Durand Cup 2019

At the heart of Kolkata city the maidan area and surroundings are defence land for law and order matter the Kolkata Police look after that and HQ Bengal Area looked after other issues. The Victoria Memorial Hall, Rabindra Sadan, Press Club, and other athletic and sporting clubs, all are located in this area. To protect the area judiciary helped has been extended.

The various clubs at the maidan had exclusive space in their gallery for Armed Forces personnel including veterans. The identity of the entry the identity card issued by the Army and Zila Sainik Board. I am not sure about the present status of this arrangement. I have watched the matches from this gallery in 1980 to 1982.

This year Durand Cup was organized outside the Delhi. The number of sports lovers who watched this tournament may be more. The organizer is the HQ Bengal Area.

Lt General JFR Jacob (R) PVSM, a keen lover of football and supporter of Mohan Bagan Club. I had to update to him whenever I had the opportunity to meet him maybe in New Delhi or at Nasik.

The final match of the Durand Cup held at the best stadium in our country. Thanks to the lobby to bring Durand Cup at Kolkata. Spectators had the opportunity to watch the matches at Kolkata Maidan, Howrah, and Kalyani. The title song of the Durand cup should have included the song of Bengali film on Football.

AIR Hindi commentary

AIR Bangla

The Week

To understand INA and Indian Independence League and there role for our country

Quite often some important initiative which has been undertaken by a nonprofit organization is unnoticed and not recognized by the national authority.

A young officer of the Territorial Army was associated with an exhibition of the Indian Army where effort was made to highlight the activities of the Indian National Army (INA). in the second world war in east Asia. It was mainly displayed monochrome visuals supplied by the Netaji Research Bureau, Kolkata.playing the INA songs, address of Netaji Subash Chandra Bose from various radio stations and projecting films of black and white of Films Division. The outfit of Netaji Subash Chandra Bose was displayed. The exhibition was organized by the HQ Eastern Command in May 1984.

This was an inspiring activity for the young officer He was able to contact living Ex  INA personnel at Kolkata and Chennai. and also got the contact detail of Ex INA who have settled at Kulampur, Malaysia.

The Indian National Library and State Central Library both are located at Kolkata. A reasonable number of printed books are available for consultation. They were approached to the organized program to display these important publications. The Indian National Library not acted on this request, it was brought to the notice of the authority.

The State Central Libray agreed to organized a joint program at the library with the Young Explorers' Institute for Social Service of Kolkata.  The School  Education Directorate of  Government of West Bengal advised the schools located at Kolkata, North, South  24 Parganas and Howrah was advised to join the program. The Field Publicity Directorate of Government of India sponsored the prizes for the competitions. The Sub-divisional  Information & Culture office of Bidhan Nagar conducted the competitions.

The National Thematic Mapping Organisation of the Government of India prepared a route map of the world where Netaji Subash Chandra Bose landed for the freedom of India.

The State Central Libray had a good number of books in Bengali and English languages on INA and Netaji Subash Chandra Bose.

Our Indian Historical Council organized programs on INA and Indian Independence League. The Asiatic Society also organized a program on this subject.

Recently the National Libray has inaugurated galleries of 4 Indian stalwarts including Netaji Subash Chandra Bose. These galleries are having visuals only.

The State Central Library may consider having a separate collection on INA which may be developed an interest in the subject by organizing a lecture, debate, quiz e.t.c.