www.kalimpong.info

www.telegraphindia.com

RAJEEV RAVIDAS

Kalimpong, May 15: The directorate of technical education in Bengal has taken necessary steps to ensure the sustainability of Chitrabhanu, the art and craft centre, where no student has enrolled for quite some time now.

Housed in a cottage, once a summer home of Rabindranath Tagore, at Atisha Road here, the centre currently has no trainees. It does not have adequate teaching staff either. As The Telegraph had reported last December, the total staff strength of the centre consists of one instructor, two office clerks, a peon and a night guard.

In an effort to reverse its decline, the directorate now plans to fill up all vacancies and introduce a two-year post-graduate diploma in computer application at the centre.

“The cabinet and finance department have already given nod to the filling up of five posts and we will soon set the recruitment process in motion,” said Parijat Dey, the director of technical education, over the phone from Calcutta.

The posts include that of superintendent, an instructor each for art and craft, music and computer, and a matron for the girls’ hostel. Dey said they would be appointed in two-three months.

The director said the PG diploma course would be open to both boys and girls. He added that the idea of starting the course is to train young people in the hills in computer application and enable them to find employment. The centre has run programmes only for women so far.

Dey said plans are also afoot to revamp the one-year diploma training for ensuring that students become employed or self-employed.

Chitrabhanu was set up 44 years ago to train women between the age of 18 and 30 in disciplines like painting, music and craft. However, there have been no takers for the centre from the side of either trainees or teachers recently.

www.thestatesman.net

GOPALI BANDOPADHYAY

I landed at Bagdogra’s tiny airport early this month, experiencing equal measures of enthusiasm and trepidation. The latter especially because West Bengal Urban Development Minister Ashok Bhattacharya had been discouraging tourists from travelling to Darjeeling to enjoy its cool climes. He had warned that the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) would create trouble for tourists.

According to media reports, the locals were very agitated about the state government’s actions and the hill station was seething with unrest - an indefinite strike was looming. I had been warned that a strike would mean trouble. I would be stranded in an inaccessible place; food and water would run out; and there could be violence against Bengalis.

Nonetheless, I was desperate for a break and, chin up, decided Darjeeling was the best bet considering the short distance and char-ming surroundings. So there I was, in a car, speeding towards my destination. If I had been expecting trouble, it turned out to be entirely unfounded. The local people seemed peace-loving and gentle.

Following the typical tourist agenda, I began by visiting the popular sightseeing venues. The first day I saw the Japanese temple and Buddhist pagoda and then the Rock Garden and Ganga Maya. Darjeeling has certainly woken up to its tourism potential. Most of its income is from this sector, with tea coming in at a distant second. In peak season, tourist traffic crosses 20,000 per day. (more…)

www.telegraphindia.com

RAJEEV RAVIDAS

Kalimpong, May 14: A detailed mapping of the hazardous slopes could form the basis of an engineering solution to the problem of landslides in the Darjeeling hills. If all go according to plan, such an exercise would be taken up in Kalimpong with the help of the University of Pittsburgh in the US.

An indication to this effect was given by Kent Harries, the leader of a visiting team from Pittsburgh’s Swanson School of Engineering. Besides Harries who is the assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering, the team includes three students.

They were here on a study tour of the region at the invitation of Gayatri Kharel, a structural engineer and a member of the Planners Alliance for Himalayan and Allied Region (Pahar).

Harries, who spoke to The Telegraph over the phone from Darjeeling yesterday, said the slopes were a significant regional problem that they were not aware of till their arrival and there was a need to find a sustainable engineering solution to it. “Kalimpong could be taken up as a case study,” he added. (more…)

Source: Himalaya Darpan

Thanks to BMP for the article.

In honour of the original inhabitants of our hills.
-Admin

———
Lepcha Mad
Dr. Sonam B. Wangyal

Of the many people the Lepchas honour few can match the reverence that Lieutenant General George Byres Mainwaring (proper pronunciation Mannering) commands. This veneration becomes all the more significant since Mainwaring was not a Lepcha and belonged to an aristocratic family of Cavenagh-Mainwaring from Whitmore and Budduph in Staffordshire. He was born in India on 18 July 1825 while his father was serving in the Bengal Civil Service. From his father George Mainwaring he received his first name, George, and from his mother, Isabella Byres, his middle name Byres. As it was the convention with people possessing money and status the boy Mainwaring was packed off to ‘home’, in his case home being Aberdeen, Scotland, to complete his studies and from Aberdeen it was to Wimbledon for higher learning in classics and mathematics. In the confines of the British institutions little did the young lad know that one day he would be a champion amongst the Lepchas and that he would be reverentially recalled by this community even well beyond a hundred years of his death. (more…)

www.telegraphindia.com

Darjeeling/Kalimpong, May 7: The Siliguri jao (let’s go to Siliguri) campaign of the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha could have led to chaos on the roads leading to the plains from the hills, but most people managed to beat the rush and reach the venue on time.

By the time the meeting began at Indira Gandhi Maidan, the ground was nearly full.

The Morcha had only four days to sort out the logistics after the administration gave it permission to hold a meeting in Siliguri on Saturday evening. The people in the hills, however, took it upon themselves to take care of all the arrangements. (more…)

www.telegraphindia.com

Siliguri, May 7: The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha has set a deadline of seven days for the Darjeeling district administration to arrest three CPM leaders for spearheading alleged assaults on some of its supporters in different parts of the town last week.

Bimal Gurung, the Morcha president, threatened to bring down 10,000 cadres from the hills for a protest meeting and call an indefinite strike across the district if the deadline is not met.

Addressing a rally at Indira Gandhi Maidan here this afternoon, Gurung said: “Based on reports, we have lodged complaints against Jibitesh Sarkar, Mukul Sengupta and Shankar Ghosh, all CPM leaders, for assaulting our supporters, including girls, while they were on their way to the subdivisional office for a hunger strike.” (more…)

www.thestatesman.net

Romit Bagchi

SILIGURI, May 7: With politically instigated rancour threatening to dry up the deeper springs of fellow feeling and understanding, it is highly exalting to recollect Rabindranath Tagore’s profound attachment with the Darjeeling Hills and particularly with the tranquil splendour of Mongpu near Kalimpong. He seemed to be enamoured by the transcendental charm of the Darjeeling Himalayas and the simplicity of the Hill populace, mostly people of the Nepali origin. The Darjeeling Himalayas beckoned him with a mesmerising appeal when his sensitive mind got restless and fatigued with the ‘mud and squalor’ of the mundane everyday existence. He sought refuge amidst the austere silence and the wide, compelling ecstasy and peace surrounding the eternally mystifying Himalayas. By his own admission, he turned to the Himalayas when the Ineffable’s timeless call overwhelmed him, compelling him to leave behind the stone load of the striving world for some time.

As per records, Tagore ascended to the Darjeeling hills 11 times. Four times, he came to Mongpu. However, fate intervened when the physically indisposed poet attempted to come to the picturesque spot for the fifth time in 1940, ignoring his physicians’ counsel. He could not reach his destination. He fell ill on his way to Kalimpong. The abnormal swelling of his prostrate gland benumbed his senses with pain. He was brought to Kalimpong in a semi-conscious state. Pratima Devi, Tagore’s daughter-in-law, took him to her Kalimpong residence ‘Gouripur Bhavana’. He, however, could not, stay long as his condition kept on deteriorating fast. He left for Calcutta by train from Siliguri station (now, Siliguri Town station) after staying in Kalimpong for a week.

The date of his departure was 27 September 1940. The time was around 9 p.m. The platforms were over-crowded. People scrambled to have a glimpse of the ailing legend. That, however, proved to be the last glimpse, for the poet never returned to his favourite haunt. He died in Calcutta a few months later.

At a time when acrimony darkens good sense under overt or covert political patronage, Tagore’s luminous relationship with the people of the Darjeeling Hills serves as a balm to the brazen souls. They returned his affection thousand fold having discovered in him a superhuman incarnation of what is divine in man. Tagore may enlighten us at this critical hour when we all seem to be walking by our own choice into Hell’s trap.

www.telegraphindia.com

RAJEEV RAVIDAS

Kalimpong, May 6: A residents’ committee here has invoked the Right to Information Act to ask the municipality and the subdivisional administration to explain the delay in shifting the town’s dumping yard from Lower Bhalukhop to the new site at Lower Newargaon.

The authorities had promised on October 5 last year to get the work done in six months. The residents believe that the current dump-yard had contributed to the landslides in Lower Bhalukhop in September 2007. Afterwards, they had prevented municipality vehicles from dumping wastes at the site.

The agitation was withdrawn after the new site, located outside the municipal area, was identified and the authorities set a six-month deadline on themselves for shifting the dumping yard. (more…)

www.telegraphindia.com

RAJEEV RAVIDAS

Kalimpong, May 2: The repair of NH31A during monsoon is expected to be completed expeditiously this year with the Border Roads Organisation (BRO) relocating 87 Road Construction Company (RCC) from Kalimpong to Melli, located on Bengal’s border with Sikkim. The BRO is raising another RCC also to lessen the burden on the 87 RCC.

The 87 RCC, which was earlier attached to the Thimpu-headquartered Project Dantak, is now part of 764 Border Roads Task Force (BRTF) based here. The force, which is under Gangtok-headquartered Project Swastik, was earlier engaged in Afghanistan.

From now on, maintenance of the NH31A’s Sevoke-Ranipool section in Sikkim will be the main task of the 87 RCC. Earlier, the company had been assigned the repair of many other roads in the Darjeeling hills and Sikkim.

A major responsibility the 87 RCC had in the past, Damdim-Algarah-Rishi road, the alternative to the road between Siliguri and Kalimpong, will be looked after by 130 RCC being set up at Rangli in Sikkim under the 764 BRTF.

Kalimpong is 16km from NH31A, while Melli is along the national highway. (more…)