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 Now A Granddad In Indian Jails on Technorati. Thanks to Anna Hazare’s anti-corruption movement the Indian investigative agencies and the judiciary had been showing no mercy for political criminals in particular. A zero tolerance for the corrupt seems to be the norm now. And so, you should not look concerned if a granddad lands up in jail! Sukh Ram, 86 year-old and former telecom minister of India, was convicted on November 18, 2011 for accepting a bribe of over 300,000 rupees in awarding a 300 million rupees contract to a firm in his home state Haryana in 1996. He was sentenced to five years rigorous imprisonment. Such Ram had two other graft cases of causing loss to the government in awarding a contract to another firm and disproportionate property with millions of rupees recovered from his residence. In 2002 he was sentenced to three years in jail for the first case and in 2009 the same punishment was given for the se...