Second all-party meet on Aila cyclone relief to be held on Sunday evening

June 9th, 2009 KOLKATA - West Bengal's ruling Left Front chairman Biman Bose said on Tuesday that his party demanded the cyclone Aila, which caused enormous devastation in the state to be declared a national calamity. "The Left Front discussed the issue of cyclone Aila at its meeting and demanded that the disaster be declared a national calamity," Biman Bose told reporters.

June 9th, 2009 KOLKATA - West Bengal's ruling Left Front (LF) Tuesday said the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government should declare cyclone Aila, that hit parts of West Bengal coasts May 25, as a national disaster, considering the gravity of the damage it caused in Sundarban Islands. "We're demanding that the Aila damages be declared as a national disaster and seek the centre's help to carry out rescue operations in the cyclone-hit Sundarbans area," state LF chairman Biman Bose told a press conference here.

June 8th, 2009 KOLKATA - Denying that she was trying to run a parallel administration in West Bengal for cyclone relief work, Union Railways Minister Mamata Banerjee has claimed she has always taken the government into confidence before initiating any action. "Whatever I have done, I have done after taking the administration into confidence.

June 8th, 2009 PANKHABARI - Families, devastated by landslide triggered by cyclone Aila in Darjeeling hills, have called for immediate relief and rehabilitation. About 100 families of the Pankhabari region in one of the worst affected areas have been staying in relief camp.

June 8th, 2009 KOLKATA - Lawmakers of the Left Front in West Bengal took to the streets on Monday to collect funds from the willing public to help the victims of cyclone Aila in the state. "The government from the very first day has come forward with all their resources for the flood victims.

June 6th, 2009 KOLKATA - An eleven-member Central team will arrive here today to assess the damage caused by recent cyclone Aila in West Bengal. During their visit, the officials will visit the areas hit by the cyclone in West Bengal's South and North 24 Parganas districts and the Darjeeling hills.

June 6th, 2009 KOLKATA - The Trinamool Congress will not attend an all-party meeting on Sunday to exchange views and seek suggestions for expediting relief in the cyclone-affected areas. Sudip Bandopadhyay, TMC aspirant in Kolkata (North), said, "It is a desperate attempt to put a government seal on the efforts to get Central funds for the cyclone victims when the state has miserably failed to arrange relief and rehabilitation." The meeting has been called by State Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee.

June 6th, 2009 KOLKATA - An eleven-member Central team led by Ashok Lavasa, arrived here on Saturday to assess the damage caused by recent cyclone Aila in West Bengal. During their visit, the officials visited the areas hit by the cyclone in West Bengal's South and North 24 Parganas districts and the Darjeeling hills.

June 5th, 2009 KOLKATA - An eleven-member Central team will arrive here on Saturday to assess the damage caused by recent cyclone Aila in West Bengal. During their visit, the officials will visit the areas hit by the cyclone in West Bengal's South and North 24 Parganas districts and the Darjeeling hills.

June 3rd, 2009 NEW DELHI - The Centre would soon send a team to assess the damage caused by recent cyclone "Aila" in West Bengal, state, it has been assured to the State Government, said West Bengal Finance Minister Ashim Das Gupta on Tuesday. Ashim, after meeting the Union Home Minister P.Chidambaram on Tuesday in the national capital, said that Chidambaram has also promised that he would sympathetically consider all the demands for rehabilitation of the cyclone-affected people.

June 3rd, 2009 KOLKATA - A seven-member team of the Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM), which is spearheading a movement for a separate Gorkhaland, Wednesday met West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee and demanded Rs.10 billion for relief and restoration work in areas of Darjeeling hills devastated by landslides triggered by Cyclone Aila. The team of senior GJM leaders, led by party president Bimal Gurung, met Bhattacharjee at the state secretariat and also put forth their demand for holding three-tier Panchayat polls in Darjeeling hills.

June 2nd, 2009 NEW DELHI - West Bengal's Finance Minister, Dr. Ashim Dasgupta, will meet Union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today and submit a report on the recent devastation caused by cyclone Aila in the state.

May 31st, 2009 KOLKATA - Demanding immediate and proper relief for the people affected by cyclone Aila, the Socialist Unity Centre of India (SUCI) staged a protest march here on Saturday. The members and supporters of the SUCI took to streets demanding food, drinking water and medical teams for the cyclone-hit people in South 24 Parganas and North 24 Parganas.

May 30th, 2009 KOLKATA - Congress Party supporters protested on Saturday against inefficient disaster management by the State authorities following cyclone Aila's havoc in different parts of the state. Protestors said that the relief work being carried out by the State Government was inadequate and much more needed to be done for affected people's actual help.

May 29th, 2009 KOLKATA - Railway Minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee Friday said she would submit a report to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the post-cyclone Aila situation in West Bengal. "I'll meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh tomorrow (Saturday) and will report to him about the post-Aila situation in West Bengal," Banerjee told a Bengali television channel, Star Ananda, over phone from the national capital.