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Bengal

Heritage walk on Jan 15 to mark beginning of Presidency’s bicentenary celebrations

Distinguished scholar Professor Sukanta Chowdhury will receive the distinguished Presidency College alumnus award, 2017 at a function to celebrate the bicentenary college, now university, on January 20.

The past recipients of the award included Amartya Sen, Somnath Chatterjee and Mihir Rakshit, secretary of the university’s Alumni Association Bibhas Chowdhury said on Wednesday.

A heritage walk will be held on January 15 to mark the beginning of the bicentenary programme from Swami Vivekananda’s ancestral house on College Street to the university.

Swamiji studied in the college for one year but later discontinued because of ill health and took admission at General Assembly’s Institution now known as Scottish Church College and became a graduate. 

Swami Purnatmananda, secretary of Swamiji’s ancestral house will inaugurate the walk. The past pupils of the college and university will participate.

On January 20, which is the foundation day of the college, a function will be held where Dr Manmohan Singh will deliver the keynote address at 12 noon at Derozio auditorium of the university. He will release the bicentenary issue of the university magazine and hand over the distinguished award to Chowdhury. All the past pupils who have become vice chancellors of different universities and all the past principals of the college will be felicitated.

President Pranab Mukherjee will release the bicentenary stamp at a function in the evening at 5 pm along with the Governor KN Tripathi and state Education minister Partha Chatterjee. Renowned vocalist Rashid Khan will perform on the foundation day.

On January 21, Jhar, a drama on the life of Derozio will be held. A celebrity cricket match between the past and present students will be held at the Eden Gardens on February 11. There will be other programmes throughout the year, Chowdhury said.

The president of Ramakrishna Math and Mission Swami Atmasthananda was a past student of the college. Swami Prabhananda, one of the vice presidents of the Order is also a past pupil. There are some monks of the Order who studied at the college. Three chief secretaries of the state in recent times, Rathin Sengupta, Ashok Mohan Chakravarty and Samar Ghosh were past students of the college. 

Among the serving bureaucrats who were past students of the college are the chief secretary Basudeb Bandopadhyay, Debashis Sen, Alapan Bandopadhyay, and Roshni Sen. Renowned scholars including Abhijit Vinayak Banerjee, Dipesh Chakraborty, Ashok Sen, Gautam Mondol and Somak Ray Chaudhuri are past students of the college.
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