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Wednesday, March 18, 2026
TopicNorth Bengal

Topic: north Bengal

Mamata’s Hindu card, Modi’s jibe & a hospital — polarisation & deprivation in north Bengal battle

Even as BJP aims to pull off a repeat of its 2019 sweep of North Bengal, TMC is on an offensive to claim Alipurduar, Jalpaiguri, Cooch Behar, Raiganj, Balurghat, and Darjeeling seats.

Mamata and Modi opened north Bengal campaign. What they didn’t say matters more

Modi scored a big minus on the Jalapaiguri tornado issue. He didn’t say a word about it despite the tornado hitting barely 125 km from the site of his public rally.

How 3-month-old Hamro Party won Darjeeling polls, and why it’s a big deal for north Bengal hills

With candidates including teachers, tour guides, single mothers & a taxi driver, Hamro Party defeated TMC & BJP. It could set tone for Gorkhaland Territorial Administration polls.

‘Bhade ki kokh’ — how traffickers from North Bengal earn lakhs from illegal surrogacy

Girls from tea garden areas are being trafficked and forced into surrogacy. A ban on commercial surrogacy under the new law, say experts, may help the illegal practice prosper.

11 Bengal hill tribes will ‘definitely get ST status’ as govt works on Gorkhaland solution

Two BJP leaders say the party is discussing and working on classifying indigenous hill tribes as STs. But GJM factions dismiss this as a 'bluff'.

BJP drops ex-CEA Lahiri as Alipurduar candidate after protest, picks leader who led agitation

In its list of candidates for 156 seats in Bengal, BJP has fielded 8 Muslim candidates in Muslim-majority seats of Dinajpur and Murshidabad districts.

With 12 toes on her feet, gold-medallist Barman had no money for special training shoes

Barman comes from a humble background and has six toes on each foot, which made it doubly hard for her to find shoes for training while growing up.

On Camera

Priyanka Chopra and Shah Rukh Khan don’t owe us their political opinion

The expectation that every Indian celebrity must behave like Meryl Streep or Leonardo DiCaprio is misplaced. This is not Hollywood.

Use LPG judiciously, consider alternatives wherever possible—Govt amid supply crunch & shipping delays 

With vessels stranded at Hormuz amid West Asia conflict, Centre ramps up production, cracks down on hoarding, and urges households to use alternative.

Supreme Leader Mojtaba, the man Iran must keep alive & the secret force ‘tasked with it’—all about NOPO

The Nirouyeh Vijeh Pasdaran Velayat, or NOPO, was the only force Ali Khamenei trusted.It was founded in 1991 and is more feared than the Revolutionary Guards.

Peaceful power transfers followed uprisings in India’s neighbourhood. It’s a sign of mature democracies

Rating democracies is a tricky business. I am only using the simple metric of who in the Indian subcontinent has had the most peaceful, stable, normal political transitions and continuity.