Dr E C G Sudarshan (16.09.1931-13.05.2018)

Renowned physicist Dr E C G Sudarshan  (16.09.1931-13.05.2018)

EnnackalChandy George Sudarshan, professor at the Texas University and acclaimed scientist, passed away in Texas on 13, may 2018.The 86-year-old physicist was born in Kottayam on September 16, 1931.

The renowned physicist E C G Sudarshan, who proved Albert Einstein wrong, was recommended for the Nobel Prize nine times but never awarded.

Sudarshan specialised in Quantum Optics and linked Vedanta with modern physics. He has proved Albert Einsteins theory on the speed of light was wrong as tachyon can move faster than light.

Einstein showed that it is impossible for particles (or space ships) to be accelerated up to or beyond the speed of light because of the infinite energy required. Sudarshan and his colleagues suggested, however, that if particles were created initially with faster-than-light speed in particle collisions no acceleration or infinite energy would be necessary -- something not possible for space ships.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan offered his condolences to the family.Dr E C G Sudarshan was great son of Kerala and made great contributions to modern Physics. He was a philosopher and a physicist. His death is a great loss for Kerala and world of science, Vijayan told.

Ashok Mitra(10 April 1928, Dhaka, Bangladesh Died: 1 May 2018)

Ashok Mitra, a Man Who Was Equally Committed Politically and Personally 

For those who were victimised or isolated for dissident views, of whatever description, there was a special place in Ashok Mitra's heart. 

Jayati Ghosh

The Bengali version of this article is being published in Arek Rakam, a journal that Ashok Mitra helped set up as its first editor. 

It is a privilege to be able to write about Ashok Mitra in the journal that was probably the last love of his life. In a way, the very existence of Arek Rakam describes much about the man himself and his extraordinary capacities. Think of someone already into his ninth decade, having the enthusiasm and energy to embark on such a new and challenging venture – the creation of a completely new journal designed to do no less than revive the intellectual life of Bengal (something that was always so close to his heart). 

Imagine a person whose eyesight was already failing, who could barely read the print that was sent to him and had to have sections read out to him, being the most committed, diligent and even oppressive of editors, persuading and badgering authors to submit contributions, painstakingly poring over copy, chafing over the tiniest mistakes, worrying about maintaining consistent quality in every issue, insisting on editorial meetings to thrash out policy. If for no other reason, this journal must continue and go on from strength to strength as a tribute to him. 

Much has been and will be written about this extraordinary man: about his immense contributions as a public intellectual; about his important forays into policy making and into politics; about his role in so many important events and processes of independent India and in West Bengal; about his wonderfully idiosyncratic and stylish literary flair expressed in both English and Bengali; about his passionate lifelong commitment to progressive causes that was combined with a deep honesty that made him unafraid of speaking truth to power, even to his own comrades in the struggle and to his friends. All these qualities, rare as they are, are even rarer in combination. But in this piece, I will present a more personal picture, from someone who saw him as a father figure and was privileged to know him well. 

After my own father, Ashokkaka, as we called him, was probably the most important man to have shaped my approach to life and intellectual development. My sister Aditi and I grew up in the warm glow of the unalloyed love and concern that emanated from him and his wife Gouri (whom we called Ashokkakima). They were in a way our proto-parents – and as we grew up, we took it for granted (in the way that children do) that these particular adults would always be there for us, just like our own parents: protecting, remonstrating, chiding, appreciating and sharing our lives and activities. 

In fact, his ability to relate to young people and children remained remarkable all through his long and varied life. He was genuinely interested and curious about what they thought, what they did and how they did it. Several generations of women, in particular, can speak of how, having got close to him as children, they each had a special and individual relationship with him over years. Even to the end, he continued to correspond with several teenagers and young people. He understood them, related to them and was proud of their achievements. 

A few months before he died, he told me how much he appreciated letters from Nayantara, the daughter of Nitya Ghotge (who had also corresponded with him in the past and was herself the daughter of his friends, the Sambamurtis). He spoke with pride of the maturing of my niece Megnaa as she spent more than a year doing fieldwork in a Sunderbans village. He keenly followed anything written by my daughter Jahnavi and in his final year insisted that she come to Kolkata specially to visit him so that he could get to know her better now that she had become a young adult (which I am happy to say she did). He wanted to know and then could recount the various antics of the young son of my niece Anannya and the daughter of my niece Araddhya. He delighted in the nickname “Ghanshyam” bestowed on him by my niece Kajori. And this was just the latest generation of young people who felt they had a special deal with him, following in the footsteps of their parents, aunts and uncles and even grandparents. 

He also related to other young people, especially those in the broader Left movement. Typically, he was more attracted to the rebels, the questioners, the idealists. But he held them to high standards. When some of them then became more apparatchik in style and persona, he was disappointed even as he retained his affection for them. And for others who were victimised or isolated for dissident views, of whatever description, there was a special place in his heart as long as he believed that they had a basic integrity. In his own behaviour, there was no sense of hierarchy based on age or experience in these interactions. 

He was a tremendously social person. He seemed to know everyone, in so many different walks of life – and his prodigious memory could serve up details and anecdotes about them that they might have forgotten themselves. As a teenager, I remember accompanying him on several of his whirlwind social rounds that covered a range of artists, economists, journalists and bureaucrats spread across the city of Delhi. He would walk in unannounced, refuse all refreshments that the startled hosts sought to provide, ask some general and some more penetrating questions about their state of being and their recent activities, assess their current moods and opinions, then stand up abruptly and be off. On one memorable occasion, we covered more than a dozen households in around half a day, after which he remarked in a satisfied manner that he now had information on these set of friends to last for a few months at least. 

He loved adda, and was really good at it. Over the years, in different locations but especially in the famous flat in Sonali Apartments, Alipore Park Road, he and Ashokkakima thoroughly enjoyed providing generous hospitality (with the most delicious food prepared to her very exacting standards) and a convivial atmosphere for all sorts of discussions, arguments and conversations. The Sunday morning salons at their home, in their heyday, were enjoyable and sometimes exhilarating sessions at which poets and politicians, bureaucrats and students, artists and academics, activists and itinerant visitors, all congregated. 

Part of the reason those addas were fun is that Ashokkaka loves to tell stories. He was an accomplished raconteur, remembering the appropriate anecdote at the right time, to add a bit of masala to the discussion. A few months before his death, I remember an occasion when several old friends had gathered at his place for dinner. Because Ashokkaka could not hear much of the conversation properly, he was mostly quiet. But then suddenly he announced: “Now I will tell a story!” And then he proceeded to regale us all with several entirely new (for me) amusing anecdotes about people we knew, with extraordinary level of detail and quirky humour. 

He could also be very caustic and cutting on occasion. More than one friend and acquaintance has suffered his tongue-lashing, and the full force of his disapproval could be severe. But he carried no malice. So mostly, he realised and regretted alienating them, and sought eventually to make up with them. There were some exceptions: people he did not minding parting with because he had nothing but disdain for them. Of course, it pained him – and even enraged him – that his trenchant critiques of Left parties and Left governments were not taken on board and were often simply ignored. But the passion with which he argued on these grounds essentially reflected his deep and abiding commitment to progressive politics. 

The range of his friends and acquaintances constantly surprised me. When he first stood for election in 1977 in Kolkata, as a candidate supported by the Communist Party of India (Marxist), my sister and I went to campaign for him. Before that, I had put in a tentative call for donations for his campaign – and I was amazed at the response, from senior and fairly conservative bureaucrats to students to journalists and others, who all wanted to contribute. Our in-kind contribution to that particular electoral campaign may have been more debatable: for several years thereafter, he would proudly state that he had managed to win despite being handicapped by the over-enthusiastic support of these two Anglicised young women from New Delhi. 

He could be embarrassingly indiscreet as well. I still remember my discomfiture several decades ago when my own indiscretion was magnified by his actions. I went to study in Cambridge, and after the first two months sent him quite a long letter with my impressions, including several frank, revealing and not completely polite references to some of my teachers there. Apparently, he enjoyed the letter – so much so that over the next few months he proceeded to read it out to several visitors from all over the world on different occasions, including to one of the very same teachers about whom I had written in somewhat less than flattering terms. To her credit, she was generous enough not to hold it against me, but to this day I blush when I remember it. 

In that letter, I also mentioned Joan Robinson’s description of his own foray into politics: “The CPI(M) is the best of a bad lot but that’s not saying much. AM is misguided and probably will become even more so,” she had told me at a party. Sure enough, it was a matter of time before he confronted her about this, quoting me as the source of information – earning me some disapprobation from that quarter. I learned the hard way that he simply assumed that everyone would share his ironic appreciation of criticism, without misunderstanding it. 

Yet despite all this, he was also a deeply private person, especially in personal matters. That must have made his last phase excruciatingly difficult for him. He hated and resisted being physically dependent and valued his privacy and independence even when his bodily frailty required him to give up some of it. His last few years were undoubtedly difficult: He was lonely living alone, forced to witness political developments that caused him immense anguish even though he had predicted some of those outcomes, had to deal with quite a lot of physical pain, progressively lost his hearing and his eyesight – unimaginable for someone who lived by the written word. Yet his mind remained razor sharp. 

Perhaps only someone with his incredible memory and inner resources could have gone through those twilight years with his mental faculties intact. I remember walking into his study one evening late last year, when he was sitting in darkness – because, as he said, it made no difference to him whether or not there was light. I asked him what he was thinking about, and he said he was remembering various songs of Rabindranath – particularly the phrase in one of them, “shanto shurer shantwana”. Then he looked at me quizzically and said, “Now what about the possibility of the case against GST? At least bring out a proper public statement!” 

Jayati Ghosh is a professor of economics at Jawaharlal Nehru University. 

MOHAMMED AMIN: ( 15.04.1928- 12.02.2018)

MOHAMMED AMIN: ( 15.04.1928- 12.02.2018)

Mohammed Amin was born in Kolkata to poor parents who had migrated from Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. Lack of formal education and poverty led Amin to start work at the young age of 14 in a jute mill.

Very soon he joined the trade union movement and became a member of the Bengal Jute Mill Mazdoor Union. By the end of the Second World War, he was attracted to communism and joined the Communist Party in 1946. In the immediate post-Partition period he moved to erstwhile East Pakistan on the instructions of the Party. He was imprisoned for taking the lead in organising movements there. After his release he shifted back to West Bengal.

A good organiser he organised jute mill, beedi and other workers in the Barrackpore industrial belt. All through his life he championed the cause of the working class.

Mohd. Amin was elected to the 24 Parganas District Committee of the Party in 1955. He was elected to the West Bengal State Committee of the Party in 1971. He was elected to the Central Committee at its 12th Congress in 1985. He was elected to the Polit Bureau in 2008. At the 20th Congress of the Party in 2012 he was made a special invitee to the central committee.

He was elected General Secretary of the Centre of Indian Trade Unions at its 12th Conference and later on served as one of its Vice Presidents.

In 1969, he won from the Titagarh assembly constituency and in February 1970, he was sworn in as the Minister of Transport in the United Front government led by Ajoy Mukherjee. He won in the 1971 assembly elections, facing semi-fascist terror. In 1977 assembly elections, Amin was re-elected and became Minister of Transport in the 1st Left Front government. He again served as minority development minister and labour minister from 1996 to 2006. He was also elected to the Rajya Sabha for a term from 1988 to 1994.

During the course of his political life Mohd. Amin spent a total of two years in jail and was underground for an equal period.

Besides being the editor of Kisan Majdoor, Urdu periodical of CPI(M) West Bengal, several of his collection of poems have been published.

He led a very spartan life and his requirements were minimal. Amiable, Amin was down to earth and was always concerned about the plight of the poor and downtrodden.

In his death the Communist movements have suffered a big loss.

Mahasweta Devi

Mahasweta Devi passes away

KOLKATA BUREAU

Influenced by the Communist movement of the 1940s, she chose to work among the poorest of the poor in the tribal areas of West Bengal.

Eminent litterateur and social activist Mahasweta Devi passed away on Thursday afternoon at a private hospital in Kolkata.

The 90-year-old Magsaysay awardee was admitted to the hospital in south Kolkata on June 22, 2016 with septicemia and urinary infection. She was also suffering from diabetes. She passed away at around 3 p.m. on Thursday.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee tweeted: "India has lost a great writer. Bengal has lost a glorious mother. I have lost a personal guide. Mahasweta Di rest in peace."

The condition of the author — who has played a significant role to uplift the extremely backward community, Kheria Sabar — deteriorated over the last few weeks, following which an eight-member medical board was formed for her treatment. She was put on ventilator support.

Wife of one of Bengal’s most prolific playwrights and litterateurs, Bijon Bhattacharya, the activist-writer grew up in the family of Bengal’s leading writers, poets and filmmakers. Filmmaker Ritwick Ghatak was her uncle. Influenced by the Communist movement of the 1940s, she chose to work among the poorest of the poor in the tribal areas of southern West Bengal and in other parts of the country.

“And the people whom she came across in real life slowly made their place in her stories and novels,” said Joya Mitra, a prominent writer and a close associate of Devi.

“There are very few writers who are capable of narrating – directly – what they experience. She [Mahasweta Devi] is one such writer who routinely described what she witnessed,” Ms. Mitra told The Hindu last week.

Earlier in the year, Mahasweta Devi was admitted to the private health facility and was discharged after her health improved.

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MUHAMMED ALI

Boxing legend Muhammad Ali dies at 74

Image copyrightPAImage captionThe former heavyweight champion was widely regarded as the greatest boxer of all time

Boxing legend Muhammad Ali - one of the world's greatest sporting figures - has died at the age of 74.

The former world heavyweight champion died late on Friday at a hospital in the US city of Phoenix, Arizona, having been admitted on Thursday.

He had been suffering from a respiratory illness, a condition that was complicated by Parkinson's disease.

Ali's funeral will take place in his hometown of Louisville, Kentucky, said his family.

Tributes for the heavyweight great have been pouring in from across the world.

"Muhammad Ali shook up the world. And the world is better for it," said US President Barack Obama and his wife Michelle.

Former President Bill Clinton - husband of Democratic frontrunner Hillary - said the boxer had been "courageous in the ring, inspiring to the young, compassionate to those in need, and strong and good-humoured in bearing the burden of his own health challenges".

Republican presumptive presidential nominee Donald Trump, meanwhile, tweeted that Ali was "truly great champion and a wonderful guy. He will be missed by all!"

Muhammad Ali

Born Cassius Marcellus Clay, 17 January 1942

61 fights

over a professional career lasting 21 years

56 wins

including 37 knockouts

3 times crowned World Heavyweight Champion

1 Light-heavyweight Olympic gold medal

31 straight wins before being beaten by Joe Frazier

Getty

George Foreman, who lost his world title to Ali in the famous "Rumble in the Jungle" fight in Kinshasa in 1974, called him one of the greatest human beings he had ever met.

American civil rights campaigner Jesse Jackson said Ali had been willing to sacrifice the crown and money for his principles when he refused to serve in the Vietnam war.

Born Cassius Marcellus Clay, Ali shot to fame by winning light-heavyweight gold at the 1960 Rome Olympics.

Nicknamed "The Greatest", the American beat Sonny Liston in 1964 to win his first world title and became the first boxer to capture a world heavyweight title on three separate occasions.

He eventually retired in 1981, having won 56 of his 61 fights.

Crowned "Sportsman of the Century" by Sports Illustrated and "Sports Personality of the Century" by the BBC, Ali was noted for his pre- and post-fight talk and bold fight predictions just as much as his boxing skills inside the ring.

But he was also a civil rights campaigner and poet who transcended the bounds of sport, race and nationality.

Asked how he would like to be remembered, he once said: "As a man who never sold out his people. But if that's too much, then just a good boxer.

"I won't even mind if you don't mention how pretty I was."

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Out of media player. Press enter to return or tab to continue.Media captionArchive: Muhammad Ali

Ali turned professional immediately after the Rome Olympics and rose through the heavyweight ranks, delighting crowds with his showboating, shuffling feet and lightning reflexes.

British champion Henry Cooper came close to stopping Clay, as he was still known, when they met in a non-title bout in London in 1963.

Cooper floored the American with a left hook, but Clay picked himself up off the canvas and won the fight in the next round when a severe cut around Cooper's left eye forced the Englishman to retire.

At the scene: Jessica Lussenhop, BBC News, Louisville, Kentucky

Image copyrightAPImage captionMuhammad Ali's childhood home opened as a museum last week

Many residents of Louisville, Kentucky, woke up on this hazy Saturday morning to the news: Muhammad Ali is dead.

"I wouldn't have thought he'd go that quick," says Kevin Ishmael, a saw operator who laid a bouquet of daffodils at the Muhammad Ali Center, an expansive museum on the waterfront in downtown Louisville.

The news of his death is on every local television station, and the front page of the local newspaper reads simply "The Greatest" over the iconic image of Ali standing victorious over Sonny Liston in 1965.

Flags at Louisville's city hall will fly at half mast today and the mayor will deliver a memorial service there.

"I cried. I cried like a baby when I found out the news," says Arnold Mathis, 39, who was on his way to lay a wreath and light a candle at the museum. "It's so surreal. I know he's dead, but it hasn't really set in yet."

Almost everyone has a personal story about Ali, whether it's a favourite fight, a glance through a car window, or a trip to his boyhood home, which opened as a museum only last week, the interior recreated as if Ali were still living there as a precocious 12-year-old boy in the 1950s.

Dwight Smith, who was sweeping the empty downtown streets outside the hotel where he works, doesn't remember the day Ali hoisted him up for photos - he was only a baby - but he uses them as a motivator to this day.

"A great man held me high," he said. "Go for what you want. If you dream it, you can achieve it. That was one of his mottos.

"I'm just hoping we get a really nice statue of him."

In February the following year, Clay stunned the boxing world by winning his first world heavyweight title at the age of 22.

He predicted he would beat Liston, who had never lost, but few believed he could do it.

Yet, after six stunning rounds, Liston quit on his stool, unable to cope with his brash, young opponent.

At the time of his first fight with Liston, Clay was already involved with the Nation of Islam, a religious movement whose stated goals were to improve the spiritual, mental, social, and economic condition of African Americans in the United States.

But in contrast to the inclusive approach favoured by civil rights leaders like Dr Martin Luther King, the Nation of Islam called for separate black development and was treated by suspicion by the American public.

Ali eventually converted to Islam, ditching what he perceived was his "slave name" and becoming Cassius X and then Muhammad Ali.

Tributes to AliImage copyrightREUTERS

"It's a sad day for life, man. I loved Muhammad Ali, he was my friend. Ali will never die. Like Martin Luther King his spirit will live on, he stood for the world.'' - Don King, who promoted many of Ali's fights, including the Rumble in the Jungle

"Muhammad Ali was one of the greatest human beings I have ever met. No doubt he was one of the best people to have lived in this day and age." - George Foreman, Ali's friend and rival in the Rumble in the Jungle

"There will never be another Muhammad Ali. The black community all around the world, black people all around the world, needed him. He was the voice for us. He's the voice for me to be where I'm at today." - Floyd Mayweather, world champion boxer across five divisions

In 1967, Ali took the momentous decision of opposing the US war in Vietnam, a move that was widely criticised by his fellow Americans.

He refused to be drafted into the US military and was subsequently stripped of his world title and boxing licence. He would not fight again for nearly four years.

After his conviction for refusing the draft was overturned in 1971, Ali returned to the ring and fought in three of the most iconic contests in boxing history, helping restore his reputation with the public.

He was handed his first professional defeat by Joe Frazier in the "Fight of the Century" in New York on 8 March 1971, only to regain his title with an eighth-round knockout of George Foreman in the "Rumble in the Jungle" in Kinshasa, Zaire (now Democratic Republic of Congo) on 30 October 1974.Image copyrightAPImage captionMuhammad Ali was crowned Sportsman of the Century in 1999

Ali fought Frazier for a third and final time in the Philippines on 1 October 1975, coming out on top in the "Thrilla in Manila" when Frazier failed to emerge for the 15th and final round.

Six defences of his title followed before Ali lost on points to Leon Spinks in February 1978, although he regained the world title by the end of the year, avenging his defeat at the hands of the 1976 Olympic light-heavyweight champion.

Ali's career ended with one-sided defeats by Larry Holmes in 1980 and Trevor Berbick in 1981, many thinking he should have retired long before.

He fought a total of 61 times as a professional, losing five times and winning 37 bouts by knockout.

Soon after retiring, rumours began to circulate about the state of Ali's health. His speech had become slurred, he shuffled and he was often drowsy.

Parkinson's Syndrome was eventually diagnosed but Ali continued to make public appearances, receiving warm welcomes wherever he travelled.

He lit the Olympic cauldron at the 1996 Games in Atlanta and carried the Olympic flag at the opening ceremony for the 2012 Games in London.

How Ali wanted people to remember him

"I would like to be remembered as a man who won the heavyweight title three times, who was humorous and who treated everyone right.

"As a man who never looked down on those who looked up to him...who stood up for his beliefs...who tried to unite all humankind through faith and love.

"And if all that's too much, then I guess I'd settle for being remembered only as a great boxer who became a leader and a champion of his people. And I wouldn't even mind if folks forgot how pretty I was."

S.PRASANNA KUMAR

COM  S.PRASANNA KUMAR 

(14.09.1965 - 23.12.2015)

    With profound sorrow and grief we have to inform you that Com S.Prasanna Kumar, General Secretary, CITU, Karnataka passed away due to massive heart attack today (23/12/2015) morning.  He was 47 years old.  He is survived by his wife and two sons. He also leaves behind thousands of mourning comrades and friends.

BARDHAN AB

Ardhendu Bhushan Bardhan (25 September 1924 – 2 January 2016) or A. B. Bardhan, was the former General Secretary of the Communist Party of India (CPI), one of the oldest political parties in India.