Reporting from this source, summarised, rewritten or translated and published under its name · 23 stories
EnvironmentHeavy hail on Wednesday morning was followed by snow on Sandakphu, West Bengal's highest peak, while large hailstones whitened crop fields in Jalpaiguri's Rajganj and Gajoldoba and in Alipurduar's Kumargram.
AgrotechWest Bengal is installing AI-based automatic food grain analysers at government paddy procurement centres. A sample gives a digital report in three minutes on moisture, broken and shrivelled grains, insect damage, sprouted grains, foreign grains, stones and dust.
Narayan Mondal's eight-bigha garden at Ashoknagar in North 24 Parganas has oranges on 75 trees this year, shaded by green net, and visitors are paying 10 rupees to see it.
Under India's Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana, 200,000 fry went in at each of three Howrah ghats to rebuild fish numbers for fishers.
FruitsIn West Bengal, Krishna Chandra Haldar crossed a local papaya with Red Lady 786 and reports 75,000 kg a year from 1,875 trees, earning about Rs 22.5 lakh.
EnvironmentA tigress brought from Bihar that had left Buxa for the Raimona forest in Assam was darted in a three-hour operation and returned to a Buxa Tiger Reserve enclosure on Tuesday night.
HealthIndia's drug price regulator NPPA has revised the maximum retail price of 543 cancer medicines in 137 categories. One pack of the breast cancer drug palbociclib falls from Rs 40,421 to Rs 2,720; the new prices apply from 9 November.
EnvironmentPolice in West Bengal rescued a cub of the endangered Bengal slow loris, a nocturnal primate, from a motorbike on the Kalyani-Barrackpore highway and arrested two men. Links to a trafficking ring are being investigated.
EnvironmentThe Arabian Sea has long shielded Mumbai from pollution, but in 2026 the city's AQI has topped Delhi's for the second time; slow winds, rubbish burning and firecrackers are to blame, experts say.
EnvironmentA barking deer turned jet black by melanism has been seen again at Dow Hill in Darjeeling's Kurseong forest division, after first being photographed in January; forest officials say about one deer in a million shows such a change.
FlowersLotuses grown in ponds around Labhpur and Ahmedpur in West Bengal's Birbhum go to India's big cities and to the US, Germany, Thailand, Japan, Nepal and Bhutan in the festival season, fetching $2 to $5 a flower abroad.
About 170 million children and adolescents aged 5-19 were obese in 2024, up from 2% in 1990 to 8%; the WHO says treatment must start with diet, physical activity and lifestyle change.
VegetablesWith retail onion prices at Rs 60-70 a kg, West Bengal's agricultural marketing department is selling Nashik onions bought through NAFED at Rs 35 a kg at nine regulated-market camps in Purba Bardhaman until 15 October.
