Around 32 lakh unmapped voters to be called in phase 1 of SIR hearings from Dec 27 in Bengal
Kolkata (PTI): Around 32 lakh unmapped voters will be called in the first phase of hearings under the Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls, officials said.
Hearings for this category, in which voters could not link their names with those of family members in the 2002 electoral rolls, will begin from December 27, he said.
"We have started sending notices to around 10 lakh such voters from today, while the same will be issued to another 22 lakh voters from Tuesday," the official at the office of the West Bengal Chief Electoral Officer told PTI.
During the enumeration phase, a total of 31,68,424 unmapped voters were identified across the state, he said.
He said that the proceedings will be conducted at district magistrates' offices, sub-divisional offices, various government departments, as well as in schools and colleges.
Voters with logical discrepancies will be taken up in the next phase, for which guidelines have been sought from the Election Commission, another official said on Monday.
Each hearing will be conducted under the supervision of a micro-observer, he said.
Training for 4,000 micro-observers will be held in two phases on December 24 in Kolkata, he said, noting that all the micro-observers are officials from the state.
Trinamool Congress supremo and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Monday alleged that the micro-observers lack knowledge of the local Bengali language.
Meanwhile, a delegation from the Election Commission will visit the state to review the progress of the SIR of the electoral rolls, sources in the office of the state CEO said.
"The commission's Principal Secretary SB Joshi and Deputy Secretary Abhinav Agarwal will arrive in the state to assess the progress of the hearing phase under the SIR process," he said.
The officials will also attend the training programme for micro-observers on December 24, he added.
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ISRO successfully conducts second integrated air drop test for Gaganyaan mission
New Delhi (PTI): Space agency ISRO has successfully conducted the second integrated air drop test (IADT-02) for the upcoming Gaganyaan mission at the space station in Andhra Pradesh's Sriharikota.
The system is essential to ensure a safe recovery of the crew module -- the capsule in which astronauts sit during a human flight -- during re-entry and landing.
Union minister Jitendra Singh congratulated the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for successfully conducting the test.
"Congratulations #ISRO for the successful accomplishment of Second Integrated Air Drop Test (IADT-02) for #Gaganyaan, India's first Human Space flight scheduled next year. The second Integrated Air Drop Test (IADT-02) was successfully conducted at Satish Dhawan Space Station Sriharikota," Singh said in a post on X.
The IADT-02 follows the successful completion of the first IADT, which took place on August 24, 2025, at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota.
Air drop tests recreate the last leg of a spacecraft's return to Earth. An aircraft or helicopter drops the spacecraft from a height to test various systems under different scenarios.
These are the deployment of the parachute system in case the mission is aborted mid-flight, system performance when one parachute fails to open and the spacecraft's orientation and safety during splashdown etc.
In the IADT-02 test, a simulated crew module, weighing about 5.7 tonnes, was lifted by an Indian Air Force Chinook helicopter to an altitude of about three kilometres and released over a designated drop zone in the sea, near the Sriharikota coast.
In a statement, the ISRO said, "Ten parachutes of four types were deployed in a precise sequence during the descent of the crew module, gradually reducing the velocity for safe touchdown. Subsequently, the simulated crew module was successfully recovered in coordination with the Indian Navy."
