Word: kolkata
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...Like his creator, the novel's central character Ritwik is gifted and from Kolkata - and desires above all to leave it (Mukherjee's loathing of his birthplace is on record). Thanks to an Oxford scholarship, our protagonist absconds to England - so far, so autobiographical - but, as in all good novels of identity and redemption, he is hotly pursued by his past, or what Mukherjee calls "the gratuitous tyranny of memory." In this case, it's more than a literary device. Flashbacks of Ritwik's dreadful childhood - hallucinations of his late abusive mother terrify him in his college room - animate...
...greatest contribution," says Mohammed Salim, a colleague of Basu's in government. By the 1980s, West Bengal had gone from a famine-plagued state dependent on food subsidies to a surplus grain producer. "But that's where it all ended," says Rajat Roychowdhury, a political analyst based in Kolkata, West Bengal's capital. Resting on its agrarian reforms, the state became a byword for industrial decay, as its share of India's industrial output fell from 9.8% in 1980 to 5% in 1998. "Basu didn't do anything for industry...
...armed Maoist insurgency has filled the vacuum, presenting themselves as the true voice of the dispossessed. They have infiltrated villages in pockets throughout the state, and have all but taken control of the village of Lalgarh, less than 125 miles (200 km) away from the state capital of Kolkata. Police and paramilitary forces have struggled for months to subdue the armed guerrillas, already suspected of killing five Communist Party members in 2010 alone. But opposition politician Mamta Banerjee has called the anti-Maoist offensive "a total failure." As mourners greet Basu's funeral procession today in Kolkata, and analysts debate...
...attack in Kashmir, security on the Indian border had become very strict. But Sabahuddin, in his statement, says that Rs. 10,000 ($222) was enough to get past the Central Reserve Police Force. "They asked me to give my address and I gave them a fake address in Kolkata," he says. "To verify me, they called my friend... [and] they got confirmed that I am an Indian and allowed me to travel." (See TIME's video "Mumbai Voices...
...Still, losing the earthly reminder of the transcendent spirit of charity and goodwill that Mother Teresa stood for is not something that many will stand for. "Everything the mother stood for - her genesis from a common nun to an eminence of world stature - happened in and around Kolkata," Bhattacharya says. "This creates a very special bond which is beyond technical claims. Nobody cares where Norman Bethune was born. He lived and died for China." It's time perhaps to rewind to how the Mother herself felt about it: "By blood, I am Albanian. By citizenship, an Indian," she once said...