1. No One Can Hold Back Rathyatras: Amit Shah
BJP chief Amit Shah vowed on Friday, 7 December to start the party’s stalled rathyatras in Bengal and accused the Mamata Banerjee government of “throttling democracy” by denying permission for the programmes.
“Since 2014, I have visited Bengal 23 times. Yatras and other events have taken place. Let them bring before the media one instance of communal tension after a BJP event,” Shah said at a news conference in New Delhi when asked about Mamata calling the proposed programme “Ravan yatras.”
(Source: The Telegraph)
2. No Rathyatra, No Big Leaders But BJP Draws 20,000 In Cooch Behar
The BJP drew 20,000 supporters on Friday, 7 December, at a rally in Cooch Behar, the largest number in recent years despite the stalled rathyatra and the absence of top leaders.
Jhinaidanga, the venue near Cooch Behar town, falls in the Assembly constituency of Rabindranath Ghosh, state minister and Trinamul district chief. The crowd was being seen as an indication that the ruling party will have a fight in its hands in Cooch Behar in the Lok Sabha elections next year.
Since Calcutta High Court barred the rathyatra on Thursday, confusion had reigned over whether the rally would be held. But Samsur Mondal, 65, and his friend septuagenarian Ahmed Ali Khandakar, both from an erstwhile Bangladeshi enclave in the district, had no doubts.
(Source: The Telegraph)
3. Calcutta Getting Cameras To Snag Red-Light Violations Even At Night
Calcutta police are installing cameras that detect red-light violations even at night and read the registration number of vehicles travelling at a speed of up to 100 kmph.
In the absence of these devices, and adequate men on the roads, the police often fail to track down offending vehicles.
Officers said 13 Red Light Violation Detection (RLVD) cameras had been installed in August and 40 more would be set up in phases. The cameras that have been installed will start working once they are synchronised with the traffic signals.
Every time a vehicle jumps a red signal, the system will capture five photographs and store them in the server. The vehicle owner will receive a message with the time and date of the violation.
(Source: The Telegraph)
4. You Choked On Year’s Foulest Air On 7 December
Just when you thought the city’s air quality couldn’t get any worse, it did. On Friday, 7 December, Kolkatans breathed the foulest air this year, which surpassed even the Diwali night pollution count when air turns extremely toxic due to incessant bursting of crackers.
The air quality index (AQI) recorded at the automatic pollution monitoring station at the RBU campus on B T Road, read 434 — way above the 409 reading on Diwali night in November. The count for PM2.5, the tiniest and deadliest particulate matter, at this station remained static at 500 µg/m3 for five hours at a stretch (1 am to 6 am). This reading is over eight times the permissible PM 2.5 limit of 60 µg/m3.
(Source: The Times Of India)
5. Caught In College Clash, 5-Yr-Old Nearly Trampled
A five-year-old girl, returning home from school, was hit by a motorcycle and almost got trampled after being caught in a clash between two groups of students outside Dinabandhu Andrews College in Garia on Friday afternoon.
Srija Roy’s father Dharmendra shielded her with his body as the upper-nursery student lay on the ground. The incident happened on Raja SC Mullick Road around 1:30 pm when the students were trying to run away from cops who had stepped in to stop the violence on the campus.
“We were trying to cross the road when I saw some college students running towards us. A youth on a bike suddenly hit my daughter and she fell down. He sped away, followed by others who were about to trample my daughter. The students stepped on my back while fleeing,” said Dharmendra, who runs a small eatery in Garia. Some other students, who were injured in the clash, then rushed them to Baghajatin State General Hospital. Srija suffered leg, face and nose injuries.
(Source: The Times Of India)
6. Teen Holds Off 5 Molesters, Saves Dad From Assault
A Class XII girl, who was allegedly being molested by some local rowdies, bravely stood against the culprits and also saved her father from being assaulted.
The incident took place at Ekbalpore on Friday, 7 December. Police have started an investigation into the matter.
In her complaint, the teenager said she was returning home from school with her friends around 2:10 pm on Friday, when she found the miscreants standing along the road. The youths had made it a regular affair to taunt the girl. Some of these youths were known to her.
(Source: The Times Of India)
7. Mercury May Drop Below 15°C This Weekend: Met
With dry and chilly north-westerly winds flowing in unhindered, the mercury is likely to slip below 15°C over the weekend in the city.
On Friday, 7 December, the temperature, at 15.5°C, was a notch below the normal mark. The Alipore met office, however, predicts it could well touch the 14°C mark over the weekend. This dry and cold spell could continue till 11 December before it starts getting slightly warmer.
“The flow of north-westerly winds will continue for now and the cold feeling will stay,” said Sanjib Bandyopadhyay, deputy director (general meteorology), Alipore Meteorological Centre. “The northwesterly winds need to flow in consistently for the temperature to drop further. We expect the next spell to be chillier and the mercury could then slide further below. Even though it is difficult to predict, the spell could arrive by the middle of December,” a Met official said.
(Source: The Times Of India)
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