Latest news with #SukumarRay
Time of India
25-07-2025
- Time of India
Court sentences 3 JMB members to 8 yrs in jail
1 2 3 Kolkata: Three Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB) militants, all Indian nationals, were sentenced to eight years in prison by the Kolkata Sessions Court on Thursday for their involvement in organizing terror activities in India. Chief Judge Sukumar Ray also imposed fines of Rs 25,000 each on the convicted terrorists. With this, 12 of the 21 JMB men accused in this case were sentenced following admission of guilt, even as the trial will continue for the other nine. The three — Nur Alam Momin, Paigambar Sheikh and Ahmed Ali, all from Shamsherganj in Murshidabad — pleaded guilty to multiple charges, including sedition, conspiracy and violations of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act and Explosives Act. A 2020 operation by the Kolkata Police STF led to the arrest of 21 JMB members. These three militants were part of a larger group involved in various criminal activities, including the 2018 Bodh Gaya blast in Bihar. The three were sentenced to life earlier in 2021 by the special NIA court of Patna for the Bodh Gaya blast. You Can Also Check: Kolkata AQI | Weather in Kolkata | Bank Holidays in Kolkata | Public Holidays in Kolkata On Wednesday, all three admitted to being involved in terror activities. Chief Judge Ray gave them 24 hours to reconsider their confession. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Best-Selling Luxury Watches – Selling Out Fast Luxury Watches Shop Now Undo The accused admitted to their guilt again on Thursday, leading to the sentencing, said court sources. Special public prosecutor Ganesh Maity confirmed that police recovered forged documents and explosive materials during probe. Defence lawyers Fazle Ahmed Khan and Zakir Hossain said their clients' confessions were motivated by a desire to reintegrate into mainstream society. The convicted terrorists will serve their sentences at Presidency Correctional Home.
India Today
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- India Today
Why Bangladesh razing Satyajit Ray's ancestral home is a shared cultural loss
In the heart of Mymensingh in Bangladesh, a city steeped in undivided Bengal's rich cultural past, bulldozers have begun dismantling a monument symbolic of the subcontinent's artistic renaissance. The ancestral home of Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury—zamindar, pioneering publisher, writer, painter and grandfather of legendary filmmaker Satyajit Ray—is being razed by the interim administration to make way for a new semi-concrete decision has triggered diplomatic overtures, emotional appeals and widespread outrage, laying bare a deeper crisis: the erasure of a shared cultural on Harikishore Ray Chowdhury Road, the house stood on a 36-acre estate once alive with literary and artistic ferment. It was here that Upendrakishore—father of Sukumar Ray and grandfather to Satyajit Ray—envisioned and nurtured a creative legacy that would eventually transcend national boundaries. Often considered the father of children's literature in Bengal, his legacy is inextricably linked with the cultural imagination of the estate wasn't just a residence. It was a complex that included a prayer hall, a workspace (the famed Kachari Bari), multiple ponds, gardens and a playground. It was also the spiritual and artistic hearth for a family that would go on to become synonymous with the Bengali cultural renaissance. Upendrakishore's contributions to children's literature, particularly Tuntunir Boi, and his innovations in halftone printing were revolutionary. Sukumar Ray added to this inheritance with his absurdist verse and sharp satire in works such as Abol Tabol. Though Satyajit Ray never visited this ancestral home, it continued to shape his imagination, rooted as it was in the intellectual traditions his forefathers had a reflective account, filmmaker Sandip Ray revealed that neither he nor his father, Satyajit Ray, had ever visited the ancestral home in Mymensingh. 'Neither Baba (Satyajit Ray) nor I ever saw the building in person,' Sandip said, noting that their knowledge of the house came only from the making of his documentary on Sukumar Ray, Satyajit had initially hoped to include images of the ancestral home. To this end, he sent a close associate involved in his productions to Bangladesh to photograph the building. However, upon receiving the pictures, Satyajit was deeply disheartened by the structure's dilapidated condition. The sight of its decay led him to abandon the idea altogether.'Baba had wanted to use those pictures,' Sandip recalled, 'but after seeing the building in such a ruined state, he decided not to include them in the documentary.'Despite its significance, the property—abandoned for over a decade—had fallen into disrepair. The Mymensingh Shishu Academy, which operated from the building beginning 1989, vacated it in 2007 and shifted to a rented space. Local authorities now cite the building's unsafe condition as justification for Mehedi Zaman, the district's children affairs officer, confirmed that the decision to demolish the house was made by a committee led by the deputy commissioner of Mymensingh, Mofidul Alam. 'The house had been abandoned for 10 years, and Shishu Academy activities have been running from a rented space,' he said, adding that a new semi-concrete structure with multiple rooms will be constructed to resume activities on-site. The project, he insisted, had received necessary approvals and was being undertaken in accordance with official historians, poets and cultural activists across Bangladesh and India have condemned the move as short-sighted and culturally damaging. Sabina Yeasmin, field officer at Bangladesh's department of archaeology for the Dhaka and Mymensingh divisions, acknowledged that while the structure was not officially listed as protected, surveys had identified it as holding archaeological heritage value. Her calls for preservation, too, were responded swiftly and emotionally. In a strongly-worded statement, the ministry of external affairs (MEA) expressed 'profound regret' over the demolition and extended technical and financial support to restore the property. 'Given the building's landmark status, symbolising Bangla cultural renaissance, it would be preferable to reconsider the demolition and examine options for its repair and reconstruction as a museum of literature and a symbol of the shared culture of India and Bangladesh,' the MEA said in a statement. 'The Government of India would be willing to extend cooperation for this purpose.'advertisementWest Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee also voiced concern, calling the news 'extremely distressing.' In a message on X, she wrote: 'The Ray family is one of the foremost bearers and carriers of Bengali culture. News reports reveal that in Bangladesh's Mymensingh city, the ancestral home of Satyajit Ray's grandfather, the renowned writer-editor Upendrakishore Ray Chowdhury, steeped in his memories, is reportedly being demolished. It is said that the demolition work had already begun.' Mamata urged the Bangladesh government's chief advisor Mohammad Yunus to take steps to conserve the is not the first such episode involving a Bengali cultural landmark in Bangladesh. Just weeks earlier, Mamata had urged New Delhi's intervention after a mob vandalised Rabindranath Tagore's ancestral home in Sirajganj, following a dispute over a parking fee. That house, like the Ray mansion, had once served as an intellectual haven—visited often by Tagore and eventually converted into a demolish the Ray house is to overlook its intangible inheritance. This was no ordinary building; it was a crucible of ideas. It was where Bengal's modernity took root—an incubator for values of reason, art, and social reform, fostered through Brahmo Samaj ideals and disseminated through the pages of Sandesh, the children's magazine founded by Upendrakishore and later revived by Ray family was not a passive chronicler of the Bengali experience but one of its architects. Their works are foundational in West Bengal's education system and, despite not being formally prescribed in school syllabi, remain widely read and cherished in Bangladesh. This is a shared inheritance, not merely Indian or that very inheritance now stands in peril. Just as the Rabindra Kachharibari was nearly lost to administrative apathy and public violence, the Ray mansion, too, risks being flattened into oblivion. Once gone, no amount of reconstruction will restore its authenticity or emotional of now, sections of the building have already been demolished. Without urgent intervention, the remainder is likely to follow. India's offer stands, but no formal agreement has yet been reached. Bangladesh's interim government has so far remained unmoved by appeals—diplomatic or is at stake is not simply the fate of a building but the preservation of a transnational cultural identity. In tearing down this house, a generation risks severing its link to the imaginative, reformist spirit that animated the Bengali demolition of Satyajit Ray's ancestral home—whether partial or complete—is not just about heritage lost. It is about memory forsaken. And in a subcontinent where identity so often hinges on remembrance, such losses are not just regrettable; they are to India Today Magazine- Ends
Time of India
06-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
Madam Sengupta Movie Review: A dark and poetic watch that is occasionally convenient
Madam Sengupta Abol Tabol Madam Sengupta is a moody, atmospheric crime thriller that casts Rituparna Sengupta as a grieving cartoonist on a quest to find her daughter's killer. As she navigates through her trauma, she's aided by a journalist friend – played with quiet gravitas by Rahul Bose . The two delve into a trail of poetic murders, each symbolic of a character from Sukumar Ray's. The clues point toward Anurekha's (Rituparna) estranged ex-husband – a playwright whose upcoming work aims to expose the megalomaniacs of society. The question the film poses is whether he is a grieving father or a man with secrets that could shake the city's conscience. The mystery deepens further when he goes missing on the very night his daughter is against a noir-tinted Kolkata, the film weaves in rich literary layers – especially with its clever nods to Abol Tabol, paying tribute to Sukumar Ray while adding a surreal edge to the narrative. The script, though imaginative, occasionally leans on convenience. Certain twists seem written simply to fit the outcome rather than arising naturally from the individual performances shine, the ensemble lacks cohesion and chemistry. Still, the world feels impressively well-researched, blending Kolkata's cultural legacy with elements of theatre, crime, and psychological intrigue. Newcomer Raunak Dey Bhowmick makes a notable debut as a student politician in pursuit of justice. He holds his own amidst industry some uneven pacing and predictability,builds to a satisfying climax that redeems its slower stretches. It is a flawed but hauntingly crafted film, that is more reflective than racy. It explores loss, guilt, and the stories we tell to survive. A layered thriller that leaves behind a trail of thought.
