Union minister Piyush Goyal inaugurated the Phoolbagan metro station of Kolkata East-West Corridor earlier this month
The Union Cabinet earlier approved the revised cost of East-West Metro Corridor Project for Kolkata
Phoolbagan is the first underground station to become operational in the East West Metro corridor
With “world-class passenger amenities and elegant interiors” the newly opened Phoolbagan Metro station is Durga Puja gift for commuters in Kolkata. Union minister Piyush Goyal unveiled the Phoolbagan metro station of Kolkata East-West Corridor earlier this month. The 16.6 km long Corridor will connect Howrah on the West bank of the river Hooghly with Salt Lake City on its east bank.
Phoolbagan is the first underground station to become operational in the East West Metro corridor, which travels both below the surface and on elevated tracks, and also through underwater tunnels below River Hooghly. MG Road in the north-south main line of Kolkata Metro was the last underground station to be commissioned back in September 1995. All metro stations to become functional after that are either elevated or at grade level.
The start of Metro services at Phoolbagan Station is a “Durga Puja gift by the Railways for Kolkatans”, the minister said. “The estimates are that this line (East West Metro corridor) will be used by nearly 10 lakh people by 2035. That itself will be a huge service to the people of Kolkata,” he added.
The new line is expected to carry about 900,000 people daily
“The metro corridor will ease traffic congestion, enhance urban connectivity and provide a cleaner mobility solution to lakhs of daily commuters,” the minister said.
The new line is expected to take less than a minute to cross a 520-meter underwater tunnel. Depending on the time of day, it takes some 20 minutes to use the ferry and anywhere upward of an hour to cross the Howrah bridge.
“Since this corridor connects three most important parts of the Kolkata Metropolitan Area i.e. Howrah, Business area of Kolkata and New Settlements in Salt Lake it is going to revolutionise the mass rapid transport in Kolkata and adjoining Howrah and Bidhanangar. This will connect important landmarks like Howrah, Sealdah, Esplanade and Salt Lake Sector-V which is an IT hub,” the official statement mentioned.
The Union Cabinet earlier approved the revised cost of East-West Metro Corridor Project for Kolkata, Union minister Piyush Goyal said. The completion cost of the project estimated at ₹8,575 crore, Goyal added. The project is likely to be completed by December, 2021. “This will give a boost to mass transit system,” said Union minister Piyush Goyal.
source: http://www.livemint.com / Mint / Home> News> India / by Staff Writer / October 20th, 2020
Veteran atomic scientist and former chairman of Atomic Energy Commission Dr. Sekhar Basu succumbed to COVID-19 early on Thursday at a private hospital here, a health department official said. He was 68.
“Dr. Basu was suffering from COVID-19 and other kidney ailments. He died at 4.50 a.m.,” the official told PTI.
A mechanical engineer, Dr. Basu is revered for his contributions to the country’s atomic energy programme. He was awarded Padma Shri in 2014.
He had also pioneered the highly complex reactor for India’s first nuclear-powered submarine INS Arihant.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kolkata / by PTI / Kolkata – September 24th, 2020
A demonstrative version of biofloc technology was inaugurated at Mrittika Bhavan on September 28P
Panchayat and rural development minister Subrata Mukherjee releases fingerlings in the artificial pond in Mrittika Bhavan in DD Block recently / Brinda Sarkar
It doesn’t get any fresher than this. A new technology provides you the means to build an artificial pond in your house, garden or terrace where you could head to every morning and pick out any fish you want cooked for lunch.
A demonstrative version of biofloc technology was inaugurated at Mrittika Bhavan on September 28. The building in DD Block houses the state comprehensive area development corporation (CADC), under the panchayats and rural development department and inaugurating the facility was minister Subrata Mukherjee.
“This system can breed fish like Koi, Pabda, Singi, Magur and Golda Chingri that people love,” said Mukherjee. “It can come in handy at a time when prices of fish increase. While the system is fairly easy people rarely start something new by simply hearing about it. They want to see it in operation before adopting it and that’s why we have built this demo version. Anyone is free to come and learn about it from us and replicate it at home.”
A kitchen garden which will produce spinach, brocolli, cabbage, lettuce etc on tiered bamboo shelves / Brinda Sarkar
Unlike an open pond, the biofloc tank doesn’t need acres of land. The one at Mrittika Bhawan is a round-shaped open-top tank with an iron net body and polymer sheet wrapped around it. Its base is connected to an underground water pump that will replenish water that gets evaporated and there are slim aerator pipes sending oxygen into the water for the fish to breathe. Its capacity is 10,000l.
“Biofloc is a relatively new technology developed in and for cold European countries where the rivers stay frozen for much of the year.
There they use thousands of biofloc tanks to farm fish,” said Soumyajit Das, special secretary to the panchayats and rural development department and administrative secretary of the CADC. “The technology has also seen success in Bangladesh.”
The water in the tank at Mrittika Bhavan is nourished with probiotics, bacteria and jaggery that will convert the droppings of the fish into their food. So one doesn’t even have to spend on food for the fish thereafter. Only the probiotic-solution needs to be added afresh every two months. Other than that it’s zero-maintenance,” he said.
Those interested in replicating this system are welcome to go and learn at the centre. “Households can install a 1,000l tank at a cost of about Rs 10,000,” said Das.
“The lockdown has proven how little of the city’s fish and agricultural demand is produced within it. If people can grow their own fish it would help them be self-sufficient to some extent,” Das said.
The minister released fingerlings into the water and the department expects the first batch of fish to be ready for sale by Diwali. The fish will be available at Mrittika Bhavan as well in vehicles that tour the township selling fish, meat and agricultural products sourced from farms.
The minister also inaugurated a kitchen garden section on the day, produce of which will be added to their cart. “Plants like spinach, broccoli, cabbage, lettuce, capsicum are being planted on ‘hanging seed beds’ which are three-tier bamboo shelves installed around the parking lot of the building.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph Online / Home> West Bengal> Calcutta / by Brinda Sarkar / October 09th, 2020
Researchers from four universities in West Bengal have been looking for fossils in the sediments of Chotanagpur plateau for almost a year
The dragonfly is around 3cm long and has a wingspan of around 2.5cm. This is, however, much smaller than the fossils of giant dragonflies, which have been found elsewhere in the world. (Sourced)
A team of scientists from West Bengal has discovered the first dragonfly fossil in India from Jharkhand’s Latehar district. The fossil is at least 2.5 million years old. A paper on the finding was published in the October 10 edition of Current Science journal.
“This is the first dragonfly fossil from India. It is a well-preserved one. The fossil belongs to the late Neogene period, which dates between 2.5 million and five million years ago,” said Subir Bera, a professor with the Centre for Advanced Study of the Botany department, University of Calcutta.
The dragonfly is around 3cm long and has a wingspan of around 2.5cm. This is, however, much smaller than the fossils of giant dragonflies, which have been found elsewhere in the world. Experts said that the wingspan of one of the giant dragonflies Meganeuropsis permiana measured around 2.5 feet. It dates back to the Permian era, around 300 million years ago. In 2013, a giant, well-preserved dragonfly fossil, dating back 200 million years, was discovered in China.
Researchers from four universities in West Bengal have been looking for fossils in the sediments of Chotanagpur plateau for almost a year. In January 2020, they dug the dragonfly fossil from a depth of around 5m below the soil surface.The team has also found fossils of various insects, fishes and leaves of some flowering plants.
The research was headed by Mahasin Ali Khan, assistant professor of Botany at Sidho-Kanho-Birsha University.
“The nearest living member of the fossil is Libellula depressa, a species of dragonfly that is found in any tropical country, including India,” said Manoshi Hazra, one of the team members and the first author of the research paper, which has been published in Current Science.
As dragonflies spend most of their lives near fresh water bodies, the scientists said that millions of years ago a freshwater body might have existed there, which has now dried up. The other fossils of plants and fishes, which the scientists have found, also support the theory.
“The very fact that the team has found the fossil of an adult dragonfly from the sedimentary bed is very interesting. Usually the prospect of finding an immature dragonfly from the sedimentary bed is huge because dragonfly-larvae live underwater. The prospect of finding insect fossils from sedimentary beds and coal beds is huge, but unfortunately little work has been done in India in this regard,” said TK Pal, a former scientist of the Zoological Survey of India.
source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> Kolkata / by Joydeep Thakur / Hindustan Times, Kolkata / October 08th, 2020
A Calcutta physicist’s mathematical formulation served as an elegant basis for research by laureate Roger Penrose
RRR Roger Penrose in Calcutta in January 2011 / File picture
Amalkumar Raychaudhuri, a young teacher at Calcutta’s Ashutosh College in 1955, had developed a mathematical formulation that served as an elegant basis for the research by British physicist Roger Penrose a decade later that brought him the Nobel Prize on Tuesday.
The Calcutta physicist’s formulation, known as the Raychaudhuri equation, sought to quantify certain but tricky aspects of geometry with widespread use in Albert Einstein’s general theory of relativity, essentially a geometric description of distortions and bends in space and time.
Penrose teamed up with the celebrated late British physicist Stephen Hawking and used the Raychaudhuri equation for a mathematical description of black holes — objects with such intense gravitational pulls that not even light escapes them — and singularities, extreme situations where laws of nature break down.
It is for these singularity theorems that the Nobel committee awarded Penrose the prize, citing that he showed that “…at their heart, black holes hide a singularity in which all known laws of nature cease”.
Without Raychaudhuri’s formalism, and Hawking’s early work connecting it to black holes, this work of Penrose may have not happened at all.
When I was a student at Oxford in the mid-eighties, Penrose and Hawking had still been working on some aspects of these ideas. Penrose, as a mathematics professor, had also been working on various other forms of mathematics.
I once knocked on the door of Penrose, together with one of his students, to ask whether I could attend his course on Spinors, the theory of which he was then developing. He had company, but in addition to saying yes, he asked where I was from. When I mentioned I had come from Presidency College in Calcutta, he asked whether I was related to THE Raychaudhuri.
I nodded, and said that while he was no relation, he was of course the head of my undergraduate department, and that Amalkumar Raychaudhuri had indeed taught us mathematical physics in the first year, and electromagnetism in the second. On the side, he had taught us general relativity, which wasn’t in our syllabus.
The other person in the room, who introduced himself as Stephen Hawking (in his own voice still), said that I had been fortunate to have been taught by AKR himself, and that they hoped to meet him one day.
Later on, of course, as a PhD student in Cambridge, I attended several courses given by Hawking, and I continued to meet Penrose, including several times in Pune.
Lord Martin Rees, another of my gurus from Cambridge, has rightly said today: “There would be a consensus that Penrose and Hawking have done more than anyone else since Einstein to deepen our knowledge of gravity. Sadly, this Nobel award was too much delayed to allow Hawking to share the credit.”
Somak Raychaudhury is the director of the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pune
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph Online / Home> India / by Somak Raychaudhury, Pune / October 07th, 2020
The Kolkata Cloud Chasers are a group of eight members who chase storms, by photographing and documenting extreme weather conditions in eastern India.
Kolkata on a cloudy evening during the Covid-19 lockdown. Photo credit: Debarshi Duttagupta; call sign: Roadrunner, Kolkata Cloud Chasers.
When Cyclone Bulbul arrived last November, it was one of the most severe tropical cyclonic storms to have struck the state of West Bengal and Bangladesh in more than a century. Hours before the cyclone made landfall, Chirasree Chakraborty, 47, and Joyjeet Mukherjee, 49, headed down to Henry Island, approximately 130 kilometres south of Kolkata, one of the few places where the arriving storm’s impact was going to be most severe.
“We are the only people who go towards the storm when everyone else stays inside,” says Mukherjee. Both are a part of the Kolkata Cloud Chasers, a group of eight who photograph and document extreme weather conditions in eastern India — they chase storms.
According to the group, they are the only collective engaged in this kind of photography in the country.
A recreational activity still in its infancy in India, storm chasing has been practised since at least the 1950s in western countries. The American Meteorological Society defines a storm chaser as someone who “intercepts, by car, van, or truck, severe convective storms for sport or for scientific research”
A member of the Kolkata Cloud Chasers surveys the weather conditions during the arrival of Cyclone Bulbul in November 2019 with a 4×4 parked nearby. (Photo: Kolkata Cloud Chasers)
“Storm chasing is not a recognised profession in India and so we all do other jobs,” says Chakraborty. By day, she works as a publicist, but after work hours, she finds herself tracking extreme weather conditions in the West Bengal region, and a similar scenario plays out in the case of the other members of the group.
The story of Kolkata Cloud Chasers started sometime in 2005 when some of the earliest members of the group met on Orkut, the social networking site, over their shared interest in photography. By 2009, when several Android applications became easily accessible to Indian users, including weather applications like AccuWeather, it became easier to experiment with photographing a wider range of weather conditions.
“During kalboishakhi (Nor’westers) and storms, we used to give alerts on our personal Facebook page,” recalls Chakraborty. By 2014, more members with a shared interest in weather photography joined the group, and the present team was formed.
There are many who photograph sunsets or cloud formations, and weather conditions if they chance upon a storm, but tracking it is different, explains Mukherjee. What this group does is essentially visually documenting West Bengal’s weather conditions by tracing its arrival and path. “In West Bengal, there hasn’t been much documentation of weather patterns,” says Chakraborty.
Cloud formations can be very large, spread across several kilometers and are visible from long distances. (Photo: Suman Kumar Ghosh; call sign: Goodboy, Kolkata Cloud Chasers)
Chasing storms is a three-step process that starts with tracking developing weather conditions and patterns. For that, the group starts with scanning weather apps for formations, including those by India’s meteorological department. “Before 2015, we only had the Met department’s app, but since then, many new applications have come in,” says Mukherjee. In the initial years, says Chakraborty, the group also found assistance from a former Met department employee who taught them more about understanding how to read meteorological data and weather patterns.
The next step is spotting, where the group goes out into the field searching for the cloud formations or storms that they are chasing. “Clouds are huge—they can be 18 kms tall and can be seen from long distances,” says Chakraborty. The last step involves navigation, where they “intercept” the storm or clouds by taking photos, videos and, most recently, using drones for images.
While the group tries to photograph as many diverse weather conditions as they can, they try to stick to government regulations and advisories. This past May, when Cyclone Amphan arrived in West Bengal, it coincided with the coronavirus lockdown imposed by the Indian government. Unable to venture out, the group photographed the cyclonic storm from the confines of their rooftop terraces and windows instead. Similarly, last summer when Cyclonic Storm Fani made landfall in Odisha, says Mukherjee, the government had restricted travel to the cities of Bhubaneswar and Puri, that prevented the group from travelling to the neighbouring state.
A group of children play on a beach in West Bengal just as Cyclonic Storm Bulbul is about to make landfall in 2019. (Photo: Joyjeet Mukherjee; call sign: Boltanator, Kolkata Cloud Chasers)
Having known each other for as long as they have makes extreme weather photography easier, believes Chakroborty. “We have known each other since 2005 and we have a good relationship,” she says of the group members, a characteristic that is more necessary than people realise. The challenging circumstances and the unpredictable nature of the weather conditions make it necessary for the members to be able to trust and rely on each other for assistance and coordination when they are out facing storms.
(From left to right) The team of Kolkata Cloud Chasers: Debarshi Duttagupta, Abhishek Saigal, Joyjeet Mukherjee, Krishnendu Chakraborty, Chrisaree Chakraborty, Suman Kumar Ghosh, Diganta Gogoi. Team member Indranil Kar is not present in this photograph. (Photo: Kolkata Cloud Chasers)
While audiences only see as much as photographs and videos allow them to of extreme video photography, the circumstances in which the group sets out for documentation is only understood when the group explains the backstory of each photograph. “There is extreme risk involved in doing this. Our families understand and they know that we won’t take unnecessary risks. So they have faith,” laughs Chakraborty.
The members set out in their vehicles, 4x4s, known as ‘SCIFs’ or ‘Storm Cloud Intercept Four-wheelers’—a name that the group gave to the cars they use—customised with recovery straps, hi-lift jacks, additional lights, and citizens band radios, a land mobile radio system that allows person-to-person bidirectional voice communication over short distances.
Additional equipment include DSLR cameras, iPads, GPS receivers, General Mobile Radio Service (also known as Walkie Talkies) and GoPro and DJI Osmo pocket cameras for vlogging. For drone footage, the group turns to the DJI Spark, a mini drone, and the DJI Mavic Air, a portable, foldable drone, with the equipment having been funded by the group members themselves.
A bolt of lightning across flashes across the Kolkata skyline. (Photo: Abhishek Saigal; call sign: Thunderman, Kolkata Storm Chasers)
The group members all come with their own call signs, names that they go by during radio communication when they’re out on the field. While Chakraborty goes by the call sign of ‘Phoenix’, Mukherjee answers to ‘Boltonator’, a spin on the term lightning bolts.
Extreme weather conditions aren’t the only challenges that the storm chasers battle. Since much of this kind of photography occurs outside the city limits or away from densely populated areas, reassuring locals is also a part of the group’s job. “Sometimes people think we are there to seize or assess land and belong to private companies or the government,” says Mukherjee of confrontations that have on occasion, led to clashes with suspicious locals.
Despite all the tracking and planning involved, it’s not possible to accurately predict the path that a storm will take, requiring contingency planning. Chakraborty remembers an incident from last year when she travelled to North Bengal to photograph a blizzard. “It’s called a northern disturbance and I was there for three days to catch the storm.” When she went out to photograph the blizzard, she only had a small shed for cover, making it difficult to stay outside for long. “The snow was too much.”
A fishing boat lies docked during Cyclone Bulbul in West Bengal in 2019. (Photo: Chirasree Chakraborty; call sign: Phoenix, Kolkata Cloud Chasers)
For Chakraborty however, nothing has surpassed the experience of photographing Cyclone Bulbul last year in her almost 10 years of photographing extreme weather. “We got the first visual of Bulbul when we saw the outer ring. We had planned on leaving at 1 p.m. but suddenly the storm came closer. Rain and gusting increased. It was the craziest experience.”
“People don’t know what a storm actually looks like,” says Mukherjee. The nature of extreme weather photography is such that it is as much about experiencing the conditions as it is about documenting it, the members say. Sometimes, the group ends up not taking too many photos and just witnesses the natural spectacle unfolding in front of them. While following a storm requires its own planning, the group also has to devise ways to escape it.
Chirasree Chakraborty uses a DSLR to photograph Sandakphu, the highest peak in West Bengal, along the Indo-Nepal border. (Photo: Kolkata Cloud Chasers)
Chakraborty believes that storm chasing isn’t only about extreme weather photography, but it is also about understanding how to respect the might of the natural phenomenon that they are experiencing. “It is our passion and if we don’t get to do it, we will stop breathing.”
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Cities> Kolkata / by Neha Banka / Kolkata – September 30th, 2020
Kajiram Murmu, the block medical officer, belongs to a tribal community and is posted in Bengal’s most backward zone. He leads a team of four doctors and oversees the treatment of 250 patients daily.
Kajiram Murmu at a camp for villagers in Purulia;
It is 8 pm— time for most residents of Purulia’s Bandwan block, located along the West Bengal- Jharkhand border, to go to sleep after the day’s hard work.
But Kajiram Murmu, the block medical officer, isn’t through with his work. Murmu attends to sick children, women and the elderly who can’t make it to the block health centre.
He belongs to a tribal community and is posted in an area known as Bengal’s most backward zone. Murmu leads a team of four doctors and oversees the treatment of around 250 patients who turn up at the block health centre every day.
After that, he sets out to remote villages located in the dense forests of Bengal to reach out to those who cannot afford public transport fare or they simply don’t have any transport. “Malaria, tuberculosis and diarrhoea are the common diseases in this region.
“Additional precautions and long-term medication are required as part of the treatment. Other than meeting new patients, I also follow up on those who visit the health centre,” says Murmu. According to the 2011 census, Bandwan has a total population of over 94,000, of which around 89,000 live in rural pockets. 51.86% are from the scheduled tribes.
The zone has an almost equal male-female ratio. Those who are not involved in cultivation work as agricultural labourers, forming over 60% of the population, depend on forests for their livelihood.
“Malnutrition is a major issue. Malnourished tuberculosis patients show a delayed recovery and higher mortality than well-nourished patients,” says Murmu, who was posted at Bandwan over two years ago.
checking up on woman at a health centre | EXPRESS
Murmu says he has to persuade the tribals to use mosquito nets to avoid malaria. Murmu realized that prescribing medicines at the block health centre would not be enough.
“We conduct overnight camps for two days in remote villages. We teach them how to use bleaching powder during the monsoon season. Besides, we make them aware of how to use water purification tablets to avoid diarrhea.”
Thakurmani Murmu of Duarsini village, the last hamlet located in Bengal along its border with Jharkhand, says she would never forget the night when Murmu turned up at her doorstep a year ago.
“My eight-year-old granddaughter was suffering from fever and was vomiting. She had become too weak. The doctor treated her. He also taught us various dos and don’ts.”
Subhash Tudu’s 12-year old son was suffering from tuberculosis. “We took him to the hospital and doctor examined him. Before discharging him, he advised us about various precautions. The doctor-babu started visiting my house regularly to inquire about my son’s health. My son got a new life because of him,” Tudu said.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Good News / by Pranab Mondal / Express News Service / September 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
Visionary geologist PN Bose pioneered mineral exploration in India
While he could have easily made a life for himself in England, Pramathanath Bose – nationalist to the core – chose to return to India. Sources by The Telegraph
Pramathanath Bose, a scientist and geologist who lived in the 19th century, has many firsts to his name. Marked by an ardent passion for geology, he pioneered mineral exploration in India and was responsible for the Tatas setting up a steel plant in Sakchi, better known as Jamshedpur.
Born in 1855 in Gaipur village in West Bengal, Bose completed his studies from Krishnagar College with flying colours before moving to Calcutta for further studies. In 1874, he graduated from St Xavier’s College. He travelled to England on the Gilchrist Scholarship to earn an undergraduate degree in science. Bose was in fact the first Indian to get a BSc degree from a British university. He went on to get a diploma from the Royal School of Mines. While he could have easily made a life for himself in England, Bose — a nationalist to the core — chose to return to India.
In 1880, he joined the Geological Survey of India (GSI) as assistant superintendent, the first Indian to hold this post. He served with great distinction for 20 years, assiduously attempting to promote industrial expansion by developing geological resources, particularly coal and iron ore. He discovered the Dalli-Rajhara iron ore deposits in what is now Chattisgarh, which became the captive mines for Bhilai Steel Plant, set up exactly a century after Bose’s birth. Mining started in the Ranigunj coalfields in 1774 but it was under Bose that the operations became systematic and structured.
Next, he turned his attention to Sikkim, not a favourable area for mineral extraction because of inaccessibility, rugged terrain, excessive rainfall leading to frequent landslides and a thick mantle of vegetation. Studies revealed that Sikkim was rich in deposits of copper, iron, lead and zinc, with traces of cobalt, gypsum, graphite, limestone, dolemite, gold, silver and tungsten.
Bose’s tireless efforts in Burma, now Myammar, too were rewarded by the discovery of a variety of minerals. Later, geological studies carried in the royal states of Indore and Kashmir too delineated vast areas with mineral deposits.
Bose’s work in the Narmada valley helped understand the rock structure of the Deccan as well as open up new areas of study such as petrology, historical geology, mineralogy and fossils. He could determine the age of fossils by the radio-carbon method. He located the Gondwana layer in the Deccan which connects Indian history with Africa. His theoretical as well as practical knowledge and his writings in the newsletters and bulletins of GSI helped contextualise Indian geology and elevated the study of Indian geological science in the world.
Bose discovered the unique carbonatite rock and means to extract minerals from granite. Due to his perseverance, the GSI was able to extract manganese and iron ore in Durg, Chattisgarh. In spite of this, Bose was superseded by his British junior, T.J. Holland, as director of GSI in 1903. Miffed, he resigned.
After his voluntary retirement, Bose became technical adviser to the Maharaja of Mayurbhanj. This area in Odisha is rich in mineral deposits, and while surveying it, Bose discovered abundant iron deposits at Garumahishani. It had not escaped Bose’s observation that all his previous discoveries were utilised by the British. This time, he arranged for swadeshi industrialist Jamsetji Tata to sign an accord with the king, Sriram Chandra Bhanjadeo, to establish Tisco (Tata Iron and Steel Company). According to Jamsetji’s biographer, Frank Harris, Bose suggested the factory be set up at Sakchi, at the confluence of the Subarnarekha and Kharkai rivers. He also inspired Jamsetji to set up the Indian Institute of Science at Bangalore.
Bose played a pivotal role in the establishment of the Bengal Technical Institute, now called Jadavpur University, where he was the first principal. He also held regular lectures at the Dawn Society and the Indian Association for Cultivation of Science. He understood that without economic development India’s progress would remain a dream.
Bose wrote books on science in Bengali, including Prakritik Itihaas, which explored the natural history of India. He also published three volumes of the History of Hindu Civilisation During British Rule. This great scientist, who died in 1935, was also a humanist greatly interested in the heritage and culture of India.
The writer is a science historian and author of Science and Nationalism in Bengal
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / Home> Science-tech / by Chittabrata Palit / January 19th, 2020
