Adlers Lombard Football Club. Photo: Special Arrangement
Adlers Lombard, a Keralites-run football club, will become the first of its kind to compete in an Italian soccer league on Sunday
They moved from Kerala to Italy for higher studies, work and seeking better lives. But for these soccer maniacs, there was no better life without football. Moving from a football-crazy State to a country where soccer is almost a religion, they took their game to a new level.
Come Sunday, Adlers Lombard, a Keralites-run football club in Italy, will begin its journey in the Italian football system by competing in the CSI (Centro Sportivo Italiano) Regione Bergamo, a lower-division football league competition consisting of 12 teams. The club formed in 2019 plays the 7-a-side football format. It is the first of its kind, with 15 Keralites among its 20-member roster, to play in an Italian league. The CSI Regione Bergamo season lasts 10 months.
“Before moving to Italy from Kerala, one thing we all liked doing most was playing football. We came to Italy from different parts of Kerala at different times. But football has brought us together. After launching Adlers Lombard (Eagles from Lombardy), the team initially participated in some local tournaments. In the last 12 months or so, we have won five tournaments organised by the Kerala European Football Federation in Italy and Germany. The victories prompted the team management to register the club with the CSI and participate in the league,” says club vice-captain Mohammed Naseef C.P. who hails from Malappuram and works as a teacher in Italy. According to him, Adlers Lombard is the first ‘Indian Club’ to compete in an Italian football league.
The team is captained by Muhammed Abir P.T., also from Malappuram. The rest of the Keralite players are from Thrissur, Ernakulam, Thiruvananthapuram and so on. Two other Indians and a couple of Italian players are part of the team.
The club has spent around €20,000 (approximately ₹15.84 lakhs) to prepare the team for competing in the league. They raised the money through sponsorships from several funders including an Italy-based automobile giant.
For Adlers Lombard, competing in CSI Regione Bergamo is just a start. “We are currently plying our trade in a lower division. But we are ambitious and have a long-term goal. Our aim is to play professional football in Italy in Serie D, Serie C, Serie B and Serie A and compete against top teams like Juventus, AC Milan and Inter Milan. We hope to recruit Indian players and provide them with a chance to play in the Italian league. It will help the growth of football in India,” says Smento Joseph, president, Adlers Lombard who hails from Angamaly in Kerala.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> India> Kerala / by Sam Paul A / September 30th, 2022
In the under-10 category, India’s Hanya Shah took the eighth spot with 7.5 points while compatriots Aadya Ranganath (7 points) and V Tirupurambika (7 points) finished 14th and 19th respectively.
Shubhi Gupta, Charvi A and Safin Safarullakhan after medal ceremony. ( Source : All India Chess federation / Twitter )
Batumi, Georgia:
India’s Shubi Gupta and A Charvi emerged winners in the girls under-12 and under-8 sections respectively in the FIDE World Cadets Chess Championship .
Shubhi Gupta, who hails from Ghaziabad, scored 8.5 points from 11 rounds to claim the top prize in the under-12 event. In the girls under-8 section, Charvi finished first with 9.5 points from 11 rounds. Charvi was trailing Bodhana Sivanandan (England), who finished second for the last three rounds, but managed to catch and overtake her, thanks to a better tie-break score after both ended up with 9.5 points.
Samhita Pungavanam finished 10th with 7.5 points.
In the under-10 category, India’s Hanya Shah took the eighth spot with 7.5 points while compatriots Aadya Ranganath (7 points) and V Tirupurambika (7 points) finished 14th and 19th respectively.
In the open events, India’s Ethan Vaz scored eight points to take the sixth spot in the under-12 category while the next best was Arjun Adireddy (7 points) in 20th place. In the under-10 section, Vivaan Vishal Shah (8 points) settled for 9th place while France’s Lacan Rus David took the first prize scoring nine points.
France’s Marc Llari and Russian Sav Shogdzhiev Roman, who finished first and second respectively after the tie-breaks. Safin Safarullakhan added Under-8 Open Bronze Medal to the Indian Medal tally at World Cadet Championship at Batumi, Georgia / pix @aicfchess
India’s Safin Safarullakhan claimed a bronze medal in the under-8 category with nine points.
The Kerala boy ended up half a point behind France’s Marc Llari and Russian Sav Shogdzhiev Roman, who finished first and second respectively after the tie-breaks.
source: http://www.indianexpress.com / The Indian Express / Home> Sports> Chess / by PTI / plus pix edited added source @aicfchess / September 28th, 2022
Raj Kapoor with the editor Yunus Dehlvi | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
How the Urdu magazine Shama peaked to popularity and disappeared
In the years gone by, the fountain at the Fawwara intersection in Chandni Chowk seldom worked. Yet, few complained. Most people came to Fawwara for their daily news, for here sat a newspaper seller who sold practically every language newspaper in the country.
Besides English, Hindi and Urdu dailies, one could get Punjabi, Marathi and Bengali papers too. He did not sell many magazines, the sole exception being Shama, the Urdu monthly that presented a heady cocktail of Urdu literature, Indian culture and Hindi cinema. Shama, like water, charted its own course.
Founded by Yusuf Dehlvi in 1939, some bought Shama to read Urdu writers. The who’s who of Urdu litterateurs, including Rajinder Singh Bedi, Sahir Ludhianvi, Saadat Hasan Manto, Ismat Chughtai and Qurratulain Hyder, graced its pages. There were pieces by connoisseurs of Indian culture as well, talking of traditions, little and large, and values, shifting or timeless.
Shama was appreciated in literary circles at a time when Delhi had a lively literary circuit with its mushairas, book readings, debates and even street theatre. Yet it would have remained a niche publication but for a couple of masterstrokes by Yusuf Dehlvi’s sons – the widely read Yunus Dehlvi and the widely popular Idrees Dehlvi – who turned what was otherwise a haloed literary publication into a family magazine.
Literary love 1960 cover of Shama and editor of the Urdu magazine | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Idrees had strong film connections. In a column he wrote under the pen name of Musafir, he talked of little things in the life of film stars: the films they signed, the films they opted out of, the flops they gave or the jubilee hits they notched up. He talked too of their relationships, their moments of stolen pleasure. He backed it all up with photographs of film shooting, movie storylines and lyrics of popular songs.
Readers lapped it up. Within no time, fans of Meena Kumari and Madhubala, Sadhana and Sharmila Tagore, Sridevi and Jayaprada started collecting the photos of their matinee idols.
Emboldened by the success, Shama started its own annual film awards with a graceful function at Ashok hotel’s convention hall. Soon, the biggest stars of Hindi cinema started frequenting Shama Kothi on Sardar Patel Marg in New Delhi, the residence of the Dehlvis named after the magazine. From Dilip Kumar and Sunil Dutt to Dev Anand, Rajendra Kumar, Rajesh Khanna and Dharmendra, they would all come over.
The rise and fall of Shama Shashi Kapoor and Sadia Dehlvi | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Once, as Vaseem Dehlavi, son of Yunus, recalls, “Sunil Dutt and Sanjay came shortly after Nargis Dutt had passed away to share their sorrow.” Often, the staff photographer of Shama clicked the pictures of stars here. They were then shared with readers as exclusive photos.
From predominantly abstract illustrations and photographs in the 40s, Shama by the 60s started having film stars on the cover. There were also film quizzes where a hundred cassettes of a new film’s songs were given away as prizes in the 70s and 80s. Every issue sold at least a lakh copies. People went to newspaper stalls to pick up their copy if their vendor delayed in delivering it at their house.
Crossword craze
The other big push was given by Yunus Dehlvi who had joined his father at the magazine as a young boy of 14-15. He started an Adabi Muamma (loosely culture crossword). It was in many ways the first such venture in an Urdu magazine. Men with pretensions to knowledge of varied kind were so hooked to Adabi Muamma that the magazine started getting lakhs of replies to every crossword. They all vied to win the two kilogram of gold bumper prize every month in the 80s.
As Vaseem Dehlavi reveals, “It was a completely honest exercise. When my father started putting the muamma together, he would lock himself in a room for two days and not allow any family member to come in.”
The rise and fall of Shama The magazine crossword | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
The newspaper sellers matched its huge popularity with their innovation. They started selling forms for the puzzle and photostat copies of the original crossword separately. There was a time in the 70s and 80s when the magazine’s cover price was ₹5 but the photocopies of the muamma were sold separately by some vendors for ₹10!
There was a pickle seller in Old Delhi who made hay while Shama shined. He started selling the muamma, besides his pickle delicacies. Then there was a bookseller at Nai Sarak who mixed books with the puzzle. Children came for books, their parents for the puzzle. “We used to get at least 2 lakh responses to each muamma. If more than one person got the answer right, the prize money was shared between them. If in some issue, nobody got the right answer, it was carried over to the next issue. The prize money for the following month was added to it. There was that level of integrity to the whole issue,” says Vaseem Dehlavi, who is now based in Mumbai.
All good things, however, do come to an end. By the 90s, Urdu was no longer as popular a language. And the internet provided access to films. The heady days of longing for photographs and interviews of film stars are consigned to history. Add to that the crests and troughs of the family business. By December 1999, Shama, meaning candle flame, was extinguished, leaving many a parvana (moth) with happy memories of the years gone by.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Books / by Ziya Us Salam / July 22nd, 2022
Nine soldiers from the Indian Army’s Force K6 died in the area after fighting with the British in World War I and II.
Monument: The memorial to the nine soldiers has been unveiled in Kingussie.
A memorial has been unveiled to commemorate a band of war heroes who served with the Indian Army and perished in the Scottish Highlands.
Nine soldiers were buried at a cemetery in Kingussie. The new monument stands prominently in the centre of the town.
People came from all corners of the UK for a pilgrimage to honour the men.
The Indian Army’s Force K6 was a transport unit that used mules to deliver vital supplies to frontline troops. It was despatched to various UK destinations.
The nine soldiers who died during training in the Cairngorms are remembered on the new stone-built tribute.
Among those attending the unveiling was 99-year-old Isobel Harling from Kingussie who had served in the Navy.
Isobel Harling tended the men’s graves for more than 70 years.
She tended the men’s graves for seven decades, influenced by kindly people who had done the same for her brother after he was shot down in Belgium.
Nasim Azad of the Muslim Council of Scotland, who travelled from Edinburgh for the ceremony, was thrilled to have met Isobel.
Ms Azad said: “She decided to take it upon herself to care for them with love but for no return – no return – for 70 years.
“For 70 years she took care of those graves, so it’s an absolute honour to have met such a wonderful, wonderful lady.”
Also attending the multi-faith event was Asif Hassan Sheikh of the Scottish Ahlul Bayt Society.
He said: “Thank you Scotland for looking after these sons who served so faithfully and gave their lives for the cause.”
Puneet Dwivedi of Hindus In Scotland said: “It’s very important to recognise the efforts of the soldier who gave their life for world peace.
“And I’m really impressed with Highland Council and the community here who built this memorial.”
He added: “It’s a changing world and this shows that all colours of people are the same and they’re honoured for their work.”
Memorial project officer Heather Taylor said: “The design was based on pulling together several aspects of faith, hope and charity – the charity that Isobel has shown, the hope that we have for the future tomorrow and the faiths that are represented here today.
“We’ve got an Islamic inscription from the Qur’an. We’ve got a Christian inscription and we’ve also got representation from the Hindu faith as well – all brought together under Isobel’s guidance.”
The men laid to rest at Kingussie New Cemetery are Ali Bahadur, Bari Sher, Dadan Khan, Fazl Ali, Khan Muhammad, Khushi Muhamm, Muhammad, Muhammad Sadiq and Mushtaq Ahmad.
The black granite stone monument is the UK’s first permanent memorial to all ranks of Force K6. It was engraved and adorned with gold leaf by Inverness monument makers Andrew Stewart and Son Ltd.
Craftsman Marc Bruce from Aviemore chose Indian sandstone and mixed shades of locally sourced Cairngorm granite.
Kingussie’s Am Fasgadh Regeneration Company was awarded £20,706 through a Highland Council investment programme to put towards the match-funded Force K6 memorial project.
Isobel Harling was awarded a British Empire Medal for her dedication.
Force K6 came from across India including the country now known as Pakistan.
They arrived in France in 1939 – with their mules – to provide animal transport for the Allies.
During Hitler’s infamous ‘Blitzkrieg’ one company was captured in Gerardmer. The others were evacuated with the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk and other ports.
After postings in England and Wales most of the companies ultimately arrived in the Highlands.
The 51st Highland Division remained with the French 9th Army to attempt to deny and delay Rommel’s advancing troops from further gains.
From June 1942 they had several camps in Badenoch and Strathspey from where they supported winter warfare training in the Cairngorm mountains.
The soldiers were popular in the local communities, helping on farms, playing with children, sharing cultural cuisine and demonstrating their flair for horsemanship.
After postings to other locations in the Highlands, they returned to India by early 1944.
Fourteen of the Force K6 men died in Scotland.
For outstanding duty in France, members of Force K6 received an MBE, an Indian Order of Merit, three Indian Distinguished Service Medals and one mention in despatch.
The British Indian Army contributed 1.5 million servicemen in World War I. A total of 74,000 died and up to 100,000 were injured.
In World War II, there were 2.5million service personnel – 87,000 of whom died and up to 150,000 were injured.
The soldiers were Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, Gurkhas, and Indian Christians.
source: http://www.news.stv.tv / STV News / Home> News> Highlands & Islands / by Iain Ramage / September 21st, 2022
The All India Gem and Jewellery Domestic Council (GJC) felicitated Malabar Gold and Diamonds on being selected as the 6th largest jewellery group in the world, taking the Indian brand to the world stage.
M P Ahammed, chairman, Malabar Group, O Asher, managing director – India Operations, Malabar Gold & Diamonds and A K Nishad, director, B2B and Manufacturing (India), Malabar Gold & Diamonds received the award from the Ashish Pethe, chairman, GJC in presence of Saiyam Mehra, vice chairman, GJC, Nilesh Sobhawat and Sunil Podar, directors, GJC at an event held in Mumbai.
source: http://www.daijiworld.com / DaijiWorld.com / Home> Karnataka / by Media Release (headline edited) / September 27th, 2022
Bearys scores a hat trick by winning the prestigious ‘National Award for Excellence in Energy Management’ by CII for three consecutive years (2020, 21 & 22) for its project Bearys Global Research Triangle (BGRT), Whitefield, Bangalore and was declared the ‘National Energy Leader’.
Bearys was also commended and was awarded another accolade for the ‘Most useful Presentation’ at the award ceremony.
The awards were presented by Dr. Ashok Kumar, Director, Bureau of Energy Efficiency (BEE), Ministry of Power, Govt. of India to Mr. Mazhar Beary, Executive Director, in the presence of other eminent dignitaries at a grand award ceremony held at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi on Wednesday 21st Sept. 2022.
India’s first LEED Platinum R & D Park BGRT is globally recognized by both Industry and Academia as an epitome of sustainable development and an exemplary benchmark project and has become an arche model for sustainable development. A stream of Architects, Consultants, Developers and students from across India are visiting the project to see, learn and understand more about sustainable development and its manifold benefits.
‘We, at Bearys feel elated to receive this award and would like to dedicate this laurel to our mentors the late Dr. Prem C Jain, former Chairman, IGBC and the late Mr. Mahendrarajji, renowned structural consultant, New Delhi, who have inspired and guided us along the way. We now rededicate ourselves to our relentless pursuit to promote Sustainable Development & further the IGBC led ‘Green Building Movement’ in India” proclaims Mr. Syed Mohamed Beary, Founder & CMD.
source: http://www.beads.edu.in / BEADS / Home> News / by BEADS / September 21st, 2022
23-year-old Aamna Kausar, an MSc Medical Anatomy student at the Manipal Academy of Higher Education in Udupi has topped the university in the final year examinations.
Aamna, who is also the President of the district unit of the Girls Islamic Organization, scored 8.6 CGPA, the highest in this year’s examinations.
Daughter of Mohammad Iqbal, a businessman and Wajida Tabassum, a homemaker, the hijabi student wants to pursue a PhD in Human Anatomy.
She told The Cognate, “I am planning to do PhD next year on a topic related to human anatomy. Meanwhile, I will be working for a year.”
Aamna who has secured a job as a faculty to teach anatomy to medical students. However, she aims to get into the research field.
Notably, Aamna is a hijabi student from Udupi which was the hotbed of the hijab controversy a few months back.
“Being a hijab-wearing student in our university, I have seen difficult times during the controversy. I was actively participating in discourses surrounding the hijab row through GIO,” she said.
“The way hijabi students were treated in the district was really bad. But now, moments like these prove to them that education is the right of everyone and if students are given proper education, they will reach heights,” she added.
source: http://www.thecognate.com / The Cognate / Home> Education / by Rabia Shireen / September 26th, 2022
The Moti Masjid in Bhopal. | Photo Credit: FARUQUI A. M.
Tracing the history of a city where four Muslim women ruled for over 107 years
As the capital of one of the largest States, Bhopal has flown under the radar. It has little of the financial muscle associated with Mumbai, even less historicity to rival that of Kolkata. It has neither the earthiness of Patna nor the niceties of Lucknow. Yet, Bhopal in its own understated way has enough accomplishments to fill up a mantelpiece.
Among all the States, cities and towns of imperial and modern India, Bhopal has done more for women empowerment than probably all States put together. True, back in the 13th century Delhi had a woman ruler, Raziya Sultan, who ruled from 1236 to 1240, but little else.
Bhopal has been ruled by four Muslim women for 107 years. The Begums of Bhopal did not shy away from calling themselves the Nawabs of Bhopal.
Shaharyar Khan, Shobhan Lambert-Hurley and Vertul Singh have authored or edited books on the city, which on the one hand capture its history, and on the other reveal the streak of women dominance for more than a hundred years.
pix: bloomsbury.com
Khan’s The Begums of Bhopal is the most detailed work. Like an artist fills his canvas with colour, Khan fills his pages with details of the city, its illustrious history, and its formidable Begums, now reduced to a faint memory. Khan’s Bhopal was founded by Dost Mohammed Khan. As the author reminds us, “In 1707, before Dost Mohammed Khan arrived in Malwa, central India, Bhopal was a small village on the banks of the River Banganga. An old fort, lying in ruins, was a testimony to Bhopal having known more prosperous times in the distant past.”
Tales of Bhojpal
The earliest reference to Bhopal though dates back to 640 AD when it was ruled by the Parmar dynasty. Its name is derived from that of Raja Bhoj who, as legend has it, contracted leprosy and was advised to build a lake with water from 365 rivers and bathe in it. Raja Bhoj did as advised. The lake was called Bhoj Tal (or Bhoj’s lake). Over time, it got corrupted to Bhojpal, then Bhopal.
The State was formed in 1715. It was the second largest Muslim princely state in pre-Independence India, wherein 90% of the population was Hindu. Interestingly, the Begum of Bhopal, Nawab Sikandar Begum, as Lambert-Hurley writes in the introduction to A Princess’s Pilgrimage, supported the British during the Revolt of 1857.
After the Revolt had been suppressed, this loyalty was rewarded in the Queen’s Proclamation of 1858 in which Sikandar was granted the title of Nawab to rule over Bhopal in her own right as well as given a 19-gun salute, the return of territory lost to a neighbouring prince and the Grand Cross of the Star of India. “This honour made her, at the time, the only female knight in the British Empire besides Queen Victoria, a position that underlines her unique status, as well as her close relationship with the British,” writes Lambert-Hurley.
The story of Bhopal though began not with Sikandar Begum’s rise or the reign of her mother Qudsia Begum or her own daughter Shah Jahan Begum, but with an intrepid young man called Dost Mohammed Khan. As Shaharyar Khan writes, “The story of Bhopal begins with Sardar Dost Mohammad Khan, founder of the state and of the Bhopal dynasty. Born in 1672, Dost was a strapping, handsome, brash and ambitious young man. Like all Pathan noblemen, he had been brought up in the warrior tradition of his clan…Dost’s only ambition was to enlist in Aurangzeb’s army and make his future in the service of the Mughal Empire. Around 1697, Dost was in his mid-20s and a brash, dare-devil, buccaneer of a character. He was restless and ready to seek his fortune by crossing the Khyber Pass into India.” Head to India he did, but it was far from an easy ride.
As he traversed through Jalalabad, Karnal and Delhi, on more than one occasion, he almost kissed death, but he proved a survivor, qualities which came in handy when he got to play a pivotal role in Bhopal.
Though he arrived in Bhopal practically a brigand, he worked his way up, working with a number of local kingdoms and fiefdoms — Rani Kamlapati is said to have sought his protection after the death of her husband Nizam Shah and even tied a rakhi on his hand.
He built the famous Fatehgarh Fort in 1716, including the famous Dhai Seedi ki Masjid, as Vertul Singh writes in BhopalNama: Writing a City. Incidentally, Fatehgarh was probably named after Fateh Bibi, a Rajput princess he married. Fateh was no ordinary woman; she paid ransom for her husband’s release when he was held captive by his own troops in Gujarat, Singh writes.
Khans to Begums
How did Bhopal transition from the Khans to Begums? After Khan’s death, Bhopal was attacked by many mercenaries when Mamola Bai, said by some to be the first Begum, took the help of British General Goddard to repel such forces. Then came Qudsia Begum whose perseverance and wisdom saved the “state from being gobbled up by the Scindias and the Bhonsles”, as Singh states. Her daughter Sikandar took statecraft to another level. Sikandar’s daughter Shah Jahan Begum added fine touches of poetry, art, music to turn Bhopal into a throbbing centre of the arts. Yet, the most maternal approach towards the subjects was displayed by the fourth Nawab, Sultan Jahan, known for administrative reforms, including several measures for the welfare of her subjects. So much so that she came to be addressed as Sarkar Amma.
This succession of matrilineal rulers gave Bhopal a unique identity. They did what a man could never have dreamt of.
For instance, Sultan Shah Jahan Begum initiated the building of a hospital exclusively for women, with women doctors, nurses and other staff. The facility came to be known as Sultania Zenana Hospital.
Likewise Sikandar Begum started the practice of schools for girls, inviting scholars from Yemen, Turkey and Arabia.
Incidentally, she penned her own experience of Hajj to Mecca and Medina in ‘A Pilgrimage to Mecca’ which now forms part of Lambert-Hurley’s A Princess’s Pilgrimage. Sikandar Begum’s was no ordinary trip as Hajj those days was a life-challenging exercise with possibilities of being robbed, injured or killed by marauders along the way.
After Sikandar, Sultan Jahan concentrated on girls’ education. As Singh writes, “Sultan Jahan’s contribution to women’s education is in no way lesser than that of Sir Syed Ahmed Khan.”
Incidentally, she was the only woman chancellor of Mohammedan Anglo-Oriental College which was to become the Aligarh Muslim University.
All the Begums worked well and lived long. Once, all the four queens of Bhopal were alive at the same time with Qudsia living to breathe alongside three of her successors. That’s an interesting footnote in the history of a city where male heirs have been few and far between. Their absence was seldom felt.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / Hindu / Home> Books / by Ziya Us Salam / book cover pix: by bloomsbury.com / September 12th, 2022
The idea for creating the app came to Hana while watching a documentary about the importance of the parent-child relationship.
Abu Dhabi:
A 9-year-old Dubai-based Indian girl who developed an iOS app receives appreciation from Apple CEO Tim Cook for her achievement at such a young age.
Hana Muhammad Rafeeq had initially emailed Tim Cook claiming to be the youngest iOS developer.
In his reply, Tim Cook wrote to her “Congratulations on all of your impressive achievements at such a young age. Keep at it and you will do amazing things in the future.”
Hana Muhammad Rafeeq, when she was 8-year-old developed ‘Hanas’— storytelling app, which allows parents to record stories in their voices for their kids, Hana handwrote more than 10,000 lines of code.
The idea for creating the app came to Hana while watching a documentary about the importance of the parent-child relationship. “If the parents are busy with work, they can record the stories so that the children can listen to them before bed,” Hana told Gulf News.
source: youtube.com / Hanas iOS Mobile App preview
Hana and her 10-year-old sister Leena are both self-taught coders who got inspired by their parents.
As per reports, sisters are now experts in coding languages HTML, CSS, C, C++, Swift and the latest SwiftUI. They are also learning human languages English, Spanish German, Arabic, Hindi and Malayalam.
source: http://www.siasat.com / The Siasat Daily / Home> News> Middle East / by Sakina Fatima / September 24th, 2022
Aliah University is a state government-run autonomous university having three campuses in New Town in West Bengal. | Picture by arrangement
The inaugural batch of the nursing course in a university in West Bengal, designed especially for women, has achieved this success.
West Bengal:
Almost the entire batch of this year’s graduates of the B.Sc Nursing course at Aliah University have got job placements. Fifty-three out of fifty-four graduating students, mostly Muslim women have been selected as nursing staff in various medical colleges and hospitals run by the government of West Bengal.
This is the inaugural batch of the nursing course designed especially for women. It is for the first time that almost an entire batch of a program in Aliah University has gotten placement.
Aliah University is a state government-run autonomous university having three campuses in New Town in West Bengal. It offers undergraduate and postgraduate programs in different Engineering, Arts, Science, Management, and Nursing subjects. Previously known as Mohammedan College of Calcutta, it was elevated as a university in 2008. It is a minority institution and hence a majority of its students come from marginalized groups and communities like Muslims and lower castes.
Usha Mallick, the head of the department of nursing told TwoCircles.net, “This is an unprecedented success for the department of nursing because these are the first batch of graduates. We at Aliah University are extremely proud of our graduates who worked hard.”
“This kind of placement will get us a great standing in the state as well as the country. This is great news also because all the girls in this department, like most students of Aliah university, come from extreme socio-economically backward families living in remote rural districts of West Bengal,” she added.
Usha Malick is head of the department of nursing at the university. | Photo by author arrangement
“We are thankful to the Mamata Banerjee government for helping the university start the course, and to the National Medical College for providing practical training for nursing students,” she said while adding that Aliah is the only state university that runs a nursing course without its medical college and hospital facilities.
Educating kids from extremely backward districts like Murshidabad The news brought cheers to several young women. Lutfa Khatoon is from Murshidabad, a densely Muslim populated area (67%) where the state of education is extremely poor. According to Census 2011, the literacy rate of the district is 66.60%, which is far below the national average of 74.04% and the state’s average of 77.08%. The district holds the bottommost position in the rank of literacy rates since the Census 1951.
“In Murshidabad education is not the priority in general, let alone education of girls. When I got admission to the course, people in my area said I am getting training to become a nursemaid. My placement has broken that impression,” Khatoon told TwoCircles.net. She is posted in Murshidabad medical college and hospital.
Firoja, Lutfa’s batchmate, told TwoCircles.net that studying was not the only thing she invested hard work in. “These four years of the course people would come to my house in Murshidabad and taunt my parents that your daughter will be ruined because they gave me the freedom to move to Calcutta to study,” said Firoja who is posted at Anup Nagar primary hospital, Murshidabad.
She mentioned that she faced financial hardships but thanked the university for providing her scholarship.
Aatika, Lutfa’s classmate told TwoCircles.net that people in the rural areas of West Bengal say that “sending girls to the city for education is like providing them with opportunities to be spoiled.” But her getting a nursing job has broken the patriarchal mindset and inspired many parents to send their daughters to study.
“In my village, most people marry off their daughters after they pass the tenth class. I am very lucky that my family supported me. It is because of them that I got a very respectful job,” she added.
Oldest modern style educational institute in Asia The university is one of the oldest educational institutes in Asia. Established by Warren Hastings, the British governor-general of East India Company in 1780. Calcutta Mohammedan College, as it was called by Hastings. Established in the form of a madrasa school, it is one of the oldest modern-style educational institutions in Asia and the first of its kind in India. It taught Natural Philosophy, Grammar, Logic, Arithmetic, Astronomy, Geometry, Arabic, Persian, Theology and Islamic Law, and Theory and Rhetoric.
Good career placement not new for Aliah University Dr Mohammad Reyaz, assistant professor of journalism at the university told TwoCircles.net that good career placements are not new to the university.
“Earlier it used to be a Madrasa. Not many people know that it has been turned into a university which offers courses in Engineering, Electronics and Communication, Business Management and nursing among other subjects. So these kinds of placements do help break the stereotype which tries to reduce the image of this premier institution as a madrasa. Not only do the students of nursing and engineering departments get good placements but students of the Arabic department also get jobs in prestigious firms like Amazon,” said Dr Reyaz.
Sufi Parween is a fellow at SEEDS-TCN Mentorship Program. Shentweets at@sufiparween84
source: http://www.twocircles.net / TwoCircles.net / Home> Lead Story / by Sufi Parween, TwoCircles.net / August 08th, 2022
