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...
Repeated food safety tests across India confirmed the presence of poisonous lead and a chemical monosodium glutamate, widely known as MSG in the famous 2-minute Maggi noodles. First the capital Delhi banned the noodles for 15 days and then state after state of the country started following suit. On Friday, the 5th of June, 2015 Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) ordered Nestle, the company producing Maggi, to recall all nine variants of the noodles from the Indian market. After that branches of FSSAI got into action in states like Maharashtra, Meghalaya and others too where the ban was not yet announced pending test reports or non-conclusive results. Even after all these serious developments Nestle refuses to admit that their noodles are not really fit for consumption, particularly for the innocent children who were too fond of it, or that at least some serious problems could be present. Obsessed perhaps with the need for damage control to prevent huge losses the...