Scores of trees are being felled in Calcutta every month to make way for billboards, according to the West Bengal forest department.

Last week, four full-grown trees

Kolkata's public transport has to move to CNG

Though virus-borne diseases like dengue and chikungunya had plagued the city over the past few years, Kolkata Municipal Corporation, it seems, is yet to learn from its previous failures. This was evident when it came to light that the KMC is yet to start a proper surveillance on diseases like dengue and chikungunya though viral fever has already gripped the city.

FOLLOWING a decision to develop unused real estates with private parties, the Indian Postal department has now identified 1,800 locations including land that may either be sold off to private parties or commercially developed in joint venture with them. To this effect, the department is also mulling a separate company

Bag Messaging, Air Purification & Toilet Contracts ORGANISERS of the Beijing Olympics are banking on a clutch of small Indian companies to make sure everything goes smoothly at the sporting extravaganza. From managing the new airports messaging system, to making portable potties, this edition of the Olympic games is already a success story for these companies.

A child enjoys his journey back home from school through a waterlogged street in north Calcutta. Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha Showers lashed the city on Wednesday, with the Met office recording the season's second highest rainfall so far. Calcutta received 51.4 mm of rainfall in 24 hours, till 8.30pm on Wednesday. The Met office warned of isolated heavy rainfall in Calcutta and its adjacent areas in the next 24 hours.

If driving past the Ruby rotary on the EM Bypass during peak hours leaves you on the edge, the good news is that you won't have a bad time on that road every day for the rest of your life. The Bypass will be expanded from two to four lanes from the rotary to Kamalgazi, on the southern fringes, during Phase III of a project that seeks to make up for the city planners' lack of foresight when the speed corridor was conceived.

JAYANTA BASU A smoke-belching three-wheeler on a city road Calcutta's air will continue to be polluted by the exhaust of old autorickshaws running on adulterated fuel with the government putting the brakes on the conversion of two-stroke three-wheelers to LPG. After advocating conversion for five years, the government found "demerits' in the process. It has adopted a two-pronged strategy of replacing old two-stroke autos with four-stroke ones and penalising the thousands of illegal three-wheelers.

Science City, on EM Bypass. A Telegraph picture Firemen fight the flames at Saqi Bar on Sunday. Picture by Sanat Kumar Sinha The state will get its second Science City in Barasat. The National Council of Science Museums, which runs the Bypass Science City, has agreed to set up the North 24-Parganas facility on a plot offered by the state government. "They have conveyed their choice to chief secretary Amit Kiran Deb,' said a joint secretary in the state municipal affairs department.

The ground water level at Calcutta airport has risen to six inches below the primary runway this monsoon, adding to safety concerns triggered by rubber deposits and patches of concrete peeling off the main tarmac. "One of the reasons for the surface becoming fragile is the rising water level under the runway. During monsoon, the condition is aggravated, and this is causing moisture accumulation on the runway,' a senior airport official said on Sunday.