Monthly Archives: January 2016
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Moghalmari fest to bring ‘buried’ Buddhist vihara under limelight
Kolkata:
Buddhist monks from different corners of the country are set to converge on Buddhist monks from different corners of the country are set to converge on Moghalmari near Dantan in West Midnapur on January 24 to stake their claim on a newly excavated site, believed to be one of the oldest Buddhist viharas in India.near Dantan in West Midnapur on January 24 to stake their claim on a newly excavated site, believed to be one of the oldest Buddhist viharas in India.
What was written off as just a mound, which residents of the area believed to hide an ancient lore, has turned out to be a 5th century Buddhist site. The state archaeological department’s excavation has pushed the Raktamrittika Vihara at Karna Subarna in Murshidabad, dated 7th century, to the second position on the Buddhist religious map and calendar.
The Bauddha Dharmankur Sabha, headquartered in the city, has organised the two-day Moghalmari Buddhist Festival, which will see a rare congregation of monks at the site that dates back to the era of Raja Samachar Dev. This was the time when the Gupta dynasty had waned and local satraps had managed to shake off its suzerainty to declare their independence, Raja Samachar Dev being one of them. Most details of the pre-Pala age of Bengal is shrouded in mystery owing to lack of any historical evidence but now, scholars believe that the Moghalmari vihara excavation would help them piece together this past.
The excavation of the site, which had been put on a hold for nearly two years, will be taken up again from Monday. The state archaeology directorate had stopped the digging after archaeologists found coins and seals that had to be analysed to verify the site’s antiquity.
With the inscriptions on the seals finally ascertaining the fact that the vihara was founded and fucntioned during the 5th-6th centuries, if not earlier, the state government has decided to release funds for the new phase of excavation. Already, more than Rs 3 crore has been spent.
“A total of 6,400 square-feet area has to be dug up. So far, we have been able to work our way through less than 2,000 square feet. There is a lot of work to be done. Apart from the stucco figurines, gold, silver and mixed metal coins, pendants, votifs and seals, we have also been able to unearth a seal that describes the vihara as the Sribandaka Vihara Aryabhikkhu Sangha. The vihara did not grow in one phase. So far, we have come across evidence that pinted at the fact that the establishment flourished over second and third phases. We will not stop till we get to see traces of the first phase of the vihara’s development which might put the dates back even further,” said Prakash Maiti, director of the Moghalmari excavation site and a senior archaeologist of the directorate.
During the festival, the Bauddha Dharmankur Sabha will organize special prayers and meditation sessions to spread the message of Buddhism. Visitors will be taken on tours through the excavated courtyard, pradakshin path, the cells in which the monks lived. Seminars have also been organised on Tagore’s writings on Buddha and how his teachings had inspired Vivekananda.
While on one hand, the festival would write a new page in Buddhist religious history, it would also help catapult Moghalmari from obscurity to an important position on the map of ancient Indian history.
“This phase is especially important to us because we will look for more seals to finally establish the name of the vihara. Also, we might stumble upon the first phase of the vihara’s growth while excavating further. We have not yet reached the Garba Griha,” Maiti said.
District magistrate of West Midnapur J P Meena said a lot of interest has already been generated around the forthcoming festival.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Kolkata / by Jhimli Mukherjee Pandey & Sujay KhanraJan / January 10th, 2016
Honour for new kid on startup block
Kolkata :
Swagene, all of nine months, was adjudged one the winners at Empresario 2016 – IIT-Kharagpur’s annual global business model competition where business ideas get opportunity and exposure – held at Webel Bhavan on Saturday.
Swagene is the brainchild of Sooraj Ratnakumar, 33, who did his PhD in molecular biology from Cambridge University and has taught in the US, UK and Switzerland. his partner in the company (and not his inspiration) is his mother Vani KM, a Chennai-based gynecologist who was “casually talked into” creating what is the country’s only personalized medicine startup. It not only diagnoses diseases genetically, but also guides clients towards the best cure.
The acknowledgement from IIT-Kharagpur will help Sooraj to carry forward his dream. “I came here because the contest organized by IIT-Kharagpur offers the best exposure in terms of mentorship and advice. I need to know how to make my nine-month-old baby walk,” said Sooraj.
Delhi-based health startup Healu, founded by Priyank Saini, sounded as excited to be here. Priyank and his team provides online services of doctors, but “we are about to launch an offline patient-care in Delhi. Online services are convenient, but one needs offline centres to synchronize so that clients get the personal healing touch that is an integral part of medical treatment,” Priyank said.
The winners were picked up by a jury comprising VCs and angel investors from firms like Nasscom, Omnivore Venture Partners, Villigro and others.
Twenty six startups made detailed presentations spread across two sessions on Saturday. They were shortlisted from 2000-odd entries from India and abroad after a month-long period of evolution. They got some talented mentors from leading seed-funders who advised them on finetuning their business models. The finalists were then selected by jury members.
Pitching and judging were done in two tracks – the judges zeroed in on the winners in four categories. The winners received a cash prize money of Rs 6 lakhs and other incentives.
“We had 110 semifinalists who were connected to industry specialist, professionals and experts for mentorship to create a market-ready and sustainable business model. The mentors helped the participants validate their model,” said Nihar Gupta, IIT-Kharagpur student and one of the organisers.
The pitching sessions by startups were followed by an interaction of investors with startup founders, who wanted to know when should a startup approach investors for money and if it was okay to focus on profits and raise money at a later stage. The investors said startups should approach friends and family, seed and angel investors before going to a venture capital firm.
The event culminated with the announcement of the winners of Empresario, the annual business model competition organized by the entrepreneurship cell of IIT Kharagpur, which provides a direct chance to pitch for funding from the Kharagpur Angel Network that has 30-plus investors on board already.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Kolkata / TNN / January 09th, 2016
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Entrepreneur meet at IIT
The entrepreneurship cell at IIT Kharagpur has organised the Global Entrepreneurship Summit 2016, partnered by The Telegraph, to promote the spirit of entrepreneurship and start-ups among students. Metro provides a lowdown on the ninth edition of the conclave
When: January 8 to 10.
Time: 6pm to 9.30pm on January 8, 10am to 8.30pm on January 9 and 10am to 6pm on January 10.
Where: IIT Kharagpur. Empresario, the Global Business Competition, will be held at Nasscom Warehouse in Salt Lake on January 9.
Participants: Apart from students of IIT Kharagpur, students from institutions across the country have registered. Around 3,000 students are likely to attend it.
Key events: Workshops on currency and commodity markets, and accelerating growth of start-ups with cloud computing; sessions on Definitive Guide to Growth Hacking by NASSCOM; and Biz Quiz.
Main attraction: Finals of Empresario. It will take place on January 9, from 10.30am, at Nasscom Warehouse in Salt Lake. Venture capitalists and investors engaged by the entrepreneurship cell have shortlisted finalists based on the business models submitted between September and December 15. The finalists will pitch in with their business models in front of the judges.
Key speakers: Asha Saxena from Columbia University, Shailendra Vyakarmanam from Cornfield University and Sashi Reddy from Wharton School. The trio will speak on “Is Silicon Valley the Right Model for Indian Start-ups”, through Skype in the CET studio 1 at the CIC lab of the IIT from 7.30pm to 8.30pm on January 9.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Calcutta,India / Front Page> Calcutta> Story / January 08th, 2015
Women-only chauffeur service ready to hit road
A woman returning home alone in a cab at night need no longer make her family and friends anxious. Come February, she will have the option of choosing a woman to steer her home safe.
Calcutta’s first women-only chauffeur-on-call service is apparently the launch pad for a regular taxi fleet with women drivers in less than a year.
The Azad Foundation, a non-profit-organisation that had launched the service first in Delhi in 2008 and recently in Jaipur and Indore, has trained around 500 women as drivers and is looking to fill a gap in Calcutta that has become pronounced in recent years.
“We keep getting mails and phone calls asking when women drivers would be available here (in Calcutta). For now, only the chauffeur-on-call service would be available. This will be just like hiring a private car for a few hours,” said Dolon Ganguly, programme director at the Azad Foundation.
Nine women aged between 20 and 35 have trained for six months to become as adept at changing a flat tyre as they are at changing gear. Another nine are being readied to become chauffeurs-on-call by May. Sometime next year, the first batch would be eligible for commercial driving licences to work as cabbies.
In a city where taxi drivers often refuse passengers on a whim, the advent of app-cab services like Ola and Uber changed the way people could hire transport even in the dead of night. But from the perspective of women on the move, the women-only chauffeur-on-call service has the potential to be a game changer.
A large section of women in Calcutta who work till late in the evening are exposed to the possibility of harassment the moment they hire a cab with a male at the wheel. Women returning from a night out face the same plight and are often left with no choice but to call family members or male friends to escort them.
“There is always the fear that the driver will take a wrong turn and take me to an unknown location. Screaming on a deserted road wouldn’t help; so I remain extra alert whenever I am in a cab at night. If I have a woman at the wheel, I wouldn’t need to keep a finger ready to dial a helpline,” said a young fashion designer who works in a New Alipore studio and often needs to take a cab at night.
The nine chauffeurs ready to hit the road next month in crisp green uniform with red collars feel just as empowered. “I had never thought about learning to drive a car until someone told me about this job opportunity. My first day at the wheel was scary. But as time went by, driving a car came naturally,” said Khurshida Begun, a mother-of-one from Rajabazar.
Each of the women has received training in first-aid, basic English, gender sensitisation and Wenlido, a self-defence module popular in many parts of the world.
The last round of evaluation that each candidate needs to clear to start working as a professional is conducted by the Azad Foundation’s revenue-earning unit Sakha, which also takes care of placements.
Programme director Ganguly said the training programme had been designed to give each of the trainees at least two-and-a-half months at the wheel under supervision.
The period is sometimes increased, depending on individual need.
Shehnaz Khatoon, 18, is one of the aspiring chauffeurs in the second batch. “I had always dreamt of flying a plane, although that didn’t become a reality. But I get the same thrill out of driving that flying a plane would have given me,” she said.
Shehnaz plans to surprise her father in her uniform once she completes the training, which she was encouraged to join by her mother.
Would you hire a woman chauffeur? Tell ttmetro@abpmail.com
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Calcutta,India / by Monalisa Chaudhuri / Front Page> Calcutta> Story / January 08th, 2015