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If you take out the 'ism' part I do not see any difference between CPM & TMC. Take any policy matters and more or less have the same net stance which unfortunately does not augur well for the development of the state (compare the policy stand of CPM in UPA I and TMC in UPA II). How can you come out of this 'abyss and hard rock' scenario?
 
If you take out the 'ism' part I do not see any difference between CPM & TMC. Take any policy matters and more or less have the same net stance which unfortunately does not augur well for the development of the state (compare the policy stand of CPM in UPA I and TMC in UPA II). How can you come out of this 'abyss and hard rock' scenario?
nice one :lol: ... amra asole ektu judhdho judhdho khelte bhalobasi :cheers: ... my problem is with ism itself as it stands between their world view and our national interest...only ray of hope is that the current one is just in power and being in govt. changes lot of things...at the end of their term may be we can judge..

i heard that all police unions have been dismantled instead a welfare committee will look after their grievances... this ,if true, can go long in case of impartial policing..
 
If you take out the 'ism' part I do not see any difference between CPM & TMC. Take any policy matters and more or less have the same net stance which unfortunately does not augur well for the development of the state (compare the policy stand of CPM in UPA I and TMC in UPA II).
+ 1 million

if anything the starting signs of TMC are even worse than that of LF.
 
KMC plans to give city a makeover

KOLKATA: Despite being miserably pressed for cash, the Kolkata Municipal Corporation (KMC) has undertaken a major beautification plan for the city. The blueprint includes installation of decorative lights in large areas of north and central Kolkata, beautification of pavements, beautification of road medians and painting of city's parks and roads.

"In the new year, the KMC conservancy department will install 1,000 new trash bins across the city. These designer bins will be placed in front of major markets, malls, multiplexes and in front of multi-storeyed buildings. This apart, the civic body has set a January 26 deadline for completion of riverfront beautification along a 200 metre stretch on Strand Road," said mayor Sovan Chatterjee.

On Wednesday, Chatterjee held a meeting with all senior KMC officials and chalked out a comprehensive plan for the city's beautification. Chatterjee said that importance would be given to installation of decorative lights along city's major thoroughfares. This is not the first time that the KMC has planned to decorate Kolkata streets with designer lights.

In the first phase, the civic body installed decorative lights along streets such as Harish Mukherjee Road, Rashbehari Avenue, Southern Avenue, Bhowanipore and Sarat Bose Road among others. In the second phase, the KMC will take up Ultadanga Main Road, Beliaghata Main Road, CIT Road (Park Circus), Lenin Sarani, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road for installation of such decorative lights.

The KMC has selected the area around Nandan and Academy of Fine Arts as a special zone for beautification. The civic engineering department will create a special median on Cathedral Road and beautify it with herbs, shrubs and flowers.

While the railings at Citizens Park will don a fresh coat of blue and black, the pavement will be beautified with designer tiles, Chatterjee said. Other major city parks will be painted accordingly. The work of painting city's parks has begun with Harish Park on Harish Mukherjee Road.

Though beautification in other forms is well accepted, there are few takers for installation of decorative lights among the civic officials. KMC records testify that after the first phase of illumination of streets, a dent has been created in the civic coffer as the electricity bills shot up after such installation of fancy lights.

"With installation of second phase of decorative lights, electricity bills will shoot up by Rs 1 crore every month," said a KMC official. "When there is sufficient street light along the major thoroughfares, what is the need for installation of decorative lights," the KMC official asked.

Source
 
Hunt for parking space before city date with jet set

KOLKATA: For a city where big business hasn't always been enthusiastic to make a touchdown, it's a happy problem of plenty.

The West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) is scrambling to find parking space at the Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose International Airport for at least six private jets that will land on January 9 for an industry meet organized by the state government. Officials say it's the first time in 15 years that the airport will host such a large fleet. The last time it received an entourage of private jets was in 1996 when British Prime Minister John Major arrived with a three-jet fleet to attend the CII Partnership Summit.

Even as the state government sees huge potential in Bengal Leads 2012 - the B2B industrial fair that it hopes will help attract investment in the cash-strapped state - it has more immediate issues to manage. The six leading industrialists who will arrive in private jets are DLF vice-chairman Rajiv Singh, Punj Lloyd chairman Atul Punj, Indonesia-based mining company Bumi Resources chairman N A Rathore, JSW chairman Sajjan Jindal, TVS chairman Venu Srinivasan and Universal Success chairman Prasoon Mukherjee. The TVS chairman may come on January 14, the closing day of the meet, sources said.

Jet parking: Govt will write to AAI

PepsiCo India chairman Manu Anand, ITC chairman Y C Deveshwar, along with the company's executive directors, TAFE chairman Mallika Shrinivasan, S K Birla Group chairman Siddharth Birla and General Motors director Christopher B Bird are among those who will attend Bengal Leads 2012. Some of them may arrive in private jets.

WBIDC managing director Nandini Chakraborty said she would write to the Airports Authority of India (AAI) to arrange for parking for the private jets. "We shall get the detailed travel schedule and the carrier numbers by Saturday. After that the state government will approach AAI. This is perhaps the first time that so many private jets are coming on a single day. The number could increase as we are expecting more confirmations," she said.

It's not just parking space that the industry leaders are enquiring about. Some of them, like Bumi's N A Rathore, use a Boeing 747 and aren't sure if the city airport can provide landing space for jumbo jets. WBIDC is also facing enquiries on whether the airport has adequate ground staff to handle the fleet of jets. On a normal day, NSCBI Airport can accommodate two to three private jets in its parking bays. Some more can be accommodated in a remote parking bay. Sources said the parking bays of the international terminal could be used if the air traffic isn't heavy.

According to sources, 32 big companies are putting up stalls in Bengal Leads. These are PepsiCo India, Gujarat Ambuja Cement, ITC, MCC PTA, JSW, Matix, Gail, SBI, TIL, Telcon, Universal Success, South Asia Petro etc. "There will be industrialists across the sectors - from food processing, engineering to farm equipments," a source said.

Besides, leading industrialists from the state like Sanjiv Goenka, Harsh Neotia, M K Jalan, C K Dhanuka, Sanjay Budhia have given their consent. There will be special sessions on automobile, MSME, tourism, infrastructure, food processing and information.

Source

Hope something very good comes out of this...
 
Star Ananda's newsreport on Bengal Leads. Mamata Bannerjee will talk with Ford and Tafe authorities and request them to invest in West Bengal. This is the first time that West Bengal government is officially organizing an industrial and investment trade fair on its own.
[Note: what the news report deoesn't mention is that the popular industrial trade fairs were earlier organized by BNCCI jointly with WB Government and ITPO. A Bengali newspaper claimed that the new regime scuttled Dec 2011 year's trade fair because it thinks that the BNCCI is "close" to the earlier regime. This would have been the 25th year of that trade fair].

 
Discussion starter · #1,029 ·
Reviving Kolkata
The city that got left behind
Can India’s original economic powerhouse get its act together again?



A NATIVE-BORN writer, Amit Chaudhuri, says that Calcutta should be compared to world cities like New York and Paris for its rich past and mix of influences. Yet ever since the Suez Canal was built in 1869, boosting trade in Bombay (now Mumbai), people have said the city (now Kolkata) has been going to the dogs. They have been right. Calcutta lost its title as India’s capital a century ago, and its status as the country’s industrial engine in the 1950s. By the early 1970s visitors were making apocalyptic predictions of plagues and starving, rampaging mobs, and by the end of that decade Marxists were in charge. Today Kolkata evokes Havana, beautiful but shabby, the last city to remain largely untouched by India’s 20-year boom. “I love the city, but am ashamed of its condition,” says Sandipan Chakravortty, boss of one of the few units of the giant Tata Group to be based there.
Full article: http://www.economist.com/node/21542446
 
Too gloomy an article,talks of calcutta as if its still stuck in the 90s.Its not that India's economic boom has bypassed calcutta,anyone who says that does not know anything about economics.Calcutta has grown all right,just that the growth has been average,to become great you need to grow faster.

The point of calcutta's population declining is put in a wrong context,the central area population has declined which is true of south bombay also,and i am very glad for that!
 
On decorasun

"With installation of second phase of decorative lights, electricity bills will shoot up by Rs 1 crore every month," said a KMC official. "When there is sufficient street light along the major thoroughfares, what is the need for installation of decorative lights," the KMC official asked.
because installing these substandard eyesore lights is the easiest thing that can be done and is out there for everyone to see every f*^&ing day and night. that's a standing public proof of development and change. this is pure politics. this is not even a low hanging fruit. it is cut fruit served on a plate to be eaten with forks.

what is the purpose of "decoration", "beautify" etc.? All these words have a certain "nyakami" associated with them ... what we need is good design*, not decorasun. but that doesn't get inside the hardened narkol of our policymakers. (or is it singular, "policymaker"?)


* the three lights that jut out like the forks of a trishul have an "axis" that needs to be aligned with 1) the road's axis (i.e., parallel to it), or 2) perpendicular to it. whatever you do, these alignments will never be perfect and will end up as amateurish work -- a forest of lights that's plain and simple "drishya dushon." wasn't one light enough, if decorasun must be done?
 
Well well thos DECORATING lights not only looking beautiful but also it's glittering on the streets of Kolkata. Last time when I was at CCU 2 of my friends came from Delhi n Mumbai, and after watching those 'DECORATIVE' lights they were impressed.

And for kind information roads at Kolkata is much much better condition. I agree that some roads condition are not good like Jessor Road, VIP Road, E M Bypass( But metro, flyover and BRTS construction are going on all over the Bypass) but I'm sure that 90% of Kolkata's roads are well maintained, clean ans some roads are green and beautiful too.
 
Well well thos DECORATING lights not only looking beautiful but also it's glittering on the streets of Kolkata. Last time when I was at CCU 2 of my friends came from Delhi n Mumbai, and after watching those 'DECORATIVE' lights they were impressed.

And for kind information roads at Kolkata is much much better condition. I agree that some roads condition are not good like Jessor Road, VIP Road, E M Bypass( But metro, flyover and BRTS construction are going on all over the Bypass) but I'm sure that 90% of Kolkata's roads are well maintained, clean ans some roads are green and beautiful too.
:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:
 
Well well thos DECORATING lights not only looking beautiful but also it's glittering on the streets of Kolkata. Last time when I was at CCU 2 of my friends came from Delhi n Mumbai, and after watching those 'DECORATIVE' lights they were impressed.
these lights might look good in rajarhat not because of the light itself, but because of rajarhat's straight roads.

go and see how these lights look in D L Khan road (turn left from PG Hospital, facing Hastings, Khidirpur) and continue on Belvedere Road and Judges Court Road and stop near Kalighat).

anyway, i think these lights are not to be given much importance except that they are a waste. the blaring of rabindrasangeet at road junctions is another whimsical idea that has taken up many manhours.

Spare blare of Tagore Kiosks

the real work is in making changes in the system (e.g., make those beautiful north Kolkata buildings free of cheap tenants by changing the rent control act). remove all hoardings and shift advertisements underground so that job loss is minimal. make footpaths free of hawkers; clear space for Singapore style food-courts where office-goers can have good hygienic food. make 50 to 100 five-to-six storey car parks all over the city, so that the narrow roads are now free from triple row parking. revive the many libraries that are scattered all over the city. make them modern and lively. all of this requires specialist knowledge, not on-the-go, off-the-cuff casual plans.
 
BTW Joseph Stiglitz was supposed to speak at Bengal Leads.

Government should play role in land acquisition: Joseph Stiglitz

http://profit.ndtv.com/News/Article...le-in-land-acquisition-joseph-stiglitz-295774

Nobel laureate in economics Joseph Stiglitz on Wednesday said that the State should have a role to play in acquiring large pieces of land for setting up industry.

"For those who want to acquire large tracts of land from fragmented ownership holdings, it is really a problem and land purchase becomes difficult," Stiglitz said on the sidelines of a seminar at the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI).

The noted economist said this when pointed out that the present West Bengal government's declared stand was that it would not acquire land for setting up industry.

He said that land acquisition was really a sensitive issue across the world.
Citing the instance of Columbia University in the US, where he is a professor, Stiglitz said that a huge amount of land was needed for expansion of the 'varsity.

He said that the university was unable to acquire land on its own and the expansion process was halted. Ultimately, the local city government intervened arguing that it was in the interest of the people that the university expanded.
News from Star Ananda

জমি নীতির সমালোচনা স্টিগলিতজের

http://starananda.newsbullet.in/kolkata/59-more/15912-2012-01-11-15-13-46

শিল্পস্থাপনের জন্য জমি নেওয়ার ক্ষেত্রে সক্রিয় ভূমিকা থাকা উচিত সরকারেরই. কার্যত রাজ্য সরকারের জমি নীতির বিরুদ্ধে সওয়াল করে এ কথা বললেন নোবেলজয়ী অর্থনীতিবিদ জোসেফ স্টিগলিত্জ. বুধবার ইন্ডিয়ান স্ট্যাটিস্টিকাল ইনস্টিটিউটে পশ্চিমবঙ্গের অর্থনীতি বিষয়ক একটি আলোচনাসভায় প্রধান বক্তা হিসেবে উপস্থিত ছিলেন আমেরিকার কলম্বিয়া বিশ্ববিদ্যালয়ের অর্থনীতির এই অধ্যাপক. সেখানেই 'গ্লোবালাইজেশন অ্যান্ড ডিসকনটেন্ট'-এর লেখক বলেন, জমি পেতে জটিলতার জন্য যদি শিল্পস্থাপনে বাধা তৈরি হয়, তবে তা সরকারকে দূর করতে হবে.
বেসরকারি শিল্পের জন্য সরকারের জমি অধিগ্রহণ করা উচিত, কি উচিত নয়, এই নিয়ে যখন জোর বিতর্ক, তখন কার্যত রাজ্য সরকারের ঘোষিত জমি নীতি নিয়েই প্রশ্ন তুলে দিয়েছেন এই নোবেলজয়ী অর্থনীতিবিদ. স্টিগলিত্জ এও বলেন, অনেকটা জমিতে গড়ে ওঠা শিল্পে যদি প্রচুর কর্মসংস্থানের সম্ভাবনা থাকে, তবে জমি নেওয়ার ক্ষেত্রে সরাসরি মধ্যস্থতা করা উচিত সরকারের. শুধু পশ্চিমবঙ্গই নয়, সারা বিশ্বের সব গণতান্ত্রিক দেশেই সরকারের একই ভূমিকা নেওয়া উচিত. তবেই রাষ্ট্রের আর্থিক উন্নতি সম্ভব. কারণ শিল্প ছাড়া উন্নয়ন হবে না.
 
these lights might look good in rajarhat not because of the light itself, but because of rajarhat's straight roads.

go and see how these lights look in D L Khan road (turn left from PG Hospital, facing Hastings, Khidirpur) and continue on Belvedere Road and Judges Court Road and stop near Kalighat).
From DL Khan Rd to Kalighat you actually touch down a small portion of Belvedere Rd & Judges Court Rd around Alipore Jail perimeter, then Gopalnagar, eventually covering Tolly nallah & touching down at Hazra Rd.
I agree this stretch may not be best suited to host these lights, but when I go into the Alipore area (90% of Belvedere Rd & Judges Court Rd falls in Alipore along with Alipore Rd, New Road, Burdwan Rd etc.), which is one of the poshest & cleanest locality of the city, with great roads to complement, I find these lights quite attractive keeping in sync with the existing taller ones & they look quite beautiful @ night. So does the entire stretches of Southern Avenue, Rashbehari Avenue, Nalini Ranjan Avenue, Sarat Bose Road & S P Mukherjee Rd in the South, where these lights have been set up alongside well maintained roads. These are upcoming on Stretch of Gariahat to Park Circus (via Ballygunge area) as well & I'm sure it will look good as well.
The point is, to me these lights look quite good alongside wide & well maintained throughfares, but looks cluttered & clumsy on narrow, shabby looking roads. The govt should keep in mind to improve road conditions first before installing these lights everywhere.
 
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