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...
Article first published as Your Liability, Our Asset! on Technorati. Recently the main opposition party of India, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), inducted into its party fold an expelled minister of the ruling party in Uttar Pradesh —the largest northern state of India. The former minister, Babu Singh Kushwaha , was expelled by the Chief Minister of the state Mayawati due to his involvement in the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) scam. Under the NRHM scheme the Government of India had released around 100,000 million Indian rupees to the state to be utilized for rural health expenditures. Following murders of two Chief Medical Officers and one death under suspicious circumstances the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) took up the case about two months back. Mayawati suspected Kushwaha’s involvement in the murders too apart from the gross misuse of the funds. The BJP’s inspiration for this act was obvious. It wanted to garner more votes since assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh w...