BS Yeddyurappa greeting KG Bopaiah (right) in 2010. (Photo: PTI)
Even as high tension and drama prevails, the Karnataka Governor Vajubhai Vala appointed KG Bopaiah, the BJP legislator from Virajpet as the pro tem speaker of the state’s legislative assembly.
The move came after the Supreme Court bench on Friday ordered that a floor test should take place in the Karnataka assembly at 4 pm tomorrow, where Chief Minister BS Yeddyurappa will need to prove majority support. Earlier, Yeddyurappa had been given 15 days to prove majority.
A pro tem speaker is a temporary speaker who administers the oath of office and secrecy to the newly-elected MLAs. According to the norms, the senior-most member of the House is chosen as a pro tem speaker. He/she decides if the trust vote should be held through a voice vote or ballot.
According to convention, 71-year-old Congress MLA Raghunath Vishvanath Deshpande was supposed to be appointed. But in a twist, the Governor invited Bopaiah to take oath as pro tem speaker this afternoon.
WHO IS KG BOPAIAH?
Full name: Kombarana Ganapathy Bopaiah
Born on October 17, 1955
KG Bopaiah was a former speaker in the Karnataka assembly in 2009.
Bopaiah was elected as MLA 4 times, thrice from Virajpet.
Bopaiah was also the former Deputy Speaker of the Legislative Assembly.
He has served as pro tem Speaker for four days after the BJP won the mandate in 2009.
He has been closely associated with the Sangh Parivar since his school days.
He was as an active BJP’s youth wing ABVP member during his college days.
He participated in the movement against the Kambadakada dam project in Kodagu proposed by the government in 1970.
After completing B.Sc., Bopaiah joined the BMS College in Bangalore for LLB course. He was arrested during the Emergency in Bangalore and jailed for some time.
After completing the LLB course as a gold medallist, Bopaiah returned to Madikeri in 1980 and started practising law.
He was appointed as general secretary of the Kodagu unit of the BJP and elevated as its president in the 90s.
He was chosen to contest from the Madikeri Assembly segment in 2004, which he won comfortably.
source: http://www.indiatoday.in / India Today / Home> News> Elections / May 18th, 2018
As part of its 24th anniversary celebrations, Bharani Art Gallery has organised an exhibition of water colour paintings by well-known artist H.P. Rangaswamy at its premises, M-1198, 3rd Main, 6th Cross, Vivekananda Nagar (near Circle), from May 20 to 22 between 10.30 am and 7 pm.
The expo will be inaugurated by Ln. P.K. Somaiah, Industrialist andformer President, Kodava Samaja Cultural and Sports Club, Mysuru, at 10.30 am on May 20. Also, there will be a lecture on ‘Art and value’ (Kale mattu Moulya) by K.C. Mahadeva Shetty, Principal, Sri Kalanikethana College of Arts, Mysuru.
Theatre artiste Mandya Ramesh will be the chief guest. N.B. Kaverappa, senior artist, chief convenor and curator of the Gallery, will preside. Artist H.P. Rangaswamy will be present.
About the Gallery: Bharani Art Gallery is the first service-oriented private art gallery of Mysuru. Established in May 1994, this gallery is devoted for the exhibition and promotion of visual arts. This is the only rent-free gallery of Karnataka with aesthetic lighting and display walls, along with both attached guest room, being offered to artists.
The Gallery has attained many ‘Firsts’ such as conducting of ‘Art Camp-Exhibition-Discourse’ of 10 senior-most artists of the State, bringing well-known artists of Mumbai, Kolhapur, Sangli and Udupi to exhibit their special art works. Foreign artists from Finland and Australia have also exhibited their Vedic Art creative paintings here, in addition to many other photo exhibitions and art exhibitions. For details contact Mob: 94485-54221.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> News / May 18th, 2018
Well-known poet C.P. Surendran’s latest book, Available Light: New and Collected Poems, evokes a sense of disdain with a tinge of optimism in its readers. The book includes poems from earlier collections in addition to brand new creations.
Talking about the book C.P. says, “The past is often as unpredictable as the future. What happened is that I had a kind of a feeling that evolved into a theme as I wrote a few tenuously interconnected poems. I don’t usually write objective poetry. That essentially means that I don’t write a poem about a thing, say, a chair, or the weather or a tree. Therefore, very often a theme in a poem or a sequence of poems is likely to turn out to be your sensibility. In Available Light that sensibility is the dark and its absence, which is light.”
The book opens with a tribute to the renowned Malayalam poet Vijay Nambisan, who passed away in August 2017. Remembering the poet, C.P. says, “There are many literary institutions in India — most of them existing for committee members and employees and a few well connected writers. If one of these institutions had shown some appreciation when he was alive, Vijay might have died a little happier. He was a fine poet.”
Speaking about why he chose poetry to express his thoughts, C.P. shares, “I am in the process of writing a novel, Saving Memory From Stalin. And I can tell you honestly it is much more difficult to write fiction than poetry. In the kind of poetry I write the logic is image-driven and associative. I am not too much dependent on the device of the narrative in my poems. To me, a condition of prose is proselytising. Prose needs to convince, and convert you to the writer’s faith. Poetry doesn’t ask you to convert.”
While some poems from the book are about the incidents that happened in the country recently, like the horrific incident in Dadri when Mohammad Akhlaq was killed by a few Hindu fanatics, a few others take the reader through the time of the World War II. Poems under the title David, Don’t Be Sad, That Was a Dream describes the gruesomeness of genocide and heinousness against the Jews and ends with the poem Available Light, which is addressed to Ilse Koch, wife of the commandant of the Buchenwald concentration camp.
“To me what happened before, during and after World War II defines what it is to be, and not to be, human,” C.P. shares, adding, “The David sequence was precipitated by a dream. Its imagery is perhaps period-specific. But I imagine loose connections with contemporary political reality of India could be read into the David poems,” the poet concludes.
source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com / Deccan Chronicle / Home> Lifestyle> Books and Art / by Namrata Srivastava, Deccan Chronicle / May 17th, 2018
More often than not, Bengaluru-based tennis star Rohan Bopanna is on tour. And every time he returns, he finds his city has changed. So much so that he often drives around just to get a hang of how much.
The landscape behind him may be changing, but Bopanna’s focus remains centred–defending his French Open mixed-doubles title.
Amid all the training and practice though, Bopanna finds his stress buster in the form of social media. At a time when social media and privacy concerns are at the forefront, he bats for the former.
With an active and often updated online presence, the tennis ace says that it is his way of blowing off some steam. “I love posting on social media. Many times my managers tell me that they will do it for me instead, but I like doing it myself. I don’t stress about it so much, and instead use it to destress,” he says.
source: http://www.economictimes.indiatimes.com / The Economic Times / Home / by Maleeva Rebello, ET Bureau / May 11th, 2018
Looks like Karnataka’s Most Desirable Woman of 2017 is not just a hot property in Sandalwood, but in Tollywood too. Following her debut in Telugu with Naga Shaurya and then signing a film with Vijay Deverakonda, Rashmika Mandanna has now bagged her third film in Telugu and it’s with none other than Nagarjuna and Nani.
While the grapevine had it that she had been approached for the project, up until now there was no confirmed news about the same.
Now sources confirm that not only has has Rashmika already shot for a few days for the same in Hyderabad. “Some major scenes were filmed in the metro and Rashmika was part of the shoot. She plays Nani’s love interest in the film. And since it’s a multi-starrer, Rashmika will also share screen space with Nagarjuna,” adds our source.
Directed by Sriram Aditya, the untitled film is touted to be a mass entertainer. Rashmika in the meanwhile is also busy with Darshan-starrer Yajamana in Kannada.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> Entertainment> Kannada> Movies> News / by Madhu Daithota / May 07th, 2018
Kolkata Knight Riders’ Robin Uthappa reached a memorable milestone with his innings against the Mumbai Indians, becoming just the sixth player in the history of the IPL to cross the 4000-run mark. He reached the landmark after hitting a six off Markande in the eighth over of the innings.
Robin Uthappa |Photo Credit: AP
The Kolkata Knight Riders lost out to the Mumbai Indians in a hard-fought encounter at the Wankhede Stadium on Sunday, falling short by 13 runs. It was the home side that batted first, putting up a strong total of 181/4 in extremely challenging conditions with valuable contributions from Suryakumar Yadav, Evin Lewis and Hardik Pandya, with Yadav scoring a half-century opening the innings.
In the chase, Robin Uthappa survived an early scare to reach the half-century mark himself and with Nitish Rana, he forged a valuable partnership that looked to take his team to the total. However, he gave away his wicket to Mayank Markande after scoring 54 off 35 and from there on, his side lost the needed momentum and stumbled in their pursuit of the target.
However, Uthappa reached a memorable milestone with this particular innings, becoming just the sixth player in the history of the IPL to cross the 4000-run mark. He reached the landmark after hitting a six off Markande in the eighth over of the innings and was 17 runs short of the mark at the start of his knock.
With this latest feat, he enters an elite club that features four Indian superstars, including Virat Kohli, and an Australian dynamo.They are Virat Kohli (4775 runs), Suresh Raina (4801 runs), Rohit Sharma (4438 runs), Gautam Gambhir (4217 runs) and David Warner (4014 runs).
Uthappa had joined KKR in 2014 and was an important member of the Knight Riders side that won its second IPL trophy.
source: http://www.timesnownews.com / TimesNowNews.com / Times Now Digital / Home> Sports> Cricket> IPL 2018 / May 07th, 2018
Courtesy our friends Pemmanda Jepu and Jemy Ganapathy, we spent four wonderful days at the Ooty Club, a place steeped in colonial history. The trophies, the silverware, the honour lists and the photographs of the ‘Masters of the Fox Hunt’ date back to early 1840s.
During our stay, I got an opportunity to read a well-documented book titled ‘Ootacamund – A History,’ written by Sir Frederick Price in 1908, which is otherwise kept in the safe locker. Only two copies of this book exist. I was particularly interested in the visit of Governor-General Lord Dalhousie to Ooty in 1856, few details of which I had gathered while writing about Victoria Gowramma. However, what I stumbled upon was even more interesting — Governor-General William Bentinck’s journey to Bangalore, Mysore and Ooty in 1834. This trip was primarily to coordinate the attack on the ‘problematic’ Raja of Coorg: Chikka Veerarajendra.
Chikka Veerarajendra and the East India Company were at loggerheads since 1830. Governor-General William Bentinck, who was more interested in reforming India than in annexing new territories, had to finally deal with the Raja of Coorg who had dared the British by keeping in custody one of their emissaries — Kullapalli Karunakaran Menon.
A frontal view of the Ooty Club, which was originally Sir William Rambold’s Large House.
Lord William Bentinck set out from Calcutta on 3rd February 1834 on board the Curacoa to Madras. Bentinck reached Madras on 15th February 1834 and journeyed to Bangalore via Vellore. Travel those days was by horse carriages, bullock carts, palanquins and on horseback, with frequent camping en route.
He wanted first-hand assessment of the situation in Coorg, and for this purpose, the Commander-in-Chief Sir Robert O’Callaghan was in attendance. Strategies on military action against Coorg were finalised in consultations with Sir Robert O’Callaghan while at Bangalore. The Governor-General also had administrative issues concerning Mysore to be discussed. The reason for him to visit Ooty for an extended stay was to improve his rather poor health.
Lord Bentinck stopped over in Mysore and was put-up at the precursor to the Rajendra Vilas Palace atop Chamundi Hill, which was originally built by Robert H. Cole who was the earlier British Resident at Mysore (1811-1827). Bentinck set out for Ooty and it was while camping at Gundlupet on 15th March 1834 that he officially declared war on Coorg. Col. James Stuart Fraser was in overall command. Coorg was encircled from three fronts. Chikka Veerarajendra surrendered on 10th April 1834 and Coorg was annexed by the East India Company. Incidentally, Coorg was the only province to be added to the John Company during William Bentinck’s tenure, for which he came under criticism back home in England.
Lord Bentinck’s entourage reached Ooty on 22nd March. At Ooty the only suitable accommodation for the Governor-General and his staff was ‘Sir William Rambold’s Large House.’ It was a grand hotel built in 1832 by an influential British entrepreneur named William Rambold. However, Rambold soon ran into financial difficulties. The hotel was frequently rented for extended periods of time by senior officers of the East India Company. It was in 1842 that ‘Rambold’s Large House’ became the Ootacamund Club, or the Ooty Club. During Lord Bentinck’s sojourn in Ooty, Lord Babington Macaulay arrived at the hill station on 25th June 1834. The Governor-General and Macaulay met each other for the first time at Rambold’s Large House. Macaulay chose a small cottage nearby where he lived for several months to draft the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Governor-General Bentinck stayed on in Ooty till the end of September 1834. On his return journey he again passed through Mysore and reached Bangalore on 9th October. He sailed aboard the Curacao on 26th October from Madras and reached Calcutta on 14th November 1834.
Rajendra Vilas Palace atop Chamundi Hill, Mysore.
I checked on Lord Dalhousie’s sojourn in Ooty from 7th March 1855 to 29th October 1855. Dalhousie’s visit was also for health reasons, and he was due to retire soon. However, he was not too comfortable in Ooty, and shifted to Kotagiri.
During Dalhousie’s stay in Nilgiris, one of his ADCs took permission to visit Coorg, where the ADC’s brother was a coffee planter. It was in 1852 that Dalhousie had reluctantly given permission to the ‘rascally Raja of Coorg’ to travel to England along with his daughter Gowramma.
The ADC, on his return, narrated an amusing incident to his boss. Coorg being a rather remote province, news from the outside world took time to percolate. Very often, wild rumours floated amongst the small but growing community of British planters and officers. One such rumour was that the British and their allies had lost the Crimean War, and that Queen Victoria and her family had fled to India! However, Dalhousie who had had a temporary telegraph line installed at Nilgiris had already received the news that the British and their allies had in fact wrested Sevastopol from the Russians.
On his journey back to Calcutta, Dalhousie stopped over in Bangalore during early November 1855, and was the guest of Sir Mark Cubbon. Dalhousie narrated the ‘Coorg rumour’ to the British officers, much to their amusement. After inspecting the troops, he formally announced the British victory at Sevastopol. Fast forward, 2014: Vladimir Putin has Crimea back in the Russian fold.
About the author: C. P. Belliappa, born in 1946, is a Chemical Engineer. Currently settled in Coorg, he is known for his writings on issues pertaining to Kodagu. Four of his books — Tale of A Tiger’s Tail & other Yarns from Coorg, Nuggets from Coorg History, Victoria Gowramma: The Lost Princess of Coorg, and Tongue of the Slip, have been published by Rupa Publications.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Feature Articles / by C.P.Belliappa / March 2018
The Badminton Association of India (BAI) on Saturday handed out cash rewards to the medallists of the Commonwealth Games held in Gold Coast, Australia last month.
While Saina Nehwal was presented a cheque of Rs 20 lakh for the individual women’s singles gold medal, PV Sindhu – who lost to her in the final – was given Rs 10 lakh.
The bronze medal-winning women’s doubles specialists Ashwini Ponnappa and N Sikki Reddy were handed cheques of Rs 3.75 lakh each.
The men’s doubles team of Satwiksairaj Rankireddy and Chirag Shetty got Rs 7.5 lakh each.
The mixed team gold medal-winning squad was rewarded with a cheque of Rs 50 lakh.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> Sports News> Badminton News / IANS / May 05th, 2018
They say Coorgis were descendents of Alexander’s Great Greek army. Is that true? Find out more about Coorg and its aromatic society in Coorg Diary
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Alexander’s Army
Coorg has always fascinated me. How come this tiny area with such a small population has produced so many outstanding soldiers? Among the best known are Field Marshal Cariappa—independent India’s first army chief and also the first King’s Commissioned Officer decorated with the Order of the British Empire for “exemplary service during World War 11—and General Thimayya, an army chief as well, who famously clashed with then Defence Minister V.K. Krishna Menon. Former ladies’ national tennis champion Dechu Appiah, her musician brother, Biddu Appiah (composer of the international hit, “Kung Fu Fighting”) and famed architect Brinda Sommaiya also come to mind. And what of the Coorgis’ complexion, which is a few shades lighter than that of the people from surrounding regions? And the brown or grey eyes? Another mystery: What explains their unique customs, far removed from Hinduism? They worship their ancestors, not any Hindu gods, and don’t believe in reincarnation. One rather far-fetched theory is that the Coorgis were descendants of Alexander the Great’s Greek army. That would explain their fair features and martial tradition. But, then, Alexander only came into a part of present-day north India, far away from Coorg (though he did leave a general behind to form a kingdom). How could any descendants of that Greek army have travelled such a long distance?
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ILLUSTRATION BY SAJITH KUMAR
All My Sons
I finally made it to Coorg (its modern name is Kodagu, and Coorgis are now Kodavas). As it happened, my hosts were the legendary Cariappa’s son, Nanda, and his wife, Meena. They live on the vast Cariappa estate in the heart of the Coorg capital, Madikeri (earlier Mercara). A short walk from their house on a mound surrounded by artistically placed stones and wild flowers is a simple black stone slab with the following engraved on it: “Field Marshal Kodandera Madappa Cariappa, 28 January 1899-15 May 1993”. This is the Samadhi where he was cremated. It still attracts his admirers from all over, many of them simple villagers who come to pay homage to perhaps their greatest son of our time. Nanda, who retired as an Air Marshal, was a fighter pilot in the 1965 Indo-Pak war. He was shot down near Amritsar on the last day of that war and captured by the Pakistanis. Gen Ayub Khan was then the President of Pakistan. He had served under Gen Cariappa and when Ayub realised his former boss’s son was their prisoner, in a gesture of friendship he offered to send him back to India, and, meanwhile, to treat him well. This prompted Cariappa to send his famous reply to Ayub Khan: “They (the Indian prisoners) are all my sons. Treat him just like them.” Nanda says he was initially kept in solitary confinement for a month, but otherwise treated well. Those were the honourable days. Ayub Khan’s son, Gauhar, even visited Nanda and gave him a tin of Capstan cigarettes and a P.G. Wodehouse book!
British Arms
Fanciful theories of Greek descent apart, the Coorgis—or Kodavas, if you will—have simply been traditional hunters, fond of their weapons. Then, when their independence was threatened, first by Hyder Ali, and then by his son, Tipu Sultan (who defeated them), they turned into fierce warriors. Tipu was extremely brutal with the Coorgis, forcibly converting many of them and transporting over 70,000 to Serangapatnam, while moving a large number of Muslims into Coorg, this affecting a demographic change in the region, which persists to this day. When the British took on Tipu, the Coorgis naturally sided with the British, helping them defeat Tipu. In gratitude, the British bestowed various favours on their Coorg allies, including the right to bear arms without licences, the only Indian community with that right, which continues even now.
Dense Aroma Society
Coorg is also synonymous with coffee, a well known fact. Somehow, the climate—not too hot, not too cold—the altitude—3,000 to 4,000 feet—and plenty of rainfall, are just right for coffee as well as a variety of spices, especially pepper. Mercara is dotted with shops selling coffee and spices. It also has a modest, charming museum in what used be a church built in the Roman Gothic style. There, a variety of arms are displayed, testifying to Coorg’s martial tradition. Considering the strong British presence of pre-Independence days, there had to be a golf course! There are two of them, both of 18 holes, as picturesque and challenging as you can get—steep slopes and plunging valleys. The mighty Cauvery river has its source just a couple of hours drive from Mercara, at Talacauvery, where a much frequented Hindu temple has sprung up. Coorg was once heavily forested, teeming with wild life. However, the timber mafia has been at its worst here, as in so many other parts of India, denuding the land of its precious trees. In some ways the Coorgis remind me of the Parsees. Both are small in number—the Parsees around 100,000, the Coorgis 170,000. Both have high literacy rates. Both tend to marry late, hence have low fertility, with declining numbers. Finally, both had a kind of mutual admiration society with the British—and still do!
(The writer is a well-known journalist)
source: http://www.outlookindia.com / Outlook Magazine / Home> The Magazine> Last Page / by Rahul Singh / June 12th, 2017
Air Marshal Cariappa in 1965 as a prisoner of war and today.
On 22 September 1965, a 26-year-old Indian Air Force squadron leader, in his Hawker Hunter fighter jet, ejected after a hail of Pakistani groundfire near Lahore ripped through his jet. Captured and taken as a prisoner of war, he would be repatriated four months later. But even in the fraternal landscape of the military, the young pilot was known for his illustrious lineage. He was “Nanda” Cariappa, son of a former Army chief who would go on to become India’s second Field Marshal, Kodandera Madappa Cariappa.
Now nearly 80, the Air Marshal lives a very quiet retired life in the hills of Karnataka’s Kodagu (formerly Coorg) at his famous father’s verdant hill abode, Roshanara, nestled between rolling hills and Madikeri town.
Cariappa Jr. and his wife Meena don’t have much time for politicians or politics, but couldn’t have been surprised when the Field Marshal’s name was invoked at a rally by Prime Minister Modi to shame the Congress, an attack that has erupted into an unsurprising controversy of its own given the errors that embellished the broadside.
For the Field Marshal’s son though, there are more urgent things to attend to than political quarrels in their state. Cariappa Jr. did, however, attempt to draw Prime Minister Modi’s attention last year, but it was to an issue that occupies the Cariappas above all else — the ecology and environment in Kodagu, the birthplace of the Cauvery, a river that local communities, including Cariappa’s own Kodavas, consider sacred.
‘Only God or you can save the Cauvery and the environment in Kodagu,’ the Air Marshal wrote in a letter to the Prime Minister in March 2017. He received a protocol reply inviting him to raise the issue with the Secretary of the Environment Ministry, and rues how the brief exchange could be indicative of a deep-rooted indifference to environmental emergencies in the country.
India Today found the Air Marshal has other concerns on his mind too, closer in keeping with his own life and career — the diminishing lure of the military upon youth in Kodagu, considered the ‘Land of Generals’, a district that has supplied generations of tough officers to the three armed forces, but primarily the Army. The Kodavas, native to Kodagu, were designated a martial race by the British in a list that included Sikhs, Marathas and Gorkhas.
“Unfortunately the lure of the armed forces has come down considerably. I’m aware of fewer young men and women who are keen on joining the army, navy or air force. It is certainly less than before,” Cariappa told India Today.
Serving on the Coorg Wildlife Society that fights an uphill battle to conserve the environment in the face of rampant tourism and commercial development, Cariappa’s eyes mist over when he’s asked what he’d like to say to the young generations of Kodagu, and indeed the rest of the country.
“All I would say to the young generation is that there is no finer profession than that of arms,” he said. “You have a sense of belonging. You live in a community where everyone cares for everybody else. Whether its at an air force base or on a ship or an army cantonment. In big cities, you may live in a ten story tower and never know your neighbours. You couldn’t care a damn. But here it’s all for one and one for all. Today the only binding force as I see it, is the integrity and loyalty engendered by the armed forces. There’s nothing else that compares.”
source: http://www.indiatoday.in / India Today / Home> News> India / by Shiv Aroor / Madikeri – May 04th, 2018
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