Category Archives: World Opinion

Federer inspires fangirl’s charity

Business & Economy, Records, All, Sports, World Opinion

Visits to Wimbledon every year and foundation to sponsor local talent

Sunita Sigtia (in top picture by Gautam Bose) started her not-for-profit organisation SiiRF last August, inspired by her idol Roger Federer. The foundation sponsors talents to help them continue in their chosen sport. Sigtia, who travels to Wimbledon every year to watch Federer play, gets an autograph from the tennis legend (above) at Wimbledon in 2013

Chowringhee:

Roger Federer’s philanthropy spurs Calcuttan Sunita Sigtia as much as the magic of his tennis that takes her to Wimbledon every year to watch him play. Her not-for-profit organisation SiiRF, established 10 months ago, stands for “Some Immensely Inspired Roger (Federer) Fans”.

SiiRF was born on August 8, the champion’s birthday, and has since sponsored two young talents who had been struggling to continue in their chosen sport because of financial reasons.

For Sunita, who has met Federer on many occasions, SiiRF is now a mission only matched by her admiration for the legend. “My charity is inspired by Roger….The lesson I have learnt from him is that you have to give something back to society in whatever way possible. My dream is to associate him, even if in a small way, with my foundation,” she told Metro.

Sunita, who is in her 40s, runs a fabrics business. Tennis, Federer and charity – not necessarily in that order – help maintain the work-life balance that she seeks.

One of the two sportspersons Sunita has set out to help is Amit Rawat, the son of a cobbler and a domestic help. Amit, who grew up in a slum in Beniapukur, learnt to play tennis while working as a ball boy at Calcutta International Club and got so good at it that he caught the eye of a coach.

Sunita’s foundation has arranged a brand new kit for him. She also recently sent him to a tennis academy in Pune for six weeks of training. “Amit has done well on the Calcutta circuit, but the next two years are crucial,” she said.

Bristy Mukherjee, the 14-year-old girl who won a silver medal at the Asian Youth Chess Championship in Thailand last month, has also benefited from Sunita’s sponsorship. The teenager’s mother had mortgaged her jewellery to send her to the event. SiiRF has now pledged financial and other support to Bristy for future tournaments.

Sunita, who has “RF” tattooed on her neck and his signature on her forearm, is the Indian face of Fans4Roger, the official fan club of the legend. She had first seen her idol up close in June 2008, when she was visiting London for a house-warming at New Malden, around 5km from Wimbledon. “The house-warming was the official reason for the trip, but I knew I had to visit the All England Club,” she said.

Wimbledon queues are long. For one of the show-court tickets, thousands of fans camp overnight. People in these queues bring tents, folding chairs and rainwear, among other things. Sunita only had an umbrella and it started raining heavily that night. “I was freezing. Another man offered me shelter in his camp,” she recalled.

Visiting Wimbledon has since been an annual ritual. Before each Grand Slam, Federer is presented with the Red Envelope, a collection of good-luck messages from fans across the world. Delivering the envelope to the legend is considered the highest possible honour for a Federer fan. Sunita did so at Wimbledon 2011, wrapping the envelope in silk fabric with RF inscribed in zardosi. “He simply loved it,” she said, beaming at the thought.

Federer’s charity, the Roger Federer Foundation, is involved in more than a dozen educational projects benefiting lakhs of African children in countries like Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

As one of the privileged fans who get to travel each year to London, Paris, Melbourne and New York to get a glimpse of their idol, Sunita believes the best tribute to “the best tennis player ever” would be to emulate his spirit of giving.

Federer might say: “Roger that.”

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Debraj Mitra / May 30th, 2018

Calcutta ‘plot’ eyes crime prize

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, NRI's / PIO's, Records, All, World Opinion

UK author’s debut thriller on harrogate shortlist

London:

UK-born Abir Mukherjee’s debut thriller set in Calcutta in 1919, A Rising Man, has been shortlisted for a prestigious crime-writing prize.

He is one of six authors selected from a longlist of 18 for the Theakston’s Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year Award, which is sponsored by T&R Theakston, a brewery in the market town of Masham, North Yorkshire.

It is awarded annually at the Harrogate Crime Writing Festival, held every July. The winner receives £3000 and a small, hand-carved oak beer cask.

This year’s prize, created “to celebrate the very best in crime fiction” and open to UK and Irish authors, is for a novel published in paperback between May 1, 2017, and April 30, 2018.

News of Abir’s nomination comes as he is about to release his third novel, Smoke and Ashes. His second work was A Necessary Evil.

The winner will be decided by the panel of judges, alongside a public vote that opens online on July 1 and closes on July 14. The winner will be announced on July 19.

Abir’s new tale, Smoke and Ashes, is set in 1921 – two years on from when his debut novel opened. He has created an unlikely partnership between Captain Sam Wyndham and his Bengali assistant, Sergeant “Surrender-not” Banerjee. The latter is patrician, Cambridge educated and socially a cut above his boss, who has arrived from the UK to join the Calcutta police. Wyndham is haunted by his memories of the Great War and is now “battling a serious addiction to opium that he must keep secret from his superiors”.

Abir has said his ambition is not simply to tell a detective story but to set it against the background of racist British attitudes when the days of the Raj drew to a close and the fight for Independence became more intense.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Amit Roy / May 27th, 2018

Apeejay Surrendra Park Hotels To Manage Oldest Hotel In India

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy, Historical Links / Pre-Independence, Records, All, Travel, World Opinion

Apeejay Surrendra Park Hotels has entered into an agreement with the Government of West Bengal to manage the historic The Denmark Tavern, the 232-year-oldest hotel in India, in Serampore, Kolkata.

“We are delighted to manage The Denmark Tavern on behalf of the West Bengal Government. THE Park Hotels will build on the rich legacy of the Tavern and bring it and the area back to life. The hotel will soon be buzzing with guests enjoying a quiet break on the banks of Hooghly and the sights and sounds of old-world Serampore and beyond,” Priya Paul, Chairperson, Apeejay Surrendra Park Hotels.

The Tavern was established in 1786 in what was then Fredricksnagore. The two-storeyed structure by the Hooghly is the place where the Danes had kept their flagstaff and cannons. The Tavern was a place to meet and stay for traders, clergy and travellers exploring Bengal.

In 2010 – 11, more than 200 years after the tavern’s heyday, a group of restoration experts studied the building that stood in complete ruins surrounded by debris. It took around two years to restore the Tavern to its former glory as part of the Serampore Initiative, a restoration programme for several Danish heritage structures led by the National Museum of Denmark and funded by Realdania, a private trust in Denmark, in collaboration with West Bengal State Heritage Commission, and Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH).The refurnished building has a cafe, inspired by the double height central atrium of the Indian Coffee House in Kolkata and six high-ceilinged spacious rooms.

The restored Denmark Tavern will fall under THE Park Collection brand of THE Park Hotels. The Park Collection is intimate, personalized, and tailored to transmit inimitable guest experiences. The Denmark Tavern will have THE Park Hotel’s design aesthetics, its impeccable services and will reverberate with Anything But Ordinary experiences. The hotel will open by September 2018.

source: http://www.traveltrendstoday.in / Travel Trends Today / Home> Hot News / by T3 News Network / May 24th, 2018

China calling Calcutta’s China

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, World Opinion
China Pal with her passport that arrived barely hours before the expiry of the deadline for handing documents to the Chinese consulate on Friday. Picture by Bishwarup Dutta

Kumartuli:

On her first trip abroad, Kumartuli’s best-known woman idol-maker China Pal is headed to – where else but China.

She has been selected by the city’s Chinese consulate-general to participate in the China-South Asia & Southeast Asia Arts Week and Lancang Mekong Arts Festival, which will be held as part of the China-South Asia Expo.

“We have heard China Pal is good with idol-making. She will make idols at a folk master craftsmanship show and display the significance of different procedures,” said consul general Ma Zhanwu.

Along with her reputation, her name also carried weight. “We thought she loves China or Chinese tea but when we spoke to her, it turned out that it has to do with her being the fourth child,” smiled Ma.

When Metro spoke to China, the explanation ironically turned out to have to do with her parents’ desire for family planning.

“I am the youngest of six siblings and am the fourth of four daughters. My elder sisters are called Durba, Kalyani and Uma. So my parents named me ‘ Chai na (do not want)’,” China said. “I loved idol-making ever since I was 14 but father was opposed to a girl going to his workshop. We, the women of Kumartuli, help out with small jobs but never do we come to the forefront alongside the men.”

Ironically, when Hemanta Pal fell ill, it was his youngest daughter who took over his trade.

She is unaware how the consulate heard about her but points out that she has crafted the idol at EC Block’s Durga puja in Salt Lake twice. That is where the consulate office is located and the consul general traditionally is a guest at the pandal inauguration.

So far, the 45-year-old’s farthest journey has been to Manali. “I did get a chance to go to Africa or some such place in 2015 but things did not fall in place.”

Even this journey was riddled with uncertainty as China did not have a passport and even when she applied for one on May 4 on learning of her nomination, she mistakenly opted for a normal – and not a tatkal (urgent) – type of application. And there were barely hours left for the consulate’s document submission deadline to expire on Friday when she received her passport from the Beadon Street post office.

Passport in hand, China could finally turn her attention to the requirements of the journey to China in the afternoon. “I am planning to carry two half-finished and detachable mini models of Durga and Kali. I will colour them here but carry the shola pith accessories with me to do the decoration in front of the audience there,” said China.

Terracotta artiste Ashish Kumar Biswas of Thakurnagar, Bongaon, will also be going with her. The winner of the Presidents’ Award for 2014-15 is planning to carry terracotta Buddha figurines, Chinese motifs and fridge magnets.

The trip is for 10 days and the expo in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan, the province of China closest to Bengal, starts on June 13.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Sudeshna Banerjee / May 19th, 2018

Nasa trip for math wizard

Education, Records, All, Science & Technology, World Opinion
Swaprabha Dey. (Kousik Sen)

Raiganj:

A Class IX student of Raiganj who topped a math Olympiad has won an educational trip to Nasa.

Swaprabha Dey, a student of St Xaviers School of the town, had stood first in the International Olympiad for Mathematics, 2017 conducted by the Delhi-based Silver Zone Foundation. He will visit Nasa on a week-long trip to the US in August this year.

“After the (Olympiad) results were announced, we were informed that he will be rewarded in cash and be taken to Nasa,” said Swaprabha’s father Sanjib Dey, a central government employee.

The boy, his parents said, is an ardent reader of science fictions. Professor Shanku, a character penned by Satyajit Ray, is one of his favourites.

“It is a matter of pride for the school,” Fr. David Raj, the school principal said.Ayesha Rani A, the DM, said the administration will “felicitate” Swaprabha for his success. “His performance has brought laurels,” said the DM.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> West Bengal / by Kousik Sen / May 20th, 2018

England to Jharkhand, sociology to midwifery

Amazing Feats, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Inspiration / Positive News and Features, Records, All, World Opinion

Briton married to Bengali finds new calling after living in village

Ranjan Ghosh and Lindsay Barnes. Picture by Anup Bhattacharya

Calcutta:

She is from Lancashire in north-west England, he is from Bally in Howrah. Lindsay Barnes and Ranjan Ghoshhad met in the Eighties as students at Jawaharlal Nehru University and, fired by a shared idealism and sense of adventure, set up home in a village near Bokaro.

Sometime in 1993, Lindsay was forced by circumstance to help a village woman deliver a baby. She had no medical degree, only a book to help her. Since then, Lindsay has played midwife to scores of mothers and set up a 12-bed health centre with her husband Ranjan Ghosh to provide hundreds of others a safe place to give birth.

The couple have also brought together more than 7,000 women from 120 villages under various self-help groups, with Ranjan using his expertise to induct them into microfinance.

Lindsay and Ranjan, who were in Calcutta to attend a Mother’s Day programme organised by an infertility clinic in Kasba, said they planned to train junior doctors and nurses to deliver babies under limiting circumstances in rural areas.

Health care was, of course, not a choice Lindsay had made when she started living in Chambrabad village, 25km from Bokaro. A student of sociology, she was there primarily for research on life in the coal belt when a call for help changed her calling.

“Some neighbours approached me to help a mother-to-be,” she recounted. “I was astounded. I had no clue what to do. I was trying to put them off with excuses. It was my husband who goaded me to go,” 58-year-old Lindsay told Metro.

Armed with a book titled Where there is no doctor: A village healthcare handbook, Lindsay left home to help deliver the baby. “The local women who gathered around me knew I had no knowledge of midwifery, yet they were relieved to see me. They knew I would find a way out. That’s when it hit me that I must do something to help them,” she said.

Lindsay, now a mother of two, soon started receiving similar requests from other villages. “After a few home deliveries, I decided to educate myself in hospitals and nursing homes. I learnt a little and read a lot more to perfect my job,” she said.

After almost 100 home deliveries, Lindsaybegan hiring rooms for deliveries. She set up the 12-bed health centre in 2001. “The village girls now run the health centre with minimal support from qualified doctors. I am still called to handle critical cases. Ninety-five per cent of women have normal delivery. We refer critical cases to nearby hospitals,” she said.

According to gynaecologist and infertility specialist Sudip Basu, what sets Lindsay apart is her “practical knowledge”.

“It will be good if she can train our junior doctors and nurses how to treat patients under limiting circumstances. My team, in turn, can volunteer at her health centre. We plan to replicate the model in other villages.”

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Chandreyee Ghose / May 14th, 2018

Magic memoirs: A son pens his tribute

Amazing Feats, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Leaders, Records, All, Travel, World Opinion
P.C. Sorcar (Jr) at the launch of a memoir of his father on Friday. (Anup Bhattacharya)

Calcutta:

On April 9, 1956, a live telecast of a magic show in London seemed to have gone awfully wrong. The scheduled 15-minute slot on BBC was almost over but the assistant cut in half by the turbaned Indian magician was not coming back to life.

As the channel switched to the news bulletin, viewers jammed the studio lines with calls, convinced that the woman had been murdered. Such was the furore that the event made the next day’s headlines, with interviews of the assistant, alive and well.

“It had all been part of a grand plan. He had deliberately instructed the lady assistant to lie unresponsive… at the critical moment… This man was Protul Chandra Sorcar. He was also my father,” the writer of a book titled PC Sorcar: The Maharaja of Magic describes the incident.

A memoir of the illustrious father Protul Chandra Sorcar penned by his torch-bearer and son Prodip Chandra Sorcar or P.C. Sorcar (Jr) was launched on Friday at Starmark. It is replete with anecdotes that demonstrate how the senior Sorcar single-handedly revived a dying Indian art and went on to be hailed by the International Brotherhood of Magicians in 1948 as “The World’s Greatest Magician”.

The book is also a storehouse of photographs, publicity material, newspaper clippings and cartoons on the phenomenon that was P.C. Sorcar. His reception in the 35 nations where he performed is nothing short of spectacular. If The Sunday Times carried a photo of him reading the newspaper blindfolded, one of Japan’s top newspapers The Yomiuri Shimbun ran the headline on an article on him “Invaluable Living Asset From India Brings Black Art” while The Australian Women’s Weekly did a full page feature on him when he was touring the continent in 1958.

“The book was five years in the making,” said Bikash D. Niyogi, the managing director of the publisher Niyogi Books.

At the launch of the book on Friday, Sorcar (Jr) revealed that his grandfather was bitterly against his son taking up magic as a profession. “‘Do not do public shows. Society is not ready. You will be taken as a dabbler in hocus pocus,’ he kept telling his son. He wanted him to become an engineer instead,” said Sorcar (Jr).

In a way, he was right. “Even after my father’s body was flown in from Japan where he suddenly passed away in January 1971, people gathered outside our house at night expecting him to return, much like he would at the end of his disappearing tricks, appearing from a distant corner with the shout ‘I am here’. People were so gullible that they could not distinguish between his stage persona and the person he was in real life.”

Sorcar, as a child, had an opposite problem. He took the sombre man keeping a strict eye over his son and the smiling magician on stage as different people. The book is a testimony as to how the two avatars of PC Sorcar come together in the eyes of a fellow magician who is also his son.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Sudeshna Banerjee / May 12th, 2018

Kolkata youth now a London councillor

Amazing Feats, Leaders, NRI's / PIO's, Records, All, World Opinion
Rohit K Dasgupta (L)

Kolkata :

Rohit K Dasgupta, 30, has become the first Bengali from India to be elected as councillor in the London Borough of Newham. An alumnus of St James’ School and Jadavpur University, Dasgupta had joined UK politics in 2009, when he shifted to London to pursue his masters in English.

Last year, Dasgupta had unsuccessfully contested as the Labour Party’s parliamentary candidate for East Hampshire against the Theresa May government. This year, he won with 70% votes.

His parents — Mukut and Joyasree — are ecstatic. “My mother said my hard work paid off. My parents were up all night waiting for the results. They will have a celebration dinner,” Dasgupta said. After results, Dasgupta partied with all the Labour activists who contributed to his win.

Though he comes from a Left political tradition, none of Dasgupta’s parents have been involved in active politics. “I joined the Labour Party as I thought Gordon Brown was a fantastic leader and deserved to remain UK’s PM,” he explained. As for contemporary Indian politics, Dasgupta is against the “kind of Hindutva nationalism being espoused by the BJP”. “I was born in a secular country and to see that secularism being eroded makes me angry. I’m glad Bengal is one of the few states that has remained immune to Hindutva politics,” he said.

However, the recent Metro incident at Dum Dum — where his parents live — has left him ashamed. “Kolkata has been a bastion of liberal values compared to many other Indian cities. Moral policing is unacceptable. Showing affection should not be something we should be ashamed of or be censured for,” he said.

He will now he busy balancing his academic job at the Loughborough University and responsibilities as a councillor. Both jobs, he said, complement each other. As an elected representative, his priority is to expand “the equalities agenda of the council, repair and maintain all council homes and increase crime prevention”. Housing, he pointed out, is a big issue in Newham. “I’d like to see our council build more affordable homes for everyone,” he said.

Looking forward to strengthening the connection between Kolkata and London, he said, “Newham also has a sizeable number of Indian and Bangladeshi communities. There is opportunity for all kinds of cultural exchange with Kolkata and also learning good practices from each other.”

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City News> Kolkata News / by Priyanka Dasgupta / TNN / May 06th, 2018

BL Block resident new India disabled cricket team coach

Sports, World Opinion
Team India with the runners-up trophy in Behala

A Salt Lake resident has been appointed coach of the Indian cricket team. No, he is not replacing Ravi Shastri. Aparup Chakraborty of BL Block is now the coach of the physically challenged national squad.

“I have taken over from the second week of April,” says the former captain of the national indoor cricket team.

The team played the first tournament under his guidance in the Tata Steelium Cup, a T-20 tri-series held in the Eastern Railway Sports Complex, Behala.

“The cricket rules are the same as what you are used to seeing. The only exception is runners are allowed for up to three players per team,” explains Aparup.

Even then, he received a jolt when he first walked into the players dressing room. “We are used to seeing bats and pads strewn about on the floor. Here there were artificial legs too. Before taking the field, the leg amputees take that one step extra — putting the leg on before padding up. That sight was testimony to the challenges they overcme just to reach the cricket field.”

Aparup Chakraborty walks into the filed with a differently-abled player

The 35-year-old coach is full of admiration for the level of competitiveness he witnessed on the field in his maiden assignment. “We have a 6ft tall bowler called Mandeep Singh who has a hand missing from the left wrist. But he bowls right-handed at 130 kmph. The Bangladesh skipper fields with a crutch. Yet when a ball was speeding past him he threw his crutch aside and dived to save the boundary. As it would have taken him time to get up, another fielder who was able of feet came running to pick up the ball.”

India lost the final to Bangladesh but Aparup is counting the positives from the tournament.

“Unlike in India, disabled cricket in Bangladesh gets infrastructural support from their cricket board and financial aid from their government. Their openers are among the top five players internationally. Here we function under Disabled Sporting Society but there is talk of the Board of Cricket Control in India taking over as the Lodha Commission report recommends that. But there is good talent in the team which we can harvest.”

He is looking forward to scouting for more talent across the country through tournaments. “India and England have bid for the right to host the disabled cricket World Cup in 2019. I hope to have a strong contingent by then.”

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / by Sudehsna Banerjee / May 04th, 2018

Landmark nuggets in 75th year

Amazing Feats, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy, Historical Links / Pre-Independence, Inspiration / Positive News and Features, Records, All, World Opinion

Desi steel for Howrah Bridge

• When Howrah bridge was built in the late 1930s, nearly 90 per cent of its steel was made in India.

• When Vidyasagar Setu was built in the 1980s, all the steel was imported.

• The 705m-long Howrah bridge was built in 41 months. The 823m-long Vidyasagar Setu took 14 years to be built.

Calcutta:

These and more such nuggets of information about the two bridges across the Hooghly were shared at the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Wednesday during a lecture on the completion of the Howrah bridge’s 75 years.

Amitabha Ghosal, an engineer who was part of the team that built Vidyasagar Setu, spoke about the history of the Howrah bridge and its engineering.

Ghosal began by saying why the Howrah bridge was built. Traffic to and from Howrah station had been slowly but gradually on the rise. A pontoon bridge that stood over the Hooghly and connected Calcutta and Howrah had to be lifted whenever a large ship came under it.

“River traffic was then more important than road traffic, which was however increasing. So a need was felt to build a bridge,” said Ghosal, who studied the design, construction and tendering of the Howrah bridge while working on Vidyasagar Setu.

There had been talk about building a bridge since 1900 but the actual planning didn’t begin till 1921. World War I was one of the reasons for the delay.

Amitabha Ghosal at the Bengal Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
(Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya)

The pontoon bridge was commissioned in 1874 for 25 years, but remained in use till 1943, when the Howrah bridge was commissioned. Construction began in November 1938 and carried on till March 1942.

Four companies from England, Scotland, Germany and India had placed bids in a global tender floated for the construction of the Howrah bridge. The German company was rejected because World War II was brewing.

Cleveland Bridge of England won the bid but British-owned Indian company opposed it. “It was a tiff between the British in India and the British in England. The British in India managed to convince the authorities that the entire work cannot be given to an England-based company,” said Ghosal.

A compromise was worked out. The Indian company – BBJ Construction Company Limited, a consortium of Braithwaite, Burn and Jessop – was asked to make the steel. Most of the steel – 23,500 tonnes out of 26,500 tonnes – was manufactured and supplied by Tata Iron and Steel Company (Tisco), now Tata Steel.

The foundation of the bridge was built by the Indian-owned Hindustan Construction Company, which is now building the Parama flyover in Calcutta.

source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Subhajoy Roy / May 03rd, 2018