Kolkata confidential

The sit-in demonstration by Trinamool Congress MLAs in front of the chief ministers office at the Writers Buildings earlier this week was carefully planned and monitored by the party leadership.

Writing the Writers protest
The sit-in demonstration by Trinamool Congress MLAs in front of the chief ministers office at the Writers Buildings earlier this week was carefully planned and monitored by the party leadership. Leader of the Opposition,Partha Chatterjee,who was leading his partys contingent in the demonstration,was seen glued to his cellphone for the entire time and was receiving minute-to-minute directives from party chief Mamata Banerjee. Minutes before Chaterjee was frisked away from the place,he received a message on his mobile phone after which he whispered something in the ears of Deputy Commissioner Partha Sarathi Ghosh,who was in charge of handling the situation. No sooner he did so; the police got hold of Trinamool leaders and took them away.

Buddhas latest foreign title
ON the issue of industrialising West Bengal,Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee may be facing strong criticism at home but he certainly does have admirers offshore. So when Denmarks Ambassador Ole Lonsmann Poulsen was in the city to promote collaborations between Danish companies and those in Bengal,he didnt miss to praise Bhattacharjee and give him new titles. At an interactive meeting on Indo-Danish Business Cooperation,he said that he considers Bhattacharjee the most capitalist communist man he had ever known. He said he has a great respect for such a capitalist communist man and the chief minister is among those few who know what is needed for promoting the economy of a region.

Tapping fears
Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee has issued a new diktat to her party leaders dont call me on my cellphone number. Even the senior leaders of her party have been told to follow it. The reason being didi believes that the Communist government in the state is tapping her cellphone.
The complaint of phone tapping,which has been constantly raised by her,has forced such Mamata to take such a drastic action for the first time.
Please do not call me up on my cellphone. It is being tapped by the state government. I have also heard that cellphones of my party leaders and many journalists are being tapped, Banerjee had said recently.
Instead,she has asked her leaders to call on her landline number. But her busy schedule after becoming Railway Minister as she keeps shuttling between Kolkata and Delhi has made it difficult for her party leaders,particularly those in the districts,to speak to her. It is getting tough to speak to her directly. We end up calling her secretary, said a senior Trinamool leader.

Gaping divide
In Bengal,it seems,industry and academia think on separate lines. At a higher education meet,the Confederation of Indian Industry released a report stating that by 2015 there would be a huge gap between the number of engineers required and those produced in Bengal by 2015.
According to it,the number of engineers required in the state would be three times the number of students passing out of engineering colleges in Bengal. But,the heads of universities present at the conference did not take the reports finding seriously.
It is impossible to predict what will be the requirement of the market five years down the line, said a vice-chancellor of a technology university,which is grappling with the problem of vacant seats in many of its engineering colleges.
One Vice-Chancellor went to the extent of saying that he will keep a note of all the industry representatives who are absent from academic council and board meetings of the university and see the gap between the industrys promises to help the academia and fulfilling them.

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Kolkata confidential

The sit-in demonstration by Trinamool Congress MLAs in front of the chief ministers office at the Writers Buildings earlier this week was carefully planned and monitored by the party leadership.

The sit-in demonstration by Trinamool Congress MLAs in front of the chief ministers office at the Writers Buildings earlier this week was carefully planned and monitored by the party leadership.