Daily Archives: July 20, 2014

Nine Ships in Nine Months: Record Delivery for CSL

The protocol of delivery and acceptance of the seventh fast patrol vessel being exchanged by Capt R S Sundar, Director of Operations, on behalf of the CSL to Commanding Officer (designate) of the vessel Cmdt Nitin M Rathore of the Indian Coast Guard
The protocol of delivery and acceptance of the seventh fast patrol vessel being exchanged by Capt R S Sundar, Director of Operations, on behalf of the CSL to Commanding Officer (designate) of the vessel Cmdt Nitin M Rathore of the Indian Coast Guard

Kochi :

The Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) has set a record by delivering nine ships in nine months, on average one vessel in a month.

The seventh of the series of 20 fast patrol vessels being  built for the Indian Coast Guard was delivered today.

The nine ships consisted of 7 fast patrol vessels for the Indian Coast Guard, and two platform supply ships for international owners.

The ship that was delivered prior to today’s delivery was ICGS Agrim. It was delivered to the Indian Coast Guard on May 30, 2014. The company has delivered the next ship within one-and-half month, compared to the contractual requirement of delivery in every three months. The Coast Guard expressed satisfaction over the quality of the ship delivered by the Shipyard.

The Protocol of delivery and acceptance was signed by Capt R S Sundar, Director of operations, on behalf of the CSL, and Commanding Officer (designate) of the vessel Cmdt Nitin M Rathore of the Indian Coast Guard.

Cmde K Subramaniam; Vivek Vajpayee, principal director (materials) of Indian Coast

Guard; DIG T P Sadanandan (Kochi); Paul Ranjan, director of finance at the CSL; and Sunny Thomas, technical director at the CSL were present on the occasion.  The vessel that was delivered today is named ‘ICGS AMAL’, which will be operated by the Coast Guard station in Goa.

The Cochin Shipyard had signed the contract for the construction of the 20 fast patrol vessels (FPV) for the Indian Coast Guard on October 20, 2010.

Like its sister ships, ‘ICGS AMAL’ is a fast patrol vessel, with a speed of 33 knots. The vessel will be very effective in supporting the Coast Guard in its anti-smuggling operations, anti-piracy operations, as well as in the monitoring and protection of fisheries. As the speed of the vessel is crucial in coastal security operations, the superstructure of fast patrol vessels are made of aluminium.A considerable amount of innovation was brought in in the welding and fabrication techniques by the CSL to achieve a very high quality product.

The ship is propelled by water jets powered by three main engines, each with a capacity of 2720 KW, and built to the dual classification requirements of ABS and IRS.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Kochi / by Express News Service / July 19th, 2014

Home of radicals

The College of Fine Arts has a unique place in Indian art history as the origin point of a short-lived movement that still produces reverberations once in a while – the radical arts movement.

Fuelled by post-Emergency political fervour, a group of students from the college set out to produce a proletarian art movement that eschewed the existing visual styles.

The flames of rebellion were lighted by K.P. Krishnakumar, a student of the college in the 1970s, then practising his art in Baroda. Inspired by his call for change, college students Alexander, Hareendran, C.K. Rajan, Pradeep, and Jyothi Basu organised a camp among the fisherfolk of Vettukad with the help of a few liberation theology activists.

New avenues

Living with the fishing families for weeks and teaching them art through slideshows and then by making them the subject of their work in various mediums, the group opened new avenues in people’s art. These young artists then came together with other seniors from the college such as Alex Mathew, Pushkin E.H., K.M. Madhusudhan, K. Prabhakaran, and the sole non-Malayali Anita Dube to form the Indian Radical Painters and Sculptors’ Association in 1987.

Krishnakumar penned the group’s manifesto along with Anita Dube. It was a time of student protests against the policies of the government and in the college that of the administration, and it was all reflected in their programme. They questioned even the ‘retrogressive’ sensibilities of the Lalit Kala Akademi.

“The lack of guidance and the disruption of regular teaching had left us in search of possibilities through reading, looking, thinking, and interacting with each other. The discovery of great figures of world art who have meaningfully responded to their respective socio-political situations gave scope for us to expand our visual sensibilities. It is on the basis of this exposure to world art that our attitude against decadence in art and resistance to it began to evolve,” says the manifesto.

Their ‘Questions and dialogues’ exhibition at the Kozhikode Town Hall was marked by public participation and shook the art world. At the Victoria Terminus railway station in Mumbai, they protested against the art auction planned by Sotheby’s in 1987, and campaigned against crass commercialisation.

But just when they were on the rise, they were cut short by internal contradictions and the untimely death of Krishnakumar at the age of 30. He committed suicide during an artists’ camp in 1989.

At the Kochi Muziris Biennale in 2012, the old radicals came together to remember their fallen comrade. Two of his sculptures were also put on display at the Durbar Hall, but only a few knew the tragic story behind it.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Thiruvananthapuram / by  S. R. Praveen / Thiruvananthapuram – July 16th, 2014