(From left) Poet Nirendranath Chakraborty, former MP Krishna Bose, film-maker Shyam Benegal and historian-MP Sugata Bose at the launch of SUBHAS AND SARAT: An intimate memoir of the Bose Brothers at Netaji Bhavan on Sunday evening. / Picture by Sanat Kr. Sinha
The book has been edited by Sumantra Bose, a professor of international and comparative politics at the London School of Economics and son of Sisir Kumar Bose.
Sisir Kumar Bose, Netaji’s nephew and son of Sarat Chandra Bose, had in the 1980s authored the Bengali version of the memoir: Basu Bari.
The book, which used to be serially published in Anandamela, a children’s magazine published by the ABP Group, focuses on the period from the mid-1920s to the 1940s, when the freedom movement was at its peak.
Sisir Kumar Bose, who died in 2000, had written a version of the memoir in English, said Harvard professor Sugata Bose, the elder son of Sisir Kumar Bose.
Chakraborty recounted how as editor of Anandamela he had convinced Sisir Kumar Bose to pen Basu Bari.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Front Page> Calcutta> Story / Monday- July 11th, 2016
Aditi Chakraborty is a known name in the Durga Puja circuit, as one of the most sought-after idol makers of Kolkata.Subhamita Dinda, on the other hand, is a debutante, though her husband Sanatan Dinda commands huge respect in the same circuit. In a first, these two women are putting together one of the costliest Durga puja idols and pandals this year. They claim to be the first women-only team in this male dominated profession. Now that’s a reason why Santoshpur Lake Palli Pujo must feature in your must-visits list this year.
Aditi, who is in charge of decorating the pandal, said, “We are trying to present tradi tion in a never-seen-before manner. Our theme is `puja’ itself. We will be making use of many traditional items such as tambul dani and stitch-art that used to adorn the walls of homes in our childhood.”
We went to see the two ladies at work on the day of the khunti pujo, where we met Somnath Das, executive member of Santoshpur Lake Palli pujo. On being asked about the USP of their puja, Das said, “For most pujas these days, the theme is planned first and the idol and the pandal are then crafted around the theme.However, we have decided to keep the idol in focus. There will be many rare materials used in the making of the idol which have never been used for this purpose before. The pandal will feature detailed wood-carvings too.”
Aditi and Subhamita have already started work a couple of months back. On being asked how it is to try to make a footprint in this primarily male-dominated industry, Aditi shrugged it off. “I am an artist.It does not matter whether I am a male or a female. What matters is that the work is done well. My bonding with Subhamita is strong and I am enjoying working with her,” she said.
Subhamita, on her part, promises surprise for the visitors. “All I can say is that people will find it in their heart to fold their hands and pray to the idol, once they see it. But for that, one needs to wait a little bit more,” she signed off.
Reporting done by Pratik Banerjee
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Kolkata / July 11th, 2016
One of his primary responsibilities is to encourage youngsters from West Bengal to join the Indian Navy and what better way to do this from the INS Netaji Subhas, the only military establishment in the country to be named after the Bengal icon. In a way, it was fateful that Commodore Suprobho K De took over as naval officer-in-charge (NOIC), West Bengal, on Monday. A day later, INS Netaji Subhas that De now commands celebrated its 42nd birthday.
“We shall continue to visit schools and colleges to encourage students to take up the Navy as a career. We would like more youth from West Bengal to join the Navy. A Naval Selection Board is also coming up at Diamond Harbour. This will be very crucial for youth in the eastern part of the country who now have to travel to Bhopal to get selected. The selection board will also provide employment and business opportunities for people of the area,” Cmde De said before attending a cake cutting ceremony and barakhana with officers and other ranks of INS Netaji Subhas.
The naval base in Kolkata is also in charge of warships that berth at the ports of Kolkata and Haldia. The NOIC also liasons with the civil administration on several issues including humanitarian aid and disaster relief. The Navy office in Kolkata also keeps a watch on shipping activities in the Bay of Bengal and security aspects. The Navy has also been eyeing a Forward Operating Base (FOB) at Sagar for better monitoring of the region. Sagar will also have a missile battery once the island is connected to the mainland by a road-cum-rail bridge.
The naval base in Kolkata was first set up at Marine House prior to World War II. The strategic importance of the Kolkata port during the war made it necessary for the Allied presence in India to bring up this naval presence to safeguard and strengthen its maritime assets in the east of the country which would also augment the capability to provide logistic support to Allied units and later Indian naval ships operating in the Bay of Bengal. Later the HMIS Hoogly was renamed INS Hoogly. On July 5, 1974, it was rechristened INS Netaji Subhas.
Cmde De, who was commissioned in 1985, is an alumnus of National Defence Academy, the Defence Services Staff College and Naval War College. A gunnery specialist, his previous appointment was as station commander of INS Angre, Mumbai. An alumnus of Sainik School, Purulia, he is married to Bandana De and they have a son who is an IPS Probationer.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Kolkata / Jayanta Gupta / July 05th, 2016
Bengali film star Jeet’s Grassroot Entertainment Private Limited on Wednesday announced that they have signed a long-term agreement with Premier Futsal to acquire the Kolkata franchise of the league.
The agreement, for an undisclosed sum, makes Kolkata the second franchise to be sold after the promoters of football club Chennai City FC — among the oldest in the city — picked up the league’s Chennai team.
“Football has a huge, fervent following in Kolkata, where love for the sport is passed on from one generation to the next. It is therefore a matter of great pride for me to introduce the faster, shorter version, of the beautiful game to Kolkatans,” Grassroot Entertainment Pvt. Ltd director Jeet said in a release.
“Through futsal, the young generation can hone their skills and talent, which will uplift their quality and eventually benefit in long-term development of footballers. I’m certain it will capture people’s imaginations and thrive and I urge people to come forward and support our initiative to lead the Kolkata franchise of Premier Futsal to glory.”
The Kolkata franchise will be called Kolkata 5s. In the inaugural season, each team will be similarly named. The franchise-owners will then be allowed to rebrand their respective teams from the second season onward.
Premier Futsal managing director Dinesh Raj said, “It gives me immense pride to announce Jeet and Grassroot Entertainment Pvt. Ltd. Asowners of our Kolkata franchise. We are delighted to have a superstar of Jeet’s stature backing Premier Futsal and playing his part to grow it in what is football’s Indian heartland.”
“The response we have received from prospective owners across all cities validates our decision to get behind Futsal as sport. We will unveil owners of the other franchises very soon.”
Each franchise will be assigned a marquee international football player, seven international and five Indian Futsallers for their squad to participate in the inaugural season through a player draft scheduled later this month.
The league, which has roped in international stars like Alessandro Rosa Vieira, fondly known as ‘Falcao’, Deco, Paul Scholes and Michel Salgado will kick start from July 15.
Portuguese legend Luis Figo is the president of the tournament.
–IANS
dd/ajb/dg
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Kolkata / IANS / July 06th, 2016
It’s a rare congregation where designers, techies, tinkerers, hobbyists and artists get together to toy with their ideas, exchange notes and give shape to them. MakersLoft, eastern India’s first makerspace, lets children give flight to their imagination with the help of tools and tips from professionals.
Purav Manot is passionate about robotics and has been following YouTube videos to build a bot. MakersLoft gave this student of Lakshmipat Singhania Academy a platform to develop professional skills and collaborate with fellow robotic enthusiasts. Manot now helps other kids create custom robots.
“I used to watch videos and design programmes with sensors and motors but never got a chance to showcase my models. Then MakersLoft happened. Now, I get to exchange and share interesting robotic experiences with professionals and hone my technical abilities,” Purav said.
Come with an idea and leave with a product is the invitation from Meghna Bhutoria, the founder and CEO of MakersLoft. “From 3-D painting, robotics, app development to photography, herbal painting, woodwork and fashion designing, MakersLoft is a one-stop shop for thinkers and innovators, no matter what their age,” she said.
The concept is widely prevalent in the US, France and Germany and has finally found a niche for itself in Calcutta. Stationed in a flat on Ballygunge Road, MakersLoft offers an enticing blend of lab-based learning, hands-on training and even offers chances of entrepreneurship.
“There are plenty of such never-seen-before experiences dished at MakersLoft. We have also introduced some unique and fun activities for tots and teens. Making ‘glow-in-the-dark’ objects, setting up structures and models using PVC pipes and phone film-making are some of the interesting options that can break the monotony of routine life at home or school,” Bhutoria said.
For Kushagra Kanoi, a student of Calcutta International School, the Lego classes on Saturdays are something he looks forward to all week. His Lego blocks were only lifeless pieces of plastic before he joined MakersLoft. Now, he knows how to get the blocks moving. “I used to make Lego cars but couldn’t do much to get them going. But with Lego technique set here, I know how to put lever and battery to use,” Kushagra said.
Namrata Manot, a Lego instructor at MakersLoft, said: “The kids’ imagination knows no boundaries. We give them an idea and watch them add their own creativity to it.”
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Front Page> Calcutta> Story / by Rumela Sinha / Tuesday – July 05th, 2016
Garima Poddar plates her dishes at IIHM Young Chef India Schools 2014 at the University of West London
Garima Poddar likes her friends calling her Garry after Gary Mehigan, her favourite judge on Masterchef Australia.
And true to the Masterchef nickname, the Calcutta Girls High School Class XII student won the IIHM Young Chef India Schools 2014 contest at the University of West London on Saturday and retained the crown that Simran Kapur had won for Calcutta last year.
The finals of the inter-school cooking competition — held by the International Institute of Hotel Management (IIHM), in association with t2 — saw six finalists from six Indian cities (Calcutta, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Pune and Ahmedabad) battle it out with their plates and pans to serve up meals to some of the best-known Indian chefs in London.
Wearing the judges’ hat at the London finale were Andy Verma, who owns restaurants Vama and Chakra in the UK, Dipna Anand whose family owns and runs Brilliant restaurant in London’s Southall area largely inhabited by Indians, Romy Gill of Romy’s Kitchen in South Gloucestershire, and closer home t2 columnist Shaun Kenworthy and Sector V IIHM’s chef Sanjay Kak.
How apt it was for the IIHM Young Chef India Schools contest to culminate in London was underlined by Virendra Sharma, MP, Ealing Southall, the chief guest at the evening prize distribution, who pegged the number of Indian restaurants in the UK at 60,000.
But what did Calcutta girl Garima do that the others didn’t? For one, she churned out 10 dishes in a three-hour-long cookout, a number unmatched by any other contestant. “Her biggest challenge was getting all her dishes right because she made so many,” agreed the judges, all of who gave Garima the highest score.
The Southern Avenue resident pinned her win down to two factors — confidence and practice. “I know it sounds cliched but practice does make perfect. I strived to make at least three dishes a day to prepare for the finals. One day, I did a 100 roti challenge just to get that perfect roti shape and all the rotis were given to the needy,” said Garima.
Like Garima, her other five competitors made it past 8,000 students who participated in the Young Chef competition over six months. Two got their visas in the nick of time and reached two hours before the contest kicked off while the Jaipur girl had to give it a miss, cutting down the number of finalists to six from seven.
In the two days they all spent in London before the finals, food was the only thing on Garima’s mind. Ask the Lebanese hairdresser at Eli’s Hair & Beauty on Kew Bridge Road who was unexpectedly pulled into a casual conversation on tahini, babaganoush and shawarma as she settled down for a wash-and-blow dry! Or the Kadai Chicken that was sampled at a local restaurant down the road from the hotel.
“In fact, it was for this competition that I started having non-veg,” said the spunky Marwari girl. “Non-veg is not cooked at home but we eat it outside. Initially, I would nibble on chicken; now I can eat a whole chicken meal!”
Which is why chicken featured on what the judges called her “buffet”. There was Chicken Garam Masala Roast, Nageese Kofta (egg wrapped in chicken keema) “learnt from my mom’s friend”, Kheera Ka Kachoree “learnt from dadi”, Bhaap Tashtari, Fish-E-Hariyaali, Lemon Rice, Gobi Dahi Ki Sabji and a fusion dessert Gajar Ka Halwa with Lemon Cheesecake. She also made an Amuse Gueule called Salata (frozen salad) and an Assamese dish called Narasingha Paator Maas “inspired by a YouTube video of Gordon Ramsay cooking Assamese food in Assam”.
The commerce student who loves economics also made all the right calculations and moves. Like when she used micro-greens to garnish her dishes, an idea picked up from Shaun’s cooking demonstration the previous day. Or when “I decided not to make rotis because they would have to be made last and would eat into my plating time”, she said.
Her future plans? “It’s either economics or cooking and after this contest, the scales are tilting more in favour of the latter,” she signed off, clutching in her hands the winning trophy, a cheque for Rs 5 lakh and a placard that read ‘Garry’s Kitchen’, which she had proudly displayed on her table.
What is your message for Garima? Tell ttmetro@abpmail.com
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph,Calcutta,India / Front Page> Calcutta> Story / by Karo Christine Kumar in London / Monday – October 20th, 2014
Past meets present: The atrium of the Lalit Great Eastern. / by Special Arrangement
In 1836 — when Bahadur Shah Zafar was yet to ascend the throne in Delhi to become the last Mughal — a man called David Wilson opened a bakery in Calcutta, which was fast growing into a second London. The bakery, a great source of comfort for homesick sahibs, did so well that Wilson soon acquired adjoining properties and in 1840 opened a hotel, cleverly naming it after Lord Auckland, the Governor-General of India who lived right across the road.
Until then, Calcutta boasted of only one hotel, Spence’s, also located a stone’s throw from Wilson’s bakery. Spence’s, which opened in 1830, had its share of admirers, who included Jules Verne. While scanning the archives of The New York Times, which I subscribe to online, I found only one mention of Spence’s, in an 1888 dispatch that was datelined ‘Spence’s Hotel, Calcutta’. Thereafter, for nearly a century, no Calcutta hotel merited mention in the paper other than Wilson’s, by then rechristened the Great Eastern Hotel. If you came to Calcutta, you had to stay at the Great Eastern, whether you were Mark Twain or Rudyard Kipling or Queen Elizabeth.
While no one seems to be sure when exactly Spence’s Hotel shut down, one knows for certain when exactly the Great Eastern was rescued from closure — in 2005, when the property, by now dilapidated and rat-infested, was bought over from the West Bengal Government by The Lalit group. Reopened to the public in 2013 as The Lalit Great Eastern, it is today the oldest existing hotel in India — a 176-year-old brassware restored and polished, its lifespan extended by another century or two.
Resurrecting history: The Wilson, which serves as the pub and backery.
At the hotel, where I checked in last weekend, it is hard to miss the advertisement placed in the October 1840 issue of The Englishman and Military Chronicle: “D. Wilson and Co. beg respectfully to announce having taken those splendid and spacious Four-storied Premises, No. 1, Old Court House Street, formerly occupied by Messrs. Thacker and Co. and the Sans Souci Theatre, opposite Government House, and are sparing no expense in the alterations, and fitting it up in a manner that will render it one of the most comfortable family hotels in India.”
Nearly two centuries later, the new owners are doing precisely the same thing — sparing no expense in the alterations — as they blend the Victorian, Edwardian and modern eras to give something unique to Kolkata, which has been notorious for neglecting its handsome colonial-era buildings. The Victorian block, comprising 49 suites, is still under renovation, and will open in February next year.
The three nights I stayed there, I skipped dinner, simply because I overate during lunch, gorging on Bengali food that was prepared in its sanitised kitchens, but tasted very home-cooked. On the third day, lunch was actually home-cooked: I had happened to mention to the resident manager that I had never had litti-chokha, the quintessential Bihari dish, during my decade-long association with Kolkata, and so he had got me litti-chokha from home.
To burn calories, I walked — outside the hotel and inside. I walked around Dalhousie Square, Kolkata’s Westminster, where the hotel is located; I walked the streets of Kumartuli, watching Durga idols being made; I took a ferry across the Hooghly and walked on the Howrah Bridge. Walking in the corridors of the hotel was also as good as walking back in time. From time to time, one came across glass wine decanters, silver napkin-holders, silver water jugs, ancient teapots — all belonging to the time when the Great Eastern was known as the Jewel of the East.
It is one thing to recreate the past with the help of imagination, quite another to recreate it with actual pieces from the past — The Lalit Great Eastern has achieved the latter. When you hold an old wine decanter, you are forced to wonder whether it bears the fingerprints of Rudyard Kipling. It just might — who knows?
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> Metroplus> Society / by Bishwanath Ghosh / Chennai – July 01st, 2016
