VIT Chancellor Viswanathan honoured by Tamil Sangam federation in U.S.
According to a press release, Mr. Viswanathan was awarded for his visionary leadership in founding VIT University and shaping world-class higher education in India. The citation also mentioned his contribution to education, politics and societal development.
Around 38 years ago, the Federation of Tamil Sangams of North America (FeTNA) was established. FeTNA integrates 70 Tamil sangams in North America and promotes Tamil language, culture, literature, trade and development. Every year, FeTNA organises an annual conference and presents awards to distinguished Tamils for their achievement in education, cinema and literature.
On the occasion, G.V. Selvam, vice-president, VIT, was present, the release said.
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Indian Express
20 minutes ago
- Indian Express
In Maharashtra port, ship waits to be sunk, start new life as artificial reef
AT THE Vijaydurg port, a natural harbour in Maharashtra's coastal Sindhudurg district, an 81-metre-long piece of naval history lies still against the blue of the Arabian Sea, awaiting its second innings. INS Guldar, a decommissioned Navy warship, will soon be deliberately sunk — or 'scuttled' — to breathe new life into its metal bones, transforming it into an artificial reef and an underwater tourist attraction. Though scuttled ships have been used to create artificial reefs elsewhere in the world, this is the first such attempt in India. 'The idea behind this project is to develop tourism in Sindhudurg. When the ship is submerged, it will gradually form an underwater reef that attracts various kinds of fish. Once that happens, people from all over the world, especially avid scuba divers, will come to the district,' says an official of the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporat-ion (MTDC) who is associated with the project. Home to MTDC's Indian Institute of Scuba Diving and Aquatic Sports (IISDA), Sindhudurg, 120 km from Goa, has been a training centre for scuba diving enthusiasts for over a decade. Had all gone according to plan, INS Guldar would have been scuttled in April. Officials said its scuttling was postponed in view of tensions between India and Pakistan after the April 22 terror attack in Pahalgam. An official at the Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited, the government-run firm responsible for the scuttling, said the process was delayed further due to the early arrival of monsoon in Maharashtra. 'Too much wind or rough seas can topple the ship, which means it won't go down as planned. We are waiting for a lull in the monsoon (to carry out the scuttling),' the official adds. The ageing INS Guldar, a Kumbhir-class landing ship designed for amphibious warfare and capable of beach landings, was once part of India's peacekeeping mission in Sri Lanka, combating attacks from the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), the Tamil separatist group, across the beaches of Jaffna and Trincomalee in the island nation. The plan to acquire a ship for scuttling took off in December 2023, when the MTDC hosted Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, then Maharashtra Chief Minister Eknath Shinde and then Deputy CM Devendra Fadnavis in Sindhudurg on the occasion of Navy Day. Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Dinesh Kumar Tripathi, who was then the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Western Naval Command, was also in attendance. The MTDC is learnt to have asked Admiral Tripathi for a decommissioned ship as a 'token of gift' to the state tourism department so that it could be turned into an 'underwater museum and artificial reef' at Sindhudurg. The Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation hopes to transform INS Guldar into an underwater tourist attraction. Scuttling is usually a wartime tactic involving the deliberate sinking of a vessel — in case of an emergency or to prevent it from falling into enemy hands. On November 26, 2024, the Union Finance Ministry green-lit the project, followed by a nod from the Maharashtra government on December 19, 2024. On February 21, 2025, the Navy handed over INS Guldar to the MTDC on an 'as is where is' basis at Karwar in Karnataka. Built at Poland's Gdynia Shipyard, INS Guldar was commissioned into the Indian Navy nearly four decades ago, in 1985. It was first based in Visakhapatnam, where it was used for amphibious warfare, transferring troops and equipment and for disaster relief operations. In 1995, it joined the Andaman and Nicobar command, where it served until its decommissioning on January 12, 2024, according to a statement by the Navy. The underwater museum-cum-artificial reef project is estimated to cost Rs 78 crore. The Centre will bear nearly 60% of the total cost and the state government the rest, said an MTDC official. According to the Detailed Project Report (DPR) accessed by The Indian Express, the Sindhudurg site will have a carrying capacity of 2,773 divers daily, spread over six diving sessions in an eight-hour operational period. The MTDC expects at least 71,000 tourists to visit the site in the first year, with the figure projected to go up to 1.10 lakh within a decade. Talking about the underwater museum-cum-artificial reef project, an official said every ship has a scuttling plan that the captain follows to deliberately sink the ship – usually 'in case of an emergency or to prevent it from falling into enemy hands'. The process of scuttling, he said, follows the Archimedes principle, which states that the buoyant force keeping an object afloat is equal to the weight of the water the object displaces. Simply put, for a ship to sink, it must be filled with water to achieve negative buoyancy. 'To achieve that, the ship's sea chest (a compartment built into the hull below the waterline) will be opened to flood the engine room. The front section will also be flooded simultaneously in a controlled manner,' the official says, adding that the process will take up to 10 hours. According to the DPR, the ship, which has been stripped of all pollutants that may harm marine life, will be sunk to a depth of nearly 30 metres. Once submerged, INS Guldar, which has a flat bottom, will simply sit on the seabed, around 3 km from existing scuba diving sites near Malvan and Tarkali beaches or around 15 km off the coast of Sindhudurg, near the Vengurla Rocks in the Arabian Sea. The DPR states that non-certified divers who have completed pool training will be allowed to dive down to a depth of 12 metres; certified divers up to 18 metres, which will give them access to the middle parts of the ship; and advanced divers to the deepest part of the ship, including the hull and the seabed. For non-divers, the MTDC plans to acquire a 24-seater submarine, offering tourists a 20-minute panoramic underwater view of the shipwreck. To enhance employment prospects in Sindhudurg, the MTDC plans to train locals in scuba diving, boat handling and as tourist guides. If successful, this could become India's first operational submarine tourism experience. Gujarat had announced a similar project at the Bet Dwarka island in 2023. While the scuba diving plan is expected to take off as soon as the ship is scuttled, experts say it could take a year or more for a reef to 'fully establish and function as essential habitat'. Alex Fogg, Natural Resources Chief of Florida's Okaloosa County in the United States, says that while fish appear 'almost immediately', the formation of an artificial reef is dependent on a number of factors – from the size of the vessel to the depth at which it is sunk, and its proximity to another reef. 'Larger, more complex vessels in shallower waters tend to establish more quickly,' Fogg explains. 'That's not to say smaller or deeper reefs aren't beneficial, they are just a different community.' Okaloosa County deployed its first artificial reef off Destin-Fort Walton Beach in 1976. Today, it hosts over 500 artificial reefs created from concrete structures, old bridge materials, military equipment, and decommissioned vessels. Marine biologist Vardhan Patankar too says that while the sunken ship could still make for a good scuba diving site since 'it will attract fish and a variety of associated invertebrates', whether it will be a viable reef with diverse composition is debatable. He says, 'An artificial reef is created when free-flowing larvae from a parent reef find another hard substratum (a layer of something, like rock or soil, below another layer). When that happens, they settle and thrive.' Patankar explains, 'Larvae can stay alive for a day and usually settle where their parents are. So, they are not going to come all the way from Angria Bank (a natural reef over 100 km away from Sindhudurg) to this site. They will most likely come from Sindhudurg, where the species composition is low.' Sonal Gupta is a senior sub-editor on the news desk. She writes feature stories and explainers on a wide range of topics from art and culture to international affairs. She also curates the Morning Expresso, a daily briefing of top stories of the day, which won gold in the 'best newsletter' category at the WAN-IFRA South Asian Digital Media Awards 2023. She also edits our newly-launched pop culture section, Fresh Take. ... Read More
Time of India
16 hours ago
- Time of India
Who made it first? The history of Indian curry no one talks about
Curry might be the most misunderstood word in Indian food. Globally, it's become shorthand for anything spicy and saucy that comes from the subcontinent. But ask anyone in India what 'curry' really means, and you'll get a mix of shrugs, jokes, and long family stories. Because here's the secret – we never actually called it that. Scroll down, and you'll see why. The word that wasn't ours The term 'curry' didn't come from an Indian kitchen. It was picked up by British traders and colonisers in the 17th century, likely a mash-up of the Tamil word kari, which means sauce, and their attempt to label an entire cuisine that was too vast, too diverse, and too flavour-packed to be boxed into one name. In Curry: A Tale of Cooks and Conquerors, Lizzie Collingham writes, 'The British codified Indian food into one category – curry – that was suited to their limited palates and pantries. ' What started as a vague word for spiced dishes became a global brand, even though no one in an Indian home has ever actually said, 'What's for dinner? Curry.' No single origin story India's food culture was never about one uniform recipe. What someone in Kerala calls a curry could be a coconut-laced stew, while in Punjab it might mean a tomato-rich gravy. Go east, and it's mustard oil and potatoes; head west, and it's yogurt-based kadhi. The British tried to simplify it, but Indian food doesn't do simple. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Online & Flexible degrees BITS Pilani Digital Apply Now Undo Each region has its own story, spice mix, and way of treating the same vegetable. In The Flavour of Spice, food historian Marryam H. Reshii says, 'There is no such thing as generic Indian curry powder in the Indian kitchen. That idea is a colonial convenience.' And that's the beauty of it, Indian cooking never followed rules. It adapted, evolved, and shifted with whatever was growing nearby. The colonial curry shortcut Once the British got a taste for Indian food, they wanted to take it back – minus the effort. That's when curry powders, pre-made blends, and 'authentic' recipes for Anglo-Indian stews were born. These dishes were milder, sweeter, and designed for British palates. They weren't wrong, just far from what you'd find in an Indian home. In "Climbing the Mango Trees", Madhur Jaffrey recalls, 'Each spice was used for a purpose and in a particular order. There was nothing random about it.' That balance and intent was often lost in the British version of Indian food, which flattened the complexity into a one-size-fits-all blend. Why it still works Despite its odd, borrowed name, the idea of curry still has a place. It's warm, comforting, and adaptable. Whether you're scooping up rajma with rice or dunking rotis into a bubbling pot of chettinad chicken, that messy, fragrant, spicy gravy is what binds our meals. And if you think about it, there's real wellness in a good Indian 'curry.' You've got anti-inflammatory turmeric, gut-loving cumin, blood-sugar-friendly fenugreek, and digestion-boosting asafoetida, all simmered in oil or ghee that helps your body absorb their benefits. So who made it first? The answer is nobody and everybody. India didn't invent curry the way the West thinks it did. We made gravies, stews, sabzis, and masalas. We ground spices by hand, added layers of flavour, and passed recipes down like family secrets. The British just gave it a name, and the world ran with it. But behind that name lies something far richer – a history of trade, colonisation, invention, and taste that refuses to be simplified. So the next time someone says they love 'curry,' just smile. You know it's more than just a word. It's a story in every bite.
The Hindu
20 hours ago
- The Hindu
The importance of retaining College Road's name
I am glad the story had a happy ending, as far as I and several heritage activists were concerned, though I am sure the actor Jaishankar's family members may have been disappointed that a lane, and not a main road, would be named after him. But to me, College Road was much larger as a name than any individual and had to be retained. And the blunder of doing away with it could not be by a government that professes to love Tamil. College Road does not take its name from Women's Christian College but from the College of Fort St. George, which functioned at what is today the Directorate of Public Instructions premises, between 1812 and 1854. The institution was founded chiefly to teach employees of the East India Company languages of South India – Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, and Malayalam, apart from Persian and Sanskrit. One of its founders was Francis Whyte Ellis (1777-1819) who was a distinguished company servant who served as Collector of Madras. He was also a linguist. Under Ellis and his colleagues, the college blossomed into something more than a mere teaching facility. It served as a centre where scholarly interest in the southern languages revived. Teaching was by native scholars – munshis, pandits, and pulavars. With the Company's resources, the college became a place where manuscripts were collected and more importantly, books were printed. It was from here that the first dictionaries of all four southern languages came out, with the word meanings given in English. Some of the greatest names in Tamil language worked here. What was significant was that long before the modern universities, this was where Tamil and other language scholars worked together, irrespective of their caste and also religion. The institution was known as the Chennai Kalvi Sangam in Tamil and this name finds mention not only in books printed by the college but also in the writings of Dr. Swaminatha Iyer. His guru, Mahavidwan Meenakshisundaram Pillai was closely associated with some of the great names who taught at the college. That was not all. When A.D. Campbell, a friend and fellow champion of the college, wrote a book on Telugu grammar, Ellis was asked to write the preface. It was here that he first penned his thoughts on how the southern languages possibly came from a non-Sanskritic origin. This is now celebrated as the Dravidian Proof. It forms the basis of many things including Tamil being a classical language, and it is often brandished as a weapon against 'Hindi imposition' and as a justification for Dravidian identity. The college may have closed in 1854 but clearly, its legacy lives on. That such an institution, commemorated by way of road name be wiped out by a decision of Corporation councillors was not acceptable. I took the liberty of appealing against it by tagging the Hon'ble CM of Tamil Nadu and the Worshipful Mayor of Chennai in a social media post. I did not expect it to develop into a campaign of sorts by evening. It shows how much the name was etched in public memory. By the next day, there was a clarification – it was College Lane that would be renamed and not the Road. I heaved a sigh of relief. There were some who felt that Jaishankar deserved to be commemorated by the road name. To them I say that the college was a far greater entity that two centuries later still has an impact on our lives.
