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This is what Rajdeo Goala, the CMD of Calcutta Tramways Company (CTC) has to say when a German expert analyzed the laggardly lacunae CTC is suffering from.
Mr. Goala is a seasoned politician, and though he’s a trade union leader yet CMD of a century-old once-glorious company, there is no reason to doubt his incompetence unless you feel otherwise what with its poor state of affairs staring starkly at your face.
Barring a few stretch, trams in Kolkata runs in the middle of road, and unruly that the traffic is, it is extremely difficult even for the most athletic to board one in peak hours.
Martin Schneider of the University of Applied Sciences in Erfurt, Germany, who did the study with the help of a city-based NGO pointed this out in his report. He also mentioned inconsistent schedules, poor planning, clout of workers’ unions and host of other reasons for the condition of tramways.
The trouble is all these are pretty well known and chewed over countless times, but nothing really is being done to alleviate the condition. Now that the tracks are being concretized, any thought of abandoning trams altogether is firmly shelved.
All these point to only one conclusion: the government doesn’t care a bit about trams, and so not surprisingly it doesn’t have any plan for improvement.
All the more reason why Mr. Goala’s optimistic remark amounts to nothing but a perpetual emptiness and therefore a singular lack of concern. [Collated from The Telegraph]
It’s time for yet another nostalgic account of Kolkata - this one from Martin Waelde, the outgoing director of Max Mueller Bhavan. To his credit, Martin doesn’t spin the usual run-of-the-mill ‘city of joy’ story.
Instead, he focuses on what Kolkata is actually perceived as in the eyes of a keen observer.
Martin has spent over 4 years in the city, good enough to hold views that are devoid of preconceived notions and overt emotions. He is therefore right when he says:
Calcutta is a huge, complex laboratory of social life, architecture, arts, history, economy and politics. Here the poor have more chance of surviving in the heart of the city and not get dislocated as in most other Indian cities.
Coming as he does from an affluent country, it is not easy to overcome a wretched feeling to be in a city where life always seems to be on tenterhooks.
But here there are so many shades of fight for survival that it’d be naïve to assume that Kolkata doesn’t offer a fascinating kaleidoscope to observant eyes.
Martin Waelde hasn’t lost time and opportunity to capture countless “interesting portraits” on his Nikon D200, which no doubt will relive his moments in the city for a long time to come.
It’s another matter that if and when he gets a chance to visit the city again some years hence, he’d probably find it in the same groove with the same quality of life to go with.
Perhaps it’d then occur to him that no matter how the world has changed over time, Kolkata is there in Kolkata only, a seemingly endless expanse of timeless abyss. [Collated from The Telegraph]
A Darjeeling tea garden - lush green! [Image source]
For once it’s not to sing paeans of the Queen of Hills. That it is so is beyond doubt, though the crowd makes a mess of the setting in the Darjeeling of today.
But if you brush aside your nosy feeling for a while, and especially if you care to take a ride down the Pankhabari Road instead of the usual Hill Cart Road, you’re bound to rejoice at the vast expanse of tea gardens, sharply undulating as far as eye can see.
For long, in absence of concerted move, the name Darjeeling tea has been every tea maker’s right to flout its magic, no matter if a tea is produced thousands of miles off from Darjeeling. Not surprising because for those who have tasted Darjeeling tea, the very mention of it sparks an immediate urge to partake some.
The good news is Darjeeling Tea has now been accorded a GI status in recognition of its being truly unique. What is a GI or Geographical Indication? Here is what it means (quoted from here):
Under international law, Geographical Indications mean indications which identify a product as originating in the territory of a member, or a region or a locality in that territory, where a given quality, reputation or other characteristic of the product is essentially attributable to its geographical origin.
Darjeeling tea is India’s treasured Geographical Indication and forms a very important part of India’s cultural and collective intellectual heritage.
Think cognac, a legendary drink, a class of brandy that is produced in the region surrounding Cognac, a French town. Like Darjeeling tea, Cognac brandy also carries a GI label because of its unique taste that no other brandy offers. Same is true for the other famous French brand, Champagne.
The mystery around Darjeeling tea is telling. Connoisseurs will tell you Darjeeling tea tastes different at different times. Here is an account (taken from today’s HT’s Brunch):
First flush – made just after winter – is astringent. Second flush – made from leaves plucked just before monsoon – has full-bodied ‘muscatel’ flavor. The monsoon tea is stronger, and the autumn tea is very delicate.
Be that as it may, what matters to Darjeeling tea lovers is its acquiring the just fame long overdue, and of course the sheer pleasure to take a sip out of it to the heart’s content. Darjeeling is unique, and so is the tea it produces.
How times fly! Not long back, the government, apprehensive that private radio channels may jeopardize security to the nation, wasn’t inclined to the idea. It relented after much hemming and hawing, and when the permission came, the new opportunity was immediately lapped up by Radio Mirchi.
Today private radio channels are dime a dozen. But being the early bird, Radio Mirchi has shot ahead in popularity. So much so that it proclaimed being the ‘largest newspaper’ in Kolkata, ahead of Anandabazar Patrika, the darling of Kolkattans (read my post, Radio Mirchi on the prowl). Soon thereafter, ABP Group too launched their radio channel (see post, Friends 91.9 FM).
Though Indore in 2001 is where ENIL launched its first Radio Station, RM is celebrating its completing 4 years in Delhi today. As this Televisionpoint article says:
Radio Mirchi will go live from a unique studio, built in the AIR! on 28th April, the eve of its anniversary. The studio will be built at a height of about 29 feet at Ansal Plaza and will be a first of its kind. Listeners can also re-live some of the best interviews and sparklers of the past one year on the radio station.
Happy going indeed for RM, and why not! It presently has ‘footprints’ in 12 cities, with 20 more in the pipeline. Radio has come of age, thanks to RM.
Few will disagree plagiarism is an art, which if perfected and executed well, can reward handsomely. I remember in our college days if the topic to write a dissertation on didn’t have previous years’ works to ‘help’ us, we’d immediately press for a change till the professors relented.
The trick then was to replicate whatever was already available with some tweaking here and there to put stamps of ‘originality’. Since the professors almost knew the narrations by heart, it wasn’t difficult for them to ferret out the extent of copying in the newly submitted dissertations. The ones that were more original used to score more marks.
These thoughts crowded my mind as I came upon The Statesman’s April 28 report about 3 teachers – one from CU, 2 from JU – found guilty of plagiarizing 2 theses co-guided by them. They are likely to face disciplinary actions. Some days back, a CU college teacher had to return his PhD after his thesis was found plagiarized.
Notwithstanding my college experience, developments such as above are indeed alarming. The need to really work to explore new ways of looking at things already known gets shortened by the eagerness to reach the finishing line any which way possible. In cases of higher learning, the end cannot justify any means, and it is important to drive the message among the future aspirants.
Having said that, it perhaps may not be out of place to say that plagiarism is something that is happening around us all the time, sometimes even unknown to the person doing it. I’ve been reading this piece, Cheated By The Brain by Carey Goldberg that cites the example of George H. Daniels, a historian, who in 1972 admitted having unintentionally committed plagiarism in his well-received book, Science in American Society. This is what he said:
I have certainly been aware that I had an extraordinary ability to remember material when I wanted to, but I have never before realized that I did it unconsciously.
Though George committed to his mistake, his colleagues didn’t take kindly to his ‘guilt’. He faced so much criticism that he left teaching for 7 years. Last year around this time, young novelist Kaavya Viswanathan was similarly in the dock for lifting passages from others’ books in hers. The brouhaha that resulted saw her earning bad reputation in spite of her writing skill.
Writing on Kaavya, in this editorial in The Telegraph, the argument in support of ‘genteel’ plagiarism takes the line: What would Einstein, for example, have had to go on without Newton’s apple, and where would Newton be without Galileo?
Indeed so. The point is we work on the knowledge expounded earlier to enhance and enrich it further. It can rarely be completely new concepts that have never been dealt upon in the past.
Yet, for all that matter, writing theses papers that are ditto copies is an unpardonable crime, if only because it has the cascading effect of choking any effort for new works.
Time the authorities get wise to the disease and take corrective measures to stamp it out altogether.
Publicity sans merit is a dream come true for many. People who subscribe to this virtue are usually prone to tagging on to tails of sensational happenings. The recent court case in Jaipur to punish Richard Gere for ‘obscenely’ kissing Shilpa Shetty on her cheek in an AIDS function is a prime example.
I wonder why is it the ultra right that is always on the edge to teach us, the ‘neo-literates’, as to what is good and not-so-good for us. Don’t they find anything objectionable in the bare-all pelvic dances in the Hindi films? Or for that matter, the violent fights shown in the same films?
Of course it is not the rightists who suffer from the lure of becoming moral guardians. We’ve seen how the present I&B minister messed up the release of The Da Vinci Code, mistaking his position with an assumed responsibility to protect the feelings of a few Christians.
Such is the zeal of such self-appointed messiahs, rising to the occasion at the drop of a hat to protect the masses from the ill effects of certain public display that the whole thing often becomes highly ridiculous.
In democracy, everything passes – the incidents, the protests, and the dying down of issues. It’s all part of the game and certainly okay as long as the nation’s resources are not put to strains.
The Gere-related case in the Jaipur court is an utter wastage of nation’s resources, if only because to the best of my understanding, no amount of the court’s time would ever be successful to handcuff Gere.
Liberty and freedom of expression are as dear to us, the Indians as to Richard Gere, an American. Unless the Jaipur judges can conclusively prove that Gere’s action has broken Indian laws and later withstand the scrutiny of Supreme Court if need arises, which are seemingly impossible, the court case will turn out to be just that, a flash in the pan.
Meanwhile, far away from Jaipur, an unconcerned person like me will have to be content with such irritations on the TV and newspapers till the embers die down (sigh!).
The more you try to unshackle, the more you tie up in knots. This best describes Presidency College’s plan to become autonomous. One may wonder why it so happens. Why is it that the urgency of autonomy is so badly entangled that nobody knows for sure when it would happen?
Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that the web of self-serving and often conflicting interests is so thick that any heavyweight plan can at best sag it to the maximum, not tear it off.
I admit not having any detail design of the ‘web’ I mention above, but if one looks carefully at the newspaper reports and listens to the talks on the road, it becomes amply clear that Presidency’s autonomy plan is simply ricocheting off the ‘walls’ erected by groups who fear loss of ‘control’ once autonomy is in place. These groups are thus jockeying for positions that will see minimum damage to their control.
If Presidency presents one facet of state government’s dithering, the other is that about BE College at Sibpur. Going by today’s report in ABP, the state government loathes to accept center’s candy of whopping Rs.519 crore for BE College (now BESU, or Bengal Engineering & Science University) because it feels the candy rather tastes sour.
Why? First, according to center’s proposal, BESU will henceforth be known as Indian Institute of Engineering, Science and Technology. Second, if the center ‘acquires’ BESU, it will no longer be possible to reserve 75% of seats for students from the state keeping the rest for ‘outsiders’. There perhaps are other reasons.
The state government’s thinking is that so far BESU has largely been funded from its coffers. So, it ought to have a say in its future too. The catch is state government doesn’t have enough funds to take BESU to world standard like IITs, which the center has and is ready to offer.
In the last book fair at Salt Lake Stadium, BESU students took out processions everyday to press for center’s promise of largesse to improve the standards of the institute, one of the oldest destinations in our country to study engineering. One feels there was little knowing then that the main thorn on the way to realize the dream is the state government itself.
Partha Chattopadhyay, the general secretary of BESU’s teachers’ council strongly feels the state government must agree to center’s proposal. To have a world-standard engineering institute is itself a matter of great pride, even if that means letting go some control over it.
After all, the process of industrialization will get a major fillip in the state since there is scope of knowledge-based research in such institutes like BESU. This aspect alone is worth invaluable for industries eager setting up bases in the state.
Blessed is Bengal for it has excellent institutes of learning centered in Kolkata. In rough reckoning, no other city in the country can boast of such an incomparable congregation. This is the city that seen scores of scholars and scientists in the past who have ‘conquered’ the world.
Though there are still gaps in higher studies of some disciplines (which can be easily filled up), there is no denying that Kolkata is home to creation of superlative knowledge.
For a long time the brains left the state in search of better alternatives elsewhere. Other than deteriorating 'climate' in the field of higher education, absence of industries also contributed to the flight of talent.
Of late the tide is gradually turning in the state’s favor. Time the state government pulls up its socks and ensures that no amount of dithering must obfuscate the revival of high standard of quality education in the state. It’s perhaps now or never.
The divide in the left rank is now wide open. After the big brother, CPM, has been rapped hard over the knuckles by the uproar following Nandigram fiasco, the smaller partners have come out of the woodwork to make the best of the situation. A recent example is that of Forward Bloc’s apparent refusal of entry to Reliance Retail.
The reason given is the usual concern for the huge number of small retailers who may be affected by Reliance’s entry. It’s not that Reliance is the only ‘culprit’. Other big retailers like RPG Group and Pantaloons are also believed to be planning forays into farm products, not to mention the expected coming of Bharti group in association with Wal-Mart.
Organized retailing has many plus points, and in fact this is going to be the model allover India in coming days. True, small retailers will bear the brunt in the short term, but the supply and delivery chain of organized retailing are so large that they can accommodate many small players. Further, retail sector will unleash big number of jobs not only for top-level managers, but also at grassroots level.
Forward Bloc’s objection is like swimming against the tide, if only for the reason that big retailers like Reliance have already started their ventures in many Indian cities. This reminds one the vehement objection in the 70s by CPM for computerization in nationalized banks, which resulted into undue delay in implementation of the same in Bengal.
Today it is for everyone to see how computerization has brought about sea change in the quality of service by the banks, and has also improved their financial strength.
Divide in the left notwithstanding, or perhaps making use of it, Reliance hasn’t deterred its plans, simply because it cannot afford to. The logic of market economy is so strong that no business interested in retailing can just sit quiet till the differences among left partners are resolved.
Reliance’s intention is very clear when it acquired the rights to make over KMC’s Park Circus market in a tender yesterday by quoting a price of Rs.30.33 crore which is higher by nearly 50% made by the next bidder. It is pressing KMC hard to float one common tender for all city-based KMC markets instead of calling tenders on piecemeal basis.
If KMC agrees to Reliance’s proposal, it will be a big investment in one go, which is not every bidder’s cup of tea.
Whether that happens or not, one thing is quite clear. Mammoth investment in retail sector is surely going to happen, if not today then tomorrow.
Kolkata in any case has a long history of popular bazaars, and many a locale are known by the bazaars that are there for a long time, like Burrabazaar, Shyambazaar, Boubazaar, Jagubabur Bazaar, and so on. Now is the time to cash in on that lineage.
Upon the widely expected dismissal from cricket carnival at the Caribbean and subsequent crushing of bloated images of cricketers as national heroes, one would have expected some genuine cleanup in the way the game is played and promoted in our country.
Instead, the great Maratha, the BCCI president and the team of cahoots that he leads decided to brush everything under carpet. Not that Mr. Pawar is not expert doing that, and indeed much more. He sure is, but unfortunately his track record is a testimony of failed experiments. He is best known as the quintessential opportunity seeker who rarely succeeds beyond his home domain.
Seeing them on TV emerging from the ‘stock-taking’ meeting, it is difficult to imagine that the bunch of selectors would be all smiles so soon after the worst debacle Indian cricket has suffered. It is equally improbable that no heads would be scalped except the soft dismissal of Greg Chappel.
It’s not my case of opening cards to say that Rahul Dravid should have been asked to step down owning partial responsibility of not having it in him to lead the national side. One hears he frequently served errands between his coach and fellow teammates when Greg wasn’t willing to talk to them.
If true, one feels sorry for him, because despite his stature as a sound batsman, it’ll be beyond his ability to deliver, leading a team from the front.
As for us, touted as a cricket-loving nation, the less said the better. The carnival (it hurts my ‘ego’ to term it world cup, because a world cup can be one and only one, the FIFA World Cup) hasn’t yet ended, but there is just no ‘fever’ anymore. Instead, we’re looking at the nondescript forthcoming Bangladesh visit to ‘avenge’ the carnival defeat.
Meanwhile, here is that infamous video that shows the Australians shoving Mr. Pawar in the ICC cup.
Considering erstwhile Kolkattans are fairly distributed in every nook of this country, when I study the log-files of this blog, it amazes me to see that apart from this city, the most number of visitors come from Bangalore and Hyderabad.
Occasionally, there’ll be ones or twos from Mumbai and Delhi (the latter rather preferred to be called as NCR or National Capital Region of late), and almost negligible from Chennai.
Now, don’t get me wrong. My blog is not a great phenomenon that must merit frequent visits, or any visit for that matter. I only feel that net-users in the 2 biggest cities rather ‘mean it’ when it comes to spending time on the net for one or other benefit.
In other words, visiting blogs for sheer curiosity is not a preference for them. To a varied extent, this is true for other Indian cities as well. But then the truth is on an aggregate, Indians lag far behind in Internet usage (see my story, India loves Orkut).
This brings me to the recent launch of Burrp!’s Kolkata ‘chapter’. Prior to Kol’, it has burped in Mumbai and Bangalore. Well, burrp! is a kind of social media site that intends to grow on the back of popularity among users. Imagine burrp! as a kind of Yellow Pages that lists places and businesses of interest. Only that it is much, much more than that.
It presents an interactive platform where registered users can freely express their opinion. Didn’t like the ambience in a restaurant, express it here. Liked the service at the newly opened salon, say it here. Burp out anything and everything that you feel will serve larger interest of the community.
Over time, burrp! may well be the first reference point to find out about a business and what others feel about it. It’ll unleash the power of community that will drive the ‘fate’ of many a business.
I feel burrp! is a little ahead of time, because after all as I’ve touched upon above, to squeeze the juice out of it, you need a net-savvy populace. But then perhaps this is the right time.
Because as the Indian net scenario gets slowly crowded with user-driven social media sites (which would surely happen, no doubt there), it would become increasingly costly to launch one and start making money from it.
I wish burrp! the very best. Soft launch notwithstanding, if they can stick around for a while, they’ll surely see a grand future. Who knows burrp!, once it achieves a critical mass, may turn out as another ‘Bazee’ to be lapped up by another ‘ebay’!
The volume of home improvement business that can generate in New Town when it is in full flow can be gauged from the fact that Kishore Biyani owned Future Group is going to headquarter here its less-than-a-year-old Home Solutions Retail.
Home Solutions will come in 4 formats - Collection-i, eZone, Home Town and Furniture Bazaar. Of these, each Home Town store will be spread over 1.2 lakh sq ft against investment of Rs.20 crore.
eZone comes next with Rs.5 crore investment, and each Collection-i store will see Rs.3 crore investment. In all, Home Solutions Retail's short-term expansion will involve rolling out of 3 Home Town outlets, 15 eZone and 6 Collection-i stores over coming 3 months.
As I've indicated in my earlier posts, jockeying to corner retail space has begun in right earnest after Wal-Mart's entry became near certain. Every big business house in India is on rapid expansion mode to spread their retail tentacles to far and wide of the country.
In the face of competition, 2 things will surely happen. One, consumers will be flooded with many options to choose from. Two, since retail business is manpower dependent, great many jobs will be created, which is something that didn't look plausible even a couple of years back.
In a somewhat landmark judgment 2 days back, the Calcutta High Court has ruled that the railways must stop beggars and unlicensed hawkers from plying their trade in platforms and trains. This was in response to public interest litigation (PIL) by a daily train passenger who felt harassed by the fact that hawkers have rendered it nearly impossible to travel by local trains.
The judgment is seen as too harsh since over a lakh people earn their livelihood by hawking their wares at railway premises. A large number of them enjoy political patronage and in exchange for assured protection they give a part of their daily earning to political parties.
Therefore, by this judgment, the HC has put both the hawkers and their political patrons in trouble. Expectedly, both are furious at the turn of events. Acting against their ire is well nigh impossible for the railways though it remains to be seen how the latter takes steps to give effect to HC ruling.
Big cities like Kolkata attract people from hinterland and adjacent states to eke out living and hawking is a good option for them. Since they nearly never pay for traveling in trains, thus whatever little money they go back with earning each day is just about sufficient to meet the needs of their families.
In this article the author quotes a study according to which the total turnovers of street hawkers in Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata respectively are Rs.12,000 crore, Rs.10,000 crore and Rs.8772 crore.
Though the Kolkata figure inspires awe, it will not be unwise to conclude that bulk of this money are earned by those street hawkers who are fortunate to locate their trade in prime locations such as Burrabazar, Gariahat, Hatibagan, etc.
In fact there are quite a few stories of street hawkers making it so big that they are able to afford luxuries that are beyond reach of many middle-class people.
Compared to Kolkata’s effluent street hawkers, mobile train hawkers are a poorer lot and their average per-person earning is at best meager. When I traveled frequently in Sealdah section couple of years back, I’d the opportunity to know their tribe quite closely. And I know how difficult it is for most of them to make both ends meet.
Yet the fact is hawkers do make conditions difficult to use platforms and travel in local trains. But unless the hinterland economy improves so that people do not feel the need to undergo immense hardship to come to the city hawking, this problem is not going to go. The moot point is how to improve overall economy and create sufficient jobs at all levels.
That doesn’t mean the HC’s ruling is wrong, as many politicians would have us believe. In the eyes of judiciary, every person in India has equal rights as spelled out in the Constitution. Therefore the ruling to mitigate the harassment caused to a train passenger is perfectly in order.
Only, we are once again reminded that for everyone’s rights to have equal value, the country and indeed the state of West Bengal have to prosper economically. Any doubt there?
Meanwhile, here is a nice account of a train passenger’s encounter with a fruit vendor in Chennai-Mumbai Mail.
Think of an island which is fertile and grows all the food that the people residing there need. It produces fairly good amount of surplus but since it is cut off from and has no communication with mainland, it cannot send surplus food there and has to waste them.
While food grows aplenty, the islanders direly need to improve their lifestyle, for which they need brainy people and other products from elsewhere. Once again, it cannot avail any of these since it doesn’t have any connection whatsoever with mainland.
The island’s rulers are smug that they produce enough food for themselves and so they thought why else would they need any outside help!
Then comes the disaster. One year it rains so heavily that nearly the whole island is flooded. Water washes away whatever food grains are stored in granaries. People die dime a dozen with no food and no means to protect them from severe floods. Above all they die because they have nowhere else to flee to.
If not exactly similar, Kolkata, indeed most of the state, has been like the island for a long, long time. Leaving the metro, the 2nd Hooghly Bridge and EM Bypass, there has been no addition in the past many decades in terms of ease in commuting to the city, teeming with millions.
For some time now, there are talks to improve commuting infrastructure in the city and nearby suburbs. Plans bandied about are grandiose in scale, but little action is seen on the ground.
With that as a backdrop, today may see a new beginning. If a committee headed by PM clears the proposal, Kolkata’s beleaguered airport at Dum Dum will see a massive makeover in 3 years time.
The plan includes building a 50-ft tall swanky steel-n-glass structure designed by France’s Aeroport de Paris that will have 48 parking bays (as against 28 now) and about 8 aerobridges that can function simultaneously.
2 terminals are slated to come up with a combined capacity to handle 20 million passengers a year. The domestic terminal will cater to 15 million of them (up from 4 million now), and the international building 5 million (up from a meager 8.2 lakhs now).
Going by present trend, the refurbished airport will be good to meet growing air traffic till 2016. After that another larger airport will be required to handle estimated traffic of 80 million passengers by 2025. [Collated from TT, Apr 18]
Giving proposed new airport an able company is a logistics hub coming up in Howrah at the junction of 3 national highways, NH-2, NH-6 and NH-117. It’s being built by Bengal Unitech Universal with project consultation by Singapore’s Jurong Consultants.
The 108-acre project on 2 adjacent sites is being touted as the most modern, integrated logistics hub in India.
It’ll have 20 two-storey warehouses, 6 G+9 office towers, parking space for at least 750 large vehicles like trucks, trailers, etc., and other amenities like auto spares shops, other retail shops, banks, post office, eateries, health center, dormitories for truck drivers, and so on.
Clearly, like the new airport, the logistics hub will ensue speedy collection and disbursal of products from and to all over the country. Seen with the planned deep seaport off Sagar Islands, the logistics hub may emerge as an important center of activity in future.
Bare-arm driver holed up in an antique piece, called bus [Picture source]
Kolkata’s public bus drivers are totally different species that have very few parallels. They are human like any of us when they are not driving. They become inhuman when they sit behind the steering wheel, and while being there, their concern for fellow human lives altogether vanishes.
Road accidents occur fairly frequently, most of which are because of rash driving by the drivers of mini-buses and boxlike blue ‘private’ buses. They rule the road, run at breakneck speed when it suits them, stopping anywhere and everywhere, and in doing so treat cars and pedestrians with utter disdain, as if they ought not exist on the face of earth.
Even the state buses run the same way, even worse in many cases. One wonders how these men would be like at home with their loved ones. I recall a poignant incident some months back I heard from an acquaintance (let’s call him X).
One morning, out on brisk walk, X was passing by a motley gathering of parents with their wards at a swimming session for kids. Among them, a father attending tenderly to his son, looked vaguely familiar to X. They exchanged glances and X moved on.
It later occurred to X that he was the same man who some days back, driving a private bus had hit a cyclist while trying to overtake another bus from the left near Park Circus where X had gone for some work. It was an outright negligent driving, and the man fled the scene after the incident.
X was very close to where this happened, and upon seeing him that morning with his son, it dawned on him that even a demon-like bus driver has a life other than mowing down people mercilessly.
Next morning, X met them again. He walked up to the man and asked if he could recall the accident at Park Circus that X happened to see. The man, ashen faced, almost contracted into a shell, guilt written all over his face. His son, a small child, looked nonplussed, knowing not what made his father so sick, staring in turn at X and his father.
X left them there, never to see them again.
But perhaps all is not lost. Hope is still there, even if it's just a flicker. Amid life-threatening bus driving, rare are instances when bus drivers, human as they are, do indeed care for fellow human beings.
2 such caring CSTC drivers, Bikash Roy and Mrinal Kanti Dutta, were recently felicitated by CSTC as this story tells us.
May the tribes of Bikash and Mrinal blossom and flourish.
Yesterday's carnage at Virginia Tech University in US has shaken the entire world. It's the deadliest campus shooting in the country's history that has left at least 32 people dead.
Ranked 17th for an engineering school by US News and World Report, that produces well-regarded annual ratings of American universities, Virginia Tech is a favorite among Indian students.
There is in fact an Indian Students' Association in Virginia, and its president, Ajit Pal Singh Raina is said to have confirmed that till last evening there was no report of any Indian casualty (ref: TT, Apr 17).
Here is a video of the tragic incident taken by Jamal Al Barghouti, a Virginia Tech student on his cell phone camera.
Let’s have a fascinating account of 2 football bosses. Both are presidents of football bodies, one from 1988, the other from 1998. Both are well-known public faces in their own rights. But perhaps the similarities end here, because there are just too many dissimilarities between the two of them. [Picture source: left; right]
PR Das Munshi, the AIFF President since 1988, is a part-time honcho of this Indian sports body. He is a fulltime minister in union cabinet. He presides over government’s affairs in parliament, especially when the house is in session. He also bears on his shoulders the responsibility of heavyweight information and broadcasting ministry that includes such messing around as seen when The Da Vinci Code was released.
He also is a part-time protester of ‘sinister’ industrialization drive in Bengal, having to rush in time and again to feel ‘brotherliness’ with oppressed land-loosing farmers, never mind his Prime Minister feeling otherwise.
With such heavy responsibilities on his only one pair of shoulders, it is a great wonder that football still receives his somewhat fragmented attention, and indeed it shows.
For a billion-strong country, India occupies a ‘respectable’ bottom in FIFA’s ranking. Mind you, Das Munshi is AIFF president for nearly 2 decades. One look at the facts here, and his ‘contribution’ to the cause of Indian football becomes crystal clear.
No wonder, this is what Mohamed bin Hammam, the Asian Football Confederation head, accompanying FIFA president, has to say:
With the existing structure, don’t think of progress even in the next 100 years.
If such words touch us on the raw, I’m sure the thick-skinned AIFF president would feel none of it. And so, we, the football lovers who so dearly want to see our national team in the highest echelons of competitive football, will continue to nurse our grief and hope, unseen by and unknown to the busy, illustrious and post-clamoring Das Munshi.
Sepp Blatter, on the other hand stepped into the shoes of famed Joao Havelange in 1998, and under him FIFA has continued to spread wings far and wide. He looks after FIFA’s works fulltime, and has been re-elected to the post in 2002. According to reports, he is set to retain his post when elections are held late next month.
FIFA is said to be extending special offers to AIFF, and Blatter will also meet PM, President and Indian corporate honchos. There is no denying there are solid reasons behind his efforts.
In the end though, nothing would succeed unless football is taken out of the clutches of self-serving individuals, including according to me Mr. Das Munshi as well.
Suddenly, the stock market looks good. A small wave of good news has brought cheers to lackluster trading last week. For example, Infosys’ Q4 results have taken the market by pleasant surprise. The quarter’s net income for Infy rose by about 70% over last year’s Q4 figure. The FY06 net too recorded robust growth.
The other good news is the drop in inflation rate to respectable 5.74%, bringing psychological relief. This is the first time in current year that inflation has dropped below 6% mark. What is noticeable is that previous week’s inflation rate was 6.39%, which means the drop is as much as 0.65% in a week’s time.
In these euphoric moments, one development hasn’t captured much attention. It’s India’s forex reserves crossing the magic $200 billion mark for the first time ever. Ending April 6, the reserves stood at $200.32 billion, of which $46 billion came last year alone, making India the 5th Asian country after Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and China topping the $200 billion mark.
Foreign Direct Investments too haven’t lagged behind. FY06 has seen $15 billion FDI. The target for FY07 is kept at $25 billion.
All in all, it’s a far cry from the economic situation even 5 years back. Talking to people, one gets the impression that those who have money or have made money in these boom years have begun to realize that India’s poor needs all sorts of help to enable them become a part of and participate in the nation’s economic progress.
Otherwise, the booming economy cannot sustain for long. Which is perhaps why an emotive issue like education quota or welfare measures like Rural Welfare Guarantee Schemes haven’t met with much stir among public at large.
All these are good news indeed. Here in Bengal, despite the Nandigram fiasco, foreign investors haven’t stopped coming to explore business possibilities. It remains to be seen how the governments, both in Bengal and in center, can make hay while the sun shines.
If any alphanumeric combination can ever be blamed for pathetic civic conditions, it must be L1. It stands as the short form of ‘lowest bidder’. Why does it cast so dark a spell? Here is an account.
For all government tenders (and indeed those from PSUs), the magic to get selected for coveted works is to emerge as lowest bidder. Of course there are other considerations like experience in work, ability to execute large orders, and so on. But everything pales on the face of lowest quote.
This means a company which has just about needed qualification compared to vast experience of other bidders can easily qualify on the strength of lowest quote. This is not what we normally do in our daily life.
For example, we’ll not buy stale fish just because the price is low. But once a person sits in the chair in government offices to decide on awarding contracts, he turns to none else but the L1 bidder.
The effect for this L1 obsession is for everyone to see. Kolkata roads for example present a mess putting everyone into untold inconvenience, including the person who awards the contract. The same is true for other civic amenities as well.
I’ve just been looking at the newspaper report (TT, Apr 11) on a conclave of the Council of Architecture that took place in the city yesterday. There are many opinions as to what the reasons are for rendering the city’s housing projects into faceless, look-alike boxes.
Partha Ranjan Das, the urban designer cum architect, puts it succinctly:
They will call a tender and go for L1 or the lowest, or in the case of Dankuni, go for the highest financial bidder (DLF) and accept whatever they have to offer by way of design solution.
Clearly, the malaise is deep. Quality as a concept is firmly on the backseat. What matters more is something to show, instead of some ‘quality’ to show.
No way out? Fortunately, yes. The government needs to decide the tenders in 2 steps. First come the technical bids with no indication of price. Only those bids that qualify in the screening get to submit the financial bids. At this stage, the L1 bidder can be chosen, or a higher but eminently qualified bidder can be asked to match prices of L1 bidder.
Don’t the people who man the concerned positions know of this? Sure they do (in fact in case of high-cost projects this is the step followed), but seldom choose so for the fear of prolonged tender process.
What is conveniently forgotten is that though it takes time, 2-stage tendering will not only provide value to work done but also curtail corruption to a large extent. If not, the curse of L1 will not leave us in peace any time sooner.
It’s an amazing story of 8000 km journey to breed, covering the distance in nearly 6 months. In a research by Cascadia Research Collective in Olympia, Washington, scientists have found that humpback whales travel that much or perhaps more to give birth to their offspring. This is fantastic because no other mammal is known to travel this big a distance at one go.
Whales are known to travel long distances. For example, grey whales routinely make impressive voyage from Mexican waters all the way to Arctic, and blue whales, the largest animal on earth, too journey from feeding grounds of Arctic to US eastern coast.
But humpback whales beat them all. Between feeding and breeding, when they travel the distance, they just don’t eat anything. All their energy is conserved for their yet-to-born calves as they search for sufficiently warm waters to breed.
Scientist Kristin Rasmussen, who led the team of researchers to make the stunning discovery, says that like human fingerprint, the humpback whales have unique marks on their tails. Her team photographed a group off Antarctica before their journey commenced.
161 days later, aided by ultramodern tools and remote sensing, the same group could be noticed off Costa Rica in Central America. The distance covered: 8426 km. Kristin believes if the water was not sufficiently warm, the humpback whales would have moved further south.
Humpback whales have always been an enigma for science watchers. The way the males sing through the nose, tunes changing from occasion to occasion, place to place and need to need, is something yet to be deciphered fully. The new discovery will be another addition to their uniqueness, another reason to stoke man’s quest to know more about them. [Collated from ABP, Apr 5]
Haven’t read the book, wasn’t much enthused when Jhumpa Lahiri’s marriage took place in Kolkata, or even at her son’s mukhebhaat (if I’m not wrong) a few months back, but when the film came, I felt an urge to see it, if only because not many worthies come these days.
I was surprised to see fairly good crowd (it was a Sunday though) at Fame where the show was on, something that wasn’t there in the second week of Casino Royale, the James Bond blockbuster starring the superbly athletic Daniel Craig.
Was the crowd because of some explicit love scenes that I guess drew my teenage son and his friend to see The Namesake in the first week? Even if it was true, I believe it has done him good because to my understanding the film is an excellent portrayal of what I suppose the dilemma every immigrant faces – searching for roots.
The film of course deals at length over the name(s) of Gogol, the central character. Here is an identity crisis that becomes more pronounced after the family’s visit to Kolkata that awakened the kids' senses to a strange world.
Is the crisis over name, or is it over the conflict of two sharply different cultures that can never meet?
Mira Nair has adroitly presented the story, and I don’t remember having seen anything before of the class with which her film has dealt on such a complex issue. The message from the film is subtle, yet so powerful that some poignant scenes kept revolving in my head for days together.
I haven’t seen any of Mira Nair’s film before, and I am not a film buff with skills to dissect the film’s nuances. But I’m sure The Namesake is relevant not only for a certain Bengali family seeking solace in its traditions but for immigrants anywhere.
Alas, as the roots get feebler over time, the urge to cling on tends to get stronger, till at last the identity finds a new meaning to live on. Thanks Jhumpa and Mira for presenting such a wonderful film.
There is an unseen tussle between the south and the north of the city. North feels south is unduly pampered. And there are a reason or 2 behind that. The metro started in the south before rolling out in the north. Malls, flyovers, stadium, even East Bengal are all in south, not to speak of sprawling housing projects like South City and showpieces like Science City.
Now at last, things are changing in the north, albeit slowly. Once the second Vivekananda Bridge over Hooghly the 2 national highways with the city and further proceeds via proposed Dunlop flyover on way to Belghoria Expressway and beyond, the north will see a mammoth growth in traffic.
Keeping the tempo will be equally ‘powerful’ onslaught of traffic from Kolkata West International City (KWIC) coming up across the river. The scent of this soon-to-happen development is getting stronger by the day, which is why there is a flurry of realty activities along BT Road.
From Shyambazar to Sodpur, many super malls and super housing projects are coming up (see my post, Kolkata of 2007). The wave of makeover is spreading further to the center of the city, the proof of which is the proposed awe-inspiring housing project, Ideal Heights, planned in where else but Sealdah.
Notwithstanding the chaotic environ around, Ideal Heights, located at 302 APC Road where Cossimbazar Rajbati is, promises to become the ‘destination’ within 3 years. 4 towers will make up Ideal Heights, a 24-storey, 2 23-storey and a 19-storey. Designing by Hafeez Contractor and landscaping by a Singapore-based architect complete the story.
Lifestyle will have different meaning there, what with health spa, swimming pools, palm grove, cascading water-bodies and a high-life club keeping company. The whole area is a huge 2.19 lakh sq ft in which 800,000 sq ft will make up residential space numbering over 500 flats.
If all these pump up your adrenalin, the ‘good’ news is that apartments still cost just about Rs.2650 a sq ft now that will be surely hiked as the project progresses. For the less moneyed, perhaps this is the time to get a dream flat before the cost escalates.
This summer, mangoes may well be out of reach of most people. The king of fruits, the delicious Himsagar, Langda, Fajli and Golapkhash from Bengal are set to travel all the way to US. The 32nd annual conference of US-India Business Council (USIBC), slated to take place on 27 June, will have Festival of Indian Mango as an anchor program.
Malda’s mango-growers are clearly upbeat at the new possibility. Earlier, the state’s mangoes have traveled to UK, Germany, Middle East, Singapore and Malaysia. Last year, about 2.5 metric ton of mango has been sent to UK and Germany.
Like Darjeeling Tea, mangoes like Himsagar and Langda from the state are likened all over the world. No wonder therefore that when Ron Somers, as the head of US business delegation, came calling to Kolkata some time back (see my post, Bengal on US map), he told CM Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee to ensure sending Bengal mangoes to the June meet at Washington DC.
The state government is going to put up a strong show at the above meet, christened ‘Global India’. Its delegation will be led by Nirupam Sen, the minister of industries.
Among US luminaries expected to attend are Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of Commerce, Carlos Gutierrez, CEO of Boeing Company, Jim McNerney, AIG VC and erstwhile Ambassador to India, Frank Wisner, and India’s Commerce Minister, Kamal Nath.
There are expectations that quite a few super-large US businesses, like Dow Chemicals and Boeing will have talks with Nirupam Sen to explore setting up facilities in the state. A keenly watching event, no doubt. [Collated from news item, ABP, Apr 6]
The divide in the left rank is now wide open. After the big brother, CPM, has been rapped hard over the knuckles by the uproar following Nandigram fiasco, the smaller partners have come out of the woodwork to make the best of the situation. A recent example is that of Forward Bloc’s apparent refusal of entry to Reliance Retail.
