West Bengal

West Bengal (/wɛst bɛŋˈɡɔːl/; Bengali pronunciation: [pɔʃtʃimbɔŋɡɔ]) is a state in eastern India and is the nation's fourth-most populous state, with over 91 million inhabitants. Spread over 34,267 sq mi (88,750 km²), it is bordered by the countries of Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan, and the Indian states of Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Sikkim, and Assam. The state capital is Kolkata. Together with the neighboring nation of Bangladesh, it makes up the ethno-linguistic region of Bengal.

Ancient Bengal was the site of several major janapadas (kingdoms). It was also part of large empires such as the Maurya Empire (second century BC) and Gupta Empire (fourth century AD); and part of the regional Buddhist Pala Empire (8th to 11th century) and Sena dynasty (11th–12th century). From the 13th century onward, the region was controlled by the Bengal Sultanate, Hindu kings and Baro-Bhuyan landlords under the suzerainty of the Mughal Empire, until the British East India company took control of the region from the Mughals in the late 18th century. The company consolidated their hold on the region following the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and Battle of Buxar in 1764 and by 1793 took complete control of the region. Kolkata (or Calcutta) served for many years as the capital of British controlled territories in India. The early and prolonged exposure to British administration resulted in the expansion of Western education, culminating in development of science, institutional education, and social reforms in the region, including what became known as the Bengali renaissance. A hotbed of the Indian independence movement through the early 20th century, Bengal was divided during India's independence in 1947 along religious lines into two separate entities: West Bengal—a state of India—and East Bengal—a part of the newly created Dominion of Pakistan that later became the independent nation of Bangladesh in 1971.

Mamata Banerjee

Mamata Banerjee (Mômota Bôndyopadhyay) (born 5 January 1955) is an Indian politician who has been Chief Minister of West Bengal since 2011. She is the first woman to hold the office. Banerjee founded the party All India Trinamool Congress (AITMC or TMC) in 1997 and became its chairperson, after separating from the Indian National Congress. She is often referred to as Didi (meaning elder sister in Bengali). In 2011 Banerjee pulled off a landslide victory for the TMC Congress alliance in West Bengal by defeating the 34-year-old Communist Party of India (Marxist)-led Left Front government, the world's longest-serving democratically-elected communist government.

Banerjee previously served as the Minister of Railways twice and is also the first woman Railway Minister of India,Minister of Coal, and Minister of State for Human Resource Development, Department of Youth Affairs and Sports and Women and Child Development in the cabinet of the Indian government. She opposed forceful land acquisition for industrialisation by the communist government in West Bengal for Special Economic Zones at the cost of agriculturalists and farmers.

Daily News and Analysis

Daily News and Analysis (DNA) is an Indian broadsheet launched in 2005 and published in English from Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Pune, Jaipur, Bengaluru and Indore in India. It is the first English broadsheet daily in India to introduce an all-colour page format. It targets a young readership and is owned and managed by Diligent Media Corporation.

Launch

A high-profile advertising campaign with the tagline, "Speak up, it's in your DNA", preceded the birth of Daily News and Analysis in 2005. The context into which the publication was introduced was described by the Indian media as tumultuous, with price cuts and competitive activity occurring.

Getting rid of the edit page

In an announcement on its front page on 1 February 2010, former editor-in-chief Aditya Sinha announced that DNA would drop its "edit page," the section containing editorials, analysis and opinion.DNA's decision was considered bold and attracted much criticism in the field. DNA subsequently began providing, where appropriate, expert opinion and comments in different pages of the newspaper.

Daily News

Daily News or The Daily News is the name of several daily newspapers around the world, including:

Australia

Bahrain

Botswana

Canada

Egypt

Guam

India

Ireland

Malaysia

New Zealand

Pakistan

Subhash Chandra

Subhash Chandra (born 30 November 1950), full name Subhash Chandra Goel, is an Indian media mogul, businessman, television personality, motivational speaker and philanthropist. He is chairman of India's largest TV channel network Zee Media, Essel Group and is an Indian conglomerate.

Early years

In 1970, Subhash Chandra joined his family business of commission agent and trader in commodity (rice) in Hissar, Haryana. In 1980s he started manufacturing flexible packaging (mainly plastic tubes) for toothpaste, etc. under the name Essel Packaging. He followed up with a leisure park EsselWorld in north Bombay. In 1992, he launched Zee Television, in collaboration with Li Ka Shing and first online lottery and first Dish TV in India.

Business

His channel Zee TV competes with, among others, Sony Entertainment Television and STAR Plus. His TV channels, numbering up to 70, including those in local language Hindi reach 959 millions people spread over 169 countries. He launched India's first satellite TV channel, Zee TV, in 1992. Other interests include packaging, theme parks, lotteries and cinema multiplexes. He started the failed Indian Cricket League, a domestic Twenty20 cricket league intended as a challenge to the Board of Control for Cricket in India, the nation's governing body in Cricket. In November 2009, he took over management responsibility of Daily News & Analysis (DNA), which features among the top 8 English dailies in India and is one of fastest growing English newspapers in the country.