CMC director Dr Sunil Chandy having a look at the pre-analyser that was inaugurated on Friday | EXPRESS
Vellore :
The Christian Medical College Hospital here has emerged as the first hospital in the country to have established a fully-automated clinical biochemistry laboratory that can handle around 1000 samples an hour effortlessly.
While the hospital had introduced automatic sample analysers sometime back, with the inauguration of a fully automated pre-analyser on Friday, the diagnosis of samples has now become a lot easier, safer and faster.
Describing the automation move as ‘hallmark of excellence’, hospital director Dr Sunil Chandy said the push was a result of fusion of useful technology and human enterprise. While the hospital had been on relying on accurate, high- quality lab diagnosis to extend quality care services, the challenge all along has been on achieving prudent and regulated growth to meet the demand from the increasing patients flow, he added.
Hitherto when a sample specimen was received, it went through a pre-analytical phase, comprising registering, centrifuging to separate the plasma or serum or other things, de-capping the tube, bar-coding and organising the samples before it was sent to the analyser machines for testing various parameters.
All these steps were being done manually. It is during this phase that 70 per cent of errors occur and the technologists are maximally exposed to the sample.
The new pre-analyser system offered by multinational company Roche has addressed these issues with a lot of simpler solutions. The bar-coded samples can be loaded on to the pre-analyser system now and the ‘pick and place’ robotic arm would sort the samples and load them on the analyser specific racks or carriers, which could be sent to the analysers for various tests.
Also, Roche has developed customised software for the CMC, that integrates the pre-analytics to the various analysers in the department and to the hospital information system.
General Superintendent Dr Selvakumar, who is also the head of the Department of Clinical Bio-chemistry, said that it was a big leap of automation in the history of the hospital. According to him, the first level of lab automation was started in CMC in 1984 when analysers were introduced for the first time in the country that could handle 250 tests/hour.
Then, bar-coding, pneumatic transport of samples from any part of the hospital followed over a period of time. With the introduction of the two pre-analysers now (each costing around `2.5 crore), the lab is fully automated to reduce the time taken for the tests by 50 per cent besides ensuring safety and accuracy of results.
The lab is manned by 24 technicians, to conduct as many as 170 tests of blood, urine and cerebrospinal fluid on a daily basis. The 40-year-old lab, which was accredited by the NABH in 2002 is presently handling around 5,000 samples a day, which can be scaled up depending on the future needs, Selvakumar added.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Tamil Nadu / by V. NarayanaMurthy / July 12th, 2014
She may be best known for her Grammy-winning song from Slumdog Millionaire, but there are more sides to the Chennai-based singer, songwriter and designer
On early mornings, there’s only one place to find Tanvi Shah: out at sea. The calm descends within the moment she paddles out into the waters. With the sky above and little else around, Tanvi surfs the sea’s swells, thinking. From lyrics for her next song-writing project, to rehearsing rhythms and tunes, planning song videos, even deciding band placement spots and her performance moves, this is Tanvi’s “me, myself and I” time. The energy in the vast expanses fuels her inventive spirit and this Grammy-awarded singer, songwriter and designer is bubbling over with creative energy.
This past Monday though, she’s as jittery as a spring wound tight. She hasn’t hit the water for three weeks, her band is scattered across town and she has a rehearsal to run for in an hour, for her big gig at Hard Rock on Thursday last. Start talking about her music though and Tanvi unwinds, relaxing in the obvious pleasure it gives her. “It’s a Latin night!” she says, “I’m going to be singing in Spanish, Portuguese, Brazilian, French and I may even sneak in a Hebrew song if I can manage it.” Tanvi shot to fame in 2010 when her Spanish lyrics for ‘Jai-Ho’ won her the Grammy with A.R. Rahman and Gulzar, but her love for languages roots itself way back, in her college days, studying ceramics in the U.S.
Born into a family proficient in design, Tanvi never envisioned herself a singer — “always some environment-friendly activist kind” — but her mother says she recognised voices in music even as a child. She grew up on Asha Bhosle and Kishore Kumar, and discovered Osibisa at 11, but her musical world was thrown open in an American college dormitory. With an Egyptian roommate who jived to Daniela Mercury on one side and Spanish friends who danced merengue, samba, salsa and tango on the other, Tanvi delved into a truly international culture at the Havana village parties she frequented in Washington DC. She encountered the Latin American greats — Sergio Mendez, Juanas, Pablo Alboran, Celia Cruz, Gloria Estefan — and though it took a while to understand their complex rhythm patterns, she wasn’t one to cower at a challenge.
Back in India, a chance recording of her singing a karaoke cover, reached Rahman, and in 2004, he gave her her first break with ‘Fanaa’ in the film Yuva. From Delhi 6, to Slumdog Millionaire, Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, Enthiran, Biriyani and much more, Tanvi has worked the Hindi, Telugu and Tamil playback singing circuit for a decade now, most frequently with Rahman and Yuvan Shankar Raja. “Every time I’m at a Rahman recording, he throws me a challenge — let’s sing in Spanish today, let’s try a different style today — and I come away having learnt so much about music and language. I’ve been enormously blessed to work with directors who let me improvise, explore my own talent and draw out what they believe is my potential.”
Outside films, Tanvi has collaborated with international artistes across genres, from Snoop Dogg, on the track ‘Snoop Dogg Millionaire’, to Spaniard Gustavo Alarco on her song ‘Lluvia Lejana’ and producer JHawk on her singles ‘Llamalo Amor’ and ‘Meant To Be’. Three more singles, “on love, life and just taking off on a holiday’ are set for release later this year and Tanvi currently won’t divulge news on more collaborations in the pipeline. With all this genre-hopping, is there a ‘Tanvi Shah sound’ that has evolved over time? “I don’t want there to be!” she says. I have the whole gamut of music genres available to me right now; restricting myself to one would be like eating just the cherry on the cake. I want the whole cake, the cream and the cherry!”
At home in parallel worlds: Tanvi Shah / by Special Arrangement / The Hindu
This positive addiction to productivity is what also pushes Tanvi to lead a parallel career as designer for her label Tansha. Her little office on Chamiers Road is bursting with scrapbooks, lampshades she’s fashioned from discarded liquor bottles, phone covers sprinkled with her doodles, an up-cycled design table mounted on a bicycle and even a cherry blossom tree made of duct-tape climbing across her wall, all of it drilled, chain-sawed and hammered into place by hand. Shoulder pains, bruises and fractures aren’t really deterrents, says Tanvi. “I probably have too much energy bursting inside me. But it’s when my head finally hits the pillow at night and I know I’ve achieved something today, that I’m most satisfied.”
It’s Thursday evening and the heavens have opened slushy chaos over Chennai. In a quiet corner of Hard Rock Cafe, Phoenix Mall, though, Tanvi Shah is a picture of peace. The tables around her are slowly filling up and midway through pre-concert photographs she casts quick glances at the lengthening line outside the entrance. Her band sets up on stage; Hard Rock breaks into its trademark YMCA dance, and the evening is set to begin.
A clash of cymbals, drum rolls like thunder and Tanvi opens into the sharp, seductive notes of ‘Ojos Asi’, Shakira’s Arabic-Spanish number that translates to “Eyes like Yours”. Dressed in a flowing, floral bustier dress, Tanvi belly dances to the beats, hair bouncing, bangles jangling and everyone else’s feet tapping. It’s a mainstream welcome into her world of Latin American music. Her hope though, is to open her listeners to artistes less celebrated than Shakira and Enrique Iglesias. “Within Latin American music alone, there’s Merengue, Flamenco, Pambiche and much else, and under Merengue itself there are seven sub-sections. There’s a whole wide world out there,” she says.
It’s a Portuguese song from Salvador Bahia up next, and Tanvi’s voice soars, all warmed up now and building from soft whispers into full-throated belting. She comes into her own in the Afro-Brazilian maracatu-dance inspired number about liberation. It’s all spunk and power in a call-and-answer sequence with her backing vocalists Roshni Sharon and Priya Krishnan, enough to get the crowd on their feet and dancing. For an audience that understands little Portuguese or Spanish, her music reaches out beyond language, and that’s how she wants it, “Music is universal, and as musicians we have the privilege to step into different cultures. Ninety per cent of the songs in the world say the same things, more or less, but it’s the difference in expression that really speaks to us.” Despite experimenting so broadly, Tanvi says she’s a stickler for perfection. Diction is her pet peeve and she goes into spiels about how the ‘s’ in Spanish is pronounced with a lisp in northern Spain and without one in Mexico, the difference in dialects and how all of this pans out while singing.
By now, the room has transformed into something out of Tanvi’s college days and she takes the crowd with her to the Caribbean islands this time. Playing off the beautiful tones from Shyam Benjamin’s keyboard, she rouses the crowd into singing the chorus of a song that tells of an old woman who can solve any problem with three drops of her magic potion. For her musicians too, Tanvi’s choice of genre is something of a welcoming relief. In a culture popularising rock and fusion, jazz and blues, it’s been a while since any of them have done a Latin American music-only night. With Jeoraj Stanly on drums, Allwyn Paul on a whole host of percussion, Napier Peter Naveen Kumar on the bass and Donan Murray on guitars, the band is in full form all night. By the time the skies outside have let up, Tanvi is well into the closing crowd-pleasers Beyonce’s ‘Single Ladies’ and Shakira’s ‘It’s Time For Africa’. When she finally steps off the stage, she’s tired but smiles and says, “Now, I’m happy!”
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by Esther Elias / Chennai – July 11th, 2014
Little did Kamatchi, a resident of Vilankudi village here, know that the tin box his family took out in a procession every year during temple festivals was a treasure trove until he decided to clean it.
Kamatchi during the cleaning process found two copper plates inside the box with inscriptions in some old script. He took the plates to the Ramalinga Vilasam palace to show it to the curator Sakthivel, who deciphered the script and informed the Archaelogical Department. “The copper plates were gifted to the family of Vanni Muthuan, a resident of Vilankudi village and the temple priest, by Ramanathapuram king Regunatha Thevar alias Thirumalai Sethupathy in 1638 and 1645. Muthuan used to preside over the poojas at the Kamatchi Amman temple,” an archaeology department source said.
The plates came in an ornate box, which was passed on from generation to generation. Later, it assumed a divine value and they began taking it out in procession during temple fests.
Elaborating on the inscriptions on the plates, Sakthivel said, “The king in the inscriptions commands each farmer in 20 counties to donate one padi (one-and-a-half kg) paddy to the temple priest once a year.”
“Farmers donating paddy as per the royal command would incur benefits equalling that of establishing 1,000 lingams in a temple or sinking 1,000 water tanks. However, those shunning the command would incur sins equalling that of killing their own mothers or a Brahmin or cow,” the curator said, adding that the inscriptions were engraved on the plates by a carpenter of Yeluvarkottai village.
A source in the archeological department told Express that Kamatchi was allowed to retain the plates, as those were family heirlooms. “The plates are precious, but the family has been preserving it for centuries,” the source said.
www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Tamil Nadu / by Express News Service / July 10th, 2014
On Tuesday afternoon A Saleem is getting ready to collect the body of a septuagenarian man he has never met before, from the GH mortuary. He is working on getting the vehicle ready to perform his last rites at a burial ground nearby.
The 29-year-old is no priest, under-taker or mortuary van driver. He just believes that every dead person has the right to rest in peace and While most people probably believe the same, Saleem goes the extra mile to get ensures that dead people get a decent funeral. Saleem, through his organisation Jeevan Shanthy Trust, performs last rites for many unclaimed and unidentified bodies in the city every year. They have buried 154 bodies in the last 10 months.
About five to 10 people from the trust, formed seven years ago but registered two years ago, are at GH every day to collect bodies that are released after postmortems. “We always carry incense stick, candles and camphor, so that we can perform rights according to Hindu, Muslim and Christian customs before burying them,” says Saleem.
The bodies are usually buried at the Aathupaalam burial ground on Podanur Road. Saleem and the other members from the trust pool in money. for a garland and a white cloth to wrap the body.
“It is difficult to identify the religion of an unclaimed body, so unless there is some identification, we go with our instincts,” says another trust member.
The trust started this service seven years ago, when Saleem and his friends realised that bodies of relatives often become a burden for people from the economically weaker sections.
“There were so many people who would have come
from Trichy, Tirupur, Pollachi, Erode and other places who could not afford to pay for final rites, A mortuary van would charge a daily wage labourer a rent of 10,000 which is not affordable, ” says Saleem. “Then at crematoriums and burial grounds too, people would demand money for every little thing,” he says. “It was painful to see poor people, who are also emotionally devastated, being fleeced,” he adds. “We also realised that a lot bodies rot in the mortuary for days with no one coming to claim them,” he said.
The trust now has 50 members which primarily s of Saleem’s college mates and friends. They do not raise funds from the public or any NGOs. “We pool in money for everything right from the vehicle, to the fuel for the vehicles, to cloth, garlands, candles and incense sticks,” says Saleem.
The trust has managed to buy two vehicles — a maruti van and an ambulance, to run their service.
The trust also transports a body from GH to their houses or villages km away, allowing the family to perform the last rites. “We initially pooled in money to buy a Maruti van to transport unidentified and unclaimed dead bodies to the burial ground,” says Saleem. “But we also use the vehicle to transport a poor man’s body to his village even if it is 500 km away, so his family can perform the last rites,” he adds. “Around six of us pool in 500 each, fill fuel for 3,000 and take the body,” he says.
They rescue destitute people from the streets and pavements and admit them to the hospital. “Many are abandoned by their families after they tested positive for HIV. So we admit them to the GH, get the necessary tests done, collect and administer their medication. We also provide them with clothesWe also give them a bath and a plate to collect their food,” says Saleem.
Their services are so well-known that 108 ambulance drivers and the police notify them in cases of unidentified bodies or destitute people they rescue.
“We help them by filing FIRs for unclaimed bodies so that it makes their job easier. We have also seen them adopt many abandoned and destitute people from the street and admit them to the hospital,” said a police constable posted at GH.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Coimbatore / by Pratiksha Ramkumar, TNN / July 07th, 2014
Wabco India Ltd, a braking systems maker in the automobile industry, has bagged the Madras Management Association’s Award for Managerial Excellence in the manufacturing category, while iGate Global Solutions has won the award in the services category.
Vaishnavi Biotech
Vaishnavi Biotech is the winner in the small firms segment and National Institute of Technology, Trichy’s department of management studies, has bagged it in the institutions category.
R Chandrasekaran, Vice-Chairman, Cognizant, and Chairman of Nasscom; and Gopal Srinivasan, Chairman and Managing Director, TVS Capital Funds, will be guests of honour at the awards function.
The companies, chosen for their business philosophies, will make presentations about their journey.
This is the 13th MMA Award for Managerial Excellence and is supported by the Murugappa Group and Mercedes Benz.
The awards will be given away at an event at Le Royal Meridien on Friday.
source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com / Business Line / Home> News> National / by The Hindu Bureau / Chennai – July 02nd, 2014
It was the day freedom fighters Subramania Siva and V.O.C. were found guilty of sedition
July 7, 1908 is a date no patriotic Indian of Tamil origin could afford not to know for it is on that day Madurai-born freedom fighter Subramania Siva became the first patriot in the whole of Madras Presidency (encompassing much of present day southern India) to be found guilty and imprisoned on the charge of sedition in British India.
Coincidentally, it was in July 1996 that his birthplace Batlagundu (Vathalagundu in Tamil) was taken away from Madurai district after the latter’s bifurcation to form Theni district. Therefore, it is only apt to recall this July, the history created 106 years ago by Arthur F. Pinhey, the then Additional Sessions Judge of Tinnevelly (now Tirunelveli) district.
A copy of his judgement available with The Hindu, reads: “It seems to me that sedition at any time is a most serious offence. It is true that the case is the first of its kind in the Presidency, but the present condition of other Presidencies where the crime seems to have secured a foothold, would seem to indicate that light sentences of imprisonment of a few months or may be a year or two are instances of misplaced leniency.”
He goes on to state: “The first object of a sentence is that it shall be deterrent not to the criminal alone but to others who feel any inclination to follow his example. Here we have to deal with a campaign of sedition which nearly ended in revolt. The accused are morally responsible for all the lives lost in quelling the riots that ensued on their arrest.”
Though Siva was the prime accused in the case and his mentor V.O. Chidambaram, popularly known as ‘Kappalottia Tamilan’ for having started a shipping company to compete with the British in 1906, was only the second accused, the judge had surprisingly ordered a comparatively lighter sentence of 10 years of transportation on Siva and that of transportation for life on V.O.C.
“The maximum penalty that the law permits would not seem to be too severe for such a case. I think however some discrimination may be made in favour of the first accused. It seems to me he was a tool in the hands of the second accused… Subramania Siva also had the grace not to make vile and baseless allegations against the district authorities.
“For the conduct of the second accused I can see no extenuation. He is evidently disloyal to the core and a man of a type most dangerous to society,” Mr. Pinhey said.
A careful reading of the judgement also exhibits how factors such as the social background, community and caste of the accused as well as those of the witnesses were taken into consideration by the judge while testing the genuineness of their statements.
The two accused were convicted under Section 124A (punishment for sedition), a provision which continues to be in the statute book even in independent India, of the Indian Penal Code in connection with four public speeches delivered by Siva at Tuticorin on February 23, 25 and 26 and March 5 in 1908. V.O.C. was accused of organising those meets though he did not participate in all of them.
Describing the background of Siva, the judge says: “The first accused whose original name was Subramania Iyer, is a relation of the Palayamcottah Inspector of Police, P.W.7 (Viraragava Iyer) and a native of Batlagundu in the Madura district.
“In 1902, he seems to have obtained temporarily the appointment of Mochi in the office of the Special Assistant Superintendent of Police, Sivakasi. Later, it would seem he went to Travancore, and after completing his education there, assumed the garb of a Sannyasi, called himself Subramania Siva and started to tramp the country as an itinerant preacher.”
In the later part of the judgement, while speaking about the most important prosecution witness, Jaffir Hussain Sahib, Tuticorin Police Inspector who reportedly took notes of the Tamil speeches in English, Mr. Pinhey says: “He was a fine specimen of a Mohamedan gentleman.
“His demeanour in the witness box was perfect and he was unshaken by cross examination and I have no doubt he spoke the truth throughout… His notes are in English as he thinks in that language in preference to Tamil, though thoroughly conversant with the latter, and writes English with greater facility.”
On the other hand, rejecting the evidence adduced by Head Constable Kaliyugarama Pillai, the judge says:
“He is certainly the least satisfactory of the police witnesses and it has to be borne in mind that he is a Vellala like the second accused. It seems he was transferred soon after that note was taken.
“The circumstance that he broke his pencil directly the second accused began to speak and consequently lost that speech is I think significant. It possibly explains his transfer.”
The fact that the judgement, penned by a British national, consciously identified every other individual in India by their caste and community is also evident from its following lines: “When it was suggested to the witness that an Iyengar, like the Sub-Inspector and a Smartha Brahmin like the first accused, would not have taken food together at the same hotel… and the circumstantial facts on which the prosecution rely is that Subramania Siva though a Brahmin lived with the second accused at Tuticorin.”
The judgement known as ‘King Emperor versus Subramania Siva and V.O. Chidambaram Pillai’ is a classic piece of document that gives a fair idea of social conditions that prevailed in the country a century ago.
And it is a matter of history that though the conviction imposed on the two great freedom fighters were confirmed by the appellate courts of those days, the punishment was reduced considerably.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Madurai / by Mohamed Imranullah S. / Madurai – July 07th, 2014
From left to right: M M Murugappan, Vice Chairman, Murugappa Group, Chennai, with T Sathish Kumar, MD, Milky Mist Dairy Foods Pvt Ltd, Chittode, Erode district, and K. Srinivasan , Managing Director of Emerald Jewel Industry India Ltd., Coimbatore. Photo: Special Arrangement
Coimbatore :
K Srinivasan, Managing Director of Emerald Jewel Industry India Ltd, Coimbatore, has been awarded the ‘EO- Entrepreneur of the year 2014’ by the Entrepreneurs’ Organisation (EO), Coimbatore.
T Sathish Kumar, Managing Director, Milky Mist Dairy Foods Private Ltd, Chittode in Erode District, was chosen for the ‘Emerging Entrepreneur of the year 2014’ award.
The awards, given to young entrepreneurs from the western region of Tamil Nadu comprising Coimbatore, Tirupur, the Nilgiris, Erode, Namakkal and Salem districts, was presented by M M Murugappan, Vice Chairman of Murugappa Group, Chennai, at a function held here on Friday.
The organisation said that the award was given in recognition of entrepreneurs for their contribution in stimulating economic growth, in employment generation and for fulfilling their social responsibilities etc. Deloitte had collaborated with EO Coimbatore in this regard.
Karthikeyan Palanisamy, President, Coimbatore chapter, said that EO is a network of business owners in over 40 countries that facilitated small and large business owners to network and help each other to grow.
source: http://www.thehindubusinessline.com / Business Line / Home> Companies / by R. Yegya Narayanan / Coimbatore – June 30th, 2014
Panagal Road – the arterial road connecting Goripalayam with Sivaganga Road is named after Panagal Raja, eminent politician of the state from erstwhile Justice Party who was chief minister of Madras Presidency from 1921 to 1926. The road got its name during British rule.
Sir Panaganti Ramarayaningar (1866 – 1928) known as Panagal Raja was a noted politician in British India instrumental in starting Justice Party and raising the issue of caste based reservations. He was also the man behind educational reforms and municipal development of then Madras. As tribute to his reforms, there is a park in T Nagar, Chennai and the road in Madurai was also apparently named after him, says residents.
Colonial rulers who were living inside old Madurai city till Sepoy Mutiny in 1857 started shifting their establishments and residences in Northern Bank. Though Rajaji Hospital was established by theBritish way back in 1842, it was taken over by Madurai municipality in 1872 and the hospital came under state administration by 1918. Sir Arthur Hope, Governor of Madras inaugurated the full-fledged facility as seen today, in 1940 as per the stone tablet found in GRH.
Former Madurai East MLA, N Nanmaran said that Panagal Road could have been named after popular Justice Party leader since the Dravidian movement and parties evolved from it had its roots from that party. Government Rajaji Hospital earlier known as Erskine Hospital was very significant landmark since it was one of the biggest government hospitals for entire southern districts even today, he said. However N Pandurangan (74) an elderly Congress party man residing in the area says that the road was christened after Panagal Raja even during British days. Madurai city ended with South Bank and entire northern part was villages. The present day Panagal Road and Shenoy Nagar were Mathichiyam village, he recalled.
“In those days entire area was mostly wilderness and few houses situated here and there. But Panagal Road was still an important road with Rajaji Hospital and Collector office established in colonial rule”, he said.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Madurai / by J. Arockiaraj, TNN / June 29th, 2014
Memorial tablets and gravestones, which mark the end of a life actually go way back to its early days. Except, back then only the valiant and deserving were immortalized in stone – usually with a spot of art to mark them apart. These prototype memorials were called hero stones and they were typically reserved for heroes or those who served their community. A 2-day national seminar held last week in Hosur, titled The Days of Heroes, uncovered new facts about these stones and pointed to their prevalence in the south.
Sugavana Murugan, a hero stone expert and convener of the seminar pointed out that Dharmapuri and Krishnagiri districts are known as the land of hero stones. “Multi-lingual people lived here in harmony and
their hero stones bear inscriptions in Tamil, Telugu and Kannada. These stones range from the 5th to 18th century AD. “Inscriptions on hero stones usually describe the political, social and cultural history of the region. These stones commemorate people for their valour in a cattle raid, for the retrieval of captured cattle, fighting and killing wild animals, death in battle, sati or heroic death for a public cause,” he says, adding that fertility and ritual stones have also been identified there.
This was the first time since 1974 that a national seminar on hero stones was conducted in south India. Organised by the Krishnagiri District Historical Research Centre, the conference drew together scholars from 15 universities across the country, who presented papers on various aspects of hero stones. One of these was also from Pakistan, describing hero stones in the Sindh region.
Professor V Selvakumar of Tamil University, Thanjavur presented his paper titled ‘Hero stone worship and its significance in Tamil Nadu’. Although hero stones have been discovered in many parts of Tamil Nadu, particularly near its borders with Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, no detailed study has been conducted on the subject so far. According to Selvakumar these stones are referred to in Tamil as planted stones or natukal and in Kannada as virakkal (stone of valour).
“The concept of hero stone or hero worship evolved from the megalithic burial tradition,” he said, “The worship of heroes could have begun in the Iron Age when megalithic monuments were erected for the dead.
While we do find different types of burial sites in the Iron Age, some of them, especially menhirs (standing stone), appear to have been erected for heroes. They used different surface markers to convey the status of the dead and they were probably erected only for certain individuals, as we do not find them in large numbers, like burial urns.”
From Pakistan came a paper by Zulfiqar Ali Kalhoro on ‘Memorial Stones of Sindh, Pakistan’. “This practice was widespread in the early medieval period in Sindh,” he said. Like Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri, many of the hero stones in Sindh were erected in memory of heroes who died at the hands of cattle-lifters, Kalhoro said. “In other districts of Sindh are memorial towers erected in the memory of cattle retrievers. They are found in the hilly regions of Karachi, Thatta, Jamshoro and Dadu districts, which relied heavily on cattle.”
V Ramabrahmam, assistant professor at Yogi Vemana University, Kadapa, said the practice of erecting hero stones in India was recorded in Vedic texts. “The erection of a monument in memory of the dead and the practice of forming a mound with an attached post is described in the Satapatha Brahmana (9th- 8th century BC),” he said, “During the days of King Asoka (3rd century BC) hero stones were erected on wooden, and subsequently, stone posts. The origin of memorial stones of the later periods originates from here.”
What’s the difference between a memorial stone and hero stone? “Memorial stones contain funeral remains, whereas hero stones are only plaques commemorating a death, without any funeral remains. Incidentally, sculptures on hero stones not only convey the art of the times, but also a social and cultural commentary on the region in that time,” he explained.
More than 2,500 hero stones have so far been excavated from the state. Devarakonda Reddy, president of the Karnataka Itihasa Academy, said this may have something to do with the frequent fights between local kings and chieftains. It’s where the area’s history is set indelibly in stone. An imminent book titled ‘The Days of Heroes’ will incorporate the research papers presented at the seminar.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Coimbatore / by M. T. Saju, TNN / June 30th, 2014
It was T Govindan, a professor and avid lover of ancient history, who established the Krishnagiri District Historical Research Centre (KDHRC) in Hosur in 2009. Even though it almost immediately began conducting one-day seminars and talks, KDHRC became defunct in 2010 due to lack of public support, but it was revived by a few committed individuals, following Govindan’s death in 2012. The centre aimed to preserve the culture of the region, mainly Krishnagiri and Dharmapuri, where a number of hero stones and inscriptions lay unattended, some even ruined. With more than 40 members, the KDHRC is today a strong promoter of ancient history in the region. It has published five books and conducted a number of seminars and talks, including the two-day seminar on hero stones held on July 21 and 22.
It has now also started publishing ‘Nalli’, a quarterly. “Nalli will cover new excavations and discoveries in the region. It will also create awareness among people about our rich culture and heritage,” says Sugavana Murugan, editor of Nalli and member of KDHRC. “KDHRC is planning to also document all the hero stones and inscriptions in the region, many of which were destroyed by vandals.
Lack of funds, however, poses problems. “We function with the help of donations made by people,” says Murugan. He hopes they continue to receive the resources needed to conduct seminars and talks, and organize events like the recently concluded seminar.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Coimbatore / TNN / June 30th, 2014
