An aerial view of the portrait of Mother Teresa created by students of a private school at Kavanur, in Vellore on Saturday | express
Vellore :
The chances of your hearing about Kavanur near Timiri is as remote as the village is. Located in the eastern part of the district, the village is likely to enter Limca Book of World Records, courtesy the artistic skill of 70-odd students of a private school.
On Saturday, the children made a 72 feet by 60 feet portrait of Mother Teresa, using small black pebbles. The weight of the pebbles was around three tonnes, a record of its own kind, worthy of finding place in the Limca Book of Records.
The initiative was taken by the drawing teacher Navakumar (29), who is a self-styled record breaker himself. In 2006, he entered the record book by drawing a picture of Tamil saint Thiruvalluvar using enamel paint on 133 feet by 60 feet canvas.
In 2008, he attempted another portrait on a 280 feet by two feet canvas to draw the world flags. The attempt gave him another entry in the record books in 2009. In 2010, he drew a picture of Gandhi on water on a three feet container using kolam, which gave him another entry into Limca records.
Navakumar, a part time arts teacher at a government school in Seemapudur village, also goes to the Indira Nursery and Primary School in Kavanur every week to teach drawing to kids free of cost. He also runs an art studio in Vellore, where he teaches children and elders various forms of drawing. According to Navakumar the previous record was held by students in the age group of eight to 10 for drawing a portrait with the dimension of 30 feet by 40 feet using colour powders. This attempt by the Kavanur school students in the same age group would break this record comfortably, he said.
“When I told the school correspondent R Settu about the possibility of training the school children for a Limca record, he put me on the job,” recalled Navakumar. He began training the kids on the pebble portrait three months ago. Last week, he organized practical sessions on the school grounds.
“We decided to go for the portrait of aged persons, as the facial wrinkles could be better captured. Though difficult, it makes a lot of difference in artistry,” said Navakumar when asked why he chose Mother Teresa.
“By drawing her portrait, children would learn about her and imbibe her qualities,” he added.
On Saturday, the district educational officer D Manoharan was the chief guest when the children toiled for nearly an hour before putting on display the portrait under the guidance of Navakumar. The whole event was documented, videographed in the presence of government officials and would be sent to Limca Books.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Tamil Nadu / by V. Narayana Murthi / March 03rd, 2015
The civic body began its Coimbatore Guinness Championship Campaign on Sunday to clean up the city. Despite facing a shortage of sanitary workers and push carts, the civic body officials roped in hundreds of volunteers and college students to go around the city collecting litter and promote source segregating.
The championship will begin on Wednesday after officials purchase push carts and begin to evaluate workers, said K Vijayakarthikeyan, corporation commissioner. The challenge will end on March 11, he added.
On Monday, officials inspected six wards and instructed sanitary workers to begin the championship. “Around 20 volunteers from NGOs have been allotted to each ward. Each zone will have a non-governmental organisation leading the effort. A team of sanitary inspectors and corporation officials will monitor them and evaluate their work.
“A jury will judge the best zone, best ward and best team,” said Suresh Bhandari, co-ordinator of Clean Cities Foundation.
Each ward would require at least 15 push carts but have been provided only seven push carts, said an official.
The civic body aims to create awareness about source segregation through this championship, as volunteers will go door to door to educate residents on segregating waste at source into three parts-wet, dry and hazardous. “The dry waste which is plastic waste will be weighed at collection centres such as ward offices and sold to companies. Workers will earn 4 per kg. The wet waste will be transported to Vellalore dump yard,” said Sri Rangaraj, sanitary inspector, central zone. Officials will evaluate every sanitary worker based on five criteria such as appearance, work skills, segregation, weighing and cleaning.
The volunteers have informed hotels, residents of apartments and other commercial complexes to segregate waste and hand it over to workers. “We have distributed around two lakh contest cards to school students who will get it signed by their parents. They will receive certificates from the corporation at the end of the championship,” said a higher official.
Registrations are taking place through a website and a missed call service-814436000-has been activated. As on Sunday evening, 2,500 residents had registered on the website and 300 had registered through the missed calls service. “We have already reached the two lakh mark so far. If the numbers increase, it will help us win with a bigger margin,” said Suresh.
On March 5, Dr Sanjay Gupta, coordinator of the Guinness Book of World records will visit the city to instruct them on the methodology. “Since the verification of two lakh contest cards will take a few weeks, we are hopeful that by the end of March, we will get the results and will enter the Guinness Book of world records,” added an official. While activists said that the championship was a gimmick to divert attention from the Vellalore dump yard issues, corporation officials maintained that they were planning to set up at least 15 segregation sheds after the championship ends.
“We will make sure that the drive continues even after the championship ends,” said a higher official.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Coimbatore / TNN / March 03rd, 2015
V Rama Rao is a familiar face in Alandur and Nanganallur not only among residents but also government officials. The 72-year-old retired government employee spends hours in government departments submitting petitions and filing RTIs to demand better transportation facilities, civic infrastructure and more.
Known as `Demand Rama Rao’, the former trade union leader and retired chief telegraph master, has won many battles against civic authorities. “I became an activist after seeing people suffering. Having been a trade union lead er, I found it easier to confront authorities and officials,” says Rao, who runs Traffic and Transportation Forum, a non-governmental organisation that has lobbied for extra ticket counters at suburban stations, more bus services, road widening and other facilities.
“People pay taxes and they have every right to demand that civic amenities are good and well maintained.Why should people suffer bad roads and poor drainage?” says Rao.
One of Rao’s first successful battles involved rallying residents to get underground drains. “We were the first to set up underground drainage in Nanganallur in 2003. Each resident contributed `5,000 to get the work done. Neighbouring Tambaram still does not have an underground drainage system,” he says.
Right now, the forum is demanding a bus stand near St Thomas railway station. “Once metro rail starts functioning, a bus stand will be needed urgently,” he says. “Why wait till then to ask for it?” The forum is also suggesting that metro rail use the underpass of Kathipara junction to connect to the neighbourhood for the proposed AlandurAsargana Hub, where more than 100 buses could be operated.
Rao and his team have now turned their attention to water bodies. “We are still fighting against encroachments on Adambakkam lake by both the ruling and opposition parties. We will make sure we will restore the lake to its its original condition,” he says.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / TNN / March 04th, 2015
At a quiz I conducted recently, one of my questions was: What were the railway companies that were combined to create the Southern Railway in April 1951? The majority of answers recorded South Indian Railway (SIR) and did not proceed further. A few put down Madras Railway Co and SIR. Still fewer said Madras & South Mahratta Railway and South Indian Railway. And only one person got it right saying Madras & South Mahratta Railway, South Indian Railway and Mysore State Railway. I recalled these answers a few days later when, thanks to new traffic regulations, I saw the Egmore Station after a few years and found it looking as handsome as one of a city’s prime heritage buildings should look.
Egmore Railway Station today.
Purist conservationists will undoubtedly sniff at what red and white colour washes have done to the building’s red brick, Tada sandstone and Pallavaram granite. But I have always held that they should be thankful for little mercies; after the latest ‘restoration’, many a layperson or a visitor is sure to stand and stare for a while at a building which stands out midst all the tawdry construction surrounding it. Certainly I did — and as I did so I wondered what the answers would be to another quiz question: The South Indian Railway had five stations in Madras; what were the three main ones? I wonder how many would have got Tambaram, Egmore and Beach. Egmore may have been the main Madras SIR station, but Beach was the end of the line and Tambaram and Beach were the two termini of the SIR’s electrified suburban railway system established in 1931 and which in its very first year handled nearly three million passengers.
Trichy Junction in 1935
The SIR’s main railway station, however, was in Trichinopoly, where its headquarters was. The first SIR headquarters was in Negapatam (Nagapattinam) from where its first train ran to Tiruvallur on July 15, 1861, then in December that year to Tanjore and on March 11, 1862 to Trichinopoly to which the headquarters began moving from 1865 and went on till 1880. Remodelling of the old station began in 1900 and went on till 1935, T. Samyanada Pillai of Bangalore responsible for the work. Pillai, based on his splendid work in Trichinopoly, was given the contract for building the Egmore Station we see today. Work began on it in 1905 and it opened for use on June 11, 1908. The station was designed by Henry Irwin, with specialised engineering work being carried out by Arbuthnot’s Industrials and the entire supervision being done by SIR’s company architect E.C.H. Bird.
Beach Station interior (1929)
Handsome stations were also built at Beach (which also received M&SM traffic) and Tambaram befitting their status. That handsomeness can nowhere be seen in these two stations today, given surrounding construction, lack of upkeep and all the grime. They too could use the attention and facelift given to Egmore.
******
The houses by the Adyar
The other day I was reminded of a story I had told in these columns some years ago (Miscellany, July 13, 2009) when reading something about the Andhra Mahila Sabha. The Sabha’s nurse-midwife training scheme had to find accommodation for increasing numbers of trainees (120) in the 1950s. The Sabha had put down roots just north of the Adyar River and on the western edge of what is now Durgabai Deshmukh Road — named after the Sabha’s founder — and was then Adyar Bridge Road. Fortunately for the Sabha there was a garden house abutting it to its north, reaching out to the southern edge of Greenway’s Road. The owner was offering the large house and its 171/2 acres for Rs.1.75 lakh. Which the Sabha did not have. But he agreed to rent it at Rs. 500 a month.
When Union Health Minister Rajkumari Amrit Kaur came to inaugurate the children’s ward of the Sabha in 1950, Durgabai Deshmukh told her the problems she was facing with accommodation for the trainees. At the time the trainees were in the rented house, but the Sabha needed to own it to expand further and the owner was not willing to bring down his price. Let’s go and see him, the Minister promptly said. They found him sick and in bed, but overawed when his visitor introduced herself. She told him that she was willing to grant Rs. 1 lakh to the Sabha if they could acquire his premises for that amount. He agreed and Yerolyte came into the Sabha’s hands. The building still stands and is the administrative centre of the Sabha. Next to it has come up a modern hotel run by the Sabha.
Discovering what Yerolyte is the other day is what led to this item. Having discovered what Yerolyte is now being used for, I began to search for information about other garden houses that had come up on the north bank of the Adyar. To the east of Elphinstone Bridge, now supplemented by Thiru-Vi-Ka Bridge, are Brodie Castle dating to 1798, at present home to the Tamil Nadu Government College of Music, Underwood Gardens, now the residence of the Regional Manager of the State Bank of India, andSomerford that’s been incorporated into Chettinad Palace.
To the west of the Bridge, going west from the Adyar, the first block of buildings comprises, from river inland, Bridge House, Government property which I think has now been replaced with a newer building,Cranleigh, named after an English village in Surrey which has been replaced by the Andhra Mahila Sabha Hospital, and Yerolyte. The next block west once comprised Riverside, Hovingham, Greenway, Cherwell and Ardmayle, the three aside from Riverside and Greenway probably taking their names from villages in Yorkshire, Oxfordshire and Tipperary (Ireland) respectively, all no longer in existence and replaced by Government bungalows for Ministers. The next block includes Adyar House, used as a Police commando training centre (a glimpse into which shows an old building, possibly the original house), Beachborough, named after a hamlet in Kent, a house now built over it, and Ben’s Gardens, once leased to Parry’s by the Diocese of Madras-Mylapore and where Parry’s built a few more houses for its Directors. Then come, Serle’s Garden, no longer in existence, like neighbouring Pugh’s Garden. Still surviving, however, is what was Norton’s Garden (1853), built by the lawyer John Bruce Norton, and which c.1907 was re-named The Grange. With a Government management training institution in it,The Grange is fairly well maintained, but could take lessons from the last building on this stretch,Moubray’s Garden/Cupola (c.1790), and the first modern house to be built on the banks of the Adyar. Today it is beautifully maintained by its owner, the Madras Club.
*****
The tank that vanished
Was there a huge tank in the middle of Madras that has vanished, asks schoolgirl S Prema who tells me that she is interested in the environment. Yes, indeed, there was a tank called the Long Tank which once stretched about 6 km from the Adyar River to Loyola College, following the western side of Mount Road and Nungambakkam High Road. Reminders of it are found in such names as Lake Area and Tank Bund Road. It was in reality two tanks, the Mambalam/ Mylapore Tank in the north and the Nungambakkam Tank in the south, and spread through parts of Saidapet, Mambalam, Nandanam, T. Nagar and Nungambakkam.
To meet the demands of a growing population, plans were drawn up from 1923 to reclaim land from the Long Tank and this was done from 1930 to create the 1,600 acres for the Mambalam Housing Scheme that gave us Theagaroya Nagar or T. Nagar. From 1941, further reclamation gave us the Lake Area in Nungambakkam. At the westernmost end of the Tank, 54 acres were reclaimed earlier for the Loyola College campus and in 1974 what was left of the Tank was reclaimed to give the city the Valluvar Kottam campus alongside Tank Bund Road.
Map showing the Long Tank
Once, when the Long Tank had water for most of the year, it was home to the Madras Boat Club’s activities. In fact, there was a Long Tank Regatta. It’s first recorded in 1893 that this was held “on the fine expanse of water that starts from the Cathedral Corner (once where Gemini Studio’s property was) to Sydapet”. Till any kind of boathouse was built by the Long Tank, the Club used the spacious premises of Blacker’s Gardens — kindly lent for the occasions by whoever the occupant was at the time. The Club’s first Boathouse, a temporary one, was inaugurated on December 5, 1896 and a permanent one in 1899. The Tank also hosted sailing events, the Boat Club at that time also nurturing yachting.
The earliest record of competitive rowing dates to November 21, 1875, ‘Scratch Fours’ races being held in the Long Tank. The first regatta held there was on February 4, 1884 on a course that was about half a mile. These continued till 1904, by when the Club had firmly put down roots in its present home in Adyar. The Long Tank, however, continued to be used by some oarsmen till work on reclaiming land began in the late 1920s.
There would be 200-300 “ladies and gentlemen (present, representing) the fashion and beauty of Madras,” as well as the Governor and his Lady and their retinue, the Band that would play through the evening and night, refreshments aplenty, and dinner and dancing. Now where their ghosts waltzed, there is no tank, only a congested clutter of buildings just as what you’ll see where the other important tanks of the city were. Once, the ten most important tanks of Madras were Vyasarpadi, Perambur, Peravallur, Madavakkam, Chetput, Spur, Nungambakkam, Mylapore/Mambalam, Kottur and Kalikundram. None of them exist in today’s concrete jungle.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by S. Muthiah / March 01st, 2015
At 84, when most people would decide to make peace with a bad knee, J D Ramanathan decided he would not let the pain be an inconvenience.
Doctors at Apollo Hospitals performed an intricate knee replacement surgery on the elderly man who is up and about now. The patient had chronic rheumatoid arthritis for several years. “His family members were skeptical but he opted for knee replacement surgery.
“We performed a minimally invasive knee surgery and he could walk the very next day,” said senior orthopaedic surgeon Dr Madan Mohan Reddy.
Orthopaedic surgeons said recent advances in minimally invasive surgery offer older patients more options for spine, hip, knee and neck care. “Studies have shown that elderly patients who undergo invasive procedures experience higher complication rates and longer recovery periods. But minimally invasive procedures have been game changers,” said Dr Reddy. He added that the oldest patient to undergo hip replacement at the hospital was a 94-year-old man.
Many surgeons are hesitant to perform open procedures on elderly patients because of the increased risk of complications, said Dr Jonathan Saluta, an orthopaedic surgeon from California. “Older patients who undergo an invasive surgical procedure are more likely to suffer from an infection, life-threatening complication, or a return visit to the hospital within a month of surgery. The minimally invasive approach provides the benefits of undergoing an outpatient procedure with minimal blood loss, less scarring, faster recovery time, and fewer postoperative risks,” said Dr Saluta.
The only drawback of minimally invasive procedures is that the cost is 30% higher than open surgeries, said Dr Reddy. “But it is compensated by the faster recovery and shorter hospital stay,” he said.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / TNN / February 28th, 2015
Praga was the first button company in India and it was established right here in Coimbatore
Buttons were first made in India about five thousand years ago in the times of the Indus Valley Civilization. In Coimbatore it was a little later when Joseph Nejedly, from Czekhoslovakia, came to India to work for Bata. He took up Indian citizenship, moved to Coimbatore and worked with P.S.G.Ganga Naidu for a while. Subsequently, he started a button company called Praga Industries Limited in 1945. The company started with the production of coconut shell buttons exclusively for defence use. By 1946, Praga began to make buttons made of vegetable-ivory buttons for others. By the 60s the production reached more than half a million buttons per day. Later, the company established a technologically advanced plastic button manufacturing plant.
One A.K.Annaswamy marketed the Praga buttons that was the largest button company in this part of the country. Eventually, the company produced fibreglass boats too. Joseph Nejedly and his family lived in a beautiful bungalow on Race Course and he was a popular member of The Coimbatore Club. He was also the first to produce helmets for the army and was awarded a medal for the same.
Those days there were about 20 button companies in India and they were located in Amritsar, Coimbatore and Kolkata. Our country attained self sufficiency in button production within the first 10 years of independence. There were five factories in Coimbatore alone and they could altogether produce million buttons a day.
S.Kondaswamy, was the second entrepreneur who started Jaga Buttons in Coimbatore. He was working for the Rajapalayam Textile Mills as Manager. He was the promoter of Subbiah Foundry, Madras Forgings and a spinning mill later along with his relatives and his sons Subbian, Jagannathan. N.Subbian who is in his 80s now was the marketing man of Jaga Buttons. He says, “We sold buttons in Mumbai, Kolkatta, Chennai and important commercial centres such as Vijayawada. Andhra was a good market. We supplied goods on a 15 day credit and discount the bills with our bankers Indian Bank and Karur Vysya Bank. Buttons were made in more than hundred colours and the colour pigments were from companies like ICI. We sold to outlets like Bharat Button House in Coimbatore. However our biggest market were the defence services who picked up over ninety per cent of our production. We made olive green buttons for the army and blue buttons for the navy. These buttons were fixed on the defence uniforms at the Shahjahanpur factory in Uttar Pradesh. The orders were through sealed tenders submitted with the Directorate of Supplies and Disposals located at the Fort in Mumbai.
The Inspectorate of General Stores used to inspect the factory. The buttons were randomly tested in boiling hot water for colour and by hanging weights in order to ascertain the strength. Payment was made only after the buttons passed these tests.” .”
Vijaya Industries which was located near the Railway station in Peelamedu was another leading manufacturer who set up shop in the year 1951. It was managed by N.Duraiswamy, and K.Venkatesalu of Ellen Industries was the promoter of this company.
Later competition came in the form of small button facilities that came up at Bengaluru and also in the form of companies such as Ratanchand Harjas Rai of New Delhi whose huge production facilities at low prices were a dampener for others in this field. But the button industry at Coimbatore continued to thrive thanks to the entrepreneurial zeal of its people.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by Rajesh Govindarajulu / February 28th, 2015
