Events

They said the NABC connected Bengalis all over North America with one another and with their native land.

In his inaugural address, Indian consul general Satish Mehta lauded the exemplary role of the community, recalling how Bengal gave India its greatest leaders and thinkers such as Raja Ram Mohan Roy, Aurobindo Ghosh, Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose, Rabindranath Tagore and Amartya Sen.

With India on an irreversible path of becoming a super power, Mehta said, the Bengali community in India and abroad will leave no stone unturned to make it "a nation of Tagore's dreams - where the mind is without fear and the head is held high".

Dipankar Purkayastha, managing director and CEO of Ananda Bazar Patrika (ABP), said his group lauded the passion of the expatriate community behind the NABC.

The ninth book fair would be held at Lindsay Club and Library Campus from April 4 to 13.

Over 60 stalls would be put up in an area of 7000sqft besides a stage for cultural and literary programmes would be set up for the 10-day fair.

Already seven Hindi publishers Geeta Press from Gorakhpur, Rajkamal Prakashan from Patna, Upkar Prakasan from Agra, S. Chand, Bani Prakashan and Bharati Bhavan from Patna and Kitab Ghar from Delhi have booked their stalls.

Among English publishers Wonderland from Calcutta, Skylark, Bargain Book, Amit Book Distributors and Baba Pocket Books from Delhi are coming down for the fair.

So far as Bengali publishers are concerned, a number of reputable names have registered while many in the process of registering for stalls, a committee member said.

The Publishers and Booksellers' Guild, which was hell bent on holding the fair at the Maidan, today budged and said that in the interest of medium and small publishers, they are ready to hold the fair elsewhere.

Yesterday, the Guild had declared that they were not going to organise the fair this year.

Minister for Sports and Transport Subhas Chakraborty met Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee at Writers' Building and discussed the matter in details. He, however, did not divulge the details of his talks with the chief minister. "I will tell you everything tomorrow," Chakraborty said while leaving Writers' Building.

Earlier in the morning, representatives of some publishers and Guild officials met Chakraborty at his residence at Salt Lake.

"He is trying that the fair is held this year. We are still fighting to regain the Maidan. In the interest of small and medium publishers, we are ready to chip in with any organisation who wants to organise the fair," Tridib Chatterjee, general secretary of the Guild, told The Indian Express.

The Guild has sought legal opinion on how to regain the Maidan.

"We may have to move the apex court for redressal. We have sought legal opinion in this regard. Nobody should be allowed to play ducks and drakes with the book fair," he added.

The Publishers' Association, which today gave a separate letter to Chakraborty, took out a rally in the College Street area demanding that the fair be held this year. "Our stand remains the same. Maidan or no Maidan, the fair must be held," Joydev Ghosh, president of the Publishers' Association, told The Indian Express.

Ignoring yesterday's winter showers, the fair was inaugurated with its traditional flavour as Kolkata's literary patriarch Sunil Gangopadhyay sounded a gong and kick-started the event at the Maidan.

"Kolkata's book Fair is a pride of this city. The buzzword of the pollution problem that is doing rounds is a mere exaggeration of the fact. The pollution caused due to the book fair is a temporary problem which can be solved by taking adequate measures," Gangopadhyay said.

Along with a number of intellectuals, Kolkata mayor Bikash Ranjan Bhattacharyya, a vocal critic of the Calcutta High Court that cancelled the fair at the Park Circus ground this year, was also present.

"We all want the book fair to be held at Kolkata Maidan. Though the Kolkata Municipal Corporation has nothing to do with organising the fair, but we want to bring it back at its old place since it's an international event and associated with Kolkata's unique image," Bhattacharya said.

The works of Who's Who of the Indian art scene will be up for grabs at the first auction organised by Emami Chisel Art Auction House, a joint venture of Emami Group and Chisel Crafts, in the eastern metropolis on February 23.

Out of the 89 works by 70 artists, Tyeb Mehta's 'Kali-III' has the highest reserve price of Rs 2.5 crore and the auctioners hope to fetch a handsome Rs four-five crore for this oil painting.

S H Raza's 'Landscape' will cost at least Rs 50 lakh while Amrita Shergil's two untitled charcoal paintings on feminity is up for grabs at Rs eight lakh each.

Organisers hope to sell Raza's work at Rs one crore or more while the estimates for Shergil's paintings are pegged at Rs 12-26 lakh each.

The bidding for these and other paintings by a number of Indian greats like F N Souza, M F Husain, Bhupen Khakkar, J Swaminathan, Manjit Bawa and Satish Gujral can be done both online as well as from the floor on the day of auction.

The online bidding begins on February 16 on

One of the the high points of the auction is 'Safdar Hashmi' by M F Husain which was the first painting of an Indian artist to cross the Rs ten lakh mark in 1987.

The bidding for this painting, a reaction to the assassination of cultural actvist Safdar Hashmi, starts at Rs 1.25 crore and auctioneers expect that the work would fetch Rs 2-2.5 crore.

The fair has already delayed the desilting and pipe laying work for underground sewerage in the area as part of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).

The Traffic department denied permission for the work to begin, as the site for laying the pipeline will be used for parking vehicles during the Book Fair that will continue till February 10.

The department did not give the permission to avoid traffic congestion in the area. "We have not granted permission to start the JNNURM project work as the area is likely to be used as a parking lot during Book Fair," said Manoj Verma, Deputy Commissioner (Traffic). The desilting and pipe laying work in the 1.5 km and 1 km stretch along the Dehi-Sreerampore Road and Gorachand Dey Road respectively, was scheduled to begin in November 2007 and was supposed to be completed by September 2008.

The Planning and Development Department of the Kolkata Municipal Corporation had tried to obtain the permission on November 17. Their plea was, however, turned down by the Traffic department. "We will miss our deadline, as we could not start work according to our schedule," said a senior engineer of the planning department.

The fire services department feels there is too little time to make the necessary fire-fighting arrangements. A senior fire official said the department was not happy with the guild's work on fire safety inside and outside the fair ground. "Our officials inspected the site along with the guild's representatives on Thursday afternoon. They were taken aback to learn that the guild has not thought of fool-proof fire prevention measures. We have strict norms for fair organisers. If they fail to meet them, we will not give the no-objection certificate," the official said.

Installation of fire-fighting equipment is more necessary on the Park Circus ground because unlike the Maidan, it does not have a pond or tank nearby to supply water if a fire breaks out.

The fire cracker festival will take place far away from the fair ground -- near Indira Gandhi National Integration Centre.

The Publishers and Book Sellers Guild, Kolkata, will collaborate with the trust and to organise the fair.

The nine day book fair which will be on from November 10 will have more than 200 publishers from across the country as well publishers from Pakistan, Austria and Bangladesh.

"We knew that the Maidan cannot be used to organise book fairs. Not talking chances, we planned to organise the fair at Park Circus Maidan," said Nuzhat Hassan, Director of National Book Trust.

In this novel attempt, as many as 13 book stalls have been set up at the campus.

The fair was inaugurated by Prinicipal of the college, Mamata Roy, and Rajat Kanti Ray, a former professor of the college and ViceChancellor of the Vishwa Bharati University.

The books selected for the fair are mostly on alternative politics and culture, said Dipanjan Sinha, a student.

"Around 47 lakh people have been affected by the floods. An estimated 51,000 people have taken shelter in 361 relief camps set up across six districts," said Finance Minister Asim Dasgupta after presiding over a meeting to review the situation on Sunday. Minister for Civil Defence Shri Kumar Mukherjee and Minister for Relief and Disaster Manage ment Mortaza Hussain attended the meeting along with the Chief Secretary, Home Secretary and the Director General of Police.

Meanwhile, the situation in many parts of Kolkata has improved with the metropolis receiving just 7.5 mm of rain on Sunday.

The Bharat Nirman Awards Committee has also decided to honour Shri Sikshayatan College for education, Hope Foundation for its endeavour to improve the condition of underprivileged children, Bharati Bhasa Parishad for promoting Indian literature and Sampai for performing arts.

The awards, which have been decided by a jury comprising personalities from the cultural sphere of the city, will be given on June 2 at Kala Mandir

Children of Kolkata have a reason to celebrate. After all not many Indian cities have the privilege of hosting an annual Children's Festival. "It's very heartening to see such efforts being made in the city. I would urge the festival organisers to facilitate other metros like Mumbai and Delhi, in organising such festivals," said Renuka Chowdhury, Union Minister of State, Department of Women and Child Development, who inaugurated the 7 th International Children's Film Festival at Nandan today.

With over 35 films from countries as far flung as Japan and Hungary, the festival promises to be a veritable treat for the young and old alike." We have tried to bring a bouquet of experiences for Kolkata youngsters. Films and literature are the best way to understand different cultures, and through these films I hope the city children will experience worlds quite different from theirs. Which is why we are focusing on hitherto cinematically unexplored countries like Turkey," said Nilanjan Chottopadhaya, Vice President Cine Central.

The festival is being held in collaboration with Nandan, West Bengal Film Centre and Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre, government of India and in association with Unicef.

The festival will screen three Bodo films Hagra mayao Jinahari (Rape in the Virgin Forest), directed by Jwangdao Bodosa, Dufangin-solo, directed by Pinky Brahma Choudhury and Sayaram Gojoula, directed by Phaylaw Kamaleswar. Hagramayao Jinahari has already attracted both national and international acclaim. It has brought a lot of recognition for Bodosa, the leading Bodo filmmaker today.

"We are putting up eight films from Assam, of which three are in Bodo language and one in Karbi," said Bobbeeta Sharma, chairperson of Assam Film Finance & Development Corporation (AFFDC), which is organising the festival in collaboration with Nandan, Kolkata and others.

"Assamese films have already made its mark over the years. But people outside the state have hardly heard of films being made in Bodo or Karbi," said Sharma. She said the Corporation was trying its best to carry the films outside the state to provide maximum exposure.

Last year, the AFFDC took a package of films from the state to New Delhi which evoked a lot of response from critics and cinegoers. The festival will also screen Wosobipo directed by Gautam Bora made in Karbi, another tribal language of Assam. The film had fetched its music director Sher Choudhury the "best music director" award in 1998.