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Wednesday, April 1, 2009

န Kolkata Fashion Week, 2009

Bibi Russel shows Bengal's gamcha collection at KFW
Kolkata, 3 April : Bibi Russell showcases her collection first time at ‘Kolkatta Fashion Week’. Thrilled Bibi said "This is the first time that I am showing my work in India Fashion Week and I am absolutely thrilled to show in Kolkata Fashion Week. This year has been declared the Year of Natural Fibre,
which I am extremely excited about. For the last 15 years, I have been working hard with our weavers and craftspeople to promote our natural fibres. I am doubly honoured, as a Bengali, to participate in the Kolkata Fashion Week, where the focus is on our magical weaves.
I get inspiration for my designs from the people of Bengal and the beautiful colours which can be found here, especially in the villages. I also gain a lot of inspiration from going to the villages and seeing the weavers and craftspeople at work.
All my fabrics are hand-woven, and natural. I do not use synthetic materials. The fabrics I use are Khadi, Cotton, Silk, Gamcha, Jute yarn fabric, Tribal fabrics, recycle fabrics and of course the legendary Jamdani, which was once worn only in the royal courts and is still the most highly valued fabric of the Bangladesh."

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Prolong dry spell affects Agriculture in Tripura
Photo : Parthajit Dutta, Agartala, 3 April : A labour working in a dry pond near Agartala. Entire north-east has been reeling under severe dry spell and there was no measurable rainfall since 28 October, 2008 which led to dry the water bodies. Prolonged dry spell in north-east India which has not witnessed a shower for several months has made life difficult for farmars and cultivation of Irri-boro paddy cultivation is seriously hampered in many areas of Tripura due to severe dry spell.
Rural Development & Panchayet Minister of Tripura Jitendra Chowdhury told Bengal Newz today, "Although agricultural lands of Tripura are more fertile for paddy cultivation and there have been significant developments in irrigation, but costing of irrigation is still higher than other rice production states. We’re going to need lots of other ways to strengthen our irrigation systems."
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Tatas to discuss with West Bengal Govt Singur issue
PTI, New Delhi, 3 April : Tata Motors said on Friday that it will have talks with the West Bengal Government on the Singur land when the Nano factory was originally slated to come up, a day after state Principal Industry Secretary Sabyasachi Sen said the world’s smallest car would be made there.
“Tata Motors will discuss with the West Bengal government matters related to the Singur plot, which is on lease with the company,” the firm said in a statement when asked about Principal Industry Secretary Sabyasachi Sen’s claim that the Rs one lakh car Nano would “definitely be made in West Bengal”.
Sen’s comments came seven months after the Tatas announced relocating the Nano facility, citing an adverse political environment in the face of the Trinamool Congress’s unrelenting opposition.“Tata Motors does not have any other information to share,” the statement said but did not detail the issues that the company would take up with the state government.

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Bangladesh to set up nation's 1st Petrochemical Plant
www.plastemart.com, 3 April : Bangladesh is planning its very first petrochemical plant which will produce 300 tons of polyester chips per day mainly to fuel the nation's average 10% growth in demand, the local media reported. Malek Spinning Mills Limited, has outlined plans to invest approximately US$804 mln (partly from the capital market and rest from IPO) to install the plant in Narayanganj. The polyester chips from the plant will be sourced for production of synthetic fibers and PET bottles will procure feedstock MEA and PTA from Middle East countries and Singapore.
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Jatka Protection Week 2009
Frame mega dev plan to boost Hilsa production
Dhaka, 3 April : Speakers at a workshop today said the production of delicious national fish Hilsa can be boosted up to five lakh tonne per year from current production of three lakh tonne if a development mega plan is formulated and implemented in consultation with the concerned ministries and research organisations.
Hilsa contributes 1.2 percent to the gross domestic production, they said stressing on proper enforcement of fish protection act and raising awareness of the preservation of jatka (Hilsa fry). Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute (BFRI) organised the workshop on 'Possibilities in the rise of Hilsa asset and management strategies' at BARC auditorium in the city to mark the Jatka Protection Week 2009.
Speaking as the chief guest, Fisheries and Livestock Minister Abdul Latif Biswas said the country earns over Tk 100 crore per year by exporting Hilsa to different countries in the world.

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Rebel zones 'Junglemohal' get 2 hours less to vote
Jhargram, 3 April : Voting will close two hours early in Maoist pockets in Jhargram and Purulia. The official polling time is 7am to 5pm, but in Bandwan and Binpur in the Jhargram seat, and Joypur, Bagmundi and Balarampur in the Purulia constituency, polling will end at 3pm because of security reasons.
Debashis Sen, the state’s chief electoral officer, completed a tour of the Maoist-infested areas before making the announcement today. He also said a resident from each polling booth area would be selected by the district magistrates to act as a “volunteer” on polling day. Each will be given the phone number of the local polling official to be contacted in case any untoward incident takes place.

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Film Challenged before screeneing...
Krishnagar, 2 April : The remixed kirtan that offended followers of Chaitanya Deb was lopped off the Bengali film 'Challenge' before it was screened at a Nadia cinema hall today.
A Nabadwip court had yesterday ordered that screening the film starring Dev and Shubhashree with the song 'Bhaja Gouranga' should be stopped till 17 April, the date of the next hearing. Rathindra Nath Kundu, the owner of the Sriguru Talkies, said: “We cut off the song from the film.”
On 28 March, the 'Nabadwip Nagarik Adhikar Raksha Committee' and the S'adhu Sant Samaj', an organisation of monks, demanded that the screening be stopped as the film hurt the sentiments of Vaishnavites.

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66 Bangladeshis among 350, rescued in Libyan coast
Dhaka, 2 April : At least 66 Bangladeshis were among 350 people rescued Thursday from a boat off the Libyan coast, the Tripoli Post reported. The boat was rescued by Libyan coastguards including 17 very sick people who were immediately taken to a hospital in Tripoli.
The incident occurred 30 miles off the north African coast near the Buri oil platform, according to the Libyan newspaper. The paper, quoting the International Organisation for Migration, said the nationalities of those rescued were: Bangladesh 66, Somalia 44, Eritrea 18, Ghana 33, Egypt 55, Tunisia 25, Algeria 7, Morocco 15, Nigeria 30, Syria 19, India 5 and Pakistan 2.
Another boat reportedly went down with 200 people on board on Tuesday night. Libyan authorities told Reuters Wednesday they had recovered 100 bodies from the latter boat, and some 21 were rescued.

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BSF trooper, civilian injured in Tripura blast
Agartala, 2 April : A Border Security Force (BSF) trooper and a civilian were injured in a bomb explosion near the India-Bangladesh border in Tripura Thursday, police here said. The police blamed separatist National Liberation Front of Tripura (NLFT) for the explosion in Bhandarima, 185 km north of the Tripura capital, Agartala.

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West Bengal to develop an IT SEZ in five years
Kolkata, 1 April : The West Bengal Electronics Industry Development Corporation Limited (Webel) will develop an IT special economic zone (SEZ) at Kalyani in Nadia district within next five years at an estimated investment of Rs.4,000-5,000 crore (Rs.4-5 billion), a senior company official said here Wednesday.
'The IT SEZ in Kalyani will be developed in PPP (public-private-partnership) model on 100 acres of land at an investment of Rs.4,000-5,000 crore over a period of five years,' N.R. Banerjee, chairman of Webel, told reporters.
Webel is the nodal IT agency of the state government. Webel as a group had a turnover of Rs.1.5 billion in 2007-08. Apart from the Kalyani project, Webel is also developing IT parks in Siliguri and Durgapur.

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Study discovered 6,000 rare dolphins in Bangladesh
AP, Dhaka, 2 April : Thousands of rare Irrawaddy dolphins have been found in Bangladeshi waters, a wildlife advocacy group said today, a hopeful sign for a vulnerable species found only in small numbers elsewhere.
However, the newly discovered population is already threatened by climate change and fishing nets, the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society said. Nearly 6,000 Irrawaddy dolphins, which are related to orcas or killer whales, were found living in freshwater regions of Bangladesh's Sundarbans mangrove forest and the adjacent waters of the Bay of Bengal, the Wildlife Conservation Society announced.

A new survey, conducted by the Wildlife Conservation Society and Chittagong University, of Irrawaddy dolphin populations living in the inlets of the Brahmaputra,Ganges,Meghna delta on the coast of Bangladesh shows that there are about 6,000 of the dolphins still alive.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature lists the Irrawaddy dolphin as vulnerable (one step below endangered). This is one of those (rare) cases in which we simply didn't know that much about the animal population in the region, and it turned out to be better than expected.
Wildlife Conservation Society has asked Bangladeshi authorities to establish a sanctuary for the dolphins in the Sundarbans mangrove forest. "The sanctuary may take time," said Mohammad Jalilur Rahman, an official at the state-run Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute. "But we are already motivating the fishermen not to harm the dolphins which get entangled in their nets." Photo Courtesy : Wildlife Conservation Society

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9th April is the date for Chinese 'FAW' team visit
Ural India delegation visits Kolkata today to discuss car factory in Singur
Kolkata, 2 April : The Nano dream is buried. But hope still flickers in Singur. With Tata Motors pulling out of Bengal, the WB government is gearing up for a meeting with a delegation from the Chinese automobile major, First Automobile Works (FAW). The team will arrive in the city on 9 April.
The five-member FAW delegation's visit to the city is actually a follow-up exercise. In November last year, a team of company officials met the chief minister. FAW has already signed an agreement with Ural India, an Indo-Russian joint venture company, in which the WBIDC has 11% stake.
On Thursday, Ural India's chairman J K Saraf meets the chief minister to do the groundwork for the proposed meet with FAW top brass. FAW officials are likely to visit the abandoned Nano compound in Singur next week.

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Scientists start regional network to study earthquakes in Himalayas
Sujit Chakraborty, Agartala, 2 April : The Holy Grail for geologists is the ability to predict an earthquake. While they continue their search, the Geological Survey of India (GSI) is putting in place a network by which they can forecast overall seismic activity in the Himalayas, one of the most quake-prone regions of the world.

'The continuous seismic monitoring of local and regional earthquakes will help evolve a stress pattern model for the entire vulnerable northeastern and Himalayan region besides adjoining countries of Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Myanmar and thereby establish a suitable earthquake precursor,' GSI Director General P.M. Tejale told IANS. Tejale was here for the commissioning by GSI of a Multi-Parametric Geophysical Observatory (MPGO) at its Tripura-Mizoram division office in Agartala. Many of the electronic instruments in this observatory are being deployed for the first time in India. The observatory will improve the accuracy of recording earthquakes over a wide range - from 2.5 to 8.0 on the Richter scale. The Agartala seismic observatory is a suitable site to offer potential information on earthquake genesis of the eastern Himalayan region as well as sub-oceanic earthquakes from the Bay of Bengal and this would be helpful in evolving earthquake mitigation model for the northeastern region as a long-term goal.
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India, Singapore naval exercises build on synergies
AP, Singapore, 2 April : Naval warships from India and Singapore prepared to end week-long exercises Thursday in the Andaman Sea aimed at ensuring maritime and coastal security and combating piracy on the high seas.
Four naval ships, including two destroyers from the Indian Navy, and a fleet of vessels of the Singapore navy took part in the annual exercises that involve anti-submarine, anti-air and anti-surface manoeuvres in one of the world's busiest sea lanes.The exercises have gained in significance as the safety of commercial shipping routes in the region and port security have become top priorities for both India and Singapore.

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Kolkata Fashion Week begins with Bibi Russell's show
Traditional Weaves Of Bengal Get Fashionable And Glamorous On The Ramp
Kolkata, 2 April : Excitement is in the air as the city gears up to see high profile Bollywood stars like Bipasha Basu and John Abraham, dressed in attires by their favourite designers, walk the ramp for its first ever fashion extravaganza the 'Kolkata Fashion Week' which begins Today.
The four-day fashion show starts at P C Chandra Greens on E.M. Bypass here. "This is the first time Kolkata is having its own fashion week and we are sure that fashion week will eventually become an annual event of the Indian fashion industry. It is not that the city is not fashionable like Delhi or Mumbai, but a proper platform was missing," organiser of the event Yudhajit Dutta told Bengal Newz on Wednesday.
Bollywood actors like Bipasha Basu, John Abraham, Zeenat Aman, Minissha Lamba, Dino Morea, Chitrangada Singh, Neha Dhupia, Mahi Gill and Sagarika Ghatke are expected to walk the ramp as showstoppers.
Noted designers participating in the fashion week include Bangladesh's Bibi Russell, Rohit Bal, Wendell Rodricks, Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna, Shane-Falguni, Gauri Nainika, Mona Pali, Dev R Nil, Abhishek Dutta, Marg, Sharbari Dutta, Zubair Kirmani, Anjana Bhargav, Manoviraj Khosla and Narendra Kumar. They will be displaying their collections on the theme "Return To Roots".

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CEO pleads with villagers not to boycott the vote
Ranibandh, 1 April : In the remote jungles of Ranibandh in southern Bankura, WB chief electoral officer Debashis Sen was pursuing a very different trail this morning. Far removed from reading out the Election Commission’s diktats from his office in Kolkata. He was listening to the complaints of villagers in this Maoist-infested pocket of south Bengal and subtly persuading them not to boycott this year’s general election to protest “lack of development” in their area.
The region, which includes adjoining Purulia and West Midnapore, will go to the polls on 30 April. Boycott of polls is not uncommon here. Many villagers in this tribal belt had not voted in the 2006 Assembly elections either.
The chief electoral officer, who stayed overnight at Mukutmanipur, will tour Purulia tomorrow.

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Govt chalks out Nayachar and costal security plan
Haldia, 1 April : Worried that security concerns may pose a further hindrance for the proposed PCPIR at Nayachar, a number of senior police officers have been sent here to review the situation and draw out a comprehensive plan. It will involve the WB state police, Coast Guard and CISF that will ultimately be in charge of security at the PCPIR.
Among the officers who visited Haldia and Nayachar were Raj Kanojia, IG (law and order) and Kuldiep Singh, IG (Western Range). The SP of East Midnapore was also present with a posse of senior officers. The officers wanted to know the detailed layout of the region, the kind of threat perceptions and the existing level of security.
"Nayachar is very close to the mouth of the sea. Any installation on Nayachar will be very attractive to terror groups, which may use the sea route to stage an attack on the petrochemical units. Since petrochemicals are involved, even a moderate intensity blast will cause damages worth hundreds of crores," an officer said.
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When The Bamboo Flowers, Don't make any panic
Durgapur, 1 April : For the first time the peoples of ketengram, under Amlajora grampanchyat, have seen flowers in bamboo tree which they seem a symbol of misfortune. Prabhat Gorai, a resident of ketengram have seen this miracle for the first time in a bamboo tree in front of his house, which is interpreted by Gurmoy Gorai as a symbol of misfortune for the whole village from the spiritual point of view. One can see the terror of such interpretation easily on the face of villagers. '
'WB Bigyan Manch' secretary of Kanksa area Arun Kiran chatterjee told Bengal Newz "The so called miracle can be seen very often in Tripura and other North East states.This is not at all any miracle or a symbol of misfortune, rather it is a natural phenomenon which indicates the last stage of life of a Bamboo Tree."
If we see the scientific reason that why such happening is said to be a symbol of misfortune one can came to know a very unique sequence of circumstance which is related to the reproductivity of Rats. Actually Bamboo Fower is such as great cuisine for rats. Which increases their reproduction capability and finally leads to destruction of paddy fields and later due to increase in number of rats diseae like pleague may spread which causes death of a big population. Newz and Photo : Niraj Modi
BENGAL NEWZ NOTE
Bamboo flowers irregularly. Some species flower annually, but only for a few years every 100 years or so. When they flower they produce masses of seed, which is viable for just a few weeks. As a result, most of their propagation is vegetative that is, takes place through rhizome separation. This may explain the phenomenon of gregarious flowering when the same species come into flower at the same time all over the world: they are all clones. This flospwever, v. ts. <99orst99tpaatibl> (SAARC), they said. Politicians, parliamentarians, economists and academics also expressed the fear that the rise in militancy would affect regional cooperation.
"Issues like regional common currency, customs union, connectivity and visa are big and difficult," said Bangladesh Finance Minister AMA Muhith while opening the two-day conference in Dhaka on Tuesday. It is being attended by delegates from India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan.
"We can start with something smaller... We should focus on the activities of the regional bodies concerned with agriculture, water resources and transportation," New Age newspaper quoted him as saying on Wednesday.

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Bengal's Maoists issue threat on CEO's Lalgarh visit
Howrah, 1 April : On the day when WB's chief electoral officer Debashish Sen is on the way to visit troubled Lalgarh in West Midnapore, CPI (Maoist) state secretary Kanchan issued a statement claiming that Maoists will continue to remain in the heart of the people of Jangalmahal.
Kanchan said that Red rebels still don't believe in the election process. He said CPI (Maoist) and Peoples' Liberation Guerrilla army will lead from the front in case of police action in Jangalmahal. The statement read that the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government was preparing for another mass-killing by sending police to Lalgarh. Since November 2008, police have not been able to enter the area.

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Bangladesh home minister asks police to appoint a female OC
Dhaka, 1 April : The Bangladesh home minister has asked the police chief to appoint at least one female officer in charge to a police station in a month.
"The women police officers have expressed eagerness to be appointed as officer-in-charge," Sahara Khatun said Wednesday at a programme marking the Police Week at Rajarbagh Police Telecom auditorium. "I have directed inspector general Noor Mohammad to take steps," she said.
She said the government needed the police's help to implement the charter of change the prime minister had pledged. The minister said the police ordinance would be reviewed and amended, and pledged to work for the development of police force.
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At least 12 killed by lightning in Bangladesh & Tripura
Dhaka, 1 April : At least nine people, including six children under 16, were killed in lightning strikes across the Bangladesh on Tuesday. Four children aged between 8 and 15 died in Brahmanbaria. And in Tripura three people were killed and an equal number sustained serious injuries after lightning struck them in West Tripura's Lankamura village near Agartala, Landless Colonyand Teliamura area. Substantial damage to power supply lines was also reported from different parts of the state.
In Bangladesh 3 died in Akhaura Upazila as lightning struck while they were picking mangoes during a thunderstorm. Another 1 was killed as he was working in the fields at Terakanda village in Sarail Upazila. Lightning killed three people, including another two children, and wounded three others in Faridpur. They died as lightning hit the metal roof of their house at Damrhi village in Charmadhabdiya, Sadar Upazila. Another lightning victim, identified only as Kuddus, died at Boail village, Dangi, in Nagarkanda Upazila. Two people were killed and one was injured in Keraniganj, Dhaka.
According to the South Asian Lightning Awareness Programme, as many as 150 people die each year in Bangladesh after being struck by lightning.
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North West Bengal's tribal body to boycott polls
Siliguri, 1 April : Akhil Bharatiya Adivashi Vikash Parishad (ABAVP), a tribal body in West Bengal's northern hills, Wednesday announced that they will boycott the Lok Sabha elections in the Terai-Dooars region of the state.
'We had given a memorandum to the Jalpaiguri administration over a month back, asking for a separate constituency at Terai-Dooars to be reserved for Scheduled Tribes,' John Barla, ABAVP's Terai and Dooars co-ordination committee president, said here. Barla said about 60 percent of the total population of Terai-Dooars are tribals.

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