Kolkata, Mar 2 : The rising gold prices have proved a deterrent to buyers of ornaments in Kolkata.

A four-day matrimonial fair saw people from all over the city thronging the venue to buy gold, but the high prices left the people disappointed.

"The global slowdown has become a big problem. It is a problem for middle class families like us. We are forced to cut down our budget because of the price hike in gold which is an important element of our weddings," said Arindam Day, a customer.

Kolkata, Mar 1 : Giving a fresh jolt to the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) in West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress on Sunday wrested the Bishanpur (West) assembly seat from the Left Front by a huge margin in a byelection.

The bypoll was held on February 26, in which 82 percent voters cast their votes.

Madan Mitra of the Trinamool Congress Secured 85,335 votes and he defeated his CPM rival Iskandar Hossain by 30,395 votes.

Doctors at SSKM Hospital removed the intact glass bulb from the stomach of the four year old Pratima Aleymagar successfully.

Had the torch bulb broken inside the girl’s stomach, the glass could have caused immense damage to her organs.

Confirming the development, surgeon Arunabha Sengupta, who operated on the girl said, “Aleymagar underwent a surgery Thursday morning. The width of the bulb was 2 mm and it was struck so tightly inside the left bronchia that the slightest pressure would have led to her death.”

On Feb 16, Aleymagar had swallowed a 2 mm X 1 mm bulb while playing at her residence in Narendrapur town in South 24 Parganas district.

Doctors at SSKM Hospital were successful in helping Pratima, a four-and-half-year-old girl to breathe comfortably again. She swallowed a bulb of 2mm diameter while playing outside her home 10 days back. The bulb got struck in her left bronchus - a branch of the windpipe.

Arunabha Sengupta, an associate professor at the ENT department of SSKM, said: "The bulb had got stuck in her left lung. Her condition was deteriorating fast and only surgery could save her. We had to make sure that the bulb did not break. We managed to pull it out by its filament."

It rained money from the 15th floor office of an engineering company on Jawaharlal Nehru Road on Wednesday evening. Bundles of Rs500, 100 and 50, adding up to Rs3.82 lakh, say the Kolkata police. Employees of an engineering company thought better of throwing away the unaccounted money than being confronted by income tax (I-T) men during a raid.

Pedestrians were taken by surprise seeing all that money rain on them. But even before the possibly greedy ones could think of touching it, a police team reached the spot and collected the money.

Kolkata police deputy commissioner (detective department) Javed Shamim, confirmed that his sleuths collected Rs 3.82 lakh from the streets and handed them over to the I-T department.

Human rights advocate and community activist Martin Luther Kind III visited the headquarters of the Missionaries of the Charity on Thursday and prayed at the tomb of Mother Teresa.

"I am blessed that to get this opportunity to visit the place from where Mother Teresa carried out her service to humanity. World needs peace and humanity as Mother Teresa and Mahatma Gandhi provided," Luther said.