NEWSIN BRIEF

VOLUME 2 ISSUE 5 14 MAY 2016

Jadavpur University Erupts Again

Chopper Scam :ED to travel Singapore

Rocky Yadav Arrested

Bengali films in Cannes Six Bengali short films shortlist-ed for screening at Cannes Film Festival held from May 11to May 22.The six films include Anirban Guha’s ‘Elixir’,Abhiroop Basu’s ‘Afternoon with Julia’,Aniket Chat-topadhyay’s ‘Saubala’,Lubdhak Chatterjee’s ‘In a free state’,Charles Kinnane’s”Generation Hope’ and Moumita Mondal’s ‘Adieu’

IPL’s highest 5th wicket Partnership

Playing against the Gujarat Lions on Sunday, Kolkata Knight Riders’ batsmen Yusuf Pathan and Shakib Al Hasan registered a record-setting fifth wicket partnership of 134 runs. The duo surpassed the earlier re-cord of 130runs set by Owais Shah and Angelo Mathews for Kolkata Knight Riders in 2010 and David Miller and R Sathish for Kings XI Punjab in 2013.

The sensational Pleasant Stay Hotel Case, Colour TV Scam, a lavish wedding of her foster son Sudhakaran for which the expenditure incurred is reported to be around Rs 6 crore, being barred from contesting elec-tions in the year 2001 on being found guilty of crim-inal offences, the remarkable Disproportionate Assets case of 2014 and being the first incumbent chief min-ister in India to be disqualified from holding office due to her conviction- all these couldn’t dampen the spirit garnered by her supporters. Jayalalithaa managed to have a landslide victory winning with a margin of over 1.6 lakhs votes in the 2011 election. How?Pre-poll promises touch the Himalayan height and it is not quite surprising on how the Tamil Nadu politics has been surviving on patronage.

When the AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa unveiled her party’s jumbo manifesto for the election to be held on May 16, it as expected is full of promises. It talks about freebies such as mobile phones to all the ration card holders, 50% sub-

sidy on scooters for working women, 100 units of free power and free wi-fi at public places. Interestingly, the promises meant primarily for women and first time voters are nothing but a refined version of the manifes-to given by her arch rival M Karunanidhi. Karunanidhi’s DMK had announced tablets with high speed internet connectivity for 16 lakhs government school students and smart phones for the poor. He had also promised power subsidies for both domestic and agricultural consumers, lower milk prices and a waiver on educational and farm loans. Both the parties showed a green flag for the prohibition of alcohol. With only few days left for the battle, not only the two Dravidian parties but other parties including BJP and

PMK became ready to open their hands allo wing the flow of money to fulfil th-eir promise. In fact, BJP even promised the return of Jallikattu, the bull tam-ing sport which has been banned in the state. Whate-ver is it called freebies, welfare or patronage politics, it clearly seemed to wo-rk for all. It’s a real time war with the same players mainly involving the lady, who escaped from all the trials and sometimes makes the law look guilty, Jaya and her arch-rival Karuna. Now it is time to see who wins this manifesto war and gains a majority of 118 seats. The game is on.

West Bengal governor KN Tripa-thi said that, “from a centre of ex-cellence, Jadavpur is turning into a centre of disturbance”. These alle-gations come as Jadavpur witness a fresh spell of agitation and protests over the screening of a film and molestation charges. JU Alumni as-sociation’s flip flop has also added fuel to the recent ruckus. The alum-ni association withdrew the per-mission for screening Vivek Agni-hotri’s ‘Buddha in a Traffic Jam’ at the last moment at the Triguna Sen auditorium, which eventually led to the film being screen in open air.The student’s body council of JU has alleged that there were presence of outsider’s with ABVP members when Agnihotri was giving a speech at the university campus. The univer-sity students screened another film at the same time ‘Muzzafarnagar Baaqi Hai’; minutes later what ensued were violent clashes between ABVP and the students. During the clash four people were identified as to have allegedly molested two university students, they were taken captive and taken to Aurobindo Bhavan. The four were only released after police inter-

vention and two separate FIR’s have been filed against those four.Months after the JNU protests, an-other protest of this scale has marked the university as a place of political battleground. Much also has to be

credited towards ‘ideological dif-ferences’ where one is not ready to accept another’s ideology or politi-cal affiliations. Investigations have to be done as to why the permission of screening the film got cancelled at the last moment, and also why ‘Muz-zafarnagar Baaqi Hai’ was screened

without CBFC certification.Rallies and counter rallies that inev-idently follow any JU clash choked the traffic on two consecutive days 7 April and 9 April. The common man who has nothing to do with the

so called ‘ideology’ and ‘politics’ are the worst sufferers. The ques-tion that comes up now is that why would there be so much politics about screening of a film. What harm can possibly a film do to anyone’s ideology? Is your ideology so weak? It seems idiosyncratic that while the

film got screened without any trou-ble at premier institutions like IIM’s and IIT’s, it ran into so much trouble at JU. Over the past few years JU has always been in the news for the wrong reasons, in September 2014 there was a standoff between VC Abhijit Chakroborty and students.The students wanted the VC to in-vestigate in an alleged molestation incident that occurred during the college fest. The standoff was more than a week and coupled with the poor handling of the situation by the state government, by allowing party goons and police inside the campus to beat up the students eventually had a detrimental effect on JU’s image. A few months ago during the JNU pro-tests, the students showed solidarity with Umar Khalid, Kanhaiya Kumar and Anirban Bhattacharya and there were massive rallies and there were clashes with ABVP and BJP support-ers. During that time controversial slogans similar to that of JNU were raised by a group called ‘radical’. The administration maintained that it was an act of outsiders but the dam-age was already done by then. If so many things can be done in the name of democracy then the question of democracy, then screening of one film, which questions one’s ideology, cannot surely be considered so grave.

The Politics on PatronageTN Elections: Manifesto promises freebies

To trace the money trail in VVIP choppers deals , a team of Enforce-ment Directorate officials may soon travel to a few countries including Singapore to expedit investigations on fund transcations involved in the Rs.3,600 crore deal for supplying a dozen Agusta Westland Aw-101 choppers to India for VVIP flying.

Rocky Yadav,the son of ruling party leader in Bihar was arrested 48 hours after he allegedly shot dead Aditya Sachdeva for overtaking his SUV in Gaya town.Rocky ,24 is the son of Manorama Devi a lawmaker of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s JDU.

Mercury transits Sun :

India witnessed the rarest of the rare astronomical event when the planet Mercury crossed the sun from 4.43 pm till sunset at 7 pm in Delhi on May 9th.The event which roughly occurs 10 times in a cen-

Kerala Rape Case: Nirbhaya Episode Re-livedParamita Das

Yet another Nirbhaya-incident stripped the nation naked of its temporary honour on April 28, 2016, when, a 30 year old law student, at Perumbavoor, Kerala, was raped, beaten, murdered and mutiliated in her own house, during the hours of the late noon in broad daylight. The mother of the victim is said to have found her daughter’s body lying in a pool of blood in their one-room house at Kuruppam-pady. The body of the woman, reportedly had more than 30 stab wounds, her genitals being severely rammed and the chest area being struck consec-utively with a sharp pointed knife like object. As of now, a reliable police source has confirmed that the accused has been taken into custody though officially the police has been waiting for scientific evidence to execute an official arrest warrant. Addi-tional Director General of Police K. Padmakumar, supervising the investigation said, “It appears to be a pre-meditated murder. We’ve got crucial evidence and are hopeful of cracking the case. Ten special teams are on the field even as experts, including cyber and forensic, have been called in to assist the probe.”

Another association that is conspicuously being made to the rape victim is of her caste identity as a Dalit woman. The term Dalit is being used as a synonym while referring to this harrowing incident. I mean, Dalit or not, for god’s sake, the woman was raped, stabbed, mutilated, tortured, beaten and mur-dered. Isn’t that enough to be considered as cause to fight for? Isn’t her cry worth hearing to? Isn’t her death enough for the government to act immediately and prevent any further victimization of women in India? Even though, this incident is the second

one to have taken place in India on the basis of the degree of brutality, after the Nirbhaya incident, the number of rape cases has considerably increased in the past few years. The worst of all , is the rape of minors and children, that has been taking place, silently and shamelessly, without any fear of getting caught or punished. The lack of severe punishments has made these deranged psychopaths believe that the constitutional framework of the nation is too weak to do anything. This believe was further deepened when the accused juvenile in the Nirbhaya episode was let off without a scratch on the basis of him being a minor.Well, this unstoppable malice that haunts almost ev-ery day in every possible corners of our country the Delhi Gang Rape, Gurgaon rape and now Goa is barely being taken into serious consideration by our government. The prevailing system ironically heeds more as to act as a helping hand for the criminals to evade the severe punishment unless the mob of our country furiously seek justice in keep pursuing it until it is begot .Still its not only a matter of mere imposition of some laws to mitigate the evil, rather puts a big question mark on the security of a woman which gets dismantled by every episode of these nuances.

Tiyashi Datta

Saptarshi Chowdhury

VOLUME 2 ISSUE 5 14 MAY 2016

An interview with Mr Joydeep Karmakar

Shankhachil : Ghosh’s challenge to the System and religion

Monalisa Mitra and Ramyani Mukherjee

The Team : Aakruti Shah, Ishani Bhattacharjee, Monalisa Mitra, Paramita Das, Ramyani Mukherjee, Saptarshi Chowdhury, Tiyashi Datta, Ritaban Dey, Deep ShawDesign Team : Aditi Bandopadhyay, Sanhita Saha, Chayan Biswas.

Chief Mentor : Dr Buroshiva Dasgupta Mentors: Jhuma Basak, Sharmila Sinha, Debanjan Banerjee, Saurav Basu, Bhaswar Bhattacharyya, Ankita Ash, Reshmi Naskar, Barnali Ray

Ace shooter Mr. Joydeep Karmakar who became a Ju-nior National Champion in his first Nationals in 1994. He qualified to represent India at 2012 Summer Olym-pics in Men’s 50m Rifle Prone event. Visiting the NSHM-Knowledge Cam-pus, Y- News correspondent Aakru-ti Shah catches up with the Arjuna Award winner for a quick interview.

Sir, kindly let us know why did you choose shooting as your career? Who has been your biggest inspiration and mentor for you in your journey?I joined shooting at an early age of 10 and got myself enrolled in the nearest club. I joined it casually like every other kid who wants to play with guns and target. Back in those days we didn’t have good coaches and there was hardly any awareness about the shooting course. But one of the caretakers of the club, Routh Da, helped me nurture my passion for shooting. Owing an experience of thirty years, he knew the nuances of shooting and thus be-came my mentor, and got inspired from him.

Sir, you have represented India in summer 2012 Olympics, so as a Ban-gali and of course an Indian, what was your experience and how did you feel there?

The feeling was out of the world. If you

talk about the game vil-lage where ten thou-sand athletes

came from various parts of the world belong-ing to various cultures, that’s the place wherethey all came together. Big stars like Usain Bolt, Serena Williams would have breakfast with us. It was a great feeling altogether inter-acting with countries that I never believed ex-isted. It was really a thrilling experience.

What according to you are the major chal-lenges faced by budding shooters?Awareness is a big hindrance in development of shooting sport in India. Shooting has been argu-ably one of the best performing sport from India at the Olympics, which has also been rewarded. Not only Olympics, there have been Gold med-als in Worldcup, Commonwealth games etc, all achieved by shooters. I have set up my acade-my, the Joydeep Karmakar Shooting Academy, Kolkata for budding shooters and have provided them with imported and quality weapons and infrastructure, so that they know just like Hock-ey, Cricket, Tennis, and Football, there is also a sport which is not only watched on television or read in the newspaper, but can be trained and played in Kolkatas well. This is something I am trying. Let’s hope for the best now.

You are a recipient of Bongo Bibhushan and the prestigious Arjuna Award, so how does that feel and how has it helped you grow in your career?Performance is one thing and awards -rewards are another altogether. But without motivation, the whole performance is incomplete. It’s like a cycle, you perform- you achieve. It shows that you are socially accepted and encourages you to move ahead towards your goal and makes you hungry for more.

Where do you see yourself 5 years ahead from now?Maybe relaxing after the Tokyo Olympics!

Would you tell us about Bengal’s future and India’s future in the Sports Genre?Bengal is trying very hard to come back but I think a lot of awareness about sports is need-ed. Once Bengal was a leading sport state, but off late awareness is lacking. We are constantly motivating people, ”khelo khelo khelo”. Even if we look at the football scenario in Bengal, football is a lot more popular, but the quality has gone down and it’s struggling very hard for its existence in the national level. We should host national level games in Bengal. Also, the infrastructure is a major issue. People are myo-pic and the fanatism about certain sports is kill-ing the vibe of other sports in Bengal.

About 2016 Rio Olympics, what do u think, how many medals will India win this time?Yes, this is the question of the hour. The num-ber of athletes in various categories, who have qualified for Rio have already crossed the Lon-don mark and I’m expecting the number of awards to reach 10 this time. However it is dif-ficult to predict, because up there everybody is equal and talented. However, the best may win.

They say all work and no play, makes Jack a dull boy. So what do u think, how important is sports in one’s life?There are two things we need to understand in life. One is entertainment which we enjoy just by watching it, but enjoyment is something which might not be very entertaining for others but can be thrilling for one self. Again, sports is very important not only for physical fitness but for mental strength. This mental strength plays an important role in creating a sense of com-petitiveness and also, achieving our goal in life.

There are a very few women who aspire to become shooters and play for Olympics, but are somewhere contained in a shell of the primitive part of the society. What would be your message to them?Very right. Very few women can think of them-selves as Hema Malini of Sholay. In some events, women are doing better than men. Some women like Anjali Bhagwat, Heena Sidhu, are performing really well and have broken records everywhere, so it’s a myth ac-tually. Talking about the Johri village ladies, I found out about the septuagenarian women. They have these dupattas on their head, have a very rustic apparel yet they shoot amazingly. So such women should be given opportunities to play and get trained.

Lastly, what message would you give to the aspiring shooters of the country?Discipline plays the most important role in our life. People tend to fake discipline in the areas where it is not needed but fail to show where it is needed the most. I would say that stick to your passion. You can be good without passion but not great. Whatever you do, try to keep a mark behind it. Sleep shooting, eat shooting, drink shooting!

Genre : DramaRelease Date : April 12th , 2016Director : Goutam GhoshProducer : Prosenjit Chatterjee, Faridur Reza Sagar, Habibur Rahman Khan, Mou RaychowdhuryDuration: 2hours and 15 minutesCast: Prosenjit Chatterjee, Kusum Shikdar and SaanjbatiNurturing the recognition and the celebrated success of “Mon-er Manush” Gautam Ghosh and Prosenjit Chatterjee yet again delivered another Indo-Bangladesh cine project “Shankhachil”, earning the title of Best Bengali feature film this year at the National Awards. This project happens to be Ghosh’s third In-do-Bangladesh offering after “Padma Nadir Majhi” and “Moner Manush”. Shot in and around various locations of Kolkata, Taki & Indo-Bangladesh border areas near Satkhira District, the film has a sensitive tone to its backdrop that serves to the very deli-cate issue of illegal cross border immigration which has its roots deep down in our cultural and ethnical background. The history of the Bengal and the strong bonding of ‘Bangali language and culture can be traced back to early 1400s. Irrespective of the

international border the bonding is what the two Bengals share and pride upon. Although political interests have divided that unity, the natives share the same food, the culture, the habits and the quintessential language. The film finely portrays a traic tale of a Bangladeshi rural cou-ple; Muntasir Chowdhury Badal(Prosenjit Chatterjee) & Laila (Kusum Sikdar) who has an ailing but a curious and a free spirit-ed daughter named Rupsha(Saanjbati) and smartly brushes upon the prevailing predicaments of a typical border area.

The story then unfolds how the ill-fated family is exposed to the various crisis that are inevitable in the likes of a border area

which then graduates to the couples’ arrival to Kolkata in an illicit manner which is described in a well calibrated storyline narrating the struggle. It’s a film that celebrates all things Ben-gali, while showing the irony of the region’s divided existence and higlights the anguish that people have gone through due to parttion through generations.After establishing the border chaos and the infrastructural inferiority, all that was left in the picture was one father and his wife fighting for the life of their daughter who was suffering from a severe heart disease. The situation compelled them to change their religion and disguise their identity. This has been strongly signified by showing Laila walking down the stairs of a Ma Kali mandir with a red bindi and vermillion on her forehead which is beyond the permit of her religion. Despite of efforts and the risks availed; Rupsha departs for the eternal abode leaving behind a father and a mother in a political diaspora revealing their true religious originality. It has a flawless depiction where Badal cries out his pain in a feeling of torment and says ‘Ami Bangali’, caused by the failure to save his daughter supported by the identity crisis which the entire family went through. This dialogue puts a huge impact on the audiences mind as, Hindu or Muslim the very common thing that innocent little Rupsha had was, she was a Bengali.No doubt the current genre of Gautam Ghosh possesses a hidden homage to Ritwik Ghatak’s style of work. May that be “Titas Ekti Nadir Naam” or “Meghe Dhaka Tara” all of which screams the mindset of the refugees of partition and the societal imbal-ance. There is an obvious but concealed influence of Ghatak’s over Ghosh, proven by their inclination to depict factual senti-ments of similar plight at different times with different contexts.Ghosh’s cinematography was exceptional and the background music was heart touching. Yet there are a few visible glitches in the film like the narration taking a leisurely time to establish the plot and an exaggerated beginning showing the anguish and the pain in a drab manner hence extending the storyline. The ending which consisted of hospital scenes seemed hurried and as a re-sult there was not much drama on screen. These flaws leaves the audience to wander about as they wouldn’t know what to follow.To conclude there is an invisible synopsis, camouflaged in a palatable guise. Ghosh could have never ended the film to the fact of Rupsha’s healthy recovery with a Hindu identity. May be there is a political flavour unrevealed in the finish, which obvi-ously had to be the end. This denouement had a subtle exposure that depicted and strengthened the real life beliefs and occur-rences of our society in a diplomatic tone.Ritaban Dey

“Shooting gave me everything in my life and now it is my turn to give back something.”

A BIT OF HUMOUR