Tributes by Prof. Aloke Kumar
In the current Indian political debate where Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bhagat Singh, Jawaharlal Nehru,... more In the current Indian political debate where Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bhagat Singh, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi and B. R. Ambedkar are all competing for the status of makers of modern India, perhaps it would be necessary to sit back and look at what Gokhale – whom Mahatma Gandhi himself called his political guru – contributed to modern India
At first sight, it is very tempting to say that Gokhale’s ideas would not have any audience today and that, after all, Gokhale had simply internalised the hegemonic thinking promoted by the British as a justification for their imperialism, that is liberalism. In fact, Gokhale quoted Edmund Burke and John Stuart Mill; he believed that any activity had to be limited to the constitutional realm and that each step on the path of self-government, however small, was significant; he was wary of any ideology that mobilised the masses. So, it is quite easy to be convinced that the soft-spoken moderate leader was detached from the people’s issues and that he was no less elitist than the British colonisers.
It seems that the Bengalis are much more happy with Bob Dylan being named the surprise winner of ... more It seems that the Bengalis are much more happy with Bob Dylan being named the surprise winner of the Nobel prize in literature “for having created new poetic expressions within the great American song tradition”.
Many argued against the award, as they argued against him in the long and infinitely tiresome Dylan v Keats controversy, and as others have contested the meaning and value of every phase and nuance of his output. Others felt that he does not deserve the Nobel Prize simply because what he wrote were lyrics not poetry.
Mother Teresa’s belief that suffering can be an act of Christian witness, that those who suffer h... more Mother Teresa’s belief that suffering can be an act of Christian witness, that those who suffer have a kind of spiritual dignity, has been misunderstood as toleration of their pain – as if charity for the ill only counts if the consequence is cure. In fact, just accompanying a person through their final days can make a huge difference to their life.
Nirmal Chandra Kumar, who died of cerebral stroke in 1976, aged 60, was a man who was an antiquar... more Nirmal Chandra Kumar, who died of cerebral stroke in 1976, aged 60, was a man who was an antiquarian and owned a rare bookshop. He was also among the greatest influences on a generation of artists: from filmmaker to fiction writers, folk musician to folk artist; actors to activists, writer to wanderer; teachers to travelers - more so perhaps than any art critic or editor of his times.
Karuna Kumar : a remarkable story of a humble coming from a sleepy railway cantonment of Adra to ... more Karuna Kumar : a remarkable story of a humble coming from a sleepy railway cantonment of Adra to Calcutta and making her mark .
Suresh Neotia, passed away on Thursday the 7th, of May 2015. Neotia served as the chairman of Amb... more Suresh Neotia, passed away on Thursday the 7th, of May 2015. Neotia served as the chairman of Ambuja Cements for 20 years and was later appointed the Chairman Emeritus. He was 79.Neotia, an alumnus of St Xavier's College and the University of Calcutta, was conferred on Padma Bhusan in 2008 for his contribution to the Indian industry . Neotia won the Harvard Business School-Economic Times Award for corporate excellence apart from many other awards.
Papers by Prof. Aloke Kumar
Learning Museums
When building your museum of learning might contain letters, photographs, and other documentary m... more When building your museum of learning might contain letters, photographs, and other documentary material of your life. On-going through her talk I realized that the museum itself would have to grow. In the process allowing each person to pay its own respects to self-thoughts. For Example the Learning Museum of Mahatma Gandhi cannot be the same as one of Jawaharlal Nehru, for that matter. They were very different individuals. And so this museum itself, through its intrinsic form, would have to express the message of the individual: human-scaled, unpretentious, and modest. With this as a starting point, the museum will very soon be designed unique. As a series of pavilions, some open and some enclosed, interspersed with courtyards and a water pool. The mood is one of calmness and contemplation, qualities that will allow oneself to meditate on self.
The people who participate in Social Media, see the Social Media as open societies, being nice to... more The people who participate in Social Media, see the Social Media as open societies, being nice to other people, not being racist, not fighting wars, is a better way to live, they generally end up losing these fights. They don't fight dirty. They are terrible at appealing to the populace. They are less violent, so end up in prisons, camps, and graves. We need to understand and use social media. We need to harness a different fear. Fear of another War. A war with our friends, our colleagues. We need to avoid our own echo chambers. We need to find a way to bridge from our closed groups to other closed groups, try to cross the ever widening social divides.
They don't make garage any more. You get a parking space. An individual garage is now a luxury. H... more They don't make garage any more. You get a parking space. An individual garage is now a luxury. High rise building, even condominium and clusters, at best will give you an allocated space. Garages were earlier built with the houses or sometimes as separate unit. Earlier housing clusters also had a row of garages as a standalone unit. The image on the left is one such row of garages at Tivoli Court at Ballygunge Circular Road. Tivoli Court Complex is Calcutta's first multi-storeyed residential high rise complex. Tivoli Court is a landmark building at 1A-B-C Ballygunge Circular Road. This very first multi-storeyed complex was build, if I am not mistaken, sometime in the 60s. It is in Ballygunge Circular Road one of the most important roads which runs through the upscale part of Ballygunge in South Kolkata. The garage at Tivoli Court is designed typically from the British Garage attached to Chateau. However the one here is a one car garage. The Chateaus typically have a two car garage, with some newer houses having a triple garage, with one double door and one single door. Prior to the 1970s most of them were detached from the house, usually set further back with the driveway leading up past the side of the house, common with old fibreboard houses, but not uncommon with earlier brick houses. The most common doors on these garages were either two wooden barn style doors with a standard sized access door on the side of the garage. A residential garage is a walled, roofed structure for storing a vehicle or vehicles that is part of or attached to a home, or which is an associated outbuilding or shed. Residential garages typically have space for one or two cars, although three-car garages are rare. When a garage is attached to a house, the garage typically has an entry door into the house. Garages normally have a wide door which can be raised to permit the entry and exit of a vehicle, and then closed to secure the vehicle. A garage protects a vehicle from precipitation, and, if it is equipped with a locking garage door, it also protects the vehicle from theft and vandalism.
The Black ANT by Prof. Aloke Kumar I went to the kitchen in the morning to make some tea to find ... more The Black ANT by Prof. Aloke Kumar I went to the kitchen in the morning to make some tea to find a line of black ants parading on the slab on which the gas burner rested.I realized that they must have invaded for some leftover food the previous night and have stayed behind. I knew that black ant does not sting, but is quite a menace in the kitchen. Red ant's bite causes more harm, the burning sensation and swelling is because of the greater quantity of formic acid which is inserted in our body when they sting while the black ants have very small or negligible quantity of formic acid so their bite is not noticed or felt. I thought how to get rid of the ants. I asked my son, Abhishek, who immediately Googled and informed me. The answer is to kill the ants. Root out the ants from your space; you'll need to use an attractive poison bait to get the ants scurrying home with new "treats" from their food hunting missions. Kill off the ant trail, a line of ants can be dealt with effectively and quickly so as to kill those in the line and deter any others from continuing to follow the trail. Squish the scouts, colonies regularly send out lone ants to check for food sources. If you see an individual ant strolling across your coffee table, don't let it make it back to the nest alive. The best way to get rid of ants is to destroy their source, the ant queen. However I did not want to kill them. I remembered having read that vinegar deters the ants. Follow the first ants to see where they're entering and leaving. Seal all the entrance holes that you can find using cotton soaked in vinegar. This is more of a barrier method that you can put into place to really terrify the ants and keep them at bay. But it does not kill them. I immediately put my far away knowledge to practice.I found the entrance at the corner of the window from where they were entering.I plugged it with vinegar soaked cottons. Immediately the line broke and each started looking back in bewilderment. The ants already in the kitchen started feeling trapped and wanted to retreat. I opened up the hole at the corner of the window and allowed them all to go back. The scout in front did not recede and started to think of the situation. After a long time it too receded and came to the mouth of the hole where the cotton had plugged the entry. I immediately removed the cotton and it marched back. Sometime has lapsed the ants have not come back.
Human beings are not born with cultural patterns encoded into their DNA. No one is born Hindu, Be... more Human beings are not born with cultural patterns encoded into their DNA. No one is born Hindu, Bengali-speaking, and chanting the mantras. All such patterns of behavior have to be learned, and the more complex the society one lives in, the longer it takes to learn the necessary skills needed for competent social participation. Accordingly, most members of postindustrial societies spend long years in the educational system whereas member of the few remaining hunting and gathering societies have no need for formal education and rely rather on informal training. But however such learning takes place, informally with a relative or in a formal setting such as a school, it is vital for individuals to be able to become true members of society.
The Bengali filmmaker, Ritwik Ghatak, was born in Dhaka in 1925, and lived the early part of his ... more The Bengali filmmaker, Ritwik Ghatak, was born in Dhaka in 1925, and lived the early part of his life in East Bengal, present-day Bangladesh. The Bengal Famine of 1943-44, World War II and finally, the Partition of 1947 compelled Ghatak to move to Calcutta.Twice during his lifetime Bengal was physically rent apart—in 1947 by the Partition engendered by the departing British colonizers and in 1971 by the Bangladeshi War of Independence. This continuously bothered him and became the ‘letmotif’ for all his films.
In his films, Ghatak constructs detailed visual and aural commentaries of Bengal in the socially and politically tumultuous period from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. In his work, Ghatak critically addresses and questions, from the personal to the national, the identity of post-Independence Bengal. The formation of East Pakistan in 1947 and Bangladesh in 1971 motivated Ghatak to seek through his films the cultural identity of Bengal in the midst of these new political divisions and physical boundaries.
To a Hindu, the spirit is more important than the form; and intention, more important than expres... more To a Hindu, the spirit is more important than the form; and intention, more important than expression. Thus a Hindu often tends to be informal to the extent of shoddiness. Although a Hindu feels thankful, he would think it too formal to thank someone in so many words. Expression would seem to devalue intention, Curiously enough, many Indian languages derived from Sanskrit had no word for “thank you” -- "Dhanyawad” is a modern coinage.
As we forge friendship with China we must remember Buddhism has been our strongest bond. It broug... more As we forge friendship with China we must remember Buddhism has been our strongest bond. It brought India and China together nearly 2,000 years ago. How the relatively insular Chinese, proud of their own cultural tradition and identity, came to accept a faith like Buddhism, totally foreign to Chinese idiom of thought and life, is in itself a miracle. Buddhism not only found acceptance and took root in the whole of China but, over the centuries, it became an integral part of the Chinese psyche and social fabric.
Public Relation or Corporate advertisement is the paid use of media which is concentrated towards... more Public Relation or Corporate advertisement is the paid use of media which is concentrated towards benefiting the image of the corporation as a whole rather than exhibiting just its products and services. Public Relation or Corporate advertisement aim at reinforcing its identity and enhancing their reputation. These advertisements are targeted to attract investors, to influence opinions, increase sales and to recruit and retain employees.
When considering the impact of Media on education there is an element of crystal ball gazing. Tha... more When considering the impact of Media on education there is an element of crystal ball gazing. That being said, working for Universities offers me some unique insights into the plethora of new medium that are becoming available, which, in turn, allows me to make the odd educated guess on this subject. We are all learning, though, and everyone is keen to hear thoughts and suggestions for how education will be impacted as a result of emerging media.
People are communicating more things to more people than ever before. But NOT the way they have b... more People are communicating more things to more people than ever before. But NOT the way they have been doing in the past. Communication is changing from the way we talk to each other to the language of the Advertisements to the blurb in your Sales Promotion. It is changing like nobody"s business and we are all aware of it. To quote from Dylan from Bob Dylan, "The Times they are a Changin" Alvin Toffler , the futurist had predicted that
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Tributes by Prof. Aloke Kumar
At first sight, it is very tempting to say that Gokhale’s ideas would not have any audience today and that, after all, Gokhale had simply internalised the hegemonic thinking promoted by the British as a justification for their imperialism, that is liberalism. In fact, Gokhale quoted Edmund Burke and John Stuart Mill; he believed that any activity had to be limited to the constitutional realm and that each step on the path of self-government, however small, was significant; he was wary of any ideology that mobilised the masses. So, it is quite easy to be convinced that the soft-spoken moderate leader was detached from the people’s issues and that he was no less elitist than the British colonisers.
Many argued against the award, as they argued against him in the long and infinitely tiresome Dylan v Keats controversy, and as others have contested the meaning and value of every phase and nuance of his output. Others felt that he does not deserve the Nobel Prize simply because what he wrote were lyrics not poetry.
Papers by Prof. Aloke Kumar
In his films, Ghatak constructs detailed visual and aural commentaries of Bengal in the socially and politically tumultuous period from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. In his work, Ghatak critically addresses and questions, from the personal to the national, the identity of post-Independence Bengal. The formation of East Pakistan in 1947 and Bangladesh in 1971 motivated Ghatak to seek through his films the cultural identity of Bengal in the midst of these new political divisions and physical boundaries.
At first sight, it is very tempting to say that Gokhale’s ideas would not have any audience today and that, after all, Gokhale had simply internalised the hegemonic thinking promoted by the British as a justification for their imperialism, that is liberalism. In fact, Gokhale quoted Edmund Burke and John Stuart Mill; he believed that any activity had to be limited to the constitutional realm and that each step on the path of self-government, however small, was significant; he was wary of any ideology that mobilised the masses. So, it is quite easy to be convinced that the soft-spoken moderate leader was detached from the people’s issues and that he was no less elitist than the British colonisers.
Many argued against the award, as they argued against him in the long and infinitely tiresome Dylan v Keats controversy, and as others have contested the meaning and value of every phase and nuance of his output. Others felt that he does not deserve the Nobel Prize simply because what he wrote were lyrics not poetry.
In his films, Ghatak constructs detailed visual and aural commentaries of Bengal in the socially and politically tumultuous period from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. In his work, Ghatak critically addresses and questions, from the personal to the national, the identity of post-Independence Bengal. The formation of East Pakistan in 1947 and Bangladesh in 1971 motivated Ghatak to seek through his films the cultural identity of Bengal in the midst of these new political divisions and physical boundaries.
John Nash was a Princeton University mathematician who shared the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1994 for his pioneering work in game theory.
John and Alicia Nash were portrayed by Russell Crowe and Jennifer Connelly in the 2001 film "A Beautiful Mind," which chronicled John's lifelong struggle with paranoid schizophrenia.
The rape of a 70-year-old nun by dacoits at a school at Ranaghat in Nadia district of West Bengal in March 2015 triggered protests and outrage across the State. About a dozen dacoits forced themselves into a convent at Ranaghat and gang- raped the nun when she tried to resist them.
The author is clear about his central tenet: Advertising from the 1950 to present. New businesses are emerging almost every day that get advertising to market them. Companies such as JWT and Lintas have built models based on sharing and are thriving Why? Because instead of a company spending money to invent the wheel, it is worth the while to adapt from the learning. Thus a single widget can generate income over and over again. As a result, "advertising" businesses are built on immediate and sustained model.
In his films, Ghatak constructs detailed visual and aural commentaries of Bengal in the socially and politically tumultuous period from the late 1940s to the early 1970s. In his work, Ghatak critically addresses and questions, from the personal to the national, the identity of post-Independence Bengal. The formation of East Pakistan in 1947 and Bangladesh in 1971 motivated Ghatak to seek through his films the cultural identity of Bengal in the midst of these new political divisions and physical boundaries.
You engage the Monk in more of Dialectical Discussions. Into discussions related to contradictions on the fall of Communism and rise of Capitalism.
Here is my statement on Creating Green Building and Sustainable Habitat: Architecture appears for the first time when the sunlight hits a wall. The sunlight did not know what it was before it hit a wall. The wall did not have the appreciation.