As one veers into FC Block one cannot but turn to the lush green bed in the midst of a concrete jungle and one is sure this must be the home of green thumb Mita Roy
Mita Roy with her Marigolds. / Saradindu Chaudhury
Her house bears a prominent plaque with her address but frankly, one doesn’t need to look at it. As one veers into FC Block one cannot but turn to the lush green bed in the midst of a concrete jungle and one is sure this must be the home of green thumb Mita Roy. The lawn has a hedge of pink Rangans, red Salvias and humungous potted Marigolds. No wonder locals know the house as the “niche gamlawala tob bari”.
I grew up in Baguiati where our plot had tall trees, colourful flowers and even ponds. I grew up loving plants and so when we moved into Salt Lake in 2000 I knew I would have a cozy corner for them in front of the house.
In winter, I gauge the temperature not by a thermometer but by my Marigolds. If they look sad I know it isn’t cold enough. But this year, they are smiling and I couldn’t be happier! The flowers have been in bloom for 15 days already and if the temperature remains low, will remain so for another fortnight.
Every year, I send my Marigolds to the flower show and they always fetch prizes. I hope to do the same this year too.
But along with seasonals like Marigolds and Salvias, I have some potted Chillies in my front yard. They will eventually be planted in the soil behind the house but that patch doesn’t receive sunlight in winter. So I’m keeping them in the front yard to soak in the sun during their nascent stage.
The adult Chilli plants in the backyard bear so many fruits that we never need any from the market. There is also a Mankochu plant that bears vegetables round the year. I prepare tasty dishes with them, using narkol baata.
I used to do up the terrace too but with the lockdown my gardener had got irregular and I couldn’t do it alone. But whenever I can, I shall redo the terrace with Tomatos, Brinjals, Lemons and Guavas. Brinjals used to grow very well under my care and we would eat delicious Begun Bhaja out of it. The taste of one’s own vegetables is way superior to the ones we get in the market anyway.
My husband and son do not have time to toil behind the plants but appreciate them. Our friends are always admiring them too and whenever they come over, they click selfies with the Marigolds outside.
My only worry is pilferage. Not just flowers but entire pots have gone missing from the garden and it breaks my heart. It’s become such a fear now that even if I wake up in the middle of the night, I go and peep outside to check if my plants are safe.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph Online / Home> West Bengal> Calcutta / by Brinda Sarkar , Salt Lake / January 08th, 2021
A state government agency delivering essential items has outsourced its entire operation to the women of Self Help Groups in various districts.
A state government agency has been promosing everything – from locally produced vegetables and select fruits to grocery, fish and meat products – at the doorstep. Freshly-cooked meals, too, are available. / Sourced by the Telegraph
A doorstep delivery of essential items for senior citizens during the lockdown has now turned into a full-fledged delivery system for the entire city and parts of Howrah.
A state government agency has been promising everything — from locally produced vegetables and select fruits to grocery, fish and meat products — at the doorstep.
The West Bengal Comprehensive Area Development Corporation has been delivering such items and more to people in Calcutta within hours of them placing orders on WhatsApp or on the department’s website.
The corporation is an autonomous organisation under the Panchayat and Rural Development Department.
Freshly-cooked meals, too, are available. The entire operation has been outsourced to the women of Self Help Groups in various districts.
The corporation, which has been training members of Self Help Groups in agriculture, fishery and animal resource development, used to sell their produce in New Town before the pandemic struck. They sold at fairs and haats (Ahare Bangla and Saras), too.
The corporation started doorstep delivery for the elderly once the Centre announced the lockdown. A WhatsApp group was formed.
Also, the state government began an exercise to create a database of all senior citizens living on their own in Calcutta, Howrah and Salt Lake.
Orders are placed on the WhatsApp group or on the corporation’s website.
Women SHG members prepare meals at the CADC canteen for doorstep delivery. / Sourced by the Telegraph
The corporation started expanding from vegetables, essential items such as pulses, cereals, and oil, and fish and meat to cooked meals, moringa powder, Mecha sandesh (a GI product from Beliatore in Bankura), crabs, Kadaknath chicken and fresh hilsa.
Before Durga Puja, the corporation intends to introduce chicken dust, mango flake, and dried fruits.
Primarily, Self Help Groups were trained in pisciculture and rearing animal husbandry. “We are into research, output and production,” Soumyajit Das, special secretary, Panchayat and Rural Development, said.
Das personally responds to every WhatsApp order. “The initiative here is to empower women, the entire operation is run by women from Self Help Groups handpicked by us.”
Piu Bag from Birohi Mahila Samannay Samiti in the Haringhata Block has been supervising girls from her Self Help Group in the supply of vegetables to the corporation this month.
“We cultivate bottle gourds, ladies fingers, onions, cauliflowers… we have been supplying to the corporation after the lockdown. We are getting a better price here than elsewhere. My girls are helping out in the corporation canteen, too, and they get a monthly salary,” Bag said.
Salekha Khatun from Hariharpara in Murshidabad is part of Nil Akash Mahila Samannay Samiti, which supplies spices and pulses to the corporation. “We have leased out 50 bighas this time in the hope of getting more orders from the corporation.”’
The department is now trying to grow the produce locally and Self Help Groups are being trained in vertical gardening and maintaining bioflock ponds at Mrittika Bhavan, the corporation headquarters.
“We have noticed we need to produce locally to maintain quality. So, we are training them to grow here in Calcutta where they are supplying,” Das said.
All customers give their feedback on the WhatsApp group and every complaint is attended to.
Indranil Hazra from Belgachhia said: “A friend sent me the link to the WhatsApp group and I have been ordering since April. I am very impressed with the professional service as well as the range and quality of products.”
His neighbour Subhasree Banerjee, a Corona warrior, along with her husband, too, have benefitted from the service.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph Online / Home> West Bengal> Calcutta / by Anasuya Basu / Calcutta – October 11th, 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
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
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
Lives of Others: Story of an activist from a storm-ravaged place
Debashis Chaudhury / Sourced by the correspondent
As a young boy growing up in his uncle’s house in Behrampore in Murshidabad district in the sixties and seventies, Debashis Chaudhury could not help getting caught in a cross-current of ideas. His uncle Soumendra Kumar Gupta, known for his radical views, taught political science at Behrampore Krishnanath College. Naxalbari, which was not far away, had just happened. All around Chaudhury were scholars, writers and activists, dreaming of a new world. Chaudhury would never engage directly with a political movement, but he was baptised by fire.
Today, at 62, he still tries to give shape to those ideas, far from Behrampore and his childhood, in Diamond Harbour. After earning his masters degree in botany from Ballygunge science college, Chaudhury landed up at Diamond Harbour as a teacher of biology and life science at Sarisha High School. Diamond Harbour in South 24-Parganas, once an important harbour town for the Potuguese and the British, now serves as a gateway to the Sunderbans and is a local tourist destination. Here, the Rupnarayan joins the Hooghly to be met by Haldi further down and the three join to run into the sea in the Sunderbans further south.
“I came here and stayed on,” says Chaudhury, a modest man with a smiling face. The town became his mission. He is a Diamond Harbour activist. Just before the lockdown, he was working hard to build a campaign against the CAA and NRC.
Chaudhury points at the river. Cyclone Amphan has breached the embankment on the Hooghly at Matsabandar near Diamond Harbour for about 200 metres. Last year, the main tourist attraction of the town, the promenade on the riverfront that is also part of the main road, had been threatened with collapse by a state government project to build a hanging bridge there.
The project was shelved after protests from Janakalyan Samiti, Diamond Harbour, a civic, social and human rights group that was formed by Chaudhury and others in 2002, which were reported by The Telegraph. Previously Chaudhury was a member and secretary of APDR, a Calcutta-based civil and human rights group.
“But hardly any repair has been done. A disaster may still be waiting,” says Chaudhury about the battered stretch. “Though what the eye can see is very little.”
Diamond Harbour town lies ravaged with its houses roofless and without walls. In the villages the destruction is unbelievable. And Covid is raging. “For so long governments in Bengal had been told to decentralise power more effectively. A strong local government would have helped in people’s participation in health infrastructure. Who even knows about the Gram Samsad now?” asks Chaudhury.
But Diamond Harbour was never really pretty. “I came here in 1981. The town was always in a state of collapse, irrespective of who was in power,” says Chaudhury, who retired from his job in 2018.
One of the first things that he saw was the large spurt of ‘video-halls’ in the early 80s showing blue films. “There were about 20/22 such halls in the town itself and schoolboys were making a beeline for these.” These were closed down, as were some hotels that were being used for prostitution, after intervention from Chaudhury and other activists.
“I was never directly engaged with a political group,” Chaudhury stresses. “But Naxalbari had opened a door. And at that point the science movement was working in a parallel way.” Movements come together. Science, also, is a great agent of change.
In those days Chaudhury would distribute a science journal called Utsa Manush in Diamond Harbour homes.
Wherever he looked, problems had piled up. “Water in Diamond Harbour is undrinkable. It has always been so. Not many here drink the water supplied by municipality,” said Chaudhury. “Just the other day, my wife pointed out snails in the water. So everyone buys 20-litre jars of bottled water, the quality of which can also be questioned in many cases,” said Chaudhury. His wife is a schoolteacher and the couple have two sons.
Chaudhury filed a petition against authorities on the issue of unsafe and unclean drinking water at the high court in 2017, but the case has only had one hearing so far.
For Janakalyan Samitiand Chaudhury, the local bridges are another important issue.
Diamond Harbour is a town of bridges. These, joining parts of town and often entire areas over water bodies that abound in this part of Bengal, are vital to life here. Some go back to the British era. Many of them have collapsed, or are about to.
“Natunpole is the bridge that connects Diamond Harbour with Kakdwip in the Sunderbans. It has been in very bad shape for long, but recently it was ‘repaired’ with only a coat of plaster,” said Chaudhury. Same for Lalpole, a British-era bridge, a little distance from Natunpole. “It has collapsed. But still people are using it, clearing a space on the side. That is another disaster waiting to happen.”
The Mograhat Canal, over which Natunpole was built and which acts as an irrigation canal for a large area around Diamond Harbour, has not been cleaned since 1967, said Chaudhury. He has filed more than a hundred RTIs so far, individually and on behalf of organisations, but has got only about seven or eight satisfactory replies.
Not that he has been rewarded grandly for his efforts in fact the opposite has happened at times. Once he had begun to give extra lessons to students at the higher secondary level. The idea was also to hit at the root of the private tuition racket that flourished there. He was harassed and beleaguered for his effort.
“We have our limitations,” said Chaudhury. “Not all of us can give up our jobs. But one of the things I always remember is if you don’t try to change society around you, society will change you.”
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / Home> Calcutta / by Chamdrima S Bhattacharya / Calcutta – June 01st, 2020
While passing through the tunnel, a visitor is sprayed with a disinfectant solution coming out of a high-pressure air compressor.
IIT Kharagpur. (Mint file)
The Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur has set up a disinfection tunnel for sanitizing visitors to the campus during the ongoing lockdown triggered by the coronavirus outbreak, an official said on Saturday.
The tunnel has been installed at the sole entry point of the campus for essential services staff such those involved in cleaning operations and once the lockdown is lifted, it can be of use to screen visitors until the threat of COVID-19 is gone, he said.
While passing through the tunnel, a visitor is sprayed with a disinfectant solution coming out of a high-pressure air compressor.
The system to automate the process of disinfecting visitors was developed by Prof Mihir Sarangi, Associate Professor Mechanical Engineering, along with faculty and staff members from various departments.
“The output material is like mist and highly effective as it covers a larger surface area unlike liquid disinfectant.
Also, it does not need any drainage,” Sarangi said, This mechanism is, however, a supplement for hand washing or the need to wear face masks in public. Hand wash stations have been placed just outside the disinfection tunnel, he said.
The product prototype has been built indigenously at the IIT Kharagpur in less than a week while the campus is under lockdown.
The prototype is now fully operational at IIT Kharagpur and is used for all people entering the campus.
The commercial model for the product has been estimated to be available for Rs 4 Lakh.
IIT KGP Director Prof Virendra K Tewari said such technologies can be quickly built and employed at any location which has a daily influx of essential service providers.
“Our campus is like a mini township which, in the current situation, requires automation of hygiene and safety protocols for essential service providers who are coming out of their homes every day to serve at the campus and also the campus community who are interacting with these visitors,” he said.
Tewari said more such innovations to assist Indias fight against COVID-19 are underway. PTI SUS NN NN
source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> Education / by Press Trust of India, Kolkata / April 18th, 2020
The walkthrough sprinkler uses Hydrogen Peroxide and not Sodium Hypochlorite.
A commuters stands in side a disinfectant tunnel at the entrance of New Market ,spraying Hydrogen peroxide , a chemical compound during a government -imposed nation wide lock down as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 Corona virus in Kolkata on April 06, 2020.Express photo by Partha Paul
In a bid to ensure public spaces like markets are safe amid the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, there have been calls for broader sanitising measures. Now, in one of Kolkata’s busiest markets, a disinfectant sprinkler system has been placed to sanitise people entering and exiting the premises.
At one of the gates of Kolkata’s bustling, century-old, New Market, a walk-through kiosk has been installed with water-sprinklers spraying disinfectant on traders and customers. The sprinkler has been set up by Harley Sanikool, a wing of F Harley company, in collaboration with Kolkata Municipal Corporation. The firm specialises in misting and fogging of commercial plants.
Talking to IndianExpress.com, company representative Apurve Kakkar explained how their solution is different from all the other existing tunnels in the country so far and safer. “The tunnels that have been installed elsewhere are spraying a solution of Sodium Hypochlorite (NaOCl). As you know, it’s a bleaching agent which even in diluted form is unsafe for humans. For our system we are using a diluted version of Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2), it also has antiseptic properties used for treating wounds, so is completely safe to be used on human beings,” he highlighted
A commuters stands in side a disinfectant tunnel at the entrance of New Market ,spraying Hydrogen peroxide , a chemical compound during a government -imposed nation wide lock down as a preventive measure against the COVID-19 Corona virus in Kolkata on April 06, 2020.Express photo by Partha Paul
As of now, the company has installed only one gate at the market owing to the lockdown, but plans to install more gates as soon as it’s feasible and the government gives more orders for it. “The system will work on time-based and sensor-based technology as we don’t want to waste resources. Our intention is to kill germs effectively by not harming anyone or wasting water.” he added.
After the lockdown was enforced, migrant workers travelling back to their home states were sprayed with a disinfectant, and one particular incident in UP’s Bareilly sparked a huge controversy . The migrant workers were showered with water mixed with Sodium Hypochlorite , which is used on a large scale for surface purification, bleaching, odour removal and water disinfection.
Talking about the gate to The Indian Express , Debabrata Majumder, MMIC, Solid Waste Management said the kiosk has been installed on a trial basis. “We have put up just to see how it’s working. First, we need to be sure that it’s completely safe and only once we get proper certification about the chemicals used in the system, will we go ahead with the plan,” the senior KMC official said. “If the certification is proper and results are satisfactory, then we will install it in other markets around the city,” he added.
Rajib Singh, secretary of New Market Traders’ Association, called it a welcome move. “This is for the first time something like this has been done in Kolkata. There will be no fear of coronavirus if people are entering the market using that gate as the whole body will be sanitised. There are also talks to install more such gates in other markets too.”
Earlier, such tunnels have been installed in Mysuru and Mumbai, while a mobile sanitising van has been made operational for Pune Police .
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Cities> Kolkata / by Shreya Das & Joyprakash Das / Kolkata – April 07th, 2020
The paintings by Zayn al-Din were commissioned by Mary Impey, an English natural historian and patron of the arts in Bengal
Falsa Tree with King’s Nightingale was painted on a 53.5cm x 75cm canvas by Zayn al-Din in 1782 . / Picture courtesy: Stockholm Auction House
Two watercolour and pencil-on-paper artworks painted in Calcutta in the late 18th century by one of the most famous exponents of the Company School of Art will go under the hammer at the world’s oldest auction house in Sweden on June 12.
The paintings by Zayn al-Din were commissioned by Mary Impey (March 2, 1749 -February 20, 1818), an English natural historian and patron of the arts in Bengal. She was the wife of Elijah Impey, the first chief justice of the Supreme Court at Calcutta (1774-82), who had infamously sent Maharaja Nandakumar — a highly-placed officer in the nawabi administration — to the gallows on charges of perjury.
Falsa Tree with King’s Nightingale, dated 1782, and Parrot in a Parkar Tree, dated 1779, have been in the possession of a Swedish family for long.
“We are immensely proud to present these rare artworks. We are not sure how they reached Sweden. They have been in the same Swedish family for a long time and this is the first time that they reach the market,” Victoria Svederberg Bojsen, a specialist in classic and modern art at the Stockholms Auktionsverk (Stockholm Auction House), founded in 1674, told Metro over phone from Stockholm.
“The estimate price is Euro 51,000 (Rs 40 lakh) to 61,500 (Rs 48 lakh). However, we believe they will reach an even higher price. Our hope is naturally that they will now be returned to India where they originated,” she said.
Birds are the subjects of both the paintings. Falsa Tree with King’s Nightingale is a 53.5cm x 75cm canvas.
The inscriptions on both pictures read: In the Collection of Lady Impey of Calcutta. Painted by Zayn al-Din Native of Patna 1782.
“Both paintings include a description of the subject in Persian — Darakht ban falsa, Shah Bulbul in the first and Madna Tota, Darkaht Pakar in the other. The artist’s name is also written in Persian,” said Nandini Chatterjee, associate professor of history at the University of Exeter in the UK.
The painting (right), titled Parrot in a Parkar Tree, is signed and dated 1779. The inscriptions on both artworks read: “In the Collection of Lady Impey of Calcutta. Painted by Zayn al-Din Native of Patna 1782”. / Picture courtesy: Stockholm Auction House
Metro had sent the images to Chatterjee, who is part of a research on two sets of natural history drawings produced between the late 18th and early 19th centuries in Calcutta. The drawings are held at the Victoria Memorial Hall and the Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery in Exeter.
The Impeys moved to India in 1773 after Elijah Impey was made the chief justice of Bengal. They set up a menagerie at their house in Calcutta’s Middleton Row. When they shifted to Fort William two years later, they started a collection of native birds and animals on the extensive gardens of the estate.
Mary Impey commissioned several local artists to paint the fauna and flora they had collected. Her three principal artists were Sheikh Zayn al-Din, and brothers Bhawani Das and Ram Das. All three had come from Patna.
Together, Zayn al-Din and the Das brothers painted more than 300 artworks, half of them of birds. The collection, often known as the Impey Album, is an important example of Company style painting.
“With the decline of the Mughal courts, the artists sought the patronage of Europeans. These artists had to change their traditional techniques to suit their new masters. These revisions included a more accurate representation of the subject and a change in perspectives,” said Jayanta Sengupta, the curator of the Victoria Memorial.
Little is known of Zayn al-Din, the artist whose works will be auctioned in Sweden next month. He is known for his extraordinarily detailed paintings for the Impey Album. His drawings of mountain rats, hanging bats, parrots and storks serve as interesting zoological studies and are now preserved at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
“The artworks from the Impey Album rarely reach the international market and the few that have been sold previously at Christies, Sothebys and Bonhams have fetched between $80,000 (Rs 55.5 lakh) and $140 000 (Rs 97.7 lakh),” Bojsen said.
The real study of the Indian subcontinent’s natural history is said to have started with the Mughals. Baburnama — the memoirs of the first Mughal ruler — has beautiful illustrations of birds and animals. Shah Jahan also took a keen interest in the flora and fauna.
With the fall of the Mughals, the artists sought the patronage of Europeans. Calcutta became a thriving centre of the (East India) Company school of painting.
“India was an unknown land for Europeans and along with its indigenous archaeology and history, they also wanted to explore its abundant flora and fauna. Imperial documentation differs from its Mughal predecessor in scale and systematic approach,” Sengupta said.
“Mary Impey was part of a circuit of Europeans who commissioned paintings of Indian natural history. Apart from the pictorial documentation of flora and fauna, the extensive notes kept by her about their habitat and behaviour were of great use to later biologists,” he said.
The collection went to England with the Impeys in 1783 and were sold at a London auction in 1810. Several pieces are in various museums, including the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
“The style of inscription, and the handwriting is identical to other paintings all around the world. I do not believe Zayn al-Din’s name is in his own handwriting. It was probably written by a British collector, maybe Lady Impey herself. Many such British Orientalists (and perhaps some of their spouses) knew Persian,” Chatterjee said.
Some of Zayn al-Din’s works are at the Royal Albert Memorial Museum too. “But those have his name written in English and Bengali, perhaps by a collector who was interested more in the vernacular language, than Persian, which was the Mughal language of administration and courtly culture,” Chatterjee said.
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / Home> West Bengal / by Debraj Mitra in Calcutta / May 28th, 2019
