Asim Bando's 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.

In the year 1957, the popular radio channel Vividh Bharati was started first in Mumbai and then in Chennai to entertain the listeners by light music. It was the first revolution in the history of radio programmes in India. The conventional conservative approach of radio was being broken to pave the way of entry of light music, especially Hindi film songs and basic records. Radio Cylon was the then most popular choice of common listeners who were hungry of film songs. Hence, Vividh Bharati was created where listeners could listen film songs as well as songs of basic records, light instrumental music, short sketches, dramas, jokes, film soundtracks etc. In the 70s, advertisements and later sponsored programmes had been introduced as all India basis. Later, Vividh Bharati channels were being set up in every major cities of the country. Vividh Bharati Kolkata was also very popular till the onset of FM channels. And the loss of popularly of Vividh Bharati was due to low power ...

Sandip Ray will present 'Badshahi Aangti' (The Royal Ring) on 19 December to all. No no, it's not really a ring, but the latest Bangla feature film of Sandip Ray which is releasing on 19 December. It is the story of Satyajit Ray. It is the story of 'Feluda'. And the first case of Feluda. It is also the first film of Abir Chatterjee as Feluda. After the success of 'Feluda film' by Sabyasachi Chakraborty, director Sandip Roy was looking for a new look who would be Feluda as Sabyasachi was reluctant to play more as Feluda due to his age. Although Abir was already a familiar face as 'Byomkesh', Sandip was confident that Abir would be the right choice. So, he offered the role of Feluda to Abir. And now, Sandip is satisfied with Abir. The film is based on the soil of Lucknow - the city of Nawab's and Badshah's. This first story of Feluda is a very interesting and significant crime thriller in many ways which I think would be ver...

Clyde Waddell was the chief photographer of Houston Press. He spent some memorable days in Kolkata and during 1945-1946 he photographed some valuable memories of then Calcutta which are now very precious documents of about 70 year's old days. The socio-economic status of the then citizens was depicted in these photos. He prepared an album with 60 photos and named the album "A Yank's Memories Of Calcutta". Some photos of this series are available on net, but most other photos are not so known to all. For this reason, an exhibition named 'A Yank's Memories Of Calcutta' is now running at Aakriti Art Gallery of Hungerford Street. It'll run from 8 December, 2014 to 24 January, 2015 daily from 5pm to 8pm. Pic: 1) River Ganga from Howrah Bridge 2) View of the city 3) Hindustan Building 4) The corner junction of Harrison Road and Strand Road 5) Chowringhee Road towards south 6) Street view 7) The snake charmer 8) Street view 9) Shitalnath Jain temple 10) Kali...