THE TIMES OF INDIA, KOLKATA FRIDAY, JANUARY 15, 2016 5TIMES CITY

Kolkata: The ministry of de-fence (MoD) has granted per-mission to the ministry of rail-ways (MoR) to use defence landfor the Joka-BBD Bag Metro,but has denied them permis-sion to set up the over-groundMominpore station on Com-mand Hospital land.

This could be a major set-back and the railways haveproposed to stall the project as a huge number, includingArmy personnel, will be depri-ved of mobility via this mass-transit system. Momin-pore alone had the projectionof 20,000 peak hour dire-

ctional traffic.“There is no justification of

going ahead with the projectwithout Mominpore Metrostation in Joka-BBD Bag align-ment because the gap betweenMajherhaat and Khidderpore(if Mominpore is skipped) willexceed 2.7km, while the stan-dard gap is 1-1.5km. The landrequirement for the station isonly 2,500sqm, smaller thanfor any other project.

Moreover, Mominpore sta-

tion had already been madesmaller than other Metro sta-tion so that security of the Ar-my hospital is not compromi-sed. Neither did it involve de-molition of property. The rail-ways put the matter before thePrime Minister’s portal see-king his intervention.

“The sanctions have rea-ched us. But removal of Mo-minpore station puts a big qu-estion mark on the entire pro-ject,” said an officer.

“It is not just about buil-ding the corridor. With thedropping of such a vital sta-tion, the justification of thewhole project gets lost. In therailways, there is no conceptof later addition as a stationhas a lot of features added to it.If there is no station, those fea-tures are to be done awaywith,” said an RVNL official.

Metro railway officialsnow want intervention of thestate in asking the local Armyauthorities for the requiredpermission.

A senior state officer saidthe state is closely watchingthe development and will add-ress the issue on its own.

The MoD has also grantedpermission for use of the gro-und below Turf View and RaceCourse. Turf View is the defen-ce officials’ residential quar-ter, 15-18m below which the1,450m-long twin tunnels (with5m diameter) will pass.

State HelpSought To

Resolve Issue

Army red-flags MominporeMetro stn, Rlys may stall work

DIFFERENT VIEWSDefence

Command Hospital is already on a smaller area of land compared to other defence hospitals and the station might eat into the area

Security of the defence establishment will be compromised

MetroSkipping of

Mominpore stationwould make the gap between Majherhaat and Khidderpore 2.7km, while the standard gap is 1-1.5km

Safety of the defence establishment will be ensured with proper measures

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Kolkata: When it comes to the-oretical knowledge and gripover the subject, there is no be-ating the Indian student, butwhen it comes to putting thattheory into greater creative use,somehow they fail. Nobel laure-ate Ei-ichi Negishi, in an exclu-sive interview with TOI, saidperhaps India needs to reworkits education policy to instill sci-entific creativity in studentsright from the time when theyare in school.

Invited here by CalcuttaUniversity, Negishi delivered alecture on Transition Metal Ca-talysis for a Sustainable andProsperous World.

Negishi won the Nobel in2010 for his work on palladiumcatalyzed cross couplings in or-ganic synthesis and his processhas been christened NegishiCoupling, to honour the achie-vement that put an end to archa-ic processes of synthesizing or-ganic materials. The researchwas completed in 1975-76, butNegishi and his teammates Ri-chard Heck and Akira Suzukiwere honoured in 2010. Today,Negishi Coupling is used forsynthesizing unknown organicchemicals all over the world.

“In layman’s terms, I can saythat my 1975-76 work is like a le-go game approach to problemswhere pieces with holes andsticks are synthesized and lin-ked up,” he said.

This is his third trip to Indiaand the second to Kolkata. “Thevery word Kolkata stirs up the

image of Rabindranath Tagore,Mother Teresa and CV Raman—all three Nobel laureates whoworked in Kolkata. This city hasa lot of intellectual depth and ahistory that makes it unique.Between the last time and this, Ihave seen vignettes of the Ho-wrah Bridge, Victoria Memori-al, Indian Museum and StPaul’s Cathedral — they trans-port you to another time andspace...” Negishi added.

Throughout his academiccareer, Negishi has taught andresearched with a large numberof students from CU, IITs andIISc. “I am impressed with theknowledge base they comewith, but I hope I get studentswho are more creative in theirapproach to science. They needto rise above their dependenceon classroom teaching and aimfor top-level creativity. They ne-ed to start asking questions ear-ly on and not merely learn theo-ries. Only an original questioncan get an original solution,”Negishi said.

“There is one goal that I haveset for myself ...to be able to syn-thesize unknown organic che-micals to treat cancer,” he sum-med up.

‘Indians must treatscience creatively’

Jhimli.Mukherjeepandey@timesgroup.com

Ei-ichi Negishi

Basabdatta Sarkar

Kolkata: A woman suffe-ring from gangrene recei-ved a fresh lease of lifefrom a group of Kolkatanswho crowdsourced hertreatment.

Sakina Khatoon (60),a resident of Khidderpo-re, suffered from diabeticfoot and developed gang-rene a few months ago.Her sister Sufia, whoworks as a housemaid in aposh Park Circus apart-ment, happened to men-tion the matter to AbdulRahim, chartered accoun-tant and resident of CRAvenue, last November.By then, Sakina had gonethrough three amputa-tion stints in a govern-ment hospital, but thegangrene on her right footwouldn’t heal.

Living in a shanty inKhidderpore, Sakina co-uld barely manage to payfor her daily dressing(each session cost aboutRs 400), and local doctorswarned that the gangrenewas getting aggravatedevery day.

Ra-him, theadmini-strator ofa What-sApp gro-up of so-me 500

users, decided to post abo-ut Sakina’s problem. In amatter of 72 hours, thegroup raised around Rs70,000. The collection evenincluded contributions ofRs 200, Rs 300 and Rs 500volunteered by students.

“We launched thecrowdfunding campaignto raise money to help aneedy person fight herbattle against a deadly di-sease. The campaign hasensured that she survi-ves,” said Anant Nevatiaof Rural Health Care Fo-undation. He played a keypart in helping Sakina.

Sakina was taken toCMRI and referred to sur-geon Anupam Golash.The skin grafting surgerywas done on Monday andSakina was released onThursday. . “The patient isdoing fine and her woundshave started healing,” Go-lash told TOI on Thursday.

Crowdfundedsurgery gifts

woman new lifeAjanta.Chakraborty@timesgroup.com

The 35-year-old victim, amother of two, claimsshe has been enduring

physical abuse since her mar-riage in 2007.

On August 16, she was alle-gedly chased by her husbandin a fit of rage. She fled to theroof of their two-storeyed go-vernment quarters, and waspushed off.

This resulted in a head in-jury and multiple fractures.She was admitted to the Ber-hampore State Hospital.

While it is standard proto-col that all head injury casesadmitted to hospitals be repor-

ted to the nearest police sta-tion, for some reason this wasnot done.

Four days later, her brot-hers brought her to Kolkataand the nursing home repor-ted the case to police.

According to the victim’saffidavit, her husband visitedher twice in the Kolkata nur-sing home — first to reported-ly intimidate and threaten her(and her relatives) against lod-ging a police complaint and asecond time to reportedly in-form her that he would be fi-

ling for divorce and subsequ-ently remarrying.

The victim, however, isn’tready to give in. On January 1,she rode an ambulance to Ber-hampore to record her state-ment before police.

On Wednesday, she againtravelled to Berhampore to re-cord her statement before a ju-

dicial magistrate. When she spotted her hus-

band in the room during thehearing, she complained to thechief judicial magistrate thather in-camera statement wasbeing compromised.

The CJM intervened andrecorded her statement onThursday.

Victim endured abuse since 2007

4 cops hurt in clash with Jalpaiguristudents: Students of RabindranathHigh School in Jalpaiguri’s Raninagarconfined their headmistress to theschool for a day after a row broke outover cycle distribution under the sta-te’s Sabuj Sathi scheme. When cops tri-ed to rescue Mousumi Dutta, studentsattacked them as well, injuring fourwho had to be hospitalized. Three stu-dents were later arrested. “Search is onto nab the other students who attackedour men,” said Jalpaiguri SP AkashMagharia. The ruckus broke out whenaround 500 students turned up to findthere were only 64 cycles to be distribu-ted. —Pinak Priya Bhattacharya

CHANGE OF NAME

Continued from P 1

FIGHTINGBACK

Biplab Mondal