• There's no difference of opinion, we want the stalemate to go: Manoj Pant
  
• We still want them to join the meeting; chief minister is waiting for one and a half hours, there's a limit: Chief secy Manoj Pant
  
• Visuals show chief minister Mamata Banerjee waiting inside meeting hall with state minister Chandrima Bhattacharya
  
• Gridlock over meeting continues, junior doctors and government officials engaged in discussion outside Nabanna
  
• Chief secretary Manoj Pant and Director General of Police Rajeev Kumar come out of Nabanna to speak to the junior doctors, request them to come inside for the meeting
  
• Junior doctors unlikely to attend meeting with CM if live streaming is disallowed, talks on among them, say sources
  
• State government says no to live stream of meeting with protesting junior doctors
  
• Government accepts junior doctor's demand, allow 30-member delegation to meet CM
• Bus with 30 representatives of the protesting doctors reach Nabanna, the state secretariat
  
• The junior doctors have written to the government and have decided to head to Nabanna for the crucial meet at 5 pm on Wednesday. The gridlock is still not over given the doctors have said a 30-member delegation team are going for the meeting, refusing the ‘only 15’ condition of the government.

• “We are going because we want a positive discussion. But our five demands should be met. And we emailed back saying 30 members of 26 colleges cannot be reduced and so 30 of us will go. We have told that if Supreme Court hearing can be live then why can't this meeting. “A junior doctor at the Swasthya Bhavan protest site told The Telegraph Online

The state chief secretary Manoj Pant on Thursday afternoon wrote to the junior doctors calling them for a meeting with the chief minister Mamata Banerjee this evening, as the battle of letters continued for the third day between the state and the warring junior doctors.

The chief secretary made it clear that only a 15-member delegation would be allowed in the meeting and it would be only recorded, and not live streamed as demanded by the junior doctors.

“This will serve the purpose intended from your end, while also maintaining the sanctity of the proceedings, ensuring that all discussions are documented,” chief secretary Pant wrote in the letter sent via email. “Chief minister will be happy to meet you today.”

The junior doctors have been instructed to submit by email the names of the representatives who will attend the meeting. They have been asked to reach Nabanna, the state secretariat across the river Hooghly, by 4.45 pm.

While the government invited the junior doctors for talks the Director of Medical Education, Kaustuv Nayek has written to all the medical colleges seeking information on the number of junior doctors who have resumed duty as per the directive of the Supreme Court, and asked them to consider the matter as "extremely urgent."

For over 48-hours now the junior doctors have been squatting outside the state health department office in Salt Lake, while emails went back and forth between the government and the junior workers, who have been on a ceasework since the rape and murder of a 31-year old postgraduate trainee at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital in the wee hours of August 9.

The list of demands include speedy trial and justice for the victim raped and killed inside the government-run teaching hospital, disciplinary proceedings against former principal Sandip Ghosh, now arrested by CBI on graft charges, and the removal of the state health secretary, the director of medical education, the director of health service, and Calcutta Police Commissioner Vineet Goyal along with disciplinary measures against the Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) and Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central), in addition to proper security in all government hospitals and health centres along with end to “threat culture.”

“We have received the email and are discussing it,” said Aniket Mahato, a third-year postgraduate trainee at the RG Kar Medical College and Hospital and member of the West Bengal Junior Doctors’ Forum.

The Mamata Banerjee government had directed the junior doctors to resume work citing the directive of the chief justice of India and come to the negotiation table without any pre-conditions.

The chief minister who was attending a dinner with a select group of industrialists was unhappy with the demands raised by the junior doctors. According to some members of the bureaucracy close to her, she is livid at the demands of removal of health department officials and the city police chief.

The CJI DY Chandrachud had asked the junior doctors to return to work by Wednesday 5pm.

Seniors back junior doctor

Earlier in the day, senior doctors threw their weight behind the protesting junior doctors with a threat to go on cease work if the state government does not come to the negotiating table and meet the demands raised by them or if any punitive action is taken against them.

Members of the Indian Medical Association (Bengal), Medical Service Centre, Joint Platform of Doctors and Service Doctors Forum (an umbrella body of seven organisations) had said the government should immediately sit down for talks with the junior doctors.

“The junior doctors want to return to work and their demands are justified,” said an IMA (Bengal) representative. “Many of the chief minister’s administrative meetings are live-streamed. Why is she objecting for the same in the meeting with junior doctors? What does she have to hide?”