West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s nephew Akash Banerjee, 21, was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly assaulting an on-duty traffic police officer in the Kidderpore area of Kolkata. Special police commissioner Sivaji Ghosh claimed the arrest was made on the “instructions of the chief minister”.

In what can be said as a scene straight from a Bollywood pot-boiler, a special task force (STF) team of the Kolkata police, posing as “kidnappers”, bundled a Maoist suspect into a car and whisked him away from the crowded College Street area as part of their anti-naxal operation across the city on Wednesday.

West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s cracking of whip paid off: the attendance of government employees at the Writers’ Buildings was around 84 per cent. On normal days, the attendance does not go beyond 70 per cent.

The 24-hour nationwide strike on Tuesday forced another holiday on West Bengal. Except some stray incidents, the day went off largely peacefully. The Left Front which extended its support to the strike called by the Central trade unions, claimed that the shutdown was total in the state.

Sporadic incidents of violence were witnessed during the strike on Tuesday.
In the morning, a group of Trinamul Congress activists allegedly attacked the CPI(M) zonal committee office at Gangulybagan in Jadavpur in presence of the police.

In an unprecedented move, the Mamata Banerjee government has made arrangements for the overnight stay of government employees in their offices to ensure their attendance on Tuesday during the strike. Close to 500 employees will stay overnight at the Writers’ Buildings.

Making it clear emphatically that she would not allow the bandh to shut down the state on Tuesday, chief minister Mamata Banerjee threatened to use the service break rule against those government employees who would not report for duty. “Our government is determined to keep Bengal moving on the day of the bandh. If any government employee does not report for duty or transport employee does not bring out the public vehicle then he can face the service break,” she warned.

IT major Infosys has almost decided to scrap its proposed project at Rajarhat-New Town in Kolkata after the Mamata Banerjee government refused to write to the Centre to give SEZ (special economic zone

The sixth phase of elections in Uttar Pradesh, polling for which will be held on February 28, will now decide who finally wins the race for power in the state.

With the Assembly polls in his state later this year, Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi has begun reaching out to the aam janata.