Inland Waterways Boosts Northeast India & Bangladesh

S K Acharya the Visionary!

A motor vessel with more than 50 container cargo consignment made a landmark sail from Haldia Dock in West Bengal to the Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) terminal at Pandu in Guwahati in Assam on 04 November 2019. The 1,425 - kilometre long voyage will take twelve to fifteen days. This is the first ever containerised cargo movement in the inland water transport route.

Earlier, on March 2019, three luxury passenger vessels

successfully undertook four voyages carrying about 300 tourists, mostly foreign nationals. Of these, two of those voyages were undertaken between Kolkata and Guwahati that sailed through the river system of Bangladesh, including the stretches where dredging is on, as per a report in The Economic Times.

Such movement of cargo as well as luxury cruise vessels are destined to boost the northeastern region’s industrial development by opening up of this alternative route for transportation of raw material and finished goods as well as give a fillip to the tourism industry.

Right from the ancient times, medieval period until the British Raj, waterways was always considered to be the lifeline of transportation. However, since1947 the focus was primarily on the railways and later the roadways. In the milieu, the potential to capitalise on India’s inland waterways had been completely forgotten. Many attributes the reason behind this could be due to a probable strong lobby by the surface transport operators as developing the waterways would have eaten up significant chunk of their business.

To put it in perspective, a single 2,000 ton vessel is equivalent to 40 wagons of goods train or can replace 125 trucks (16 or 18 wheeler type) on the road with 16 metric ton of capacity each. Further, the waterways low operational cost as compared to the surface transport, would mean significant benefit to the landlocked northeast region of India.

Earlier in November 2019, with the Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s visit to New Delhi, the waterways

navigation between the two neighbouring countries got a boost for using the Gangetic network to reach various ports in Assam such as Dhubri in south western Assam, Pandu in Guwahati, Silghat in middle Assam upto Karimganj in southern Assam. It may be recalled here that India and Bangladesh, on 25 October 2018 agreed to explore a route to run passenger and cruise vessels between Kolkata and Guwahati via Dhaka. The cruise vessels ply on the Inland Protocol route and coastal shipping route.

For a while, news like these flooding the media scape has been causing ripples around the world. The fact remains is that the man who had thought out-of-the-box and researched on the idea of connecting the Brahmaputra with the Ganges more than fifty years ago was none other than the late Salil Krishna Acharya. 

In the 1950s, under the then  B P Chalia-led Assam

government, young Salil had originally mooted the idea  of connecting Brahmaputra with rest of the world via Bangladesh for the economic viability of northeast India by making the inland waters navigable for large vessels and opening up of international trade.

Accordingly, he had completed an exhaustive study and prepared a blueprint that was endorsed by the state government, which in turn referred it to the central government for approval. However, during that point of time though the central government felt the project superb, but had to put in cold storage due to an acute financial crisis.

Until his demise in 1994, he was deeply involved in the establishment of a Centre for Ethno Social Studies (CESS) in

Calcutta. His scope of research under the Applied Economics Division of CESS was ‘Problems and Prospects of Mutual Economic Cooperation Between Bangladesh and Eastern and North Eastern States of India”.

Infact, phrases like 'Look East', 'Act East', etc which has now become quite a buzz, are actually offshoots of his research works as I had seen such similar words in his numerous manuscripts including the original blueprint as well as his frequent verbal usage of the same. Few MPs of that era and people familiar with his work will vouch for this claim.

S K Acharya with spouse

Just after his demise, a publication house came forward for his papers/manuscripts which were given, but was never returned. How I regret for not having pursued for the return of all his valuable papers. And the absence of Internet and computers during those days, all his hard works could not be digitized or archived though.                            

Amongst the several media that reported about his demise, some newspapers mentioned briefly about his work that should stand as a testimony to his contribution. An article in The Assam Tribune, dated, 22 November 1994 mentions among others - "He (Prof Salil Krishna Acharya) spent a lot of his time and intellectual energy in the sixties pursuing his project of a Ganga canal which he thought would be the fulcrum of economic development of the North Eastern region including Bangladesh. The project is still talked about in many circles and might materialise one day.”

Another report in The Shillong Times, dated, 18 November 1994 states, - "Mr Acharya, who was an intellectual, writer and innovator, was the first to have mooted the idea of joining Brahmaputra and Ganges for solving the eastern region's water management problems. The idea was seriously considered by the centre but financial constraints came in the way." 

Towards the end of this article, a couple of news clips dating way back to November 1994 has been attached.

IWAI Vice Chairman

And yes, whenever any news related to Indo - Bangladesh trade and vessels moving to and fro between the Gangetic network and Brahmaputra, it only brings loads of memories of this brilliant intellectual who was a true visionary but sadly, his name has faded to oblivion. However, when this was brought to the notice of the IWAI, the Vice Chairman, Mr. Pravir Pandey assured that Prof Acharya’s valuable contribution will be duly acknowledged.

Today (17 November 2019), is the 25th death anniversary of Late Salil Krishna Acharya alias, our Dad. His cherished dream of seeing Eastern and North East India figure in the international maritime has just become a reality. May this bring solace and rest his soul in eternal bliss!
                 

The Shillong Times.
dated, 18-11-2019

The Assam Tribune,
 dated, 22-11-1994

A video presentation in memory of S. K. Acharya

Shillong of 1970s Flashback

Festivities at Scotland-of-the-East!

After a hot, humid and torturous months, September signals the end of summer and the beginning of autumn. Visibility of

Kans grass

patches of full bloomed kans grass, clear blue skies above and birds chirping around are some of the distinct traits of this festive season. 

The cool misty early mornings and plesant evenings are characterised by unique ambience that tends to fill one’s heart with joy. Sunit Dhar, who grew up and lived in Shillong during his hey days, gets nostalgic and reminiscences the festivals he misses during the 1970s. An engineer by profession who had serviced in overseas organisations, he is currently settled in New Delhi and works at a corporate engineering firm in Gurgaon. Most Shillongites of that era are sure to echo his sentiments! 

Read on…  

  

An old and undated file photograph of Police Bazar (Khandailad), Shillong 

Sunit Dhar

My childhood flashback from Shillong, particularly on the festivities I was accustomed to look forward year after year, in the 1970's:

1. Vishwakarma puja at the French Motor Car Workshop in Laitumkhrah - for a platter full of sweets on the way back from the school on the 17th September every year.

Idols of Lord Vishwakarma

Vishwakarma, the divine hindu god of architect is not only observed by the engineering and architectural community but by artisans, craftsmen, mechanics, smiths, welders, industrial workers, factory workers and others. They pray for a better future, safe working conditions and above all, success in their respective fields. This festival is mainly celebrated in Karnataka, Uttar Pradesh, West Bengal, Tripura, Bihar, Jharkand and Assam.

2. Taking a very early morning walk at Laitumkhrah main

Shillong city

road after listening to All India Radio (AIR) Mahalaya by Birendra Krishna Bhadra. This is the only early morning walk which I partook in the entire year.

3. Passionately watching the making of Durga idol at R.K. Mission (Ram Krishna Mission), Laitumkhrah every day after school. And sometimes giving a helping hand to the artist.

Maa Durga

Ram Krishna Mission, Shillong

4. Eagerly waiting for the pre-promotion exams to end on the day of Shasti puja. Then four days of fun with no books to open. Saddened if it's three days, and merrier if it's five days, which occasionally used to happen. But, the emotional feeling of the whole world falling apart after the Visharjan was unbearable.

5. Kali puja - whole night vigil and hoping from pandal

Maa Kali

to pandal of the town, with occasional bursting of fire-crackers in some strangers doorsteps or gates.

Graveyard at Arbutnotroad, 

Shillong on All Souls Day 

6.Anxiously waiting at the house doorstep to watch the grand colourful and floral procession passing through R.K. Mission Road upto the Arbuthnot Road graveyard, every year on 2nd November, Remembering the Departed on The All Souls Day.

7. Taking an early vantage position to witness an

Annual Eucharistic Procession

uninterrupted complete view of The Annual Eucharistic Procession on the second Sunday of November every year. This grand solemn, colourful and holy procession, with many tableaux with Mother Mary & Jesus and one with Bishop of Shillong, used to start and end at The Cathedral of Mary Help of Christian (Parish), by making one complete round, via Dhankheti, St Edmund's College, Fire Brigade, Laitumkhrah main road & Donbosco. Still partly remember the prayers by the procession participants -  Kublei Maria.....

8. A week or two Christmas Carols going from door to door in the locality every night, with jingle bells all around, until the Christmas Eve. Our favourite Little Santa was Bobby (Robert Garnett) Lyngdoh.

Robert Garnett Lyngdoh is the son of late Peter Garnett Marbaniang, a parliamentarian, legislator and an academician whose residential apartment was just opposite Ram Krishna Mission, Shillong.

An undated rare photograph of late P G Marbaniang with his daughter, Ampareen Lyngdoh and current MLA. Right: Late Purno Sangma, former Lok Sabha speaker and union minister along with spouse and daughter, Agatha Sangma who is the present MP from Tura constituency 

I really miss all those merrier old days of childhood Shillong……

Sunit Dhar can be reached by Email: sunit_dhar@yahoo.com

US Woman Condemns Rapist Getting Bail in India

A National Shame!

It was a Sunday late night and before I could hit the bed a WhatsApp alert drove me to check the message in my mobile. An old friend who lives in India’s financial capital shared a four minutes plus video of 26-mb file size which had no narratives. 

     Jennipha Lauren Nielsen 
     outside the Consulate General 
    of India in San Francisco, USA 

The content appeared pretty much serious, but the sender had no clue as she had received it from one of her many WhatsApp groups. Looking into the gravity of the content, I decided to take it forward in my small way though.

With a freeze frame did google reverse image search that led to pages and urls of an American woman who was sexually assaulted in New Delhi in 2013. The victim, Jennipha Lauren Nielsen, a human rights and gender equality activist has been condemning the bail granted to her attacker in the video. 

The convict, Raj Panwar, was in February 2019 sentenced to seven years in jail by a Delhi Court. The court had imposed 5 lakh INR and directed the amount to be paid to the complainant according to scroll.in. But strangely, the same court granted bail to the accused on 05 July 2019.

According to media reports, in 2013, Delhi resident Raj Panwar allegedly sexually assaulted the US national who was staying as tenant in his house in South Delhi with her husband. Raj Panwar is the nephew of former Delhi mayor Jayashree Panwar.

Consulate General of India, 

San Francisco, USA

Jennipha had caused a stir in Facebook on July 30 following a live video share from outside the Consulate General of India in San Francisco where she claimed of being denied of assistance. She said she was told to get some forms notarised. “Now [in] San Francisco, they tell me now that I need to go and get it notarised locally, then have to go to Sacramento [California] and get the notary verified,” she said.

In the video she went on to say: “India’s incredible corruption and lack of support for woman that are attacked is continuing. They refuse to help me yet they say that they want to stop violence against women in their own country… They want me to spend thousands of dollars to travel to the state of California on my own money because they have let a convicted criminal out on bail. We don’t give bail to convicted criminals.”

She appealed to her “desi friends” to help her and ensure that justice was served to her. “You do not let convicted criminals off when the victims were brave enough to go and testify . I need your help,” she added.

Jennipha who had travelled all alone from San Francisco to New Delhi to testify in the court, terribly regrets action of the court. She is determined to fight her case and escalate it to the Supreme Court of India for justice so that her perpetrator is not let loose on bail by a 'corrupt judge' but, put behind the bars. 

According to another report, the Indian consulate in San Francisco sympathised and offered all support to Jennipha. 

All said and done, such incidents are an eye sore which is a national shame of our country. It is high time for the authorities concerned to wake up and take corrective measures before New Delhi earns the dubious name of a rape capital. 

  Live video of Jennipha Lauren Nielsen that went viral 

Kargil War, 9/11 Mumbai Terror Attack: Look Back

Salute to the War Heroes

Social media was abuzz with Kargil Vijay Diwas. On 26th July, 1999, India successfully took command of the high outposts which had been lost to Pakistan. The Kargil war was fought for more than 60 days that resulted in the loss of life on both sides.

Naik Deepchand, who went
to Kargil in 1999as a strapping 
six feet tall, returned without
both legs and a hand

Kargil Vijay Diwas is celebrated on 26 July every year in honour of the the Kargil War Heroes. We salute the martyrs and to our brave soldiers for their supreme sacrifice for the nation!

Kargil war saw India witnessing two major technologies:

1. Communicating from remote and inaccessible areas via Iridium handheld phone which works through a network of low space orbiting satellites owned and operated by a Canadian firm.

2. The luxury of live broadcast journalism in Indian television facilitating uplinking of signals directly to the satellite from any remote locations thus, making the content publicly available for viewing.

These two major technologies kept citizens glued to their television sets while many broadcast journalists turned out overnight heroes for broadcasting live from the battle field.

What did we learn from the Kargil war?

1. Broadcasting live from the battlefield and forward posts gave an advantage to our opponent since they were also closely monitoring such live feeds from the Indian TV satellite channels.

2. Victory for the Indian Army which could had been

   

   Iridium handheld phone

   achieved much earlier, was only getting stretched since strategic changes had to be done frequently due to the leaked information in live broadcast and voiceover reports through Iridium handheld phones. Pakistan army was having a ball-of-a-time since every bit of information about Indian troops movement was freely available, courtesy: Indian televisions.

3. Many would recall an episode where two young Indian army commissioned officers were interviewed live at their bunkers in the forward post. This made work easy for Pakistan army who tracked their location next day, bombarded the bunker and killed both officers.

Had there been no live broadcast coverage, then these soldiers would have lived today.

Repeat of the same act in the 9/11 Mumbai terror attack 

Outdoor Broadcast Van:
Representational Image 

In 2008 heavily armed Pakistan-based terrorists sneaked into India’s financial capital in a trawler boat, causing mayhem that left more than 166 civilians and armed forces dead. Here too, the courtesy of our Indian live broadcast television proved to be aiding the terrorists.

File Photo: Taj Mumbai 

Hotel Terror Attack

Ajmal Kasab, the lone surviving terrorist in the Taj Hotel, infamous for killing scores of people was continuously receiving instructions and feedback in his mobile phone by his handlers based out of Pakistan soil as they were also tuned to the same Indian TV satellite channels.

It is strongly argued that had there were no live broadcast, then the casualties may had been much less though.

So where did we go wrong? 

There are several opinions and observations on both the Kargil war as well as the 9/11 Mumbai terror attack. 

During the Kargil conflict, it was the government of India seeking publicity which allowed live broadcasts coverage by news channels.There is no way that the broadcasting crew could have ever reached such places with their heavy equipments without being vetted by the ministry of defence.

Nor could they have ever got onboard a Mirage aircraft or reached remote places where firing was on without ministry of defence sanctioning it. 

The bottom line

It was an expensive lesson learnt in the hindsight. While blaming the journalists would be irrational, it would be prudent for the armed forces to be extremely strict in giving access for live broadcasts in such sensitive operations. 

In the light of the above, there is also a call for the Indian TV news channels to play restraint on their own and act responsibly. They should avoid the TRP game, shun away from the desire of a shortcut to the limelight or becoming an overnight hero especially in such sensitive situations. 

Jai Hind!

How Hospitals Treat Deceased?

Need of Ethics and Soft Skills! 

How are hospitals and nursing homes expected to treat patients who have died in course of undergoing treatment? By any standards, after the attending physician issues a death certificate, it is the basic decency of nurses to clean the patient and make them presentable before handing over the deceased to their kins.

Globally, the general practice is to lay the patient on their back with one pillow in place; straighten the patient’s limbs and place their arms by their sides; gently close the patient’s eyes if open by applying light pressure for thirty seconds. And finally, tidy the hair as soon as possible and arrange it into the preferred style.

Publisher-Writer Sujit Acharya

Soon after death occurs, one should be able to close the eyelids quite easily. However, after a while, once rigor mortis sets in, it can become difficult. 

All these are done to give the deceased dignity and show they are sleeping peacefully. It is an expression of respect and affection, part of the process of adjusting to loss and expressing grief.  

My uncle spent in a hospital at an Indian metro city nearly ten days dying. He was sleeping because his organs were shutting down, a natural process due to old age. He passed away on 30th November 2018. He was 91.

All hell broke loose in the lineage as soon someone shared half-a-dozen photographs of the deceased through WhatsApp. I was yet to receive though. My sibling who resides in a different city texted me that the images were extremely distasteful and was reluctant to show or share it with anybody!

After a week or so, those same set of images too landed up in my WhatsApp on a late

The Awful image of deceased

night. Honestly, I could not stare at the photographs for more than a second as it was just terrible and hurting me. Initially, I was fuming against the sender but then, a deeper thought came into my mind.

Observing the photographs, I felt that there had been serious deficiency on part of the hospital in handing over the deceased to kins without even caring to make it bare-minimum presentable! The eyes and mouth were wide open! And this only compounded lot of doubts and integrity of the hospital in question. 

If this was the state of affairs at a reputed hospital in a metro city, then one could imagine plight of millions of patients across the various Indian states who has to visit such type of health care centres on a regular basis.

The transformed image with closed eyelids and mouth

All these had choked me with emotions. I was convinced that our fun-loving uncle alias, Publisher & Writer Sujit Acharya, who was extremely health conscious, who took pride in his dressing and looks, would have never liked to be seen in such disgraceful images.

After months I was able to muster courage to view those photographs. Staring at them I was wondering deeply if anything positive could be done. With several hours of trial and error in my Mac, I was finally able to transform an appropriate image that should be acceptable in contrast to the ones shared! 

Yes, he is now peacefully sleeping - I am sure our uncle, affectionately addressed by many as Kuka, appears that his soul is satisfied!

Sujit Acharya

To conclude, hospitals, nursing homes and other health care organisations must

Publisher & Writer Sujit Acharya

ensure adequate dignity to the deceased. They should be trained in soft skills to deal with the deceased's grieve-stricken kins and loved ones. While there is a crying need of an effective competent government agencies to monitor hospitals and nursing homes from time to time, health organisations should also initiate punitive actions on its own against the erring personnel. 

Further, citizens who are armed with the power of internet can post their experiences in various social media. They should avoid circulating fake messages and instead genuinely report any such deficiencies as well as show whole heartedly praise for any good deeds shown. These steps may put the hospitals and nursing homes on their toes to thwart recurrence of such unpleasant episodes. 

BeAware Malware

BeAware, a Suspicious Malware!

Of late the very thought of opening my laptop and getting into work was making me feel lethargic as the machine appeared somewhat slow while certain applications kept on crashing all of a sudden. Initially, I had attributed all these symptoms to the upgradation of MacOS from High Sierra to Mojave and however, believed that gradually it would normalise. 

Months had passed but my machine was not any better that only further drifted me away from it. Had done all the standard diagnostic drills too but it was not of any help though. 

The BeAware malware

In my MacBook Air’s launch pad suddenly I had noticed a strange App with the name ‘BeAware’ which had a logo of a bee. I tried dragging it into the trash several times without any success nor was it visible in the Application folder.

I kept on wondering how did this strange App land up in to my launch pad as I had no knowledge of downloading it. Clicking this App would just flash for a fraction of a second with no results and then would remain in the dock.

I Google searched about this BeAware and checked up the Apple community link. Here I was shocked to learn that this was a suspicious surveillance malware that had globally hit MacBook Airs on 14 December 2018! It makes its entry in one’s laptop without seeking any permission which slows down the machine.

In the Apple community page, users projected various tips to get rid of this malware but it was simply not working for me. Some users suggested to download and run Malwarebytes or Etrecheck - a diagnostic tool. 

I had downloaded Malwarebytes which could only figure out this BeAware in the Activity Monitor. To delete it from the system, Malwarebytes suggests to download the pro version which has a price tag of around 3,000/- INR.  

The Activity Monitor

I decided to visit Asia’s largest computer market at Nehru Place, New Delhi for a solution. Most tech people here after examining my machine had only one common suggestion - format my SSD (Solid State Drive). I was extremely reluctant due to the various softwares, plugins, audio effects, projects, etc that were installed which would make me go crazy. 

Had also visited a couple of authorised Mac Service centres. Here, one has to make a flat down payment as service charge plus additional for any hardware, etc which hurts the wallet. At the back of all this, they were also remotely advising to format the machine.

Felt completely dejected and returned home. After a couple of days on a weekend I decided to take it as a challenge to locate this BeAware bug and remove it from my system. It was a tedious process of minutely going through numerous folders, but the end result was just rewarding. Finally, I was able to locate and drag it into the trash. Now my machine has become good as before!

Here is the method which I had dicovered that should take just five minutes to get rid of such stubborn malware from any mac computers:

1. Go to the Activity Monitor and disable the BeAware. The procedure of going to Activity Monitor is:- Go to ‘Finder’; in the menu bar on top select ‘Go’; In the dropdown menu select ‘Utilities’ and then click ‘Activity Monitor’

2. Go to desktop; In the top lefthand corner of the menu bar, click on the ‘Apple’ icon; Select system preference; Click ‘Users & Groups’: Click 'login items'; Tick check box of the 'BeeActive’ malware and click the minus sign ‘-‘ in the bottom to remove it

3. Go to desktop and click the ‘Macintosh HD’ icon; Select the ‘Application Folder’ and then straight drag the ‘BeeActive’ malware into the trash

The dropdown menu from MacHD

These three essential steps will free any mac computers from such malware.

Hope this helps to all mac users whose machines have been affected by such malware. 

The bottom line is that all such exercise has turned out to be a great learning and most importantly, I have saved my precious data and softwares as well as money.

An advise to all mac users is that in Apple’s system preference, always check in the ‘Firewall’ under Security & Privacy. Feel good doing all of my own and hope this experience helps other users.

Screen shot of my Launch Pad