Kumartuli or Kumortuli is located in the northern part of the city of Kolkata . The locality is a traditional habitat of the potters for nearly three hundred years. The potters or the artisans or the artists settled here during the restructuring of the Kolkata colonial region by the British East India Company . Earning a livelihood by making earthen pots and utensils first they gradually shifted to the making of the idols of Gods and Goddesses for various festivals round the year. With increasing demand and quality of their creations over time the artisans became famous and Kumartuli came to be known as the hub of idol makers supplying thousands of idols, particularly of Goddess Durga , to whole of the state of West Bengal and to NRIs of around 90 countries across the globe. At least three months before Durga Puja , the biggest festival of West Bengal and one of the biggest across Eastern India, more than five hundred workshops come alive with hyper activity day and night. Fir...
It was cruelly insensitive on the part of the Government of India to declare in Parliament that there had been no COVID-19 deaths during the second wave due to lack of medical oxygen in the country, when not only the thousands of the affected families but also millions other anxious or someway related families just cannot erase the nightmarish images of people dying gasping for breath on hospital beds, in the hospital passages/corridors/lounges, on the outside courtyards or on the streets, in the parked cars, within the four walls of homes; hospitals sending SOS for oxygen, desperate doctors even breaking down; and round-the-clock media reports and most disturbing visuals. The reason given by the government is even more ludicrously insensitive: that the states did not report the deaths due to the lack of medical oxygen. Well, most of the states, particularly the ones ruled by the same dispensations would hardly advertise their failure or the stark lack of preparedness. The gove...