The Chennai Telescope
Monday, August 29, 2016
Monday, August 22, 2016
Happy Madras (Chennai) Day 2016 - ""377th Happy Birthday Chennai ""
Madras Day is a festival organized to commemorate the founding of the city of Madras (now Chennai) in Tamil Nadu, India. It is celebrated on 22 August every year, 22 August 1639 being the widely agreed date for the purchase of the village of Madraspatnam or Chennapatnam by East India Company factors Andrew Cogan and Francis Day from Damerla Venkatapathy, the viceroy of theVijayanagar Empire.
The idea of a Madras Day was first suggested by Chennai-based journalist Vincent D'Souza to historian S. Muthiah during a meeting of the trustees of the Chennai Heritage foundation in 2004. Since then, Madras Day celebrations have been held every year without fail, its highlights being exhibitions, lectures, film screenings and quizzes. The Madras Day festival has registered a steady increase in popularity year after year. The 2014 and 2015 editions have lasted through August and extended into September as well, prompting demands to rename Madras Day as Madras Week or even, Madras Month.
There has been a contention that the deed of purchase was actually dated 22 July 1639 and not 22 August. The motive of the celebrations have also been criticized by academicians and state government organizations who feel that it gives undue importance to colonial heritage.
Background
The modern history of the city dates back to 1639 when Francis Day of the British East India Company bought a small strip of land on the Coromandel Coast from theVijayanagara King, Peda Venkata Raya in Chandragiri. The region was ruled by Damerla Venkatapathy, the Nayak of Vandavasi. He granted the British permission to build a factory and warehouse for their trading enterprises. A year later, the British built Fort St George, which became the nucleus of the growing colonial city.
It was on 22 August 1639 that a sliver of land, where now stands Fort St George, was handed over by the local Sowbaraniya rulers to the East India Company’s Francis Day, his dubash Beri Thimmappa, and their superior, Andrew Cogan. From this small three square miles given to the East India Company grew the city of Madras where more than four and a half million people live now. As years passed by out of the fort grew settlements and the villages around it were brought together with the old and new towns linked up and hence birth of a city.
History of Madras Day
The first recorded celebration of the founding of Madras was its tercentenary commemoration in 1939. Unlike later anniversaries, the celebrations were officially sponsored by the British government and a special tercentenary commemoration volume was issued with essays on the different aspects of Madras city authored by leading experts of the time. An exhibition of pictures, portraits, maps, records and coins was inaugurated by Diwan Bahadur S. E. Runganadhan, the Vice-Chancellor of the Madras University and a short play writing competition was organized.
The 350th anniversary in 1989 was celebrated with the opening of a commemorative monument titled "Madras 350" built in the Classical Style by builder Frankpet Fernandez at the junction of the Poonamallee High Road and the New Avadi Road. Other major events included the commissioning of a book by S. Muthiah titled Madras — The Gracious City by the Murugappa Group which also organized the first Madras Quiz which has continued to the present day.
The idea to celebrate the birth of the city every year was born when journalists Shashi Nair and Vincent D'Souza met S. Muthiah at his residence for coffee. It was based on the success of another event called Mylapore Festival which D'Souza had been organising every year in January. It was decided by the trio to start celebrating Madras Day from 2004. According to them, "primary motive of celebrating `Madras Day' was to focus on the city, its past and its present." The idea initially started off with about five events in 2004 but grew gradually. The second edition in 2005 had events throughout the week. In 2008, there were a total of 60 events conducted. In 2007, a commemorative postal cover was released by Chief Postmaster-General of Tamil Nadu Circle at a function at Fort St George as a part of the Madras Day celebrations, thereby inaugurating a tradition that continued through the later editions. The 2010 celebrations lasted beyond a week and extended well into the following week as well.
The 375th Madras Day was celebrated with more than a hundred events that lasted from 10 August to 14 September 2014. However, despite expectations to the contrary, Tamil Nadu government departments did not participated in the celebrations which they felt promoted "colonial heritage". The celebrations were deemed a roaring success and the events got nationwide coverage for the first time.The Madras Song was composed to commemorate the occasion and a website launched by The Hindu titled friendsofchennai.com for residents of the city to create online petitions voicing their civic grievances. Historian and entrepreneur V. Sriram also designed a mobile app named Chennai Past Forward for users to keep in track with the heritage of the city.
The 376th Madras Day celebrations were bigger with events being held even in suburbs like Tambaram. Apart from heritage walks, the 2015 edition also included a walk of theL. V. Prasad film studios. The focus was, however, on restoration of the Coovum River and a presentation on the history and heritage of the Coovum River was held at theMadras Literary Society by author Anusha Venkatesh on 15 August. The Cycling Yogis, a Chennai cyclists' group, conducted a 72 km bicycle ride along with the Coovum River on 16 August 2015.
The 377th Madras Day celebrations were kick-started in a grand manner by THE HINDU Group through their Madras Beats 2016 song. Composed and performed by Opus G7 music band which was selected as winner through a competition floated by the The Hindu, the song ENDRUM PADHINAARU was launched on 21st August 2016 and is already viral in Social Media network.
Friday, August 19, 2016
Reaction of a Mother Just at the Moment Her Daughter Made India Proud!!!
Sakshi Malik's mother, Sudesh was head over heels when she saw her daughter win the fight against Aisuluu Tynybekova of Kyrgyzstan, that got India's first bronze medal of Rio 2016.
Not able to control her emotions, Sudesh's reaction was indeed epic as she video started trending. She was seen kissing the TV screen and jumping with joy as Sakshi hugged her coach and was all smiles after the win. Sudesh's reaction has gone viral, as India shared the happiness of the proud mother.
Monday, August 8, 2016
Tony Robbins Business Mastery- Best Tip for Successful Business Development |Tony Robbins Seminar
Robbins was born Anthony J. Mahavoric in North Hollywood, California, on February 29, 1960. His surname was originally spelled 'Mohorović' and is of Croatian origin.Robbins is the eldest of three children and his parents divorced when he was 7. His mother then had a series of husbands, including Jim Robbins, a former semiprofessional baseball player who legally adopted Anthony when he was 12.
His father could not provide for their family, so he left them. His mother started abusing alcohol and prescription drugs sometime after. While growing up, Robbins was a primary care-giver, and helped provide for his siblings. Robbins was raised in Azusa and Glendora, California. He was elected student body president in his senior year and grew 10 inches in high school, a growth spurt later attributed to a pituitary tumor. He has said his home life was "chaotic" and "abusive." When he was 17 years old, Robbins' mother chased him out of the house with a knife, and he never returned. Robbins later worked as a janitor, and did not attend college.
Saturday, August 6, 2016
Chennai 600028 II Innings Official Teaser 2016
Watch the Official Teaser of Chennai 600028 II : Second Innings is an upcoming Tamil coming-of-age sports comedy film starring Jai, Shiva, Premji, Aravind Akash and Nithin Sathya. Written & directed by Venkat Prabhu and Music by Yuvan Shankar Raja.
Monday, August 1, 2016
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