Actor Gulshan Devaiah shared an instance from the shoot days of ‘Dahaad’ and recounted how he took up the role of a ‘prompter’ for co-star Vijay Varma, and how his co-stars fondly called him an encyclopedia on set.
“There was a particular scene that was shot in a school. This was Vijay and my first scene together and it was quite an easy scene, where we have an exchange in a corridor. We shot the master/wide take and were shooting the OS (over the shoulder) close ups.”
“It was going well, and suddenly I saw Vijay searching for his line as he had forgotten his line. I was like this is such a good take for me and so I started to prompt him,” said Gulshan.
The actor added: “Now the camera was on me and not on him. It was my close up so I’m desperately trying to cover my mouth while prompting him his line. Of course, Vijay broke into a laugh!”
“There’s no way we could now use this take because whatever I was doing in order to prompt him while avoiding getting caught on camera was quite comically out of character. We had a good laugh about it and re-did the take.”
Gulshan who is tagged as a “walking encyclopedia” by his co-actors is known for remembering everything – including his co-actors’ dialogues, fun facts about random things – from food to sports.
Shoot days would often end with a fun dancing session, an impromptu karaoke, or even a friendly match of badminton. Pranks were a common occurrence and the actors and creators became a close-knit group till the end of the shoot.
Directed by Reema Kagti and Ruchika Oberoi, ‘Dahaad’ is produced by Excel Media and Entertainment and Tiger Baby with Ritesh Sidhwani, Farhan Akhtar, Zoya Akhtar, and Reema Kagti as Executive Producers.
The 8-episodic series streaming on Prime Video.
source: http://www.daijiworld.com / Daijiworld.com / Home> Glamour / by IANS / May 16th, 2023
The direct recruitment of Kavadis (elephant caretakers) has begun at Dubare Elephant Camp in Kushalnagar taluk, Kodagu district.
Following the order of the Government, Kodagu Division DCF B.N.N. Murthy kick-started the process of recruitment in the wake of lack of adequate number of Kavadis at the camp, in the presence of Forest Department officers.
A total of 29 Kavadis from different parts of the State are attending the recruitment, with due preference given to those adept at taming the elephants. The recruitment is being conducted to fill the vacant posts of five Kavadis at Dubare Elephant Camp,” said DCF Murthy.
Deputy Conservators of Forest (DCFs) Shivaram Babu and Sharanabasappa, Assistant Conservators of Forest (ACFs) Gopal, Srinivas Nayak and Nehru, Range Forest Officers (RFOs) Ananya Kumar and Shivaram, Deputy Range Forest Officers (DRFOs) Ranjan, Chetan and Savan and other forest personnel were present on the occasion.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> News / May 18th, 2023
A land known for its coffee and renowned for its generals and warriors, the history of Kodagu has never been traced to its origins, the thread of descent becoming a tangled knot of colonial theories and hearsays. But history is important for one to realise the essence of culture and one’s own identity. Without this realisation, much is lost, and more is at risk.
Kodagu has always been placed in the category of the areas that complied silently with the British, when in reality, its contributions were simply underplayed and whitewashed. Many braves from all backgrounds had been leaders and warriors in their own right, following Gandhian ideals and fighting passionately for freedom.
The PM’s YUVA Mentorship scheme was an opportunity to shrug off this stereotype and uncover the truth. The Lost Heroes of Kodagu talks of those men and women who looked danger in the eye, unflinching even as blows landed on them left and right. It talks of those who rose and made sure their voices were heard despite attempts to muffle them. Those that history let slip through cracks and crevices, silent and dormant.
Recover them as you read. Watch as they come alive through the pages. Be inspired by their grit and determination, be empowered by their stories. But most of all – remember them, keep them in glorious memory.
The film, written and directed by the actor, is about a hockey player’s struggle to get into the national side.
Adyah Thimmaiah in a still from the film
Hockey is as much a religion for Kodavas, as cricket is for much of the nation. The passion for the game is such that the Kodagu region hosts an annual hockey tournament, which sees participation from most resident families. Kodagu is, in fact, widely considered the cradle of Indian hockey, what with over 50 men from the area having represented the country at international tournaments, including the Olympics. It is no wonder, then, that debutant Adyah Thimmaiah, who hails from the region, chose the sport as the subject of his launchpad, Jersey Number 10. which he has co-written and directed as well.
“We finished shooting the film a year ago; post-production took time, after which we got it censored. Jersey Number 10 was awarded U/A and we have decided to release the film on May 19. The reason behind the quick decision to bring the film to theatres is that the number 10 is quite powerful and the release date adds up to it. I co-wrote the story of the film sometime ago with my mother and was looking for an opportunity to get into acting. Stunt master Thriller Manju has been my main motivator in getting the ball rolling on my debut film. I did not want to begin my filmi journey with just a love story; it had to be something inspirational, which is why I chose hockey,” explains Adyah.
The film, he adds, is about a youngster, who lives with his grandfather, with the latter a former state-level player who could not make it to the national team and dreams of getting his grandson there. “The grandfather is determined to make his grandson a national level player, but that is easier said than done, so the film follows the trials and tribulations in this journey. However, the film is not all about hockey and has a love track too,” he says.
source: http://www.ottplay.com / OTT Play / Home> News / Team OTT Play / May 16th, 2023
Congress candidates AS Ponnanna and Mantar Gowda won from Virajpet and Madikeri constituencies, defeating the sitting BJP MLAs with a considerable margin.
Facebook / AS Ponnanna
For the first time in nearly two decades, Congress managed to win an Assembly election in Kodagu district of Karnataka, breaking the BJP’s run of wins in the hilly district. Congress candidate AS Ponnanna, a former Additional Advocate General in the Karnataka High Court, defeated KG Bopaiah of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Virajpet constituency of Kodagu district. In the same district, another Congress candidate Mantar Gowda, son of former Karnataka minister A Manju, defeated BJP’s Appachu Ranjan in the Madikeri constituency.
In 2004, BA Jeevijaya of the Congress had won from the erstwhile Somwarpet constituency in Kodagu district. However, in the last three elections held in 2008, 2013 and 2018, KG Bopaiah and Appachhu Ranjan had won from the two constituencies in the district — Virajpet and Madikeri. This time, the two Congress leaders defeated the sitting MLAs by a margin of over 4000 votes each.
The incumbent Virajpet MLA KG Bopaiah had triggered a controversy in the run up to the election, when he claimed that a win for the Congress would lead to celebrations of Tipu Jayanti returning in the state. AS Ponnanna maintained a studied silence on the issue and urged the BJP leader to speak about development.
The Congress party has emerged victorious in the recently concluded elections to the 224-member Karnataka Assembly, having won 132 seats and leading in four more constituencies as of 7.30 pm on Saturday, May 13, according to the Election Commission of India (ECI).
source: http://www.thenewsminute.com / The News Minute / Home> News / by TNM Staff / May 4th, 2023
Aramse is a Mysore based brand that is taking the flavour and culture of Indian Coffee to a global audience.
Coffee is evocative; the aroma of the roasted beans, the familiar clatter of coffee being made, and of course, the distinct flavour and texture of a good brew can stir so much within a person. Coffee in its many varied forms – from decoction that is slowly made in a South Indian filter and stored in a flask at 5 AM by loving mothers to a bitter concoction hastily grabbed in a to-go cup from a nondescript cafe with a punny name – is an inextricable part of life for so many of us.
For Raghunath Rajaram and Namisha Parthasarathy, the husband-wife duo who founded Aramse, Coffee has been an indispensable part of their life. As two coffee lovers living in East London — the centre of artisanal coffee, they had access to some of the best coffee in the world. Within a span of 2 miles. Raghunath, who grew up drinking milky, sugary coffee in Bangalore tasted his first cup of exceptional coffee here and was hooked ever since. But Namisha who was a trader, and Raghunath who is a designer wanted to get away from the constant rush of their life and took a month-long yoga retreat in Mysore in 2019. They continued to travel across India and realised that they wanted to move back here and ended up making a home for themselves in Mysore.
Ritualising The Act Of Making Coffee
While they were from vastly different fields, they had always talked about starting something together and threw around ideas surrounding things that they both loved. Namisha had also gifted Raghunath with a course from the Speciality Coffee Association’s Course (a non-profit that set the guidelines of Speciality Coffee Standards on a global scale) and embarked on a journey of discovery and learning ever since. Namisha has always been a coffee drinker and so it’s always been there. During a trip they had taken to South America, they spent a long time trying to find good coffee to drink and great cafes to hang out in and realised that coffee was a unifying factor that they could focus on. But what Aramse was when they started in 2020 vs. where they are today is vastly different, owing to COVID and everything that followed it.
According to Namisha, when they set out to start Aramse, they were trying to see how one could take a simple process of brewing coffee and make it into something that is a delightful activity to people, rather than letting it be something peripheral to your day. She went on to say, “Even for 10 minutes, the act of brewing can become a focal point of your day and you derive joy from it. So to answer the question of where we started – we started doing in-person workshops in Mysore. It was like a tech-free space, for like half a day or 2.5 hours, we encouraged people to put their phones away and we took people through brewing processes, talked about Indian speciality coffee and engaged with people over coffee.”
After conducting a couple of workshops in the first few months of 2020, the pandemic hit. But they didn’t want to let go of their ethos of being free of distraction and focusing on the joy of the process. They instead attempted to transform the experience to a digital medium. Since they were so passionate about all the minutiae of making great coffee, they had to be mindful of the content they were sharing. They wanted their original idea to translate into three verticals within the purview of Aramse. On the content side, they are most active on Youtube and Substack. On these platforms share content across the gamut of coffee – from equipment reviews and brewing techniques to more thematic pieces around flavour in coffee, the coffee market and more. On the product side, they have been very intentional with what they sell. Their best-selling product is the SOFI – which is essentially the South Indian Filter reimagined. They also crowd-funded a Coffee Journal, which is basically like a daily notebook for the discerning coffee brewer. We also do cups as well. The third vertical of Aramse is the subscription service that they offer.
On Taking A Content Driven Approach
When the founding duo behind Aramse pivoted to the digital space, they started with daily posts on Instagram where they shared their brewing stories and such. But eventually, they started posting to Youtube, as they personally liked the platform and gravitated towards it. They simply started with brewing and cupping montages and slowly they moved towards reviews and tutorials. In February 2020, James Hoffman who is arguably the biggest name in specialty coffee right now and is the pioneer of Britain’s third-wave coffee movement, put a takeover call out on his Youtube channel. He planned to give his channel over to 4 content creators to talk about coffee from their unique perspectives. Raghunath and Namisha pitched for this and ended up being one of the chosen four. They talked about decolonizing coffee through flavour and it was a big turning point for Aramse as it got them global recognition and visibility.
One of the biggest things that they have been trying to do through the content with Aramse is to talk about Indian coffee and coffee from a producing country. According to Namisha, “The voices from those countries need to be recognised more and that can be from the producing standpoint, wherein you highlight these coffees. But it is also from the other side of the spectrum, such as the brewing and technique. A lot of value is added at the consumption end of it. But the way coffee works right now is people associate producing countries with providing coffee and then it sort of makes its way into Europe, America, Canada and Australia and they create value through stories, roasting, brewing, equipment and such. The reason we took a content-first approach is because we always wanted to tell the story of Indian Coffee, but to a global audience and the digital platform has been super helpful in achieving this.”
In building Aram Se, they realised that they wanted to put out content for a coffee-loving audience, irrespective of where they might be geographically and do their part in highlighting the best that Indian coffee has to offer.
Within India, Aramse’s coffee subscription might be the only one of its kind. Their coffee subscription service is a fully custom proprietary coffee cueing engine that has been built from the ground up. It has a fully integrated recurring payment engine and it has a coffee queuing system that is fully recommendation based. Once someone makes their choice between bold, vibrant and balanced flavour profiles and a couple more criteria, Aramse will ship out orders based on those preferences — whether that is every two weeks or four. They use pretty straightforward questions to ensure a very low barrier to entry as they know that speciality coffee is confounding with fancy terminologies in current times.
From the roaster’s side, Aramse has partnered with 12 roasters that they personally enjoy. They also personally sample all of the coffee that they send out so that they can stand behind their recommendations. So even though an algorithm and proprietary system are working behind it, they also have an extensive database of Indian speciality coffee that is currently being sold in the market. To provide value to the roasters, in addition to selling their coffee through the subscription model, the Aramse team ensures there is an extensive feedback loop. They also ensure that the subscription model works out at an affordable rate by charging what the roastersdo, without adding a premium. Once customers subscribe, they can rest easy knowing that the recurring model will deliver coffee that is suited to their taste on time, without any additional hassles.
Taking The South Indian Filter To The World
When it comes to making South Indian filter coffee, no two houses seem to make it the same way. There exists a marked difference between the specifics of the filters that are available in the market and based on this, the technique for brewing differs. The number of holes in the curvature and every other dimension in between can change between different filters. It usually takes days and maybe even years of continued use to understand what works, when trying to make coffee with a filter. With SOFI, Raghunath and Namisha hope to facilitate the use of the brewer in a more modern context and to make it one that is suited to the discerning tastes of the modern coffee drinker. By creating a filter that is standardised, they can also ensure that customers do get to enjoy the best cup from the get-go, as they have figured out the right way to do it.
This need for standardisation to the South Indian Filter is what prompted Aramse to create SOFI. It allows one to brew coffee that is more in alignment with the preferences of the modern coffee drinker who is mindful of things like grind size and flavourprofiles. It also enables a lot of knowledge sharing to happen, which was never really possible with the traditional filter. Today, Aramse has sold SOFI to almost 20 countries and counting. Owing to their dedicated Youtube and newsletter audience, they have a community of people who ask the right questions and seek to learn the right technique from them as well. Most importantly, it makes it possible for the South Indian filter to be associated with more than just making the traditional Kaapi.
Having done extensive groundwork in the last couple of years, the duo behind Aramse hopes to scale and expand the brand in the next two years. They also hope to create more content that is thought-provoking and has a direct impact. For an outsider, the many different things that Aramse is doing might seem like a lot. But as a team, they are comfortable with the foundation of the verticals that they have built and hope to dive even deeper into each them and do even more.
You can learn more about the brand and explore its full range via their website.
My divide is much more nuanced and connected to those of us who wake up to filter coffee every morning. The question is: where do you buy your coffee from?
Shoba Narayan (HT Photo)
To my mind, there are only two types of coffee drinkers. And there are only two South Indian states that can lay claim to coffee: Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Per an India Coffee Board publication, South India consumes 78% of Indian coffee. Among the southern states, Tamil Nadu accounts for 36%, Karnataka 31%. Andhra and Kerala are 18% and 15%, respectively. The latter two states make better tea than coffee. Between Tamil Nadu and Karnataka there is the usual divide and endless debate about which coffee is better. The answer is so obvious that I don’t even need to mention it here.
My divide is much more nuanced and connected to those of us who wake up to filter coffee every morning. The question is: where do you buy your coffee from?
Are you a “coffee works” kind of person? Or are you one of those high-falutin, cold-brew drinking altu-faltu types that patronise coffee brands that are maverick and have nothing to do with farmers? Bangalore is full of places where the coffee…well, works. There is Sri Suma Coffee Works in Jayanagar, Gokul Coffee Works in Gandhi Bazaar, Sri Vasanth Coffee Works in Sajjan Rao Road, Mahalakshmi Coffee Kendra in Chamarajpet, and Sri Vinayaka Coffee Beans in Malleshwaram where you can “drink and feel lovely”.
These are honest, homely and heritage coffee purveyors who sell the beans or ground coffee powder to you without too much fuss. They don’t talk about which unpronounceable estate the beans are from, what elevation it is at, and whether the beans are ‘monsooned.’
This is irrelevant for filter coffee, as are questions about whether the beans were nourished by cow dung from desi-breeds and harvested in the moonlight by light-fingered women. Most of us who consume filter coffee don’t care about all this halo-effect stuff.
All we want is strong frothy piping hot coffee. Not some Ph.D dissertation. The fact that we all morph into versions of ourselves later in the day when we care about organic foods and child-labour is another matter. Maybe it is the filter coffee that makes us enlightened beings that suddenly spout homilies about regenerative agriculture and reductivism in art.
To me, good filter coffee bought from a store with a Western sounding name is an oxymoron. It is not to be trusted because you see, these brands proffer everything from cold-brew to pour-over. Filter coffee for them is also-ran: something that they add on.
It is not the focus. Give me a Panduranga Coffee anyday, couriered straight from Chikmagalur. Failing that, give me Cothas coffee with 15% chicory.
I love the Black Baza, a bird found in the Northeast but please, I don’t want this in coffee. Nor do I want sleepy owls, flying squirrels, or the blue tokai (feathers) of a peacock. I don’t want to slay coffee or rage with it; or even surf the third wave.
Araku sounds like arachu, which means grind in Tamil. I like it in ‘nellikai’ or amla, not in coffee. I may like Cafe L’Orange later in the day, but in the morning, I want coffee served in silence in glass cups like at the Airlines Hotel. And I definitely don’t want waiters who show up every minute and ask me if I like my coffee.
How do I like my coffee? I like it the way I have always had it. The way my mother gave it to me. Sans questions, sans interrogations, sans lecture about grind and source. Just give it to me already, why don’t you? And please don’t go on about single-blends because we Indians who drink filter coffee already know one inescapable fact: single blends don’t work in filter coffee. Blended coffee is the way to go. Medium roast also doesn’t work in filter coffee, beloved as it is with the “aroma police” of coffee who disdain dark roasts because it kills aroma, according to them. But medium roast in coffee means that the decoction won’t be dark, which creates a whole assembly-line of problems. If the decoction isn’t dark, the coffee will look milky, not dark brown even with a little milk. It won’t taste strong because the milk flavour will dominate. Medium roast just does not work for filter coffee.
Single estate coffee has specific contours and flavour profiles that may suit black coffee but when you pour hot milk on it, the decoction gains an unpleasant edge like day-old wet-laundry. In order to make good filter coffee, you need the magic ingredient called chicory, either 15% or 20%, depending on how thick you like your coffee. And you need frothing that comes from two hands, two tumblers and a precise wrist.
My taste in filter coffee is a result of what was served at home in Chennai. Isn’t this true for all of us? You know what the best part is? Amongst filter coffee drinkers in traditional Chennai or Bangalore homes, there is consistency of taste, a uniform flavour profile that you could bank on. Once you did the due diligence on which house serves good coffee, you can go back time and again with no unpleasant surprises. This is because good filter coffee relies on more than one factor for perfection. The decoction has to be of a certain thickness. Too thick and you need to add more milk which makes the coffee too gooey. The milk makes all the difference. It has to be frothy and hot. This will conceal many of the inherent flaws in milk. Sugar is according to taste, but I use the golden rule. Add just enough sugar to reduce the bitterness without messing with the taste.
Good filter coffee is not about provenance. It is about proportion. Write that on your sign. Hang it around your neck.
So all these jokers who wax poetic about their coffee being grown in such-and-such hills, surrounded by wild elephants don’t know what they are talking about. As for the Kopi Luwak beans that are eaten by the Asian palm civet which then excretes these beans, thus making them the most expensive coffee in the world, well, all I can say is that I have tasted it and it is shit coffee, quite literally.
My father loved coffee beyond logic or reason. Once a month, he used to take me with him to the local Leo Coffee store. No gleaming shelves, no filter press, no descriptions. Instead, there were gunny sacks full of coffee beans, a giant grinder, and the aroma that permeated the entire neighborhood. My Dad would choose a blend of plantation, peabury and chicory and have it ground right there. We would carry it back in a bright yellow Leo’s coffee bag. Sometimes we would go to Narasu’s coffee for a change. But never to cafes. We didn’t trust cafe coffee at home. That was only for impressing foreign visitors. As for bad coffee, that was easy to spot: watered-down decoction, heated in the microwave, and day-old milk were the main culprits.
With that, we come back to the question often asked. Where do you get better filter coffee: Tamil Nadu or Karnataka? The answer is so obvious that I don’t need to repeat it here.
(Shoba Narayan is Bengaluru-based award-winning author. She is also a freelance contributor who writes about art, food, fashion and travel for a number of publications.)
source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> India News / b y Shoba Narayan / May 10th, 2023
Bacharaniyanda Appanna teaching I M Muthanna’s script at the Kodava Sahitya Academy in Madikeri.
Featuring unique words and vowels not found elsewhere, the Kodava language, spoken in Kodagu, is an independent Dravidian language. According to the most recent data from the Karnataka Kodava Sahitya Academy, there were 21 castes living in Kodagu who spoke the Kodava language: the Kodavas, Amma Kodavas, Kodagu Heggades, Kembattis, Airis, Koyuvas, Boonepattas and the Gollas (Eimbokalas), to name a few.
Kodagu was an independent principality in South India between 1633 and 1834. After the British annexed Kodagu in 1834, it was called Coorg and became a province of British India. After Independence, Coorg was retained as a state and placed under a chief commissioner. In 1956, when the states of the Indian Union were reorganised, Coorg became a district of Karnataka state.
Kannada was the official language in Kodagu for much of its existence. The Kodava language generally uses the Kannada script.
The earliest inscriptions found in Kodagu date back to the 9th and 10th centuries and are in Kannada. But there were two peculiar 14th-century inscriptions of Kodagu, dated around 1370-1371 AD found in the Bhagandeshwara temple of Bhagamandala and the Mahalingeshwara temple of Palur. Many have dismissed the inscriptions as a mixture of scripts and languages. In 2021, my work involved isolating letters used in both. I labelled the script used ‘thirke’ (meaning ‘temple’).
Several scripts
There have been a number of scripts invented for the Kodava language in the last 150 years or so. Koravanda Appayya, a doctor in the erstwhile Mysore State, had invented one with around 50 letters in 1887.
Kodagu scholar Iychettira M Muthanna invented another alphabet for the language in 1970. Appaneravanda Kiran Subbaiah, a sculptor in Mysuru, invented one in 1980. In 1983, he introduced a variant of the Kannada script to accommodate the Kodava language. Often, Kannada or Roman characters (the script used for English) were adapted, sometimes with additional changes.
Ponjanda S Appaiah, a professor, used the Roman script with his own transliteration system in 2003 to write in the Kodava language. In his Kodava-English dictionary, Appaiah used combinations of English letters for the Kodava language. He authored the entire book in the Roman script.
On the other hand, the ‘Kodava Arivole’ (Kodava dictionary) by Boverianda Uthaiah is in the Kannada script and makes use of 35 of the 49 Kannada letters.
In 2005, German linguist Gregg Cox introduced the Coorg-Cox script. Three years later, Charles Henry Kumar, a teacher from Mandya brought out another script to write the Kodava language.
Extra sounds
Boverianda Nanjamma and Chinnappa say that in addition to the five rounded Kannada vowels (with both long and short forms), the Kodava language has four unrounded vowels in their short and long forms and a nasal sound which accompanies some of the consonants. They have used five diacritical marks (symbols added above letters to indicate accent, tone and stress) in their works to accommodate these extra sounds.
In February 2022, under the presidentship of Ammatanda Parvathi Appaiah, the Karnataka Kodava Sahitya Academy discussed the various scripts used for the Kodava language. Bacharaniyanda Appanna, a former president of the academy, taught those assembled the script invented by I M Muthanna.
Upon comparison, it was declared that Muthanna’s script was the easiest to learn. The Kodava Sahitya Academy then recommended the Muthanna script to the Central Institute of Indian Languages to be made official.
Muthanna was of the opinion that his script was to be taught to children below the age of 15-16 years, says Appanna. “They will learn with passion and help promote the script when they write in it and inspire others,” he adds.
On why a script is important, Appanna says: “A script adds strength to a language, like how pillars strengthen a house. Yet, there are many prominent languages which do not have their own script. English uses Roman, Hindi uses Devanagari.” Having a native script is also important as it accommodates native sounds otherwise not found in other scripts.
Nerpanda Prathik Ponnanna, a language activist, has been popularising the Muthanna Kodava script by creating awareness about it through social media videos. He has also been getting signboards in the script for various shops, ancestral houses, and hockey tournament family teams.
source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> Spectrum / by Mookonda Kushalappa / May 10th, 2023
The Kodagu District Administration has decided to bar entry to visitors who have not voted to tourist destinations in the district places on polling day.
Tourists visiting places in the Kodagu district on election day will be allowed only if they show indelible ink of voting. Dr. Sateesha BC, Deputy Commissioner of Kodagu, said the administration has taken this decision to encourage more people to vote. He said this will not be applicable to children and tourists from other states.
“We are allowing people to visit tourist places on May 10 only if they come after casting the vote. The bar won’t be applicable to non-Karnataka tourists. Only those who have voted will be allowed entry at Raja Seat, Abbe Falls, Sunnyside Museum, and Mallalli Falls. Along with this, some hotels in the district are offering 10% to 20% discount in hotel booking if people show indelible ink mark on their fingers,” Sateesha said.
Hotels in Bengaluru had made similar announcements offering free food to people to encourage voting. Bengaluru’s civic body BBPM issued a notice saying offering free food to voters amounted to violation of the Model Code of Conduct.
While announcing the date of polling in Karnataka, the Election Commission had said that a Wednesday was chosen for polling to encourage higher voter turnout. In the past, voting has suffered because of people going on vacation when voting is held at weekends.
Voting for election to the 224-seat Karnataka Assembly will begin at 7 am on Wednesday and end at 6 pm. Counting of votes is scheduled for May 13.
Party-wise candidates by constituency
Tap on the constituency to know the sitting MLA and the candidates for 2023.
source: http://www.news9live.com / NewsNine / Home> Elections / by Muralidhara Sampangishetty / May 09th, 2023
Publisher : Adiraaj Prakashana, 245/F, 5th West Cross, Uttaradhi Mutt Road, Mysuru. For book contact: 98445-76429. E-mail: ananth.alpinia@gmail.com
This is an age of information. Thanks to the quantum development in the area of information technology like never before. Books, newspapers, radio, telephone, internet etc., enable this revolution with speed and spread of information. But behind all these media blitzkrieg and bombardment is a journalist who provides the content. Smile please!
Being a journalist, it is natural for me to evince interest in the area of journalism and all that is related to that activity.
A few days back I learnt that B.G. Anantha Shayana, the senior journalist and the consulting editor of Kannada daily ‘Shakti’, Kodagu district, who is also the correspondent of United News of India (UNI), has written a book about his experience as a journalist.
Kodagu being my home district and having done my SSLC in Madikeri Government Central School and then the graduation there, the book interested me much, coming as it was from the editor of Kodagu’s first and only favourite Kannada newspaper even today. It was started in 1957 when I was in the second intermediate (1957-58). I was a witness to its founder-editor B.S. Gopalakrishna, a fair complexioned person with rotund visage, working at the slanting composing table, standing head bent over the wooden type-setting board. The press was at the landmark (for those days) “chowki”, where four roads converged. His was a gradual growth as a publisher and writer against all odds.
When I left Madikeri after graduation in the year 1959, Shakti had become a noted local paper in Madikeri spreading its wings across Kodagu. Now 65 years on, it is still an iconic newspaper in Kodagu. This was possible because of B.S. Gopalakrishna’s three sons who took over the reins and responsibility to keep the flag of success flying high. One of the sons is B.G. Anantha Shayana, the author of the book “Sodaru”. “Sodaru” in old Kannada means light, lamp.
This book of 98 pages is all about the author’s experience as a journalist, executive and tourist abroad. He also speaks of ethical values to be followed in the profession and about the personal risk a reporter-journalist unwittingly faces in his over-enthusiasm. His every experience is illustrated in detail and this makes the book unputdownable for any journalist. I finished reading it in one sitting and then decided to write this column.
Let me share some of his experiences here with my own remarks as an intervention! Anantha Shayana has in a way delivered a sermon and also given a road-map for aspiring journalists. Therefore, this book may be recommended as an optional reader for students of journalism in their graduate or post-graduate classes. I am sure many working or retired journalists, including myself, would have had similar experience if not the exact ones.
The author speaks of the importance of correct information a journalist collects and gives the example of Sri Jayendra Saraswathi Swamiji of Kanchi Kamakoti Mutt, Tamil Nadu. That on August 23, 1997, the Swamiji had suddenly and clandestinely left the mutt and disappeared. That naturally made national and even international news. Those days telephone communication was outdated and difficult. Author Anantha Shayana got a phone call in the morning from his friend in Talacauvery (birth place of river Cauvery) in Kodagu. The call was made by his friend after walking 8 kms from Talacauvery to the nearest telephone booth in Bhagamandala, a township. By now an all India search for the Swamiji was launched on a war-footing. The caller said, “Anantha, three days back at midnight some Swamiji has come here with a small group. When asked who he was, nobody opens mouth. Must be a very famous Swamiji.”
uthor says when he went there immediately, the Swamiji’s followers did not allow him to meet the Swamiji. However, when he said he was from UNI, he was allowed on assurance that it would make all India news! So it was, he was the first person to break this news.
By the way, I too reached there with our Mysuru journalists and met him at Talacauvery. But, what is important here is that UNI did not publish the news of finding the Swamiji IMMEDIATELY. The UNI Bengaluru and Delhi Office had called Anantha Shayana over 10 times to urge him to check, check and check again and confirm. They even asked him to go to Talacauvery once again. Further, UNI sent its Mysuru correspondent to Anantha Shayana in Kodagu to go again to Talacauvery. It was only then the UNI flashed the news, though many hours late, as “Sri Jayendra Saraswathi traced.”
This is called responsible journalism and responsible journalist on the spot. Which is why the motto of Star of Mysore printed on the second page declares: “We believe comment is free, but facts are sacred.” Sadly, these days we find more arm-chair journalists looking into a cellphone in hand, sometimes purveying fake news.
Be that as it may, I found in his one observation about the truth all the local newspaper editors and journalists come face-to-face with unlike the State and National newspapers. His observation is that what appears in those big newspapers do not embolden the reader, about whom a negative news has appeared, to directly go and attack the editor or the journalists. But the local, small-town or rural newspaper editors and journalists become direct targets of attacks and protests. Since I am a victim of this behaviour of readers, criminals, the corrupt and anti-socials, I can vouch 100 percent for what Anantha Shayana has written.
Writing about paparazzi and the British Princess Diana, the author refers to the famous photograph of her boyfriend Dodi Fayad and herself in a kissing pose under the caption “The Kiss.” He says the photographer was paid millions of dollars for this picture. However, sadly it was this obsession to take her photographs that led to the accident killing both of them. The moral Anantha Shayana says is that though a journalist should be a news hound, he should not intrude upon another person’s privacy.
We have seen on TV and read in newspapers some of our opposition leaders going abroad to Harvard, Oxford and elsewhere and giving lectures and interviews to the media criticising India, its government, its democracy and shaming India in foreign countries. But I was delighted to read in the book how the editor of a small district vernacular paper “Shakti” Anantha Shayana dealt with a delicate, despicable situation in a foreign country, Australia, where he went with seven of his friends. Anantha Shayana writes that in Australia they visited a primary school where he asked the group of six students what they knew about India. To his shock, instead of an answer he got a question from a student: Are you not afraid to live in India?
“Why should I?” said Anantha Shayana and asked, “Why do you ask me that question?” Then it became a kind of free-for-all. One said, India was a land of snakes and snake-charmers. “Do you know how to catch snakes?” another wanted to know. “Are there too many beggars? Do you have good houses to live? Do you have cars?” etc., etc. He then asked them if they had read any books on India. No, was the answer. Their opinion of India was hearsay.
Then Anantha Shayana took a class on India to them dropping famous names of politicians, Gandhiji, Generals, educationists, philosophers, space research, the heritage, culture etc. After he finished, one boy said, “I want to visit India.” When some of our opposition leaders visited England and Europe, nobody said “I want to visit India” because they were told by our own opposition politician that India is not a good place where democracy is dying or dead.
Anantha Shayana also writes about his meeting with two spiritual persons. One was Dalai Lama at Dharamshala in Himachal Pradesh.
Question: Will you wage a war against China?
Answer: Many nations in the world support us. One day we will win.
Question: But your youth organisations feel it is not possible to win back Tibet by peaceful means. What do say?
Answer: I am not in administration. I am engaged in matters spiritual. There is an elected government here in exile. They will look into it.
Question: Buddha gave up his palace and after meditating under a tree got enlightened. But you crossed Himalayas, came here and built golden temples, leading luxurious life with cars and palace-like residences.
Anantha Shayana says, Dalai Lama did not have an answer but brushed it aside saying, “These are the mischief played by monks. I don’t know anything.”
Another spiritual person Anantha Shayana mentions is one who became famous for teaching the art of living. Anantha Shayana met him when he visited Kodagu. The spiritual master told, “For propagating spiritual education I have trained 5,000 teachers. They will go to different parts of the country and teach art of living.”
According to Hindu Sanatana Dharma, only the enlightened souls can teach spiritual matters to the seekers. So Anantha Shayana asked: Are all these 5,000 teachers you have trained enlightened?
He did not like the question and he did not answer either.
Moral: Though unpalatable, the journalist must ask intelligent, probing questions.
e-mail: voice@starofmysore.com
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Abracadabra> Columns / by K.B. Ganapathy / May 08th, 2023
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