South Asian Media Net
Dhaka-Kolkata train service in July
Wednesday, June 06,2007
DHAKA: Commercial Dhaka-Kolkata train service is expected to begin in the third week of July, 42 years after the rail link was snapped because of war. The train service was stopped in 1965 after the war between India and Pakistan when Bangladesh, the then East Pakistan, was a part of Pakistan.
‘We expect to launch the commercial train service between Dhaka and Kolkata from the third week of July after settling some issues with the Indians,’ said communications secretary Mahbubur Rahman on Tuesday after a meeting with railway officials.
Mahbubur said the trial run of the non-stop train service, which would take around 11 hours to travel the 375-kilometre route, might be started from either the last week of June or the first week of July.
The train will initially start its journey from Cantonment station in Bangladesh and from Chitpur in India. After six months, the train will depart from Kamalapur station.
The meeting, presided over by the communications secretary, finalised a set of proposals to be sent to the Indians within a week for their consideration.
The proposals include the number of trains to be plied every week, immigration formalities, fare and security of passengers.
The communications secretary said that Bangladesh Railways had proposed completion of immigration formalities at the departure point in Bangladesh and Gede on the Indian border.
He said though India has proposed running only one train a week, Bangladesh wants to run a train every alternative day.
‘We want to run trains on alternate days,’ he said, adding if India does not agree, Bangladesh’s other proposal is for Bangladesh Railways to run the train on Friday, Saturday and Sunday and for Indian Railways to run its train on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
He said the proposed fare for a one-way journey is at $8 for a seat in a coach, $12 in the air-conditioned coach and $20 in the sleeping berth. Initially Bangladesh Railways will run a train with the capacity to carry 300 passengers.
Mahbubur said the train service would be commercially viable if at least 100 passengers board the train each trip.
To ensure passenger safety, 20 security guards will be deployed in each train and CCTV cameras will be installed at the departure point.
The Bangladesh and India governments signed an agreement in 2001 to resume direct rail service between Dhaka and Kolkata. Both the cities are at present connected by air and bus service only.
Sunday, June 17, 2007
A Hindu's love for an ancient Sufi shrine @ NewKerala.Com News Channel
A Hindu's love for an ancient Sufi shrine @ NewKerala.Com News Channel
Home > News > India News
Home > News > India News
A Hindu's love for an ancient Sufi shrine
By Gunjana Roy, Bhagalpur (Bihar), May 27: For eight long years, a 65-year-old Hindu man has been managing with care and devotion a Sufi shrine after Muslims hit hard by the 1989 communal violence gave it up.
Suresh Bhagat, who has virtually deserted his family in the process, says he enjoys every minute he spends at the 300-year-old shrine of Bazid Dargah Pahalwan, a revered Muslim preacher, in Amapur village some 20 km away.
The last of the Muslim families left the village in 1999, a decade after Bihar's worst communal riots killed hundreds and marked the end of Congress dominance over Bihar.
Bhagat sleeps on an elevated platform supported by bamboo poles near the shrine, close to a cremation site on the bank of the Ganga, a river of great religious significance for Hindus.
"No sense of fear has crossed my dreams even once," Bhagat told IANS.
The villagers decided to take care of the historical shrine after Kamo Miyan, the last Muslim caretaker of the dargah, shifted to Bhagalpur town in 1999.
Bhagat was ready to take up the task. There was initial resistance from his wife and their three sons but the man had his way.
Amapur village had 12 Muslim families, of which seven perished in the 1989 riots.
The surviving families moved to Bhagalpur and Kahalgoan town over the years. "They left the village because of a high sense of insecurity among them," said Ram Prasad, a villager.
Bhagat does not know how to follow Muslim rituals. He knows how to put the ceremonial 'chadar' on the 'mazaar'.
He offers the remains of burnt incense sticks to Hindu and Muslim devotees who throng the shrine from Ekchari, Bhagalpur and Ghogha areas and from even Kolkata and Lucknow.
Illiterate Bhagat wishes he could offer prayers but he prefers to internalize his respect for Islam. "Though I do not know the nitty-gritty of any religion, every religion talks of love and peace," he says.
Every evening, Anil, the rickshaw puller son of Bhagat, comes to see his father at the shrine and hands over a lunch box to him.
Bhagat has one dream: "I wish there is such love among Hindus and Muslims that when Hindus fast, Ramzan should fall on the very day."
Says Wasi Alam, a Muslim resident of Bhagalpur town: "What Bhagat does is a great example of communal harmony. God loves all and accepts everybody's offer and prayer."
Suresh Bhagat, who has virtually deserted his family in the process, says he enjoys every minute he spends at the 300-year-old shrine of Bazid Dargah Pahalwan, a revered Muslim preacher, in Amapur village some 20 km away.
The last of the Muslim families left the village in 1999, a decade after Bihar's worst communal riots killed hundreds and marked the end of Congress dominance over Bihar.
Bhagat sleeps on an elevated platform supported by bamboo poles near the shrine, close to a cremation site on the bank of the Ganga, a river of great religious significance for Hindus.
"No sense of fear has crossed my dreams even once," Bhagat told IANS.
The villagers decided to take care of the historical shrine after Kamo Miyan, the last Muslim caretaker of the dargah, shifted to Bhagalpur town in 1999.
Bhagat was ready to take up the task. There was initial resistance from his wife and their three sons but the man had his way.
Amapur village had 12 Muslim families, of which seven perished in the 1989 riots.
The surviving families moved to Bhagalpur and Kahalgoan town over the years. "They left the village because of a high sense of insecurity among them," said Ram Prasad, a villager.
Bhagat does not know how to follow Muslim rituals. He knows how to put the ceremonial 'chadar' on the 'mazaar'.
He offers the remains of burnt incense sticks to Hindu and Muslim devotees who throng the shrine from Ekchari, Bhagalpur and Ghogha areas and from even Kolkata and Lucknow.
Illiterate Bhagat wishes he could offer prayers but he prefers to internalize his respect for Islam. "Though I do not know the nitty-gritty of any religion, every religion talks of love and peace," he says.
Every evening, Anil, the rickshaw puller son of Bhagat, comes to see his father at the shrine and hands over a lunch box to him.
Bhagat has one dream: "I wish there is such love among Hindus and Muslims that when Hindus fast, Ramzan should fall on the very day."
Says Wasi Alam, a Muslim resident of Bhagalpur town: "What Bhagat does is a great example of communal harmony. God loves all and accepts everybody's offer and prayer."
--- IANS
Monday, June 4, 2007
A MOUSE TRAP STORY.. . . AND IT IS ANIMATED WITH A MORAL AT THE END.(This is excellent.......)A mouse looked through the crackin the wall to see the farmer andhis wife open a package.What food might this contain?'The mouse wondered - - -he was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap. Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning:
There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house! 'The chicken clucked and scratched,raised her head and said, 'Mr.Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me.I cannot be bothered by it.'
The mouse turned to the pig and told him, 'There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!'The pig sympathized, but said, I am so very sorry, Mr.Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray.Be assured you are in my prayers.'
The mouse turned to the cow and said 'There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!'The cow said, 'Wow, Mr. Mouse. I'm sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose.'
So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer's mousetrap . . . alone.That very night a sound was heard throughout the house -- like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught.The snake bit the farmer's wife.
The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever.
Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient.
But his wife's sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock.
To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.
The farmer's wife did not get well; she died.
So many people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.
The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness. So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn't concern you,
remember ----
when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk. We are all involved in this journey called life.
We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another.
There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house! 'The chicken clucked and scratched,raised her head and said, 'Mr.Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is of no consequence to me.I cannot be bothered by it.'
The mouse turned to the pig and told him, 'There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!'The pig sympathized, but said, I am so very sorry, Mr.Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray.Be assured you are in my prayers.'
The mouse turned to the cow and said 'There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!'The cow said, 'Wow, Mr. Mouse. I'm sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose.'
So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer's mousetrap . . . alone.That very night a sound was heard throughout the house -- like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught.The snake bit the farmer's wife.
The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a fever.
Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient.
But his wife's sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock.
To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.
The farmer's wife did not get well; she died.
So many people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.
The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness. So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn't concern you,
remember ----
when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk. We are all involved in this journey called life.
We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another.
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