Habitat for Humanity
Basanta Utsav kicked off with the traditional rendering of Tagore’s Khol daar khol….
To be honest, I wasn’t present at the Utsav Prangon, but I was at a place very close to where the celebrations (or shall I say revelry and merry-making) were on…
I could clearly hear Rabi Thakurer soul-stirring song.
I’ve beaten kokils today
You know how? Today I woke up even before they could start twittering..
As I write this, only now I could hear them chirping …
Birbhumer bhor bela!
What a feeling! What a divine sensation!
Destination Santiniketan: I left Kolkata at 4pm and reached Bolpur around 9pm last evening (March 4).
Usually it takes three to three and half hours. But I had to pick up my sister (she teaches at Kalyani University) on the way.Besides, with four-day holiday coming on a platter, crazy Kolkatans hit the roads in droves!!!
On our way, we stopped at Shaktigarh to taste the legendary langcha! Remember the famous Shaktigarer langcha. I took as many as four of them. I also took chhanar goja. It’s fabulous.
Wow!
Avijit Roy, an American blogger of Bangladeshi origin, was brutally hacked to death on 27 February by unidentified assailants in Dhaka, after he allegedly received threats from Islamists. Roy, who was 42, is the second Bangladeshi blogger to have been murdered in two years and the fourth writer to have been attacked since 2004.
With over 24 years of experience, Hong Kong-based Kishore Sakhrani advises on taxation, corporate structuring, accounting, regulatory and trust related matters for both corporate clients and high net worth individuals.
He is chairman at the Board of Directors at Community Business Limited (CBL), a non-profit group promoting community involvement, diversity and non-discrimination in Hong Kong for over a decade. He also sits on the board of the Richard Ivey School of Business in Hong Kong.
Sakhrani is a past president of the Rotary Club of Hong Kong South and the former chairman of the Indian Resources Group, which was instrumental in obtaining full British passports for HK residents who would otherwise be left stateless after the 1997 handover of HK to China.
China-based Indian entrepreneur Sagnik Roy is a Sinologist and a member of the board directors of TXYCO LTD (a company engaged in textile, natural resources and rubber & tire industry). He is also an adviser to various local government bodies in China. Currently based in Xiuyan in North-east China, Roy is also a governing board member of US-based Environmental Education Media Project for China (EEMPC) and engaged in promoting environmental awareness.
His contacts at political and bureaucratic circles have made him a unique foreign resident of China. Local Chinese people feel a twinge of envy for his mastery of Putonghua. He can speak Mandarin with perfect poise and elan and his fluency in the language is amazing.
Strathmore’s Who’s Who and Princeton Who’s Who named Roy as one of the influential foreigners in China in 2007 and 2008.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) has identified as many as 221 journalists in jail around the world in 2014. In 2013 the number was 211. The tally marks the second-highest number of journalists in jail since CPJ began taking an annual census of imprisoned journalists in 1990.
I wonder why freedom of expression is taken away by those countries which have thrown valiant journalists into prisons. I condemn all these attempts at muffling free press.
Jail those scribes who are dishonest, tell lies and resort to falsehood, but not those who are apostles of honesty and rectitude and who always stand by truth, come what may.
Let truth prevail.
Thanks for stopping by.
