Corporate Citizen claps for North Kolkata’s Satya Ranjan Dolui (53 years), the day security guard at Jagat Mukherjee Park, under the Kolkata Municipal Corporation Ward No. 8, who has passionately transformed the resting room of the park into a public library at his own costs.

Dolui, who originally hails from West Bengal’s Malda district, faced financial constraints and life circumstances, preventing him from pursuing further education. However, he has ploughed his hard-earned money into building the library since 2010, setting aside funds from his meagre Rs 2,800 paycheck, which has increased to Rs 8200, in due course. He has created a reader’s cove, bringing visitors to the park to relax in the company of his current count of 12000 books. An avid gardener, Dolui also tends to plants that he has grown within the park’s premises. A nature lover, he tried his hands at maintaining a rabbit hutch for little children visiting the park with their mothers, which he had to gradually abandon as they would cut open the cages and escape. He has since added small birds and has an aquarium in the library precincts. Dolui’s idea behind tending to birds is to entertain and educate younger children on birds and nature. These children come with their mothers, as they wait for their elder siblings to finish their respective schools, located in and around the neighbourhood. He has inspired several regular visitors who have contributed to the library collection and helped maintain the reading space. Samar Mondal, the night guard at the park assists in keep vigil from drug addicts, preventing any form of potential vandalism. It includes Dolui’s two dogs Tiger and Scuby who keep alert the two security guards regularly. While Dolui is spreading knowledge through the initiative, he has indirectly instilled reading skills among youngsters in the virtual world. Many visit the place regularly, and read newspapers or magazines, igniting a love for books in a world that fetches information at the click of a button. The need is for more individuals like Dolui to re-kindle the joy of reading.

Corporate Citizen slaps opinions portraying obesity and the obese in the negative. Globally, obesity-related sentiments have been expressed in negative tones.

The fact that obesity and the obese often face derogatory and negative tweets was presented at the European Congress on Obesity (ECO) in Dublin, Ireland (17-20 May). The findings observed that tweets about obesity are predominantly negative. PO2.126, abstract at the European Congress on Obesity (ECO), stated that a mere 8.25% of the 25,000+ tweets analysed exhibited positive sentiments. They utilised Open-source software (the Tweepy library in Python) to download obesity-related tweets. Researchers utilised AI methods, performed sentiment analysis, and classified the tweets into positive, negative, and neutral sentiments. They extracted and analysed 25,580 obesity-led tweets posted between December 2019-December 2021. The 25,580 tweets analysed 243 topics, including childhood obesity, racism, high obesity rates among minorities, environmental risk factors, smoking, illicit substance use, and alcohol consumption among people with obesity, and other Covid-19-related factors affecting the obese. The findings noted that the maximum number of tweets concerned Covid -19 vaccination for the obese, American politician and former speaker of the United States House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi’s comments on Donald Trump’s weight, and former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s obesity campaign. Pelosi had described the then-president, Trump, as “morbidly obese” (May 19, 2020). Researchers noted that around 1,003 tweets were posted on the topic over several days and around 94% of the tweets were negative. Johnson’s obesity strategy for the UK launched on July 27, 2020, has faced public criticism, with 73.9% of the campaign-related tweets being negative. Racism targeted at Black people was the fourth most tweeted topic. “The negative portrayal of obesity by influential politicians and celebrities may increase stigma against people living with obesity, and also harm public health by spreading misinformation,” said Dr Jorge Correia, of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes, Nutrition and Therapeutic Patient Education, WHO Collaborating Centre, University Hospitals of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland. Dr Correia, suggests that instead of maligning the obese, the need is to invest in obesity-related healthcare solutions, improve health information regarding obesity, promote awareness, and reduce the stigma. It could well bring solace to the sufferings of those who have been body-shamed so far.