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Kolkata Police will be organising the Safe Drive Save Life Half Marathon on January 6, 2019, the first Sunday of the year.

This will be the second year when the marathon will be held. The 2018 edition was extremely popular, and this year’s event too is expected to be the same.

Registration is taking place both online and offline. Online registration can be done here (hyperlink https://kpsdslmarathon.org/home.php) and offline registration at all police stations and all traffic guards under Kolkata Police.

A major attraction this year will be ‘Run N’ Fly’, which is the longest flyover run, to be run over the Maa Flyover.

The State Fisheries Development Corporation (SFDC) is making special preparations for Christmas.

With large crowds expected to visit its various restaurants during the holiday season, the organisation is keen to put up its best.

There will be a special menu at the Nalban Food Park outlet from December 25 to January 1. Among the item included are topshe fry, pomfret fry, fish hariyali, prawn kebab, etc.

According of the managing director of SFDC, there are 10 special menus planned. Among them are ‘Bengal Dish’ at Rs 200 per plate (includes one each of bhetki fry, topshe fry, prawn cutlet, fish batter fry), ‘Christmas Special Mughlai Combo’ at Rs 250 (includes googly kosha, fish paratha, fish hariyali and fish tikka), ‘Christmas Special Kebab Platter’ at Rs 400 (pomfret, prawn malai kebab, fish hariyali, masala kulcha, fish irani, fish tikka).

Other items include prawn momo, prawn papad, spicy dragon fish, burger, bread roll, etc.

Kolkata Police has made elaborate arrangements for the upcoming festive season in and around the Park Street area. The police wants to ensure that people get to enjoy Christmas and New Year festivities safely and peacefully.

Several roads will be made ‘No Entry’ from 4 PM everyday till the New Year’s eve, commencing from December 25. Traffic movement between Wood Street and JL Nehru Road, Mayo Road from Gandhi Statue towards JL Nehru Road, Middleton Street, Russell Street, Little Russel Street and Camac Street (from Park Street to Middleton Street) will be restricted.

The night clubs, bars and hotels will be kept under strict vigil. Police personnel in uniform and plain clothes will monitor the shopping malls and Metro stations across the city.

Twenty-one divisional (one from each police division) mobile vans will be patrolling the city round-the-clock. Apart from this, 13 Quick Response Team (QRT) and 14 Heavy Radio Flying Squad (HRFS) vans will be posted at strategic points in the city to prevent any untoward incident.

To maintain law and order, the whole of Park Street area has been divided into seven zones. Ten senior police officials of the Deputy Commissioner (DC) rank will be posted at Park Street, who would supervise the force from time to time.

The Kolkata Police’s scooter-borne team of female officers, called ‘Winners’ would be doing the rounds of the city to watch out for eve-teasers. Twenty-five such teams would be deployed, with a higher concentration on Park Street and its surrounding areas.

Eleven watchtowers have been installed in and around Park Street. During the festival days, a Detective Department (DD) team, police personnel in plain clothes and an ARS team will be posted for checking drunken driving.

Apart from the security arrangement, 16 police assistance booths will be there to assist people.

The Disaster Management Group (DMG) team will also be on standby, in case of urgent intervention.

State Finance and Industry minister Amit Mitra said on Thursday that the focus of the state government is to have the GDP hike from 2 per cent at present to 3.7 per cent by 2025 through planned expenditure.

“We have created Rs 3 lakh crore GDP only through planned and capital expenditure of the government, which is a record. The planned expenditure that was Rs 11,838 crore in 2010-11, has gone up to Rs 57,789 crore, while the capital expenditure has increased from Rs 2,025 crore to nearly Rs 20,000 crore,” Dr Mitra said.

According to him, the state government has been continuously working towards infrastructure development of the state by judicious planning and focusing on capital expenditure.

According to him, Bengal must aim to build a building materials park, where all materials and components pertaining to a building can be manufactured in the state. The minister also pointed out that the state has spent Rs 18,361 crore under the Bangla Awas Yojana, for building houses for common people.

He reiterated that the state government has spent about Rs 6,456 crore only on building physical infrastructure. About 23,000 km of rural roads have been built by the present government and Rs 1,210 crore has been spent to strengthen six highways through the Highway Development Corporation.

Fulbari Barrage on the Mahananda River in Jalpaiguri district is being turned into a tourist spot, through the efforts of the State Tourism and Irrigation Departments.

On December 8, the Fulbari Barrage Park was inaugurated. This is another major project after Gajoldoba in the same district. Then of course, there is Bengal Safari Park. The Trinamool Congress Government has done a lot of improvement in the tourism sector in the district.

Rs 1 crore is being spent in the first phase for developing the park and other infrastructure like tourist cottages and a hotel, flower garden, butterfly park and snake park.

In the second phase, a ropeway would be constructed, crisscrossing the river. The tourism project would also provide employment opportunities for local youths.

Source: bengali.news18.com

The Bangla Government has decided to tackle a serious health problem among children – obesity. It is impacting many children nowadays, all over the country.

In a really appreciative move, the State Education department has decided to introduce lessons on curbing obesity in the school curriculum. Not just theory, the practical aspect of the problem will also be taken care of, in the form of regularly measuring certain parameters like blood pressure, blood sugar and body weight. The former two have an intimate relation with obesity.

An important lesson that will be taught is that obesity is not hereditary but is the result of food habits, some of which are often handed down from generation to generation and some of which are acquired.

These parameters would have to be regularly measured in school students, the instruments for which would be bought by the schools from funds provided by the department especially for the purpose. The teachers will be trained in handling these instruments.

The disbursal of funds has already started, according to a department official – Rs 3,000 each for primary schools, Rs 7,000 for upper primary schools and Rs 10,000 for secondary and higher secondary schools.

The instruments to be bought are sphygmomanometer and stethoscope for measuring blood pressure, weighing machines, skinfold callipers for determining state of obesity and glucometer for measuring blood sugar.

The teachers would be given lessons by physicians on using the instruments. They would be taught the impact of factors like blood pressure, blood sugar and others, and preventing obesity through controlling food habits and regular exercising, including doing yogas. These lessons would in turn be taught to the students.

For the first time, Poush Utsav will be celebrated in Kolkata. The event will be inaugurated today in Newtown, and will continue till December 30. It will start at 12 noon and end at 9 PM everyday. Entry to the event is free.

It is being organised jointly by Housing Infrastructure Development Corporation (HIDCO), West Bengal State Rural Livelihoods Mission (WBSRLM) and a private organisation.

It may be mentioned in this regard that the most famous Poush Mela in the country is held every December in Santiniketan, and the Kolkata Poush Utsav is an effort to enable people to get an idea of what all such a celebration entails.

The event is being endorsed by Anandadhara, a scheme which is part of the WBSRLM. On sale at the event would be creative handicrafts and handloom products by 30 women entrepreneurs representing self-help groups (SHG) from seven districts – Birbhum, Howrah, Hooghly, North 24 Parganas, South 24 Parganas, Nadia and Paschim Medinipur.

This is to promote and encourage the leadership and marketing skills in these women to ensure dignity while earning a decent livelihood.

Besides the handicrafts and handloom products on display and sale, the event will feature cultural programmes, a food pavilion, an art installation and fireworks display.

The cultural programmes will feature eminent folk artistes, dancers, poets, elocutionists and others. An art installation will be set up by an eminent artist on the lawns of Rabindra Tirtha to pay tribute to Ishwarchandra Vidyasagar, Swami Vivekananda and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

The unique themed food pavilion will feature traditional delicacies, sweets and Christmas confectionaries. A wonderful fireworks display will conclude the week-long celebration.

 

Source: The Times of India

Image Source: Flickr

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee held a high-level meeting with her Cabinet colleagues at Nabanna on December 18,2018, taking stock of the overall arrangements made by various departments ahead of the Ganga Sagar Mela.

During the meeting, the CM instructed other ministers to ensure that the pilgrims do not face any difficulties while visiting the place. She also took stock of the dredging work in Muriganga river, that is already being carried out by the state Irrigation and Waterways department.

The state government has announced to provide insurance cover upto Rs 5 lakh to pilgrims visiting the place during Ganga Sagar Mela, in case of any untoward incident or disaster. The Chief Minister has also instructed some of her senior cabinet colleagues to remain stationed at various points in order to supervise various processes during the mela.

There will be adequate arrangement of extra buses to ferry the pilgrims. The pilgrims have no other option except using vessels to reach their destination. Unlike other pilgrimages, Ganga Sagar is not connected through railway or road, as a result of which it often becomes difficult to ferry large number of pilgrims to Sagar Island, the CM stated.

She also reminded that despite repeated pleas from the Bengal government to give Ganga Sagar Mela a status like Kumbha, the Centre has declined its proposal. The Chief Minister is expected to visit Ganga Sagar on December 26. On the next day she will visit the temple there and hold a meeting with the district administrative officials on December 28, before returning to the city.

To prevent any mishap, the State Government is constructing iron railings to replace bamboo barricades from Kakdwip to Sagar Island.

The railings are being constructed in Kakdwip, Namkhana, Kachuberia, Chemaguri and Benuban, and at Kapil Muni Temple. The iron barricades are being set up along a total of 24km.

Many of these places are part of the vessel route to the Sagar Mela, and hence see huge numbers of people going to board and de-board from vessels.

The administration of South 24 Parganas is closely supervising the activity, and the construction is expected to be completed by December 31. The annual fair is next scheduled to be held on January 10 and 11.

Source: Bartaman

The district administration of South 24 Parganas is setting up a real-time monitoring system for controlling crowds at the Gangasagar Mela. The annual fair is next scheduled to be held on January 10 and 11.

The system will consist of a network of strategically-placed security cameras. The feeds from these cameras will be available in the 24-hour central control room set up for the fair.

The feed will also be available on the mobile phones of select police personnel in charge of security at the fair, to enable which Wi-Fi machines will be set up at every transit point.

Over the last few years, the Trinamool Congress has tightened the security at the annual pilgrimage, and the real-time monitoring system is a crucial aspect of that.