Youth day
The Vivekananda Institute of
Environment Management (VIEM) in association with the Eastern Zonal
Cultural Centre (EZCC), Government of India, celebrated National Youth
Day — on January 12, the birthday of Swami Vivekananda — through a
daylong programme at Purbashree, EZCC complex, Salt Lake, Calcutta.
There were discussions and quiz contests on Swamiji. A sit-and-draw
competition was also held. Sonali Bose of Beliaghata Deshbandhu Girls’
High school topped the elocution contest while Satarupa Dutta of
Heritage Institute of Technology stood second. The cultural programme
consisted of song and dance performances. Blankets and monetary help
were distributed amongst the poor and needy.
Tasneem Sayeed,
Department of biotechnology,
Heritage Institute of Technology
Stars shine down
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Debiprosad Duari at the workshop. Picture by Anindya Shankar Ray |
It
was a packed house of students and seasoned skywatchers at the
astronomy and astrophysics workshop organised earlier this month by the
Manindra-Narayan Astronomical Trust — an organisation of amateur
astronomers — at the Paschim Banga Bangla Akademi in the Nandan complex.
The event marked 2009 as the international year of astronomy.
Six
speakers, including scientists, a journalist and a veteran skywatcher,
spoke on subjects ranging from the origin of matter in dark energy, the
development of telescopes to Galileo as the father of modern astronomy.
President
Debiprosad Duari spoke on the projects lined up by the International
Astronomical Union for this year. “The most interesting is the ‘100
hours of astronomy’, under which skywatching activities will be
organised in 138 countries, including India, in early April. Besides,
many students around the world will be given Galileoscopes,” Duari said.
A Galileoscope is an easy-to-assemble-and-use telescope similar to
Galileo’s invention.
“Workshops
like these are very encouraging,” said Akasdeep Bhadra, a first-year
student of Heritage Institute of Technology and an astronomy aficionado.
His favourite was Duari’s lecture on the present scope and future
prospects in astronomy.
Students
from schools like St Thomas, Dasnagar, and St Xavier’s School, Rishra,
attended the workshop. “City kids have access to places like the MP
Birla Planetarium and the Science City. We have to reach out to those
who are far away,” explained Duari.
Soumen
Mukherjee, of the 30-year-old Skywatchers’ Association, spoke about the
problems faced by amateurs while skywatching. “What we see through our
telescopes at home is very different from the vivid cosmic images seen
on the Internet. Only a few constellations are visible, and are no more
than distant dots.”
The science of swing bowling
- British techie talks cricket
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| A STAFF REPORTER |
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| David James makes a point at the Heritage Institute of Technology. Picture by Pradip Sanyal
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● Overcast conditions have nothing to do with the amount a cricket ball swings.
● Soft pitches are generally bouncy.
● A cricket ball always loses pace after pitching.
Each time sports engineer David James
made an observation — and substantiated it — the 200-odd students who
packed the Heritage Institute of Technology seminar room looked stumped.
“It’s alright.
Half the time, I myself can’t believe that the ball doesn’t swing more
on a cloudy day. In England we get a lot of that kind of weather,” said
the 30-year-old lecturer in sports engineering at Sheffield Hallam
University who also represents Shropshire in minor county cricket.
“You remember a
ball that swung dramatically on an overcast day. But there were many
others that swung like that when it was all sunshine,” he added.
His claims in the
talk titled “Engineering cricket: the science behind the game”,
organised by the British Council, were backed by scientific
explanations, statistics and video clippings of experiments conducted in
front of high-speed cameras.
According to him, a
ball slides about 15cm after hitting the pitch, forms a crater, gets
squashed by about 3mm and slows down 10 to 15 per cent. None of this can
be seen with the naked eye.
“I went around the
county grounds for four years, from 1999 to 2003, filming matches with
400-frames-per-second cameras for the England and Welsh Cricket Board’s
Pitches Research Group. This data is a result of findings after studying
4,000 deliveries,” said the Briton on his maiden visit to Calcutta.
Students of
Heritage lapped up the talk and asked questions till they were
convinced. “Can we fit an electronic chip inside a cricket ball to
monitor edges,” asked a young man. “Not at the moment. But we will one
day,” the sports engineer answered.
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Green fuel
To commemorate National Science
Day, the Renewable Energy Club of Heritage Institute of Technology
organised an open discussion on February 28 on the topic Change in
Habits: from Conventional to Renewable Energy. Vedajnananda, organising
secretary, Renewable Energy Club, declared the programme open by
chanting slokas, which was followed by an inaugural address from the executive director of the institute, P. Roy and director, Prof. Paira.
Manas Pratim Das, programme
producer, All India Radio, organised a contest where each speaker had to
speak on a topic. The participants spoke on a medley of topics ranging
from biodiesel, wind and hydel power supplants for thermal energy to
cutting down on energy consumption and carpooling. The debate generated a
lot of heat as engineering feats like the launch of Nano were pitted
against environmental concerns. Anwesha Ghosh, second year student of
biotechnology department, bagged the first prize.
Few more media clips in electronic media:-
Panel of Eminent Economists namely Prof. Sugato Marjit, Prof. Anup Sinha, Prof. Abhirup Sarkar, Prof. Aloke Ray and many more charts out the way for economic prosperity of Bengal covered by DD Kolkata
Other media clips link of Sania Mirza @ Heritage:
- http://www.dnaindia.com/sport/report_i-have-to-measure-every-
- http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/news/back-to-school-sania-interacts-with-students/7415word-i-say-sania_1053739
Sania’s day out with schoolkids- ‘Becoming an icon comes with its share of responsibility’
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| A STAFF REPORTER |
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Calcutta: It was a time of sheer
euphoria for the school kids. Add to that a substantial dose of chaos.
The reason? Sania Mirza. The teen tennis sensation visited St Thomas’
Girls School, Kidderpore, and the Heritage School
on Monday morning as a mark of recognition to the schools for having
sent a large number of entries for the Sunfeast Open Trophy
design contest.
It was meant to be an interactive session
with the kids. But the jostle between her security personnel and the TV
cameramen at St Thomas’ did not leave much room for it.
In a black and white outfit, looking fresh
and bubbly, Sania invited the girls at St Thomas’ to come and watch her
play at the Sunfeast Open on Tuesday.
“Whatever you do, do it to the best of
your abilities. Enjoy whatever you choose to do in life, have fun. And
remember, do nothing to please others. Self-satisfaction is what is most
important,” was her word of advice to the awe-struck girls, and she was
off to keep her date with the children of Heritage School.
The scene there was better and the kids got the opportunity to shoot a few questions at her.
What would she have asked her idol if the scene was different and her idol was the one on stage answering questions, asked one.
Sania’s idol is, of course, Steffi Graf.
And she would have been absolutely tongue-tied had she been in that
situation, came the prompt reply.
Everything comes with a price. What is the price that she is paying for her fame? Pat came the reply: “My privacy, of course.”
How does it feel to appear on the cover of the Time magazine?
“Great, of course,” said Sania, but went on to add that
becoming an icon sure comes with a responsibility — of what to
wear, what to say and how to conduct oneself.
Is she getting lost in the sea of
endorsements that she is making these days? On the contrary, she
believes it is helping bring tennis into greater focus.
“For, in India, except for cricketers, the
general public has little knowledge about other sports and you have to
explain which discipline of sport you specialise in.”
Sania sure has changed that scenario.
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Captains at ease at any crease-Kapil Dev’s day out at school, Sourav Ganguly’s day in at studio
- Source: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1090916/jsp/calcutta/story_11498828.jsp
- http://www.telegraphindia.com/1091105/jsp/careergraph/story_11698688.jsp
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| RITH BASU AND PRIYANKA ROY |
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Kapil Dev strode
out for the toss on Tuesday afternoon. Not to call heads or tails, but
to toss the coin. Not in whites, but in a blue-and-white striped shirt
and grey trousers. Not cheered on by his team but by some students and
teachers.
Sourav Ganguly was
calling the shots on Tuesday afternoon. Not setting the field for the
next ball, but setting things right for the next ‘shot’. Not in whites,
but in a grey pinstriped suit. Not flanked by his team-mates, but by
Tollywood stars.
India’s only World
Cup-winning captain spent Tuesday on a school campus and India’s most
successful captain did so in a TV studio. Both were at ease at the
crease.
In Sourav city,
Kapil spoke of him during his day out at The Heritage School. Answering
Nandini Ghosh of Class XII, the all-rounder who retired in 1994, said
about the batsman who hung up his boots in 2008: “He gave his best years
to the Indian team and did extremely well. Now he has moved on.”
That Sourav has was apparent on the sets of his popular quiz show Dadagiri, at
the HMV studios on Jessore Road, where he was busy playing host to
special guests led by Prosenjit. Gently advising the star — “Thanda mathay khelben (keep your cool) Bumbada” — or shouting out instructions to his crew — “Ekhon break newa cholbe na (No break now)” — he was clearly in charge.
If Sourav spent four hours playing a
different game with the stars, Kapil had quite a ball with the students
for five hours on campus off the Bypass.
From inaugurating a
mini golf centre to inspecting the campus, from flipping the coin for a
15-over match to mimicking the baritone of a teacher, Kapil was, well,
Kapil.
From urging the
kids to excel in their chosen fields — “so that you give away autographs
rather than ask for one” — to underlining the virtue of teamwork —
“without it the World Cup could never have been won” — he was spot-on
with each delivery.
If Kapil was an inspirational leader
on Tuesday, Sourav was a hands-on host — from adjusting the brightness
on Ranjit Mullick’s plasma screen to rushing backstage to bring in the
prizes.
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