Almost 75 years ago, an association, called Bengali Literary Society (BLS) was founded at St Xavier?s College under the patronage of Prof Dhirendranath Mukherjee. Its primary objective was to promote Bengali language, culture and literature. Many eminent persons and ex-Xaverians like writer Pramatha Choudhury, Buddhadeb Guha, Alokranjan Dasgupta, dramatist Sambhu Mitra, Utpal Dutta, Anil Chatterjee, Ramaprasad Banik and others were all attached to this association.

The silver and golden jubilees of BLS were celebrated in a befitting manner and now, the stage is set for the platinum jubilee bash, with the active support of St Xavier?s College (Calcutta) Alumni Association. The inaugural programme will take place on September 14 at the college auditorium, 5 pm onwards. The celebrations will continue the next day with a grand concert by leading artistes, many of whom are ex-Xaverians.

All former members of BLS are urged to contact at sxcbls@gmail.com or call at 9330962198, 9830028644, 9831096308, 9830015094, 9830389370, 9830084886 and 9830028634.

Abhisek Banerjee,
St Xavier?s College Alumni Association

On the block

At the inauguration of Taradevi Harakchand Kankaria Jain College in Cossipore on July 15, Left Front chairman Biman Bose said it was difficult for the state to meet the increasing demand for higher education. ?Therefore, we are encouraging more private-public partnerships,? he added.

The college, affiliated to Calcutta University, will offer degree courses in microbiology and computer science. Classes for the first batch, comprising 60 students, will commence soon.

?Our faculty consists of nine teachers. The students will be charged Rs 14,000 per year for the course. We are also going to start a B.Ed college on the premises by 2007. A dental college is also in the pipeline,? said O.P. Singh, principal of the new college.

Nikhil Singh & Dipak Agarwal,
Class XII, Shree Jain Vidyalaya

Rowing basics

Students of Apeejay School, Park Street and Salt Lake, who are members of the school?s Adventure Sports in Education Club, were taken to Baishnabghata to learn the basics of kayaking on June 30 and July 1.

We could barely hide our excitement as each one of us stepped into the elongated and narrow moulded plastic kayaks. We were taught how to use the short double-bladed oars and to steer the kayak. We were thrilled about trying out what we had so far only seen on television.

The excursion, which was held over two days for different groups of students, was a huge success.

Aditya Bajoria,
Class IX, Apeejay School

Only Connect Abhijit Gupta

Blogging at a cyber cafe. A Telegraph picture

Blog clog

Some of my friends told me that my first column made no sense whatsoever, as I had omitted to mention one significant fact ? that it was all about virtual lives. Ok, so now you know folks ? virtual lives, get ?em while they are fresh and cheap!

Only, there?s a bit of a snag, owing to there being not much virtual living available in these parts nowadays. For the past week, millions of Internet-users across the country have been denied access to their blogs and websites. In a move unprecedented in India?s cyber history, a bunch of busybodies at the department of telecommunications ordered all major Internet service providers to pull the plug on blogosphere. Khattam-shud.

In a belated damage-control exercise, the ministry has now said it was only trying to block a small matter of 17 blogs which were purveyors of anti-national sentiments, but the ISPs went the whole hog and managed to block everyone. As an instance of fatuity the statement would be hard to beat, but those familiar with the ways of Indian government should not be surprised. Banning is something of a national pastime with us, regardless of class, religion or politics.

This time, though, the plot did not unfold according to script. Usually, the banned party is expected to tuck its tail between its legs and retire hurt. But prompt and concerted action by the blogging community not only ensured that the ban could easily be bypassed, but there was also enough bad press to force the government to backtrack. However, at the time of writing this column, the blogs are still not back on, so one has to wait and see if the department of telecommunications has had a change of heart.

The real issue, though, is one of censorship with no easy answers. Is freedom of expression an absolute right? Should those who spread hatred enjoy the same freedom of expression as those who don?t? It would take a brave person who could truthfully say yes to both questions. At the university where I teach, we ran a course on literature and censorship last semester. These questions repeatedly came up as we tried to make sense of the controversies surrounding the Danish cartoons or The Da Vinci Code.

Now that the blogging community has fought the good fight, I would like to see it extend the same vigilance to other violations of speech which take place daily among people who have little or no access to the circuits of power and technology. If we do not safeguard the rights of those who may not be able to do so themselves, this sordid little episode will repeat itself over and over again.

Next week: Don?t worry, we haven?t forgotten the book on the train