AQI very high in Asansol, alarming rise of air pollution in past two days
With the onset of winter, Asansol's Air Quality Index (AQI) has deteriorated significantly, with air pollution levels reaching alarming levels in recent days.
Monalisa Das, another ‘friend’ of former state industries minister Partha Chatterjee conspicuous by her absence during the two-day international conference on the centenary celebration of poem Bidrohi (rebel) at the Kazi Nazrul University in Asansol.
Bengal’s rebel poet Kazi Nazrul Islam had composed Bidrohi, a revolutionary Bengali poem in December, 1921. Originally published in several periodicals the poem was first collected in October, 1922 in a volume titled ‘Agnibeena’ – the first anthology of Nazrul’s poems.
Monalisa, a professor with the Bengali department of the KNU, incidentally was assigned as the chief advisor of the international conference, but she vanished from the scene. The KNU authorities also tried to skip the Monalisa issue. Dr Somnath Mukherjee, secretary of the conference said, “She’s supposed to be here but we don’t know why she didn’t come to the venue.”
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The vice-chancellor, KNU, Prof Sadhan Chakraborty declined to comment on Das’s absence today. The CPM already staged demonstrations at KNU yesterday demanding removal of Das, besides, probes against a number of appointments at the university.
Prof June McDaniel of College of Charleston, USA, Dr Rebecca Whittington of University of California, Prof Hauder A Khan of University of Denver, Prof Neela Saxena of State University of New York, Dr Sanjukta Dasgupta of Sapienza University of Rome, Italy joined the conference through web-casting. Two Professors from Bangladesh joined physically.
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