The fire was reported at 6.10 pm, said a fire official. (ANI Photo)
KOLKATA: At least seven people were killed in an inferno in a multi-storeyed building in Kolkata, which houses zonal offices of Eastern Railway and South Eastern Railway on Monday, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said.
Two more persons were also feared dead, said Banerjee who has gone to the spot.
Out of the seven deceased, four were firefighters, one assistant sub-inspector posted at the Hare Street police station and one RPF personnel, Fire and Emergency Services Minister Sujit Basu said.
The seventh person is a senior official of the Railways.
Representative image
KOLKATA: The All India Congress Committee announced a total of 13 candidates for the 60 assembly seats going to polls in the first two phases. The list is packed with new faces, other than sitting Baghmundi MLA Nepal Mahato. Congress has fielded Partha Pratim Banerjee for the Purulia seat after outgoing MLA Sudip Mukherjee left Congress and joined BJP.
Pradesh Congress leaders will have another round of talks with Left Front leaders on Sunday to sort out “teething problems” over seat-sharing in north Bengal. Congress is not in a mood to share seats with Abbas Siddiqui’s Indian Secular Front (ISF) in Malda and Murshidabad.
Kolkata: Thailand is eyeing a July date to welcome back tourists after keeping its doors shut for over a year. The beach country that received 20 lakh visitors from India in 2019 and close to 3 lakh visitors in 2020 before the pandemic forced the country into a lockdown, earns nearly 20% of the GDP from tourism.
Thailand is slowly opening its gates for business but tourism is yet to flourish due to strict Covid protocols, with a compulsory 14-day quarantine and a minimum balance of Rs 5 lakhs in the bank over a period of six months before entering the country.
“We are in talks with the government to reduce the 14-day quarantine period and initiate vaccine passports where tourists with Covid vaccine will be given a priority. However, we are very strict in maintaining the safety protocols and thus negative tests and the new visa norms need to be followed,” said Vachirachai Sirisumpan, the director of Tourism Authority of Thailand in New Delhi.
Representative image
KOLKATA: The number of Covid vaccination centres (CVC) in Kolkata doubled on Wednesday, a day after the Centre allowed more private hospitals to be a part of the immunisation programme. Till Tuesday, there were a total of 25 CVCs (10 private hospitals and 15 government vaccination centres) in the city; now, there are 25 more, with the state government including 17 private and eight government hospitals. The health department said even more would be added by the weekend.
The decision would come as a relief for senior citizens and those above 45 years old with comorbidities, the target group for this stage of the countrywide inoculation programme. Many of them had found out that the earliest available vaccination dates were only towards the end of the month. Several had complained of overcrowded CVCs and long waiting times.