding that the Home Secretary had spoken to the state Chief Secretary.

Clearly on the backfoot, the CPM and the state government took a soft stand, with Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee assuring that the culprits will be punished. The Trinamool Congress, on the other hand, extended its “moral support” for the bandh

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Another Army officer joined Abhinav Bharat, Lt Col had told Central Bureau of Investigation

Lt.Col. Prasad Purohit, arrested in connection with the Malegaon blast, told his interrogators from the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) that another serving officer in the Army, a Colonel who was Purohit’s neighbour in Panchmarhi, was recruited by Abhinav Bharat and made an office-bearer of the radical Hindu group in April 2008.

The Colonel also attended an Abhinav Bharat meeting held in Faridabad, which, Purohit said, was also attended by Samir Kulkarni and Ramesh Upadhayay — arrested in the Malegaon blast case and Dr R. P. Singh, a Delhi based doctor, among others.

Purohit also told his interrogators that he went to Kolkata in February to attend a programme organized by Tapan Ghosh, a radical Hindu activist, where he was introduced to two Bangladeshi nationals, one of whom was identified as Raju Saha.

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IIMs get their reality check: those six-figure Wall Street salaries will have to wait

Over the weekend, as Lehman Brothers went bust, Merrill Lynch was sold and the world of global high finance shook, hearts broke on Kolkata’s IIM campus. For two students of IIM-C’s Class of 2009 who had accepted pre-placement offers only a couple of weeks ago, the immediate future was suddenly a void.

“We interned at Lehman’s London office only this summer. Work was as usual, no one had any idea that trade was declining,” one of them told The Indian Express.

The student could have been speaking for hundreds of fresh graduates at Indian Institutes of Management from Kolkata to Ahmedabad, Lucknow to Bangalore. Firms like Merrill and Lehman have been among the biggest recruiters on campus, and the investment banking and financial services sector has been setting the aspirational benchmark with offers of salaries that have ranged from $120,000 to $360,000 annually.

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60 years after it shut, money is raining on Kolkata Old Mint

If old is gold, the govemment is putting its money on the 180-year-old "silver mint". Sixty years after it shut operations and was reduced to a storehouse, the famous Old Mint Complex on Strand Road, Kolkata, is set for a Rs 148-crore makeover.

The Finance Ministry has decided to convert one of the country's oldest mints, spread over 12.1 acres in a prime Kolkata locality, into a museum-cum-convention and hotel centre.

Built in 1824 by the British, the mint complex, which resembles the Temple of Minerva in Athens, was closed down in 1947-48 and has since mostly been used to store old machinery as well as served as quarters for the CRPE.

Under the public-private partnership model approved for facelift of this "prime heritage structure", the Centre will give a grant or viability gap funding amounting to 26 per cent of the project cost. In other words, the Union Finance Ministry will provide up to Rs 28 crore to make the package attractive for developers.

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Aboard Maitree Express, history overcomes geography

There were few dry eyes as the Maitree Express entered Bangladesh on a scorching Poila Baisakh afternoon on Monday, 43 years after the last train from India chugged down this route. Cheers went up inside the compartments as hundreds of onlookers lined up on both sides of the tracks broke into applause.

The loudspeaker at the minimalist platform blared greetings and the travellers were showered with petals and greeted with bouquets of Rajanigandha (tuberoses) as they made their way into the Customs building at Darshana.

Seven hours earlier, around 7.15 am, the Maitree Express had started from Kolkata, five minutes behind schedule. Almost simultaneously from Dhaka's Cantonment station, a train had left for Kolkata.

The rail service between Kolkata and Dhaka was snapped during the Indo-Pak war in1965, when Bangladesh was part of Pakistan. However, in 1996, India and Bangladesh resumed a direct bus service.

Despite the high security, including security personnel moving with sniffer dogs, the excitement within the Maitree Express compartments was palpable.

The only dampener perhaps was the half empty coaches. The lack of a public campaign meant that the historic maiden run had only 65 passengers in a train for 368.More than half the seats were occupied by media persons.

Just before Gede, the last station on the Indian side, there was a minor hiccup when there was a protest by a local group near Aranghata.Barely had this been left be- hind when the confusion over paper work at Gede rattled passengers. While some were quick to predict that the new service was bound to fail at this rate, others were more generous. "It is just the beginning, hopefully things will get better with time," said one passenger.

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