Sunando Banerjee presentation from Riyadh

My Little Sister - By Ayushi Mitra

Today I am going to tell you about my little sister, Pinga. She is four and half years old. She is very cute and very funny too. After returning from her school, she always plays and represents herself like a teacher. Through her activities we know all about her friends and what she has done in her school for the day.

During my last session break we went to Delhi. We were travelling by “Duranta Express”. In our compartment, there was an elderly woman who was sitting next to us. In the train, the canteen people provided us evening snacks which included a packet of fruit juice also .Pinga is very fond of fruit juices. She saw the elderly woman kept the fruit juice on the table. She watched the full episode very carefully and in my mother's absence she said to that lady, "You are just like my Thammi (grand mother), so you should not drink that juice because you are old. It may cause some health problem to you and at the same time you should not waste any foods hence give it to me." Everybody in the compartment had burst in laughter after hearing this conversation from such a little girl.

After this when we were eating dinner every one got a cup of curd. Next morning when my sister woke up she saw an old man in front of us didn't eat that curd. She told my mother, "Every time you tell us do not misuse your food and that man didn't eat the curd, so shall I eat the curd?" My mother said "No" and she began to cry.

During our trip we have visited whole of Delhi and then we headed towards Agra.

We visited the famous Taj Mahal there.

After our visit to Taj Mahal in Agra our aunt from Kolkata called my mother to ask how we have enjoyed our visit, my mom gave the phone to my sister and aunt asked her "How the Taj Mahal and what were was inside it?" My sister said instantly, "Nothing but, two dead bodies under cover".

That's the way every time my sister make funny things to us .She is very naughty and funny but I always love my little sister.

Thanks for this invaluable contribution to Ayushi Mitra

The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : I'd rather not be Anna

The Hindu : Opinion / Lead : I'd rather not be Anna

I am ANNA - the new Mantra of India

After a long time, I had the time to surf the television yesterday. For half an hour I surfed the television and to my utter disbelief I found the Indian media is following Anna like the paparazzi followed Diana. There was not even a mention of the huge fall of nearly 350 points at the SENSEX or Narayanamurthi retiring from Infosys. There was a small mention of another historic blunder of changing the name of West Bengal to Paschim Banga in a regional news channel.. but then the hero of the day was clearly Anna, the man who loves to fast in order to stop corruption.

Fasting is a fascinating word in India. I think it has been imbibed in our mind from early childhood as we grew up listening to the heroics of the fasting superheroes like Gandhi or our own Jatin Das. I remember that I always tried to show my anger against my elder brother by abandoning dinner. But sadly my fasting never crossed the human limitation level, thanks to my mother's intervention at right time. My father was always reluctant though and that sometimes wonder whether he was anti fasting mechanism of protest.

Before I drift into something else, let us come back to Anna. I heard about Anna long back when I was doing my engineering in Bombay(Mumbai). Anna was hugely popular among the Maharashtrian people for his zeal and fight against corruption even in those days. In the early 2000, Hazare led a movement in Maharashtra state which forced the state government to pass a stronger Maharashtra Right to Information Act. This Act was later considered as the base document for the Right to Information Act 2005 (RTI), enacted by the Union Government. I also remember when Anna forced the Government of Maharashtra to adopt Right to Information Act in 2003. Anna to me is a fighter who will never stop until he reached his goal.

What surprised me is the media reaction to Anna this time in his movement against the corruption and amendment in the Jan Lokpal Bill or the citizens' ombudsman bill. I feel disheartened the way our Government has reacted to something which should have been implemented long back. This is surprising that Anna has to go on fasting for something, which should have been a natural inclusion to the Indian Civil Society. The scams of recent times probably had exposed the country’s corruption to the world but can Anna change it by implementing Jan Lokpal?

I feel corruption has been another genetic burden carried by Indians from years. Well, it doesn’t mean that every Indian is corrupted or all non-Indians are free from corruption. But corruption at the higher level is something that has deep rooted in the culture of Indian politics and civil society. We have grown up knowing police officers to political leaders to government officials are corrupted. And we accepted it as natural as other socio-political events. I remember Abdul Kalam, probably the cleanest person ever entered the Indian Political Scenario, once commented why do we blame our politicians? He sighted a great example of an Indian, who stands in a long queue to extend his Visa in US, walks a mile to throw a paper into a bin in Singapore, stops his car at a signal at 3 am in the morning in Dubai comes back to India to pay bribe to get his passport renewed, spits at the road and throw all garbage in the road and break traffic rules in broad daylight. And then he blames the system for corruption. Can Anna change that man to stop? Can our media focus on changing those corrupted men from the system? We select the political leaders and then they select the civil servants. If we cannot change ourselves then how could we change the people we select?

I am sure with the kind of media support Anna has, he will be able to get the Jan Lokpal adopted by the Indian Government. But I am not sure whether this would actually end this deep-rooted culture of corruption from India. To eradicate the corruption from India, we have to adopt Anna in everyone of us. Not just by wearing the T-Shirt saying “I am Anna” but we have to really make that effort to feel like him and make our next generation to be strong like Anna.

Let us share My World: Resurgent Bengali - Not an impossible dream

Let us share My World: Resurgent Bengali - Not an impossible dream

Resurgent Bengal - Not an impossible dream

Another 36 hours, and we are going to have possibly one of the most famous changes in the history of politics. If all prediction, probability and statistics does not falter, we are going to have TMC emerging as winner of West Bengal State Legislative Assembly. A remarkable change indeed and a big relief from this suffocation of hypocrisy and pseudo intellectualism.

But does this change really create an impact in the socioeconomic scenario of Bengal? Does this really lead to a resurgence in Bengal? These are the questions everyone is asking today.

Resurgence, the meaning is to restore or bringing back something which is lost or lost temporarily. The word itself makes it clear that we all are thinking of bringing back something that we feel is lost. I don't want to get into the discussion why it is lost, but all of us are convinced that the state has definitely deteriorated over a period of time.

It is difficult to bring changes in a state by just toppling a Government, but it definitely starts a process of cleaning up things. The saddest part of the state that is has lost the positivity in its people. I see a lot of pessimists these days and this is bound to happen when you compromise with your needs for a long time. Most of the people are worried what will happen if Mamata fails to deliver but strangely they never analyze why should they believe a Government which has failed in almost all department for 35 years?

I always felt and believed in good thinking and today I feel this lady has a refined and refreshing thinking. People who are making fun about her wish of converting Kolkata into London miserably fails to realise how honest and how good her thoughts are. Why not, if Japan can think of getting back to its past after second world war or more recently after the Tsunami, why West Bengal cannot think in this manner. And hats off to this lady for thinking out of the box. I am sure she will face tremendous resistance from the opposition but I wish the people of Bengal to support the lady for her wishes. She has a dream for Bengal and me too has one. Why shouldn't I keep my eyes open and try to fulfill her wishes.

Resurgence in Bengal is no more an impossible dream if
1. People of Bengal take this change positively
2. Mamata Banerjee keeps thinking out of the box
3. People like Amit Mitra, Manish Gupta, Partha Chatterjee... takes the lead and work honestly.
4. Every party has some corrupted leaders, so does TMC but I wish Mamata chooses the right people at right position.
5. Trade Unionism should see its exit from WB
6. Mamata brings changes and adopt best practices at Eductaion System
7. Atleast for the next 3 - 4 years, let Mamata acts like a dictator.
8. The politics of BANDH its natural death in the state.
9. School Politics should be abolished
10. Primary eductaion and Health Care should see a complete revamp.

AND YES.... the intellectual leftists should also see its natural death in the state.

Let us share My World: A day with a sculptor

Let us share My World: A day with a sculptor