Can didi tame the lion city?Archishman Sarkar

Monday, August 18 was witness to West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee’s maiden visit to a foreign country since taking office in May 2011.Actor turned TMC Member of Par-liament from Ghatal district;Dev accompanied her along with state finance minister Amit Mitra. The others travelling with her were chief secretary Sanjay Mitra,industriaist Sanjay Budhia and three of the directors of the AMRI group. Ba-nerjee stated the purpose of the five day visit to be “GDP growth through foreign i n v e s t m e n t i n We s t B e n g a l ”. However,cotro-versy soon ensued upon the selec-tion of the popular actor among 42 other MPs for the trip. Alos, the three AMRI directors are the ones who had previously been arrested for a devastating fire that killed over 90 patients in the hospital on De-cember 2011.Singapore’s minister for foreign affairs K Shanmugam invited the Bengal CM. in a business delega-tion which included approximately

52 business leaders and top rank-ing state officials. Banerjee called on Singapore PM Lee Hsien Loong on Tuesday. Three major agreement deal closures took place the next day. Singapore based GIC, a sovereign wealth fund which manages Singa-pore’s foreign reserves invested PE fund sponsored by HDFC property. Kolkata based realtor Hiland Group signed an agreement worth

ap p rox i m at e l y Rs.200 crore with regard to the Cal-cutta Riverside Development Project.InfraCo Asia ,Singapore signed a pact with Keventer Agro, Kolkata for a food park at Dankuni, in an Rs.1000

crore deal.Axsys Technologies and Compass Energy Pte Ltd. of Singapore entered into a pact for collaboration with respect to ship building solutions and oil and gas exploration. Axsys, a Singapore-based engineering design and project management company operates globally out of Singapore, Thailand, Europe and USA and ca-ters mainly to the oil and gas sector. The Axsys-Compass combine is ex-

pected to generate employment of about 200 people in the Sector-V area immediately and another addi-tional 500-600 people over the next two years.Banerjee on Wednesday addressed a gathering of businessmen based in Singapore and urged them to invest in the state. She also showed confidence in stating that in the near future, Bengal will share a stronger business relationship with Singapore. “This is part of our bigger dream to have local roots with global pursuits and make our ‘Biswa Bangla’ brand res-onate beyond our borders,” said the Chief Minister, who also met mem-bers of the Bengali Association of Singapore.Banerjee assured PM Loong that the vexed land issue would not crop up for investors from Singapore as there is no dearth of ‘free land’ in Bengal.

Kabaddi gets the midas touch from IndiaAnirban Das

“More than the money, it is the rec-ognition that has touched us”, Ajay Thakur, raider Bengaluru Bulls.

Kabaddi, one of India’s indigenous sports, gets a much awaited facelift in the form of Pro Kabaddi League (PKL), which started this July. The PKL initiative was taken and driv-en by Anand Mahindra (Mahindra & Mahindra), PiyushPandey (Ogil-vy & Mather), Rajiv Luthra (Luth-ra&Luthra Law Offices) and Charu Sharma (Managing Director, Mashal sports).

PKL seeks to create a dynamic environment to modernize the sport and focus on the commercial as-pect of it. As for the players and the teams, it aims at providing a boost in a manner enjoyed by cricket in the form of the Indian Premier League (IPL).

The grand auction held on May 20th was witnessto 96 professional Kabaddi players from across 14 countries. The eight franchises that constitute the league, namely Bengal, Ben-galuru, Delhi, Jaipur, Patna, Pune , Chennai, and Mumbai collectively spent a record 4.7 crores on the players from India and abroad.

Equally imperative has been the encouragement and involvement of Bollywood celebrities into PKL. They have been promoting the league in all the branches of media. Within a day of commencement of the tournament, PKL lead to the ‘trending’ of nearly 140 million tweets on Twitter and a huge num-ber of likes on Facebook. This was primarily driven by celebrities including the likes of Amitabh Bachchan, the Khans of Bollywood, SachinTendulkar, and the influential team owners.

Star Sports, the official satellite broadcaster of PKL, played a pivotal role in promoting the tournament and in presenting the players as larger than life role models for the youth of India. With Ogilvy & Mather taking charge of the advertising campaign it got the much required upgrade from being a mud game to a cool new indoor sport. This provided the essential new ambience for the game to connect with the urban viewers and

the global sporting scenario in gen-eral.

“Kabaddi is a fast paced and exciting game.This sport has the potential to become the second largest (Indian) export after yoga,” Sandip Tarkas, team owner, Bengal War-riors.The success story of the tournament has benefitted the players and enthusiasts, who for years have been playing in small scale, low budget tournaments that just a handful knew about. But now these players are finally enjoying the taste of fame playing in air-conditioned arenas and rubber matted floors with DJs playing music to their tunes, giant screens replaying their special moves in slow motion, people screaming their names, and having post-match conferences.

PKL has got an exceptional start but in order to maintain the momentum it must not digress from its vision. The focus must be on making the tournament better by remaining true to the spirit of the game and always looking for newer avenues to grow this ancient sport of the coun-try.

All ‘hail’ the king cabbie -Mohammed Sohail

It’s a peaceful Monday morning at the Gariahat crossing, office goers and groups of students are seen hav-ing light chitchat by the roadside as they wait for their hectic day to be-gin. From established IT profession-als to students and others, all seem to be early morning friends over there. In comes a yellow taxi, bear-ing the ‘No refusal’ sign in sight and in an instant, all friends become foes as each tries to grapple the coveted cab for their own self. Such has been the scenario almost every morning from the past two weeks in the city.

Taxi drivers, under the leadership of the labour arms of the Left parties the Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) and the All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), have been holding protest rallies almost through all of August against police atrocities and the sudden hike of re-fusal fine charges to Rs. 3,000 from Rs. 100.

Thousands of taxi drivers from the city and districts of Howrah, Hoogh-ly, and North 24 Parganas assembled at central Kolkata’s Subodh Mallick Square to walk up to Rani Rashmo-ni Avenue to demand bail for the 22 taxi drivers who were arrested ear-lier this month. Taxi drivers have been occasionally staying off the roads throughout August, forcing

State Transport Minister Madan Mi-tra to take stock of the situation. As many as 445 taxi permits were can-celled for staying off roads.

While the CITU and the AITUC had called for a protest march, sit-uations spiralled out of control and taxi drivers went on a rampage and called for a strike suddenly, inconve-niencing hundreds of city commut-ers. The labour arms complain that when Mitra had called for a meeting to discuss taxi refusal fines, not a single representative of the Left was invited and the refusal fine was sud-denly hiked .As city roads were devoid of tax-is, there was an additional load on buses and autos throughout the city. And, passengers looking for tax-is from train stations and airports were the worst affected as they were stranded for hours.

As if this wasn’t enough, bus oper-ators, who had been demanding a fare hike over the past few months, went on strike from August 20 to 22. As many as 6,500 buses and mini buses in Kolkata and 42,000 buses and mini buses throughout the State stayed off the roads during the three-day strike. The decision of taxi operators, to stay away from roads against the State government’s policies and police atrocities during

those days, quite rightly represented the bleak public transport situation the city has been facing all through the month.

Nonetheless, the yellow chariot is an integral part of the city. We may de-test it, snarl at being refused a ride by it, battle it out with even our best friend for one but we can’t afford to live without it.

WHO said WHAT?

“I can promise you. If you work 12 hours, I will work for 13. If you work 14 hours , I will work for 15 hours”- Narendra Modi on Independence Day 2014.

“Vernacular gives you roots, but En-glish language helps you to branch out”- Javed Akhtar on Civil Service Aptitude Test (CSAT) row.

TECHNOLOGY TODAY

Flipkart to sell another 20thousand units of the XIAO-MI MI3 in a flash sale con-tinuing their Tuesday sale mania.

Intex launches Cloud Fx- Firefox Os, India’s cheapest smartphone at just 1,999.

ISSUE 5 August 30, 2014

ISSUE 5 August 30, 2014NSHM embraces fresh batch into the family of Media

“Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working togeth-er is success.” these were the words which echoed down the corridors on the first day of the orientation of the new PG media group.It is well known that besides knowledge from books, students have a quest for knowing the unknown. In the media department, this thirst is quenched by conducting orientation sessions for its students. Through this, they get an over-view of how the media industry works and how

one should prepare oneself to reach their goals.The orientation session proves fruitful espe-cially for those who do not come from a media education background and certainly for those who want to know more about the media ex-perts and their experiences in their respective fields. Be it film, television, print or advertis-ing one can find stalwarts from all walks of the media industry in the orientation program.The list of speakers who conducted orienta-tion sessions for the undergraduates and the

postgraduates included the likes of Sovon Manna, Ananya Chatterjee, Tamal Saha, Avijit Ray, Diya Erika Basu, D’k’ Guha, Sambit pal, RJ Praveen, Arup Ghosh and many other not-ed speakers and established personalities. This helps the students to not only get an opportunity to interact with the speakers but also a firsthand experience of the industry they plan to get into. Sreemoyee Piu Kundu, a guest lecturer, nar-rated her journey from being a journalist to a PR guru and now an author. She also

spoke to students about the skills required by journalists, the challenges they face to-day and how to upgrade themselves to meet the requirements of this ever changing field.

“Just do what you are good at and be good at what you do” - Ravi Shastri

Ravi Shastri, the interim director of the Indian cricket team, was recently declared as the good will ambassador of NSHM Knowledge Campus. Our correspondent Anirban Das catches up with the sports personality at the Champion of Champions interactive seminar held at Great Eastern Hotel.

Q. You have are truly a cham-pion of champions, tasting suc-cess as a player, a commentator and later as an administrator? What is your success mantra? A. It’s simple; you must have a clear vision with immense passion and enthusiasm. The key is to always be ready to learn from your mistakes and tackle pressure. The most im-portant virtue is patience. I remember in my earlier days I went to Mumbai for the upcoming under 22 cham-pionship. I batted well in the nets, everyone appreciated my cricketing acumen, yet I was not selected. But I didn’t lose hope and stuck to my vision and finally within 7months I got selected to play for India.

Q. Both, in sports and educa-tion, the idea of an ‘all rounder’ is always sought after. What ac-cording to you is more crucial; to be a jack of all trades or to be a master specialist of one?A. Just do what you are good at and be good at what you do. Being an all rounder keeps you involved in the game at all times and similar-ly in the field of education a good multi-tasker gains prominence in to-day’s age. In cricket you definitely need to be a brilliant batsman or a

bowler, but today India is looking for someone who can come in at number seven and can bat, bowl and field excellently. That allows you to be that extra specialist either in the batting or bowling department.

Q. How does it feel to be as-sociated with NSHM as a good will ambassador?A. It is a fabulous feeling, this asso-ciation. NSHM has been the pioneer in its field with its vision now seven-teen years down the line. NSHM has always provided a platform for its students to excel and is ever eager for newer avenues to take their ser-vices to a higher pedestal. With their plans to expand their services to pan India, it will make the association more fruitful. I always get involved in health and education develop-ment and that is why I was also the good will ambassador of UNICEF.

Q. You have been appointed the interim director of the In-dian team. What are the major loopholes in the team given its grim performance in the re-cent Test series and your word of advice for the players?A. After an embarrassing Test se-ries defeat in England it is quite evident that the team lacks expe-rience and patience. It is a young team with an enormous potential but presently out of shape and thus I will advice the players to identify their strengths and play their natural game. The team needs to develop a better coordination and figure out ef-fective strategies to handle pressure.

Aata Majhi Satakli -Shalini Mukherjee

Singham Returns, a film directed by Rohit Shetty and Produced by Reliance Entertainment is a se-quel to the 2011 released movie Singham by the same director. Actor Ajay Devgn has done to-tal justice to the role of a D.C.P. and is back with a bang after 3 years. The trailer already created a huge interest among the audi-ence as soon as it was released on 11th July 2014. Along with Yo Yo Honey Singh’s musical track “AATA MAJHI SATAKLI” the movie did a huge business after its release on 15th August 2014. The Ajay-Rohit duo along wid Kareena Kapoor’s spicy charac-ter once again has made a block-buster out of it after Golmaal Returns. Exactly like other Rohit Shetty films Singham Returns also include a lot of action se-quence but this time there’s a tint of romance and romantic songs that widens the viewers range.Guruji(Anupam Kher), a righ-teous politician and Singham’s teacher moves forward with his party aiming to change the soci-ety for the better but gets threat-ened by Satyaraj Chandra aka Baba’s(Amole Gupte) goons.

The action started when a police constable from Singham’s squad was found dead in an ambulance filled with racks of money and is accused with the charge of being corrupt. Hence, the quest of Singham starts with the nev-er dwindling support from his colleague-friend Inspector Daya (Dayanand Shetty) and Inspec-tor Phadnis( Vineet Sham) . His already burning head gets fueled up when Guruji is killed by Ba-ba’s goons. The sweet-n-sour romance between Avni ( Kare-ena Kapoor Khan) and D.C.P. Bajirao Singham(Ajay Devgan) has been noticed throughout the movie without disturbing the main focus. The semi-realistic and breath taking action sequenc-es just make it a point to con-tinuously remind the audience that this is a Rohit Shetty film. A subtle story line teamed up with great acting by all the hand-picked actors, Sajid-Farhad’s heavy dialogues, the songs, es-pecially Amar Mohile’s back-ground score and the establishing shots used has definitely helped Rohit Shetty and team to hit it with a bang yet again this time.

Audi finally brings the A3 to Indian shores

Ever since the introduction of the A4 sedan, Audi has been one of the key players in the Indian premium car market. Their world class products have always given a stiff competition to rival brands like Mercedes and BMW. With cars like the A4, A6, Q3 and Q5 already in place, they are now aiming to seize the entry level premi-um car market with the competitively priced and feature packed A3 sedan.

Priced at ‘ 23.67 lakhs (ex showroom Kolkata) for the base Attraction vari-ant, the A3 is set to compete with the BMW 1 series and Mercedes A and B class. Audi already holds 46% market share in the entire luxury car segment in eastern India and is hoping to in-crease annual sales in India by 20% with the A3.

They are ambitious with the A3 al-ready clocking 25 bookings in Kol-kata. Audi plans to produce 45 cars per month.Audi offers the A3 in 5 trims and two engine variants- a 2.0 litre TDI diesel and a 1.8 litre TFSI petrol. The range starts at the base Attraction trim and goes up to Premium and Premium plus models with the top technology variant priced at ‘ 33 lakhs (ex show-room Kolkata). The petrol, however, comes with only a single Premium plus trim.

The petrol Audi A3 sedan is pow-ered by a 1.8 litre, 4-cylinder,turbo-charged engine generating 182.5PS of power at 5,100 rpm and 6,200 rpm and 250Nm of torque between 1,250 rpm and 5,000 rpm. The engine is mated to a seven-speed double clutch automatic gearbox. The 2.0 litre turbo diesel engine in the A3 devel-ops 144PS of power between 3,500 rpm and 4,000 rpm along with peak torque of 320Nm between 1,750 rpm and 3,000 rpm. The diesel engine is mated to a six-speed double clutch gearbox. The Audi A3 diesel has an ARAI rated fuel efficiency figure of 20.38 km/l while the A3 petrol has an ARAI specified fuel economy of 16.6 km/l.

The Team:- Anirban Das, Archisman Sarkar, Shalini Mukherjee, Md Sohail, Neha Roy Design Team:- Avik Dutta, Mahboob Alam Qazi, Antara Chakraborty, Debanjali Mukherjee

Chief Mentor:- Dr.Buroshiva Dasgupta | Mentor:- Debanjan Banerjee, Reshmi Naskar, Barnali Ray