Category Archives: Leaders

More between the covers

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Leaders
M.A. Sikandar / by Special Arrangement / The Hindu
M.A. Sikandar / by Special Arrangement / The Hindu

National Book Trust Director M.A. Sikandar on his concerns for the book fair

The New Delhi World Book Fair, to be held at Pragati Maidan from February 14 to 22, will be all about inclusiveness as for the first time lesser known literary figures from the North East of the country will be acknowledged for giving a glimpse into the cultural heritage and rich diversity of the states known as the Seven Sisters. Their books will be displayed in a special theme pavilion of the exhibition ground.

National Book Trust Director M.A. Sikandar has gone out of his way to accommodate the genuine concerns of North Easterners. As a result, the book fair’s theme programme titled “Suryodaya: Emerging Voices from Northeast India” will see books by Sanjay Hazarika, also participating in a panel discussion, and by literary figures like Sanjeeb Kakoty, Mitra Phuken and Arup Kumar Dutta at Hall No. 7.

“When I took over the reigns of NBT in 2012, we selected cinema as the theme. It was followed by tribal literature, children’s literature and now literature from the North East. There are prolific writers who have produced work in different languages. The time has come to acknowledge these writings and showcase them to an international audience. Former militant Hemanta Jamatia, now a folk singer, will be in conversation with Utpal Borpujari,” says Sikandar.

Sikandar informs us that NBT has opened two centres in Guwahati and Agartala to promote the book reading habit in the remotest regions of Assam and Tripura respectively. “Whenever book fairs are held in these States, schools shut down and children accompanied by their teachers come from far and wide. In the years to come, the North East, with a sizeable urban, educated population, would become the most literate State. There is a direct link between literature and education. Tripura has become the number one literary State.”

The NBT director feels that the decision to highlight the literature from these states would eventually help in integrating the entire North East with the rest of the country as people would be acclimatised with the rich culture, traditions and history of the region.

As for choosing South Korea as the focus country, he says, “This move would open business opportunities for Indian publishers. Or else, like other years, European publishers would have struck deals with their Korean counterparts. Now Korean publishers do not have to go to the London Book Fair and the Frankfurt Book Fair. Consequently, publishers and authors would get royalties and Korean publishers would sign translation rights.”

About 200 books, contemporary literature, comics and children’s books, authored by well known as well as new Korean authors will be available.

The WBF does not provide facilities like snack bars or cafés inside the auditoriums. Even the infrastructure at Pragati Maidan, which is fit for hosting melas rather than exhibitions, dies not match world-class book fairs held in cities like London, Frankfurt and Seoul.

“We do not know. The ITPO (Indian Trade Promotion Organisation) is planning this event and is our co-organiser. Not even a big auditorium, where the opening ceremony can be held with all invitees in attendance, exists at the moment at Pragati Maidan. Last year, the audience was sitting under the open sky and it started pouring. Due to lack of infrastructure, business generation is not on the expected lines. We are not able to attract leading foreign authors to the fair and even lose out on translations of famous English books into Indian languages.”

Sikandar says modernisation of infrastructure needs to be carried out in right earnest at Pragati Maidan. “We cannot have such a venue in Greater Noida or in the NCR.”

This time round, NBT has appointed a committee to catch hold of exhibitors, including foreign participants, who are selling the remaindered books.

As China will be the guest of honour nation next year, a five-member Chinese delegation will be discussing the next edition, to be held in January 2016, says the director.

“Since last year, I was keen to change the month, because November is the time of examination fever for school students. To strengthen our age-old storytelling traditions, puppeteers from Iran have been invited. When Chinese President Xi Jinping visited India last September, I had the good fortune of signing an MoU with the Chinese Minister to have China as guest of honour country at World Book Fair-2016.”

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by Madhur Tankha / February 13th, 2015

N-scientist felicitated in Ooty

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Leaders, Records, All, Science & Technologies

Udhagamandalam  :

Saturday evening saw book lovers gathering at the more than 150-year-old Nilgiri Library at Ooty to celebrate two events—the opening of the refurbished Wardrop Room and the felicitation of member of the Atomic Energy Commission Dr M R Srinivasan. Srinivasan, a longtime resident of Ooty and a member of the library, was feted for recently receiving the Padma Vibhushan.

The Wardrop Room, which underwent a six-month restoration costing Rs 1 lakh, was inaugurated by Lt General S K Gadeock, AVSM, Commandant, Defence Service Staff College, Wellington. The restoration was partially funded by INTACH-Nilgiris chapter.

The Nilgiri Library, which celebrated its 150th anniversary a few years ago, is one of the oldest libraries in the country. The magnificent building on Commissioner’s Road in Ooty was designed by Robert Fellows Chisholm, who also designed Senate House at the University of Madras.

Geetha Srinivasan, president of the library as well as of INTACH-Nilgiris chapter, said, “Books impart knowledge, which builds self confidence. People who have inculcated the reading habit from a young age can never be lonely as books will always be their companions. This is what makes this library important apart from the heritage value of the building and the books within it.”

The restored Wardrop Room has a portrait of Queen Victoria in a gilded frame over the mantelpiece. While the skin tones are Rubenesque, the painting is in the style of the Dutch Masters, she said, adding that there are only three such paintings in the world.

On August 28, 1867, the foundation stone of the main library was laid by A J Arbuth. With its vast Gothic hall and Tudor windows, the Nilgiri Library is a symbol of how public places can be restored and put to modern use, said Srinivasan.

Gadeock said, “The Nilgiri Library is unique and must be preserved.” He donated Rs 10,000 towards maintenance of the library. He also honoured Srinivasan with a Toda shawl and said, “Dr Srinivasan is a great icon who played a pivotal role in the nuclear programme.”

Recollecting his days of working with Dr Homi J Bhabha and Dr Vikram Sarabai, Srinivasan said, “It was a great privilege to work with legends.”

Ramakrishnan Nambiar, secretary, Nilgiri Library, said, “Dr M R Srinivasan has made the Nilgiris district proud.”

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Coimbatore / by Shantha Thiagarajan, TNN / February 09th, 2015

Madras miscellany: A touch of the Irish

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Leaders, Records, All, World Opinion
An 1890 advertisement for Connemara Hotel
An 1890 advertisement for Connemara Hotel

As the new year gets underway, it’s time what is now rather unrecognisably being called Vivanta by Taj Connemara begins thinking of how to celebrate its 125th birthday on November 27th and to tell everyone that it is the oldest Western-style hotel in South India still-in-business. Its roots, however, go back to even before 1890.

On the Connemara’s site by what was once called the Neill statue junction there was one of Madras’s earliest Western-style hotels, The Imperial, dating to 1854 and long pre-dating the controversial statue to one of the hangmen of the Great Revolt, Gen. James Neill. An 1880 advertisement referring to the Neill Statue location and the date of establishment has its proprietor T. Ruthnavaloo Moodeliar stating that the “Premises consist of a large Upstair House, detached Bungalow, and Bachelor’s quarters” and urging the public to take a look at the hotel’s “Testimonial Books, which certify to the respectability, comfort and good management of the Establishment.” The buildings referred to were no longer those of John Binny, who sank the roots of Binny’s in 1799 after having been in the Nawab of Arcot’s service from 1797 and from whom he had acquired the property. He lived in this garden house till his death in 1821 after which Binny’s sold the property which eventually came into Ruthnavaloo Moodeliar’s hands.

Somewhere along the way, The Imperial became the Albany, no doubt the name given to it by a new lessee, and then became the Connemara, the name given to it in 1890 by the brothers P. Cumaraguru and Chokalinga Mudelly who took it on a three-year lease. On December 3, 1890, the brothers “solicited” in an advertisement a trial of their new establishment which was only “a minute’s walk to the Madras Club”. The advertisement (alongside) promised “nothing is wanting to constitute it a really first class hotel” and also “guaranteed” an “excellent table”. Its new name, however, is unexplained.

But The Madras Mail of November 27, 1890, reporting on the opening of the Connemara wrote, “In the dim and distant future when people as yet unborn will bend their steps to Chennaipatnam (a remarkably prophetic quote, your columnist thinks) and seek boarding and lodging at the ‘Connemara’, they may be induced by a laudable curiosity to enquire ‘why does this hotel bear the name of a district of the County Galway in Ireland’. Then will the phenomenally well informed, old inhabitant make reply, and enlarge on the halcyon days when my Lord Connemara ruled the land, lived his little span, and then passed away, neither unregretted nor unsung. Well may his Excellency exclaim with the bard, when he reads the legend in large characters that spans the chief entrance to the Hotel referred to:

‘Nor fame I slight, nor for her favours I call,

She comes unlooked for, if she comes at all.’ ”

Eugene Oakshott of Spencer’s, bent on expanding his empire, acquired the hotel on April 23, 1891 and let the lease to the Mudelly brothers run till its end in 1893 when he got his partner James Stiven to run the hotel. At the time garden houses were the spaces used for hotels. Stiven reconstructed the Connemara and in May 1901 it became Madras’s first hotel to be housed in a building specifically built to be a hotel. On July 1, 1913, Eugene Oakshott’s sons Percy and Roy sold the hotel to Spencer’s in whose hands it still remains a hundred years later, though it is managed by The Taj Group.

*****

Of shells and bombs

At a lunch the other day, my neighbour at the table wanted to know whether I learn something new from the readers who write to this column. I told her that I learn something new every day not only from all those who keep the postman and other means of communication busy but from the journals and other publications I receive as well as the places I visit.

The plaques at the Fort Museum
The plaques at the Fort Museum

I mention this because of something I learnt from a picture of an exhibit in the Fort Museum that I found in a publication I received recently. For years I’ve been visiting the Fort Museum but till now had not really read the information on two brass plaques there. After reading the first few lines on the first plaque, I had skipped the rest thinking that all of it had to do with the shelling of Madras by the SMS Emden in 1914, a subject which I had read much about. But to my surprise the picture I looked at the other day showed the second plaque providing me a more positive answer to a question I’ve often been asked about whether Madras had been bombed by the Japanese during World War II and to which I always tended to give uncertain answers. And there the answer has been all these years in the Fort Museum. Yes, Madras was bombed — not in 1942, as all who’ve asked me the question tended to believe, but in 1943. That raises a mystery or two, which I’ll come to in a moment.

First the two plaques. One is titled ‘Bombardment of Madras’, the other ‘Bombing of Madras’. The first displays a fragment of a ‘shell’ fired by the Emden and presented to the Museum by V.K. Ratnasabapathy of Bangalore and the other displays a fragment of a ‘bomb’ — all the terminology, I note, is perfectly correct — “dropped by a Japanese fighter craft on Madras on 12th October 1943…” It was presented to the Museum by A.V. Patro, Commissioner of Police, Madras. And it can’t get more official than that.

But despite the official seal to the information there remains a mystery or two. Few fighter aircraft carried bombs during World War II. Fighters were also short range aircraft, particularly if it was a Mitsubishi Zero (or its seaplane version) as many surmise it was. So did it come from an aircraft carrier? But by 1943, the Japanese had virtually quit the Indian Ocean. So where was there a carrier? Answers from anyone?

******

The Boddam statue

Justice Hungerford Tudor Boddam, a Puisne Judge of the Madras High Court (1896-1908), is one of the few British High Court judges to have a statue of him raised in the city. And I have often wondered why, particularly as he was said to be a mediocre judge. I recently came across an account which might explain why he was so privileged. Apparently he took a considerable interest in the activities of the Madras Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA). This included getting its handsome building on Vepery High Road built and inaugurated in 1900 and persuading leading local citizens like Raja Sir Ramaswami Mudaliar, Lodd Govindoss and G. Narayanaswami Chetty to get involved with the Society’s activities. The statue was first raised near the Willingdon (now Periyar) Bridge on Mount Road but was later moved to Napier Park from where it’s gone into seclusion till the Metro authorities keep their promise and return it to Napier Park once their work in finished.

The statue of Justice Boddam
The statue of Justice Boddam

A proposal for such a society was first discussed in 1877 by some of the leading Europeans of Madras, but it was established only in 1881, with the Duke of Buckingham and Chandos its first Patron and Bishop Frederick Gell its first President. It had in its first years an entirely European membership, Indians showing little interest in its activities which focused on preventing the ill-treatment of animals and improving the conditions under which they were maintained. It was Boddam’s efforts that led to Indians joining the Society from 1903. By then Boddam had got Raja Venugopala Mudaliar to fund the Hospital for Animals that stands in Vepery in the donor’s name.

The society had no plenary powers during the first years of its existence. In 1894, Government conferred on it plenary powers and the SPCA was granted police powers to charge persons ill-treating animals. Starting with action it took when, in 1936, 23 goats were slaughtered in a mutt in Kumbakonam to the chanting of mantras and the flesh offered to the deities, it did much to bring down animal sacrifice in the State.

Boddam was also responsible for persuading the local citizenry to found a pinjrapole. The same citizenry, mainly the Gujaratis of Madras, were possibly those whose “subscription” made possible the 1911 statue.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by S. Muthiah / February 08th, 2015

A pioneer of women’s education in Madurai from a foreign land

Amazing Feats, Education, Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Leaders, Records, All, World Opinion

Madurai :

Three streets (a main road and two connecting roads) near St Britto School in Gnanaolivapuram here, called Sister Rose street, bear the name of a Canadian nun who pioneered girls’ education in Madurai and founded three important educational institutions in the temple town.

Sr Rose Benedicte Benoit (1898 – 1968), known as Mother Rose in Madurai, was born as Marie Ange Benoit at le Conte de Drummont in Canada. She joined the congregation of Sisters of St Joseph of Lyons in the year 1913 and became a nun in 1915. She came to down to India in the year 1924 and was the first American missionary of the congregation to work in the country. During her service in Madurai, she found that girl children were seen a burden and many daughters used to be abandoned. Realising that empowering women through education will put an end to their misery, she started Holy Family Primary School in 1953 inside St Britto School campus, which she shifted to an adjacent plot in later years.

She eventually went on to found renowned educational institutions for girls here like St Joseph’s School and Fatima College.

“Sr Rose was the pioneer of promoting women’s education in Madurai and she founded three important education institutions for women here,” said Sr A Sahayamary, Head Mistress of Holy Family Girls School in Gnanaolivapuram.

Sr Kulandai Therese, 68, correspondent of the school and hailing from the locality, remembers the personality of Sr Rose. “She was the most compassionate and tender-hearted nun I saw as a girl when I was growing up here. Most of this area included slums inhabited by poor people. She would go to every house and bring girl children from houses, convincing parents to educate them. She did a phenomenal service to women’s education,” she said.

Sr Rose died of lung infection, believed to have been caused by the excess cement she inhaled during the construction of Fatima College. While she was alive, to honour her service, Madurai municipality offered a medal, but she declined to accept it. After her death, her statue was erected in old Kamarajar University Campus inside the city, Sr Therese added.

D Solomon, 62, a resident of Melaponnagaram, said that it was a mostly-dalit area and nuns from the convent helped them a great deal. They educated their children and the streets were named after the foreign nun who worked tirelessly for the cause of women’s education.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Madurai / by J. Arockiaraj, TNN /February 08th, 2015

Officer of Karunanidhi ‘midnight arrest’ fame to retire

Leaders

Chennai :

IPS officer and former Chennai police commissioner K Muthukaruppan, who has as many feathers to his cap as he does controversies to his name, retires from service on Saturday. He will hang up his boots, by his choice, without a ceremonial farewell parade.

Muthukaruppan found himself in the spotlight when, as commissioner, police carried out the midnight arrest of former chief minister M Karunanidhi in 2001. The officer, who had been on suspension for more than four years, had to battle the odds to make it to the position of DGP, home guard and civil defence.

The IPS officer’s family came to the state as refugees from Burma after World War II when he was in Class 5. After his schooling in Ramanathapuram, he moved to Chennai where he completed a master’s in English at MCC.

Muthukaruppan says he took the civil services examination to support his family and being an IPS officer was not his ambition. “After I became an IPS officer, I brought my father Kalimuthu to the city from the Andamans, where he worked in a betel leaf plantation for more than 18 years,” the DGP said.

He joined in the service in 1980 as assistant superintendent of police, Karur, before being transferred to Pudukottai and Nilgris as superintendent of police.

“Few in the police force knew about me,” Muthukaruppan said. “When I was deputy commissioner in charge of airport security, I introduced baggage scanner machines and bomb-detecting robots in the airports of all four metros, Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai. We specified the specs for the scanners and ordered them from Electronics Corporation of India in then Calcutta at a cost of 25 lakh each.”

Before being posted in Chennai as joint commissioner of police, crime wing, in 1995, Muthukaruppan was commandant in Tihar jail. Recalling with a laugh how a police sub-inspector from Tamil Nadu, assigned to procure firewood for cooking, asked a shopkeeper to give for ‘Ek tonne ladki’ (woman) instead of ‘Ek tonne lakdi'(firewood), Muthukaruppan said the incident got him thinking. “When I was posted in the armed police wing in the state, we entered a joint venture with IOC for cooking gas cylinders for police canteens in the state,” he said.

As deputy inspector general of police, technical services, the officer introduced Fingerprint Analysis and Criminal Tracking System (FACTS), which is still used by the State Crime Records Bureau. As DIG, Coimbatore, he nabbed LTTE operative Vicky, who was involved in the assassination of Rajiv Gandhi.

Now Muthukaruppan is looking forward to retirement. “I am happy to retire after serving the police force with dedication,” he said.

source: http://www.timeofindia.indiatimes.com / The  Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / TNN / January 31st, 2015

HIDDEN HISTORIES – The life of Kovai Subri

Historical Links, Pre-Independence, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features, Leaders, Records, All
He impressed the Mahatma with his stentorian voice. Gandhiji affectionately referred to him as his ‘loud speaker’!
He impressed the Mahatma with his stentorian voice. Gandhiji affectionately referred to him as his ‘loud speaker’!

Subri was closely associated with the freedom movement and along with his wife Kamala courted arrest several times

V. R. Krishna Iyer, a leading advocate in Coimbatore and his devout wife Parvathi named their fifth child Subramaniam, after the deity at Chennimalai. The young boy grew up to be better known as Kovai Subri. Subri was drawn to the ideals of Gandhiji and he quit college in order to join the freedom movement.

In 1921, the town Congress committee was born and textile pioneer G. Kuppuswamy Naidu officiated as the President and Subri (1898 – 1993) became its Secretary.

Freedom fighter C. P. Subbiah (1895 – 1967) also joined them and remained a lifelong friend of Subri.

Subri was imprisoned when he joined the flag Satyagraha at Nagpur under Sardar Vallabhai Patel in 1923 and he spent a year in prison. He was imprisoned on five other occasions and cumulatively spent more than five years of his life in prison.

It was during his years in prison that Subri composed songs which were later compiled into a book called Desiya Geethangal. He composed Muruga Ganam which consisted of 426 songs classified into 12 volumes.

He started a khadi centre at Padiyur near Uthukuli and Gandhiji has praised Subri for his stellar role in the freedom movement in the pages of Young India.

When Gandhiji toured in Coimbatore and Nilgiris district Subri was his translator and he impressed the Mahatma with his stentorian voice. Gandhiji affectionately referred to him as his ‘loud speaker!

Subri was the Municipal Chairman between 1938 and 1942. It was due to his efforts that Gandhi Park came into being. He was an MLA who represented the Coimbatore City Constituency between 1947 and 1952.

He married Kamala (1911 – 1993), the young daughter of A. Naatesa Iyer who was an advocate-cum teacher from Pollachi. Subri warned Kamala about the risks involved in marrying a freedom fighter, but they nevertheless got married on the 14 November 1926. Kamala also courted imprisonment in front of the Municipal office for participating in the Salt Satyagraha of 1930 along with their six month old daughter. She was imprisoned again for participating in the Satyagraha in 1932 along with her colleagues Padmavathy Asher (Tirupur), Ambujam Raghavachari, Muthulakshmi (Satyamangalam), Govindammal Ayyamuthu and Kamala Krishnaswamy.

Subri’s home at 91, Karuppa Gounder Street was always a beehive of activity. He was close to Rajaji, M. P. Sivagnanam, C. Subramaniam, Kalki, Sadasivam, S. N. R. Chinnaswamy Naidu, Kovai Khadar Ayyamuthu, Chinna Annamalai, Dr. C. Nanjapapa, T. A. Ramalingam Chettiar, T. S. Avinashilingam

Chettiar,T. Raghavachari, R. Venkataswamy Naidu and Rasikamani T. K. Chidambaranathan.

Post independence, when Rajaji took the lead to launch a new national party – The Swatantra Party, Subri joined the same.

G. K. Sundaram described Subri’s life as one of sacrifice, which he gave unstintingly to the nation. He said, “Such men are the salt of the earth”.

(Rajesh is passionate about his city and is always looking for ways of documenting its history)

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus> Hidden Histories / by Rajesh Goivindarajulu / January 30th, 2015

Rasipuram Remembers its Common Man

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Inspiration/ Positive News and Features, Leaders

 

Activists of Rasipuram People’s Forum and residents paying tributes to R K Laxman on Tuesday | express
Activists of Rasipuram People’s Forum and residents paying tributes to R K Laxman on Tuesday | express

Namakkal :

Condoling the demise of R K Laxman, residents in his ancestral town, Rasipuram in Namakkal district, paid floral tributes to him on Tuesday.

Activists of the Rasipuram People’s Forum paid  homage to Rasipuram Krishnaswamy Laxman who passed away in Pune on Monday. They showered flowers on a portrait of the cartoonist at the old bus stand in Rasipuram.

Laxman’s grandfather had lived in Rasipuram and the cartoonist’s father moved to Chennai before shifting to Mysore.

“Rasipuram is the ancestral town of R K Laxman and his brother R K Narayan. Both had made the town proud by their works,” said Nalvinai Viswaraj, secretary of Rasipuram People’s Forum.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Tamil Nadu / by Express News Service / January 28th, 2015

IG Kannappan, 2 Others in TN Get Prez Medal

Leaders, Records, All

Chennai :

Three police officials including ADGP Sunil Kumar and IG P Kannappan were awarded President’s Police Medal for Distinguished Service ahead of Republic Day.

In addition, 21 officers were selected for the same.

Sunil Kumar is now a member of TNUSRB, while Kannappan is head of the Intelligence wing.

In addition, PC Sivakumar, an SSI with the DVAC, too was awarded.

Others include DIG (Coimbatore) Ayush Tiwari, DIG (Salem) Vidya Kulkarni, ASP R Veeraperumal and ASP (Chennai) S Flora Jayanthi.

source: http://www.neewindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Chennai / by Express News Service / January 26th, 2015

Padma honours for Carnatic maestro, ex-CEC, N-scientist

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Leaders, Records, All, Science & Technologies

Chennai :

Tamil Nadu had a modest share in Sunday’s Padma awards list. Of the nine Padma Vibhushan awardees, one is from Tamil Nadu, and out of 20 Padma Bhushan awardees two are from the state. Of 75 Padma Shri awardees, three are from Tamil Nadu.

Nuclear scientist M R Srinivasan is the sole candidate from the state to bag Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian honor, next to Bharat Ratna. He was conferred Padma Bhushan a quarter century ago, in 1990, and Padma Shri three decades ago, in 1984. A team member of the legendary Homi Bhabha, Srinivasan was involved in India’s first nuclear research reactor Apsara in mid-1950s.

He later became chairman of Atomic Energy Commission and rose to be secretary of department of atomic eergy. Srinivasan was founder-chairman of Nuclear Power Corporation of India, in 1987. He was responsible for a total of 18 nuclear power units in the country.

The two Padma Bhushan awardees from the state are former chief election commissioner N Gopalaswami, and Carnatic singer Sudha Ragunathan.

Gopalaswami, a 1966 IAS officer of Gujarat cadre, was chief election commissioner from June 2006 to April 2009. He was former union home secretary as well, and had held posts of secretery in department of culture, and secretary-general in National Human Rights Commission. “It is a happy feeling to have won the award. I would like to acknowledge the fact that work done by others has helped me fetch the honour. It is not just an individual’s work, but a whole team has worked for me to get this credit. I am grateful for the recognition. Good work never goes waste,” Gopalaswami told TOI.

Sudha Raghunathan is one the best recognizable faces in Carnatic music circles, and among the most sought-after vocalist during music seasons. A distinguished disciple of M L Vasanthakumari, Sudha Raghunathan got her Padma Shri award in 2004.

When contacted, she told TOI: “I am extremely happy and overwhelmed on winning the award. I am grateful to the government for the honour. Through the years, there have been many people who stood by me and motivated me. I want to thank the God almighty. I want to thank my guru M L Vasantha Kumari, mother V Choodamani and fans from all around the world. I want to thank the organisers who have encouraged me from my teen years for all their support.”

A top-notch violinist and this year’s recipient of Padma Shri award, A Kanyakumari is a recipient of TN government’s Kalaimamani award as well.

Two other Padma Shri awardees from the state are former civil servants P V Rajaraman and R Vasudevan.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Chennai / TNN / January 26th, 2015

Anglo India hand

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Leaders, Nri's / Pio's

Eric Stracey talks about his book ‘Growing up in Anglo India’

EricStaceyBF25dec2014

“If as a little boy in the 1920s, I had been asked what I was, I would have said, ‘English’.” In Growing up in Anglo India (EastWest) Eric Stracey, 80, writes about an elusive 400-year-old community. Sometimes reviled, often used, rarely admired, the Anglo-Indians are a people who perhaps got as close to immortality as they ever would with Ismail Merchant’s Cotton Mary.

“Cheap novelists and scriptwriters have often found in the Anglo-Indians ground for sensationalism,” says Stracey. Stracey’s writing is a nostalgic, picturesque, sometimes brutally honest journey through the times, places and achievements that characterised the lives of his parents and 11 siblings.

“There was the realisation that we were an unusual lot and that our story called for some kind of record,” he says. “Another reason was that Bangalore and the conditions prevailing there when I was growing up in the cantonment – the best of weather, pure air, clean water, fine schools, a moral climate and cheap living – have changed beyond recognition. Unfortunately for the worse.”
Stracey migrated to Australia for “family reasons” in 1980. During a retirement marked by “boredom and low spirits”, his writing flourished. He updated his first, unpublished novel Odd Man In – memoirs of his years in the police service, which climaxed when be became director general of police, Tamil Nadu, in 1979.
Growing up in Anglo India is in a sense a literary tribute to his people: “Among our proudest qualities are our sense of loyalty and steadfastness. We stuck to our post and did our duty when others faltered.” It is no wonder then that cities as far afield as Calcutta and Bangalore have their own mini-legends about Anglo-Indian police officers like Stracey.
And despite great distances, this father of two sons, Mike, 52, and John, 54, is as close as he ever was to his community. So while he writes with regret that a lack of financial resources has led to conditions among the Anglo-Indians “going downhill”, he might take consolation in the fact that he will always be remembered for knowing well and writing truly of a time when it was otherwise.
source: http://www.indiatoday.intoday.in / Indiatoday.in / Home> Society & The Arts> Books / by Sonia Faleiro / September 04th, 2014