Category Archives: Business & Economy

Lester and Ceylon’s films

May 15, 2018Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Nri's / Pio's, Records, All, World Opinionadmin

The death of Lester James Peiris, the father of the ‘New Sinhala Cinema’, brings back to mind his winning in 1965, with his Gamperaliya (The changing village; 1963), the first Golden Peacock awarded and for taking Sinhala film-making not only out of Madras State studios but away from the clichétic Tamil film formula.

Lester was the London Correspondent of The Times of Ceylon when I was its Foreign News Editor in the 1950s. We were in regular touch during that period, when he was experimenting with film-making. When he returned to Ceylon he opted out of journalism and focused on cinema — first with government documentaries and then the making of a new kind of Sinhala film, one drawing inspiration from the realism of Italian and French films. We kept in touch, however, because Iranganie Serasinghe and Sita Jayawardana were two of his leading supporting actresses, both girls who worked with me in features and who were forever asking for time off for ‘shooting’ or who kept dozing after ‘night shoots’. But when I moved to Madras I lost touch with Lester whom many consider one of the greatest South Asian film-makers.

Lester made 20 full-length feature films and about a dozen documentaries and short films. He started with a winner, Rekawa (Line of Destiny, 1956), which focused on village life. It was the first Sinhala film to be shot entirely in the country and the first to be shot mainly outdoors. It was nominated for the Palme d’Or at the 1957 Cannes Film Festival. Gamperaliya, for its part, was shot entirely outside the studio. Besides the Golden Peacock, it also won Mexico’s top international film festival award.

The first Sinhala film to be made, Kadavanu Porundhuva (Broken Promise), was shot entirely in Madras and released in Colombo on January 21, 1947. It was produced by S M Nayagam, who was what they called in Ceylon an Indian Tamil (being from the Tamil districts of Madras Presidency) and who not only pioneered the making of Sinhala films but also the starting of local industries. The film was directed by a Bengali, Joti Sinha. This was followed by 42 other Sinhala films being made in Madras, Coimbatore and Salem. It was only in the 1950s that Sinhala films began to be made in Colombo, where Nayagam had established the first studio. But even then, till legislation in the late 1950s, technicians from Madras continued to work in Ceylon — and the generation of Sinhala technicians who followed them benefited considerably from their mentoring.

One of the earliest from Madras to direct Sinhala films was Anthony Bhaskar Raj. Lenin Moraes was another director from Madras where he had learnt cinematography and make-up. J A Vincent was Art Director for over 100 Sinhala films after starting out with Asokamala being made in Central Studios, Coimbatore. Another connected with Asokamala was experienced cameraman Mohamed Masthan who also shot Sujatha in Salem. When he moved to Ceylon, he was guru to a generation of Ceylonese cameraman. He later went into direction. Other directors from Madras to work in Ceylon included A S A Samy, P Neelakantan, L S Ramachandran who pioneered Sinhala films on village life, and A S Nagarajan. After having been a scriptwriter in Madras, Nagarajan moved to Ceylon and into direction. Among his films was Mathalan, based on the Tamil hit Mangamma Sabatham.

Starting from where the Madras technicians left off, Lester James Peiris gave a completely new face to the Sinhala film industry. R.I.P., Lester.

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They mined for diamonds too

My scrip-collecting correspondent, Sayeed Cassim, has sent me some fascinating material, responding to my gold rush story (Miscellany, April 23). The best of it is a share certificate issued by the Devalah (Devala) Central Gold Mines Company Limited in 1881. This was one of the first companies to be established— even before the gold rush began — and, as I had recorded, it was promoted by Parry & Co, though the certificate (my enlarged picture today) gives no indication of that.

Accompanying it are the headings of three other certificates, those issued by the Western Pathoom Gold Prospecting Company Limited, the Sonepat Proprietary Gold Mining Company Limited, and the Dumra Gold Prospecting Syndicate Limited. Having made a study of these three certificates, Sayeed Cassim feels that “these were companies set up only to rake in the money and hoodwink the public.” He bases his presumption on the fact that there are several identical features in these certificates which “make their intentions suspicious”. He lists the following:

Similar authorised capital of each of these companies:

Date of all issues very close together in 1890

Printer the same: Calcutta Catholic Orphan Press;

Per value of each share only one rupee (to induce greater subscription?), and

Certificates of Western Pathoom and Dumra signed by the same person.

But that is not all. Apparently there were optimists who thought that there were diamonds in the hills too and companies were formed to prospect for them. He names The Madras Diamond Mining Company Limited and The Madras Presidency Diamond Fields Limited. Were they genuine speculators or in it for the quick buck?

If you want to take a better look at these certificates, Sayeed Cassim suggests you have a look at the website of David Barry of London (www.indianscripophily.com), who has “the largest and finest collection of Indian share certificate in the world.”

The chronicler of Madras that is Chennai tells stories of people, places, and events from the years gone by, and sometimes from today.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> History & Culture> Madras Miscellany / by S. Muthiah / May 14th, 2018

The Tawkers of Madras

May 11, 2018Business & Economy, Education, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Leaders, Records, Alladmin

Thanks to that recorder of the stories of famous old houses in Madras, Sriram V, I recently discovered where a once-legendary old family of Madras, the Tawkers, had their mansion. After passing out of the Tawker hands into Government’s hands in 1925, it became the residence of the Rajah of Panagal (pronounced Paanagal) when he was the Premier of Madras. He stayed there till 1928. Tawker’s Gardens then became Limbdi Gardens, when the Raja of Limbdi (in Gujarat) acquired it. Next we find the University of Madras renting it in the 1930s for some of its departments and staying there till 1948 when it was auctioned. The buyer was the Muslim Educational Association of South India (MEASI) and there it developed in the 12-acre campus on Peter’s Road what is today New College, a name inspired by an eponymous one in Oxford. The college opened in 1951.

The Tawkers were one of the earliest Gujarati families to settle in Madras, moving here from Trichinopoly in the early 18th Century. In time, they were to become the leading gem and jewellery merchants in South India, under the name TR Tawker and Sons from 1761. As befitting their status they had Henry Irwin design a palatial headquarters building for the firm on Mount Road. The Indo-Saracenic-styled building was built in the 1890s by T Manavala Chetty, a leading contractor. The Tawker Building, like Tawker’s Gardens, passed out of the family’s hands when the firm’s dues from many of the leading citizens of the South, particularly the Nizam of Hyderabad (or, rather, his estate when he died), were not paid, leading to bankruptcy in 1925.

Tawker’s Building, next to what is now VGP’s main showroom on Mount Road (but once Victory House, home of the then leading Tamil daily, Swadesamitran), after its sale, became the property of the Maharajah of Venkatagiri in 1926. It next passed into the hands of Kasturi Estates (The Hindu family) in 1931. The South India Cooperative Insurance Company bought it in 1948 as its headquarters and when insurance was nationalised it became LIC property. In 1953, the year Indian Airlines started, its Madras office moved into a part of this spaciousness. Indian Airlines remained there till 1980 before it moved out whereupon the building, an architectural heritage building if ever there was one, was pulled down by the LIC and a mundane highrise took its place, now housing several offices.

The philanthropy of the Tawkers was legendary. Two women of the family, Ramba Bai and Ratna Bai, set up a trust in 1804 and the next year built the Sri Kasi Viswanathar Temple in Ayyanavaram. Other charities they endowed included building a choultry, now an agraharam, next to the temple. The Tirupati umbrellas taken to the Seven Hills from Madras are traditionally kept in this temple for one night before their onward journey. Trichy is also a place that has benefited from Tawker munificence.

There are still Tawkers in Madras, but the name no long creates the awe it once did.

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The coffee blight

The news that the White Stem Borer (WSB) is back, threatening the three major coffee-producing districts of Karnataka; Kodagu, Chikmagaluru and Hassan, causing them to be declared “pest affected areas”, took my mind back to the horror stories I had read dating to when Leaf Blight / Leaf Rust and the Borer wiped out the coffee plantations of Ceylon and those in the Nilgiris-Wynaad. A South Indian planter wrote in 1896, “In all these once beautiful plantations, complete desolation now reigns…The destruction came in gradually from 1864-65, first by borer (1868) and completed by leaf disease (from 1875) caused by Hemileia vastatrix…The destruction that went on before one’s eyes would have to be seen to be believed.” Another writer wrote of the disaster, “Acre after acre, mile upon mile died out and what were once happy valleys became valleys of dry bones and there was no hope of resurrection.” But resurrection though there was. Anon.

Ceylon started planting coffee before South India, though there were small coffee gardens in Mysore State and Coorg long years before the 1830s when George Bird opened up the first coffee estate in the Island. By the 1860s, coffee was driving Ceylon’s economy. It was from those estates that the blight slowly spread into the Nilgiris. In South India, coffee on estate scale was first planted in 1798 by Murdoch Brown in Anjaracandy in North Malabar, but the effort did not take off. It was in the 1840s and 1850s that venturesome Europeans got into growing coffee on plantation scale. By 1870, there were 20,000 hectares of coffee in Mysore planted by Europeans from 1854 and producing 6,000 tonnes. However, in the same territory, there were nearly 28,000 ‘Native plantations’ with an area of 80,000 hectares and producing around 9,000 tonnes. Much of this escaped the coffee blight, whose spread from the Nilgiris was, fortuitously, slow. Coffee planting in the Nilgiris by “enthusiastic lunatics” began in the late 1850s and by 1863-64 there were 40 estates.

Resurrection came when Ceylon planters who had not sold their estates for a passage home began experimenting with tea in 1867 and made a success of it by the 1870s. South Indian tea, on the other hand, was slow to take off. The gold rush (Miscellany, April 23) was one of the reasons. It was not till James Finlay’s developed the Kannan Devan High Range that tea began to make slow but steady progress till South India became the major tea producer it is today. Its slow beginnings were in 1854 in Coonoor, on Thiashola estate, southwest of Coonoor. Post-Second World War, the tea industry in South India has boomed but despite ups-and-downs, it is one of the healthiest industries in the country. So is coffee today.

The chronicler of Madras that is Chennai tells stories of people, places, and events from the years gone by, and sometimes from today.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> History & Culture> Madras Miscellany / by S. Muthiah / May 07th, 2018

From Tirunelveli, plant motifs on saris

May 11, 2018Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy, Green Initiatives/ Environment, Records, Alladmin

Summer sale: Good demand for the chedibutti saris introduced by the Handloom and Textiles department is keeping the weavers of Veeravanallur busy.

Handloom exhibition brings to light the traditional art of weaving

Did you know that in Tamil Nadu around 150 varieties of saris are woven? And that the State contributes to 12% of the country’s handloom production?

There is a lot more to handloom than just weaving. Creativity starts with choosing the yarn: ordinary coarse cotton to materials with lustrous finish, resembling silk. Choice of dyes involves thinking through: chemical dyes and vegetable dyes. Then there is the design — from Kancheepuram silk replicated on cotton to the famous Madurai sungudi apart from region-specific motifs.

Clusters of handloom weavers in small villages across Tamil Nadu have worked hard to create an exclusive collection of designs and weaves.

The Handloom and Textiles department has been training weavers to introduce new motifs not only to keep their looms going but also revive the art. One such effort is the chedibutti design.

Last of the generation

The design has become integral to a cluster of 200 families, mostly men over 50 years of age, in Veeravanallur of Tirunelveli district. They are the last of the generation to carry forward the traditional weaving of artificial silk.

“They are on old-age pension but we are keeping them employed by training them to weave new designs,” said R. Thamizharasi, joint director of the department. “As they are trained weavers all we are required to do is give them the design. Since they are conversant with the patterns they are able to incorporate it easily. We introduced the chedibutti design (a plant like motif with colourful flowers) three-four years ago and is now being woven by these families,” she added.

The State is ranked first in sari production and third in the country in handloom production. It has 3.19 lakh looms providing livelihood to 1.89 lakh families.

On Thursday, a week-long exhibition of cotton handloom saris was inaugurated by the department’s director C. Muniathanan at Sri Sankara Hall in Alwarpet. As many as 15 varieties of saris are on display.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Chennai / May 11th, 2018

Saviour of indigenous seeds

May 3, 2018Amazing Feats, Business & Economy, Green Initiatives/ Environment, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features, Nature, Records, Alladmin

If anyone wants to be a successful farmer, he/she has to run a farm that would yield a daily, weekly, monthly, half-yearly and yearly profit. So, instead of growing crops based on what is fetching good revenue in the market at a particular time, a farmer should learn to plan for a sustained harvest”, says P Saravanan, 43, a progressive farmer from Paluvanchi village in Marungapuri taluk in Trichy district.
Until a few years ago, he had been cultivating paddy and sugarcane alone, which are common in the region. However, there was nothing that made him excited neither in terms of yield nor in terms of revenue. This had made him switch over to vegetables, that too not the hybrid but the native crops, he says.”I switched to crops like brinjal, ladies finger, chillies, which have started to provide a good yield. Despite poor monsoon, I could get very good yield from vegetable cultivation when compared to paddy and sugarcane. Paddy and sugarcane require more quantum of water to cultivate. However, it is not the case of vegetables”, he opined.Though Saravanan is always eying on making a profit, he never compromised cultivating native vegetables. While other farmers are going for hybrid varieties aiming for good yield, he has been cultivating only country seeds.

“I have been cultivating brinjal, ladies finger, chillies and groundnut crops using country seeds, not a hybrid. Though I am only getting half of the yield when compared to a hybrid, I am able to earn revenue equal to what usually a hybrid variety would yield”, Saravanan stated.

If a farmer cultivates hybrid brinjal, say for an example, he could get a yield of 100 kg from an acre. While a country seed can able to get only 50 percent of the yield. However, Saravanan said that he could sell his produce for Rs 20 per kg when a hybrid produce could only fetch Rs 10 per kg, he added.

“Moreover, the cost of fertilizer, pesticides, maintenance cost will eventually come down to country seeds. However, it is not the case for a hybrid. It requires more fertilizer, pesticide and maintenance cost”, says Saravanan.

Saravanan is using cow dung, green manure and goat manure along with micronutrients like Azospirillum, Pseudomonas, and Phosphobacteria instead of using chemical fertilizers and pesticides. So, his large number of the customer base is purely because of the quality and taste of the produce, he said.

“I use the required scientific technologies such as seed nutrient management and water conservation methods in my field. I have established sprinklers to save water. Due to some practical problems, I am not using drip irrigation”, he added.

He said that whether it was a cash crop or food crop, a farmer’s ultimatum was profit. Apart from the yield, a farmer should be able to successfully market his produce.

He should not rely on wholesalers or agents. Only then can he/she could get a better price for his produce. So, the government should create more avenues to facilitate each and every farmer to sell their produce on their own, he further said.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Trichy News / by D. Vincent Arockiaraj / TNN / May 03rd, 2018

Taking on British justice

May 1, 2018Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economy, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Leaders, Records, Alladmin

I had meant to write this piece for my April 2nd column, but events overtook me, so it comes as a bit later reminder of new ownership taking over The Hindu on April 1, 1905. In selling it to the paper’s legal adviser, S Kasturiranga Iyengar, M Veeraraghavachariar, a founder who had become sole owner, made sure with a formal notice that this would not be considered an April Fools’ Day story.

But before that happened, Veeraraghavachariar made one last effort to keep control of the paper. On the advice of Kasturiranga Iyengar, a company with capital of ₹1,20,000 (1200 shares of ₹100 each) was formed with P Rungiah Naidu (Chairman), Dewan Bahadur R Ragoonath Row, P Anandacharlu, C Jambulinga Mudaliar, C Sankaran Nair, TV Seshagiri Iyer and M Tirumalachariar as Directors. Kasturiranga Iyengar was the Legal Adviser and Veeraraghavachariar the Manager. But by 1903 the scheme failed with less than half the shares subscribed. Two years later, on March 18, 1905, Kasturiranga Iyengar announced, “Mr. Sankaran Nair and myself have agreed to purchase The Hindu from Mr. Veeraraghavachariar for ₹75,000,” the latter selling it to them though he had received an offer for ₹5000 more. Sankaran Nair remained a co-owner till 1922.

Over the years, there were to be differences between The Hindu and Sir Sankaran, but the break came when they took opposing views on the question of Gandhiji and civil disobedience. Nair even wrote a book, Gandhi and Anarchy, in which he attacked Gandhiji and the Congress. The consequences of the book were unexpected. In it Nair wrote, “Before the reforms it was in the power of the Lieutenant-Governor (Sir Michael O’Dwyer of the Punjab), a single individual, to commit the atrocities in the Punjab we know too well.” This was with reference to the Jallianwala Bagh massacre that Sir Sankaran held was due to O’Dwyer giving the man-on-the-spot, Col. Reginald Dyer, an excessively free hand. O’Dwyer, angered by Nair’s charge, sued for libel in London, which is where Nair had once thought he would file charges against the Authorities for the massacre. Instead, as a member of the Secretary of State for India’s Council, he moved to England, and campaigned for a Royal Commission of Inquiry which led to several civil and military officials being punished for what happened in 1919. “As far as it lay in my power, I was determined to prevent another Jallianwala Bagh in India,” Nair stated of his success.

You win some, you lose some and the lawyer Sankaran Nair found himself paying for his views on Jallianwala Bagh and O’Dwyer. In London, the jury ruled against him after Justice McCardie kept intervening at every stage of the trial asking questions that favoured the plaintiff. O’Dwyer was awarded £500 damages and costs, which came to £7000.

The Hindu, which covered the trial extensively, called it “a hideous mockery,” adding, “almost from the first day when the trial commenced, it was apparent that Sir Sankaran Nair had lost the case.” The paper later wrote, “The case has only served to demonstrate once again that when there is the slightest touch of politics involved for an Indian, justice cannot be expected in an English Court and from an English jury. In such cases both judge and jury become weighted with the cares of empire. No wonder a case which was meant to test whether Sir Michael O’Dwyer was guilty of terrorism, resulted in the finding, altogether gratuitous, that O’Dwyer saved the empire, that justice was not done to Dyer… and that (the Inquiry had got it all wrong…)”

Ironically, the case led to Nair in 1924 wanting to sue The Hindu for libel alleging that it had accused him of “appealing to the Congress leaders in the matter of the suit (filed by Sir Michael O’Dwyer).” Matters were settled out of court.

Sir Sankaran Nair lived in The Palms on Poonamallee High Road and was, with Kasturiranga Iyengar, a member of the Egmore Group of lawyers, rivals of the Mylapore Group, which was mainly Brahmin.

Music maestro’s centenary

April 27th was the birth centenary of Handel Manuel, Madras’s ‘Mr. Western Classical Music’, (Miscellany, March 19) and it was a grand music event in the Manuel style at St Andrew’s Kirk, with which he was associated for over fifty years as organist and choirmaster.

Born in Tuticorin into an old Nagercoil family, he was named Handel by his music-loving father who thought George Frederic Handel’s Messiah was the greatest piece of Western Classical music ever written. His son lived up to his hopes. An untrained composer, he became an outstanding Classical musician after his time at Madras Christian College. But Handel Manuel was down-to-earth as well: He was Station Director Western Music, Madras.

A part of his legacy includes founding the Madras Philharmonic and Choral Society. And the Handel Manuel Chorus is a memorial to him founded by his younger brother and his wife, flautist Surender and Sarada Schaffter, in 2003. He was also instrumental in writing and augmenting the Western musical notes for the National Anthem. His son Vijay, considered by many the best pianist and bass player in India in his time, worked long with composer Ilayaraja for whom he played the keyboard. Handel Manuel was elected an Honorary Life Member of the Royal School of Church Music, London.

The chronicler of Madras that is Chennai tells stories of people, places, and events from the years gone by, and sometimes, from today.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> History & Culture / by S. Muthiah / April 30th, 2018

An obsession with gold

April 30, 2018Business & Economy, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Records, All, World Opinionadmin

The last of the great British commercial names of the South still in business, Parry & Co, now Indian owned, has a curious historical sidelight that had its beginnings 150 years ago. It’s a story pointing to the firm’s obsession with gold in South India, an item few who know the Parry story would associate with its hard-headed business approach from its founding in 1788.

It was a few years before the lure of gold drew Parry’s to it in the 19th Century. The story of that gold began with the coffee blight ruining the planters in the Nilgiris and those who did not give up and go ‘Home’ frantically searching for alternative means of sustenance. Two of them were Australians who had been miners and were planting in the Wynaad near Gudalur. There’s gold in them ther’ hills, they announced in 1868, and the trickle that followed them turned into a gold rush.

The rush began in 1879 following a positive report of gold in the Nilgiris-Wynaad that Bough Smyth, an Australian mining engineer, had submitted to the Government of Madras. But Parry’s were ahead of him. In 1874, the South India Alpha Gold Company was promoted with a capital of £100,000 and Parry’s became its Managing Agents. This was followed by Parry’s seeding the Devala Central Gold Mining Company.

Estates that were being sold for virtually nothing now found their prices sky-rocketing, going for anything between £70 and £ 2600 an acre, as not only planters began to dig for gold but a rash of new companies followed them. It was reported that 41 companies were floated in England with a total capital of £5 million and 44 companies sprang up in Mysore and the Wynaad with a total capital of ₹5,50,000! And the ‘engineers’ they employed, one report has it, were “a quondam baker and a retired circus clown”. Prospectors like these made Devala and Pandalur, near Gudalur, boom towns. Hostelries sprang up, Devala even got a magistrate and Pandalur a racecourse!

Crushing began in 1881 and when one of the biggest companies reported to London that it had found four ounces of gold per ton, investments went through the roof. A few months later it reported that 19 tons had yielded two pennyweights of gold. And the crash began. In 1883, Government reported that the gold mining enterprise in the Wynaad had “almost collapsed”. By the next year, it had collapsed altogether. An 1875 newspaper from as far away as New Zealand had to eat its words: It had predicted “Ooctacamund, the delightful recherché sanatorium on the Neilgherries is to be the new bustling Ballarat (once Australia’s gold mining heart)… There is sure to be an exodus from Melbourne to Madras.” If the Australians had continued coming, they would have found Devala and Pandalur ghost towns. But it must also be stated that were enough traces of gold found to keep prospectors optimistic; one company in 1884 extracted 363 ounces of gold, another over a couple of years found 1174 ounces – the former valued at ₹16,500, the latter at £4500 – a pittance considering the investment.

You would think that with all this experience a company like Parry’s would think twice about gold. But when a prospector called TB Cass came to Parry’s in 1902 with a mining licence in the Nizam’s Hyderabad, Parry’s began sighting gold again. A few years later it floated the Indian Minerals Exploration Company which began operations in 1907. The losses were ₹5 lakh when the company was wound up in 1910 after winding down from 1908, all Parry getting out of it being an almirah that for years remained in Parry’s headquarters!

But Parry’s had not done with gold. A couple of years later, two South African miners turned up at Parry’s Calicut office with gold they said came from the Malabar rivers into which it would have been washed from the Wynaad. And in 1913 Parry’s formed the Pactolus Dredging Syndicate. That was washed away in 1913. Next, in 1916, a Parry’s sugar factory near Vizagapatam reported that it had found gold traces when boring for water. Could they secure the mining rights? A Director replied, “Quite interesting, but I sincerely hope we will not put money into it or even have an interest again in a mining venture.” Before and after, the firm has stuck to green gold (sugarcane and tea) and black gold (manure).

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A search for a doctor

They still keep finding this column from abroad, this time my correspondent being a Dr David Dance from the UK. He is trying to trace the descendants of a Dr CS Krishnaswami who worked in Rangoon, c. 1911. Working with the Pathological Laboratory there, Assistant Surgeon CSK had with his Chief, Dr Alfred Whitmore, presented a paper on a then new disease called Melioidosis (later Whitmore’s Disease) that D. Dance has been working on for the past 30 years. Dr Dance writes, “I have a fair bit on Whitmore but not Krishnaswami, who I would think returned to Madras on retirement.” Krishnaswami did, for I find in a book written by Burma-born Lakshmi Sundaram that a Dr CSK, who’d been in Burma, used to regularly visit her father who had returned to Madras on retirement. Dr. Dance (David.d@tropmedres.ac) wonders whether any of Dr CSK’s descendants will see this appeal and get in touch. The Doctors Whitmore and CSK had published their findings in the Indian Medical Gazette in July 1912.

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The chronicler of Madras that is Chennai tells stories of people, places, and events from the years gone by, and sometimes from today

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source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> History & Culture / by S, Muthiah / April 23rd, 2018

City start-up among top 20 in country

April 29, 2018Business & Economy, Science & Technologiesadmin

Trichy:

A city-based start-up, HelloLeads, which is into lead management solution has been recognised as one of the top 20 information and communication technology (ICT) start-ups in India jointly conducted by Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) and the ministry of electronics and information technology. For its efforts, HelloLeads has been lauded for operating from a tier-II city to develop cloud-based marketing solution and promoting socio-economic factors by employing local talents.

“The startup award that we received among 5,000 to 6,000 participants would motivate us to achieve more. The recognition also highlights that start-ups functioning even from tier-II cities can do innovations alike their counterparts in metropolitan besides bringing equitable growth,” Muthukumar Ramalingam, co-founder of the HelloLeads said.

The company said that it has developed a global marketing software model for their clients including small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) and corporate firms to attract potential customers for availing their respective products and services.The startup claimed that educational institutions in Trichy and adjoining areas are yet to provide platforms for students to learn evolving technologies and employability skills that are most sought by start-ups.

“Job creation and to put Trichy on the global map for start-ups are our key plans for which financial support if provided from state and central governments will be helpful,” Manohar Jha, another co-founder of HelloLeads told TOI.

The less than a year old start-up also said that more focus is needed for boosting Trichy’s air connectivity particularly to Bengaluru to attract more investments and to generate employment here. With Trichy also being named in defence corridor plan of Union government to promulgate indigenous production of defence products with Trichy-based MSMEs, HelloLeads shared that the need for start-up that offer global marketing solutions would surge in coming days.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Trichy News / TNN / April 29th, 2018

‘Seri Tourism’ planned in Yercaud

April 29, 2018Business & Economy, Green Initiatives/ Environment, Natureadmin

Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami having a look at a silk sari at an exhibition in Salem on Saturday.

The State Government would set up ‘Seri Tourism’ centre on the hill station of Yercaud for providing all information about sericulture activities in the State, said Edappadi K. Palaniswami, Chief Minister. The project is coming up at an outlay of ₹ 2.50 crore.

Mr. Palaniswami was speaking at a conference of sericulture farmers and entrepreneurs organised by the Sericulture Department here on Saturday.

He said that Tamil Nadu was one of the front running States in sericulture activities in the country. The State Government has earmarked ₹ 148 crore for the same in the last seven years.

The area under mulberry cultivation stood at 46,570 acres beneffitting 24,427 farmers.

The Chief Minister said that the demand for rawsilk in the State stood at 3,000 tonnes, whereas the production was only 1,900 tonnes.

In order to increase the production of raw silk, many schemes were being implemented, he said and asked seri culture farmers to join the initiatives of the government.

The Chief Minister released traffic rules awareness guide brought out by the Transport Department.

He asked people to strictly abide by road rules to bring down fatal accidents in the State. He said that the green corridor planned by the Centre between Salem and Chennai will reduce the travel time between the two cities to three hours.

P. Benjamin, Rural Industries Minister, who presided over the programme, said that a sericulture farmer can earn about ₹ 1.50 lakh per annum from an acre of mulberry crop.

He said that Tamil Nadu was a leader in cocoon productivity, chawkie worms distribution to farmers, and bivoltine silk production.

K. Phanindra Reddy, Principal Secretary, Handlooms, Handicrafts, Textiles and Khadi, said that to encourage farmers, a plantation incentive of Rs. 10,500 per acre and maximum upto five acres is being given to farmers planting high yielding mulberry crops.

In addition, a subsidy of ₹ 30,000 an acre to a maximum of five acres was given to install drip irrigation facility for mulberry. A subsidy of ₹ 87,500 was given for the construction of silkworm rearing house, and farm equipments worth ₹ 52,500 too was provided.

Rohini R. Bhajibhakare, District Collector, said that Salem district has 1,733 sericulture farmers using about 2,740 acres.

S. Semmalai, a former Minister; P.R. Sundaram, MP; P. Sri Venkata Priya, Driector of Sericulture; too spoke.

The Chief Minister opened an exhibition, released a booklet explaining the achievements of the Sericulture Department, and distributed best sericulture farmer awards.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Coimbatore / by Special Correspondent / Salem – April 28th, 2018

Popodax ‘appalams’: The king of crunch

April 25, 2018Business & Economy, World Opinionadmin

Ready-to-eat appalams in packets — that’s what the newly-launched Popodax is all about

M Lankalingam, Chairman MD and Innovation Head, Lanson Group, remembers the time he tried to fry appalam at the Anuga (food fair) in Germany.“This was in 1988. I had just joined my father and was in charge of frying the appalams,” he says. It proved to be a rather complicated task: there were restrictions on stoves, he says, and the one provided wouldn’t heat beyond 180 degree Celsius. “An appalam is an obstinate customer, it will not fry unless the temperature is exactly 200 degree Celsius.” But when he finally obtained a stove that did go up to that temperature, “it went crazy,” spattering him with hot oil. “My suit got completely blotched,” he grins.

Despite the stains on his suit, the incident turned out to be a fortunate one. A photograph of him making appalam became his marriage alliance photo, “to impress the girl and show her I could cook,” he smiles. She was indeed suitably impressed. “She didn’t know that the only thing I could cook was appalam,” says Lankalingam, whose exclusive appalams (they are called poppadums in England) have finally come home after spending the last 40 years traipsing around the world.

Journey into the past

Swag jostled with legacy at the launch of Popodax, a range of flavoured-ready-to-eat appalams, on Saturday. “We started exactly 40 years ago,” says Lankalingam at the launch, recounting the story that has now almost become an urban legend:

The year was 1978. On one of his trips to the UK, Lankalingam’s father S Murugesu, discovered that the poppadums served at the local bars were of poor quality. So he decided to do something about it. Enter the wafer-thin, perfectly proportioned urad dal pancakes made in pristine factories in South India, then exported abroad in a cook-to-eat format. “People laughed at him, but I believe that if you make a world class product it will work,” says Lankalingam, adding that what started as a quick bar snack soon crept into the pantries, kitchens and dining tables of the UK.

Realising that the average British home-maker neither had the time nor the vessels to fry these appalams, they decided to take it up a notch. “We launched the ready-to-eat version in 1987,” he says, adding that the factories in the UK that take care of this step are highly mechanised. Currently, they hold an 80 percent share of the market there, supplying numerous brands including Sharwood — that supplies to the Buckingham Palace — with these golden circles of crunch and joy. “People in England have a curry night regularly,” he says, where they recreate the Indian restaurant experience with curried meats, naan, flavoured rice and more, bought off supermarket shelves. And poppadums are an ubiquitous part of this meal, of course.

The long way home

A fiery orange cycle is parked in the corner of the ballroom at the Taj Coromandel Hotel in Nungambakkam. On its carrier is a basket from which long trails of air-filled, sealed packets peek out. We tear them open — like a packet of potato chips, they deflate — and delve into it. The bite-sized portions that come in three flavours are all that an appalam should be — crunchy, crackly, delicious. “I have always regretted that we never had our own brand,” he says, adding that this is the first time in forty years that they have had the guts to come into the local market.

So what has changed? “The new generation doesn’t know much about the appalam, “ he says. “We are losing our roots, our Indianness. This whole idea of Poppodax is a journey backwards into the future.” He draws a parallel between appalam and yoga. “Unless it is reinvented, repackaged, and delivered back, no one seems to want it.”

Our sense of culture and traditional knowledge is currently vested largely in the hands of the older generation, he points out. “If all our grandmothers died, we would be wiping out a lot of our culture.” Mechanisation, on the other hand, could help sustain tradition and help the current generation discover their roots. “We want to be a catalyst to this process,” he says.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Life & Style> Food / by Preeti Zachariah / April 23rd, 2018

This artisan uses palm leaves as his medium

April 25, 2018Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Business & Economyadmin

Pollachi-based T Krishnasamy, an artisan who works with palm leaves, has made 6,000 parrots for an installation in the city

T Krishnasamy’s palms are criss-crossed with cuts. Thirty years of handling palm leaves is bound to leave a mark and the 63-year-old artisan knows this. “It happens,” he shrugs when asked about it. Krishnasamy works with olai or palm leaves to create works of art — from sharp-nosed parrots, to diamond-shaped fish, and intricate deer — he bends and folds the leaves, cuts, and tucks them to create the shapes. Krishnasamy and his small team have made around 6,000 parrots that are part of Phoenix MarketCity’s spring-summer décor. A breathtaking sight, the décor is part of the mall’s initiative to provide a platform for traditional artisans.

Seated on the floor at the mall’s ground floor, over the last weekend, Krishnasamy gave a demonstration of palm leaf figurines. Visitors stop by and request him for a parrot in pink or a fish in blue, and he obliges, giving it away for free. People pose non-stop near the installation bearing hundreds of parrots. But the dhoti-clad man sits absorbed in work, unaffected by all the attention his work is getting.

Krishnasamy is from Kulathur village near Pollachi. He climbed palmyra trees for a living. “I brought down nungu (palm fruit) and thelivu or pathaneer (drink made of sap from the tree),” he says. One day, he happened to see a group of men working with palm leaves. “They were creating decoration items for the palace of the zamindar of Pollachi,” he recalls. He was in his twenties then and was fascinated that the very leaves he merely brushed against every day were transformed into works of art. “I just stood and observed them and learned the craft,” he adds.

Today, Krishnasamy is well-known in and around his home town for his art. His palm leaf artefacts decorate wedding stages and halls at functions. He’s created thousands of them over the course of the last few years. “I can make one in under three minutes,” he says. Krishnasamy processes the palm leaves in his kitchen. “I put the leaves to dry on the first day; trim, clean, and boil them with colour the next. They are ready to be shaped after I dry them for two more days,” he adds.

Back in his village, he usually keeps a stock of a few hundred parrots. But that’s nothing when compared to the volume that he makes on order. “Some five years ago, I made 20,000 parrots for an event organised when the Governor visited Pollachi,” he says. He has a small team of college girls that works for him after classes. But other than that, he’s on his own. If you visit him at Kulathur, you would see him engrossed in work, surrounded by palm leaves dyed in pink, blue, and green. “During the wedding season, I work from 4 am to 12 am,” he says.

His parrots have flown to various cities, but this is his first time in Chennai. “I like this city,” he smiles. “But I like my village better. It’s breezy and the weather is much cooler.” As we leave, he requests for a copy of the paper with his interview to be couriered to his village. He gives us an incomplete address though. “Just address it to kili kaarar (the parrot man),” he says. “It’ll reach me.”

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society / by Akila Kannadasan / April 24th, 2018

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