My KOLKATA BLOG

14 years ago Wikipedia was formed to serve information to the world. The effort was to establish open encyclopedia. And so, thousands of articles were included here within one month. Later, effort has been done to create vernacular website and to fulfil this aim, gradually various languages have been included in the service. Now, more than 40 crore people use Wikipedia every month. The world-wide Wikimedia Foundation conduct this gigantic task. One can now find Wikipedia in 270 languages and more than one crore forty lakh articles have been included in the site. The Bengali version of Wikipedia was started in January, 2004 ( http://bn.wikipedia.org ) and more than 33 thousand articles have been included in this site. The number of registered users are 74 thousand. Bengali Wikipedia has completed 10 years on this January. On this occasion, 2-day long international seminar will be held at Jadavpur University on 9-10 January, 2014 (10-5 pm) to register one can go at http://b...

Saraswati puja 22 days to go. So, the clay artists in rural Bengal are busy to make the idols. -- A. B.

Thousands of devotees are paying homage on this 1st January to Sriramkrishna. In the year 1886 on this day, Sriramkrishna was being 'Kalpataru' fulfilled the aspirations of his devotees standing under the tree here. Devotees are visiting his room and the tree too. All-day long musical cum religious function is now going on there. -- A. B.

I visited Santragachi lake on 26 December, 2014 to observe the migratory birds there. I found large numbers of Lesser Whistling Ducks there, but not found the other species of migratory birds which used to a common scene even a few years ago. I didn't know the reason of it, but, pollution on the left side of the lake may be the reason for the birds to avoid this lake. Although 'no plastic zone' has been notified by the Forest Department, local garbages are being thrown on the other side of fence which might pollute water. So many high-rise residential houses are there on the left side, just near the lake. Hence, the left side is much more polluted than the right side. Therefore, the visitors are being compelled to capture photos of local birds like egrets, herons, water-fowl, moorhens, kingfishers, bee-eater, hummingbird etc. Mass awareness against pollution is the need of the hour which may save the lake and attract other migratory birds too. -- A. B.