Who will change Kolkata’s skyline? For sure it’ll not be the doing of one or 2 entities. But if there’s one company that will corner the lion’s share of the glory, it must be the DLF India. In today’s TT, the sum of money flaunted as DLF’s proposed investment in and around the city for […]
Kolkata’s river
Anybody who hasn’t been to Kolkata including many in our country may find it hard to gauge that the city stands by a mighty river. The Hooghly river is not only snow-fed and therefore has water all round the year, it is also home to the play of tides from/to the Bay of Bengal. The […]
Kolkata’s longest flyover
Starting from the Race Course / Victoria Memorial, the AJC Bose Road flyover ends at Park Circus. It’s a long journey of about 3 km, and the flyover is currently – and may be for a long time to come – the longest flyover in the city. There are talks to add 2 arms to […]
Dalhousie Square
Talking of heritage buildings, the Dalhousie Square area abounds in a number of them with depleted glory. ‘Depleted’ because the place is so congested with unruly and unplanned traffic that there is no chance of decently observing them and partaking their architectural beauty. The din is too much for sanity to prevail, and the most […]
Everything that can go wrong
It must be close to 50 years that suburban trains are plying from Sealdah and Howrah, but passenger amenities have hardly improved over the years. Take a look at the 2 photos below of Baghajatin station on Sealdah’s South section. The platforms are narrow, and there is no decent seating arrangement for passengers. Further, unauthorized […]
Kadam kadam badhaye ja
This is not to denigrate Netaji’s clarion call. But when I saw the HSBC ad pasted on the tram’s body (picture below), it seemed to me as the most apt. The city’s trams epitomize the disease that has for long infected Kolkata’s transport service. If anything that must go wrong in the city how excellent […]
3-legged rickshaws
Every city has its unique mode of commuting. Kolkata is no exception. Thus one can see hand-pulled rickshaws of the colonial past as well as the newly introduced Volvo buses on the road, not to speak of gleaming luxury sedans that glide by every now and then. Since all of them share the same road […]
EM Bypass – Tomorrow’s Chowringhee
Ironically, when the prospect of job and a decent future thereof was a far cry in the state a few years back, there was no shedding of tears for acquisition of land from farmers for developmental projects. The political parties virtually took no notice of government acquiring vast tracts of land for EM Bypass and […]
Viewing the rear
If you drive anything that moves on road in the city, chance is the thing you ride has a rear-view mirror fixed onto it. I call it an instrument, which you cannot do without unless you wish to mess up on the road that may result into unwanted incidents. Yet for all that it offers, […]
Ultadanga at chaotic best
Bidhan Nagar, aka Ultadanga, is a busy place. Bidhan Nagar is actually the name of Salt Lake, the erstwhile satellite township now integrated into the city. It was named after West Bengal’s second illustrious Chief Minister, Bidhan Chandra Roy, who in late 50s had foreseen the need of the township to ease pressure on city […]