suraj subba

President Murmu honored 51 personnel with Kirti, Vir, and Shaurya Chakras for exceptional bravery and sacrifice. The awards recognized acts of raw courage across various operational theatres, including elite forces and CAPFs. Notably, Gaganyaan astronaut-designate Group Captain Prasanth Balakrishnan Nair received a Kirti Chakra for his distinguished service.

Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM)-backed Darjeeling Terai Dooars Plantation Labor Union (DTDPLU) on Monday threatened to start an indefinite hunger strike demanding disbursement of workers’ bonus by garden management within September 27.

The Darjeeling Terai Dooars Plantation Labour Union on Wednesday announced that it would keep on hold the indefinite pen-down strike from July 25 in the five state-run gardens since the moral code of conduct for the panchayat polls is in place.

GJM supporters went berserk, a day after Subodh Pradhan, leader of the party's teachers' front, was killed in the DGHC guest house at Rohini.

After the sub-staff, the super-staff of the Hills tea gardens are also slated to get a salary hike.

In yet another blow to the Hills economy, the trade union affiliated to the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) stopped the dispatch of tea leaves from Darjeeling on Friday. The ban has been clamped to pressure tea producers to increase the daily wage of workers.

It may have taken three rounds of meeting and an extensive exchange of parleys between the management and the trade union to reopen Jungpana Tea Estate, but the Hills unit of TMC on Wednesday claimed credit for the reopening

Come Puja and the tea garden unions are at loggerheads with the garden owners.

The works of 28 major artists, including M F Husain, Jogen Chowdhury, Manu Parekh, Jatin Das, Arpana Caur, Paresh Maity and Atul Dodiya, will be displayed together on December 13 at a charity exhibition and sale in the capital to raise money for a Mahatma Gandhi statue in London’s Parliament Square.

The city police on Thursday booked a six-member gang of chain snatchers under the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA).

On Tuesday, Dipesh Kumar Gupta, manager of Ging Tea Estate (lower division) was beaten up by some workers and had to be taken to a hospital in Siliguri for treatment.

Stringent provisions of the Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) were slapped on two robbers on Sunday for a series of chain snatchings after they were released on bail last year.

The stalemate at Jungpana Tea Estate, which has recently hit the headlines for regularly producing top-rated Darjeeling tea in the auctions and the global markets, is not going to end soon.

Sporadic violence and arson, which has kept the Hills on the boil for the last 25 days, continued on Sunday even as Army columns kept a close watch on the funeral rallies in Darjeeling and Sonada. A huge mob set ablaze a BDO office and a police camp at Pokribong, injuring four police personnel.

The Sonada toy train station, along with a local police station and a traffic police booth, was set ablaze by demonstrators after the death of Tashi Bhutia, a Gorkha National Liberation Front (GNLF) supporter, late on Friday evening.

Sporadic violence and arson, which has kept Darjeeling on the boil for the last 25 days, continued unabated on Sunday with marching Army columns keeping a close watch on funeral rallies in Darjeeling and Sonada taken out by GJM and GNLF, on a day the ruling Trinamool vowed to “give our life and blood” but not to allow Bengal to be divided.