Crooked Lines

Alright, let’s assume the students were wrong. Let’s believe the police when they say the students of Jadavpur University provoked them and thus deserved to be manhandled, beaten up and thrown into lock-ups in the wee hours of September 17. After all, many, even those who have now joined the students in protesting against the “alleged”…

Read more Why the police explanation for JU violence is not acceptable

How many of you can boast to have been driven around in an Ambassador car in the UK? I don’t think there are too many of you out there. I was purely lucky. I had first heard of Adrian Shooter (in picture above) and his garden railway about 10 years ago in my hometown Siliguri,…

Read more Ambi ride in the UK

Crib deaths point to under-age marriages, women’s health woes in Bengal

West Bengal has a very high incidence of under-age marriages. In some districts the prevalence rate of under-age marriage is so high that every second bride is a minor. In its profile of West Bengal state, Unicef points out that almost half of female teens are pregnant by the age of 19 and more than 60 per cent of pregnant women are anaemic. It further says that the number of institutional deliveries is less than half the total; and one third of women do not receive the recommended three antenatal checkups during pregnancy and only two thirds get post-natal care within two weeks of delivery.