The Armenian Church standing on the eponymous street is one of my favourite locations in the city. Its solidly-built walls, quiet nooks and stately interiors fill me with a sense of peace that cannot be matched. Lovingly tended by the Armenian community in Calcutta and by the local caretaker Mr Alexander, it ought to be on every resident and tourist’s visit itinerary.
Leaving that aside, it was while walking around it with a group of Americans last week that I recalled that the heritage structure has its (albeit tenuous) links with the US of A. This concerns the bells of the church, which are housed in an independent three-storied tower, on the southern side of the yard. They are accessed via a three-century-old staircase by the more physically fit and brave. The church authorities restrict entry to the tower – a sensible precaution given the age of the staircase. The ground floor of the tower has three tombs all with the same carvings on the headstone. The inscriptions are in Armenian but they probably were members of the family that funded the tower. The belief is strengthened by the fact that the same motif as the headstones – winged angels, is repeated on all floors of the belfry.
The bells are rung every Sunday at 9.30 am. Said to be the largest in the city, there are six of them, donated at different times to the church, each weighing around 25 kgs. All of them were cast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry of London. The company, founded in 1570, moved into its present premises in 1739 and continues in the same business. Talk about focus!
Given that all the bells in the Armenian Church bear the stamp of Thomas Mears, it indicates that they were all cast between 1787 and 1844, when two men of that name, probably father and son, were master founders with the company. It is of interest to note that the same company cast the bells for St Pauls Cathedral and Westminster Abbey in London, besides several other churches in England and the Big Ben in the Houses of Parliament in London.
Now for the American connect. The Liberty bell of Pennsylvania is one of the treasured heritage possessions of the USA. Commissioned in 1751, it was cast at the same Whitechapel Foundry and shipped to Philadelphia where it hung in the steeple of the Pennsylvania State House. It cracked even during its first ring and had to be recast twice locally before it could be used properly. A second and more lasting crack in 1835 ended its career as a ringing bell but it has remained a tourist attraction. Scaled down models of it, crack and all, remain popular souvenirs across the country. Our own ‘Belfry Six’ as the set of bells in the Armenian Church are referred to, have thankfully remained crack-free.
I wonder if any other church in our city has bells cast by the same company.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus> Society / by Sriram V / Chennai – June 27th, 2014
Here is shining example of what the football World Cup frenzy can do to a fan. G. Venkatesh, a goldsmith by profession and belonging to Vellalore, has crafted a beautiful miniature model of the World Cup using 130 milligram of gold.
Venkatesh, who has been making miniature objects using gold since 2009 hoping to create a Guinness record, has fashioned the football World Cup, all of 0.7 millimetres, with just 130 milligrams of gold.
Along with it, he has also crafted a replica of a lively football match with a team of miniature players, all made of gold, running around a ball. “I used to play football during my school days. Nowadays, I get to watch matches on television despite my painstaking and demanding job schedule,” he said. It took nearly 12 long hours for him to craft the World Cup and recreate the match scene.
Claiming to have dropped out of school after class 7, Venkatesh said his dream is to become a record-holder – like the achievers he sees on TV. Venkatesh is now busy crafting a miniature car, whose doors could be opened and wheels move.
“I had participated in few exhibitions and showcased my works and won appreciation. Some even came forward to buy my models for a good price, but I do not want to sell them,” he said. He hails from a poor family as his father T. Ganesh is a painter, mother G. Rajeswari is a homemaker and brother G. Manikandan is into crafting furniture.
source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com / Deccan Chronicle / Home> Nation> Current Affairs / DC / by V. Ashok Kumar / June 25th, 2014
The Prajapita Brahma Kumaris Ishwariya Vishwa Vidyalaya, an organisation that imparts teaching and education on spiritual and moral values, launched ‘The Goodness Festival’ at Besant Nagar in the city on Friday. The festival is a three-day programme that aims at creating awareness about the values of self, god and acts of goodness through several lectures, seminars and workshops.
The launch ceremony had an introduction to the global project undertaken by Brahma Kumaris titled ‘7 billion acts if goodness’, which was intended to encourage everyone to perform at least one act of goodness a day.
Mayor Saidai Duraisamy, who inaugurated the event, said that the primary concern in life was good health, and that one must inculcate good eating habits to enjoy a healthy life. “A healthy person is capable of performing good actions. Only a person who eats healthy can think healthy and consequently perform good actions,” he said.
T S Krishnamurthy, former Chief Election Commissioner of India, complemented the efforts taken by Brahma Kumaris in the field of improving the quality of lives. “I sincerely hope that festivals such as these contribute to the welfare of humanity,” he said.
The investiture was followed by a lecture on the topic, ‘Women – The ICON of power’. Speaking on the topic, Dr V Shantha, Magsaysay awardee and chairman of the Cancer Institute said, “We have been talking about empowerment of women with reference to the lawful dues a woman must acquire. However, empowerment comes from what a woman is capable of. Every right has its responsibility and therefore, education and awareness are extremely important for one to understand what women empowerment is all about.”
“India is ranked 118 among 177 nations, as far as women emancipation is concerned. That’s the reason we are still unable to say confidently that we have empowered the women.” She also added that female infanticide continued to be a problem in North India, and that the lack of independence for women, zero decision making power in the family and the traditional patriarchal mindset posed serious threats to the idea of women empowerment.
Padma Venkataraman, vice president of Women’s Indian Association, said that the concept of empowering women should not be construed as a war between men and women, but a movement that aimed at gender equality. Nanditha Krishna, director, the CP Ramaswami Aiyar Foundation, said that first step in being good could be by uttering good and kind words. The second day of the event, which will be held on Saturday, will see competitions among school students on various topics and a session for school teachers and college professors.
The third and final day of the event will provide special attention to senior citizens, who reside at old age homes, accompanied by lectures by renowned personalities.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Chennai / by Express News Service / June 28th, 2014
After a decade, Britain’s prestigious FRCS examination made a comeback in India, when candidates from across six Asian countries appeared for the second segment of the three-part Ophthalmology tests conducted at Sankara Nethralaya in Chennai.
Briefing the media here on Thursday, an examiners’ team, led by Dr Robert Murray, from the Royal College of Surgeons of Edinburg (RCSEd) that conducts the examination, said a total of 39 candidates from India, Pakistan, Singapore, Myanmar, Indonesia and Sri Lanka took the FRCS (Part B) examination in Ophthalmology at the leading eye care hospital in the city. The examination was an exhaustive evaluation of the clinical expertise of the candidates, who had qualified Part A (theoretical). The final part included four years of training, the examiners said.
Stating that the Asian system of education seemed to be on the right path, Dr P Chakraborty, a JIPMER graduate and FRCSEd examiner, said the objective was to promote educational research and training exchanges between the institutions in the UK and India.
“We are here because of the demand,” Dr Murray said, adding that the last two parts of the FRCS examination revolved around good medical practices, including ethics. Candidates must answer questions related to interactions with patients, colleagues and drug companies. “Ethics is covered in both parts, but in greater detail in Part C,” he said.
On the quality of the Part B candidates, another examiner, Dr Simon Madge, said, while some were outstanding, others needed more training.
Dr T S Surendran, vice-chairman, Medical Research Foundation, Sankara Nethralaya, said the FRCS examination was seeing a revival at the hospital after a break of 10 years.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Chennai / by Express News Service / June 27th, 2014
DEWA to facilitate SMEs to register themselves as vendors in Dubai
With fabrication units of Tiruchi beginning to explore business opportunities in Dubai, the State-run Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has come forward to facilitate the small and medium enterprises to register themselves as vendors in Dubai and also provide match-making services for the SMEs.
Representatives of DEWA, who visited the city for an interaction with BHELSIA members in November last year, are here again to take forward the discussions. A delegation of BHEL Small Industries Association (BHELSIA) had also visited Dubai recently to explore opportunities .
Both the organisations are of the view that fabrication units could tap direct and indirect business opportunities in Dubai. Briefing reporters here on the discussions, Dawood Khan Jawahar Ahamed, senior engineer (contracts), DEWA, said fabrication units of Tiruchi could supply equipment for power generation, power and water transmission, renewable energy, oil and gas, desalination plants, and a host of other fields.
His organisation would support the fabrication units in not only registering themselves as vendors online but also provide match-making services to help them become sub-contractors for DEWA’s main vendors.
Dubai was now going in for a 2 x 600 MW clean coal technology power plant and 1 x 100 MW solar power plants. The country will also ramp up its power generation capacity ahead of Expo 2020. “We are looking at suppliers in Tiruchi for its cost competitiveness and quality in fabrication,” he said.
“Our vendor registration process is very simple and can be done online from here. We do not have a system of approved vendors and anybody with expertise to supply quality material can register themselves.
Unique codes will be assigned within two days and evaluation will be purely on merit,” Mr.Ahamed said. Mr.Ahamed said that DEWA would help BHELSIA in exploring opportunities in countries other than Dubai in West Asia and elsewhere. “We are here for a long-term association,” he affirmed.
M.Srinivasan, president, BHELSIA, said after long years of being dependent on the public sector major BHEL, fabrication units in Tiruchi are now ready to explore opportunities abroad. “We have built the capacity and expertise. We have learnt from our visit to Dubai that we can do business from here. Given our cheap and qualified labour, we can still be competitive by exporting,” he said.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Tiruchirapalli / by Special Correspondent / Tiruchi – June 11th, 2014
Khainul Bin Abdullah, a Class 8 student at Melaka in Malaysia, has been learning martial art forms that originated in Tamil Nadu, for the last three years including ‘suvadu’ and ‘mallu sandai’.
He began learning this after seeing his elder brother learn them. Now he has become an expert in these forms and attends competitions in many parts of the world. Abdulllah was one of the participants at the Asian level Adithada Competition held at the Rathinam Group of Institutions at Eachanari near Coimbatore on Saturday and Sunday.
“Several people from across the world are coming to learn ‘adithada’, which includes many of our traditional forms like ‘suvadu’, ‘verum kai por’, ‘mallu sandai’ and various other traditional martial arts,” said Kalari P Selvaraj, general secretary of World Adithada Federation. These forms are collectively called ‘Adithada’. They were practised by Tamil expatriates and have gained a huge following abroad.
A few years ago they formed World Adithada Federation to popularise the forms. “We are hopeful that one day this art will be recognised by the Olympic Games committee as some Chinese and Japanese martial arts are,” said Selvaraj. However, they are yet to receive recognition from the Indian government.
Adithada was recognised by the Malaysian government as a sports event two years ago. Now there are around 1,000 people learning this.
“Many schools have included this as one of their extra-curricular activities,” said R Damodharan, a trainer from Malaysia. Excelling in the sport will help students going for higher education, he said.
Apart from Malaysia, participants have also come from Singapore and Bangladesh to take part in the event. Neethan Islamudheen, a martial arts trainer in Dhaka, said that there was a growing interest in the form in his country. He began to learn ‘adithada’ after a few trainers from the federation held a seminar in Dhaka a year ago.
“Many of those who are learning other martial arts are showing interest in it. This is because we find it has more traditional movements,” he said.
The organisers say they have to popularise the sport in various countries and get recognition in at least 90 countries to get entry in Olympics.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home>City> Coimbatore / TNN / June 09th, 2014
US President Barack Obama plans to appoint a Madras University graduate and alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology as a member of the National Science Board of National Science Foundation.
The proposed appointment of Dr Sethuraman Panchanathan, Senior Vice President of the Office of Knowledge Enterprise Development at Arizona State University (ASU), was announced by the White House Friday with 15 other key administration posts
“Our nation will be greatly served by the talent and expertise these individuals bring to their new roles. I am grateful they have agreed to serve in this Administration, and I look forward to working with them in the months and years ahead,” Obama said.
At over thirty, the Obama administration has more Indian-Americans working at high places than in any other previous administration.
Panchanathan, who has held his current position at ASU since 2011, previously worked as a Data Communication Engineer for International Software India Limited in Chennai, India in 1986.
He received a BSc from the University of Madras, a BE from the Indian Institute of Science, an MTech from the Indian Institute of Technology, and a PhD from the University of Ottawa, Canada.
Panchanathan has held a number of positions at Arizona State University since 1998.
He has been a foundation chair professor in Computing and Informatics since 2009 and a founding Director of the Centre for Cognitive Ubiquitous Computing since 2001.
Panchanathan founded the ASU School of Computing and Informatics in 2006 and the Department of Biomedical Informatics in 2005.
Prior to working for ASU, Panchanathan served at the University of Ottawa as a founding Director of the Visual Computing and Communications Laboratory from 1990 to 1997.
He worked as Associate Professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering from 1994 to 1997, and Assistant Professor from 1989 to 1994.
The 226th birth anniversary of John Sullivan, founder of the famous hill station of Udhagamandalam, better known as Ooty, which falls today, will henceforth be celebrated as ‘Ootacamund day,’ a top official of the Nilgiris Documentation centre said.
“The credit for finding Ooty was given to John Sullivan, who was appointed the Coimbatore Collector by British East Indian Company in 1817. As a mark of respect, it has been decided to celebrate June 15, his birthday as Ootacamund day,” D Venugopal, Director of Nilgiris Documentation Centre said.
An announcement to this effect was made by him today at a function in front of twin oak trees planted by Sullivan at Government Arts College.
Venugopal said one has to reflect that when Tamil Nadu, Kerala and Karnataka are locked in disputes over sharing river waters, Ooty has been attracting more visitors from these states. The Nilgiri mountains have been donating most of its
waters to the surrounding plains even while there is widespread water scarcity on the hills, he said.
John Sullivan, who was appointed the Coimbatore Collector by British East Indian Company in 1817.
This co-existence was the guiding spirit for declaring the day to be celebrated after Sullivan’s birthday, Venugopal said.
source: http://www.ibnlive.in.com / IBN Live / Home / by Press Trust of India / June 15th, 2014
With a fan club, several memorials and induction into the local Hindu pantheon, the legend of John Pennycuick, British engineer and chief architect of the disputed Periyar waterworks, lives on in southern Tamil Nadu
The fabled rice paddies of the Cumbum valley in Theni district, one of the most fertile belts in south India lying west of Madurai in southern Tamil Nadu, are girded by dense canopies of banana, grape and coconut. Here and there, Jersey cows look up from patches of serrated foliage, and rows of onion and beet saplings dance like so many chiffon-clad starlets before them in these bucolic uplands beloved of Tamil filmmakers. The road to Kumili, on the Kerala border, is a ribbon unspooling atop this parcel of green and surging towards the Cardamom Hills, wherein lies the fount of all this bounty: the 119-year-old Mullaperiyar dam, the source of a long-standing conflict between Tamil Nadu, which wants more of its water, and Kerala, which is concerned about the dam’s safety.
Last month, in a major victory for Tamil Nadu, a five-judge bench of the Supreme Court upheld a 2006 judgment on the height and safety of the dam and allowed the water level to be raised to 142 ft. The move could mean that farmers in the state, who had settled into a bi-annual cropping pattern and suffered crop losses after the reduction in the height of the dam to 136 ft in 1979, may go back to raising three crops a year. It was amid this wave of hope that we visited Theni, one of five districts — including Madurai, Sivaganga, Ramanathapuram and Dindigul — in the barren rain shadow region of Tamil Nadu that sprang to life with the opening of the 155 ft-high masonry dam in Kerala’s Idukki district in 1895. The spirit of the ruddy, mustachioed Colonel John Pennycuick (January 15, 1841 to March 9, 1911), the British chief engineer of the Periyar Waterworks, bestrides the low hills of Cumbum, which he is said to have surveyed on horseback over a century ago with his local aides, Aanaiviratti (tamer of elephants) Aanaithevar and Kaduvetti (clearer of forests) Karuputhevar. Over the years, legend of his largesse has snowballed and he has been assimilated into the local Hindu pantheon, with farming families offering the first harvest of the year in the form of pongal to a kumkum-anointed portrait of Pennycuick — a balding man in a white collared shirt and a dark jacket, his white-flecked moustache carelessly framing thin lips.
The legacy of a man who changed the course of the Periyar river, and the lives of millions of people, with the gravity of his actions and his sheer strength of purpose looms large over Theni. “If it wasn’t for Pennycuick, our fields would be fallow. Over 2.17 lakh acres of paddy, cultivated by 32,000 small farmers, are impacted by the dam. Every day, a crore or more people drink from its waters,” says KM Abbas, president of a farmers’ forum in Cumbum and author of a book on Pennycuick. In Cumbum, says Abbas, children know him as Pennycuick thatha (Tamil for grandfather) and are often named after his associates, a popular name being Logandurai, for ER Logan, who oversaw tunnelling works for the Periyar project.
For most of its 300-km length, the Periyar, literally, the Big River, flows through Kerala before emptying — wastefully, according to Tamil Nadu — into the Arabian Sea. Pennycuick’s great ingenuity was that he dammed the river at its confluence with the smaller Mullaiyar river, and diverted the water from the reservoir through a 1.6-km-long tunnel to Tamil Nadu, where it goes on to feed the Suruliyar river and the Vaigai dam. This water then passes through a grid of canals to irrigate vast tracts of land in the state. It would seem that the man who diverted a river from west to east for the first time in India’s history, charted a similar course for himself as he settled down to work at his modest cottage on the dam site at Idukki. Locals say he spoke fluent Tamil, relished biryani and made sure his workers never wanted for food or liquor. When torrents of rain washed away his labour of love three years into its construction, around the year 1890, he is said to have wept and struggled to gather funds for rebuilding the masonry dam in the face of scepticism from the British government.
In Palani Chettipatti, a small town near Theni through which a canal of the Mullaiyar flows, a legend reverberates with variations: the Chettiars from the area, locals say, donated liberally to the cause and Pennycuick gave them free access to the waters as a token of his gratitude. In yet another elision between fact and fable, solid gold offerings are said to have been consigned to the river at the behest of Pennycuick ahead of the opening of the sluice gates. We find a scant bit of history in Cumbum at the house of the descendants of Angur Rawther, Pennycuick’s contractor and supplier of labour and provisions. Rawther’s grandson, silver-haired Jafferulla, has preserved records of his family’s association with Pennycuick, including a note of thanks from the Government of Travancore for hosting dignitaries on their visits to the Periyar project.
In Thekkady, on the inter-state border, where the language changes abruptly to Malayalam as though we flicked a switch, the Rawthers still grow cardamom on lush slopes dotted with resorts. This side of the border, Pennycuick’s bust is the centrepiece of a well-tended garden facing the PWD bungalow at the Periyar Wildlife Sanctuary, where the artificial lake formed by the damming of the river is an important habitat for elephants and other wildlife. The 777-sq-km area was declared a sanctuary in 1934 and by 1978, it had become Kerala’s only tiger reserve. “All this tourism here is because of Pennycuick and the dam. But Kerala will never acknowledge him,” says a PWD worker, on condition of anonymity.
In Tamil Nadu, Pennycuick is both hero and victim. His face has became a trope for the troubled history of Mullaperiyar and a receptacle for political interests after the two states came to a head in the late 1970s. Photoshopped posters of chief minister Jayalalithaa and MDMK’s Vaiko sharing the stage with Pennycuick’s likeness are now plastered on public walls across the Cumbum valley. The Colonel even has his own fanclub, the Pennycuick Rejuvenation Forum led by O Andi of Palarpatti, a village near Thevaram in the Cumbum valley that hosted Pennycuick’s grandson in 2003. In December 2011, Andi led an agitation by over 1,200 farmers against Kerala’s stance on the dam. “We used Pennycuick’s posters to communicate our point of view — that the dam, after it has been strengthened, poses no threat to Kerala,” says Andi, in his dimly-lit home where a wall with a large, garlanded poster of the Englishman is the first thing that meets the eye. “We have been working for a decade to raise awareness about the great man,” says Andi, who began printing and distributing pamphlets on Pennycuick while still in college. “Not many people had heard of him before the Mullaperiyar issue became a movement in these parts. Now he is the face of the movement,” he says.
The largest and the latest of memorials to Pennycuick, with a giant bronze statue and black-and-white photographs of the dam, was inaugurated at Lower Camp near Gudalur in Theni last year by Jayalalithaa. It is here that Sanjeevi, 65, and her cousin Maragadham, 57, have come to pay their respects to a man who, they say, “did more than anyone ever could for Tamil Nadu”. “When we heard about the Supreme Court verdict, we set out on this pilgrimage,” says Sanjeevi, who spent her youth gathering forest produce near Gudalur before moving to Coimbatore to find work as a cook. In two days, Sanjeevi will leave for the city, but not before casting a final glance at Pennycuick at the Theni bus stand, which bears his name like so many restaurants, salons and cabs do in the region. “It is believed that his picture brings good luck,” says Rafiq Raja, of Hotel Mullai, a restaurant on the Theni-Kollam highway near Chinnamannur. “He gave us life. This is the least we can do to remember him,” Raja says.
Upon retiring from the PWD, Pennycuick returned to England to serve as president of the Royal Indian Engineering College, an institution on Cooper’s Hill near Egham, Surrey, that trained civil engineers to work in India. But for the people of the Cumbum-Theni region, Pennycuick is forever sutured into their consciousness, a flame of aspiration glowing through their darkest and driest years.
source: http://www.financialexpress.com / The Financial Express / Home> Economy / by V. Shoba / June 15th, 2014
For Sethuraman Panchanathan, who was appointed member of US’ prestigious National Science Board of the National Science Foundation by President Barack Obama on Friday, the foundation for his spectacular career was laid while pursuing higher education in India. The scientist with roots in the Chennai, did his schooling and spent and much of his college days in the city.
After passing out of the Madras Christian College School here, he went to Vivekananda College, then the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bangalore and finally IIT Madras before he left for Ottawa, Canada for his doctorate. “When I went to Canada I could easily cope with my research since my professors at the IIT and IISc had motivated and engaged me in research,“ he informed Express in a telephonic conversation from the US.
He fondly recalls many of the professors who guided him to reach that stage. “My professor at the Vivekananda College, Professor Shankar was a tremendous inspiration for me. He was an amazing teacher, the commitment that he brought into teaching and the kind of care that he gave to his students inspired me much,” says Panchanathan.
This is the first time that someone of Indian origin has been appointed to the prestigious body, which guides the science and technology policies in the US. Speaking about research in India, Panchanathan, called Panch by peers, says there is a need to find ways to make a career in research exciting.
“There is some good work being done in the IITs and IISc. But as a whole the training and emphasis is not as much on research as for jobs in information technology or other areas. Research needs to be scaled up and intensified if India needs to compete globally. As of now the research in the country is not level with its position globally,” he says.
He points to the number of options students in the US have when they take up research, including starting their own entrepreneurial ventures, being hired into research wings of companies or as faculty in research positions.
“How to promote interest in research in undergraduate students, increase interest in science among students, how to promote curiosity driven creative research, how to make use of basic research to create innovations that can help society – these are certain questions that needs to be answered,” he says.
Giving a sense of how intense research projects ought to be pursued, Panchanathan’s dad Sethuraman recalls how he had to call off a marriage proposal for his son to enable him to continue his research project in Canada.
“When he was in Canada working on his research, we had this proposal and called him to India. But his professor there, one Mr Goldberg, wrote a long letter to me. He said, ‘no wedding when the research is going on, I will not leave him from here unless he completes his project.’ With that we dropped the plan straight away,” he says with a laugh.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Chennai / by Amritha K R / June 16th, 2014