Two trains collide head on in Bangladesh's Narsingdi, Killing 19

AP, Dhaka, 8 December : A speeding train slammed into another moving slowly through a station in eastern Bangladesh on Wednesday, killing as many as 19 people and injuring scores more, according to officials and news reports.
The force of the impact threw the cars of one train on top of the other, TV footage showed. Other cars veered off the track in the head-on collision. One express train was traveling from the capital, Dhaka, to the southern port city of Chittagong, while the other was making the reverse journey when they collided in Narsingdi district. Local news reports said the accident may have been caused by a signal error.

"The engines and front cars of the trains turned into heaps of twisted metal," said Abdus Samad, a charity worker living near the station. "I saw people screaming and shouting for help." Railway officials fled the area after the crash as angry crowds descended on the station, according to Benazir Ahmed, another witness.
Soldiers joined police and firefighters in searching for people trapped in the wreckage, Bangladesh Railway spokeswomen Shirina Dilhur said. "We don't have as yet a clear picture of casualties," she said.
In September, a speeding train plowed into two buses at a busy crossing in Dhaka, killing at least seven people and injuring dozens....READ BBC STORY န Photos : AFP

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Maoist' shutdown in West Bengal evokes partial response
Kolkata, 8 December : The first day of the 48-hour shutdown the Maoists have called in West Bengal evoked some response in the Maoist-affected districts, police said.
"The shutdown was observed successfully in Junglemahal areas (Maoist affected forested areas of three western districts - West Midnapore, Purulia and Bankura), but there were no reports of untoward incidents," said Additional Director General of Police Surajit Kar Purkayastha.

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Mamata Banerjee slams CPM for supplying arms to Maoists

ANI, Kolkata, 8 December : Union Railway Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee has slammed the CPI(M) for helping and supplying arms to the Maoists.
Interacting with mediapersons at her residence, Banerjee said: "I have been saying this for a long time that the Maoists and the CPI(M) are working together in West Bengal. Not from today but from many days, from 1998-1999. They (Maoists) have said they have captured Garbeta, Keshpur, Chotoangaria and CPI(M) had supplied arms to them. CPI(M) always lies and arranges the game for them. I do not know about the ideological difference between Marxist and Maoist. Both are Mao-CPI-Marxist and CPI-Maoist," she added.
Her views came on the sidelines of police officials in Kolkata seizing a huge cache of arms and ammunitions from a Maoist hideout on same day. Police raided several hideouts and seized various CDs, DVDs, party documents on military tactics, banned literatures, digital cameras, tape recorders, sophisticated walkie-talkies, wireless sets and different types of radio communication devices, parts of improvised rocket launchers, explosives and a laptop.

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Grameen Bank : Norway gives all-clear to Md Yunus bank

BBC News, 8 December : Norway has told the BBC that there are "no more unanswered questions" into claims that the Grameen Bank in Bangladesh wrongly diverted aid cash.
A spokesman for the foreign ministry in Oslo said that the matter had been thoroughly investigated and that it considered it to be closed. A documentary alleged that nearly $100m of Norwegian aid was transferred from Grameen Bank to other parts of Grameen. The bank has strongly denied the allegations. "We are fully satisfied that no Norwegian money is missing or unaccounted for," the foreign ministry spokesman said.
He said that it was agreed in 1998 that the bank should return money wrongly transferred from the Grameen Bank to Grameen Kalyan - another part of more than 30 companies headed by Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus that make up the the Grameen group of companies. READ FULL STORY

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"National Liberation Front of Tripura" abduct 11 labourers
Agartala, 8 December : Separatist guerrillas have abducted 11 labourers from a bridge construction site in a village in Tripura, police said here Wednesday.
"Heavily armed NLFT (National Liberation Front of Tripura) militants raided a labourers' temporary shed at Govindabari village Tuesday night and kidnapped 11 workers at gunpoint while others managed to escape," police spokesman Nepal Das told reporters. Govindabari village is some 175 km north of here. The state government has asked BSF to take appropriate steps to rescue the hostages, all tribals. The labourers were engaged by a contractor to construct a bridge on Chawmanu rivulet on Chawmanu-Govindabari highway.

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Kolkatans most history buffs, says all India "e-bay" study

UNI, Kolkata, 8 December : Though the 'city of Joy' is only the 7th largest commercial hub in the country in terms of collecting rare historical documents and invaluable old coins by the Kolkatans, it ranks top among all other Indian cities and towns, according to a census done by the country's leading commerce marketplace 'e-bay'.

Releasing the third edition of ''e-bay Census Guide 2010'', e-bay India, Head Marketing Strategy Abhimanyu Lal said here today that though Kolkata was lagging behind Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Jaipur in the terms of the volume of online selling and buying of different items, including consumer goods and electronics gadgets, the rich intellectual mind of its people was reflected in the findings that no other city or town could match the collection of rare historical documets and invaluable old coins by its residents.
Referring to the other unique findings in the elaborate census report, Mr Lal said Kolkata was also found to be the treasure trove of rare stamps related to the achivements of the Army, Navy and the Air Force. Similarly, the city dwellwers were also found to be the country's largest collectors of Sapphires from across the globe, valued at several hundred muillion of dollars, he said quoting from the census.
Asked about the major reason behind Kolkata becoming only the 7th largest online market for commercial goods, Mr Lal said apart from having the presence of only limited number of super rich people in the city, the census report found that the only other reason for the Kolkatans for not running after foreign goods and expensive electronic gadgets was their 'taste' in other spheres of life.
As a result in spite of the voluminous increase in the sales of mobile handsets, their accessories, pendrives, latest camers and DVDs all over the country, including in this Eastern Metropolis, the 'city of joy' lagged behind in terms of sales from a much smaller city like Jaipur for instance, he said and hoped in the coming months the situation might take a different turn as the city might also find its place among the top three positions in terms of online sales of other items too.

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