1. Mamata Invites Doctors to Talks
Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has invited to talks the agitating junior doctors who are expected to finalise their response on Saturday.
If the junior doctors accept the invitation to “three to four representatives”, the talks are expected to take place at 5 pm at Nabanna, the state secretariat.
The junior doctors have been on strike since Tuesday morning after an assault following the death of a patient at NRS Medical College and Hospital. Among their key demands are an apology from the chief minister for her outburst at SSKM Hospital on Thursday afternoon and foolproof security.
(Source: The Telegraph)
The BJP wanted to make it a tussle between communities; Trinamool tried to make it a fight between doctors and patients; but the doctors have managed to keep their agitation above politics.
Many of these doctors have been activists of the students’ wings of the Trinamool, Left and other parties, but after Monday night’s attack at NRS hospital, the junior doctors and students have bridged their political divide.
They said any attempt to drag them into politics would be resisted.
(Source: The Telegraph)
Mamata Banerjee said on Friday that those living in Bengal must learn to speak Bengali, intensifying her movement against the BJP which she accuses of trying to defame Bengal and its culture.
The chief minister vowed not to allow the BJP to “corner” Bengalis and the minorities by importing its “Gujarat model”.
The Trinamool Congress chief, who was addressing a party workers’ meeting at Kanchrapara in North 24-Parganas, said she would never allow Bengal to be turned into Gujarat. She, however, repeatedly asserted her love for the people of Gujarat and drew a distinction between Gujaratis like Mahatma Gandhi and “riot-mongers” like BJP chief Amit Shah.
(Source: The Telegraph)
Burdwan Medical College and Hospital authorities on Friday set up a parallel outpatient department at the emergency ward as the usual OPD has remained closed since Wednesday because of the cease-work by junior doctors.
Senior medical officers and professors of the medical college attended to thousands of patients at the parallel OPD and the emergency ward.
The doctors, however, wore black badges to protest the assault on junior doctors at NRS Medical College and Hospital on Monday night.
(Source: The Telegraph)
Several prominent personalities have lent their support to the agitating doctors with some of them even urging Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to find a solution to the impasse, which entered the fourth day on Friday.
Asserting that the Chief Minister should have spoken more humbly on Thursday, actor-filmmaker Aparna Sen said, “I do not support the way she spoke to the doctors. She should have spoken to them humbly because threats do not get anything done. There is no harm or no shame in saying sorry… That will not hamper her popularity.”
(Source: The Indian Express)
