KOLKATA: The city and some districts, devastated by cyclone Aila on Monday, are yet to come to terms with the reality, even as the death toll shot up to 82. Fresh areas in the north were reeling under the impact of the cyclone
May 25: At least 20 people were killed and nearly two lakh left homeless in the south Bengal districts as winds flattened houses and rivers burst their banks.
South 24-Parganas was the worst hit, recording 13 deaths. Army and BSF personnel have managed to shift some 80,000 people to safer places there but many are still trapped.
Ananya Dutta
KOLKATA: Twenty-three persons were killed when a severe cyclonic storm accompanied by heavy rain brought by Cyclone Aila lashed the city and some districts of West Bengal on Monday. The death toll could be higher: reports from the districts were only coming in. Many people were injured.
Kolkata: A deep depression on the Bay of Bengal intensified into a severe cyclonic storm and slammed into the coastal belt of West Bengal on Monday, killing at least 23 people and rendering over 150,000 homeless. Cyclone Alia, with wind speed of about 100 km per hour, uprooted trees, disrupted power supply and brought the city of Kolkata to a grinding halt.
Marsh Mongoose Herpestes palustris is the only extant endemic mammal of the East Kolkata wetlands, which has been declared a RAMSAR site in 2002. Since its first description by the scientists of the Zoological Survey of India, the population of this species has dwindled to an alarming state due to reclamation of the Salt Lake City and Rajarhat expansion, as well as from other anthropogenic causes. Recently, during a field survey only a small population of this endangered mongoose was found in a single location.
Drawing upon a micro-study of two villages in two non-Left gram panchayats in West Bengal, this paper puts one issue in the foreground, namely, the idea and practice of local politics.
Calcutta, Feb. 2: A knowledge hub spread over 120 acres will come up in the new 500-acre South 24-Parganas district headquarters in Baruipur, the government said today.
