A short film on cicada, shot at Maharaja’s College, bags top honours at National Science Film Festival
Kochi :
Cicada is an insect that turns an otherwise silent place noisy. In fact, it is its absence that continues to preserve the silence in the rain forests of Silent Valley.
However, it required these noisy creatures to bring laurels to Maharaja’s College campus, which was in the news recently for all the wrong reasons, thanks to its fare share of noisy scenes.
Ore Naadam…Ore Thaalam (Same Tune, Same Rhythm), a short film made by Kottarakkara-based Padanakendram of the Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad, in association with the zoology department at the college, has bagged the prestigious Golden Beaver Award for the best science and technology film at the seventh National Science Film Festival held at the Birla Industrial and Technological Museum in Kolkata from February 14 to 18.
The festival was organised by Vigyan Prasar of the Department of Science and Technology and the National Council for Science Museums.
The 25-minute film was directed by K.V. Sreenivasan Kartha, who had previously won the Golden Beaver Award in 2015 for another short film. C. Lilly, who wrote the screenplay, also received a special jury award.
“The whole idea was the popularisation of science, and the film aims at deconstructing several myths and misconceptions about cicadas and the sound they generate,” said K.S. Sunish, a faculty member of the zoology department at Maharaja’s College.
The film narrates how a group of children from Kottarakkara approaches Maharaja’s College in their quest to know more about cicada and where L.P. Rema, head of the zoology department, and Mr. Sunish take them through the many characteristics and life cycle of the insect.
One of the highlights of the film is a 2.30-minute visual on the moulting of cicada. But as ubiquitous as their sound is, it is equally tough to spot cicadas.
Some portions of the film were shot at Kottarakkara and some at the Kerala Forest Research Institute based on interactions with a scientist, T.V. Sajeev, who also happens to be an alumnus of Maharaja’s College.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kochi / by M P Praveen / February 26th, 2017
Going back in timeConservation architect and history buff Sharat Sunder Rajeev is the author of The King’s Craftsmen , which follows the footsteps of his ancestors / Special arrangement
Conservation architect Sharat Sunder Rajeev pieces together the history of his ancestors, legendary ivory carvers of Thiruvananthapuram, in his book The King’s Craftsmen
“ They came to the city in a large boat that halts at Vallakadavu. From Vallakadavu, they got into bullock carts to make the rest of the journey to my home…. Just behind the cart occupied by the patriarch was the cart that carried the wooden cradle made for the newborn Prince of Travancore…” narrated Sharada Ammal, then in her nineties, as a group of little children listened in wide-eyed wonder.
Grandmas have always told stories to children, tales that snuggled inside their imagination and nestled there for years together. That was how women kept alive oral history, especially about those that did not belong to upper echelons of society and so did not have the luxury of having their stories written by scholars and historians.
So it was with young Sharat Sunder Rajeev when he heard his grandaunts Sharada Ammal and Kamalam narrate stories about princes and princesses who came all the way from a place up on the Malabar coast and fabulous craftsmen who accompanied them to build palaces and temples for the royal family.
Little did Rajeev realise that the tales his grandaunts told the children were about their ancestors. By the time Rajeev became a teenager, the stories awoke in him an abiding curiosity to know more about his legendary ancestors; ingenious craftsmen who built many of the fabled temples in erstwhile Travancore and later became world famous as ivory carvers of Travancore.
“ Right from my school days, I began interacting with elders in my family to learn about the great craftsmen who had done our families proud with their breathtaking craftsmanship,” says Rajeev, a conservation architect and author of a book on ivory craftsmen of Thiruvananthapuram, The King’s Craftsmen .
The book tracks the footprints of his ancestors who came down from places around Kannur with two princesses who were adopted into the royal family of Travacore and settled in Attingal.
“Most of the earlier period had to be oral history as there is little written evidence. But their work has been mentioned in documents and temple records. So my book is a combination of oral history that has been passed down in our family and early records of some of the incidents that were written down by one of two of my ancestors. For instance, it has been documented that one of my ancestors Thottathil Moothu Asari was associated with the construction of the eastern gopurams of Padmanabhaswamy temple built around the 16th century,” says Rajeev.
Gathering stories
He has been working on the book for more than 10 years and travelled extensively to meet people and collect tales and material evidence of the craftsmen, who initially settled in Attingal, Kadakavoor and Navaikulam.
“Once the capital city began to grow under the monarchy of Marthanda Varma, these guilds began settling in Palkulangara, Pettah and Manacaud. I began the book when I was a student of the College of Engineering, Trivandrum and so there were limitations on how much time I could spend on the book. But I followed all the clues I got and met many of the descendants of the artisans who had once worked closely with the ruling families in Travancore and as Durbar artists,” says Sharat.
Completed five years ago, the book was published recently by the Kerala Council of Historical Research. Sharat’s book is at once a portrait of his illustrious ancestors and a thumbnail sketch of Kerala’s society in different periods of time. It is a piece of untold history that is told from the view of craftsmen and their legacy and how their body of work was shaped by influential princes.
He talks about how the legendary craftsmen of wood gradually began working in ivory as per the monarch’s orders, most likely during the time of Swathi Thirunal and how, over time, they became the best in the field of ivory carving and became famous as the Travancore school of ivory carving.
“Records show that Swathi was presented with a musical instrument Swarbath that was made in ivory by Kochu Kunju Asari on January 4, 1836. The best known is of course the ivory throne that was made for the Great Exhibition held in London. It won a prestigious prize at the exhibition and established Travancore as a centre of the finest ivory craftsmen,” explains Sharat.
To ensure that their craft was passed on to a new generation, the School of Arts was established around 1860 in Thiruvananthapuram and this eventually became the first fine arts college in Travancore and Kerala. Sharat got lucky as one of his relatives was able to give him a kind of log book that was once used in the college. That gave Sharat details about classes, teachers and students.
Turning artists
“Once ivory carving became illegal in the seventies, many of the craftsmen began to exchange the chisel for the brush and became well-known artists. Many of the early portraits of the royalty and feudal families were painted by them. Some of them went to Madras [Chennai] and got work as artists for posters and backdrops for plays and movies,” he says.
He points out how K. Madhavan, who printed some of the early posters of films in South India, was famous in those days for his posters for Tamil films.
That is not all. As Rajeev points out the book neatly documents the now extinct art of ivory carving with detailed diagrams and technical explanations. “The craft guilds had experts who could come up with exquisite works of art. They made everything from figurines and inlay work to cuff links, combs and bangles. Each had to be worked in a different way and since ivory was very hard, one wrong chip could spoil an expensive piece of ivory. So the carvers were perfectionists and disciplinarians,” he says with a smile.
Rajeev adds that the book also explains the reasons for the current socio-political place of the craftsmen’s descendants.
Even as his book opens a new chapter on the history of Thiruvananthapuram, Rajeev is busy at work on his next one.
The craft guilds had experts who could come up with exquisite works of art
Avid collector
Sharat Sunder Rajeev is a collector of antiques. On February 18, a day after the new redesigned The Hindu reached readers, Rajeev shared an image of The Hindu dated April 1, Friday, 1892 on his Facebook page, along with an explanation of how he had found it
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Features> MetroPlus / by Saraswathy Nagarajan / February 24th, 2017
The legend of Nangeli was birthed in blood and injustice. | Photo Credit: Illustration: Satwik Gade
The real story of how one woman’s rebellion against oppressive feudalism has been hijacked and repurposed by the patriarchy
Her name was Nangeli and she lived in Cherthala, a watery alcove on the Kerala coast. We do not know when she was born or who sired her. But we know she died in 1803, her spirit cast in a hundred moulds in the two hundred summers that followed. Today, Nangeli has champions on the Internet, her story is told by men and women seeking inspiration and courage on this side of time. And they too have recast her sacrifice, celebrating a tale that would have been alien to the protagonist. Nangeli has been reduced from a woman who thrust a dagger into the heart of society to one who died to preserve those artful shackles that many of us know as ‘honour’.
The contours of the tale are well known. Nangeli and her man, Chirukandan, were Ezhavas — toddy tappers — who laboured in that awkward gap that society fashions for those who are low but not the lowest. They had a little hut where they lived, and they had no children. Life for Nangeli and Chirukandan was as hard as it was for their neighbours. They toiled hand to mouth, toeing lines drawn by caste, and bowing before the pretensions of their superiors. Nothing about them was remarkable till Nangeli stood up. They will proclaim that she stood up to preserve her dignity, but that is because they are afraid to admit that she stood up to them. Nangeli was a rebel, but like many rebels, in death her memory became the possession of those she opposed. She threw off one tyrant, and found her legacy in the grasp of another.
The Kerala that Nangeli and Chirukandan knew was not the Kerala celebrated today for its healthy children, emancipated grandmothers, and literate masses. It was a hard, difficult landscape, and Cherthala was a speck on the map of Travancore, a state with a ruler of its own to whom was owed allegiance — and tax money. Land tax was low, but the Rajahs made up for this ancestral blunder through other levies. If you were a landless fisherman, you had a tax on your fishing net. If you were a man sporting a moustache, your facial hair fell within the mandate of the revenue inspector. If you owned slaves, you most certainly had to pay tax on these bleeding units of muscle. Nangeli and her husband acquiesced like loyal subjects, but they will tell you that she stood up to the one abhorrent tax that touched upon her honour; that when it came to her rights as a respectable woman, she declared: ‘No more.’
Cleaved her place
They came one morning, the story goes, to tax her breasts, leering at its shape and dimensions to calculate the figure owed. It was called mulakkaram — the breast tax — and women who were not high-born were surveyed as soon as they advanced from girlhood to adolescence. Nangeli was probably taxed for years, but in 1803 when the villains of the tale came to her hovel, she was prepared for the act that would cleave for her a place in history and lore. She went inside calmly while they waited by the threshold, it is said, and returned with the tax offering on a plantain leaf. Since they had come for the breast tax, that is what they got: Nangeli’s breasts, severed by her own hand and placed in a bleeding lump. She collapsed in a heap and died in agony, her corpse cradled by Chirukandan who returned to find his home turned into the scene of one of history’s great tragedies. Some say he jumped into the pyre as Nangeli burned and perished in flames of grief — for him too there was sacrifice.
The legend of Nangeli was birthed in blood and injustice. Women of low caste, they will tell you, couldn’t cover their bodies if they didn’t pay the breast tax. They silently wept and lamented their fate, shame building upon shame under the gaze of lewd old men for whom the right to dignity came with a price. But Nangeli was a woman of virtue — she would not barter money for honour. And so she chose death.
Embarrassed and horrified by the tyranny of their ways, the Rajahs abandoned the tax on breasts. Nangeli became a heroine. Womanhood prevailed.
This is the tale they will tell you of Nangeli. As it happens, it is all a travesty.
***
For a society as open as Kerala once was, breasts came to provoke a grave panic in the Victorian age. This was the land where Portuguese merchants in the 16th century beheld bare-breasted princesses, negotiating treaties of trade and leading bare-chested troops in battle. It was here that a 17th century Italian found himself in the court of a prince, packed with royal women covered only around the waist — two young nieces of the ruler wondered with amusement why on earth he was so covered up in the tropical heat. This was also the land where women enjoyed physical and sexual autonomy, where widowhood was no calamity and one husband could always be replaced with another. The coast was rich with the tales of great women — from Unniarcha of the Northern Ballad of Malabar, an accomplished warrior from Nangeli’s caste, to Umayamma of Attingal, a princess who reigned over kings. These were brave women of towering personality. But in the 19th century, Kerala’s moral conscience grappled not with their achievements as much as the conundrum that their unabashed bare-breastedness presented.
Virtue, as we recognise it today in its patriarchal definition, was not a concept that existed in Kerala. And till our colonial masters — and fellow Indians from patriarchal backgrounds — sat in judgement over the matrilineal streak heavily infused among the dominant groups here, women, their bare torsos, and their sexual freedoms did not in the least attract attention or opprobrium. Where elsewhere polygamy was a practice available to men, in Kerala there was polyandry on offer, because women were not unequal to their brothers (or, to be more exact, they were less unequal). They owned property and controlled resources, living fuller lives than the domesticated child-rearing destinies granted to their sisters elsewhere. But this was, of course, the case of women of privilege. For women like Nangeli there was no question of living a life of heroic glamour with armies or ballads; she had to earn her way through every day of uncertainty. It was in death that the songs followed, and so worrying were they, that they focussed not on Nangeli’s message but a perversion of it that was more palatable to changing social mores.
The advent of the British meant more than just political rule; they brought to Kerala a new sense of morality, reinforced by missionaries who had the ear of these foreign masters. Polyandrous marriage was deemed ‘very revolting’ — women were told that they ought to be virtuous, which meant deference to one husband, one master. They had to cultivate modesty, and toplessness was not a step in that direction. The sexual gaze of the patriarchal Victorian was turned towards the breast in Kerala, till then not a cause of concern. When men and women entered temples, they both took off their top cloth. Today only the men are obliged to do this. As late as the 1920s and 1930s, when Namboothiri Brahmin women for the first time acquired the blouse to cover themselves, purists excommunicated them for breaching custom — modesty and true moral superiority lay, they argued, in not covering up. As Aubrey Menen remarked of his grandmother’s attitude to his Irish mother, it was thought that ‘married women who wore blouses were Jezebels’ and ‘a wife who dressed herself could only be aiming at adultery’. To cover breasts because men demanded it, was regressive to elders as it meant succumbing to objectification. But these elders were a minority in the face of young, ‘progressive’ men bent on making their women ‘virtuous’.
What morality?
Across the coast, the torso — male and female — was not something that was covered. Higher castes sported shawls, but not for reasons of modesty or because they had notions of virtue more consistent with those of a patriarchal society, but because the shawl was a mark of honour. When Christian converts from lower castes covered themselves in the 1850s, riots broke out after violent upper-caste attacks on them. The bone of contention was not that the converted women wanted to cover themselves — it was that they had covered themselves with the shawl permitted only to the high-born. Peace was restored when the converts invented a blouse; the covering was not the issue in the first place. The tale of Nangeli that they will tell you today has her fighting to preserve her honour, where honour is construed as her right to cover the breast. But in Nangeli’s time, the honour of a woman was hardly linked to the area above the waist. As F. Fawcett remarked, dress was ‘a conventional affair, and it will be a matter of regret should false ideas of shame supplant those of natural dignity such as one sees expressed in the carriage and bearing of the well-bred… lady’.
But the import of Victorian patriarchy also imported shame, and women were told that a bare body was a mark of disgrace. Dignity lay in accepting male objectification; honour was in docility. Men, studying in colleges in big cities, received jibes about their topless mothers who may have had more than one husband. Could they ever be sure about who their fathers were? These men dragged into Kerala the masculinity of their patriarchal interlocutors, and women too, exposed to the West and a new conception of femininity, succumbed. ‘We will publish nothing related to politics,’ declared one of the region’s earliest women’s magazines in 1892, adding that ‘writings that energise the moral conscience’ — tips on cooking, stories of ‘ideal women’ — and ‘other such enlightening topics’ alone would be covered. A lady’s job was in the home as a mother, as a loyal wife, and as a housekeeper, not outside as a topless harlot who exercised her customary right to divorce. ‘As women,’ another declaration went, ‘our god-ordained duty is the care of the home and service towards our husbands.’
Roles recast
New icons needed to be found. Women who fit the bill of the new order rather than those who were emblems of a now disgusting bare-bosomed past. And where such women were in short supply, existing women were reincarnated, as J. Devika has shown. Umayamma of Attingal, the topless queen whom the Dutch noted for her ‘noble and manly conduct’, who was ‘feared and respected by everyone’, and who was a ‘young Amazon’, became in S. Parameswara Iyer’s poetry, a melodramatic damsel in distress, a helpless mother (when, in fact, she had no children) pleading for a male protector. Where the English found that the ‘handsomest young men about the country’ formed her seraglio and ‘whom and as many [men] as she pleases to the honour of her bed’ could be had by her, now she became a loyal, patriarchal icon of womanly virtue. The women of the past were turned into ciphers for the present, filled with doses of honour and draped in garbs tailored by men. The wheels of time had turned and this is what was needed in Kerala.
***
Nangeli too was recast. When Nangeli offered her breasts on a plantain leaf to the Rajah’s men, she demanded not the right to cover her breasts, for she would not have cared about this ‘right’ that meant nothing in her day. Indeed, the mulakkaram had little to do with breasts other than the tenuous connection of nomenclature. It was a poll tax charged from low-caste communities, as well as other minorities. Capitation due from men was the talakkaram — head tax — and to distinguish female payees in a household, their tax was the mulakkaram — breast tax. The tax was not based on the size of the breast or its attractiveness, as Nangeli’s storytellers will claim, but was one standard rate charged from women as a certainly oppressive but very general tax.
When Nangeli stood up, squeezed to the extremes of poverty by a regressive tax system, it was a statement made in great anguish about the injustice of the social order itself. Her call was not to celebrate modesty and honour; it was a siren call against caste and the rotting feudalism that victimised those in its underbelly who could not challenge it. She was a heroine of all who were poor and weak, not the archetype of middle-class womanly honour she has today become. But they could not admit that Nangeli’s sacrifice was an ultimatum to the order, so they remodelled her as a virtuous goddess, one who sought to cover her breasts rather than one who issued a challenge to power. The spirit of her rebellion was buried in favour of its letter, and Nangeli reduced to the sum of her breasts.
The writer, who authored the award-winning The Ivory Throne, when not writing is busy trying to make a mean meen pollichathu.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Society> History & Culture / by Manu S. Pillai
Window to past The Koonan Kurishu Church that was renovated by avoiding conventional building materials.
Church commemorates the January 1653 vow taken by Malankara Nazranis
The Koonan Kurishu Church (Church of the Leaning Cross) in Mattancherry has undergone a transformation worthy of its remarkable place in history.
The church, built in 1751, commemorates the January 1653 vow taken by the Malankara Nazranis or Christians against Portuguese and Roman Catholic Church attempts to dominate their spiritual and ritual affairs.
The 1751 church underwent major renovation in 1974. Now, it has been renovated by retaining the original structure except in places where it had deteriorated badly. The church has been rebuilt, mostly avoiding conventional materials such as cement and steel, and using compressed, stabilised mud blocks.
The renovated church provides a brief glimpse into the past with its earthy shade, domes, vaults and arches that rise up as symbols of early eastern Christianity. The Marthoma Cross (St. Thomas Cross) crowns it and the altar is blessed by a cross formed by light beams, says NRI businessman and philanthropist John Samuel Kuruvilla who oversaw the renovation works.
He said architect Vinu Daniel designed the structure. The masons were provided training in the use of earth blocks, employing the ancient Nubian technology of arch and vault-building without extensive shuttering, said Mr. Kuruvilla.
The Koonankurisu Church, under the Malankara Indian Orthodox Church, will be reconsecrated on February 24 and 25. A religious amity meet will be organised as part of the reconsecration of the church. The all-religion meet will celebrate its lineage steeped in an era when different communities lived in harmony.
The spot where the church is located is where thousands of the Nazranis, restive over the Portuguese efforts to dominate, gathered to pledge their allegiance to their long-standing traditions. But the gathering was so large that hundreds were unable to touch the cross directly. They drew a rope from the cross, and touching it, publicly denounced the Portuguese. The story is that the cross bent under pressure and hence the name ‘Koonan Kurisu’. The event is described as ‘Koonan Kurishu Sathyam’ or the oath before the bent cross.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Kochi / by Special Correspondent / Kochi – February 22nd, 2017
On November 23, 2016, Josephai Abraham (Sam) stood inside the 1.5 acre Jewish cemetery on the Kathrakadavu-Pullepady road, Kochi. It was the burial of his mother-in-law Miriam Joshua, aged 89. “When I looked around, I suddenly realised that the cemetery was in bad shape,” he says. Many tombs could not be seen because of the high grass.
There were more problems. “At one corner, neighbours had thrown their garbage, in plastic packets,” says Sam, the president of the Association of Kerala Jews. “Some inhabitants had pushed their water pipes under the wall, so that all the waste water would flow into the property.”
The shield of david and the menorah on the compound wall. (Above) An earlier picture of the cemetery
So Sam decided to do something, with the backing of six families of the association. Workers were hired, grass and weeds were chopped off, and, at one side, where there was a marshy pond, several layers of building waste was put in, to smoothen the surface. “Thereafter, interlocking tiles had been put,” says Sam.
“At least now, we can park our cars inside. Otherwise, we had to do so on the narrow road and it created problems for the other motorists.” The walls have been painted white and many tombs, which were broken, have been repaired and repainted.
And, on the wall, at the opposite end to the entrance, a Shield of David have been etched, along with the seven candles of the Menorah.
The Menorah has been a symbol of Judaism, from ancient times, and is now part of the emblem of the state of Israel.
However, it has not been smooth sailing. One neighbour approached Sam and told him he could not do any renovation, as all construction has been frozen. On being asked how, the neighbour said there are expansion plans for the road and the cemetery will be taken over. “I said no such decision has been taken,” says Sam.
Then, in mid-January, Gracy Joseph, Chairperson, Standing Committee for Development of the Cochin Corporation, came to inquire. “I had received complaints from the local residents that some construction was going on,” she says. “But the members of the Jewish community told me that they were only renovating the place.”
Clearly, the cemetery is under threat. “The Cochin Corporation has plans to broaden the road,” says Association secretary Dr Susy Elias.
But Soumini Jain, the Mayor of the Corporation says that the stretch in front of the cemetery has been handed over to the Public Works Department of the State government. “It is they who will do the road expansion works,” she says.
“There are suggestions of building an overbridge in front of the cemetery. But whether the government has the funds for that, I am not sure.”
Meanwhile, according to Jewish religious law, once a person is buried, the grave cannot be disturbed. It can only be removed if a relative gives permission. But the local Jews have no idea where they are, since many have emigrated to Israel. So, the Jews are anxious about whether the authorities will insist that they will have to give up a part of their cemetery. “Many tombs will be disturbed,” says Sam.
Sometime ago, the association got in touch with Israeli ambassador Daniel Carmon. Thereafter, last month, the Bangalore-based Israeli Counsel General Yael Hashavit met Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and appraised him of the situation. “The CM said that he was aware of it,” says Mordokkayi Shafeer, the treasurer of the association.
Meanwhile, despite these tensions, the Jews come once a month to light candles and to pray at the graves. “We also come on death anniversaries and during the Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) festival,” says Shafeer. “Life has to go on.”
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Kochi / by Shevlin Sebastian / Express News Service / February 20th, 2017
Writer Kiliroor Radhakrishnan has bagged the Pala K M Mathew Children’s Literature Award instituted by the Kerala State Institute of Children’s Literature.
His work ‘Kadhakaliloode Ayyankaali’ was selected for the award that carries a purse of Rs 60,001, a citation and plaque. Culture minister A K Balan will give away the award at VJT Hall on March 5.
Adinad Gopi’s poem ‘Thirinju Nokki Nadakkuka’, Thekkinkadu Joseph’s novel ‘Super Boy Ramuvum Cloning Manushyarum’, S Shanthi’s work on science ‘Sahajeevanam Jeevante Oruma’, Sanil P Thomas’s work on academics ‘Ningalkkumaakam Sports Thaaram’, P K Gopi’s autobiography ‘Olachoottinte Velicham’, John Samuel’s work ‘Vishwothara Nadodi Kadhakal’ for translation, K V Ganesh’s play ‘Manthrika Kannadi’, Gopidas’s illustration ‘Maanippullundaaya Kadha’, K P Muraleedharan’s comic ‘Appuvinte Khadikaaram’ have also been selected for awards under various categories.
source: http://www.timeofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Thiruvananthapuram News / TNN / February 19th, 2017
The 122nd Maramon Convention has honoured the Metropolitan Emeritus of the Malankara Mar Thoma Syrian Church, Philipose Mar Chrysostum, who will be celebrating his 100th birth anniversary on April 27, at a function held at the traditional convention venue on the sand bed of the river at Maramon near Kozhencherry on Saturday.
The supreme head of the Mar Thoma Church, Joseph Mar Thoma, felicitated Mar Chrysostum on behalf of the Church as well as the Maramon Convention which is billed as Asia’s largest week-long annual congregation on the occasion.
The Metropolitan further announced that the new mission project undertaken by the Mar Thoma Evangelistic Association in Andhra Pradesh would be named after the Metropolitan Emeritus as `Mar Chrysostum Birth Centenary Mission Project’.
Yuyakim Mar Coorilos Episcopa presided the meeting. Bishop Mar Aprem of the Chaldian Church, Cyril Mar Baselius of the Thozhiyur Syrian Christian Church, the Rajya Sabha Deputy Speaker P.J.Kurien, and Mathew T.Thomas, Water Resources Minister, were among those who attended the meeting, besides all bishops of the Mar Thoma Church.
Addressing the congregation, Mar Chrysostum said he firmly believed it as a great privilage and God’s blessings to be a part of the Mar Thoma Church at different stages. “It was nothing but sheer Blessings of the Lord Almighty that has made me what Iam,’’ he said.
Mar Chrysostum invited two children who were sitting in the front row to cut the birthday cake. The Metropolitan Emeritus and the Mar Thoma Metropolitan also shared sweets each other on the occasion.
The renowned evangelist, Lord Griffiths from United Kingdom, delivered the religious discourse on the occasion.
Yuyakim Mar Coorilos Episcopa del addressed the afternoon session of the Maramon Convention.
The century-old annual Christian retreat will come to a close on Sunday afternoon. The Mar Thoma Metropolitan will deliver the valedictory message.
EOM.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Kerala / by Special Correspondent / Pathanamthitta – February 18th, 2017
Alliance Francaise de Trivandrum in association with the Embassy of France in India will be screening Farewell My Indian Soldier, a documentary film by Paris-based Indian filmmaker Vijay Singh.
The film will be screened on February 19 at 6.30pm at Bharat Bhavan. Vijay Singh, known filmmaker, scriptwriter and novelist, will be present along with Shashi Tharoor, the chief guest of the evening.
Farewell My Indian Soldier is a docu-fiction on Indian soldiers who came to France and Belgium to fight in the First World War. Following its market screening at the Cannes Film Festival 2016, this film is expected to travel to international film festivals worldwide.
It’s also the first ever film to be dedicated to the 140,000 Indian soldiers and civilian workers who defended France against invasion.
Co-produced by Silhouette Films and Rajya Sabha Television, and supported by the Embassy of France in India, this film uses rare archive material, historical testimonies, 100-year old Indian war songs and 600 insightful letters written by soldiers to tell the story of 10,000 Indian soldiers who never returned to their motherland.
The screening will be followed by a discussion between the director and the chief guest Shashi Tharoor. Entry is free.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Thiruvananthapuram / Express News Service / February 16th, 2017
Deepu Gopakumar, a 28-year-old research student of Nanoscience technology at MG University
Kottayam :
In a breakthrough invention , a research student at the MG University here developed a method to remove toxic dyes and Nano particles from water using cellulose based Nano filters made from agro waste. It was Deepu Gopakumar, 28-year-old research student of Nano Science technology at the varsity who made this important invention which will help in cost effective purification of water in future. A green approach for purification of water is also made possible as organic solvents are not needed in this new method.
Deepu developed a Nano cellulose based Nano fibrous membrane from agro waste (pineapple, banana, coir etc.) for the removal of toxic textile dyes and nanoparticles from water. Currently, most of the surface modifications of cellulose nanofibers are done using toxic organic solvents. The new method is the first one where the surface modifications of cellulose Nano fibers is done through non solvent assisted procedure.
Deepu did his research under the supervision of Sabu Thomas and Nandakumar Kalarikkal at the International and Inter University Centre for Nano science and Nanotechnology (IIUCNN), MG University. The research also had support of Federal University of Uberlandia, Brazil, under the supervision of Daniel Paiquini, said MG Vice Chancellor Babu Sebastian. The results of the study were recently published in ACS sustainable energy and engineering. American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific society based in the United States that supports scientific inquiry in the field of chemistry.
According to Deepu, the bed developed from the agro waste which is used for purification of water can be continuously used for six months after that it has to be cleaned. Since the membrane does not have any organic solvent, minerals are not lost from the water.
Babu Sebastian said that the University will apply for a patent for the invention. Research guides Sabu Thomas and Nandakumar said that the University will start producing it commercially within a year after finding a business partner. The university is also planning to develop miniature models which can be connected to the water taps. According to initial studies the cost of purifying water which costs around Rs 5 for a litre can be reduced to Rs 2 using the new method. It can also be sued for sea water purification.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Kozhikode News / Jaikrishnan Nair / TNN / February 13th, 2017
Off-stage events of Kannur University arts festival begin
India is marching ahead in two fields, technology and corruption, said renowned writer T. Padmanabhan in an apparent hint at the all-round technological advancement especially in the light of Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) feat of putting into orbit a record 104 polar satellites through launch of PSLV 37 on Wednesday and the Supreme Court’s verdict in the disproportionate asset case against AIADMK leader V.K. Sasikala.
The writer was addressing a function to mark the formal inauguration of the two-day off-stage events of the Kannur University Kalotsavam at Lal Bahadur Shastri (LBS) Engineering College at Povval near here.
Referring to the ongoing Assembly polls in four States, Mr. Padmanabhan alleged that many candidates were accused or convicted in murder and criminal cases and the voters are left with no option but to elect them as their representatives.
Terming former Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri a sincere and honest political leader, he said the present generation often failed to remember him. Very few knew that LBS, a leading engineering college which is hosting the five-day event, is named after the former prime minister. Similarly, not many know that the busy MG roads in leading cities in the country are named after Mahatma Gandhi.
Artist Puninchithaya, who hails from the district, left the audience in awe by painting a portrait using a knife at the function. He said the new generation was giving a go-by to the rich and varied cultural traditions of the country. Artists should be given as much importance as poets and writers, P.V. Shaji Kumar, writer, said at the function. Mr. Shaji added that while in Kozhikode, people moved about freely during late hours, Kasaragod wears a deserted look. The situation could be restored only by staging arts and cultural events in the communally sensitive areas in the district.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Thiruvananthapuram / by Staff Reporter / Kasargod – February 16th, 2017
