I n the middle of peak plucking season, tea garden workers of Bangladesh launched a strike demanding a revision in daily wages. Bangladesh is the 10th largest producer of tea in the world. In 2021, it earned $180.57 million from tea exports of 6,80,000 kilograms. Workers across 241 gardens are demanding 300 taka per day for plucking 23 kilos of leaves, as against the current rate of 120 taka. One Bangladeshi taka equals 0.85 Indian rupee and 300 taka equals $3.18. Most of the workers are Hindus and a majority are women and girls. So far, 44 lakh kilos of tea leaves could not be harvested.

In 1940, the Calcutta High Court delivered its judgment on the Bhawal Sanyasi case. The gist of it: the second prince of Bhawal, who was rumoured to have died in 1909, and the sanyasi who surfaced in 1920 were one and the same. On August 1, 1946, two days after the judgment affirming this order, the sanyasiraja died after suffering a cerebral stroke.