Kolkata: Sri Sri Radha Govind Mandir (ISKCON)

Select Language Afrikaans Albanian Arabic Armenian Azerbaijani Basque Belarusian Bulgarian Bengali Catalan Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Traditional) Croatian Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Filipino Finnish French Galician Georgian German Greek Gujarati Haitian Creole Hebrew Hindi Hungarian Icelandic Indonesian Irish Italian Japanese Javanese Kannada Khmer Korean Latvian Lithuanian Macedonian Malay Maltese Marathi Nepali Norwegian Persian Polish Portuguese Punjabi Romanian Russian Serbian Slovak Slovenian Spanish Swahili Swedish Tamil Telugu Thai Turkish Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese Welsh Yiddish

This is a collection of articles archived for the excellence of their content. Additional information may please be sent as messages to the Facebook community, Indpaedia.com. All information used will be gratefully acknowledged in your name.

ISKCON Rath Yatra

Briefly

From GROK

The ISKCON Rath Yatra in Kolkata starts from the ISKCON Kolkata temple, officially known as Sri Sri Radha Govind Mandir, located at 3C Albert Road, near Minto Park. The procession begins with the Pahundi ceremony around 8:30 AM, where the deities of Lord Jagannath, Baladeva, and Subhadra are brought to their chariots. The chariots are then pulled through the streets, covering a route of 6 to 7 kilometers, and conclude at the Gundicha Temple at TAI Brigade Ground on Park Street, where they arrive around 9:45 PM. The deities remain there for darshan until the Ulta Rath Yatra on July 15, when they return to the ISKCON Kolkata temple.

2025 starting date: June 27, 2025

New tyres

Subhro Niyogi, June 1, 2025: The Times of India

Kolkata : Lord Jagannath’s chariot at Iskcon Rath Yatra in Kolkata this year will roll at a gentle pace of 1.4kmph on brand new tyres designed for a Russian Sukhoi fighter jet whose take-off run reaches a speed of 280kmph. The new tyres were necessitated after the chariot encountered a steering snag last year.


Acquisition of the Sukhoi tyres marks the culmination of a two-decade quest for fresh tyres for the chariot. The ageing tyres, in use for over half a century, were from a Boeing B-747. Sourcing the “jumbo jet” tyres became a challenge after the aircraft was phased out. The Sukhoi’s 4-ft diameter tyres were found to be closest match to the jumbo jet tyres, which had the same 4-ft diameter and weighed 110kg each.


While the B-747 tyres were manufactured by Dunlop, the Sukhoi tyres are manufactured by MRF, which supplies main wheel and nose wheel tyres for the Sukhoi Su-30MKI jets in India. These tyres undergo rigorous testing, including ground speed tests and load-capacity assessments.


“When I contacted MRF requesting Sukhoi tyres for the chariot, they didn’t believe us at first,” said Radharamn Das, vice-president of Iskcon Kolkata. “They even sent senior officials to Kolkata to inspect the chariots. When they saw that the chariots were running on Boeing 747 jumbo jet tyres for the past 48 years and we explained that Sukhoi tyres were the closest match in size and durability, they agreed to sell them to us.”


The new Sukhoi tyres will improve the chariot’s manoeuvrability, safety and overall stability, especially on Kolkata’s roads, many of which have tram tracks. They will also reduce strain of pulling on devotees and minimise the chances of technical failures during the Yatra starting June 27. 
The tyre-replacement work is currently underway and is expected to be completed by the second week of June, just ahead of Rath Yatra.