When Justices Joymalya Bagchi and Rajarshi Bharadwaj took their seats in Court 308 at 10.30am on Saturday, history was made at Calcutta High Court.
For the first time in its 155 years, the court had opened on a Saturday, nudged by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra to clear its backlog of about 1.5 lakh criminal cases.
A handful of lawyers, law clerks and court employees had shown up, and the usual buzz along the corridors was missing. The tea stalls outside were shut.
The bench disposed of 17 cases – appeals against lower court convictions and sentences – hearing them all for the first time and taking about 10 minutes over each. Some of these had been pending since 2005, with the convicts close to completing their impugned sentences but unable to afford lawyers to present their case.
On Saturday, lawyers appointed by the state legal aid services represented them.
In the day’s first case, CRA 531 of 2010, the bench upheld the sex crime conviction of Rajkumar Barman but ordered his release since he had served out his seven-year term.
The bench freed one more convict, reduced the fine against two, and dismissed several appeals. Seventeen cases isn’t much but lawyers hailed the “new beginning”.
The last order was passed at 1.42pm, 12 minutes behind schedule. “I’m late by 12 minutes,” Justice Bagchi joked, and the lawyers tittered.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Calcutta,India / Home> India / by Kinsuk Basu / December 17th, 2017
Kolkata driver wins award for shunning horn for 18 years | Kolkata News – Times of India
Kolkata :
It will be tough to find people who can resist honking on the roads for 18 minutes. But this man from Kolkata has done wonders.
Meet Dipak Das, a city-based driver, who has not honked for 18 years. Seems incredible? His car even has this placard, ‘Horn is a Concept. I care for your heart.’ Das has won awards for this unique and rare habit.
With this no-horn policy, Das wants to inspire others to follow the practice. Thus noise pollution can be reduced, he believes, saying if a driver follows this no-horn policy, she/he will become more alert while driving.
He dreams of making Kolkata a “no-honking city” someday.
The 52-year-old, who lives with his wife and daughter, has worked as a Metro Rail helper. Dipak got his driving licence in 1991.
He says, “One day, I dropped a passenger in Golf Green area. I was taking rest in front of a school, but was woken up rudely because of senseless honking of cars.” On that day, he decided not to honk while driving. Das said, he was influenced by a poem of famous Bengali poet Jibanananda Das. Das’s daughter rides bycycle, but like her father she also does not honk.
Earlier, people used to call him ‘disturbed’. But today they respect Das’s ideology. He was awarded in this year’s Manush Mela. Eminent personalities who have travelled in Das’s car also appreciate this.
“I went to various places with him. He is special. His patience, sensibility has amazed me” says famous percussionist and tabla player Tanmoy Bose.
Singer Sidhu of the famous Cactus band also said, “I went to Mukutmanipur with Dipak. The guy has not honked for once. He is a rare talent.” Seriously!
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Kolkata News> Civic Issues / by Sumit Dey El Samay / December 13th, 2017
The Newton Bhabha Fund on Thursday started a workshop for scientists on the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research’s Calcutta campus at Mohanpur in Nadia.
The three-day workshop aims to involve scientists from across the globe and the IISER in social and economic development, Sourav Pal, the IISER Calcutta director, said after inaugurating the workshop.
Scientific research should be industry-oriented instead of remaining confined within laboratories, Pal said.
“A huge amount of money is spent on research across the world. Many brains are being used at laboratories.
“But, it is high time that research findings are translated for the benefit of people through industries. It should be used for capacity-building of the researchers as well,” he said.
“A researcher should not be satisfied only by publishing his findings in a journal.”
The workshop, “Functional Nanomaterials: From Spectroscopy to Bioimaging”, is supported by a Researcher Link grant under the Newton Bhabha Fund.
Prasun Mandal of IISER Calcutta, who is the joint coordinator of the workshop, said the prime objective was to bring together chemists and researchers from various faculties to explore new ideas for social and economic development.
The Newton Bhabha Fund has organised the workshop in association with the University of Manchester, the British Council, the UK’s Royal Society of Chemistry, and IISER Calcutta, Mandal said.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Subhasish Chaudhari / December 15th, 2017
People take pictures of the special local train from Howrah to Sheoraphuli on Tuesday. / Picture by Bishwarup Dutta
Howrah:
More than 300 passengers travelled on a special Howrah-Sheoraphuli local train on Tuesday morning to mark 60 years of Eastern Railway’s first EMU local train service.
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru had flagged off the first train between the two stations on December 12, 1957.
On Tuesday, the train was decorated with flowers and railway officials presented passengers with chocolates as many took selfies with the train.
Motorman Sekhar Chattopadhyay and guard Swapan Kumar Modi, both due for retirement in some months, flagged off the train at 11.52am from platform No. 8.
The train reached Sheoraphuli at 12.40pm.
The railway board had sanctioned the project in June 1954 and the first train pulled out of Howrah three years later.
Harindra Rao, GM, Eastern Railway, said the Sheoraphuli-Burdwan and Sheoraphuli-Tarakeswar sections were electrified by December 1965.
The electrification of Howrah-Burdwan Chord and Calcutta Chord link was completed in 1966, he said.
Today, Eastern Railway runs 1,393 EMU trains – 476 in Howrah division and 917 in Sealdah division – every day.
Sudhir Agrawal, additional general manager, and Manu Goel, divisional railway manager, Howrah, were present on the occasion.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Staff Reporter / December 13th, 2017
Serampore, near Kolkata, was an important 18th century Danish colony. A grand heritage restoration programme is underway in the town to restore its major landmarks to their former glory. Serampore, near Kolkata, was a Danish outpost for 90 years (1755-1845). The 210-year-old Lutheran St Olav Church’s restoration was completed in 2015. The project won the Unesco Heritage Award of Distinction in 2016. (Burhaan Kinu / HT Photo)
From the white colonnaded verandah of the Denmark Tavern in Serampore, a sub-divisional town 35 km from Kolkata, the panorama is serene: a placid river Hooghly flows next to the late 18th century building, towards its final resting place, the Bay of Bengal. Even on a busy suburban weekday, the waterfront is usually quiet. These days, however, the peaceful atmosphere is often punctured by sounds of hammers, saws and drills, thanks to the restoration work going on in the building. The tavern’s renovation is not a stand-alone project; it is a part of a heritage restoration programme underway in the town, which was a Danish outpost for 90 years (1755-1845). The Danes had two other colonies in India: Tranquebar (now Tharangambadi in Tamil Nadu) and the Nicobar Islands.
Other than the tavern, several other Danish-era structures are being restored: The 12,000-square feet Danish Government House (DGH) and its two gates; Red Building (a British-era structure located inside the DGH campus), and the cast iron gate, fence and staircase of the Serampore College, which completes 200 years in 2018. The 210-year-old Lutheran St Olav’s Church’s restoration was completed in 2015.
“Tranquebar and Serampore were different kinds of outposts. The former was a port town; the sea gave it a carefree atmosphere. Serampore was a commercial and educational-missionary hub, and more urban. So its heritage has had to grapple with the challenges of an expanding town and burgeoning population,” says conservation architect Manish Chakraborti.
The DGH is located at one end of its 6.7-acre compound. The former residence of the Danish governors is an imposing colonial-style building, but not ornate. The middle part of the yellow and white house, which has an extended porch and six Iconic columns, juts out. A flight of steps will take you into the rooms. Under the Danes, DGH was the administrative headquarters. It continued to be so under the British and till 1990, the Bengal government too had its offices in the building. It was abandoned in 1990 after a fire. Today, the DGH campus, which houses the sub-divisional magistrate’s office, looks rundown. The compound is more or less barren, and doubles up as a parking lot. The town outside is dense, heavily built up, teeming with people and small businesses.
However, even today, the structure and pattern of the main street of the town centre remains as it was constructed by the Danes. The St Olav’s Church is just a few steps away from DGH. It has a portico of twin columns and has the royal monogram of Christian VII, who was the King of Denmark when the church was consecrated. It is flat roofed and reflects the designs of contemporary churches in British India.
Heritage town
“The church is special not just to Christians but all communities… It is a critical component of the town’s life,” says Mohit Ranadip of the Shrirampur Heritage Restoration Initiative, a local citizen-led body. “The town’s heritage, however, is not just about the Danish heritage …. one must not miss the elegant houses of the rich Indian trading class of the 18th century and the ghats they built on the river…we must restore them too.” Some residents, however, allege that the local municipality is not doing enough to save the town’s heritage. “For example, they shouldn’t allow high-rises around the historic centre and concretise roads,” says a resident, who did not wish to named.
While the Church was restored with funds from Denmark’s ministry of culture, DGH’s restoration is being funded by the Centre, the West Bengal Heritage Commission (WBHC), and the Serampore Municipality is in charge. The renovation of DGH will be completed early next year. The National Museum of Denmark (NMD) is overseeing the restoration of the tavern, the Serampore College, and the Red Building. Realdania, a philanthropic organisation, has provided Rs 10 crore (2012-18) funding for the project, which is called the Serampore Initiative.
“Initially, I was sceptical about restoring heritage buildings outside Denmark, but after we began researching for the project, we realised that locals also have a great appreciation for these old buildings and want them to be restored,” says Dr Bente Wolff, project leader, Serampore Initiative, NMD. “Our historian, Simon Rasten, accessed 20,000 pages of Danish documents from the West Bengal State Archives and found information about the town and the architectural plans of the building.” Rasten also traced the only existing map of the Danish areas and the buildings in The Queens Reference Library, Copenhagen.
Bengal’s Little Europe
The Europeans began trading with this region from the 16th century, an era that coincided with the birth of the large trading companies in the continent. But it was only in the last decades of the 17th century that Europe-Bengal trade in textiles, raw cotton, silk, sugar, saltpeter and opium flourished and their outposts came up along the river. Starting with the British in Calcutta, there were the Danes in Serampore, the French in Chandernagore, the Portuguese in Bandel and the Dutch in Chinsurah.
The Danish history in Bengal, however, was not one of smooth progress: In 1698, they acquired a trading settlement called Dannemarksnagore. But it was closed down in 1714. In 1755, the Nawab of Bengal, Ali Vardi Khan, granted the Danes the right to settle down in Bengal as well as free trading rights. Along with the parwana, the Danes bought land and established Fredricksnagore, in the honour of King Fredrick V. In the next few years, three more villages were added to Fredricksnagore: Serampore, Ackna and Pereapore. Since then the Danish territory has been colloquially called Serampore, only officially it was Fredricksnagore.
It was under the administration of Governor Colonel Ole Bie (1776-1805), that Serampore flourished. His abilities and cunning entrepreneurship brought prosperity to the town and the present historical town centre, which is being restored, is his legacy. Contemporary travellers also wrote eloquently about Serampore’s glory days. In 1803, George Annesley wrote that the buildings of Serampore were “picturesque being white, with expensive porticoes to the south and the windows closed by Venetian blinds painted green.”
Though Serampore was managed by the Danes, it also attracted other Europeans and Indians. “The manufacturing of cotton and silk textiles as well as salt petre and sugar led to the rise of a local class of Indian traders, middlemen and agents, and the gradual urbanisation of the settlement… Some Indians eventually became powerful, economically and politically,” Rasten told HT. The turning point in the history of Serampore was the British occupation of Denmark (1807 to 1814). The British monopolised trade in India, and in 1845 Denmark sold Serampore and Tranquebar to the British East India Company.
The challenges of heritage restoration
“When the West Bengal Heritage Commission handed over DGH in 2008 to me, it was in ruins: The floor was broken, the roof had collapsed and tree roots were coming out of the walls,” says conservation architect Gopa Sen. “There were false partitions, destroying the internal plan of the house…. It was a terrible and heartbreaking sight. And a challenge for us.”
The same was the case for the Denmark Tavern, whose front verandah, which overlooks the river, had collapsed. “The campus had been converted into quarters for policemen and additional structures had come up in its precincts. The police line is now being shifted,” says Manish Chakraborti, who is restoring the tavern and parts of the Serampore College. He is also the man behind the restoration of the church, which won the Unesco Heritage Award of Distinction in 2016. “We started with the St Olav’s Church because it had a defined boundary and a single ownership. It is also has immense historical importance because missionary, educationist and botanist William Carey was the first preacher here,” explains Chakraborti. “These buildings could have been saved much earlier but there was not much political support, nor funds. Restoration was seen as a bourgeoisie exercise. The state never looked at public spaces as vibrant community spaces.”
The architects and historians involved in the projects accessed old paintings, maps and documents to get a flavour of the core heritage zone of the town and the how the buildings looked during the Danish period to help them draw up a restoration plan. “The challenges in projects such as these are always unknown. Despite hours of planning, there can be surprises when you start work in an old building, which means reworking the original plan… while keeping to the strict norms,” says Sen.
Both Sen and Chakraborti are ensuring that all the work that is being done follows the heritage norms. This means that the building materials have to be same as those the Danes used: Lime, surki, molasses and khayer. Masons from Murshidabad, who know this old construction technique, have been employed for the project. The architects are also reusing old materials, especially the Burma-teak doors and windows.
For a restoration project to be successful and sustainable, it is important that people have a stake in the project. On that score, Serampore has not done badly: Citizens participated wholeheartedly in a competition to design a new bus stand, which will be shifted from the historic core area. Ranadip’s organisation is also pushing schools to teach their students the town’s Danish lineage.
Future plans
For heritage buildings to survive and ensure their long-term maintenance, which can be expensive, it is important to have an “adaptable re-use plan”. By early 2018, the 200-year-old Danish Tavern will be back in business: It will have a coffee shop, a Danish bakery and six well-appointed rooms for guest accommodation.
“The DGH will have a museum of the town’s Danish past and an exhibition hall,” says Dr Basudeb Malik, officer on special duty, WBHC. “Once the restoration is over, we are expecting tourists interested in Bengal’s colonial-trade history to come not just to Serampore but other outposts in Bengal as well. The government is working on a project to ensure this”.
“I see the restoration work in Serampore as a triggering process; It will hopefully lead to greater investments in urban restoration and push for developing safe, clean and secure community spaces, which Bengal –– for that matter, India –– is woefully short of,” says Chakraborti. “There are no green spaces here…the quality of open environment will improve for the people,” says Flemming Auland, architect, NMD.
The tourism sector is also upbeat about the opportunities such restoration programmes could bring. “Our Little Europe Tour will take tourists to the colonial settlements along the river,” says Navpreet Arora of FunOnStreets, a Kolkata-based tourism company.
Serampore, more than just commerce
The 18th century ushered in an era of Lutheran missionary activities in Serampore, thanks to the patronage of Danish rulers. Though they came to preach Christianity, they also dedicated themselves to education and social reforms. The protagonists were William Carey, Joshua Marshman and William Ward. They established the Serampore Mission, the Serampore Mission Press and the Serampore College. The press printed the Bible in 45 languages including Assamese, Awadhi, Telegu, Bengali, Mooltani, Persian and Pushtu. Journalism in Bengal can be said to have begun with the Serampore missionaries who were the first to expose the lapses of the British government. The Serampore College was designed by a Danish architect and the front gate and two beautiful staircases were gifts from the king of Denmark.
For Denmark, it is a restoration of a link that was lost in time. “But this is just not Danish heritage… this is a part of the world’s shared heritage, which had never been studied. It deserves to be showcased,” says Dr Wolff.
“When [foreign] governments undertake these kind of projects, there is, of course always an objective of image building and visibility,” says Gulshan Sachdeva, director, Europe Area Studies Programme, School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. This, however, Dr Sachdeva adds, is not necessarily a negative assessment. Some of these projects genuinely improve awareness and contribute to the local economy through increase in tourism etc. “Ultimately, it is a win-win for both the partners,” he adds.
The rise of the Indian trading class
Approximately at the same time as the Danes came to Serampore, the founder of the Goswami family, Ramgovinda, settled in the western part of the town. His two sons – Harinarayan and Ramnarayan – built a large fortune thanks to their positions as middlemen and their good relations with the Danes. Harinarayan functioned as the diwan of customs (collector) under the Danish East India Company, while his brother Ramnarayan became the official moneylender to the factory. They established an aristocratic colony on the western side of town and became influential people in Serampore. “Unlike other colonial rulers, the power equation between the Danes and Indians were different… locals such as the Goswami family called the shots because they were very rich,” says Simon Rasten, historian, National Museum of Denmark.
@kumkumdasgupta
source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> India / by KumKum Dasgupta, Hindustan Times / December 10th, 2017
Preserving Art Deco architecture in the city is uniquely challenging because it is so commonplace, residents take it for granted.
Photo : Deepanjan Ghosh
In 2015, author Amit Chaudhuri started a movement to preserve ordinary Bengali homes in South Kolkata. The architecture of these homes, Chaudhuri said, was unique and its destruction would be a disaster. His movement and the pressure group that he created, Calcutta Architectural Legacies, has helped to shine a light on the kind of buildings that ordinary Kolkatans do not think of as constituting heritage.
“When we speak of Calcutta’s architecture, we usually mean the colonial institutions that the British erected,” wrote Chaudhuri. “Or the aristocratic mansions of North Calcutta built by Bengali landowners. But the houses I’m speaking of were built by anonymous builders for middle-class Bengali professionals: lawyers, doctors, civil servants and professors.” Chaudhuri also notes that a lot of these houses have in common, the presence of Art Deco elements such as “semi-circular balconies; a long, vertical strip comprising glass panes for the stairwell; porthole-shaped windows; and the famous sunrise motif on grilles and gates”.
Art Deco is so common in South Kolkata that most people are intimately familiar with it without even realising it. These neighbourhoods were the focus of a walk on December 5, led by Jawhar Sircar, the former CEO of Prasar Bharati. The walk was organised by the International Council on Monuments and Sites, an interdisciplinary, global network of architectural and archaeological heritage experts. “Jawhar Sircar has had a deep engagement with South Kolkata’s Art Deco style and advocated for it on various public forums,” said Kamalika Bose, urban conservationist and co-ordinator of the ICOMOS programme. But the focus on these architectural curiosities also raises a question – why did a 1920s European architectural style find so many takers in 1950s and 1960s Kolkata?
Photo credit : Deepanjan Ghosh
A modern style
Styles rarely evolve in a day, but the definitive moment for Art Deco that experts point to is the International Exhibition of Modern Decorative and Industrial Arts, held in Paris in 1925. Fifteen thousand exhibitors from 20 countries presented to 16 million people a highly decorative “style modern”, using fine craftsmanship and expensive materials. Even the name “Art Deco” is an abbreviation of the title of the exposition. This style would spread rapidly around the world, from skyscrapers in New York to ocean liners that crossed the Atlantic. It can still be seen today, in structures such as the Chrysler Building, the General Electric Building and the American Radiator Building of New York. But while American skyscrapers were the largest and most visible examples of the style, Art Deco encompassed almost all forms of the visual arts, architecture and design, including painting, sculpture and even typography.
In Kolkata, the sole example of the Art Nouveau style, which preceded Art Deco, is the Esplanade Mansions opposite the Raj Bhavan, built in 1910. But there is little evidence to suggest that the Art Deco buildings seen in the city today evolved from here. In an age without internet, trends caught on through magazines, which meant that Asia lagged a decade behind Europe. Art Deco’s dominance in the West ended with the beginning of World War II, but here in India, the earliest Art Deco structures were built in the 1930s and the style would continue well into the 1960s in Kolkata. Mumbai is known to have the world’s second-largest collection of Art Deco buildings but what makes South Kolkata’s Art Deco homes unique is the fact that they are more a result of jugaad than formal architectural decisions.
Photo credit : Deepanjan Ghosh
Metro-style ‘baadi’
Among the earliest examples of Art Deco in Kolkata are Victoria House, now the headquarters of the Calcutta Electric Supply Corporation, built in the 1930s and Reid House on Red Cross Place, built in 1941. But the icon of the city was the Metro Cinema Hall. Designed by Thomas White Lamb and built by Metro Goldwyn Mayer, Metro Cinema stood on Dharmatalla crossing, one of the city’s nodal points. With its waterfall-style columns and grand staircase, Metro became the building that a new class of up-and-coming Bengalis wanted to ape.
The building boom in South Kolkata began around the same time with large numbers of people moving out of the North, or later moving to West Bengal post-Partition. While these people were affluent, they had nowhere near the astronomical sums of money needed to construct the lavish mansions of North Kolkata. Buildings in the north followed the pattern of rooms arranged around a central courtyard. This placed an emphasis on communal space. But with changing sensibilities putting a greater stress on personal space, this style was thought of as both wasteful and outdated.
Photo credit : Deepanjan Ghosh
Scenographer and artist Swarup Dutta has taught design for a decade and closely studied the evolution of Kolkata’s architecture. He points to a peculiarity in the law in Bengal, which allows civil engineers and draftsmen to file the plans for a building, as opposed to architects, who would be required in other states. This was good news for homeowners, since architects would charge between 2% and 5% of construction cost, says former civil servant Jawhar Sircar. The demand that Bengalis made from their civil engineers, aka “contractors”, Sircar says, was, “amake Metro style baadi baniye dao” – build me a house in the Metro style. Because civil engineers were concerned with the technical side of construction, instead of the aesthetic, their response was to present their clients with a collection of templates. These would then be tweaked according to each client’s needs. Since the buildings in areas like Hindustan Park and Lake Temple Road all came up around the same time, and used the same technique, entire neighbourhoods ended up looking like variations on a theme.
Why is it important to save these buildings? Chaudhuri says in an interview, “In a city like Kolkata, what we embrace, what we celebrate it for, is its modernity. It’s a form of existence that teaches us to look and experience life in a certain way…as exemplified by these non-heritage residential buildings which form these astonishing residential neighbourhoods that have art deco features as well as traditional features and European provenances.”
But saving them is proving to be a challenge for a number of reasons. With economic stagnation in the east, the younger generation have had to move out in search of work and many homeowners now no longer have the means to maintain the houses they are living in. With the buildings being worth much less than the land they stand on, a developer’s offer is difficult to refuse.
Photo credit : Deepanjan Ghosh
But the greatest challenge is to get ordinary Kolkatans to think of these buildings as special. “You don’t notice them,” said restoration architect James Simpson who was also a part of the ICOMOS walk, “because for you, they are commonplace. But once you know what to look for, these buildings keep popping out at you.” If anything, Chaudhuri’s initiative has at least managed to put these buildings in the spotlight. Three friends, Manish Golder, Sidhartha Hajra and Sayan Dutta have begun a project to document these buildings on Instagram. Their handle, @calcuttahouses, now has more than 2,000 followers. Chaudhuri hopes his campaign will make people “look at these buildings again – something we’ve stopped doing for a number of reasons”. Whether that will be enough, remains to be seen.
Jawhar Sircar. Photo credit: Deepanjan Ghosh.
source: http://www.scroll.in / Scroll.in / Home> Magazine> Archtecture/ by Deepanjan Ghosh / December 12th, 2017
Young artists with their works at the second edition of Colours of Innocence, in association with TTIS, at Mukti World Banquet on Sunday.
Curated by Vayjayanti Pugalia, founder of Sonali’s Cubo, the auction was a blast of colours and imagination.
Students from NGOs and city schools poured their hearts out on canvas, under the guidance of artist Gunjan Daga, to raise funds for charity.
Present at the auction were singer Usha Uthup, PR veteran Rita Bhimani, fashion designer Sharbari Datta, theatre actor-director Ramanjit Kaur and others. “It is a wonderful and inspiring experience. The paintings are beautiful and I am glad to be a part of this event,” said Usha Uthup who rang in the festive cheer with Jingle Bells along with the kids.
“COI is my vision come true. This is my way of giving back to the society,” said Pugalia.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / by Samabrita Sen / December 1th, 2017
In a bid to rediscover and rebuild the cultural relationship between Bengal and the UK that developed over centuries along the banks of the Hooghly and the Thames, a group of contemporary artistes, authors and historians from Calcutta and London on Saturday participated in a walk in Nadia’s Krishnagar.
The walk, a part of the 10-day initiative titled “Silver River India Walk”, began from Azimganj in Murshidabad on Thursday. It will conclude at Calcutta’s Victoria Memorial Hall on December 16, with stops at 10 important heritage sites like Barrackpore, Chandernagore and Batanagar – all located along the banks of the Hooghly.
The walk has been organised by the British Council in India in association with UK-based art organisation Kinetika and India-based Think Arts, with the support of the Union ministry of culture, the state tourism department and several other organisations to mark the 70th year of India’s Independence.
On Saturday, around 40 artistes from Bengal and the UK paid a visit to the clay model hub in Krishnagar’s Ghurni and learnt about the craftsmanship of the artisans.
“It is a great experience to see the artisans working with delicate artefacts with such fineness. Stories of these artisans need to be known by people that live on the banks of the Thames too,” said Kevin Rushby, a travel journalist with The Guardian.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Calcutta,India / Home> West Bengal / by Subhasish Chaudhuri / December 10th, 2017
One of the pages of J.C. Bose’s notes. Photo: Special Arrangement
Bose Institute, one of India’s oldest research institutes, will house a museum highlighting the history of Indian science. The decision was taken during the recently-concluded centenary celebrations of the institution, set up by Jagadish Chandra Bose in 1917.
“The History of Science Museum will be located in the campus of Bose Institute on Acharya Prafulla Chandra Road in Kolkata. We are in touch with the National Council of Science Museums for its construction. There will be 50- 60 panels in the first phase which will be completed by 2019,” Siddhartha Roy, director of Bose Institute, told The Hindu.
According to Prof. Roy, the museum will cover four disciplines — physics, astronomy, mathematics and medical sciences — and trace the journey of Indian science from the ancient times.
“Depending on the themes we can have the gallery tracing the development from the Harappan times,” he said.
Professor P.P. Divakaran, who was present at the centenary celebrations of Bose Institute last month and gave a lecture on The Mathematics of India : From Counting to Calculus, welcomed the idea of the museum and said he was “pleasantly surprised “to find a section dedicated to mathematics.
“For most of the time till 1600 AD, India had one of the most advanced mathematical cultures among the world,” Prof. Divakaran said.
Prof. Roy pointed out that modern Indian science may have started with J.C. Bose but there were many who did pioneering work but people were not aware of their contribution.
“In terms of advancements in medical science, the museum will highlight the likes of U.N. Brahmachari, who discovered the treatment for kala azar, and Sambhu Nath De, who discovered the cholera toxin,” Prof. Roy said.
Renovated museum at Bose Institute
Interestingly, as part of its centenary celebrations, the Bose Institute recently upgraded the existing museum on J.C. Bose by displaying 12 digitised volumes of the scientist’s handwritten notes and dairies.
These diaries include the notes he took while attending classes by Francis Darwin (son of Charles Darwin) at Christ’s College in Cambridge. The museum, which also has on display the microwave apparatus developed by J.C. Bose in 1894, has also brought to light the scientist’s communications with personalities such as Mahatma Gandhi and Sister Nivedita.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kolkata / by Shiv Sahay Singh / Kolkata – December 02nd, 2017
Neighbours and friends still cannot get over the sudden death of veteran cricketer Srirupa Bose. She was found lying in a pool of blood after collapsing in her GC Block house on November 30.
According to sources, a journalist had come to take her interview and she asked her to wait downstairs as she went up to her first floor bathroom. When a long time passed, the journalist got anxious and asked the domestic help to look for her.
“We were alerted by cries for help of the domestic help. Boys from a nearby chemist shop as well as a local doctor rushed. We took her to AMRI,” recalls Saktidhara Saha, a former volleyball player who lives just a house away and knew her since 1972.
She was 66, and is survived by husband Pareshnath Mukherjee, a former Bengal Olympic Association president, and daughter, Amrita Mukherjee, a tennis player.
“Her life revolved around her daughter for the last 15 years. She travelled with her all around the country and abroad,” recalled Sujoy Kumar Ghosh, chief operating officer of neighbouring Bengal Tennis Association where Amrita plays her tennis. “In fact, they had just come back from Indore and were supposed to travel to Sholapur for a tournament that evening.”
Ghosh, who knew Bose since 2003 when BTA came into being and Amrita enrolled there, also recalled the wide contacts she had in the sporting world. “She brought (1987 Wimbledon champion) Pat Cash to hold a four-day workshop here at BTA. Even this year, mother and daughter went to Wimbledon to watch the tournament.”
She was full of life. “Once we held a carnival at BTA and two of us were supposed to sing Jamaica farewell on stage. She joined us.”
Srirupa had told The Telegraph Salt Lake in an interview in 2005 how she had started with hockey and basketball at Calcutta Rangers Club in 1971 and then shifted to cricket.
“She was the first captain of the Bengal women’s cricket team,” says Gargi Banerji who played under her from 1976 to 1984. “Bengal was the national champion for seven years during that time,” she says.
Banerji recalled Bose being a shrewd captain who always knew how to bring out the best from the players without being demanding. “She was very disciplined and like a mother to us.” Bose later became India captain, the chairperson of the national selection commitee and team manager— all when women’s cricket was run by Women’s Cricket Association of India. She took charge as assistant director at Sports Authority of India after she quit railways.
Her sradh ceremony will be held on Sunday and a memorial service on Monday.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, Calcutta,India / Home> Calcutta / December 08th, 2017
