KOLKATA: The Indian city of Kolkata will mark Thursday the memory of a diminutive nun, born 100 years ago and half a world away, who became a global symbol of compassion for her work with the sick and destitute.

Mother Teresa, the "Angel of Mercy," a Nobel peace prize winner and Roman Catholic saint-in-waiting, was born on August 26, 1910 to Albanian parents in what is now Skopje in Macedonia.

As Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, she arrived in India in 1929 and two years later took her first religious vows as a nun and adopted the name under which she would achieve worldwide recognition.

Thursday`s anniversary will be marked in Kolkata, New Delhi, eastern Europe and even New York City`s Times Square, where giant billboards will glow blue and white -- the colour of the habit worn by the Missionaries of Charity order which she founded.

Special memorial prayers will be said in Kolkata and Indian Railways will launch a new "Mother Teresa Express Train" with the coaches painted in blue.

The city is also inaugurating a Mother Teresa international film festival with documentaries and biopics depicting her life and work.

Mother Teresa began her missionary work with the poor in Kolkata in 1948 and the teeming east Indian metropolis remained her base until her death in September 1997.

Her grave in her order`s headquarters in Kolkata has since become a pilgrimage site.

For all the reverence with which her name and memory are treated, Mother Teresa was not without her critics.

One her most vocal detractors was the British-born author Christopher Hitchens who, in a 1994 documentary called "Hell`s Angel," accused her of being a political opportunist who failed those in her care and contributed to the misery of the poor with her strident opposition to contraception and abortion.

Questions have also been raised over the Missionaries of Charity`s finances, as well as conditions in the order`s hospices where there has been resistance to introducing modern hygiene methods.

The Archbishop of Kolkata, Lucas Sircar, said the sisters had struggled over the past decade.

"Mother Teresa had the charisma and compassion to carry the order all over the world," Sircar told AFP.

"When she was alive, everything was under her control. After her death, the void was felt everywhere," he said.

Luigi Vaghi, an Italian volunteer who came to work in Nirmal Hriday, the first home Mother Teresa set up in Kolkata to nurse the sick and dying, said he had left after becoming disillusioned.

"She talked of compassion, love and mercy. These virtues are missing in the home," Vaghi said, without elaborating.

Mother Teresa was beatified in 2003, after being fast-tracked by the Vatican, but her elevation to sainthood is still awaiting proof of a medical miracle.

During the beatification process, the Vatican called on Hitchens to play the ancient role of "devil`s advocate" and present arguments against her being blessed.

A series of Mother Teresa`s letters published in 2007 also caused some consternation among her admirers as it became clear that she had suffered crises of faith for most of her life and even doubted God`s existence.

"Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear," she wrote to one confidant, Reverend Michael Van Der Peet, in 1979.

Anniversary events have also been planned on Thursday in the three neighbouring Balkan states of Albania, Macedonia and Kosovo -- all of which lay claim to a slice of the Mother Teresa legend.

The Macedonian parliament will hold a special session in her honour on Thursday, while blue and white flags and portraits of Mother Teresa have been erected in the Albanian capital Tirana.

Kosovo, with its majority Albanian population, was the birthplace of Mother Teresa`s mother, and President Fatmir Sejdiu has proclaimed 2010 to be "Mother Teresa Year".

Last year, India flatly rejected a demand by the Albanian government for the return of the Mother Teresa`s remains so that she could be buried next to her sister and mother in Tirana.

"Mother Teresa was an Indian citizen and she is resting in her own country," the Indian foreign ministry said.

She was granted Indian citizenship in 1951 and received a state funeral after her death.

BDST: 1018 HRS, August 26, 2010