2 Bengal THE ECHO OF INDIA•KOLKATA

Tuesday• October 9, 2018

DEBANJANMUJHERJEE

KOLKATA, OCT 8/--/S NBose National Centre for Ba-sic Sciences, Kolkata organ-ised a seminar recentlywhere academicians and in-dustry people shared theirviews and scope at largeabout things they are work-ing one and issues that areneeded to be addressed.Titled ‘Industry-AcademiaMeet’, the seminar was inau-gurated by Samit Ray, direc-tor of the institute. ProfSirshendu De from IITKharagpur, through apowerpoint presentation,highlighted the utility of itswater filter that is poweredby Laterite-based Arsenic

Science research institute’s effort to bring industry and academia closerRemoval technology, an in-vention of the institute. ProfDe said the technology hasbeen transferred to MandalPrecession of West Bengaland Vas Bros Pvt Ltd ofRanchi and already 48 fil-ters powered by the IIT’stechnology have been in-stalled in West Bengal and16 in Assam. Partha PratimDasmahapatra, CEO ofEZERX Health Tech PrivateLtd, a start-up demonstrateda product of his company,which can detect variousdiseases simply by sendinga light through the conjunc-tiva of a patient, makingmedical treatment easier.Dr Asim Mallick from NilRatan Sircar Medical Col-lege Hospital shared his

views on how industry cancome forward to help reducethe mortality rate of chil-dren below the age of fiveyears.

Professor Shiv BratSingh of IIT Kharagpurspoke at large about his re-search work, which has re-sulted in invention of an al-loy which can make steel,used for making body partsof aircrafts and carsstronger. Dr HanumanthuPurushottam from NationalResearch Development Cor-poration (NRDC) put em-phasis on registration of In-tellectual Property to safe-guard technology from get-ting copied by others andcommercialisation of tech-nologies.

SABYASACHIBANDOPADHYAY

KOLKATA, OCT 8/--/Stu-dents of Presidency Univer-sity who have been on an in-definite hunger strike de-manding accommodation inthe under constructionHindu Hostel have called acitizens' convention tomor-row at the hostel to highlighttheir issues. Distinguishedalumni of the university in-cluding Gyanpith award win-ing poet Shankho Ghosh,author Nabaneeta Dev Sen,have been invited to attendthe convention, according toAnit Vaidya, one of the agi-tating students.

As many as 60 students ofthe university who areboarders of Hindu Hostelhave been on hunger strikewhich has entered 7th daytoday. ̀ `We have been under-going this trauma for quitesome time now and we havedecided to take this step andwe hope it will help draw the

Hindu Hostel students call forcitizens' convention tomorrow

Prof Shiv Brat Singh (L), Samit Ray, director of S N Bose National Centre for BasicSciences (M) and Dr Soumen Mondal (R) lighting the inaugural lamp

attention of people con-cerned,'' Vaidya told theEcho of India.

Regarding the PWD's as-surance that two blocks ofthe hostel would be ready byNovember 15, Vaidya said itwas all a vague assurance.``They said the blocks wouldbe ready but they did not saythey would be ready for ac-commodation,'' Vaidya fur-ther said.

Hindu Hostel, had beenshut down for repairs onJuly 29, 2015 and 150 board-ers were shifted to a rentedaccommodation at NewTown. Since they found ithard for commuting be-tween the hostel and the uni-versity and faced other prob-lems they demanded that thenew hostel be ready soon foraccommodation.

They have made the cor-ridors of the university astheir temporary hostel andhad even forced the authori-ties to shift the convocationfrom the campus to Nandan.

EOI PRINCIPAL CORRESPONDENT

MALDA, OCT 8/--/ Century old Malda Club in traditionto last 18 years published the Puja guide and identity cardsfor kids for upcoming Durga Puja today. Superintendent ofpolice Arnab Ghosh, Who is also the ex-officio vice presi-dent of the club, Nihar Ghosh, chairman of English Bazaarcivic body and ex-officio executive member of the club,former minister Krishnendu Choudhury, a senior officialof Indian Oil Corporation Soumya Ranjan Mallick,Subhendu Choudhury, general secretary of district sportsassociation also graced the programme today. "Durga Pujain Malda is second to Kolkata in my experience. Such a big

EOI PRINCIPALCORRESPONDENT

MALDA, OCT 8/--/Ag-grieved guardians of the StXavier's school, the first of itskind in the district met Eng-lish Bazaar MLA and chair-man of the civic body NiharGhosh today seeking his in-tervention to resolve the cri-ses of the institution endan-

KOLKATA, OCT 8/--/Twopersons drowned in theHooghly River on Mon-day while offeringprayers on the occasionof Mahalaya, a police of-ficer said.

While one of themlost balance anddrowned near a ghat inUttarpara, the other per-son was swept away byriver currents atSeoraphuli, he said.

Their bodies havebeen recovered by diversand handed over to thefamily members, headded.

Devotees were seenthronging river ghatsacross the city and itssurrounding areas sincemorning to offer homageto their departed ances-tors (tarpan) on the occa-sion.

The state administra-tion has deployed RiverTraffic Police personneland Disaster Manage-ment Group officials inlarge numbers along theghats for security rea-sons. Mahalaya marksthe beginning of Devi-Paksha and the end ofthe Pitri-Paksha (theshradh or the mourningperiod). It heralds the be-ginning of Durga Pujafestival. (PTI)

Actions of governing body of Malda St Xavier's schoolunder scanner : Civic body chief holds meeting

KOLKATA, OCT 8/--/Call-ing upon people to maintainreligious harmony, WestBengal Chief MinisterMamata Banerjee said Mon-day the state celebrates fes-tivals of all communitieswith equal enthusiasm.

The CM, after inaugu-rating the centenary cel-ebrations of 'BaghbazarSarbojonin Durgotsav' (com-munity puja in north

Bengal celebrates all festivals with equal enthusiasm: CMKolkata), said "the spirit oftogetherness and amity"was the strength of peoplein Bengal.

"We love and respect allreligions. Some of us areHindus, some Christians,some Muslims and Sikhs.We may follow our own reli-gious scriptures but wehave respect for other scrip-tures too. We participate infestivals of all communities

with enthusiasm. This to-getherness is our strength,"she said.

Talking aboutBaghbazar puja, the CMsaid she was happy to seethat the organizers havestuck to their tradition ofworshipping 'ekchalasabeki' Durga idol (the god-dess and her four childrenmounted on a single frame).

Earlier in the day,

Banerjee had wished peopleon Twitter on the occasionof Mahalaya by quoting afew lines of'Mahishasuramardini' re-cital.

Mahalaya marks the be-ginning of 'Devi-Paksha' andthe end of 'Pitri-Paksha' (theshradh or the mourning pe-riod). It heralds the begin-ning of 10-day Durga Pujafestival.

Puja guide & kids' identity cards released by Malda Club

religious festival requires proper management by policeadministration and other organisations. The puja guide andthe identity cards are quite instrumental for the manage-ment," Arnab Ghosh said. Nihar Ghosh said that MaldaClub had always played a commendable role towards socialservice. "Club authorities have released the puja guide andidentity cards for children for last 19 years. We would ex-tend necessary cooperation to club authority from the endof civic body," he said. Former minister Choudhury alsoappreciated the initiative of Malda Club. Anjan Pal, secre-tary of Malda Club said that they would run a water distri-bution camp jointly with Rotary Club of Malda Centralduring four days of Durga Puja.

S K Rai Boxing academy was inagurated on Mondayevening at Upper Bagdogra by Olympian boxer SahadevKumar Rai.

NEW DELHI, OCT 8/--/India could witness deadlyheatwaves if the planet'stemperature goes up by twodegrees Celsius, according toa report released Monday bythe UN's IntergovernmentalPanel for Climate Change(IPCC). The IPCC has comeout with a special report onglobal warming that said lim-iting it to 1.5 degrees Celsiuswill require rapid, far-reach-ing and unprecedentedchanges in all aspects of so-ciety. The report has pre-dicted that India and othercountries with largepopulations dependent onagriculture and fishery willbe highly impacted due togreater sea level rise, higherfrequency of droughts andfloods, and heatwaves, envi-ronmental think-tank CSEsaid. The impact of 1.5 de-grees Celsius warming isgreater than what was antici-pated earlier while the im-pacts at two degrees Celsiusare "catastrophic" for thepoor and for developing na-tions such as India, the Centrefor Science and Environ-ment (CSE) said. GreenpeaceIndia said with an ambitioustarget of 175 GW of renew-able energy by 2022, Indiacan indeed help in keepingglobal temperature rise be-low 1.5 degrees Celsius, butat the same time India's needsto take a relook at its futureenergy investments in coaland oil. "The IPCC reportpoints out how regions in In-dia will be exposed to ex-treme heat waves. As per thereport climate change willsignificantly hamper the

Two drownwhile offering

prayers

At 2 deg Celsius warming, Kolkatacould see deadly heatwaves: IPCC report

GDPs of developing econo-mies such as India. "India'slong coastline is alreadydealing with the effects of sealevel rise, which will in-crease if the we fail to keeptemperature rise below 1.5degrees Celsius," NandikeshSivalingam, campaign man-ager, Greenpeace India, saidThe IPCC report said,"At +1.5C, twice as many mega citiesas present such as Lagos inNigeria and Shanghai inChina are likely to becomeheat stressed, potentiallyexposing more than 350 mil-lion more people to deadlyheat stress by 2050."

"At +2 C warming,Karachi (Pakistan) andKolkata (India) could expectannual conditions equiva-lent to their deadly 2015heatwaves (medium confi-dence)," the report said.

Ninety-one authors andreview editors from 40 coun-tries prepared the IPCC re-port in response to an invita-tion from the United NationsFramework Convention onClimate Change (UNFCCC)when it adopted the ParisAgreement in 2015.

The report saidregionally differentiatedmulti-sector risks are al-ready apparent at 1.5 degreesCelsius warming, being moreprevalent (where) vulner-able people live, predomi-nantly in South Asia --mostly Pakistan, India, andChina, but these spread tosub-Saharan Africa, the Mid-dle East and East Asia as tem-perature rises, with theworld's poorest dispropor-tionately impacted by two

degrees Celsius.The report said although

warming is projected to bethe highest in the NorthernHemisphere under 1.5 C or 2C of global warming, regionsin the tropics and SouthernHemisphere subtropics thatare projected to experiencethe largest impacts on eco-nomic growth. "Statisticallysignificant reductions inGross Domestic Product(GDP) per capita growth areprojected across much of theAfrican continent, southeastAsia, India, Brazil andMexico," the report said.

Coastal flooding by thesea is likely to cost thousandson billions of USD annually,with damage costs underconstant protection 0.3-5.0 percent of global GDP in 2100,it said. Risks are projected tobe highest in south and south-east Asia, assuming there isno upgrade to present protec-tion levels, for all tempera-tures of climate warming.

"Countries where at least50 million people exposed toSLR (sea level rise)...includeChina, Bangladesh, Egypt,India, Indonesia, Japan, Phil-ippines, United States andVietnam," it said.

The report said recentprojections of the potentialimpacts of climate change onmalaria globally and for Asia,Africa, and South Americaconfirm that weather and cli-mate are among the driversof the geographic range, in-tensity of transmission, andseasonality of malaria, andthat the relationships are notnecessarily linear, resultingin complex patterns of

changes in risk with addi-tional warming.

"Projections suggest theburden of malaria could in-crease with climate changebecause of a greater geo-graphic range of the anoph-eles vector, longer season,and increase in the numberof people at risk, with largerburdens with greateramounts of warming, withregionally variable patterns,"it said.

"Aedes (the mosquitovector for the dengue fever,chikungunya, yellow fever,and Zika virus) - projectionsof the geographic distribu-tion of Aedes Aegypti andAe. Albopictus (principalvectors) or of the prevalenceof dengue fever generallyconclude there will be anincrease in the number ofmosquitoes and a larger geo-graphic range at 2 C than at1.5 C and beyond than atpresent, and suggest moreindividuals at risk of denguefever, with regional differ-ences," the report stated.

The surface of threeocean basins have warmedover the period 1950 2016(by 0.11 C, 0.07 C, and 0.05 Cper decade for the Indian,Atlantic and Pacific oceansrespectively with the great-est changes occurring at thehighest latitudes, it said.

The IPCC report wastimed to feed into the Decem-ber UN climate summit inKatowice, Poland, whereworld leaders will be underpressure to ramp up nationalcarbon-cutting pledgeswhich -- even if fulfilled --would yield a 3C world.

gering the fate of innocentstudents. Outgoing secretaryof the school governing bodyDebapriya Saha was askedtoo to attend the meeting heldat the conference room ofEnglish Bazaar municipality.

Ghosh said that the basicconcern of the guardianswas that the students of classIX, X, XI & XII are yet to getregistered by the ICSE board.

It has been learnt fromsources that the board madeit clear, registration would notbe done unless the schoolforms a governing bodythrough proper election anda permanently appointedduly qualified principal."Chief Minister MamataBanerjee has made it cat-egorically clear that no po-litical interference should be

made into any educationalinstitution be it a school or acollege. So our only motto isto help guardians form thenew governing body bythemselves," Ghosh said.Many guardians blamed thegoverning body that is alleg-edly being run without anynorms. It has been also al-leged violating all rules andregulations the questionablegoverning body tried to ap-point principal. But that didnot yield any result as the en-tire process was allegedlyagainst the law of the stateand the central government.

Taking into considera-tion the grievances of theguardians, Nihar Ghosh saidthat another meeting wouldbe held on Tuesday to findsolutions to the crises.

Saha, outgoing secretaryof the governing body, valid-ity of which was challengedsaid, "Appointment processof principal has been can-celled. We would take upanew. It is hoped that theproblems would be resolvedsoon."

KOLKATA, OCT 8//--/South and coastal Bengalis likely to experienceheavy to very heavy rainalong with squallyweather in the next fivedays affecting the spiritahead of the Durga Puja,the biggest festival ofWest Bengal, the IMD saidin its forecast on Monday.

Preparations are on atfull swing for the four-day Durga Puja festival

Rain, squally weather mayhit spirit ahead of Durga Puja

which will start from Oc-tober 16.

Under the influence ofa depression over theeastcentral Bay of Ben-gal, squally weather alongwith rough to very roughseas is likely to prevailalong and off West Bengaland Odisha coast, the IMDforecast said. Heavy tovery heavy rain is likely tooccur particularly fromWednesday to Friday in

districts such as Northand South 24-Parganas,Howrah, Burdwan, Eastand West Midnapore,Nadia and Murshidabad.

Fishermen have beenadvised not to ventureinto the deep sea fromTuesday (October 9) to Fri-day (October 12).

Those who are in deepseas are also advised to re-turn to coast by tonight,the IMD said.(PTI)

An artistegiving the final touches on a Durga idol-----Arijit Ganguly