Category Archives: Nature

Of Marigolds and Salvias

My garden:

As one veers into FC Block one cannot but turn to the lush green bed in the midst of a concrete jungle and one is sure this must be the home of green thumb Mita Roy

Mita Roy with her Marigolds. / Saradindu Chaudhury

Her house bears a prominent plaque with her address but frankly, one doesn’t need to look at it. As one veers into FC Block one cannot but turn to the lush green bed in the midst of a concrete jungle and one is sure this must be the home of green thumb Mita Roy. The lawn has a hedge of pink Rangans, red Salvias and humungous potted Marigolds. No wonder locals know the house as the “niche gamlawala tob bari”.

I grew up in Baguiati where our plot had tall trees, colourful flowers and even ponds. I grew up loving plants and so when we moved into Salt Lake in 2000 I knew I would have a cozy corner for them in front of the house.

In winter, I gauge the temperature not by a thermometer but by my Marigolds. If they look sad I know it isn’t cold enough. But this year, they are smiling and I couldn’t be happier! The flowers have been in bloom for 15 days already and if the temperature remains low, will remain so for another fortnight.

Every year, I send my Marigolds to the flower show and they always fetch prizes. I hope to do the same this year too.

But along with seasonals like Marigolds and Salvias, I have some potted Chillies in my front yard. They will eventually be planted in the soil behind the house but that patch doesn’t receive sunlight in winter. So I’m keeping them in the front yard to soak in the sun during their nascent stage.

The adult Chilli plants in the backyard bear so many fruits that we never need any from the market. There is also a Mankochu plant that bears vegetables round the year. I prepare tasty dishes with them, using narkol baata.

I used to do up the terrace too but with the lockdown my gardener had got irregular and I couldn’t do it alone. But whenever I can, I shall redo the terrace with Tomatos, Brinjals, Lemons and Guavas. Brinjals used to grow very well under my care and we would eat delicious Begun Bhaja out of it. The taste of one’s own vegetables is way superior to the ones we get in the market anyway.

My husband and son do not have time to toil behind the plants but appreciate them. Our friends are always admiring them too and whenever they come over, they click selfies with the Marigolds outside.

My only worry is pilferage. Not just flowers but entire pots have gone missing from the garden and it breaks my heart. It’s become such a fear now that even if I wake up in the middle of the night, I go and peep outside to check if my plants are safe.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph Online / Home> West Bengal> Calcutta / by Brinda Sarkar , Salt Lake / January 08th, 2021

Breed and eat fish at home, panchayat dept shows how

A demonstrative version of biofloc technology was inaugurated at Mrittika Bhavan on September 28P

Panchayat and rural development minister Subrata Mukherjee releases fingerlings in the artificial pond in Mrittika Bhavan in DD Block recently / Brinda Sarkar

It doesn’t get any fresher than this. A new technology provides you the means to build an artificial pond in your house, garden or terrace where you could head to every morning and pick out any fish you want cooked for lunch.

A demonstrative version of biofloc technology was inaugurated at Mrittika Bhavan on September 28. The building in DD Block houses the state comprehensive area development corporation (CADC), under the panchayats and rural development department and inaugurating the facility was minister Subrata Mukherjee.

“This system can breed fish like Koi, Pabda, Singi, Magur and Golda Chingri that people love,” said Mukherjee. “It can come in handy at a time when prices of fish increase. While the system is fairly easy people rarely start something new by simply hearing about it. They want to see it in operation before adopting it and that’s why we have built this demo version. Anyone is free to come and learn about it from us and replicate it at home.”

A kitchen garden which will produce spinach, brocolli, cabbage, lettuce etc on tiered bamboo shelves / Brinda Sarkar

Unlike an open pond, the biofloc tank doesn’t need acres of land. The one at Mrittika Bhawan is a round-shaped open-top tank with an iron net body and polymer sheet wrapped around it. Its base is connected to an underground water pump that will replenish water that gets evaporated and there are slim aerator pipes sending oxygen into the water for the fish to breathe. Its capacity is 10,000l.

“Biofloc is a relatively new technology developed in and for cold European countries where the rivers stay frozen for much of the year.

There they use thousands of biofloc tanks to farm fish,” said Soumyajit Das, special secretary to the panchayats and rural development department and administrative secretary of the CADC. “The technology has also seen success in Bangladesh.”

The water in the tank at Mrittika Bhavan is nourished with probiotics, bacteria and jaggery that will convert the droppings of the fish into their food. So one doesn’t even have to spend on food for the fish thereafter. Only the probiotic-solution needs to be added afresh every two months. Other than that it’s zero-maintenance,” he said.

Those interested in replicating this system are welcome to go and learn at the centre. “Households can install a 1,000l tank at a cost of about Rs 10,000,” said Das.

“The lockdown has proven how little of the city’s fish and agricultural demand is produced within it. If people can grow their own fish it would help them be self-sufficient to some extent,” Das said.

The minister released fingerlings into the water and the department expects the first batch of fish to be ready for sale by Diwali. The fish will be available at Mrittika Bhavan as well in vehicles that tour the township selling fish, meat and agricultural products sourced from farms.

The minister also inaugurated a kitchen garden section on the day, produce of which will be added to their cart. “Plants like spinach, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, capsicum are being planted on ‘hanging seed beds’ which are three-tier bamboo shelves installed around the parking lot of the building.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph Online / Home> West Bengal> Calcutta / by Brinda Sarkar / October 09th, 2020

Under a cloud: Meet Kolkata’s storm chasers who document extreme weather

The Kolkata Cloud Chasers are a group of eight members who chase storms, by photographing and documenting extreme weather conditions in eastern India.

Kolkata on a cloudy evening during the Covid-19 lockdown. Photo credit: Debarshi Duttagupta; call sign: Roadrunner, Kolkata Cloud Chasers.

When Cyclone Bulbul arrived last November, it was one of the most severe tropical cyclonic storms to have struck the state of West Bengal and Bangladesh in more than a century. Hours before the cyclone made landfall, Chirasree Chakraborty, 47, and Joyjeet Mukherjee, 49, headed down to Henry Island, approximately 130 kilometres south of Kolkata, one of the few places where the arriving storm’s impact was going to be most severe.

“We are the only people who go towards the storm when everyone else stays inside,” says Mukherjee. Both are a part of the Kolkata Cloud Chasers, a group of eight who photograph and document extreme weather conditions in eastern India — they chase storms.

According to the group, they are the only collective engaged in this kind of photography in the country.

A recreational activity still in its infancy in India, storm chasing has been practised since at least the 1950s in western countries. The American Meteorological Society defines a storm chaser as someone who “intercepts, by car, van, or truck, severe convective storms for sport or for scientific research”

A member of the Kolkata Cloud Chasers surveys the weather conditions during the arrival of Cyclone Bulbul in November 2019 with a 4×4 parked nearby. (Photo: Kolkata Cloud Chasers)

“Storm chasing is not a recognised profession in India and so we all do other jobs,” says Chakraborty. By day, she works as a publicist, but after work hours, she finds herself tracking extreme weather conditions in the West Bengal region, and a similar scenario plays out in the case of the other members of the group.

The story of Kolkata Cloud Chasers started sometime in 2005 when some of the earliest members of the group met on Orkut, the social networking site, over their shared interest in photography. By 2009, when several Android applications became easily accessible to Indian users, including weather applications like AccuWeather, it became easier to experiment with photographing a wider range of weather conditions.

“During kalboishakhi (Nor’westers) and storms, we used to give alerts on our personal Facebook page,” recalls Chakraborty. By 2014, more members with a shared interest in weather photography joined the group, and the present team was formed.

There are many who photograph sunsets or cloud formations, and weather conditions if they chance upon a storm, but tracking it is different, explains Mukherjee. What this group does is essentially visually documenting West Bengal’s weather conditions by tracing its arrival and path. “In West Bengal, there hasn’t been much documentation of weather patterns,” says Chakraborty.

Cloud formations can be very large, spread across several kilometers and are visible from long distances. (Photo: Suman Kumar Ghosh; call sign: Goodboy, Kolkata Cloud Chasers)

Chasing storms is a three-step process that starts with tracking developing weather conditions and patterns. For that, the group starts with scanning weather apps for formations, including those by India’s meteorological department. “Before 2015, we only had the Met department’s app, but since then, many new applications have come in,” says Mukherjee. In the initial years, says Chakraborty, the group also found assistance from a former Met department employee who taught them more about understanding how to read meteorological data and weather patterns.

The next step is spotting, where the group goes out into the field searching for the cloud formations or storms that they are chasing. “Clouds are huge—they can be 18 kms tall and can be seen from long distances,” says Chakraborty. The last step involves navigation, where they “intercept” the storm or clouds by taking photos, videos and, most recently, using drones for images.

While the group tries to photograph as many diverse weather conditions as they can, they try to stick to government regulations and advisories. This past May, when Cyclone Amphan arrived in West Bengal, it coincided with the coronavirus lockdown imposed by the Indian government. Unable to venture out, the group photographed the cyclonic storm from the confines of their rooftop terraces and windows instead. Similarly, last summer when Cyclonic Storm Fani made landfall in Odisha, says Mukherjee, the government had restricted travel to the cities of Bhubaneswar and Puri, that prevented the group from travelling to the neighbouring state.

A group of children play on a beach in West Bengal just as Cyclonic Storm Bulbul is about to make landfall in 2019. (Photo: Joyjeet Mukherjee; call sign: Boltanator, Kolkata Cloud Chasers)

Having known each other for as long as they have makes extreme weather photography easier, believes Chakroborty. “We have known each other since 2005 and we have a good relationship,” she says of the group members, a characteristic that is more necessary than people realise. The challenging circumstances and the unpredictable nature of the weather conditions make it necessary for the members to be able to trust and rely on each other for assistance and coordination when they are out facing storms.

(From left to right) The team of Kolkata Cloud Chasers: Debarshi Duttagupta, Abhishek Saigal, Joyjeet Mukherjee, Krishnendu Chakraborty, Chrisaree Chakraborty, Suman Kumar Ghosh, Diganta Gogoi. Team member Indranil Kar is not present in this photograph. (Photo: Kolkata Cloud Chasers)

While audiences only see as much as photographs and videos allow them to of extreme video photography, the circumstances in which the group sets out for documentation is only understood when the group explains the backstory of each photograph. “There is extreme risk involved in doing this. Our families understand and they know that we won’t take unnecessary risks. So they have faith,” laughs Chakraborty.

The members set out in their vehicles, 4x4s, known as ‘SCIFs’ or ‘Storm Cloud Intercept Four-wheelers’—a name that the group gave to the cars they use—customised with recovery straps, hi-lift jacks, additional lights, and citizens band radios, a land mobile radio system that allows person-to-person bidirectional voice communication over short distances.

Additional equipment include DSLR cameras, iPads, GPS receivers, General Mobile Radio Service (also known as Walkie Talkies) and GoPro and DJI Osmo pocket cameras for vlogging. For drone footage, the group turns to the DJI Spark, a mini drone, and the DJI Mavic Air, a portable, foldable drone, with the equipment having been funded by the group members themselves.

A bolt of lightning across flashes across the Kolkata skyline. (Photo: Abhishek Saigal; call sign: Thunderman, Kolkata Storm Chasers)

The group members all come with their own call signs, names that they go by during radio communication when they’re out on the field. While Chakraborty goes by the call sign of ‘Phoenix’, Mukherjee answers to ‘Boltonator’, a spin on the term lightning bolts.

Extreme weather conditions aren’t the only challenges that the storm chasers battle. Since much of this kind of photography occurs outside the city limits or away from densely populated areas, reassuring locals is also a part of the group’s job. “Sometimes people think we are there to seize or assess land and belong to private companies or the government,” says Mukherjee of confrontations that have on occasion, led to clashes with suspicious locals.

Despite all the tracking and planning involved, it’s not possible to accurately predict the path that a storm will take, requiring contingency planning. Chakraborty remembers an incident from last year when she travelled to North Bengal to photograph a blizzard. “It’s called a northern disturbance and I was there for three days to catch the storm.” When she went out to photograph the blizzard, she only had a small shed for cover, making it difficult to stay outside for long. “The snow was too much.”

A fishing boat lies docked during Cyclone Bulbul in West Bengal in 2019. (Photo: Chirasree Chakraborty; call sign: Phoenix, Kolkata Cloud Chasers)

For Chakraborty however, nothing has surpassed the experience of photographing Cyclone Bulbul last year in her almost 10 years of photographing extreme weather. “We got the first visual of Bulbul when we saw the outer ring. We had planned on leaving at 1 p.m. but suddenly the storm came closer. Rain and gusting increased. It was the craziest experience.”

“People don’t know what a storm actually looks like,” says Mukherjee. The nature of extreme weather photography is such that it is as much about experiencing the conditions as it is about documenting it, the members say. Sometimes, the group ends up not taking too many photos and just witnesses the natural spectacle unfolding in front of them. While following a storm requires its own planning, the group also has to devise ways to escape it.

Chirasree Chakraborty uses a DSLR to photograph Sandakphu, the highest peak in West Bengal, along the Indo-Nepal border. (Photo: Kolkata Cloud Chasers)

Chakraborty believes that storm chasing isn’t only about extreme weather photography, but it is also about understanding how to respect the might of the natural phenomenon that they are experiencing. “It is our passion and if we don’t get to do it, we will stop breathing.”

source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Cities> Kolkata / by Neha Banka / Kolkata – September 30th, 2020

Fish farming: Push to use biofloc technology

Kolkata:

The state Panchayats and Rural Development department is laying special emphasis on fish farming through biofloc technology with the objective of livelihood support amidst the COVID -19 pandemic situation.

West Bengal Comprehensive Area Development Corporation (CADC) under the aegis of the department which is executing and pushing for biofloc to be adopted by the SHG groups across the state has set the ball rolling by setting up an infrastructure of fish cultivation through biofloc at its own office at Mrittika in Salt Lake. It is expected to be readied by this week.

“Biofloc is a technology using which one can produce fishes significantly in large quantities (in a small volume of water) as compared to the traditional form of aquaculture in large ponds. It is easy to monitor the fish movement, their behaviour and abnormalities as they will remain within a tank which in turn will facilitate taking the corrective measures immediately, ” said a senior official of CADC.

Probiotic and molluscs are used to eliminate chances of food particles and excreta of the fishes in polluting the water . These components produce planktons and prevent the production of ammonium nitrate which is toxic for the fishes. An aerator is used to add oxygen to the water.

“We will be creating a biofloc model in each of our 23 projects in the state and accordingly training will be provided. The seeds will also be supplied by us. The interested SHGs will bear have to bear the other costs. However the scheme can also be taken up under MGNREGA in which the government will bear the entire cost, ” said the official.

The technique is already being practised at Tamluk in East Midnapore, Ayodha Hills in Purulia and in some semi arid zones in Murshidabad, Jhargram and Birbhum.

Air-breathing fish rearing in cement tank by 60 farmers in Kolaghat has already seen success. Every 8 feet by 6 ft tank were provided with 500 seeds on an average each costing Re 1. In three to four months each tank produces 25 kg on an average (koi, singi, magur, ) whose average price is Rs 250 to 300 per kg. The income from each tank is around Rs 7000 a month so for 60 tanks the income is Rs 42,0000.

A wide variety of fishes can be cultivated through this technology like Koi, Magur, Singi, Telapiya, Pabda and even prawn.

source: http://www.millenniumpost.in / Millennium Post / Home> Kolkata / by Soumitra Nandi / September 21st, 2020

Kolkata Boy Forms A Part Of Research Team Featured In Prestigious ‘Nature’ Journal

Proud to state that Alumnus of Heritage Institute of Technology, Swapnadeep Poddar had been a part of the great Research team on ‘Super Human Biometrical Eye with a Hemispherical pervoskite nanowire array retina’, at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology under the leadership of Professor FAN Zhiyong.

Recently the research team and their research was being featured in prestigious science journal ‘Nature’. 

The article link https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2285-x

The article link https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2285-x

Swapnadeep completed his B. tech in Electonics and Communication engineering from Heritage in 2016 and now pursuing his PhD at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology…. 

Now this biometric human eye will give a pathbreaking development in science and technology. India shines with Swapnadeep now.

source: http://www.youthkiawaaz.com / Youth Ki Awaaz / Home / by Partha Sarathi Bhowal / June 29th, 2020

Birds of Bengal at Sweden auction

The paintings by Zayn al-Din were commissioned by Mary Impey, an English natural historian and patron of the arts in Bengal

Falsa Tree with King’s Nightingale was painted on a 53.5cm x 75cm canvas by Zayn al-Din in 1782 . / Picture courtesy: Stockholm Auction House

Two watercolour and pencil-on-paper artworks painted in Calcutta in the late 18th century by one of the most famous exponents of the Company School of Art will go under the hammer at the world’s oldest auction house in Sweden on June 12.

The paintings by Zayn al-Din were commissioned by Mary Impey (March 2, 1749 -February 20, 1818), an English natural historian and patron of the arts in Bengal. She was the wife of Elijah Impey, the first chief justice of the Supreme Court at Calcutta (1774-82), who had infamously sent Maharaja Nandakumar — a highly-placed officer in the nawabi administration — to the gallows on charges of perjury.

Falsa Tree with King’s Nightingale, dated 1782, and Parrot in a Parkar Tree, dated 1779, have been in the possession of a Swedish family for long.

“We are immensely proud to present these rare artworks. We are not sure how they reached Sweden. They have been in the same Swedish family for a long time and this is the first time that they reach the market,” Victoria Svederberg Bojsen, a specialist in classic and modern art at the Stockholms Auktionsverk (Stockholm Auction House), founded in 1674, told Metro over phone from Stockholm.

“The estimate price is Euro 51,000 (Rs 40 lakh) to 61,500 (Rs 48 lakh). However, we believe they will reach an even higher price. Our hope is naturally that they will now be returned to India where they originated,” she said.

Birds are the subjects of both the paintings. Falsa Tree with King’s Nightingale is a 53.5cm x 75cm canvas.

The inscriptions on both pictures read: In the Collection of Lady Impey of Calcutta. Painted by Zayn al-Din Native of Patna 1782.

“Both paintings include a description of the subject in Persian — Darakht ban falsa, Shah Bulbul in the first and Madna Tota, Darkaht Pakar in the other. The artist’s name is also written in Persian,” said Nandini Chatterjee, associate professor of history at the University of Exeter in the UK.

The painting (right), titled Parrot in a Parkar Tree, is signed and dated 1779. The inscriptions on both artworks read: “In the Collection of Lady Impey of Calcutta. Painted by Zayn al-Din Native of Patna 1782”. / Picture courtesy: Stockholm Auction House

Metro had sent the images to Chatterjee, who is part of a research on two sets of natural history drawings produced between the late 18th and early 19th centuries in Calcutta. The drawings are held at the Victoria Memorial Hall and the Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery in Exeter.

The Impeys moved to India in 1773 after Elijah Impey was made the chief justice of Bengal. They set up a menagerie at their house in Calcutta’s Middleton Row. When they shifted to Fort William two years later, they started a collection of native birds and animals on the extensive gardens of the estate.

Mary Impey commissioned several local artists to paint the fauna and flora they had collected. Her three principal artists were Sheikh Zayn al-Din, and brothers Bhawani Das and Ram Das. All three had come from Patna.

Together, Zayn al-Din and the Das brothers painted more than 300 artworks, half of them of birds. The collection, often known as the Impey Album, is an important example of Company style painting.

“With the decline of the Mughal courts, the artists sought the patronage of Europeans. These artists had to change their traditional techniques to suit their new masters. These revisions included a more accurate representation of the subject and a change in perspectives,” said Jayanta Sengupta, the curator of the Victoria Memorial.

Little is known of Zayn al-Din, the artist whose works will be auctioned in Sweden next month. He is known for his extraordinarily detailed paintings for the Impey Album. His drawings of mountain rats, hanging bats, parrots and storks serve as interesting zoological studies and are now preserved at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.

“The artworks from the Impey Album rarely reach the international market and the few that have been sold previously at Christies, Sothebys and Bonhams have fetched between $80,000 (Rs 55.5 lakh) and $140 000 (Rs 97.7 lakh),” Bojsen said.

The real study of the Indian subcontinent’s natural history is said to have started with the Mughals. Baburnama — the memoirs of the first Mughal ruler — has beautiful illustrations of birds and animals. Shah Jahan also took a keen interest in the flora and fauna.

With the fall of the Mughals, the artists sought the patronage of Europeans. Calcutta became a thriving centre of the (East India) Company school of painting.

“India was an unknown land for Europeans and along with its indigenous archaeology and history, they also wanted to explore its abundant flora and fauna. Imperial documentation differs from its Mughal predecessor in scale and systematic approach,” Sengupta said.

“Mary Impey was part of a circuit of Europeans who commissioned paintings of Indian natural history. Apart from the pictorial documentation of flora and fauna, the extensive notes kept by her about their habitat and behaviour were of great use to later biologists,” he said.

The collection went to England with the Impeys in 1783 and were sold at a London auction in 1810. Several pieces are in various museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

“The style of inscription, and the handwriting is identical to other paintings all around the world. I do not believe Zayn al-Din’s name is in his own handwriting. It was probably written by a British collector, maybe Lady Impey herself. Many such British Orientalists (and perhaps some of their spouses) knew Persian,” Chatterjee said.

Some of Zayn al-Din’s works are at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum too. “But those have his name written in English and Bengali, perhaps by a collector who was interested more in the vernacular language, than Persian, which was the Mughal language of administration and courtly culture,” Chatterjee said.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / Home> West Bengal / by Debraj Mitra in Calcutta / May 28th, 2019

The altruist of Naradari

This retired professor in West Bengal is the reason many children of his region have an education and career


Lifeline: Professor Dilip Roy with Belaboti (left) and Uma / Image: Rabindranath Bera

Where is Dadu? Why haven’t you brought him along,” demands the petulant eight-year-old with closely cropped hair and a beige jacket over a pink frock. Her name is Bela, short for Belaboti, often referred to as Belu too. Just now she is standing akimbo, blocking the entrance to our lodgings adjacent to a two-storey mud house in Naradari, a village in Nandakumar block of East Midnapore district, five kilometres from Tamluk. The object of her query, or Dadu, meaning grandfather, is Dilip Roy, a retired professor of History and man of the house.

Bela knows that the septuagenarian had accompanied this gaggle of strangers from Calcutta to the flower show — an annual affair organised by the Tamluk Flower Lovers’ Association, founded by the good professor over 40 years ago. She is the youngest member of the Roy household, which includes Biswaranjan Pal or Bisha, Bishnupada Maity or Dipu and Joyinandan Maity or Joyi. While Bisha and Dipu are preparing for their higher secondary exams this year, Joyi is in the first year of college. There is Uma, too, whom Roy calls Kochi. She got married to Rabindranath Bera or Robi two years ago and is currently in Naradari with their newborn.

Roy is actually no kin of Bisha, Dipu, Bela, Joyi, Kochi or even Uma; at least not in the accepted sense. But each of these lives has got so entangled with his own that it is difficult to tell his story without straightening out a reference, giving an explanation or two to their lives’ stories and experiences. Also, these are lives that refract his own story, one that he himself is loath to tell.

Bisha, Dipu, Joyi were inmates of an ashram on the banks of the serene Roopnarayan river in the adjacent village, Betalbasan. When it closed down, Roy took them in. Uma is the daughter of farm labourers from Narghat village some 17 kilometres from Naradari. She had heard about Roy and his extended family from an uncle. She says, “I was not interested in studies and my parents would often beat me up for that. I literally ran away from home to escape studying and came here to work as a domestic help.”

But as it turned out, she had walked, rather run, straight into the tiger’s den. First, she was home-schooled, then at 14 she was enrolled in Class V of a local school. When the neighbours smirked, Roy — whom she and many others call Jethu, or uncle — told her, “Clear the Class X boards, that will shut them up.” Uma cleared her Class XII boards last year and is raring to resume college once her daughter is six months old.

Unlike Uma, Robi had wanted to study. He was a good student too, but his father was a hawker and couldn’t afford to support his son’s dreams. Once, while visiting his maternal grandmother in Talpukur village adjoining Tamluk, he approached Roy for help. Actually it was his grandmother who spoke to Roy as the boy explored the estate. The professor visited the boy’s school, paid for Robi’s textbooks, even arranged for free tuitions for the Class X student. And then, he supported him right through high school and graduation in every possible way. Today, Robi is team leader, back office operations, with Tata Consultancy Services, and posted in Calcutta.

Roy was born in Naradari in the late 1940s, but had left for Calcutta for his postgraduation. His father was an advocate while his mother, a housewife. When he returned home at 24, it was to teach at Moyna College, about 20 kilometres away. The youngest of three brothers, he had always been reclusive. And when he came back he chose to stay, not in the family home, but in the other two-storey mud house on the estate jointly owned by his father and uncles. He says, “The house was lying uncared for. The main house was too crowded. My parents, uncles, aunts, cousins, my Didi, her family…,” and his voice trails off as he looks at the manicured garden between the two houses.

Roy turned the ground floor into his living quarters and the upper floor he dedicated to Rabindranath Tagore. That became his library-cum-temple. He would sit there singing and listening to Tagore’s songs and reading his works. He would organise, and still does, cultural dos on Tagore’s birth and death anniversaries. “Even today, I begin my day reading sections of Tagore’s lectures, just like people read the Gita. Of course, of late, I have begun reading the Gita too,” laughs the lean, greying philanthropist.

A few years into teaching, he decided to remain a bachelor. He began to spend more and more time on his two passions — gardening and travelling. His closest friend, a doctor who died in an accident a couple of decades ago, was his travel companion. Together, they have traversed the length and breadth of the country. Somewhere along the way he began helping students from impoverished backgrounds in their pursuit of education and learning. And the more he got involved in the lives of his students, the more acutely aware he became of their hardships.

Around the beginning of the 1980s, he started providing food and lodging too to poor and meritorious young men. Today, so many years later, Roy cannot remember the first time he brought a student home. I point out that it is most odd, this date slip, of someone who teaches History, but he is distracted by Bela, who has given lunch a miss and is sulking. “She is angry with me for having my lunch without her,” he explains.

What happened was that one by one many students came to live with him. Not everyone stayed the course though. Many were taken away by their parents or guardians. But there were exceptions like Bela — the little girl from a cobbler’s family in Uttar Pradesh’s Saharanpur. She and her older sister were brought to Roy by their maternal grandmother but a few years later taken away by their parents. Her sister notwithstanding her pleas to return to Naradari was married off, but her parents eventually let Bela go back to Roy. She is being home-schooled currently.

When his college teacher’s salary could no longer sustain the expenses, Roy started to scout around for financial help. Over time he has developed a network of connections — civil servants, engineers, doctors, authors, teachers, businessmen, artists. Some pay the fee for these students, some buy the books. And while he is dogged in his pursuit of funds, Roy is careless about his own money.

To date, Naradari and its surrounding villages have produced six doctors, all of whom have flourished under Roy’s munificent shade. He paid for their admissions, entrance tests and connected them with foundations that bore their expenses at the medical colleges. And despite Roy’s advancing years, the effort to help students continues. Says Uma, “At the beginning of the new school session villagers line up for help. Every year, Jethu buys textbooks worth Rs 25,000-30,000 himself.”

During his student days in Calcutta, Roy would spend time at the city libraries. The National Library was his home on holidays. He says, “I’d go to there, borrow a book and spend hours on the veranda. I’d hardly read though. Most of the time I would look at the lawns and trees on campus.” And that’s how another interest took shoot. Roy started frequenting the neighbouring horticultural society.

His time at the horticultural society made him aware of environmental issues. In time, he launched a movement to educate villagers and schoolchildren on the need to plant trees, especially flowering ones. The movement gradually spread to neighbouring villages. Today, there are legions of gardeners working under Roy’s supervision, planting, landscaping. “Even the nurseries here seek his advice,” says Robi, the pride in his voice pronounced.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph – online edition / Home> People / by Swachchhasila Basu / February 17th, 2019

7 floors of organic yield

A market cum food court is being planned in New Town


Baskets of organic vegetables on NKDA’s CB Market terrace. / The Telegraph picture

The West Bengal State Agricultural Marketing Board has tied up with the New Town Kolkata Development Authority (NKDA) to start an organic market between the Harley Davidson showroom and Eco Park. The name of the market will called Joibo Haat meaning organic market in Bengali.

Minister of the agricultural marketing department, Tapan Dasgupta, laid the foundation stone on January 17 in presence of ministers Sujit Bose and Purnendu Basu.

The plot, that has been leased from NKDA, measures around 14.77 cottahs, the building will be a G+6 one and the project should take two years to complete. The estimated cost is Rs 11.40 crore and funds are being raised from the Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana.

“People are falling sick these days due to chemicals in fertilisers. Going organic is a much safer option,” Dasgupta told The Telegraph Salt Lake. “Also, we wanted to give a platform to those involved in organic farming.”

According to an official of the state agricultural marketing board, they have already called for a tender to build the market. “We expect construction to start within the next few weeks,” said the official.

Organic supermarket

The market will have separate floors for a variety of organically grown fruits, vegetables, rice, pulses, flowers and even honey. The idea is to create an organic hub in New Town. According to the officer, the organic produce will not only taste better but will also be healthier.

“We want to give a super market-like experience to shoppers who come here. Everything stocked will be organically produced with zero use of chemical fertilisers or pesticides. All racks will be properly labelled,” the official said.

Organic produce growers and self help groups from all over the state will be welcome to showcase and sell their produce too.

“The farmers’ markets organised in Calcutta get good response from both buyers and sellers so we believe there is a ready market for organic products. “Organic farming is being undertaken in large scale in North and South 24-Parganas and we’ve observed that people of New Town are ready to pay higher prices for quality products. So setting shop in New Town would guarantee more buyers,” the officer said.

The ground, first and second floors will house the organic market. The third floor will house an organic food court. The fourth floor will have training centre for skill development. The fifth floor will house an advanced laboratory and office. The sixth floor will have a guesthouse.


Gourds hanging from the overhead structures. / The Telegraph picture

The laboratory will not only conduct research on organic farming but also verify whether a vegetable is organic or not.

This will be the first laboratory in the state to conduct such tests. Currently, to conduct such tests samples are sent to other states. This adds to expenses.

The laboratory will also work to develop organic fertilisers and the facility will have regular workshops to encourage farmers from the villages to shift to organic methods.

Sikkim has managed to become India’s first fully organic state by implementing organic practices of farming on around 75,000 hectares of agricultural land. It had taken Sikkim around 12 years to achieve this feat and Bengal is now taking baby steps towards organic methods.

Farm on your rooftop

Debashis Sen, the chairman of NKDA, said such a market in New Town would give plenty of opportunities for residents to buy fresh produce and also motivate them to have roof-top gardens where vegetables can be grown.

“We are already in talks with agencies to develop rooftop farms on individual plots and buildings. Farming and gardening on the roof of a building will enhance the look of the terrace and provide quality food to residents. It will also keep the building cooler in summer,” said Sen.

NKDA runs a farm on the terrace of CB Market near Novotel and Sen says hydroponics and other alternative methods for container gardening are being used there extensively. This farm was started by Owl Spirit, a company formed by the NGO Uthnau, in 2017. They grew gourds, spinach, beans, cucumbers, carrots, brinjals etc in baskets up there.

At present, they are working on tower planters at Karigori Bhavan opposite Uniworld City. These are containers stacked one above the other and they are growing brinjals, chillies, gourds and spinach on trial basis there.

“We have been approached by the NKDA to help residents grow organic food in their balconies and terrace,” says director of Owl Spirit, Kunal Deb. “Chemical use in commercial crops has spread to such an extent that even if you have money today you can’t buy healthy food. It’s best if you can grow your own food then.”

Hari Mitti is another agency that has been approached. This Sector V-based company prepares crates of fruit, vegetable and herbs to sell to residents. “The nascent stages of plants are the most delicate. We shall look after the plant at this stage and hand them over when they are older and hardy. We also provide lifelong maintenance of the plants,” says Suhrid Chandra, the founder.

That there is a demand for organic farming is clear from the fact that Hari Mitti has started managing 82 rooftops over the past two years. “If a family takes in 30-35 crates, it won’t need to buy any vegetables from the market besides potatoes and onions.”

Both the agencies try to avoid using soil. Instead they use coco peat, vermin compost, hydroponics etc. “These options are lighter than soil and also, if we use soil, no matter where we source it from, it will be contaminated with chemicals,” says Chandra.

But the agencies are wary of practical problems. In 2014, Owl Spirit had started an urban farm on the terrace of Siddha Town in Rajarhat. They had to discontinue after nine months after residents refused to pay for its maintenance. “Residents can also complain about insects, those living on the top floor may complain of disturbance,” says Deb. “So we have requested minister Firhad Hakim to allow us to carry out urban farming atop government buildings.”

Residents are keen to give organic farming a shot. “I shall be retiring in six months and thereafter would love to indulge in gardening. When I moved to New Town I had about 25 pots but most of them didn’t survive. With help from these experts I would love to grow lemons, chillies and other fruits and vegetables,” says Chaita Mukherjee, a resident of Sree apartments.

Inputs from Sudeshna Banerjee

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Online edition / Home> West Bengal / by Snehal Sengupta and Brinda Sarkar in Calcutta / February 15th, 2019

A tribute to Jagadish Bose, who proved plants have life

Group of scientists recreates Bose’s experiment, which was not received well 100 years ago

Bose’s peers in the West may not have got the same results as him because of the water used /
Image: The Telegraph

More than 100 years after Jagadish Chandra Bose conducted the experiment that established plants have life, a group of scientists in Calcutta came together this year to repeat it.

Supriyo Kumar Das, an assistant professor of Geology at Presidency University, led the initiative. The others on the team were also from Presidency — Debashis Datta and Rabindranath Gayen, both assistant professors of Physics, Snigddha Pal Chowdhury, a research associate in the Geology department, Abhijit Dey, an assistant professor of Botany, and Saranya Naskar, an MSc student of Physics.

Bose, who had joined Presidency College in 1885 as a professor in the Physics department, had conducted the experiment in a laboratory on these very precincts. No matter how much he is hailed today for his scientific genius, in his time Bose’s experiment had not been received well.

It all began when Peter V. Minorsky, a botanist and professor at Mercy College in the US, got in touch with Das earlier this year. Minorsky wanted to know about the groundwater composition in the College Street area, where Presidency University stands.

Says Das, “It is from him that I heard about the prejudices against Bose. In the course of our exchanges, I got interested and emotionally involved with Bose’s work.”

He had been savagely criticised by George James Peirce, professor of Plant Physiology at Stanford University. Peirce wrote in the journal, Science, in 1927: “The trouble with Bose… is that while his curiosity is directed to biological phenomena, his mind is inadequately equipped with the information and habits necessary for accurate study, and his reflections are addressed to philosophical problems.”

In 1929, the Indian Review reported that G.A. Perrson, who was from the US, was unable to find pulse in plants. And years later, in the mid-1960s, in the Handbuch der Pflanzenphysiologie (Encyclopaedia of Plant Physiology), it was said, “Unfortunately Bose’s theoretical views and his emotional style of reporting have generated what may be an excessive skepticism concerning the validity of his observations.”

This is what Bose had observed. By devising a wire electrode — an invention three decades ahead of its time — he identified a pulsating layer of cells abutting the vascular tissue in plants. In an email to The Telegraph, Minorsky says, “In the last few years, plant biologists have come to recognise this layer is the site of propagating waves of calcium release that are involved in communicating stress from local points of occurrence to the rest of the plant. The discovery of this calcium wave is one of the more exciting discoveries of the 21st century, and Bose’s ‘plant heart’ predates this discovery by a century.”

Bose has left notes aplenty about every aspect of his historic experiment. One of the lone omissions is the kind of water used. Says Das, “Being a geochemist and scientist, I understand the composition of groundwater and the effect of chemical stress of sodium on plants. I also know that the composition of water varies from place to place.” He adds, “It occurred to us that Bose’s peers in the West might not have got the same results as him because of the water used.”

PULSE TEST: A repeat of the experiment at Presidency University that Jagadish Chandra Bose conducted in the 1900s /
Image: The Telegraph

In Bose’s time, water was supplied to the Presidency campus from Palta in the Barrackpore area. Das points to a spot occupied by an elevator on the ground floor of Baker Building that houses the Physics department and says, “This is where the old pipeline ran.” Currently, the municipality takes care of the water supply. It comes from the Tala tank in north Calcutta.

When Das and and others repeated the experiment, they decided to use water from every possible source Bose might have accessed. “He could have also used water from the Ganges or from the pond in College Square,” says Das.

Datta explains, “We wanted to check the potassium and sodium concentration. Electricity flows through water only when there are some ions present in it. Possibly, the scientists from the West had not used ionised water.”

The “repeaters” used for the experiment the plant Bose had used — the Desmodium motorium, locally known as bon charal. Minorsky explains, “The lateral leaflets of Desmodium are unique in the plant kingdom for their pronounced and unprovoked oscillatory movements. If conditions are optimal, one can watch these lateral leaflets move at a pace slightly slower than the second hand of a watch.”

According to Minorsky, Bose enjoyed certain enormous advantages over his Western peers. First, Desmodium motorium is a native of Bengal, so he had access to an ample supply of healthy, thriving specimens. In contrast, in the West its cultivation was restricted to glasshouses. Those days, glasshouses were often heated by wheelbarrows of burning coal. These released a gas called ethylene, which in turn affected many plant processes, including a decrease in overall excitability. Second, he points out Calcutta’s temperatures and how they lend themselves to plant study. “Temperatures of 30-35° Celsius, which occur commonly, are optimal for studying plant movements and excitability. The temperatures at which scientists in the West studied plants would have been much lower,” he says. Finally, there was the salty water advantage.

Dey arranged for 21 Desmodium plants. Each was kept in a beaker full of a distinct water sample. Thereafter, they were all kept in a controlled atmosphere. Says Gayen, “We placed them in glass beakers and left them in the laboratory, where all the lights would be kept on so that all of them were exposed to the same amount of light. The air conditioner would be set at a particular temperature to control the humidity. We would connect the probes to two different parts of the stem. The source meter was used to read the fluctuating signals.”

The brainstorming went on for months and the experiment lasted a fortnight. Das says, “The apprehension of failure was there. But the moment when we got the first response was exquisite. The horizontal line that appeared on the screen formed a peak and then fell only to rise again. Though our graph did not have peaks and troughs as tall as Bose’s, we definitely had got a graph that roughly replicated the ECG graph of humans.”

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Online edition / Home> Culture / by Moumita Chaudhuri / November 25th, 2018

Trees offer multiple benefits — don’t kill them, breed them

In 1979, Dr. T.M. Das of Calcutta University estimated the value of a tree to be $2,00,000 | Photo Credit: S. SIVA SARAVANAN


Hundred trees remove 53 tons of carbon dioxide and 430 pounds of other air pollutants per year. They also catch about 1,40,000 gallons of rainwater per year.

Officials in Delhi wish to fell about 17,000 fully grown trees in some parts of the city to make space for building housing colonies. And to “pacify” people who object to this tree destruction, they say that for every tree that will be felled, they will plant 10 saplings. Interesting — the minister knows it; the National Building Construction Corporation (NBCC) knows it and we all known it — that this is a stupid answer. “What you lose today, I will make up” (20 years from now? and if the saplings survive?) And this is not just in Delhi. Government and city planners in several other states do the same. This attitude shows not just ignorance but arrogance, disregard for trees and their value. It is time planners wake up and understand the value — economic, ecological, health-related and sociological — that trees offer.

Value of a tree

Way back in 1979, Dr. T.M. Das of Calcutta University estimated that the monetary value of a tree, during a life span of 50 years, amounted to about $2,00,000 (at 1979 rates). This was based on the amount of oxygen it produces, the fruit or the biomass and the timber it offers when felled and so on. For every 1 gram that a tree accumulates as it grows, it generates about 2.66 grams of oxygen. Dr Nancy Beckham of Australia, in her paper, “Trees: finding their true value”, points out that “trees and plants silently carry out their daily routine years after years, stabilizing the soil, recycling nutrients, cooling the air, modifying wind turbulence, intercepting the rain, absorbing toxins, reducing fuel costs, neutralizing sewage, increasing property values, promoting tourism, encouraging recreation, reducing stress and improving personal health as well as providing food, medicine and accommodation for other living things”. (Link: ).

The Department of Environmental Conservation of New York State, USA offers numbers in this connection (see ), along with references to scientific papers which estimate these numbers. It points out that (1) healthy trees mean healthy people: 100 trees remove 53 tons of CO2 and 430 pounds of other air pollutants per year; (2) healthy trees mean healthy communities: tree-filled neighbourhoods lower the levels of domestic violence and are safer and move sociable; (3) healthy trees mean healthy environment — 100 mature trees catch about 1,40,000 gallons of rain water per year; (4) healthy trees mean home-owner savings — strategically placed trees save up to 56% of air conditioning costs; evergreens that block winter winds can save 3% on heating; (5) healthy trees means better business — in tree-lined commercial districts, shoppers report more frequent shopping and spend 12% more for goods, and (6) healthy trees means higher property values.

The minister and the NBCC officials are smart people and they surely know all these facts. Yet for them, a mature tree is “dead urban space” and clearing 17,000 trees means real estate for building houses, colonies and shopping malls in a city that is gasping for clean air. (Delhi Greens, an NGO, estimated in 2013 that a healthy tree is worth Rs. 24 lakh a year, just with respect to its oxygen producing capacity). And for them a sapling occupies (today) about a hundredth (or even less) space. But where will they plant the saplings — where the trees were? How will they survive if construction starts already? Clearly the officials’ attitude is: ‘well, we will be gone (transferred/ retired) and do not need to answer’. What Gurgaon was then, and is now, makes the point.

Admire trees, don’t axe them

In stark contrast to their cruel attitude towards trees stand the examples of Sunderlal Bahuguna’s “chipko” movement, Saalumarada Thimmakka of Karnataka who has planted 398 banyan trees — each representing her own child, and Majid Khan and the team of biologists and horticulturists who are offering “intensive care” (injecting insecticide mix in to the phloem of each branch) to a 700 years old “pillalamarri” banyan tree near Mahabubnagar, Telangana, spanning a 4–acre canopy , which is being eaten up by termites, and bringing it back to life. (See: https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/telangana/a-tree-in-intensive-care/article24241462.ece). Should it have been cut and the 4 acre space used as real estate?

Obviously trees offer emotional, even spiritual solace. Indian history is replete with examples — Lord Buddha, Emperor Ashoka, and the Tamil King Pari Vallal who left his chariot near a plant to help it spread its branches.

Should not Delhi then think of building houses and colonies elsewhere in the suburbs, saving these 17,000 trees? Or if at all it has to do it in Delhi, think new thoughts, but without cutting the trees (or at best sacrificing the smallest possible number)? This impossible-sounding scheme offers challenges to architects. Indeed, high rise apartments have been built elsewhere, saving trees and even including them as part of the building. Some examples are seen in Italy, Turkey and Brazil.

India has been blessed with creative architects, both Indian and foreign, who have built houses and campuses, totally in harmony with the surroundings. The Indian Institute of Architects has about 20,000 members, we have about 80 institutions that teach architecture. Why not throw a challenge to them to come up with the best plan, offer a handsome award to the most suited and creative one, and use it to build the colony?

dbala@lvpei.org

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Science / by D. Balasubramanian / July 07th, 2018