Statesman (India) articles from April 2001

Statesman (India) archives from April 2001

Rehabilitation every politician's trump card.
April 30, 2001... NABAGRAM (Murshidabad), April 29. - "Only the netas work here, we don't," joked Alimuddin Sheikh with a sardonic smile. He has been growing paddy in his paltry bit of land, without reaping any profit for years now, thanks to the devastating...

Basu arrogant: Ray.
April 30, 2001... BASIRHAT (North 24-Parganas), April.29. - Mr Siddhartha Shankar Ray today made a scathing attack on Mr Jyoti Basu saying he had not answered peoples' questions because he is arrogant. "I know Jyoti for many years.When he joined the...

Trinamul complains against Basu.
April 30, 2001... KOLKATA, April 29. - The Trinamul Congress has complained to the chief election commissioner that Mr Jyoti Basu had violated the model of conduct by making "defamatory remarks" against Miss Mamata Banerjee. A copy of the letter has been...

Politicians fail to impress voters.
April 30, 2001... KRISHNAGAR (Nadia), April 29. - Nadia's villages have become classrooms. The "teachers" or politicians, whether CPI-M or Trinamul, are getting straight to the point: Press the button beside our symbol. Don't press the wrong one. But, the...

CPM gameplan: Keep villagers away.
April 30, 2001... MIDNAPORE, April 29. - They have been sharing rice, dal and mashed potato on the same thali and under the same roof for the last eight months. Suddenly they have been told not to share "ideals". Homelessness binds these BJP and Trinamul...

Weekend review.
April 30, 2001... KOLKATA, April 29. - A late reactionary trend let off by sizeable bull unloading knocked the bulk of gains made by share values during the last week. The marketmen turned extremely nervous on the news that the Securities and Exchange Board of...

Freight review.
April 30, 2001... KOLKATA, April 29. - Pursuant to the substantial increase in container handling charges in Kolkata and Haldia Docks as implemented by the Calcutta Port Trust with effect from 4 April 2001, members of the Association of Shipping Interest in...

Jute review.
April 30, 2001... KOLKATA, April 29. - The local jute goods market showed mixed trend in prices during the past week. The Prices of A Twills recorded a substantial decline at Rs 2,725 per 100 bags from previous level of Rs 2,800 in the face of abrupt demand...

Copywrite: The Private Eye.
April 30, 2001... Private investigator. Private eye. Private dick. The operative word for these operatives is private. They keep to themselves. They call their own shots, make their own plans, keep their own hours. The rules they break are the ones they make...

Notice board.
April 30, 2001... Undergrad maths course St Xavier's College, Kolkata invites applications from students who've appeared for their class XII final exams (2001) from any board, for participation in a Pre-view of the Undergraduate Course of Mathematics. The...

Designer BLUES: Expensive fashion.
April 30, 2001... Schools are mushrooming across the city, promising dream careers in the labels industry. But how far does a Kolkata stamp take you? Saurav Ray finds out Glitzy glow signs, catchy captions and promises aplenty. Ladies and gentlemen, we...

A shameless cover-up.
April 30, 2001... During the Naac team's visit, Calcutta University worked up a feverish frenzy - coaxing people to do what they are paid for and requesting them to put up with the inconvenience for "just a few days" There is a wise saying that history,...

Rays beyond Ray.
April 30, 2001... The film festivals organised by the Eisenstein Cine Club remains the only hope for people to whom cinema remains an experience, not an escape, writes Sharmistha Gooptu Rays beyond Ray! No, I don't mean any of those hi-tech rays that have...

Having fun, seriously.
April 30, 2001... On 25 and 26 April, RCC Institute of Information Technology held its annual fest, Utsav 2001, at the Science City Auditorium. Kicking off the proceedings was a seminar on Emerging Trends in IT and Communications, organised by the Computer...

Creating Web masters.
April 30, 2001... IT training centre With IT training centres popping up in every corner, it's wise to ensure that a company is certified and globally recognised before enrolling in one of its courses. Having set up its first India centre in Kolkata about...

School skein: Tanushree Chatterjee takes a look at what ails a well known fashion institute in the city.
April 30, 2001... Anima Institute of Fashion, 1 Allenby Road, third floor. It will take you some time to track down this campus unless you are led via the main office, which has a different address and contact number altogether. As I sneak into the campus...

Enemies within.
April 30, 2001... Both Ghani Khan Chowdhury and Ajit Panja are providing a perverse display of inner-party democracy by launching a sustained campaign against Mamata Banerjee just when the Congress-Trinamul alliance was posing the Left Front its biggest...

Bodo ambiguity: A spirit of give-and-take helps.
April 30, 2001... The All Bodo Students' Union and the Bodo People's Action Committee spearheading the movement for a separate state should stop confusing their followers by their inconsistent stand on the demand. Their slogan before aligning with the Asom...

100 years ago.
April 30, 2001... APRIL 30, 1901 (Letters to the Editor) INDUSTRIAL HOME AND SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND SIR, - There are many blind children in different parts of this city who wish to join "The Industrial Home and School for the Blind" as day-scholars for...

Leave them alone: Flip-flop on NGOs does Navin no credit.
April 30, 2001... It happens when state governments have a lot of explainig to do. As during the devastating floods in North Bengal when relief work was politicised, was misdirected or never reached victims at all. The real solace came from voluntary...

Higher education: Failure To Open Up New Windows.
April 30, 2001... Higher education in India has already become aimless, job-shy and defeating. With the constant erosion of values, it is veering towards passivity, disappointment and dullness. Today's higher education in India is plagued by an overemphasis on...

The search for cleaner fuels.
April 30, 2001... The search for a cleaner transport fuel appears to have started in right earnest in the country, throwing up a multitude of problems. The bursting of a fake CNG cylinder, while being filled at a petrol pump in Ghatkopar in Mumbai and the...

A pan-Indian outlook: Anita Agnihotri can write as evocatively about.
April 30, 2001... Adivasis in Orissa as she can about middle-class people in Kolkata. Shuma Raha profiles the author and civil servant who has witnessed the human drama in India's rural heartland up close Her prose is lyrical, her short stories are...

Still waiting.
April 30, 2001... Three months after the Gujarat earthquake, the good news is that life in Kutch ~ the worst affected district ~ is picking up. What's lacking, says Anil Rana, is a clearcut state government policy on the rebuilding and rehabilitation of the...

People.
April 30, 2001... Cast in a different mould It is difficult to associate Adip Dutta - thin, frail and diminutive - with the enormous sculptures he makes and puts together, arranging them in a way which covers huge spaces and creates a sense of even more....

Beauty: Shed that cellulite.
April 30, 2001... Cellulite or crepey skin is commonly discussed among women but so few of them seem to know what it is. Cellulite-affected skin gives the impression of wrinkles because it has lost its elasticity. Sometimes, cellulite is confused with stretch...

What's new: The Kolkata handbook.
April 30, 2001... Calcutta Compendium 2001 is a sleek little book which will help tourists to get clued in. Even the seasoned Kolkata resident can pick up a few useful tips about the city they think they know. Besides useful information on heritage sites,...

Health: No skin off one's nose.
April 30, 2001... A unique surgery promises permanent relief to those who suffer from nasal ailments, writes Ajanta Chakraborty Sarita Patri finally heaved a sigh of relief, and breathed easy, through her nose. A few days ago she would have had trouble...

Feedback.
April 30, 2001... With reference to the interview of novelist Ruchir Joshi (Ready for take-off, Literary, 1 April), the author has rightly suggested that Indian writers in English ought not to load their literary works with explanations and footnotes, as that...

Into the terrible dust: Joe Winter went to Gujarat and found a shocking negative of total destruction.
April 30, 2001... 'WHY are you going to Kutch?" I was asked. "What difference can you make?" "I'm going to write a poem." In the circumstances, such a statement of intent might seem on the self-indulgent side, but I knew it did not to my interlocutor, and...

'Charm works, but one should know where to draw the line'.
April 30, 2001... Samarpita Chakravorty that the ideal woman should be able to balance home and work and yet manage to exude warmth and happiness WHEN Tara John started working with her father-in-law in Meteor 13 years ago, she had nothing to lose and...

Laloo not a relieved man despite Ranjan ouster.
April 30, 2001... PATNA, April 29. - The RJD president has little relief despite dismissing Mr Ranjan Prasad Yadav and two other MPs from the party for spearheading the dissidents' campaign to replace his wife-led government. Though Mr Ranjan Yadav poses...

Gas tragedy victims slam claim courts for apathy.
April 30, 2001... BHOPAL, April 29. - The largest organisation of Bhopal gas victims, Bhopal Gas Peedit Mahila Udyog Sangathan (BGPMUS), today alleged that the functioning of claim courts, which is responsible for disbursement of compensation among gas...

Wooing voters with Buddha, Maurya king.
April 30, 2001... LUCKNOW, April 29. - It is not for love of Gautam Buddha but for the Dalit votes that the Uttar Pradesh chief minister, Mr Rajnath Singh has announced that a grand statute of Buddha would be constructed at Sarnath. His logic for the...

Week in Lok Sabha: Week of lost & retrieved sanctity.
April 30, 2001... It was a week of lost and retrieved sanctity, frayed tempers and limited transaction of business in Lok Sabha. The Railway Budget was guillotined amidst pandemonium since the Congress would just not let the House function beyond Question...

New anti-militant outfit planned.
April 30, 2001... NEW DELHI, April 29. - With the increase of the strength of the Rashtriya Rifles planned over the next five years, a new "force" or a division-strength anti-militancy outfit is likely to be formed in J&K in the near future. At present,...

RAJYA SABHA REVIEW: Brokering peace between PM & Sonia.
April 30, 2001... Thanks to the Lok Sabha Speaker, Mr GMC Balayogi, who brokered a temporary peace agreement between the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, and Mrs Sonia Gandhi, normal business was resumed in the Rajya Sabha for three days before it was...

From Japan, with love.
April 30, 2001... One of the things that bind India and Japan together is the love of the Buddha. To promote the views of the Buddha and peace and goodwill among the two countries, a Japanese delegation headed by Joen Kubota organised an exhibition of...

O Mother!
April 30, 2001... A Correspondent writes: For sometime now, the magnificent ten-headed statue of Ravana, crafted in dokra, at the Kalighat Metro Station have been replaced by a framed photograph of Goddess Kali. It's hidden by a curtain, swinging at times,...

Epic retold.
April 30, 2001... He arrives there without fail, on the dot of 11 am. Every Sunday, the tall, white-haired septuagenarian, absurdly good-looking for his age, reads out passage after passage from Mahabharat at GD Birla Sabhaghar's mini auditorium. Professor P...

For a green school.
April 30, 2001... While keeping one's school clean is mandatory, how many care for their schools after they have passed out of it? Although sometimes there are ways of ensuring that the bond endures. Last week, some students of Tollygunj Girls' High...

Calcutta Notebook.
April 30, 2001... Weddings and elections make strange companions when they coincide. The occasion which ought to bring those who wed and those that attend the ceremony pure bliss and good cheer can turn out to be a major hassle. As 10 May - the day the...

FB men face big brother's wrath.
April 30, 2001... ARAMBAG (Hooghly), April 29. - The CPI-M allies themselves are not immune to attacks by their big brother. Over 70 Forward Bloc activists and their families have, for the past eight months, taken refuge in several rescue camps, set up for...

Websites of political parties locked in time.
April 30, 2001... HYDERABAD, April 29. - Forget hopes that politicians will lead the country into the e-age. The manner in which their websites are maintained reflects the chaos and confusion they are living in, leave alone webmasters developing e-phobias. ...

Ammo depot catches fire.
April 30, 2001... CHANDIGARH, April 29. - A fire broke out in Mamoon cantonment ammunition dump on the outskirts of Pathankot around 9.15 p.m. today. People from Lamini and Mamoon villages, and several other places were evacuated after a series of blasts. ...

CYBER AGE: Free trade, free minds.
April 30, 2001... Britta, a serious student, who wears matted hair and casual looks, not an uncommon style of Generation-X, told her professors in an e-mail message that she would miss some classes because she had very important work to do: She was going to...

Complacency vs ideological commitment.
April 30, 2001... The Jharkhand government's package for the Naxalites exposed a lack of awareness of the ground realities, writes VP SHARAN Hopes of peace in Jharkhand was dashed on 14 April, when the first massacre in the nascent state took place in...

Distrust of corporate agenda.
April 30, 2001... The many opponents to a Free Trade Area of the Americas see it as a device for overriding democratic processes, a mechanism to maximise corporate profit at the cost of the environment, workers and families. Surprisingly, a large number of...

Secrets Agents And Their Lost Laptops.
April 30, 2001... The British Defence Ministry has lost 205 laptops since 1997, mostly containing classified information British intelligence officers have been involved in a new trend that includes their forgetting that they are carrying a computer,...

"The need of the hour is quality education in bioinformatics".
April 30, 2001... Here is a revolution in genetics that is going to find its way into every nook and corner of every human activity - especially the way medicine is practiced in terms of diagnostics, prognostics and therapeutics. Now that we have the sequence...

B Y T E S.
April 30, 2001... Phones That Keep The Deaf In Touch With Text More than one third of the shoppers who buy cell phones at Berlin's BlueTel store in Potsdamer Platz cannot hear. Neither can the branch's top salesman, Ahmet Arslan. They can do this by...

Cyberklick: The Bard And Technology: The Internet is playing games with Shakespeare, literally.
April 30, 2001... When I was in school, which was many, many years ago, a big bound edition of the Complete Works of William Shakespeare, set in tiny type, with half a dozen black and white pictures of thirties performances, would be our only introduction to...

The Spam Busters: A self-appointed global army is fighting the mass Internet mailings that annoy users and crash systems.
April 30, 2001... Within the last five years as one of the Internet's self-appointed police officers, David L. Ritz has suffered in several ways. His life has been threatened. Anonymous enemies have applied for dozens of credit cards in his name. His...

How Michelangelo Reappeared.
April 30, 2001... In 1993, the computer world saw the emergence of an increasing number of polymorphic engines. It made the task of virus writing easier and the task of detecting viruses harder and harder, says Sourav Saha In 1990, Mark Washburn created...

The Key To Secrets.
April 30, 2001... A team of scientists propose a method that could make quantum communication over large distances possible For quantum cryptography you need only a small bit. How to transmit that amount once you have it is another challenge THE BEST...

Mars May Turn Green: A hardy microbe from Earth might one day transform the barren ground of Mars into fertile soil.
April 30, 2001... Mars may once have been warm and wet, but today the Red Planet is a frozen wasteland. The environment is not conducive for any living creature - not even a microbe to survive for long on the surface of Mars. When humans travel there to...

Microchip Medicine.
April 30, 2001... Dr Aston says that Biosilicon could be coated to make it stable inside the body, and designed to act as a chemical thermostat Scientists have found a form of silicon that can sit inside the body, paving the way for 'smart' implants that could...

Congress will overcome problems: Ray.
April 30, 2001... KOLKATA, April 28. - Mr Siddhartha Shankar Ray today said he was hopeful that the problems the Congress has been facing in Malda and Murshidabad would be resolved at the last moment. "I've long experience in the party and have seen this...

Broken vows may cost CPM Rajarhat.
April 30, 2001... KOLKATA, April 28. - The promises made by the CPI-M before the 1996 polls and its lame excuses now for failing to implement them may cost the CPI-M candidate from Rajarhat and former chief whip of the party in the West Bengal Assembly, Mr...

Trinamul has only Sudip for poll strategy.
April 30, 2001... KOLKATA, April 28. - Who'll frame the Trinamul Congress's poll strategy? Almost all members of the party's policy-making committee are contesting the Assembly polls, leaving only Mr Sudip Bandopadhyay, MP, to formulate poll strategy in...

'LF will bring back displaced villagers'.
April 30, 2001... DURGAPUR, April 28. - If the Left Front returns to power it'll bring home victims of political violence who were chased out of their villages in eight police station areas in Midnapore, Mr Jyoti Basu said here today. "Only a few dacoits...

Red earth and polling votes.
April 30, 2001... BANKURA, April 28. - A hurriedly cobbled alliance between the Trinamul and Congress gives the Left Front an edge in this district's key constituencies, voters' woes against missed opportunities notwithstanding. Bankura: Being the...

Lukewarm finale to campaigning in N Bengal.
April 30, 2001... SILIGURI, April 28. - In sharp contrast to the campaign in South Bengal, a lackadaisical effort by the Opposition parties on this side of the Ganga has left the political landscape here somewhat frosty for an election run-up. Except, of...

CPM suffers another setback in Hirapur.
April 30, 2001... ASANSOL, April 28. - The candidature of the RJD leader, Mr Sohrab Ali, in Hirapur seat has offered another set back to the CPI-M as 24 local leaders deserted the party. They have joined the rebel front putting CPM into further embarrassment....

Sebi ban on carry forward triggers slide.
April 30, 2001... Last week's sharp 400-points-recovery was shortlived, after the the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) panel's recommendation to ban carry forward transactions in any form, even in the rolling settlements coming into effect from...

Verdict fuels controversy.
April 30, 2001... NEW DELHI, April 28. - The controversy over the decision to allow limited mobility to basic operators shows no signs of dying down. And rather than settling the issue, the GoT-IT's "recommendations" may only have fuelled it. Captains of...

'Govt not to terminate operators licence'.
April 30, 2001... NEW DELHI, April 28. - The Union communications minister, Mr Ram Vilas Paswan, has said he is not in favour of terminating licenses of private basic telecom operators which have not fulfiled their obligation of providing village public...

'Research and development incentives should be covered'.
April 30, 2001... NEW DELHI, April 28. - Contrary to the feeling of satisfaction among auto manufacturers all over the country over the revised tariff on completely built units (CBU), the recently announced import policy has created confusion regarding auto...

NK goes, others will come.
April 30, 2001... When Prime Ministers get rid of their favourite hatchet men, they do so under compelling and continuous pressures, and while performing that disagreeable task they make sure that the faithful get a plum job somewhere else. That didn't quite...

Hurriyat says no: To talks with KC Pant.
April 30, 2001... The Hurriyat has finally taken a stand on having talks with the Centre and it is both predictable and startling. It says, for instance, that the Centre should hold a plebiscite in order to determine what degree of support it has among the...

Battle for bond: 007 overpowered by screen technology.
April 30, 2001... It may not matter any longer that the new James Bond is Scottish and committed to following in the footsteps of the legendary Sean Connery who carries a "Scottish forever" tattoo on his shoulder. Scottish loyalties have nothing to do with the...

Salve for wounds.
April 30, 2001... In the context of the abomination in Bamiyan, Buddha Poornima needs to be celebrated appropriately to recall our legacy of humanity represented by the teachings of the Buddha Buddha Jayanti (7 May) will soon be with us, following close...

Decision on AIR official raises eyebrows.
April 30, 2001... NEW DELHI, April 28. - The decision to entrust a deputy director-general of the All India Radio with "the delegated powers of the director-general over the programming staff" department even though he retires in about two months and has been...

UDF minimises internal damage, but Left ahead.
April 30, 2001... THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, April 28. - With less than two week for the Kerala Assembly elections, the Congress-led UDF has minimised the damage caused through internal fissures. But, the Left maintains a comfortable lead in their campaign in most of...

Balayogi adept at handling House intricacies.
April 30, 2001... NEW DELHI, April 28. - On 17 April 1999, a momentous decision by the Lok Sabha Speaker to allow Mr Girdhar Gamang, the then Orissa chief minister, to vote in the trust motion moved by the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari Vajpayee, led to the...

Protests over pension to 'freedom fighters'.
April 30, 2001... NEW DELHI, April 28. - An innocuous decision by the Centre to award freedom fighters' pension to 82 people based in Dadra and Nagar Haveli has made Opposition leaders from the area, cry foul. They argue that no popular freedom struggle...

Gujarat govt may regularise illegal constructions.
April 30, 2001... NEW DELHI, April 28. - The message of the Republic Day earthquake that killed hundreds is being forgotten. For, the Gujarat government, despite some opposition from within the Cabinet, is readying an ordinance to regularise illegally...

Karmapa tells how he fled Tibet.
April 30, 2001... SIDBHARI, April 28. - Sixteen months after he fled across the Himalayas by foot, horseback and helicopter the 15-year-old Karmapa Lama yesterday appeared in public to explain how and why he escaped from Chinese rule. The 17th Karmapa,...

Small Supreme Courtreen: Stretching it too far.
April 30, 2001... Kyunki Saas Bhi Bahu Thi, after the revival of Mihir, seems to have reached a dead end, writes Subhash K Jha Nowadays all the television producers are being asked to rev up the action. "There must be some physical action in every episode....

Raajeshwari's a rage.
April 30, 2001... Those who thought her first album was a fluke are in for a surprise. In Mukhda Piya Ka, Raajeshwari once again proves that she is as much a gifted singer as she is an actress. She surprised all her admirers last year when she released her...

Acting like a man.
April 30, 2001... Joy Sengupta took to acting like ducks to water, writes Sebanti Sarkar He was Jaya Bachchan's son, Brothi in Govind Nihalani's film Hazaar Chaurasi Ki Ma. As Jayraj in the play Dance Like a Man, he has performed to 17 packed Broadway...

Prevention is better than cure.
April 30, 2001... Though kidney disease among children is rising, India has only around 20-paediatric nephrologists and just five speciality hospitals to deal with the problem, writes Isidore Domnick Mendis At three years, Raghav's rightful place is with...

Summer spats.
April 30, 2001... It's summer, so perhaps unsurprisingly, some parts of the advertising industry is hotting up. One pink newspaper reported the other day that two non-pink newspapers have got into a spat over an ad, commissioned by one of the latter, and...

A show of hope and life.
April 30, 2001... An amazing exhibition of photographs of terminally ill cancer patients mirrors their hopes, fears, desires and aspirations, writes Mukesh Khosla For a man who has to his name thousands of creative pictures in a career spanning almost...