
Kolkata: The West Bengal government has acquired two television channels - Tara Muzik and Tara News - which were previously owned by the Saradha Group. The two channels had to be shut down following the Saradha chit-fund crisis.
Announcing the decision, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee told reporters at Writers' Buildings that the decision was taken following appeal by employees of Tara News and Tara Muzic channels for government intervention. The state government would provide Rs 26 lakh from the Chief Minister's relief fund to run the channels.
The shutdown of the channel left 177 employees jobless. The employees claim they were not paid salaries for three months before they lost their jobs.
The government would, however, not take the liability of the channels which amounted to Rs 6 crore, said the Chief Minister. Noting that the legislation was required for the purpose, she said the state government would decide whether it should convene a special session of the Assembly or promulgate an ordinance since the Assembly was not in session now. ...
more

05:11 PM, May 23, 2013

New Delhi: Delhi Assembly Elections are very close and the voters of the city want to know how many poll promises have their leaders fulfilled. IBN7 has started a campaign New Delhi Banao (Develop New Delhi) and is trying to raise awareness among the voters. IBN7 went to Shahdara constituency to know what changes have been taken place in past five years. Shahdara has a population of 2 lakh with...

01:32 PM, May 22, 2013

Panaji: The Goa Medical College (GMC), the state's top health facility, regularly faces water shortage because people steal taps installed in the hospital premises, Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar said on Tuesday. The water shortage is putting patients and their kin to hardships, especially during the scorching summer season. "The reason why there is water shortage is because people keep stealing taps. The water just gushes out. There is no shortage...

04:10 AM, May 22, 2013

Thane: Union Agriculture Minister and NCP Chief Sharad Pawar was greeted with black flags by the Congress, the Shiv Sena, the SP and the BSP workers to protest wastage of water by the civic corporation in Thane on Sunday in Bhiwandi. Pawar inaugurated the Bhiwandi-Nizampur City Municipal Corporation's new administrative building, when protesters including three MLAs Rashid Tahir, Abu Azmi and Roopesh Mhatre waved black flags at him. The three...

10:55 PM, May 19, 2013

New Delhi: Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) workers on Sunday protested outside residences of Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit and local MLAs on the issues of rising prices of power and water, and women's safety in the national capital. While demonstrating outside the Chief Minister's residence, some workers were detained and sent to Tuglak Road Police Station, a statement released by Aam Aadmi Party said. AAP workers claimed that a number...

09:34 PM, May 19, 2013

New Delhi: BJP youth wing workers led by party's Delhi unit president Vijay Goel on Sunday courted arrest while protesting at the residence of Haryana Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda demanding release of Delhi's share of water allegedly held back by the state. Goel and scores of activists of Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), including Delhi BJYM chief Gauarav Khari, were taken to Parliament Street police station and were later...

06:53 PM, May 19, 2013

Beirut: Syrian President Bashar al-Assad says he won't step down before elections are held in his war-ravaged country. The Syrian leader's comments, published on Saturday in the Argentine newspaper Clarin, highlight the difficulties the US and Russia face in getting the Assad regime and Syria's political opposition to the table at an international conference envisioned for next month. The country's main opposition group has demanded that these talks lead to...

07:50 AM, May 19, 2013

Berlin: Germany has approved new measures to rein in high-risk financial business of banks and to decouple them from retail banking as part of a comprehensive reform to prevent a repeat of the financial crisis five years ago and to minimise the costs for taxpayers if banks were to be bailed out in the future. The Bundestag, the lower house of parliament, on Friday voted with the majority of the...

07:40 AM, May 19, 2013

Beirut: The United States chided Russia for sending missiles to the Syrian government as plans for a peace conference promoted by Washington and Moscow were hit by diplomatic rifts over its scope and purpose. Sectarian bloodshed in neighbouring Iraq during Friday prayers, a hacking attack on a Western newspaper by sympathisers of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and defiant comments by a rebel commander filmed eating a slain soldier's flesh were...

07:35 AM, May 18, 2013

Bhubaneswar: At least 177 people were arrested in different parts of Odisha during the past week for their involvement in illegal money circulation and chit fund activities, a police official said on Friday. The crackdown on the firms began May 10, 2013 and about 200 offices of 84 companies were raided, Rajesh Kumar, deputy inspector general (economic offence wing) of the crime branch police, told IANS. The arrested include two...

05:45 AM, May 18, 2013

New Delhi: Against the backdrop of recent chit fund controversy in West Bengal, a Parliamentary committee on Friday slammed such schemes with demands for putting in place a single regulator to oversee their functioning or scrapping them altogether. The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Finance closely scrutinised the functioning of such schemes which recently led to a series of suicides in West Bengal. Senior officials from RBI, CBDT, SEBI, Corporate Affairs...

07:40 PM, May 17, 2013

Washington: President Barack Obama said on Thursday he reserves the right to resort to a range of both diplomatic and military options if he receives conclusive proof that the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had used chemical weapons in the country's civil war. Obama, at a joint news conference with Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan, said there was evidence of chemical weapons use in Syria but that it is...

11:45 PM, May 16, 2013

Kolkata: The Saradha chit fund scam's suspected kingpin Sudipta Sen who earlier had reached out to the CBI accusing West Bengal's ruling Trinamool Congress of complicity in the swindle, has now approached the court opposing probe by the central agency. Sen, now behind bars, has not only filed an affidavit in the Calcutta High Court expressing faith in the state government's investigation as opposed to a Central Bureau of Investigation...

10:30 PM, May 16, 2013

Bhubaneswar: After nabbing over 160 people across Odisha on charges of running or helping illegal money laundering, the Economic Offence Wing (EOW) of the Crime Branch (CB), arrested two employees of Saradha Group on Thursday. The EOW took Basudev Samal and BN Das into custody on charge of helping Saradha Group chief to cheat gullible investors in Balasore district. While Samal was working as the branch manager of Saradha group's...

10:28 PM, May 16, 2013

Kolkata: Observing that "time has not come" for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the Saradha chit fund scam, the Calcutta High Court on Thursday refused to accept a plea in this regard but said it will consider it after fully hearing the matter. A bench of Justices AK Banerjee and MK Chowdhury, which on Thursday started hearing afresh a set of public interest litigations seeking a CBI...

07:55 PM, May 16, 2013

Kolkata: A deposit firm agent committed suicide, while police quizzed a CEO of a company under the Saradha group banner Monday as West Bengal continued to grapple with the fallout of the chit fund scam, purported to be the biggest financial scandal to hit the state. Ujjwal Samaddar, 27, who worked for Sanmarg, a chit fund company, was found hanging on Sunday in his home in north 24 Parganas district's...

04:45 AM, May 14, 2013

Dhaka: A top UN official on Monday termed Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's dialogue offer to the opposition as a good "starting point" to resolve the current political crisis in Bangladesh, but feared the failure of talks could invite an unwanted scenario. "It is good starting point," visiting UN assistant secretary general Oscar Fernandez-Taranco said, referring to the Prime Minister's dialogue offer to opposition parties to end the ongoing political impasse...

01:59 AM, May 14, 2013

New Delhi: A section within the Congress party is keen on replacing Dr Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister, sources said on Monday. According to the sources, the leaders want Singh replaced before the monsoon session of Parliament. While there is no consensus yet on the alternative name, sources said that Defence Minister AK Antony and Finance Minister P Chidambaram could be considered. Meanwhile, a few leaders are in favour of...

06:13 PM, May 13, 2013

Bhubaneswar: Chief of controversial non-banking financial institution (NBFI) Artha Tatwa (AT) Group Pradip Sethi, was arrested and sent to jail on Monday on charges of cheating investors in different parts of Odisha. Sethi, who was playing hide and seek with police for the past three months, was finally nabbed on Sunday night and produced in a court here on Monday. "Sethi has been remanded to judicial custody for 14 days,"...

05:50 PM, May 13, 2013

New Delhi: After losing his job, it seems that former railway minister Pawan Bansal is not happy with the media's role in the Railways bribery and cash-for-jobs scam. When some reporters asked Bansal about his family and the role played by his relatives in the Railways bribery and cash-for-jobs scam, the former minister was very livid. Bansal claimed that he had no business relations with his nephew Vijay Singla who...

11:40 AM, May 13, 2013