While passing through the tunnel, a visitor is sprayed with a disinfectant solution coming out of a high-pressure air compressor.
IIT Kharagpur. (Mint file)
The Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur has set up a disinfection tunnel for sanitizing visitors to the campus during the ongoing lockdown triggered by the coronavirus outbreak, an official said on Saturday.
The tunnel has been installed at the sole entry point of the campus for essential services staff such those involved in cleaning operations and once the lockdown is lifted, it can be of use to screen visitors until the threat of COVID-19 is gone, he said.
While passing through the tunnel, a visitor is sprayed with a disinfectant solution coming out of a high-pressure air compressor.
The system to automate the process of disinfecting visitors was developed by Prof Mihir Sarangi, Associate Professor Mechanical Engineering, along with faculty and staff members from various departments.
“The output material is like mist and highly effective as it covers a larger surface area unlike liquid disinfectant.
Also, it does not need any drainage,” Sarangi said, This mechanism is, however, a supplement for hand washing or the need to wear face masks in public. Hand wash stations have been placed just outside the disinfection tunnel, he said.
The product prototype has been built indigenously at the IIT Kharagpur in less than a week while the campus is under lockdown.
The prototype is now fully operational at IIT Kharagpur and is used for all people entering the campus.
The commercial model for the product has been estimated to be available for Rs 4 Lakh.
IIT KGP Director Prof Virendra K Tewari said such technologies can be quickly built and employed at any location which has a daily influx of essential service providers.
“Our campus is like a mini township which, in the current situation, requires automation of hygiene and safety protocols for essential service providers who are coming out of their homes every day to serve at the campus and also the campus community who are interacting with these visitors,” he said.
Tewari said more such innovations to assist Indias fight against COVID-19 are underway. PTI SUS NN NN
source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> Education / by Press Trust of India, Kolkata / April 18th, 2020
In Kolkata, a group of six friends have come together to feed villagers in the state.
Ration distribution in South 24 paraganas village.
Kolkata :
The unprecedented lockdown in a bid to prevent the spread of coronavirus in India, has given rise to a humanitarian crisis, where thousands are going to sleep every night without a morsel of food in their stomach. Amidst the crisis, several good samaritans have come forward to do their bit to help the starving souls.
In Kolkata, a group of six friends have come together to feed villagers in the state. The group has so far raised more than Rs 4,000,00 through donations from their friends and colleagues and fed 1200 families in West Bengal.
Ritambar Das, Arijit Roy Chowdhury, Preetom Bhattacharya, Abhijit Sarkar, Sukanya Dutta and Rovers Chatterjee with the help of their friends from other cities in India, US and UK have been delivering ration to families in four villages which are completely cut off from the cities amid lockdown.
Three kilograms of rice, one kilogram of potato and some lentils go into a bag that is then distributed among the villagers. So far the group has managed to help people in Mallickpur, Joytola, Piyali and Betberia. From procuring the ration to distribution, these six people have been doing it all on their own with the help of local police.
“We decided to take this initiative after one of Rritambar’s employees asked for financial support for the people of his village. But for him, it was not possible to take the responsibility of the entire village. So he pitched the idea to some of us and we decided pool money and help them,” said one of the members of the team.
This group of young professionals have also started a Facebook page ‘Feed the Need- by willing souls’ to spread the word and collect funds. The members of the group added that it’s a close circuit network but they are deliberating the option of crowdfunding.
“We initially had a target to collect Rs 15,000 so that we could feed at least 150 families.Our friends passed on the information to their friends who started donating. We coordinate everything through a WhatsApp group. We add every donor to the group to keep them updated,” he added.
The group recently held a ‘thanksgiving’ event in South Kolkata for the essential service providers(police, delivery agents, et al) where they were given snacks and energy drinks.
“We have been distributing these rations on our own with the support from the local police. However, we have decided to engage daily wage labourers in distributing work so that we can pay them a fee to sustain themselves,” a member added.
We are not doing any religion-based distribution, the group maintains adding that it is imperative to look beyond such petty issues and help everyone who is less fortunate.
The group is scheduled to distribute more rations among the families of three more villages in South 24 Parganas district.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Good News / by Alisha Rahman Sarkar / Online Desk / April 19th, 2020
Two hundred years ago, after 20 failed attempts, the first consignment of ice arrived in Calcutta from Massachusetts
Blocks of ice for sale in a market in India. / Shutterstock
This was not very long ago, but a period that may well now be time stamped as BC or Before Corona. The exhibits at the Jadunath Bhavan Museum and Resource Centre in south Calcutta were arranged in a certain way to present the history of ice in the city — yes, it wasn’t such a taken-for-granted item as it came to be.
The photographs on display were pickings from Fulbright-Nehru Scholar Christine Rogers’s research. Exhibit 1, a black-and-white-photo of a young man driving a rickshaw laden with blocks of ice through the streets of Calcutta. “The boy is carrying the ice to the fish market. It is a photo from present-day Calcutta,” said Rogers. The second exhibit, a photograph of commercial projects of snow parks that are now being created for entertainment. The third, people sitting on the banks of the Hooghly where the ice used to be downloaded after it arrived all the way from the US.
Once upon a time, ice was a rare commodity, procured all the way from America. The exhibition, in consonance with Rogers’ talk, is a detailed history of ice trade in India. The now, followed by the then.
In the 19th century, the British army in India and people in the administration found it difficult to cope with the intense tropical summer. In a letter dated May 1833, Daniel Wilson, the fifth Bishop of Calcutta and the man who built St. Paul’s Church, writes to his family in England: “The weather is perfectly suffocating. None can pity us but those who know our suffering.”
Wilson’s immediate predecessor had not been able to endure the extreme temperatures and had died in office. Thus, to ease things for their own, the East India Company set about arranging for a regular supply of ice for all seasons.
Those days, what was available in the market was “Hooghly ice”. It used to come from Chinsurah in the winter months and was so named because it was made from the river’s waters. Said Rogers, “This ice was filthy and more like slush. It was made by freezing water in shallow pits and was dirty and unfit for drinking. This was not the kind of ice that the British were looking for.”
In 1833, a businessman in Boston, Frederic Tudor, arrived in Calcutta in a large vessel stacked with ice. Bringing ice to India was no easy task, not even for as enterprising a fellow as Tudor. According to Rogers, he failed 20 times before he met with any success. The challenge was to keep the ice from melting the entire length of the two-month journey to Calcutta and thereafter.
Tudor was not in this project alone; he partnered with Nathaniel J. Wyeth, a supplier of ice and a businessman. Together, the two cracked issues such as the technology of cutting ice, thereby making large-scale ice exports from Massachusetts possible. The two evolved the technique of harnessing horses to a two-blade ice cutter to cut more ice in less time.
David G. Dickason writes in his book, The Nineteenth-Century Indo-American Ice Trade, how Tudor took up this project only because he was in dire need of money after failing to dominate the global coffee market. Dickason writes: “He inaugurated his India venture only after experiencing a desperate need for adequate cash flows and profits in order to repay enormous debts incurred through his misadventures in coffee.”
With ice, Tudor got lucky. He was based in Massachusetts that had the requisite climate for producing natural ice in excess. Ice was cut from the Walden Pond, a lake there, where pure ice was easily found. Also, the Boston port was close by.
In 1847, when American essayist, poet and philosopher, Henry David Thoreau, was staying near the Walden Pond, he witnessed the cutting of ice. In one of his essays titled “The Pond In Winter”, he writes: “Thus it appears that the sweltering inhabitants of Charleston and New Orleans, of Madras and Bombay and Calcutta, drink at my well.”
The route was a long one. The ice, according to records, would be covered with fly ash and salt and then packed in jute to keep it from melting. Tudor earned such grand profits from Calcutta the next two decades that he came to be known as the Ice King.
The trade continued for almost 50 years. The price of the ice was only 4 annas per pound (one pound equals half a kilo), much cheaper than Chinsurah ice. It later came down to 2 annas per pound.
Records show that the ice was hugely in demand during that period and it had to be rationed at times as the ships were delayed and there would be a crunch. In fact, people had to produce a doctor’s certificate to get the ice. The British living in Calcutta even raised funds to set up an icehouse to preserve the cargo. Around this time, many Bengali businessman also got involved in the trade.
Rajinder Dutta was one of the pioneers of ice trade in Calcutta. His progeny, living in central Calcutta today, however, has no related documentation. Sanat Kumar Ghosh, who is one of the eighth generation Duttas, rattles off names of some others who eventually joined the trade — the Debs of DarjiPara in north Calcutta, Chhatu Babu and Latu Babu, and the Mitters.
“Rajinder Dutta was more famous as a homeopath. He had treated Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, the Maharaja of Jaipur and also Raja Naba Krishna Deb of Calcutta,” says Ghosh as he hands over a book titled History of Homeopathy in India in the 19th Century. The book has a few lines on ice trade too. It reads: “In 1836, 12,000 tonnes of ice was shipped to Calcutta and 10 years later, the figure spiralled to 65,000 tonnes.”
That day at the Jadunath Bhavan Museum, Rogers spoke at length about how ice was transported to Madras and Bombay from Calcutta. Dickason also notes how eventually ice came to be used by Indians too. It was used to preserve food, for refrigeration, in drinks. Rounding up he wrote: “Even Hindoos, otherwise so scrupulous, do not hesitate to mix the frozen waters of America with the sacred stream of Gunga, whilst the stricktest Mohummudans use it with unlimited freedom (sic).”
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / Home> Heritage / by Moumita Chaudhari / March 29th, 2020
Welcome to the world of NICED, where samples taken from suspected coronavirus cases are re-examined for confirmation.
Kolkata Bridge over Hooghly river wears a deserted look during the nationwide lockdown imposed in the wake of coronavirus pandemic in Kolkata Friday April 3 2020. (Photo | PTI)
Kolkata :
They are working for an average of 13 to14 hours a day.
One of them left his newly married wife home, while another faced ostracism from his hostel authorities.
Welcome to the world of NICED, where samples taken from suspected coronavirus cases are re-examined for confirmation.
An 18-member team of virologists, microbiologists and consultants are working 24/7 at the National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) in Kolkata — testing samples, filing reports, and attending hundreds of phone calls from hospitals and even from common people.
Samples examined by one hospital are sent for confirmatory test to this institute, which functions under the department of health research, Union ministry of health and family welfare.
“Earlier we used to get one or two samples a day. Now the workload has increased to a large extent in the last four weeks. Now we get more than 70 samples per day,” said Agniva Majumdar, a microbiologist working at NICED.
From receiving a sample to delivering the test report – the entire process takes around 4-5 hours, he said.
“Our team is working round the clock in shifts to ensure that the work is done,” Majumdar told PTI over phone.
Apart from processing data, the team also has to coordinate with the state health officials and various hospitals.
“We are receiving around 500 phone calls every day. Hospitals ring up if they need some clarification on our report. Members of the general public also call us. We are answering their queries too as much as possible. We understand they are in distress,” Majumdar said.
Asis Kumar Jana, another NICED staff, took only two days off for his wedding in Februray and was back to work to handle the samples that had started pouring in.
“I voluntarily tooWelcome to the world of NICED, where samples taken from suspected coronavirus cases are re-examined for confirmation.k just two days off in February for my wedding as the pressure has started to build up,” he said.
Jana said a member of his team recently faced ostracization at a hostel where he stays and was asked by its authorities to go back home.
“Senior scientists of our lab had to get in touch with the hostel authorities and communicated to them that we are not at risk we work in a highly protected atmosphere. Then the matter was resolved,” he said.
“Some of our colleagues are staying at the office guest house and inquire about their family’s well being over the phone,” said Jana.
NICED Director Shanta Dutta was full of praise for her team.
“They are doing a great job and service to mankind,” she said.
The vision of the NICED is to perform research and develop strategies for treatment, prevention and control of enteric infections and HIV/AIDS threatening the nation’s health.
The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) decided to establish a Cholera Research Centre here in 1962 to research on the prevention and control of cholera and other diarrhoeal diseases.
The ICMR renamed it as National Institute of Cholera and Enteric Diseases (NICED) in 1979.
The WHO recognized this Institute as “WHO Collaborative Centre for Research and Training on Diarrhoeal Diseases” in 1980.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Kolkata / by PTI / April 03rd, 2020
‘Goopi Gyne Bagha Byne’ (1969) onwards, he was the still photographer for all of Satyajit Ray’s works till his last film ‘Agantuk’ (1991)
For someone best remembered as the visual biographer of legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray and a documentarian of the making of his astounding body of work, an interesting aspect about Nemai Ghosh was that he started off as an actor with actor-director Utpal Dutt’s Little Theatre Group in Kolkata.
Arts critic and publisher-editor Samik Bandopadhyay remembers one such play that he acted in: the landmark Angar (1959) about the exploitation of coal miners. It had music by Ravi Shankar and complex sets (Nirmal Guha Ray) and lighting design (Tapas Sen) with an entire sequence of a mine getting submerged under water. “He was an impressive and formidable figure on stage but was never so interested in photography then,” recalls Mr. Bandopadhyay.
Nemai Ghosh passed away in Kolkata on Wednesday. He was 85.
Ghosh’s interest in photography was kindled entirely by chance in 1966 when he found an abandoned camera and started tinkering and playing around with it. Being a great lover of cinema himself, he wanted to shoot the process of filmmaking which is when his path crossed with that of Ray. Initially just “tolerant” of his presence, as he once recalled, Ray discovered Ghosh’s talent by and by to have him become a part of his unit. Goopi Gyne Bagha Byne (1969) onwards, he was the still photographer for all of Ray’s works till his last film Agantuk (1991). “The only other parallel I can draw is Raghu Rai’s photographs of Indira Gandhi,” says photographer Chirodeep Chaudhuri of an imagemaker’s consistent collaboration and engagement with a personality.
Ray’s son and filmmaker Sandip Ray remembers meeting him on the sets of Goopi… “He was a part of the family. He was always there, not just on the shoot, but our home as well,” he says.
Black and white
The magic of his black and white images lay in the specific fleeting instants that they managed to capture, that too without flash, in natural light. “He never missed a moment, captured the right moment,” says Sandip Ray. “His work in theatre gave him a sense of the moment,” says Mr. Bandopadhyay.
Filmmaker Sujoy Ghosh compares his frames to videography. “Each of his photos tells a story to me. Like Jaya Bachchan in Kalighat, teeka on the forehead, prasad in hand, happy… I see many things in the process. It’s instructive and informative about the process of filmmaking itself,” he says.
Mr. Chaudhuri points out the candidness in his frames unlike the “manufactured PR images and ‘behind the scenes’, ‘making of’ balderdash” where the stars are perennially performing or posing.
“There was an endearing quality about his photos. You could see his love for theatre and cinema [reflected in them],” says Mr. Chaudhuri.
Apart from Ray, Ghosh also chronicled some of Mrinal Sen’s films and he was the still photographer on Mira Nair’s The Namesake. “His portraits of my father were absolutely brilliant,” says Mr. Ray. Sujoy Ghosh remembers him shooting on the sets of his own film Kahaani. “I fell at his feet. It was such an honour that he considered our film,” he says.
On theatre
Beyond Ray and films, a major part of his work was on the theatre in Bengal and about Kolkata itself. His work was a reference point for Sujoy Ghosh when he went shooting in Kolkata for Kahaani. “It was an amazing inspiration. Every photographer and painter has a [unique] way of looking at places, objects, people which is different from ours,” he says.
Mr. Chaudhuri remembers him showing rare colour photos of Ray when he visited Ghosh at his home couple of years back. “He was so excited going through the folders and files of his work on the computer,” he says. One of Ghosh’s disappointments, according to Mr. Chaudhuri, was not being given space by the State government to archive his work. Later, he gave away most of it to the Delhi Art Gallery.
In the latter half, he was passionately documenting painters at work and musicians in performance. According to Mr. Bandopadhyay, Ghosh had clicked some exclusive pictures of the ailing Italian maestro Michelangelo Antonioni, some of them in his hotel room, when the latter had come to Kolkata for the retrospective of his work at the International Film Festival of India in 1994. Impressed with his images, Mr Antonioni, who had taken to painting in his later years, had invited him for his exhibition to Italy. Ghosh took pictures of Antonioni moving around in the exhibition on a wheelchair. Having been witness to and documented the maestro’s painting phase, Ghosh wanted to preserve them in the form of a book. Sadly there were no takers for it in the commercial publishing world.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Entertainment / by Namrata Joshi / Mumbai – March 26th, 2020
In 2001, India, under Ganguly’s leadership, became only the third team in the history of Test cricket to win the match after being forced to follow-on.
BCCI President and former India captain Sourav Ganguly (Photo | PTI)
New Delhi :
Board of Control for Cricket in India president and former India captain Sourav Ganguly on Wednesday reminisced the famous win over Australia in the 2001 Kolkata Test. Ganguly retweeted a video of the Indian team at the time celebrating in the dressing room.
“What a win…” Ganguly said in his tweet.
In 2001, India, under Ganguly’s leadership, became only the third team in the history of Test cricket to win the match after being forced to follow-on.
India were all out for 171 in reply to Australia’s first innings score of 445 at the Eden Gardens. Steve Waugh enforced the follow-on and India ended up declaring on 657/7 in their second innings, largely thanks to an extraordinary 372-run stand between Rahul Dravid and VVS Laxman.
Harbhajan Singh, who had become the first Indian to take a hat-trick in Test cricket in the first innings, led the way once again with the ball. He took six wickets as Australia were all out for 212 and India ended up winning the Test by 171 runs.
The match is regarded as one of the greatest Test matches ever and one of the most significant in the recent history of Indian cricket. The Australian team of the time was regarded as one of the greatest teams of all time and Waugh had termed winning a Test series in India as the “final frontier”. While they were unsuccessful in doing it that year, they went on to finally break the 35-year jinx when they came to India in 2004.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Sport> Cricket / by IANS / April 15th, 2020
Subhash Bhowmick, Gautam Sarkar, Subrata Bhattacharya and Shyam Thapa, some of the best players in the 1970s were coached by the legendary Banerjee.
File image of PK Banerjee | Indian Football/ Twitter
Subhash Bhowmick, a robust and lethal forward in Indian football in the 1970s, was down in the dumps with no visible light at the end of the tunnel until Pradip Kumar Banerjee gave his career a new lease of life, something he is grateful to this date.
Bhowmick, who later became an accomplished coach, owes his stardom to Banerjee’s skills as a coach that brought out the best in him. Similarly, Gautam Sarkar, an absolute feisty character who would send those pin-point passes to Bhowmick playing for Mohun Bagan also benefited from Banerjee’s astute coaching.
Thus, as the 83-year-old veteran lost his battle against prolonged illness, his students, who were stars of Kolkata maidan in the 1970s, an era that was a witness to some of the best matches in Kolkata football, celebrated the accomplished life by narrating several anecdotes from their time with their beloved “Pradip Da”.
“I was kicked out of Mohun Bagan after we lost the Durand Cup final to East Bengal (in 1972),” Bhowmick said, as he went down the memory lane in an interaction with PTI.
“He was the person who picked me up from ‘gutter’ and told me ‘you’re the best player in India, come and play for ‘East Bengal’,” he added.
Bhowmick was one of the key figures in East Bengal’s famous 5-0 demolition of Mohun Bagan on that fateful IFA Shield final on September 29, 1975.
The ‘vocal tonic’
Known for his vocal tonic, Banerjee spurred Bhowmick on by recalling the insults hurled towards him by Mohun Bagan officials. The rest, as they say, is history as Bhowmick played like a tiger on the prowl handing Bagan supporters a day that they have lived on to regret even after 45 years.
Bhowmick did not find his name on the score sheet in that great win but was instrumental in setting up the first two goals scored by Surajit Sengupta and Shyam Thapa.
“Death is always sad. His demise has left all of us sad,” Bhowmick said.
“But the way he was suffering, he did not deserve this pain. For me, Pradip da was dead since the day he left talking about football with me,” he added.
Ahead of his times
Banerjee also fashioned memorable treble for Mohun Bagan two years later in 1977 and this time it was Subrata Bhattacharya, who was the star of the show after three quiet years.
The Mohun Bagan captain was a big let-down in the 1977 Calcutta Football League derby, that the team 0-2 in front of a packed Eden Gardens and was a reason for unhappiness among the fans.
“The fans would not let us enter the field in protest… Such was the atmosphere,” Bhattacharya said.
“The practice would begin at 7.30 am at the Eden Gardens but he (Banerjee) would come one hour before and pay extra attention to me, he made him do some different pieces of training.” he added.
“We went on to defeat East Bengal thrice that season and won the Shield, Rovers and Durand. Nobody dreamt of such a turnaround. Only Pradip Da could do it. He was ahead of his time and crystal clear in his thinking.” Bhattacharya said.
A great motivator
Banerjee’s rivalry with another great coach Amal Datta was well known in Maidan circles but Bhattacharya reckoned that the former knew how to deal with stars and adapt to situations.
“Amal da may have been a great coach and hugely respected for his tactical and aggressive football, But Pradip da had the horses-for-courses policy. He was sharp and was quick to adapt. It showed in his results. I won 37 of my 58 titles under him,” he said.
Former midfielder Sarkar recalled yet another famous win for Mohun Bagan under Banerjee in the 1978 Calcutta Football League.
In his prime, Sarkar was dropped for three-four matches, a decision that caused quite a lot of chatter. He was suffering from giardia, an acute stomach bug that was prevalent in the 70s in Kolkata especially among the lower middle class that didn’t have access to clean drinking water.
“I panicked, everyone was asking why Gautam Sarkar was not playing. I was indispensable then. But he kept quiet,” Sarkar said.
It was just on the eve, Banerjee met Sarkar at the entrance of the club tent.
“He told me that he had kept me for next day’s match as I was a big-match player. He called the kind of the big games,” Sarkar said.
“I again felt that spark, the fire inside me, despite lying low due to my stomach illness. It was as if I was transmitted some supernatural power,” he said recalling how his crucial saves played a huge role in their 1-0 win where Shyam Thapa scored the winner.
Thapa also remembered how Banerjee played a key role in Mohun Bagan’s famous 2-2 draw against Pele’s New York Cosmos team.
“I was given an extra responsibility to stop Pele. The whole team put up a vibrant show. He would sit and plan with us with a board. He was way ahead of his time,” he said.
With Banerjee’s passing, a huge void has been left on the Kolkata maidan, but his legacy in the form of the impact he made on the football there lives on.
source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll.in / Home> Indian Football / by Press Trust of India / March 20th, 2020
