With the Congress getting a chance to present the Railway Budget after 17 years, railway minister Pawan Bansal has derailed almost all the Metro railway projects of his predecessor Mamata Banerjee which she bestowed with mammoth allocation during her two-year stint with the ministry.

Railway minister Pawan Kumar Bansal on Tuesday restrained from granting West Bengal enough railway projects. In his Railway Budget for the year 2013-14, Mr Bansal only awarded the state with a railway workshop at Berhampore in Murshidabad which is significantly the stronghold of Union minister of state for railway Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury. Apart from this, 18 new suburban trains were announced from Kolkata.

The new Railway Budget was generally welcomed by the wagon industry. Leading wagon-makers in the country felt that there were ample indications of a “quite robust” wagon policy which will be fuelled by other infrastructure development programmes. Interestingly, a few months ago, there were severe shortages of wagons.

In a tragic incident, a young bridegroom died on the day of his wedding.
The marriage of Partha Mondal, 26, a resident of Hirapur in Asansol was fixed with a girl at Balitora village in Santuri police station area in Purulia district.

Apparently with an eye on the coming panchayat polls, chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Tuesday announced her plan to set up a development board for promotion of tourism and trade in the remote regions of Sundarbans.

A day before the Railway Budget 2013-14, Union minister of state for railway Adhir Chowdhury said that there would not be any announcement of any new train or rail project for West Bengal in the Railway Budget on Tuesday which is not viable. “Unlike some previous Railway Budget, the budget for 2013-14 will not announce new populist projects,” he added.

A schoolgirl was raped by a youth at Dankuni in Hooghly while two other girls were molested in Birbhum and North 24 Parganas on Sunday evening.

The first day of the Madhyamik Examination 2013 conducted by the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education was marred by couple of incidents on Monday. While an examinee was injured when a ceiling fan fell on his head during the examination at a school in north Kolkata, three regular students were allegedly forced to write the question paper of the old syllabus.

In what will come as a relief to the Centre, chief minister Mamata Banerjee seems to have softened her stand on the National Counter Terrorism Centre (NCTC). Union home minister Sushil Kumar Shinde on Monday said that Ms Banerjee was positively inclined towards the NCTC. “Un ka to man is mein ha (She is willing).

After much hurdle, the proposed Vedic temple-cum-planetarium of ISCKON in Mayapur is set to be completed by 2016, the 50th anniversary of ISKCON. Its chief patron and great grandson of Henry Ford of Ford Motor company, Alfred Brush Ford on Monday said: “The Mayapur project which faced much hurdles during the previous government, saw the day’s light with the new government headed by Mamata Banerjee.