City mountaineer and trekker Samrat Moulik recently cycled 3,000km from Gangotri in Uttarakhand to Kuakata in Bangladesh
Kolkata :
A mountaineer and trekker from Kolkata, who quit a corporate job to pursue his passion, is preparing for a mega cycling expedition of 5,500km – from Nubra Valley near Ladakh to Kanyakumari and onward to Sri Lanka.
Three months ago, he completed a 3,000km solo cycling journey from Gangotri in Uttarakhand to Kuakata in Bangladesh, traversing the entire length of the Ganga as it meandered through five states before entering Bangladesh.
“The condition of the Ganga – that we consider sacred and yet pollute – prompted me to undertake the ‘Save Ganga’ campaign in February-March. I wanted to know what was polluting the river and its impact on the population living along its length,” said Samrat Moulik. He began the journey on February 8 this year and finished on March 21.
While the condition of the river is good in Uttarakhand, its deterioration was visible after Haridwar. “Pollution actually began at Nagina – a town in Uttar Pradesh. In Moradabad, there is cremation ground at the ghat, a picture that one sees all along the river thereafter. From there on, the river water gets murkier as it flows. The effects of Ganga Action Plan, about which I had heard for years, were not visible. The pollution load of the Ganga increases as polluted tributaries flow into it,” said Moulik.
As the river flows downstream, industrial waste becomes the major pollutant. The situation improved in Jharkhand. But when the river bifurcates into the Hooghly and the Padma near Rajmahal, its condition again deteriorates. “The situation is better in Bangladesh because of people’s dependence on the river,” he said.
Moulik plans to start his journey in September. He will cover several rivers in central, west and south India before travelling to Sri Lanka and cycle along the rivers there.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> City News> Kolkata News / TNN / June 14th, 2018
A dilapidated portion of the Burrabazar branch of Metropolitan Institution, which was pulled down by the KMC on April 7, is getting a new lease of life with a group of residents taking the initiative to restore the heritage structure to its old glory. The initial, rudimentary repairs have been carried out with school funds and the subsequent renovation is likely to depend on government assistance as well as crowdfunding.
Members of ‘Purono Kolkatar Golpo’, a Facebook group that has taken up the project, organized a programme on the premises of the institution on Prasanna Coomar Tagore Street at Pathuriaghata on Saturday, when they unveiled a plaque, with the building’s “heritage status” written on it.
This plaque, they hope, would make Kolkatans and authorities aware of the historical significance of the school, which was founded by Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar.
The unveiling was followed by discussions and a cultural programme, which was attended by current and old students, teachers, neighbours and local councillor, Ellora Saha, who advised to form a development committee that would work towards procuring money from the government. “It is a proud moment that ordinary people have come together to conserve the historical institution. Our aim is to restore the building,” said P N Palit, secretary at Vidyasagar Institute trustee board. He added the initial repair, white-wash and clearing trees and undergrowth from the compound were carried out with school money.
Heritage enthusiast Swarnali Chattopadhyay said, “It’s high time we did something to save such structures of architectural and historical significance. For restoration, we are looking to state help and crowdfunding as and when required.”
Till 1954, the building belonged to the Tagores and was known as Rama Niketan.
Thereafter, the Burrabazar branch of Metropolitan Institution was set up on the premises, where the school ran out of rooms on the ground and first floors. Now, with only 60 students on the roll, classes are held only on the ground floor. The Pathuriaghata post office shared the same compound. “To save the building, it is important to save the school.
Different activities have to be started there as the institution and the building are interdependent. A proposal has been given that other small schools in the area may use the huge compound, and if need be, they can be merged into one institution,” said Jayanta Sen, heritage activist and another member of Purono Kolkatar Golpo.
Councillor Saha said, “The building still has Vidyasagar’s chair and it is where Madhusudan Dutta composed ‘Sharmistha’. It is my duty to help people conserve the place.”
Conservation architect Kamalika Bose hailed the initiative: “This is a great example of residents doing something at the grassroots level, without expecting the government to take the first step.”
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City News> Kolkata News> Schools & Colleges / by Dipawali Mitra / TNN / June 17th, 2018
Ahead of his 98th birth anniversary on Saturday, rare recordings of legendary singer-composer Hemanta Mukherjee from Bangladesh have been unearthed by a mathematics professor in the city. The recordings – one which dates back to 1971 and the other being the last ‘basic song’ recorded before his death in 1989 – have perhaps never been seen or heard in India.
Joydeep Chakraborty, the former guest lecturer at Rabindra Bharati Univerity (RBU) who now teaches in Murshidabad’s Nagar College, had earlier collected Mukherjee’s first recording of a Rabindra Sangeet in Pakistan. “The 45 rpm record of ‘Ami jalbona mor’ was made by the Gramophone Company of Pakistan in 1961. It was recorded in cooperation with the Visva-Bharati Music Board. I collected this from a Muslim family in Murshidabad,” Chakraborty said.
Two months back, he chanced upon the rare 1971 video recording from a friend. “After the liberation war of 1971, Bangabandhu Sheikh Mujibur Rahman had invited Mukherjee over to Dhaka. During that visit, he had performed a Rabindra Sangeet – ‘Tui phele eshechhis kare, mon, monre amar’ – for the state-owned television network in Bangladesh. My friend in Rajshahi sourced the recording for me,” Chakraborty said.
When Chakraborty was teaching at RBU, he came across a student from Bangladesh who wanted his help to covert some recordings in her family’s possession to the digital format. “While doing the work, I chanced upon a cassette that had a recording of a person composing a song. The voice seemed like that of Mukherjee,” Chakraborty said. His guess was confirmed by the student’s grandfather in Dhaka. “The recording was done in 1989 when Mukherjee was in Bangladesh and trying to set to tune the song ‘Lokhi jokhon ashbe ghore’. Nobody apart from that family has ever heard this recording,” he insisted.
During that same time, Chakraborty also chanced upon another rare recording of Mukherjee. “The song was ‘Bhalo kore mele dyakho drishti/Bujhbe Bangladesh bidhatar koto boro srishti’. The song was penned by Abdus Sattar and set to tune by Golam Mustafa. This was the last recorded ‘basic song’ of his,” Chakraborty informed.
However, it isn’t just these recordings from Bangladesh that make his Mukherjee archive interesting. In his kitty are some rare jingles that Mukherjee had recorded for Colgate toothpaste, PC Chandra jewellers and Lipton tea. “I sourced his jingle for Eveready torch from a roadside seller. An old employee helped me get hold of his Bata jingle. I also have a 1958-recorded jingle for Pundinhara that he had sung for Salil Chowdhury. I sourced his 1979-London recording of Ramayana in Hindi from an Anglo-Indian lady from Park Street,” he said.
That apart, Chakraborty also has 200 letters of the legend in his possession, a postcard record of Mukherjee singing for the coronation of the king of Nepal in 1964, recording of a 1973-programme in Rabindra Sadan which had Mukherjee singing live for all the characters in ‘Chandalika’, a harmonium used by Mukherjee during the late 1930s and Mukherjee’s personal collection of books.
Keen to exhibit his collection, Chakraborty will be happy to help if the government plans to host such a show.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> City News> Kolkata / by Priyanka Dasgupta / TNN / June 16th, 2018
A painting by Shanu Lahiri from a series on rickshaws, a Calcutta phenomenon loved by the artist, formed the backdrop to the discussion
Calcutta:
One of the recipes that she had created was named Chicken Beparwah.
Shanu Lahiri, painter and sculptor, cooked with as much passion as she brought to her art. Wherever she was, laughter and conversation would flow. So would food cooked by her, as unusual and robust as her.
She would often name them with care.
(From left) Samik Bandyopadhyay, Chaitali Dasgupta, Tapati Guha Thakurta, Jawhar Sircar and Nandita Palchaudhuri at the launch of Tabled
The warmth and generosity of those afternoons and evenings that she presided over at her Lake Town home seemed to flow directly into the auditorium at Jadunath Bhavan in the city last Friday, at the launch of Tabled, a compilation of Shanu Lahiri’s recipes, anecdotes and art.
Shanu Lahiri, a member of The Group, a women’s artists’ collective in the city, was the sculptor of Paroma, a Calcutta landmark that had been installed in 1987 on what came to be known as the Science City island. The city woke up on a November morning in 2014 to find the statue, a woman’s form with children, vanished and replaced by the multi-colour globe of the Bengal government’s Biswa Bangla brand.
Damayanti Lahiri and (right) Damayanti Basu Singh
The book, launched by Jawhar Sircar, chairperson, Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, is the labour of love of Damayanti Lahiri, Shanu’s daughter. Damayanti, however, pointed at her namesake, Damayanti Basu Singh of Vikalp publishers, as having played a more important role in the project.
Tabled has been designed and structured by artist Chittrovanu Mazumdar, who happens to be Shanu Lahiri’s nephew, and who refused to show up on the stage despite several calls, remaining doggedly in the background.
The black and white cover of Tabled does not quite prepare one for what lies within: an explosion of colours, forms and recipes. But that was Shanu Lahiri. Close friends and loved ones remembered her lovingly.
Historian Tapati Guha Thakurta, who grew up in the south Calcutta house where the artist first lived with her family before moving to Lake Town, chose to speak in Bengali. “The language of “Shanu mashi’s” art was international, but the language she wrote in, or that of her inner self, was Bengali,” said Guha Thakurta. All those conversations that Shanu Lahiri seemed to be always having were conducted in Bengali. Guha Thakurta spoke about Shanu Lahiri’s food-loving husband, without whose large and benign influence the artist would not have grown; neither would the eccentric cook have been born.
TV personality Chaitali Dasgupta, who had interviewed Shanu Lahiri for a cooking programme on Doordarshan, said the sculptor had refused to put on the slightest make-up for the shoot. “Let the sweat show. It will look like garjan tel, garjan tel,” remembered Dasgupta. The Durga idol’s face is painted with this oil.
When social entrepreneur Nandita Palchoudhuri, who was conducting the conversation, asked scholar Samik Bandyopadhyay about the correspondences between cooking and painting, Bandyopadhyay spoke about “Shanudi’s passion for work as activity”. “Her lines move madly,” he said. She painted as if without a desire to control. “There was a kind of continuum in the ways she lived, worked and cooked.”
It is probably not a coincidence that when he received Shanu Lahiri’s book, Bandyopadhyay chanced upon a newspaper article on an exhibition in Barcelona on works by Picasso that are about cooking and utensils.
The evening evoked memories of a time that is difficult to imagine now: a flow of spirit over conversation and food, without the interruption, or aid, of mobile phones, ordering food from outside, and in the Bengali language. The previous city has disappeared, as the missing statue of Paroma proves.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Chandrima S Bhattacharya / June 15th, 2018
Shib Shankar Patra is one among thousands of die-hard Argentina fans in Kolkata and there’s nothing unusual about it.
But then die-hard fans at times can be weird too and the 53-year-old Patra has that weird streak in him.
Trying to garner enough savings from his modest earnings through a tea stall, Patra harboured a dream — to watch ‘The Albiceleste’ live from the stands in Russia.
But when a Kolkata-based travel agent informed him that his savings — a princely amount of Rs 60,000 (USD 900) is not enough to fund his World Cup trip (travel agent gave him a budget of Rs 1.5 lakh), he decided the next best thing –paint his entire three-storied building in Argentina colours.
“I don’t smoke or drink. I have only one addiction and that is Lionel Messi and Argentina. I don’t earn much but ensure that bulk of my earnings is kept aside for these indulgences when World Cup comes calling,” Patra, owner of a tea and snack stall in North 24 Parganas’ Nawabganj township, told PTI.
You don’t need a GPS to track Patra’s house once you get down to Ichhapore Railway Station. Ask any cocky teenager or elderly uncle about “Argentina Chaayer Dokan” (Argentina Tea Stall), they will be more than happy to oblige.
The street leading up to his tea stall cum house is dotted with Argentina flags while a giant one flutters high making its presence felt.
Every four years coinciding with the World Cup, Patra, who runs his tea stall from the ground floor of his three-storied building, gives his building a fresh coat of light blue and white shade.
Enter his three-room apartment and the craziness hits you instantly. All the walls are painted in Argentina colour, even the small ‘puja sthal’ (where the idols of Gods and Goddesses are placed). The walls of each room adorns a life-size vinyl flex print poster of Messi.
Addiction can be contagious but if its ‘Messi mania’, Patra doesn’t mind that his wife Swapna along with his children — 20 year-old daughter Neha and 10-year -old son Shubham are equally mad about the fleet footed genius.
“My kids know everything about Messi. The food he likes, the car he drives, everything,” Patra says with a glint of pride in his eyes.
“They don’t miss a single match of Messi. If there’s a late night match during the exams, they will pretend to sleep early but will watch live streaming on their cell phones,” wife Sapna said.
There is one common thread of all Argentina fans in Bengal. The 1986 World Cup, which was aired live on Doordarshan turned Kolkatans into ‘Maradona devotees’. Messi is an extension of Maradona.
“I have watched the Argnetina friendly at the Salt Lake Stadium. I lived a dream that day,” Patra recollected.
It was the first time, he painted his house in Argentina colours, something he repeated in the 2014 edition of the World Cup as well.
Since 2012, the Patra family celebrates every Messi birthday with fanfare like cutting cake to organsing blood donation camp.
And it goes without saying that tea and samosas (staple diet for Bongs during their football adda sessions) is complimentary on all Argentina match days.
With Messi’s birthday coinciding with the World Cup, they have cancelled the blood donation camp, which is held every year.
Instead a 30-pound cake will be cut and 100 Argentina jerseys will be distributed amonmg local kids with Messi’s photograph embossed.
In attendance would be the local MLA and India U-17 World Cupper Rahim Ali.
By his own admission, he has never taken any loans for his personal indulgences.
“I’ve never sought money from anyone but we never fell short, and somehow everything falls in place in time,” Patra said.
“People here also happily come forward. Someone sponsors the food, someone gets the cake and we make it a mini-Argentina here,” Patra says.
Even there will be prayers for Messi with the priest of the local Hanuman temple — his regular client — offering special prayers for the Argentine wizard.
“He gets me the ‘sindoor’ from Hanuman’s left leg (the connection is Messi being a left-footed player) and the vermilion is applied on Messi’s poster during every match. We hope he lift the Cup this time,” Patra signed off.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> City News> Kolkata News / PTI / June 13th, 2018
The announcement regarding the coal mine allocation was made by CM Mamata Banerjee on Facebook.
Kolkata :
West Bengal has finally received allocation of the Deocha Pachami Harinsingha Dewanganj coal mines in Birbhum district. Deocha Pachami Harinsingha Dewanganj is the world’s second largest coal mine. The project is likely to bring investment worth Rs 12,000 for the state.
Making the announcement on Facebook, chief minister Mamata Banerjee wrote, “I am very happy to share with all of you that after a long wait of 3 years, West Bengal has got the allocation of the Deocha Pachami Harinsingha Dewanganj Coal Mines in Birbhum district.”
The chief minister added, “With an estimated reserve of 2102 million tonnes, it is the 2nd largest coal mine in the world. The mining project has huge potential of generating nearly a lakh of direct and indirect employment opportunities in Birbhum and neighbouring districts.”
Referring to the coal mine, Mamata added, “It will also involve investments worth Rs 12000 crores in the intermediate run. There will be huge socio economic development of Birbhum, the neighbouring districts and the entire state.”
Necessary administrative infrastructure has already been set up to start the project immediately.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> City News> Kolkata News / by Ajanta Chakraborty / TNN / June 09th, 2018
For India’s first woman Land Rover trainer Samantha Dong (28), it’s all about keeping the family legacy alive. Samantha had assured her grandfather Lakpa Tshering Dong that she would one day drive his lightweight Land Rover on the treacherous Sandakphu route. She has done that umpteen times since 2008.
She will head to Noida next month for the challenging Land Rover Experience Above and Beyond Tour. “The LRE tour event is held every month in different states. In Chandigarh, I instructed 10-12 Land rover enthusiasts. It is a nice feeling to share my experience with others,” she said.
Lakpa Tshering had purchased the lightweight series II-A war model Land Rover in the 1970s from Nepal. He used to ferry passengers and rations from Ghoom to Sandakphu to make a living.
But it was her father Kiran who trained her to drive the vehicle. Of the nine siblings, Samantha is the only one who drives the Land Rover, a passion that she now has developed into a career. “I was around 11-12 years when I first held the wheel of a car. It was our family’s Maruti Omni. I used to sit on my father’s lap who taught me to operate it,” she said.
Samantha has a master’s degree in public administration in 2016.
Life changed for Samantha when she participated in the Teesta Rangeet Tourism Festival in Darjeeling in December, 2017. She was the only female participant. Samantha was spotted by Asish Gupta, director of Cougar Motor Sport, during the event. Impressed by her capabilities, he had her inducted as a Land Rover instructor.
Samantha was, again, the only female driver in the seventieth anniversary celebration organized by Land Rover from Maneybhajyang to Sandakphu on April 30. She has been featured in leading auto magazines such as Top Gear, Overdrive and Autocar. As instructor Samantha is required to provide information about and knowledge about how the land rover runs and its features as she sits next to the learners.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> City News> Kolkata News / by Deep Gazmer / TNN / June 11th, 2018
The students and teachers at Ekalavya Model Residential School
Jhargram:
All 22 first-generation students at Ramakrishna Mission Vidya Mandir (Ekalavya Model Residential School) in Jhargram have come passed the Higher Secondary examinations with flying colours.
The students, 13 boys and nine girls, belong to tribal families and none of their parents has ever studied till the highersecondary level.
Barring one, who wrote his exam from hospital and secured second division marks, the rest got first division, with eight of them securing star marks. School topper Budhor Mahali scored 84.2%. Three students got letter marks in English, nine in Santhali, two each in philosophy and political science and one in science.
Commending all students and teachers for the results, school secretary Swami Shuvokarananda Maharaj said, “Two years ago, Ramakrishna Mission was given responsibility to run the school. We have 374 students, all of whom are tribals. We have 48 teachers here. Parents of none of the 22 Higher Secondary examinees this year have studied till the plus-II level. The results show how children from the tribal community are making a headway in studies.”
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Kolkata News> Schools & Colleges / by Sujay Khanra / TNN / June 10th, 2018
A robot-driven vehicle called Eklavya won IIT Kharagpur the runner-up position in the Intelligent Ground Vehicle Competition at Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, recently.
The robots were ranked according to the distance they covered in the designated arena while keeping to the lanes given by GPS coordinates, all the while avoiding obstacles on the way.
Eklavya, designed by the Kharagpur institute’s autonomous ground vehicle (AGV) team, covered 260 feet, said an official of the institute.
The AGV team is a multidisciplinary research group.
The team that won (left to right) Rahul Krantikiran, Indu Kan Deo, Sanskar Agarwal, Poojan Shah and Harsh Maheshwari
“For prototype purposes, we work on Eklavya which is a three-wheeled, front-driven and front-steered electric vehicle fitted with cluster wheels,” an official of the institute said.
Work for building the robot started in December last year under the supervision of Debasish Chakravarty, a professor of mining engineering at IIT Kharagpur.
“Students were required to work on image perception, simultaneous localisation and mapping, path planning algorithm, mechanical design and electronic design to come up with the robot-driven vehicle,” Chakravarty said.
Rahul Krantikiran, one of the five members of the participating team, said they were asked to cover a distance of 600 feet.
“We covered a distance of 260 feet. Though the time was not specified, I think we took around 2.5 minutes to 3.2 minutes to cover the distance. The only team that could outperform us was the team from CART (Center for Applied Research and Technology), Inc. from Bluefield State College, US,” said the student of computer science and engineering.
The team is exploring whether Eklavya can be fitted to an existing fuel-run vehicle.
“It requires advanced research. If it can be fitted to fuel-driven car, it will gain popularity,” Chakravarty said.
Seven teams from India, including ones from IIT Kanpur and IIT Madras, took part in the competition held from June 1 to 4.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Subhankar Chowdhury / June 09th, 2018
Sanjibani Debnath with headmistress Manideepa Nandi Biswas at Sunity Academy on Wednesday. Picture by Main Uddin Chisti
Cooch Behar:
Had Maharani Sunity Devi lived now, she would have been happy.
Four girls of Sunity Academy, set up by her husband and Cooch Behar king Nripendra Narayan in 1881, have made it to the state-wide list of top 10 Madhyamik examinees this year.
A few among the Indian woman to be awarded a CIE (Companions of the Order of the Indian Empire) by the British, Sunity was the daughter of Brahma Samaj reformist Keshab Chandra Sen.
“Her initiatives to impart education to girls and women are well known in Cooch Behar. Not only that Sunity Academy was set up in her name (it was initially Suniti College), but she was also instrumental in setting up the Maharani Girls’ High School in Delhi. During her days as the queen of Cooch Behar, she had helped girls ensure that they get education. She would have been definitely happy to see girls of her school performing so well,” said Shaukat Ali, a senior academician based in Cooch Behar.
In the Madhyamik this year, Sanjibani Debnath of the school has topped in the state with 689, followed by Mayurakhi Sarkar (687, third in the state), Ankita Das (685, fifth in the state) and Aitihya Saha (681, ninth in the state).
“It is great day for us. Back in 2013, a student from our school had topped in the state in Madhyamik. In our school, there is a close relation among teachers and students. Though many take private tuitions but all the students are always dependant on the school to improve their performances,” said Manideepa Nandi Biswas, the proud headmistress.
Pankaj Kumar Debnath, the father of Sanjibani and a college principal, has appreciated the school.
“My daughter has been studying here since Class III and I have always found that each teacher is caring and giving individual attention to students. They keep on encouraging students and do not relent unless a student understands a subject,” said Debnath.
Along with the performance of the girls of Sunity Academy, Cooch Behar residents have another reason to cheer. In the Madhyamik this year, the district has come up with nine students in total – the highest in any district of Bengal – who have secured positions in the top 10 slot.
They are Sumit Bagchi of Dinhata High School (684, sixth in state), Mahasweta Home Roy of Manindra Nath High School (683, seventh), Debosmith Roy of Rambhola High School (682, eighth), Suman Saha (680, tenth) and Baidurjya Biswas (680, tenth), both of Mathabhanga High School.
“All these students have made our district proud. We will felicitate them for their success,” said NB development minister Rabindranath Ghosh, who also hails from Cooch Behar.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> West Bengal / by Main Uddin Chisti / June 07th, 2018
