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...
Aberrations do occur, in any field of activity or operation or management, the airport operations mid-air or at ground level being no exceptions. But unfortunately, such aberrations seem to be the rule at the Guwahati LGBI Airport, even after a complete revamp of the busiest airport of North East India that was done by one of the top-rated industrialists of the country. As fairly regular passengers over the years in the domestic air routes to Guwahati we’d experienced or had witnessed such aberrations, the horrors, regularly too at this airport, occurring mostly at the Security zone. No doubt, security is the topmost priority in our insurgency-infested country; but there are justifiable ways of doing it and not going berserk and nearly attacking/harassing/shaming normal passengers. The security forces should possess some level of intelligence to be able to detect suspicious passengers instead of intimidating every Tom, Dick and Harry. There have been some news reports...