Saturday, April 25, 2015

For the Love of Indian Railways…

For the Love of Indian Railways…

Published: 18th April 2015 01:03 PM
Last Updated: 21st April 2015 01:26 PM
History took a new track around 162 years back when a 14 carriage long train traveled from Bombay to Thane on April 16, 1853 marking the maiden run for Railways on Indian Soil among loud cheers. And what has continued is there for all to see- years of legacy, decades of exceptional service and scores of happy passengers like me who cannot get enough of Indian Railways.Since from my first ever train ride between Mangalore to Sakleshpur on the Konkan coast in early 90’s to the much improved travels on super-fast Shatabdis today, my love for the railways in India has only multiplied manifold. The window of an Indian Rail is indeed a window that depicts the many aspects of life and terrain in India. The dried up riverbeds, sun kissed paddy fields, the 7x8 huts in slums, sleepish small towns, and playful kids of the countryside are all a common sight when you transverse through the length and breadth of the country on any long train journey. Those sultry summer journeys on Indian trains relishing IRTC meals and tomato soup are probably fond memories of every Indian child.
I have my memories too, those that I can cherish forever. Be it travelling with my family on LTC’s or with friends for Sports Nationals, be it for work or for leisure, rail journeys, almost always, meant midnight pranks, munching on junk food and sitting alone by the window allowing speeding wind to play with your flowing hair. Moreover, meeting new people and knowing mundane and profound details of their life was the best part of Indian Rail Journeys.
As a nation, we have enough reasons to be proud of this mighty organization. The Indian Railways is the seventh largest commercial or utility employer in the world. With over 1.307 million employees, Indian Railways runs around d 11,000 trains every day. The Indian Mountain Railways comprising of seven ‘chottey’ (small) lines in the Himalayas and Western Ghats are also a delight that every train lover should experience. Out of these seven heritage lines, three of them namely the Kalka-Shimla Railway (with its iconic 103 tunnels and 864 bridges), the Nilgiri mountain Railway and the Darjeeling Himalayan Railway are collectively designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site . Hail Indian Railways!
Dating back to 1853, the Indian Railways is one the greatest British legacies we have in our country.
Faster trains, upgradations, scams, innovations- the Indian Railways has also had its fair share of newsy controversies. Remember Lalu Prasad Yadav’s infamous Kullad (tiny clay cups) Chai that was implemented on trains!
However, for a teeming population of India trains are still the main source of commuting to work. For million others, it is also the cheapest means for long distance travel in India. And for many more fans like me trains are synonymous with long journeys, swiftly changing landscapes, screeching whistles and nostalgia! As the Indian Railways continues to amuse us all, here’s wishing them a happy 162nd anniversary.
FACTBOX
  • The first railway line from Bombay to Thane covered over 34 kilometers. A salute of 21 guns was given when the engine rolled out of the Boribunder station at 3:30 PM on 16th April, 1853. The train which had 14 railway carriages carried over 400 guests. Today the Indian Railways covers 1,08,706 kilometres of track length all over the country.


  • The Barog tunnel is the longest of the 103 operational tunnels on the UNESCO recognised Kalka-Shimla Railway. Also the considered the straightest tunnel in the world, it is named after Colonel Barog, a British official who committed suicide after he was fined for his miscalculations during the digging of the tunnel. He was later buried at the entrance of the tunnel and locals believe that his ghost still haunts the dark and damp tunnel.


  • The Pamban bridge is a century old railway sea bridge which connects the island town of Rameswaram to mainland India. It is a cantilever bridge which can be raised to let ships pass.


  • In 1924 for the first time, the railway finances of India were separated from the general finances based on the recommendations of a British Railway economist William Acworth. Since then, a separate budget is presented for Railways just a few days ahead of the Union budget. Lalu Prasad Yadav has the rare distinction of presenting the Railway budget six times in a row from 2004 to 2009.


  • The Indian Railways holds the record for the largest known strike in Indian history. The strike led by George Fernandes, the then President of the All India Railwaymen’s Federation in 1974 saw 17 lakh workers demanding a rise in railway pay scale.

Friday, April 24, 2015

Bombay 1950

story of cricket in India

1721 – The earliest mention of cricket in India - Latest ...

www.cricketcountry.com/.../1721-the-earliest-mention-of-cricket-in-indi...

Sep 4, 2014 - The first mention of cricket in India dates back to 1721, in an obscure journal of a East India Company seaman. Arunabha Sengupta delves ..

1721 – The earliest mention of cricket in India

Cricket-in-India
It is believed that the Parsee community’s were the first to accept cricket in India © Getty Images (Representational Photo)
The first mention of cricket in India dates back to 1721, in an obscure journal of a East India Company seaman. Arunabha Sengupta delves deep into the details of the account.  
Cricket is an Indian game accidentally discovered by the British, says Ashish Nandy in his Tao of Cricket. Some disagree with the idea, albeit after emitting the well-deserved chuckle. Cricket to them is a quintessentially English game which reached the Indian shores only to be taken apart and reassembled in various avatars which bore no more than a passing resemblance to the original noble sport.
However, when did cricket reach the shores of the country? It is largely believed that the game travelled to India with the mariners of the British East India Company and very, very slowly found acceptance among the Indians, starting with the Parsee community.
Noted cricket historians from FS Ashley-Cooper to HS Altham to PF Thomas did not dwell on the origins of cricket in India even though they documented the history of the game with meticulous precision. It was left to an obscure reference by JS Cotton in The Athenaeum of 1905 to cast some much needed light on the dim pages of early beginnings of the game in a country which would be its foster home.
In a curious, convoluted chain of historical references, Cotton’s source was from India itself, drawing on Narendra Nath Ganguly’s 1871 monograph on the Calcutta Cricket Club, which in turn referred to an ancient volume by Clement Downing published in London in 1737.
We owe the earliest mention of cricket in India to Downing, an Englishman of unknown origins, who, according to the fantastic cricket historian Rowland Bowen, was ‘that type of rolling stone who, once familiar with the Indian scene, could not keep away from it, either because it fascinated him, or because the mere fact of his sojourn in Indian waters gave him a knowledge, and an expertise, not available to others, and which, therefore, could command a price.’ Presumably, he started as a seaman and graduated into an officer of the East India Company.
It was shortly before his final voyage to India — Downing passed away during the journey — he wrote down his experiences in a rather disjointed book which bore the ridiculously long title A Compendious History of the Indian Wars with an Account of the Rise, Progress, Strength and Forces of Angria the Pyrate. Also the Transactions of a Squadron of Men of War under Commodore Mathews sent to East-Indies to suppress the Pyrates. To which is annex’d, An Additional History of Wars between the Great Mogul , Angria, and his Allies, With an Account of the Life and Actions of John Plantain, a notorious Pyrate, at Madagascar, his Wars, with the Natives on that Island, where having continued eight Years, he join’d Agria, and was made his chief Admiral, by Clement Downing, Midshipman on board the Salisbury, afterwards Lieutenant of the Victory frigate, Fame Gally, and Revenge Grab, part of the Squadron employ’d by the East India Company to attack Angria; and sometimes Engineer in the service of the Great Mogul. The volume, published as mentioned in 1737, was priced at 2s. 6d.
In the original edition, pages 228 and 229 contained the following extract:
“When we lay in the same Place, and I was captain Herring’s Lieutenant, Captain Dogget inHunter-Galley was with us; for we never had any single Vessel sent up from Bombay after this Accident, but always two together. If we did not happen to go just at the Height of the Spring-Tides, we could not get over the Bar, the Channel being so very difficult. Captain Dogget and Captain Herring went up our Galleywat, which was allow’d us a Tender. We lay here a fortnight before they return’d, and all the while kept a good look-out, and tho’ all the Country round was inhabited by the Culeys, we every day diverted ourselves with playing at Cricket, and other Exercises, which they would come and be Spectators of. But we never ventur’d to recreate ourselves in this method, without having Arms for ourselves, and guarded by some of our Soldiers, lest the Country should come down upon us. Several times, four or five of the Heads of the Town came down on Horseback, with great attendance: They had two Men generally running at their Horse’s Heads, with bamboo Lances of a great length, and one or two a little before them, with their Swords and Targets. When we found they never offer’d to disturb us, Lieutenant Stevens and Lieutenant Radbone sent to me, and ask’d if I would venture with them to take a Walk to a Town about two or three Miles off.”
This description tells us that the mariners did enjoy games of cricket and it often drew crowds of locals curious about the action. They came to watch in hordes, some eminent members of their community turning up with considerable fanfare on horseback.
The place where these games of cricket took place was Cambay, some 250 miles north of the current Mumbai, 30 miles west of Baroda. The ‘Culeys’ mentioned in the piece are the Kolis, the hill tribe of Gujarat, who had been the sworn enemies of the Moghuls at that time.
The Hunter, the ship mentioned in the piece, did sail to India in December 1721, which helps us date the games of cricket with a certain degree of accuracy. This was just the second known occurrence of cricket being played away from England after some English tradesmen enjoyed a game while holidaying at Aleppo in 1676.
(Arunabha Sengupta is a cricket historian and Chief Cricket Writer at CricketCountry. He writes about the history and the romance of the game, punctuated often by opinions about modern day cricket, while his post-graduate degree in statistics peeps through in occasional analytical pieces. The author of three novels, he can be followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/senantix)
The First Indian Cricket Team Tour To England – 1886

History of cricket in India to 1918 - Wikipedia, the free ...

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cricket_in_India_to_1918
Sachin Tendulkar And Vinod Kambli

Jump to Early developments - [edit]. The first definite reference to cricket being played anywhere in the sub-continent is a report of English sailors of the ...


Anna Hazare during his days in the Indian Army.

Anna Hazare during his days in the Indian Army.



Anna Hazare - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_Hazare
Hazare was drafted in the Indian Army in April 1960, where he initially worked as an army truck driver and was later attested as a soldier. He undertook army ...

NK/Dvr Anna Hazare of 65 Indo Pak War

Anna Hazare :The Indian Army Veteran NK/Dvr ... - Blogs

blogs.siliconindia.com/.../Anna-Hazare-The-Indian-Army-veteran-NKDv...

 

 
One day Naik (Nk) Anna Hazare was driving his vehicle as part of the convoy across international border when, their vehicular column came under intense attack of fighter aircrafts of PAF. The attack continued for 10 to 15 minutes. All drivers under took all passive measures to ward off the attacks. Once the attack was over, Nk Anna Hazare got up from the road side deep pit a shelter which he had taken to save himself, visited other vehicles and found that all other drivers and co-drivers had been killed due to Pakistan Air Force air strafing and he was the sole survivor. Anna was deeply shaken and questioned him as to why only his life had been spared among all his colleagues, however, he got no answer. As the Indo-Pak war came to an end, Anna Hazare requested for some leave .While moving back the question as to why only he survived never left his psyche. At Pathankot railway station he purchased one book on life of Swami Vivekananda which he read and re -read throughout his journey back home. One particular thought in the book really hit his mind hard that was, Swami Vivekananda propagated that we human being are meant to live for others not for themselves as most of the humans are doing presently which is next to animal behavior.    
 On reaching his village whose economic status and social status was very low. The whole village had no cultivable land, they had only 20 odd cattle’s for milking, there was no source of drinkable water and the general area around the village was devoid of trees. His village was located in rain shadow area which was draught stricken. The villagers were very poor and their only source of income was sale of locally brewed illicit liquor. There was not even one concrete house in the village and all were living under thatched huts. There was no school in nearby areas up to 20 kms. Drinking water used to come once in a week in water trailers sent by the Collector from Ahmednagar 60 km away. In general, villagers were living under very poor and pathetic conditions. Anna Hazare decided to do something for his village and at that stage he did not know as what he will do; nevertheless he decided to do something. He took premature discharge from the Army and came and settled in his village.   
 Anna only received Rs 25000/- from the Army as lump-sum payment for pension which he pooled in and jumped in to improve the village. There was one temple in the village Anna improved the temple and started living there. He vowed to remain unmarried and dedicate his life for the up liftment of the villagers. He motivated some young persons of the village and first undertook the task of watershed management for the village. Prior to the rainy season they made bunds so that water did not flow away. They planted trees, ensuring cleanliness in the village and organized classes in a make shift classroom at the temple. The village had almost 2500 acres of land out of which only few acres was cultivable. Through sustained efforts of Anna and his team, the water table started rising, land bank of cultivable land increased, children started learning, and people purchased few buffalos and cows.  
 Today the Anna Hazare, s village displays a different story.All 2000 acres of land is being cultivated, village has 3000 cattle, all houses in the village are pucka and per capita income of villagers has gone up by many folds. There is one school which is of international standard. This school apart from taking students of the area also admits students who have been dropouts or failures. The School is being run like military schools and it produces very good results. All areas around 40 kms of Ralegan Sidhi have green cover, water table has come up and water is being conserved through water shed management techniques. He accomplished all this through “Sharam Daan”, motivating villagers to work on the rolling landscape of the area around his village. He developed a very innovative bunds and small reservoirs along the contours which were designed to hold almost every drop of whatever scanty rainfall the parched land received. Soon the subsoil water reserves reached a level sufficient to cater to the agricultural and drinking needs of the village even if it did not rain for two consecutive years. There is one institute come up in the village being supervised by Shri Anna Hazare which conducts classes for students and farmers from all over the globe. They come to learn techniques of rural development and watershed management. Today Anna has been asked by the Maharashtra Government to bring up 300 villages of the state on model village like Ralegan Sidhi. Shri Anna is on advisory in agriculture and rural development of five states and has got 45 awards to his credit out of which 30 are international awards.    
 Anna sahib spearheaded “Bharastachar Nirman Andolan”, a movement aimed at cleansing the society of the malaise of corruption in public life. Anna Hazare was the person who initiated the Right to Information act first time in Maharashtra. He had to agitate for a very long time to get this act through in Maharashtra against all the opposition from the politicians and beuaurecrats; thereafter he agitated to get it through at National level. He was the force behind getting Telgi Stamp scam unearthed and later investigated in which number of ministers had to resign and many Babu,s were suspended.    
 One fine day one contingent of police led by one inspector reported to him at his residence at Ralegan. Anna very politely asked inspector purpose of his visit. The inspector informed Anna that Chief Minister had detailed him with 20 Sepoys saying that Anna was under threat in view of his role in unearthing Telgi Scam. Anna very politely told the inspector that he had died long back while serving in Army during 1965 Indo Pak War and if anyone wants to pump some bullets into a dead body let them. He asked the inspector to go back and inform the CM that he needs no protection.    
 While serving as Commandant Mechanized Infantry Regimental Centre at Ahmednagar; I came very close to Shri Anna Hazare. Once I invited him to our regimental centre to address 5000 soldiers posted there and large number of them was under training. Anna accepted our invitation; most interesting part of his one hour talk to them was that out of 5000 persons not even single person dosed off, which used to be normal phenomena since training schedule for the soldiers used to be very hard and invariably some of them used to fall asleep in the mass lectures. All men identified themselves with Anna Hazare since he was Ex soldier were highly motivated with his talk to them.

 


  1. Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pakistani_War_of_1965
    Jump to India - India. Despite the declaration of a ceasefire, India was perceived as the victor due to its success in halting the Pakistan-backed insurgency ...
  2. Indo-Pakistani Air War of 1965 - Wikipedia, the free ...

    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Pakistani_Air_War_of_1965
    The Indo-Pakistani War of 1965 saw the Indian and Pakistani Air Forces engaged in large-scale aerial combat against each other for the first time since the ...
  3. The India-Pakistan War of 1965 - Office of the Historian

    https://history.state.gov/milestones/1961-1968/india-pakistan-war
    The 1965 war between India and Pakistan was the second conflict between the two countries over the status of the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The clash did ...

 1965 war-from google images[click on photos to get details]

 

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