Karnataka Revenue Minister Krishna Byre Gowda on Friday said that the construction of new Taluk Administration Buildings (Prajasaudha) in Ponnampet and Kushalnagar in Kodagu district will begin shortly.

He was speaking to media persons during his visit to the district. The Minister noted that though the two taluks were created more than 7 years ago, taluk offices have not yet been constructed, and said that the projects for the same would be expedited.

The government has sanctioned ₹8.65 crore each for the two buildings, and the tender process has been completed, he added.

Mr. Byre Gowda also inspected the proposed sites for the buildings and visited a bridge near Balyamandur. He said that the government was accelerating efforts to scan and digitally preserve original land ownership records across taluk offices to ensure landowners have guaranteed access to their documents.

“Preserving land records and making them accessible at the fingertips of landowners is the core objective of the Land Security Scheme,” said the Minister. The initiative aims to prevent loss, tampering, or forgery of land records, which often leads to disputes, he added.

With regard to digitisation of land records, the Minister said that the department has already scanned 33.5 crore pages of land records against the target of completing the scan of 100 crore pages of documents and records across Karnataka. This, he said, would serve as a legal guarantee for land records.

Mr. Byre Gowda emphasised the need for strict implementation of recent reforms in the Revenue Department and urged officials to adopt modern technology to deliver citizen services efficiently.

On the issue of recurring landslides in Kodagu, the Minister said that the government will allocate ₹50 crore for constructing retaining walls. The funds will be released soon by the Chief Minister, he added.

The Minister said full ownership rights would be extended to rightful landowners, and records dating back 30 to 40 years would be rectified where necessary, offering a long-term solution.

MLA for Virajpet A.S. Ponnanna apprised the Minister of rain damage in Kodagu district. Deputy Commissioner of Kodagu Venkat Raja, ZP CEO Anand Prakash Meena, and officials from PWD and various other departments were present.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> India> Karnataka / by The Hindu Bureau / July 25th, 2025

Writer Harini Nagendra’s newest instalment in the best-selling series, Bangalore Detectives Club, sees protagonist Kaveri solving mysteries across 1920s B’luru & the forests of Kodagu

The cover of Into The Leopard’s Den

An elderly woman lies bleeding out on the floor of her ramshackle hut – an intruder turning her home inside out in search of something she refuses to surrender. As this mysterious killer discovers the object and flees, she clutches a picture of Bengaluru’s famous female detective Kaveri. Thrusting it into the hands of a boy who discovers her, she breathes her last with a plea on her lips – find the killer.

Into the Leopard’s Den (`499; Hachette), the fourth volume of writer Harini Nagendra’s best-selling cosy mystery series, Bangalore Detectives Club, dives straight into the tangled knots of this mystery, with the now pregnant 21-year-old detective, Kaveri, determined to unravel them all.

This time, the case leads her to the lush coffee plantations of Kodagu, leaving her motley crew of inquisitive neighbour aunty Uma, street urchin Venu and housemaid Anandi to investigate in Bengaluru. “While staying in the house of coffee plantation owner Lakamma, she learns of stories of a ghost leopard terrorising the place and scaring the workers away. At the same time, an exploitative British plantation owner’s life is in danger from multiple attacks,” explains Nagendra.

As an ecologist, the author’s environmental concerns come to the forefront stronger than in the previous three instalments, addressing colonialism’s ecological destruction alongside the murder mystery. “You get an insight into the time – the British expanded coffee production into the forest a lot but at a huge cost – the exploitation of labour, but also an ecological cost to the landscape,” she explains.

The Bengaluru of a century ago comes alive in these pages as the reader is transported to places that are familiar yet different. Nagendra explains her fascination with the period, nestled between two world wars and intimately associated with detective fiction from Agatha Christie’s Poirot stories to Miss Marple, Sharadindu Bandyopadhyay’s popular Byomkesh Bakshi series, and more. “The 1920s were a very interesting period in Bengaluru because while the rest of India was actively involved in the independence struggle, the Mysore Maharajas had a mediating influence here. While most books about the period have focused on Bombay, Delhi, and Kolkata, I wanted to talk about what it was like to live in Bengaluru at the time.” she explains.

Nagendra also makes it a point to include real women from the time (such as journalist Kalyanamma) or characters inspired by real women, with Lakamma being based on ‘coffee pudi’ Sakamma, an influential businesswoman.

This, with Kaveri’s independent, intelligent, and headstrong character, turns stereotypes of women of this period on its head. “A feminist discussion runs through the entire series because Kaveri is very strongly what we would call a feminist in these times. There were also a lot of independent women stepping out of the house for the first time in the 1920s,” says Nagendra, adding that at the same time, many, like her mother, grandmother and mother-in-law, were denied higher education. For her, imagining a character like Kaveri is partly a way of setting history right.

Kaveri and her doctor husband Ramu’s relationship, from a newly-wed couple to expectant parents, is a sweet and heartwarming thread in the series. Nagendra reveals that this loving yet nuanced depiction of an Indian arranged-married couple was a deliberate decision, keeping both her local and global readership in mind.

“There is often a feeling that Indian relationships are exploitative, always involving subjugation. I wanted to write about a regular but happy marriage of those times,” says Nagendra, adding, “Ramu is a traditional man, raised in a traditional family, married to an independent woman whom he didn’t really understand very well. But he wants to be supportive and over time, he understands her better, I’ve been enjoying seeing their relationship grow.”

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Bengaluru / by Mahima Nagaraju / July 23rd, 2025

Heavy to very heavy rains in August means the hilly district ends up receiving 20 to 30 days of precipitation within a week, resulting in wide-spread damage to property, localized flooding and crop loss, apart from landslides.

A below-normal rainfall in Kodagu during July tends to be followed by heavy to very heavy rains in August.  | Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

Notwithstanding the comfortable storage positions in the major reservoirs of the Cauvery basin in Karnataka, the catchment area in Kodagu district has received below normal rain in July, and has triggered an alert in the district administration.

Reason?

A below-normal rainfall during July tends to be followed by heavy to very heavy rains in August. The hilly district ends up receiving 20 to 30 days of precipitation within a week, resulting in wide-spread damage to property, localized flooding and crop loss, apart from landslides.

Though it is not the rule, public memory of the devastation caused in 2018, and similar trends in the following two to 3 years, has kept residents and officials on edge.

Hence, there is a heightened alert in Kodagu every time the rainfall is below normal in the district. The district tends to be pro-active for emergency response, identifying areas vulnerable to flash floods or landslides, and conducting a dry-run of emergency response with the involvement of the National Disaster Response Force, State Disaster Response Force and other departments, to handle any eventuality.

At a recently convened meeting of the District Disaster Management Authority, Deputy Commissioner Venkat Raja cautioned officials against complacency due to lull in rainfall in July. He issued clear instructions to all officials to remain vigilant until the end of August.

The Deputy Commissioner pointed out that while there was heavy rainfall in the last week of May and throughout June this year, the rainfall in July has been below normal. Hence, he impressed upon officials the possibility of heavy rains in the coming days, and the imperatives of taking appropriate precautionary measures in their respective jurisdictions.

The DC called for additional precautions to be taken to protect anganwadi, school, and college buildings, apart from protecting livestock. “Attention should also be paid to preventing damage to government buildings from falling trees,” he added, and called for precautionary steps, such as trimming of branches.

The Deputy Commissioner advised informing the Forest Department in advance if there are trees in a hazardous condition.

Engineers from the Public Works Department and Panchayat Raj Department have been instructed to work in tandem with the tahsildars, who have to keep the authorities informed of rain-related damage in their respective localities. Additionally, the Deputy Commissioner instructed tahsildars to carry out spot inspections.

District Superintendent of Police K. Ramarajan suggested that forest check posts be opened at various locations, including Anechowkur and Maldare, and called for deploying police personnel at these check-posts for better coordination.

Chamundeshwari Electricity Supply Corporation (CESC) engineers were instructed to ensure additional poles and transformers are available for installation wherever required.

Tahsildars, taluk panchayat executive officers, Additional Deputy Commissioner R. Aishwarya, CESC engineer Ramachandra, and officers from various departments participated in the video conference.

According to Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC), Kodagu has received 468 mm of rainfall from July 1^st to July 21^st, which is 21% below normal, and is under deficit category. In the taluks, Virajpet has received 295 mm, which is 44% below normal, Ponnampet has received 366 mm, which is 30% below normal, and comes under deficit category.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> India> Karnataka / by The Hindu Bureau / July 22nd, 2025