The state Panchayats and Rural Development department is laying special emphasis on fish farming through biofloc technology with the objective of livelihood support amidst the COVID -19 pandemic situation.
West Bengal Comprehensive Area Development Corporation (CADC) under the aegis of the department which is executing and pushing for biofloc to be adopted by the SHG groups across the state has set the ball rolling by setting up an infrastructure of fish cultivation through biofloc at its own office at Mrittika in Salt Lake. It is expected to be readied by this week.
“Biofloc is a technology using which one can produce fishes significantly in large quantities (in a small volume of water) as compared to the traditional form of aquaculture in large ponds. It is easy to monitor the fish movement, their behaviour and abnormalities as they will remain within a tank which in turn will facilitate taking the corrective measures immediately, ” said a senior official of CADC.
Probiotic and molluscs are used to eliminate chances of food particles and excreta of the fishes in polluting the water . These components produce planktons and prevent the production of ammonium nitrate which is toxic for the fishes. An aerator is used to add oxygen to the water.
“We will be creating a biofloc model in each of our 23 projects in the state and accordingly training will be provided. The seeds will also be supplied by us. The interested SHGs will bear have to bear the other costs. However the scheme can also be taken up under MGNREGA in which the government will bear the entire cost, ” said the official.
The technique is already being practised at Tamluk in East Midnapore, Ayodha Hills in Purulia and in some semi arid zones in Murshidabad, Jhargram and Birbhum.
Air-breathing fish rearing in cement tank by 60 farmers in Kolaghat has already seen success. Every 8 feet by 6 ft tank were provided with 500 seeds on an average each costing Re 1. In three to four months each tank produces 25 kg on an average (koi, singi, magur, ) whose average price is Rs 250 to 300 per kg. The income from each tank is around Rs 7000 a month so for 60 tanks the income is Rs 42,0000.
A wide variety of fishes can be cultivated through this technology like Koi, Magur, Singi, Telapiya, Pabda and even prawn.
source: http://www.millenniumpost.in / Millennium Post / Home> Kolkata / by Soumitra Nandi / September 21st, 2020
When Kalimul Haque, 45, joined the Nepalipara Hindi High School in West Bengal’s Paschim Burdwan district a decade ago, he was faced with a challenging task.
Misha Ghosal(HT)
When Kalimul Haque, 45, joined the Nepalipara Hindi High School in West Bengal’s Paschim Burdwan district a decade ago, he was faced with a challenging task.
“Such was the reputation of the school, that not only the students passing out of the institution were facing a bleak future, but I was badly scolded by a senior education officer of the district in my first meeting. On that day, I decided, that I would do something for the school,”
While in 2019, the Nepalipara Hindi High School at Labourhut, with more than 3600 students, was selected as the best school in the state by the West Bengal government, on Saturday Haque, a doctorate in geography, received the National Award.
Today, the school boasts of smart classes, a rooftop kitchen garden with hydroponics, water harvesting, vermicompost and students prepare their own teaching material under the guidance of teachers. From ten classrooms and one toilet in 2010, the school now has 57 classrooms and 24 toilets. Earlier students of classes, five, six and seven used to sit on the floor. Today the school has class 11 and 12 with all streams.
“Developing the school had almost become my addiction. My family supported me throughout. I am happy that I could do it,” said Haque who has received several awards including the Siksha Ratna award from the state government.
Meanwhile, in north Bengal, Misha Ghosal (51), the headmistress of Dhanapati Toto Memorial High School in Alipurduar districts’s Totopara, a home of primitive Toto tribes, had been working tirelessly for 11 years to make the school stand out among others. A postgraduate in Mathematics, she received the National Award on September 5.
“Even though I hail from Alipurduar district I had studied in Kolkata. So when I got selected for the head master’s exam and I was offered the school in the remotest corner, I was a bit afraid. But then, I took up the challenge and thought of doing something for the school and the society,” she said.
When she joined the school in 2009, only one student from the Toto community, having a population of only 1585, was able to cross the Madhyamik (class X board exam) hurdle. This year the success rate is over 80 percent.
Totopara, is a small and remote hamlet by the Indo-Bhutan border and remains marooned during the monsoons. One needs to cross seven rivers to reach the village. She almost single-handedly turned things for the school having 250 students.
“I worked hard to first win the confidence of the community and started two hostels. The school was developed from government-aided to government-sponsored so that it becomes financially sound. Now my aim is to uplift the quality of education in the school so that students can find jobs,” she said.
Rita Toto was the first female graduate from the community in 2010.
source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> Education / by Hindustan Times, Kolkata-Siliguri / September 05th, 2020
In Breaking Through Ahluwalia writes an account of her extraordinary life, career and fight against an implacable disease
n this together: A file photo of Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Isher Judge Ahluwalia at the Brihadisvara Temple in Thanjavur, Tamil Nadu. (Photo: PTI)
At almost the end of her long innings, wracked by grade IV glioblastoma, among the toughest of all cancers, Isher Judge Ahluwalia — grace, charm and subtlety personified, and, with widespread connections — took it upon herself to write this book. Courageous as she is, Isher did so in the most trying circumstances, while she was losing the ability to read and write on her own, relying extensively on help from the family to put down her thoughts.
Yet, thank God that she has written this book, for it is a story of grit, love, care and commitment. Grit, because who would have bet that a daughter of simple, traditional Sikh parents — one of 11 siblings — living in a small, rented flat near Purna Cinema, not far from Calcutta’s Kalighat, would reach where she did, entirely on the strength of her efforts and her intense determination to succeed?
Or, that she would in 1962, finish her West Bengal Higher Secondary Board examination from the highly-regarded Shri Shikshayatan Vidyalaya, coming eighth in the state? She writes, “My father had never shown any interest in our education but when I did well in the exams, he would often tell his friends with some pride that I had got the third rank among girls. While I approved of his new interest in education, I objected to the gender differentiation; I would correct him, saying I was eighth, not third.”
Breaking Through: A Memoir by Isher Judge Ahluwalia
Isher then went to Presidency College, Calcutta, to study economics with a scholarship of Rs 35 per month, which paid for her college fees and the tram ride from home and back. After the Presidency, she joined the Delhi School of Economics for her Master’s degree. “My family would never have let me go to Delhi to live in a hostel. At this point, I had a lucky break. In 1964, my brother decided to move to the capital with his family to start a business and my parents agreed to my going to live with them, attending DSE as a day student.”
As was the case with many of us, DSE was Isher’s road to Damascus — a point of revelation when she was determined to study further and apply for a PhD. Armed with a high first division in a year when seven of the eight ‘first-divers’ were women, Isher applied to Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), where she was accepted with a fellowship. Thus began her journey in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a passage that took a bit longer than necessary because of an interlude in Washington, DC.
In the summer of 1970, Isher applied to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a summer internship. Instead of the usual three months, she got a special six-month break from MIT. With that came to love. Soon after moving to DC, she had a date with a super-bright young man, the clever, erudite English-speaking debater from St Stephen’s and winner of a congratulatory first in philosophy, politics and economics from Oxford, one Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who had joined the World Bank as a part of its Young Professionals Program.
Montek impressed Isher sufficiently enough — lunch in the Bank’s Executive Dining Room, films, dinners, walks and drives. “It was during one of those drives, while we were picnicking off some bread and cheese and a glass of wine, that I decided that Montek was the man for me.” Soon, Isher secured a full-time job at the IMF; and, in 1971, she and Montek married in Washington.
Four years passed in setting up home in Georgetown, going with IMF delegations for Article IV consultations in the Caribbean, and working long hours at the Fund. Suddenly, it dawned upon her that she had left her PhD programme behind. So Isher applied for a fellowship at Brookings and completed her MIT thesis from there in 1976 — which was published in 1979 by Macmillan, titled Behaviour of Prices and Outputs in India: A Macro-Econometric Approach.
Then came care. Of parenting two boys — first Pavan, who was born in November 1977; and, then, Aman in October 1979, after the three of them had returned to India for good. Of taking charge of what was an immaculate home and hearth; of looking after a growing family that eventually extended to daughters-in-law and grandchildren; of being a partner to Montek, who would return late at night with stacks of government files.
Then, there was a commitment to her profession. “Being a mother is a full-time job. Being a working mother is two full-time jobs.” Even so, Isher completed two major books: Industrial Growth in India: Stagnation Since the Mid-Sixties (1989, Oxford University Press) and Productivity and Growth in Indian Manufacturing (1991, OUP).
She worked at the Centre for Policy Research, then took over as the head of Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER), an institution which she strengthened by attracting excellent full-time fellows and garnering some very serious grants from abroad and the Indian corporate world, that made ICRIER financially comfortable. If these were not enough, Isher got into urbanisation and published two books on the subject.
Breaking Through is a beautiful read because it is so honestly written, so touching in content — a wonderful mélange of the personal and the public. It is, in effect, a signing off. Of a great life. Of struggles. Of success. Of love and caring. Of building families, values and institutions. And, of Montek.
Thank you, Isher.
The author is the founder and chairperson of CERG Advisory Private Limited
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Books and Literature / by Omkar Goswami / August 30th, 2020
Pranab Babu spoke English with a Bengali accent yet made it to the top. Here’s why
Pranab Mukherjee / Twitter/@INCIndia
Pranab Mukherjee was an unusual politician and his success was unusual given that the odds were stacked against him. He was not a grassroots politician and he lost most of the elections he contested. He was not an intellectual in the Bengali sense of the word and he didn’t come from an English-speaking background (all his life he spoke the Queen’s language with a heavy Bengali accent). He was also singularly lacking in charisma. He thus broke all the rules that had governed Bengal’s politics harking back to C.R. Das and Subhas Chandra Bose to Siddhartha Shankar Ray and Jyoti Basu.
But he had other strengths. Most notable was the fact that he was born into politics. From their home in Mirati village, his father Kamada Kinkar Mukherjee controlled, and had an iron grip on, Birbhum district politics. Along with his alphabet, his son learnt the first rules of public life: influence-peddling and networking. He was a zealous student and never forgot the lessons.
Mukherjee’s first big opportunity came soon after he had moved to Calcutta in the 1960s and dived into the thick of state politics. The Syndicate that ruled the Congress Party in Bengal, as elsewhere, threw a dissident leader out of the party. Mukherjee sensed that politics in India was changing and he chose to side with the dissident leader and was also expelled.
He had timed it perfectly. Feelings against the Congress party were rising and in the assembly elections the dissidents scraped together enough seats to be the deciding factor. The Left successfully wooed the breakaway Congress by agreeing to make the Congress dissident leader the chief minister. Even Jyoti Basu agreed to serve as the deputy chief minister.
Mukherjee knew though that no good could come out of an association with the Communist party. By then, the Congress Party had split into two parties – the Indira Gandhi Congress and the old Congress. Mukherjee skilfully negotiated a way for his group to ally with Indira Gandhi and even managed to win himself a junior minister portfolio in Delhi. His senior in the ministry was Kamlapati Tripathi, a UP Brahmin who preferred temple-hopping to ploughing through ministerial files.
That task was left to the young Mukherjee who learnt the other important lesson, one his father had not taught him, namely that if you want to run India, you must know your files. He was not house tamed by the babus — he became one.
_________________
Abhijit Mukherjee@ABHIJIT_LS
With a Heavy Heart , this is to inform you that my father Shri #PranabMukherjee has just passed away inspite of the best efforts of Doctors of RR Hospital & prayers , duas & prarthanas from people throughout India ! I thank all of You
5:46 PM . Aug 31, 2020
_______________
Mukherjee was not quite the ultimate old-school politician. True, he had friends in every political nook and cranny and beyond, and he knew when to cash in on his friendships. True, he held almost all the great offices of state, shuttling between finance, defence and external affairs with equal ease. But he had one redeeming feature which the rest lacked. He could read, and he read, every file that came his way. Jagjivan Ram, the most outstanding of all Indira Gandhi’s ministers, was once asked who was the best minister he had seen. “Pranab Mukherjee,” Ram replied. Why? “He reads the files” was Ram’s response. Others had different views. Arun Jaitley who regarded Mukherjee highly thought there was always a danger of losing the tree for the wood. Pranab had a fondness for Jaitley but thought that without spending time on files, one could never have a grip on the Ministry. Understandably, Mukherjee’s role model as Finance Minister was C.D. Deshmukh, a civil servant who went on to become the governor of the Reserve Bank and then the Finance Minister.
Mukherjee harboured ambitions of being prime minister but being elevated to the presidency was an impressive consolation prize.
In the political world, he was famed for his elephantine memory that made him the go-to man during any political discussion. Whether it was Bengal or any other part of the country, he could rattle off events and even the dates on which they occurred. “He was a ‘human computer’ like Shakuntala Devi. In most states, he could also give you the macro picture. He was relied on for spot information,” said a former bureaucrat. In addition, he was a meticulous diary-writer and brought out two books based on his memories and the contents of his diaries.
Mukherjee held a law degree as well as an MA in history and political science. He often made jokes about his diminutive stature. Many in the political world turned up at his doorstep for advice when they were in difficulties. Once he shifted into a counselling role, many say, he would switch off his political side.
He was also an administrator who could keep his cool when all others around him were losing theirs. Towards the end of his political career, bureaucrats reported he got irritable more quickly but even that was only an occasional flare-up, such as on TV when he ticked off interviewer Rajdeep Sardesai and told him to mind his tone when speaking to a former president of India.
Above all, he was a man who cared about politics and political processes. One visitor to Rashtrapati Bhavan found him intently watching the parliamentary proceedings on Lok Sabha TV and muttering irately at the screen: “He should not have said that.”
Early in his career, he caught Sanjay Gandhi’s eye and was catapulted to high office even before he was 40. It is said he won his attention with the help of Kamal Nath, who was, at the time, a Calcutta businessman but making his mark in politics.
Mukherjee proved his worth as a junior minister in the finance ministry. Noida, on Delhi’s outskirts, was Sanjay Gandhi’s pet project but even he could not get the State Bank of India to open a branch in Noida. At Mukherjee’s suggestion, the Finance Ministry was split into two independent entities — Revenue and Finance — both reporting independently to the prime minister. As the revenue minister, Mukherjee instructed the State Bank of India to open the branch.
The problem was resolved and a legend, that of the go-to man, was born.
By 1980, when Indira Gandhi returned to power after the brief Janata Party interregnum, Mukherjee received a huge promotion and was made Commerce Minister at the age of only 47 — still very youthful by Indian political standards.
In 1982, two years later, his dreams came true. He became the Finance Minister of India. Mukherjee fought theelection against Indira Gandhi’s wishes and lost. Indira Gandhi was reluctant to include a defeated candidate. It was Sanjay Gandhi who persuaded his mother to change her mind. It also set the curious precedence for finance ministers (or wannabe finance ministers) who lost the election to be inducted into the Cabinet through the back door. Arun Jaitley and Jaswant Singh took advantage of this unfortunate example. Manmohan Singh did one better. He became the Prime Minister.
Pranab Mukherjee was essentially a Sanjay Gandhi protégé but he was aware of the negative consequence of this association. He downplayed this relationship and instead pulled out all the stops to portray himself as an Indira Gandhi man.
But his relationship with Sanjay was to haunt him later in his career. Rajiv didn’t trust the Sanjay men and Mukherjee’s clumsy effort to become an interim prime minister when Indira Gandhi was assassinated was seen as an additional and very glaring black mark. Pranab was not included in the Rajiv Cabinet in 1984 and later at the first opportunity, Rajiv Gandhi expelled him from the Congress Party. It took him a great deal of effort (and a failed attempt to launch a party) to be allowed back. Mukherjee admitted that being dropped from the cabinet left him “shell shocked and flabbergasted”. The Rajiv years were for Mukherjee the years of wilderness and the political aridity spilled over to the Rao era. He could regain a cabinet berth only in 1995 after 12 long years in the no-man’s land.
Earlier, it was during his time in the Commerce Ministry that he grew close to Dhirubhai Ambani and the Reliance Group. At the Commerce Ministry, he learnt the intricacies of how, especially in the heyday of the licence raj, duties could make or break products and, indeed, companies.
By the time Mukherjee was back in favour, the Rajiv Gandhi government had lost its energy amidst the artillery fire surrounding the Bofors gun deal, and also the Shah Bano imbroglio. Later, he was pipped to the post to be finance minister in P. V. Narasimha Rao’s government. Mukherjee had misread Rao as he earlier had misread Rajiv Gandhi. He had also misread the change in ideological climate. Globalisation was beginning and was being endorsed even by communist countries. Deng’s China and Gorbachev’s Russia had all mended their ways. Mukherjee, a diehard statist, was the wrong man at the wrong time.
Not merely did Rao have a new finance minister, he also had a radically new economic policy. The nation had made a 180-degree turn. Mukherjee was history’s baggage. Still he got another innings when Chidambaram was replaced by Mukherjee in the UPA era. But he was clearly at odds with the new India. Worse, he was largely blamed for the economic downturn of the UPA2 that paved the way for a Modi triumph. His last act as the Finance Minister was to introduce the infamous Retrospective Taxation which amended a 50-year-old regulation and gave the government power to change laws with retrospective effect. This was Mukherjee’s last hurrah and a valiant last-ditch effort to bring back the rules-regulation Raj. From all accounts, he succeeded. The new law is said to be the single important factor in reducing foreign investments in India. His departure in 2012 for the Rashtrapati Bhavan saved him some embarrassment.
Mukherjee himself always insisted he couldn’t become prime minister because he didn’t speak fluent Hindi. Others joked that, with his strong Bengali accent, he didn’t speak English either. Even after decades in Delhi and criss-crossing the world, his accent didn’t change the slightest. Some put this down to his innate belief in Bengali superiority. “Bengalis know there is only one language on earth and English is just a dialect of Bangla,” said another bureaucrat who knew him well. Mukherjee was unfazed whether he was meeting the Queen of Great Britain or any other world leader. “He would speak to the Queen in Buckingham Palace and he stuck to his village college-teacher English. He didn’t care about his background or his height,” the bureaucrat said. Mukherjee’s first job had been as a lecturer in a local college before he shifted to Calcutta.
It was common knowledge that Mukherjee, and many others, blamed former West Bengal chief minister Siddhartha Shankar Ray – with whom he didn’t get along — for the Emergency. But Mukherjee, himself, was a prime beneficiary of the Emergency and a charter member of the Sanjay Gandhi faction. He was also at odds with former minister A.B.A. Ghani Khan Chowdhary, another Congress Party mass leader in Bengal.
In other ways, he was the quintessential Congressman and he took a stern line on communalism. Once when a communal incident broke out and others were caught off-balance, he delivered a strong lecture, quoting, as he was wont, earlier instances when the Congress had fought communalism – even throwing in the exact dates when the incidents had happened.
Later in life, however, he took a milder line towards an organisation like the RSS. He adopted the view, as one observer explained, that “if you keep them in the doghouse, they will do many things in an effort to shock you”. Mukherjee argued that the RSS should be mainstreamed and that would force them to “soften down,” the observer said. That outlook may have been the reason for his trip to Nagpur in 2018 where he addressed RSS swayamsevaks and even praised the institution’s founder, though he did also emphasize the importance of tolerance.
It was an open secret that Mukherjee wasn’t Sonia Gandhi’s first choice for the presidency. But he built up support at different levels and is said to have forced her hand and easily won the largely ceremonial post. He had recognised he was growing older and the one job he wanted wasn’t coming to him. Later, when Narendra Modi became Prime Minister, he knew that nothing would induce the BJP to give him a second term, but he did sound out Modi gently about his re-election. “You are a Congress nominee,” said Modi almost mischievously. “If the Congress Party proposes your name, we shall consider it,” Modi added. Mukherjee knew the game was lost. He bowed out quietly and gracefully, citing “health complications relating to old age”.
Modi was otherwise kind to Mukherjee. He may not have given him a second term but he did honour him with the Bharat Ratna. That was more a put down to Advani (who certainly contributed much more to the nation from the Hindutva point of view) and also to Manmohan Singh (whose contributions surpass Mukherjee’s by the long shot).
It marked a low-key close to a long and illustrious political career. While it wasn’t perhaps the triumphant finale that he might have chosen for himself, it was very far from an ignominious ending.
Mukherjee was predeceased by his wife, Suvra Mukherjee, who died in 2015. The couple had two sons and a daughter. Sharmistha Mukherjee is an accomplished Kathak dancer and choreographer who contested the 2015 Delhi Assembly election as a Congress candidate but failed to win. Abhijit Mukherjee served as a Congress MP from Bengal from 2012 to 2019.
In 2012, Sharmistha wrote about her father for India Today, recalling he had to walk nearly 10km every day to school and there was a stream on the way that during the monsoon became a gushing torrent. “Whenever I close my eyes trying to visualise my father, I see this little boy standing by the roaring stream thinking about how to cross it. He has crossed that and many other barricades in his life and walked a long way since then,” she said.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / Home> India / by Paran Balakrishnan / New Delhi – August 31st, 2020
Along with the rest of the world, the Queen of the Hills commemorated the 110th birth anniversary of St Teresa of Calcutta popular as Mother Teresa. Darjeeling occupied a special place and was a turning point in the life of the Saint.
“We had Mass (prayer service) in the Houses in Darjeeling, Tukdah, Tindharia, Kalimpong, Siliguri and Sikkim on Wednesday to commemorate her birth anniversary” stated Sister Marjelle of the Missionaries of Charity.
Agnes, who later became Saint Teresa of Calcutta had arrived in India in 1929. She had then joined the Loreto novitiate in Darjeeling.
She took her first religious vows as a Nun on May 24, 1931 in Darjeeling and made her final profession as a Loreto nun on 24 May 1937 in Kolkata, and hereafter was called Mother Teresa. While in Darjeeling she used to teach at St Teresa’s school under the Loreto Convent.
The school was founded in 1921.
On 10 September 1946, on a train journey from Calcutta to Darjeeling during annual retreat in between Siliguri and Darjeeling, Mother Teresa received what she termed the “call within a call,” which prompted her to start the Missionaries of Charity. Thus she had stepped out of the Loreto Convent in Darjeeling into the slums of Kolkata. She was canonized on September 4, 2016 as St Teresa of Calcutta.
The Cathedral of Immaculate Conception located at the Loreto Convent in Darjeeling also houses an Oratory (a place of worship) in her name. On December 3, 2016, Darjeeling had named a road after St Teresa of Calcutta. The road connecting Gandhi Road to Dr. Zakir Hussain Road (TV Tower) has been named the “Saint (Mother) Teresa Road.” The Missionaries of Charity House of Darjeeling is located on this street.
“People of her stature cannot be confined to any religion, color, caste or creed. She was a world citizen. She inspired people to become better human beings, to love and serve others. Let us strive hard to continue her legacy” stated Reverend Stephen Lepcha, Bishop, Roman Catholic Diocese of Darjeeling.
source: http://www.millenniumpost.in / Millennium Post / Home> Kolkata / by Amitava Banerjee / August 27th, 2020
Mountaineers, models, medical students and some well-known doctors are part of this “Covid Care Network”, which has more than 200 members.
Both mountaineer Satyarup Siddhanta, who has spent most of his life scaling the world’s highest peaks and setting records, and climber and model Madhabilata Mitra are part of this network. (Representational)
With the state struggling to contain Covid-19, the pandemic has brought together people from diverse fields on a common platform to provide assistance to thousands of patients who need help. Mountaineers, models, medical students and some well-known doctors are part of this “Covid Care Network”, which has more than 200 members.
Both mountaineer Satyarup Siddhanta, who has spent most of his life scaling the world’s highest peaks and setting records, and climber and model Madhabilata Mitra are part of this network.
“We want to improve access to healthcare, provide social support to the Covid-infected and their family. We have a 24X7 helpline where people can call anytime and get real time assistance,” said Siddhanta.
The group has now formed a crisis management team, and attached two ambulances with it.
“We regularly see how people suffer due to the non-availability of proper ambulances, and some have even died. There is a stigma attached to this disease, which is making it more challenging for the government to tackle this pandemic,” said Siddhanta.
The group’s members said they provide prompt action whenever they are contacted for help. Medical students Suchismit Bhattacharya, Parijat Bera, Antarup Haldar and Lopamudra Bose said fear was the “deadliest virus” of all.
“Covid-19 is not always related to death. Many only see mild symptoms and get cured as well. We should understand that it is curable and panicking over the situation will have an adverse effect. I work in a Covid ward and when I come back I am exhausted. But when I get calls, I answer their queries and try to calm them and advise them. Everyone has to contribute to end this situation,” said Somdutta Satpathy, an intern at SSKM hospital.
Physician and public health activist Dr Abhijit Choudhury told The Sunday Express, “Half of the Covid battle is fought in hospitals, and the other half in the community. Covid Care Network is looking into the social aspect of this pandemic. They also share information about patients’ relatives admitted in different hospitals, depending on the request. The team gives them medical advice and enlightens them about the pandemic.”
The group organises small gatherings to lift people’s spirit. Those who have gone through similar experiences at hospitals share their expertise so that others do not repeat their mistakes.
“It is not possible for the government to fight this pandemic alone, and it is good to see people from diversified fields joining hands,” said a doctor at a private hospital who did not want to be named.
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Cities> Kolkata / by Express News Service / August 23rd, 2020
The initiative first started with the residents of Suryakiran Awasana on Umakanta Sen Lane in north Kolkata’s Paikpara, during which as many as 74 people underwent Rapid Antigen tests.
Paikpara residents queue up for test conducted by the KMC on Sunday. (Photo by Partha Paul)
The Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) on Sunday launched a first-of-its-kind initiative, “Free Covid Test at Doorstep”, in the city. The programme had been announced by KMC Board of Administrators’ Chairman and Trinamool Congress MP Firhad Hakim on Saturday to boost the number of daily Covid-19 tests to trace suspected patients.
The initiative first started with the residents of Suryakiran Awasana on Umakanta Sen Lane in north Kolkata’s Paikpara, during which as many as 74 people underwent Rapid Antigen tests. The test reports were available in just 30 minutes.
According to Trinamool MP Dr Santanu Sen, no one among those whose samples were collected on Sunday tested positive for Covid-19.
“There are 300 people in the society. In the initial phase, 74 people were tested. Those who will test positive will be advised for home isolation or will be sent to safe homes,” said Sen.
“If test reports of a resident with symptoms say ‘Covid negative’, the municipality will collect that person’s saliva for an RT-PCR test, all free of cost,” the MP added.
According to officials, Kolkata is the first municipal corporation in the country to introduce Covid testing at doorstep.
Any individual, or local clubs and organisations, can contact Hakim at his WhatsApp number (9830037493) to organise a test camp in their locality. The sender has to text details such as name, address and phone number to that number
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Cities> Kolkata / by Express News Service / August 24th, 2020
White hair billowing around him, with no attention to give to a gaping audience, Jasraj on stage often took the form of a singular devotee.
Pandit Jasraj. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
In 1946, Pandit Jasraj (1930-2020) moved to Calcutta, to work at All India Radio. I was born in 1965 and his voice on the radio wafts through all my early memories.
My father, in the first flush of relative financial comfort since travelling to Calcutta from Barisal in Bangladesh during 1947, had brought home a radio. Until I was 26, it was the only technology that offered entertainment in our household.
Pandit Jasraj at Bhopal. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
My father played the sitar and sang north Indian classical. He had a deep disdain for exhibitions of any sort, and seemed to thrive only on minimalism. But he filled our mornings with the Bhairavis and Lalits that the likes of Bhimsen Joshi and Jasraj would sing. By the time I started learning classical music, I was six years old and knew that the dark voice was Bhim’s and the softer one, Jasraj’s.
In 1974, my father pulled a surprise and took the family to our first concert. Stages in those days had few lights. But in the middle sat Jasraj, affable and jocular, conversing freely with the audience as if they were his friends. I remember him as iridescent. I was just learning Raag Yaman, and in a coincidence that children are prone to consider magical, Jasraj sang it too on the day. Listening to him live, my ears opened to a quality of his music that I have believed in to this day.
Even for a vocalist of such renown, a word that must be repeated to describe Jasraj’s unique voice, is ‘sweet’. His renditions were pleasing to the ear, that was the simple truth.
I went on to study Hindustani classical with a singular passion, picking up the flute along the way.
Photo: Wikimedia Commons
By the time I watched Jasraj live again, it was 1983. A lot had changed. My father had lost his wife, my mother. But the morning radio kept up with its song offerings. I was 18 and the concert was at the Netaji Indoor Stadium in Kolkata. Back then, the Bengal government would organise four-day music festivals that would continue till midnight. Jasraj was the main draw of the day and performed last.
This would be my first brush with an artist’s temperament. Usually, musicians make a brief announcement of what they would sing. He didn’t and instead stared fixedly at a point on stage while the musicians checked the sound.
It was quite late and I had been meaning to leave. Then, suddenly, he broke into song. First, was Raag Bhim Palashree. But he ended it soon and without a single word, began chanting the ancient syllable, ‘Om’. I stood near the door, thinking, “Let me hear this for five more minutes, and then I will leave.”
For the next hour, with just that one syllable, Jasraj travelled at maddening pace through a maze of influences, fusing styles, merging elements and making no bones of the fact that little mattered to him that night other than his own artistic satisfaction. Yet for all the vocal fireworks, the chant retained its sublime essence throughout, renewing itself for the audience each time yet smoothly travelling through the whole range of all that the Mewat gharana held sacred. I stood near the door the whole hour, transfixed and unable to make any real attempt to exit.
On my way home that day, I did not know that I would not go on to hold fast to my passion for classical music. I did not know that I would listen on the tape recorder to the bhajan Govinda Damodar Madhaveti and marvel — as an atheist — at the divinity that possesses its singer. I did not know that amidst life’s many turns I would sing the same Om Namoh Bhagwatey Vasudevaya under my breath while waiting at the grocery, cooking a meal or making the bed.
But I did know that I had witnessed the work of a singular devotee. White hair billowing around him, with no attention to give to a gaping audience, Jasraj on stage that day took the form of the saint that he is. His voice was enormous, so enormous that it filled spaces as small as my childhood home with hope. And now the saint has returned to his ashram.
The writer is a gold medallist of the 1985 batch of the Bengal Music College.
Translated from the Bengali original.
source: http://www.thewire.in / The Wire / Home> Culture > The Arts / by Debasree Sarkar / August 17th, 2020
On August 15, 1947, when most of India was feeling triumphant and rejoicing the new-found independence, Bapu was in Calcutta, trying to figure out how to stop the communal violence triggered by the partition of Bengal.
On the night of August 14, 1947, when Jawaharlal Nehru was preparing to deliver his famous “Tryst with destiny” speech, Mahatma Gandhi was earnestly trying to end the communal violence triggered by the Partition.
Bengal was partitioned by the British, and a chunk of the state went on to form East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). The Partition, done along religious lines, resulted in bloody communal strife that ended in tears and pyres. So, on August 15, 1947, when most of the nation was feeling triumphant and rejoicing the new-found independence, Bapu was in Calcutta, worried sick.
Mahatma Gandhi was supposed to be in Bihar in the days leading to August 15, before heading to Bengal – both areas ravaged by communal strife. Bapu was only concerned about forging peace and harmony between the two communities. “To me, peace between Hindus and Muslims is more important than the declaration of independence,” he had famously said, and refused to take part in any celebrations.
He said: “I cannot rejoice on August 15. I do not want to deceive you. But at the same time, I shall not ask you not to rejoice. Unfortunately, the kind of freedom we have got today contains also the seeds of future conflict between India and Pakistan. How can we, therefore, light the lamps?”
Gandhi was eventually successful in his efforts, and his miraculous strategy in pacifying both communities was recognised by Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India.
Mountbatten said: “In Punjab, we have 55 thousand soldiers and large-scale rioting on our hands. In Bengal, our forces consist of one man (Gandhi), and there is no rioting.”
source: http://www.moneycontrol.com / MoneyControl / Home> News> India / by Jagyaseni Biswas / August 15th, 2020
Women’s Day Special: Inspired by Surya Sen, the 21-year-old led the raid on the Pahartali European Club in Chittagong.
In a re-reading of historical accounts on Waddedar’s life and contributions, it is easy to forget how young she was when she threw herself fully into the cause of liberation of her motherland. (Photos: Wikimedia Commons; Designed by Gargi Singh)
Born in Chittagong, now in Bangladesh, Waddedar was a promising student, having spent her school years in her hometown. While a student at Eden College in Dhaka, Wadderdar’s anti-British sentiments began to take a more form as she slowly developed connections with other women who were spearheading semi-revolutionary groups. One such was with Leela Nag, a student at Dhaka University and an associate of Subhash Chandra Bose, who established the Deepali Sangha, a revolutionary group that provided combat training to women.
Waddedar came to Calcutta for higher education and enrolled as a student of Philosophy at Bethune College under the University of Calcutta. In the city, Waddedar was introduced to revolutionary leader Surya Sen, affectionately called ‘Master da’ by associates. Inspired by Sen, Waddedar soon joined his underground group. According to various accounts from the 1930s, members of Sen’s group initially objected to her membership, but appear to have eventually relented when they discovered her devotion to the cause for the motherland’s freedom, as well as her abilities to carry out assignments undetected by the police.
During the Chittagong Armory Raid of April 1930, 20-year-old Waddedar, along with Surya Sen, Ganesh Ghosh, Lokenath Bal, Ambika Chakrabarty, Anand Prasad Gupta, Tripura Sen, Bidhubhusan Bhattacharya, Kalpana Dutta, Himangshu Sen, Binod Bihari Chowdhury, Subodh Roy, Monoranjan Bhattacharya among a others in a group of at least 65 people, devised plans to raid the armoury of the British forces and destroy telegraph and telephone lines. Although the group did not manage to locate the armory, they succeeded in ruining the telegraph and telephone lines. Many members in the group were very young at that time, Subodh Roy being the youngest at just 14.
The tall statue depicts Waddedar, clad in a khadi sari, beset with sharp folds, with one arm outstretched and another balled up in a fist, perhaps signalling her determination for the cause of freedom. (Express photo by Shashi Ghosh)
While some members of the group were captured and arrested, Waddedar and a few others managed to escape and regroup over the next few months. In 1932, the group, following Surya Sen’s original plans to attack the Pahartali European Club in Chittagong, assigned Waddedar as the leader for this assignment. The social club for Europeans had been specifically targeted because of its racist and discriminatory practises towards Indians, especially its use of the signboard that read “Dogs and Indians not allowed”.
Under Waddedar’s leadership, a group of 10 was trained in the use of arms and taught how to consume potassium cyanide if the need arose. They attacked the club on the night of September 23, 1932. Several members of the club were injured, while the group was shot at by the police guarding the club. Waddedar sustained a bullet wound that prevented her from escaping with her group. In those circumstances, she consumed potassium cyanide to evade arrest and ended her life. Waddedar was only 21.
Like her contemporary, Bina Das, Waddedar too had been denied her graduation degree by the British authorities of Bethune College under Calcutta University. In March 2012, almost eight decades after her death, the University of Calcutta posthumously awarded Waddedar her pending Bachelor of Arts degree with Distinction for the year 1932. On her graduation certificate, Waddedar’s name is mentioned with a misspelling, ‘Pritilata Waddar’, perhaps an indication of how her name was recorded in university records.
In March 2012, Calcutta University posthumously awarded Pritilata Waddedar her pending Bachelor of Arts degree with distinction for the year 1932, that the British administrative authorities had withheld from her. (Express Photo by Neha Banka)
Dr Soumitra Sarkar, Librarian of Calcutta University, who oversees university archives told indianexpress.com that he did not have much information concerning why this may have occurred. A copy of Waddedar’s graduation certificate and marksheets were provided to the Birkanya Pritilata Trust in May 2018, based in Waddedar’s native village, Dhalghat, Patiya, Chittagong, established in her memory.
Calcutta University provided indianexpress.com a copy of Pritilata Waddedar’s marksheets for the year 1932, a detailed document that indicates that Waddedar was a student at Bethune College, reproduced by university authorities in 2018 for archival purposes. (Express Photo by Neha Banka)
The large expanse of the Maidan area in the heart of Kolkata, is dotted with statues of individuals associated with the freedom struggle. Between 1947 and 1983, the West Bengal government replaced statues of British officials and East India Company employees with those of revolutionaries, men and women who had devoted their lives to the freedom of the nation.
One such statue is that of Pritilata Waddedar, the only commemorative structure dedicated to her in the country. The monument does not have an address; to find it, one would have to walk down the long stretch of Indira Gandhi Sarani in the Maidan. The tall statue depicts Waddedar, clad in a khadi sari, beset with sharp folds, with one arm outstretched and another balled up in a fist, perhaps signalling her determination for the cause of freedom.
In a re-reading of historical accounts on Waddedar’s life and contributions, it is easy to forget how young she was when she threw herself fully into the cause of liberation of her motherland.
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / Indian Express / Home> Lifestyle> Arts & Culture / by Neha Banka / Kolkata – March 08th, 2020
