Kolkata:

A six-year-old boy died after allegedly falling through a gap in the railing on the fifth-floor staircase of a building in Ballygunge here, police said on Sunday.

The boy, son of domestic help Durga Nayek, was playing with his elder sister on the fifth floor, where they lived in the service quarters when the accident happened around 9.15 PM on Saturday, police added.

“The boy lost his balance and slipped through the gap in the railing, falling to the ground floor,” a police officer said.

He was rushed to Calcutta National Medical College and Hospital but succumbed to his injuries. An investigation has been initiated, police added.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Guwahati/Agartala:

Ahead of the approaching severe cyclonic storm “Remal”, disaster management authorities and security forces in various northeastern states have been placed on high alert and the district administrations asked to take advance precautionary steps.

According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD) forecast, Cyclone Remal has made landfall between Sagar Island along West Bengal and Khepupara in Bangladesh, intensifying into a severe cyclone. A maximum sustained wind speed of 110-120 kmph, gusting to 135 kmph, prevails around the cyclone centre.

Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, Manipur, and Mizoram governments have issued separate advisories and asked the National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Forces, district administrations and other departments to maintain maximum vigilance.

The Assam government has taken measures to ensure the safety and well-being of its citizens. The Assam State Disaster Management Authority (ASDMA) said the IMD has warned of extremely heavy rainfall over Assam along with other northeastern states on May 27 and 28.

An Orange alert has been issued for Dhubri, South Salmara, Bongaigaon, Bajali, Tamulpur, Barpeta, Nalbari, Morigaon, Nagaon, Hojai, and West Karbi Anglong districts and Red Alert for extremely heavy rainfall in Chirang, Goalpara, Baksa, Dima Hasao, Cachar, Hailakandi and Karimganj districts, an ASDMA statement said.

The Tripura government has closed all educational institutions including universities on May 27 and 28.

The state’s Revenue Secretary Brijesh Pandey said in view of Remal’s impact on the coastal region of West Bengal, including Kolkata, all kinds of flight operations in the Kolkata-Agartala route were suspended till 9 a.m. on Monday.

Flight services on other routes — Agartala-Guwahati, Agartala-Delhi, and Agartala-Bengaluru — are operating normally.

The first cyclone in the Bay of Bengal in this pre-monsoon season, it has been named “Remal” (or sand in Arabic), according to a system of naming cyclones in the Indian Ocean region.

(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)

Kolkata:

A meme on Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has drawn a strong response from the Kolkata Police, which demanded that the makers reveal their name and addresses.

“You are directed to immediately disclose your identity including name and residence. If the information sought is not revealed, you shall be liable for legal action u/s 42 CrPC,” read a post from the Kolkata Police responding to the tweet.

This is not the first time the Bengal police had cracked down on tweets and memes mocking the Chief Minister.

In 2022, a 29-year-old YouTuber was arrested from Nadia district for allegedly creating memes on the Chief Minister. Calling the memes “derogatory”, the police said the complaint named seven other content creators.

In 2019, a BJP youth wing member was arrested for posting a morphed photo of Ms Banerjee on Facebook.

The crackdown on people posting social media content considered objectionable had started in 2012, with a professor of Kolkata’s premier Jadavpur University, Ambikesh Mahapatra, getting arrested for allegedly forwarding an email containing a cartoon of Ms Banerjee.

It set off a huge debate over freedom of speech and expression where political leaders are concerned.

Over the years, many have faced legal action across the country for posting content against other leaders, including Shiv Sena founder Bal Thackeray and former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa.

The meme comes amid a fierce tussle between the ruling Trinamool Congress and the BJP over Bengal’s 42 parliamentary seats. The war on social media between supporters of both parties has spiked as the massive seven-phase election continues.

A team of doctors in Kolkata successfully removed the screw of a gold nose pin from a woman’s right lung after she accidentally inhaled it. At first, 35-year-old Varsha Sahu wasn’t too concerned after inhaling a part of the nose pin that she had been wearing since her wedding 16 or 17 years ago, BBC reported. She thought the pin had gone into her stomach and would naturally pass through her digestive system.

However, things took a turn for the worse when she started facing health issues, including shortness of breath. A month after inhaling the screw, she went to a doctor complaining of a persistent cough, and pneumonia. She was first prescribed medicines which didn’t work.

She then consulted a pulmonologist, who conducted a CT scan and a chest X-ray. These tests revealed a small object lodged in her lung, later identified as the screw from her nose pin.

“I didn’t know that the screw had come loose. I was just chatting and I took a deep breath and I inhaled it. I had no idea it went into my airway. I thought it had gone into my stomach,” Ms Sahu told the BBC. 

A pulmonologist then used a fibreoptic bronchoscope to try and dislodge the object from her lung, but he failed. The woman was then referred to Dr Debraj Jash, a pulmonologist at Medica Superspecialty Hospital. Dr Jash mentioned that if a second bronchoscope attempt failed, they might have to resort to invasive surgery.

“Sometimes we get cases where dry fruits or betel nuts have gone into people’s lungs, but most such cases involve young children or elderly people above 80. A woman patient in her 30s is an exception” Dr Jash said. “It is extremely difficult to pull out a sharp object with a regular flexible bronchoscope. The object had been in her lung for more than two weeks and tissues had already grown around it,” he explained.

“We had to be very careful because if during extraction, the screw came in contact with the airway – which is very narrow – it could cause injury and lead to bleeding which could cause a catastrophe,’ he further added.

However, the second bronchoscopy performed by him was successful and the screw was removed. He also called it an ”extremely rare case”.

The patient recovered and was discharged from the hospital four days after the operation.

New Delhi:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi today inaugurated India’s first underwater metro line in Kolkata and took a metro ride with school students.

In a video shared by the BJP on its official X account, PM Modi was seen interacting with students during the metro ride from Esplanade to Howrah Maidan.

He also spoke to the workers involved in the construction of the project.

PM Shri @narendramodi travels aboard India’s first underwater Metro in Kolkata, West Bengal. https://t.co/oUe7IAtkz8

— BJP (@BJP4India) March 6, 2024

He was accompanied by West Bengal Governor CV Ananda Bose and BJP leaders Suvendu Adhikari and Sukanta Majumdar.

India’s First Underwater Metro In Kolkata

The Howrah Maidan-Esplanade section of Kolkata Metro’s East-West corridor is India’s first venture into underwater metro services.

The Howrah Maidan-Esplanade section also has the deepest metro station in the country — the Howrah Metro Station.

It is nestled under the Hooghly River, which separates the twin cities of Kolkata and Howrah.

#WATCH | India’s first underwater metro rail service in Kolkata set to be inaugurated by PM Modi on 6th March pic.twitter.com/ib5938Vn8x

— ANI (@ANI) March 5, 2024

Kolkata Metro touched a milestone in April last year as its rakes completed a trial journey under the bed of Hooghly through a tunnel 32 metre below the water level for the first time in India.

Spanning a 4.8-km stretch between Howrah Maidan and Esplanade, it forms a vital segment of the East-West Metro corridor, connecting key areas such as the IT hub Salt Lake Sector V.

The 4.8-km stretch of East-West Metro from Howrah Maidan to Esplanade has been built at a cost of Rs 4,965 crore.

Of the total 16.6 km of the East-West Metro corridor, 10.8 km is underground, including the tunnel beneath the river.

A Metro train is expected to traverse the 520-metre stretch under the river in just 45 seconds.

According to officials, the work for the East-West corridor began in 2009 and tunneling under Hooghly commenced in 2017.

The Salt Lake Sector V to Sealdah stretch of the corridor is commercially operational at present.

PM Modi Inaugurates Various Projects

During the function at the Esplanade metro station, PM Narendra Modi also inaugurated the Kavi Subhash-Hemanta Mukhopadhyay section of the New Garia-Airport line and the Taratala-Majerhat section of the Joka-Esplanade line of the Kolkata Metro, the country’s oldest metro network.

PM Shri @narendramodi inaugurates, dedicates & lays foundation stone of projects in Kolkata, West Bengal. https://t.co/hnB7UjSikB

— BJP (@BJP4India) March 6, 2024

PM Modi also inaugurated the Duhai-Modinagar (North) section of the Delhi-Meerut RRTS Corridor, Pune Metro’s Ruby Hall Clinic-Ramwadi stretch, Kochi Metro’s SN Junction to Tripunithura section, and Agra Metro’s Taj East Gate-Mankameshwar section.

He also laid the foundation stone for the extension of the Pune Metro between Pimpri Chinchwad and Nigdi.

Kolkata:

 Four people were detained for waving the Palestinian flag during the Pakistan-Bangladesh World Cup cricket match at Eden Gardens stadium on Tuesday, police said.

Two of them are residents of Jharkhand, while the other two are from Kolkata’s Ekbalpore and neighbouring Howrah, a senior police officer said.

“We have detained two of them for waving the Palestinian flag near gate number 6 and the other two at Block G1. We are trying to find out their motive,” the IPS officer told PTI.

The four were detained by law enforcers from Maidan police station and they were being questioned, he added.

“Policemen posted there at first could not understand what the protesters were up to. Then they waved the flag of Palestine and were detained. They, however, did not raise any slogan,” he elaborated.

Sources in the Kolkata Police said that the initial probe found out that the four people, who are in their mid-twenties, were protesting the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict in Gaza and chose the international match for their stir.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Kolkata:

People of Kolkata, especially the ones living in the New Town area, are likely to get various commodities such as medicines, groceries and food delivered to their doorsteps with the help of drones soon, as a Delhi-based logistics solution provider is planning such a move with the help of local authorities.

Capt Eshaan Khullar, the associate vice president of Skye Air Mobility Pvt Ltd, said the company has already made agreements with 10 -12 housing societies in New Town for the service as drones will help reduce the time taken in conventional ways of delivering goods.
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“We want to start with New Town and then move to Salt Lake and other parts of Kolkata, besides going to the rural parts where connectivity is an issue, where going from point A to point B is a problem,” Mr Khullar told PTI on the sidelines of a presentation programme.

He also said that the company is looking forward to partnering with various authorities such as the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) to enable drone deliveries in housing societies across Kolkata and West Bengal.

“Tie-ups with societies are needed to create infrastructure. We create skypods where we drop the packages. These are kind of mailboxes placed in any society,” Mr Khullar said.

“The drone service can be very useful for carrying samples of pathological tests, for delivering life-saving drugs. This will be very useful when every minute counts,” NKDA chairman Debasish Sen said after attending the presentation programme on Wednesday.

He said that police often need to create a green corridor for various medical reasons so that a patient or a product can reach their destinations fast.

Mr Khullar said the company hopes to start delivery in New Town within two to three months and full-fledged operations are likely to begin within six months.

However, orders for delivery by drone have to be made through food aggregators and e-commerce sites with which the company has a tie-up.

Drones are used with permission from the Ministry of Civil Aviation and its associated agencies, he said.

The company said its drones are designed to deliver packages with weights ranging from 500 gms to 50 kg.

The company is focused on streamlining drone deliveries as a mainstream logistics solution for healthcare, e-commerce, quick commerce, agri-commodity and other industries, Mr Khullar said.

The company said that it has earlier also conducted the World’s longest BVLOS (Beyond Visual Line of Sight) medicine delivery flight with Flipkart Health of 104 km between Baruipur and Medinipur in West Bengal, reducing the delivery time by 80 per cent compared to conventional means. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Kolkata:

Kolkata-based AJC Bose College students described their principal’s instruction to sign an affidavit with the declaration that they will not wear torn or artificially torn jeans to college as a diktat interfering with their freedom of expression.

Students said they were “upset” with the college authorities and that such a move was unwarranted.

“We are upset with the principal’s order. This is a diktat and interferes with our freedom to dress,” Ajay Sinhotra, a student of the college, said.

Another student Rimmi Jamal said, “People should be allowed to wear ripped jeans. I protest against such an order.” Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose College principal Purna Chandra Maity said students “must wear normal civil dresses” and he would allow any indecent outfit.

The affidavit that students were asked to sign said, “Having been admitted to Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose College, I will never enter inside college premises wearing torn/artificially torn jeans or any kind of indecent dress. I do hereby affirm that I shall wear normal civil dresses during my study period inside the entire college premises.” Incidentally, last year a similar advisory was issued for students and staff of the same college asking them not to wear torn or distressed jeans.

The principal said the move to sign the affidavit was “to enforce strict discipline in the institute”.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)