BJP uses cash to win polls, will be dethroned: Mamata
Kolkata, June 21: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday accused the BJP of doling out cash to win elections and said such practices by the Centre's ruling party will soon be the reason for its downfall.
"We are not like the BJP that snatches away people's money in the name of demonetisation and then distributes that cash among the voters to win the elections unethically.
"They are getting snubbed by people in the recent elections for such practices. Soon, more people will reject them," Banerjee said during her party's extended core committee meeting at the Netaji Indoor Stadium here.
Taking a veiled swipe at West Bengal Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) chief Dilip Ghosh for vowing to retaliate with bullets and carry out "encounters" if BJP workers are troubled, Banerjee dared the BJP to attack her partymen.
"Some BJP leaders are threatening to carry out encounters. Some are talking about using guns and hurling bombs. They are even talking about finishing us off. I dare them to show their might. We have seen their capabilities during the Panchayat elections," Banerjee thundered.
"Nothing can be achieved in politics at the point of a gun. You (BJP leaders) are talking about bombs and bullets because you are in power in Delhi now. Where will you go once you lose the power? People are getting ready to throw you off."
Ghosh on Tuesday said the BJP was counting the bullets used on their party workers by the Trinamool Congress and vowed to pay them back in the same coin if the attacks did not stop.
"We are counting the bullets which killed our workers. The TMC leaders will either go to jail or there will be direct encounters. Violence will be countered with violence and bullets will be answered by bullets.
"We have not signed a bond where it is written that we will offer them sweets even if they beat us," Ghosh told a public meeting in Jalpaiguri.
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Indian-origin translator Padma Viswanathan shortlisted for International Booker Prize 2026
New Delhi (PTI): Padma Viswanathan, a Canadian-American writer of Indian-origin, has made it to the 2026 International Booker Prize shortlist as the English translator of a Portuguese language novella.
"On Earth As It Is Beneath" by Brazilian author Ana Paula Maia, described by judges as a "brutal, haunting and hypnotic novella set in a remote Brazilian penal colony, where the boundaries between justice and cruelty collapse", is among the six worldwide contenders for the coveted literary honour.
The annual prize worth GBP 50,000, divided equally between the author and translator, was won last year by Kannada writer-activist Banu Mushtaq and translator Deepa Bhasthi for the short story collection "Heart Lamp". Each shortlisted title guarantees a prize of GBP 5,000 -- also split 50-50 between the book’s author and English translator.
"What struck us most is how spare, unflinching, uncompromising and relentless it is. Maia builds an entire moral universe out of very little: a remote prison, a handful of men, and the rituals of punishment that govern their lives.
"The novel reads almost like a dark fable about power, where brutality is ordinary and civilisation feels frighteningly thin," the judging panel, which also include award-winning Indian novelist and columnist Nilanjana S. Roy, said of the work translated by US-based Viswanathan.
The 58-year-old professor of creative writing at the University of Arkansas-Fayetteville is an accomplished playwright and author, whose novels have been published in eight countries.
The list, announced on Tuesday, is dominated by women, with five of the six authors and four of the six translators being female. The authors and translators represent eight countries -- Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, France, Germany, Taiwan, the UK and the United States.
"With narratives that capture moments from across the past century, these books reverberate with history. While there’s heartbreak, brutality and isolation among these stories, their lasting effect is energising," said author Natasha Brown, chair of this year’s judging panel.
The other books include "The Nights Are Quiet in Tehran" by Shida Bazyar and translated from German by Ruth Martin; "She Who Remains" by Rene Karabash and translated from Bulgarian by Izidora Angel; "The Director" by Daniel Kehlmann and translated from German by Ross Benjamin; "Taiwan Travelogue" by Yáng Shuāng-zi and translated from Taiwanese by Lin King; and "The Witch" by Marie Ndiaye and translated from French by Jordan Stump.
The announcement of the winning book will take place on May 19 at a ceremony at Tate Modern in London.
The International Booker Prize is awarded annually for a single work of fiction -- either a novel or a collection of short stories -- written in another language, translated into English and published in the UK and/or Ireland.
According to the organisers, the 2025 winner "Heart Lamp" –- the first collection of short stories to win the prize and the first translated from Kannada –- rapidly sold out in the UK in the subsequent days, with the UK publisher, And Other Stories, immediately reprinting 40,000 copies.
