Kolkata Municipal Corporation to recreate Netaji's Great Escape

Call it a publicity stunt or whatever, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has decided to recreate the Great Escape engineered by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose in order to pay a fitting tribute to he freedom fighter and commemorate 75 years of his escape from his Elgin Road residence.
This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 26 January 2016.

Moreover, the authorities plan to rename Elgin Road as Mahanishkraman Path to keep alive memories of the historic event. The civic top brass will also check out the route of the great escape and locate four prominent roads for construction of the Netaji gates. These decisions were taken by chief minister Mamata Banerjee and mayor Sovan Chatterjee at a function at Netaji Bhawan last week and she wants it to be done on priority.
The civic officials have finalized the structure of the gates which will be arch-type gates that can be seen from a distance. There will also be some kind of ornamentation and each of the gates would have messages about the great patriot and about the necessity of the great escape.
The probable locations of the Netaji Gates would be on Sarat Bose Road, AJC Bose Road and APC Roy Road.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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Howrah-Delhi-Kalka mail celebrates 150-years of operation

The Howrah-Delhi-Kalka Mail train is certainly one of the most prestigious and oldest trains of the Indian Railways and it has completed 150-years of its existence. Its association dates back to the freedom struggle days when Netaji Subhas Bose, the greatest architect of Indian freedom struggle, boarded it from Gomoh, a railway junction station on the Asansol-Gaya section. It was in 1941 and Subhas Bose was in disguise and escaping from the British.
This has been reported in timesofindia.indiatimes.com dated 3 January 2016.

The train dates back to the British period and, history was created as it chugged in at Allahabad junction on Saturday to mark its tryst with destiny. Apart from Netaji, the train was featured in a short story of Indian film director Satyajit Ray. The name of the story was 'The Mystery of the Kalka Mail' and in it, the three main characters travel from Calcutta to Delhi and on to Kalka on this train.
As far as history goes - the train was originally run by East Indian Railway Company and began operation between Calcutta and Delhi in 1866 as the East Indian Railway mail. Later, in 1891, its run was extended from Delhi to Kalka. It was used by the British civil servants to move to their summer capital in Shimla from Calcutta with the entire government machinery traveling on the train at the beginning of the summer months and returning by it at the end of summer. Both Howrah and Kalka had internal carriageways that ran along the platform so that the Viceroy and other high ranking officers could drive up to their rail coaches.

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Trying to relive Kolkata – from Hatibagan to Dalhousie via Shyambazar

After my tour of Kolkata from Hatibagan to Esplanade, I decided to travel in the opposite direction – namely, from Hatibagan to Dalhousie Square via Shyambazar. Since I had spent a portion of my childhood in the Shyambazar area, this trip brought back many fond memories. Since the metro rail had not disturbed the surroundings, the locality maintained the old life charms but the cinema halls that used to once bustle with activities were relics. The footpaths were occupied by hawkers and pedestrians had to use the roads. Moreover, the once busy Cornwallis Street had been converted to a one way street to ease the flow of traffic. Since there was no possibility of widening of the road, making it one-way was the best solution.
The tram depot was still intact and trams did ply – if only the tram routes had been kept alive, it would have been a boon to the commuters but, the trams plied only in a few selected routes.
When I came to the famous five-point crossing at Shyambazar, I looked around and saw the statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose at the center of the crossing, he was on horseback.
I took a left turn to Bhupen Bose Avenue and boarded a bus that was to go to Dalhousie Square – the place where most of the offices of the government, the eastern railway and the Police Headquarters at Lalbazar were located.
It was a relatively smooth ride through Chittaranjan Avenue till the rear portion of the Medical College when the bus encountered a jam and, after waiting for a while, the bus driver decided to take a diversion that took the bus to a lane next to the gate of Lalbazar. Then it went ahead and parked in the terminus where I got down and began the long walk to Esplanade. I passed through the portals of the Great Eastern Hotel and, keeping the Governor’s House on my right, I took the turning towards K C Das – the brand famous for its Rosogollas. I did peep in but discovered that the interiors had changed completely.
Finally, I crossed over to the Metro cinema on Chowringhee Road – this cinema house was another landmark of Kolkata and it was practically in ruins. The pavement was occupied by hawkers who sold anything under the sun from foreign scents and sunglasses to foreign chocolates and wristwatches. And then there were the women who offered themselves to others to earn a living – they solicited customers openly at the bus stands through their touts.
I discovered that prosperity brings with it hordes of other associated problems that have to be accepted as a fallout of changes.

Narendra Modi, the man of many slogans

Slogans and leaders are inseparable and Prime Minister Narendra Modi is no exception. He has revealed his knack of coining slogans – he loves to coin them at the drop of a hat and ensures that his slogans reach the target audience without fail.
The speed at which he is going, he could very well get his name into the Guinness Book of World Records on this count alone.
Incidentally, the previous Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh never opened his mouth and his successor Narendra Modi does not want to close his.
Among Modi’s famous slogans till date are – make in India which he gave in the Independence Day.
When he visited Nepal in August-2014, he gave them his HIT mantra. HIT was an acronym for Highways, I-Ways and Transways. He suggested such a model for Nepal for its development while speaking to Nepalese parliamentarians in Kathmandu.
During his 5-day tour to Japan in September-2014, he gave his 3-D mantra. He explained that India was ready to offer the three essential 'Ds' for businessmen to thrive namely; Democracy, Demography and Demand.
In anticipation of the visit of China's President Xi Jinping to India during second half of Septenber-2014, , Modi coined the slogan "INCH, that is 'India-China'; towards MILES — 'millennium of exceptional synergy'. "
Some other slogans coined by Indians are: Swaraj (self-rule) is my birthright – this is the slogan coined by Bal Gangadhar Tilak. Then there was another one coined by Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose – give me blood and I will give you freedom. In free India, one famous slogan was ‘Jai jawan, jasi kisan’ – it was coined by Lal Bahadur Shastri during the 1965 war with Pakistan. Then in 1971 came ‘garibi hatao’ of Indira Gandhi.
In the international front, the ‘yes, we can’ slogan has left its mark - it was coined by Barack Obama in 2008 when he became the first black President of the USA.