The Celsius soared to a season high of 40.5 degrees on Wednesday, prompting the weather office to sound the summer’s first heat-wave warning for Calcutta. The hottest day of the year so far was also the second hottest May day of the decade after a 42.1-degree scorcher on May 9, 2009. Only thrice in the past 10 years have May temperatures hit 40-plus in the city.

MALDA, 29 JAN: Five more babies died at the Malda Medical College and Hospital (MMCH) in the past 24 hours taking the toll to 116 this month.

Calcutta, April 5: The rate of population growth in nine Bengal districts that share their borders with Bangladesh has come down in the past decade, a trend mainly attributed to an expansion in barbed-wire fencing and tighter vigil on illegal immigrants.

The provisional data released by the Directorate of Census Operations in Calcutta show a decline in the population growth rate in these distri

KOLKATA, 18 AUG: The state government's decision to identify certain districts as drought-hit has raised a howl of protest even within the Cabinet, with Mr Srikumar Mukherjee, the minister from CPI, pointing out that the state was making its decisions based on average rainfall received by a district instead of declaring drought according to mouzas as was the norm of the Centre.

Mr Mukherjee dre

The research farm in Islampur. Picture by Mehedi Hedaytullah
Raiganj, June 23: An agriculture department

The Malda district administration has been told to start culling chickens in Englishbazar block after reports confirmed the presence of the avian flu virus in dead birds, samples of which had been sent to the High Security Animal Disease Laboratory in Bhopal.

Four owlets and 400 river turtles of endangered species were seized in two incidents in South and North Dinajpurs today.

At South Dinajpur

Some of the injured birds at the Kulik sanctuary in North Dinajpur dry their wings in the sun. Picture by Nantu Dey Sept. 29: Over 1,500 birds were killed in a storm that ripped through north Bengal last evening and the rain that came with it.

A congested NH34 in Malda. The highway passes right through the town. Picture by Surajit Roy Malda, July 1: The expansion of NH34 from Barasat to Dalkhola will be completed by 2011, National Highways Authority officials said today. The stretch between Barasat in North 24 Parganas and Dalkhola in North Dinajpur will be widenend to four lanes. "Provisions are being kept to turn it into a six-lane road in future. The land acquisition is being made with an eye to achieving the goal,' said Srikumar Bhattacharya, the project director of the NHAI here.

Islampur : At least 12 children have died of an unknown fever in villages of two gram panchayats in North Dinajpur over the past four days. The outbreak of the fever has prompted the district health department to send a team of doctors to the affected villages in Rasakhawa and Domohana gram panchayats. According to health sources, at least 25 more children in the area are suffering from fever. The sources added that most of the children who died were aged between three and 10 years. The death of a two-month-old girl has also been reported from the area.