The Ganges, Calcutta and the Namesake

The SAJA Forum points to something interesting. NPR’s “Morning Edition” has been running a series called “The Ganges: A Journey Into India”. The entire audio and a series of diary entries from Reeves is available on the NPR website, along with photos by Heathcliff O’Malley. I found this one particularly interesting because inexplicably, Calcutta is (sort of) home. This made me chuckle, especially the last line:

But Bengalis see the place slightly differently: They also consider Calcutta — or Kolkata, as they now call it — to be India’s cultural capital and the habitat of an important species: intellectuals.

They refer in conversation to “intellectuals” as if they are a separate class, a professional category like generals or astronauts.

HT’s new look

Nithya drew my attention to the new look of the Hindustan Times website. She points out that it looks a lot like the NYT website and yes, it does (including masthead and font size). It has an appealing freshness though and is easy on the eye. I don’t visit HT very regularly because it has no local news obviously (there is no Bangalore edition). But the new look might just change that. I can’t resist a well-designed website. So what if the idea is…er, borrowed.