Category Archives: Records, All

Now, farmers can conduct survey of crops using app

August 22, 2020Agriculture, Business & Economy, Green Initiatives / Environment, Nature, Records, Alladmin

Deputy Commissioner Annies Kanmani Joy chairs a meeting in Madikeri on Friday.

Now, farmers can directly enter the details of the crops they have cultivated in their RTCs (record of rights, tenancy and crops) with a few clicks on the app on crop survey.

The last date for entering the details on the crop survey is August 24. The ‘Farmers Crop Survey App 2020-21’ has been developed by e-governance department of Karnataka, said Deputy Commissioner Annies Kanmani Joy.

Chairing a meeting on implementation of the crop survey, she said the farmers should mention survey number, hissa number of the land owned by them and upload details on agriculture crops, horticulture crops and other forest crops cultivated by them.

The DC said farmers had to take photographs of the crops cultivated on the land and fill in the details. Depending on crop details and extent of area cultivated that are documented in the pahani, government will announce support price and compensation during the natural calamities. The crop survey will benefit in documenting the details of the crops cultivated in pahani, Annies said

If farmers are unable to conduct survey of crops on their own, then they can seek the assistance of private individuals to document the details after August 24, she added.

The details uploaded by the farmers will be verified by the officials. The farmers can visit Raitha Samparka Kendra, revenue inspectors, village accountants and assistant agriculture and horticulture officials, for any query.

Agriculture Minister B C Patil, in a video conference with Deputy Commissioner, said that the crop survey should be implemented like a ‘Utsava’. For the first time in the country, the crop survey is carried out by the farmers themselves using an app.

In the past, objections were raised when the crops that the farmer claimed to have grown was different from the one recorded on the RTC. As the farmers themselves take up the survey, the mistakes in the RTC can be avoided, Annies said.

The ‘Farmers Crop Survey App 2020-21’ can be downloaded from Play Store. A farmer should register his name and mobile number using an OTP. The farmers should select district, taluk, hobli, village and add survey number of the land and then furnish details of the crops cultivated.

MLA M P Appachu Ranjan visited the rain-affected Makkandooru and other areas on Friday. He inspected the affected farmland, houses and public roads in Makkandooru, Kadagadalu, Hodduru Gram Panchayat jurisdiction along with officials.

source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> State> Karnataka Districts / by DHNS, Madikeri / August 14th, 2020

Obituary – Theetharamada Ravi Nanjappa

August 22, 2020Coffee, Kodagu (Coorg), Records, Alladmin

Theetharamada Ravi Nanjappa (73), a coffee planter and a resident of Nallur village near Ponnampet in South Kodagu, passed away early this morning at a private hospital in Mysuru.

He leaves behind his wife Indira, a daughter, a son, son-in-law, daughter-in-law and a host of relatives and friends.

Cremation took place at Mukthidhama in Vijayanagar 4th Stage here today, according to family sources.

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Obituray / August 21st, 2020

Boundary Survey For Mysuru-Madikeri Expressway Begins

August 21, 2020Business & Economy, Records, Alladmin

Mysore/Mysuru:

The National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) has begun boundary marking exercise and land acquisition survey for the four/ six-lane Mysuru-Madikeri Economic Corridor Expressway Project along the Mysuru-Madikeri NH-275.

The 115 km-long Expressway costing Rs.6,000 crore is a fully Centrally-funded Project including land acquisition. The new Highway is being built to connect Mysuru and Madikeri.

Once completed, the Expressway will not touch Mysuru and will link the Mysuru-Bengaluru Highway that is being expanded to 10-lane Highway.

The Expressway will connect Madikeri with Bengaluru bypassing Suntikoppa, Kushalnagar, Bylakuppe, Koppa, Kampalapura, Periyapatna, Kallbeta, Gonikoppal Deviation Road, Hunsur and Mysuru.

The Expressway will touch the Mysuru-Bengaluru Highway at Paschimavahini near Srirangapatna.

The first stage of the survey has been completed till Basavanahalli on the Srirangapatna-Bylakuppe-Madikeri Road. Now, the NHAI and Revenue Department officers have been marking boundaries and planting stone benchmarks near Teppadagandi in Kodagu district till the Highway stretch of Basavanahalli.

According to NHAI officials, a new bridge will be built across River Cauvery near Teppadagandi Hanging Bridge. The road will have four/ six lanes as per the specifications mentioned in the NHAI website. A giant circle will come up at Teppadagandi and will cross the Konanur-Thalassery State Highway to link Aanekaadu via Basavanahalli.

Officials said that after the boundaries are marked, the initial works will begin. Notices will be issued to the land owners and their objections will be recorded. The compensation has been fixed and the process of identifying the land owners who are eligible for compensation was on. This survey process is being conducted along with the Revenue Department.

Speaking to Star of Mysore, Special Land Acquisition Officer Devaraj said that the first phase of the joint survey work of 42 kilometres of the Expressway has been completed. “We are taking along the Revenue officials as they will have extensive knowledge of the land and its owners as per revenue records. We are aiming to complete the entire survey — including bridges and bypass roads — by the end of December and submit the report to the Government. Once the compensation is disbursed, the road construction works will take one-and-a-half to two years to complete,” he said.

The Expressway has a design length of 93 kilometres and bypasses have been proposed having an aggregate length of 84 kilometres at Kushalnagar, Periyapatna, and combined bypass for Hunsur, Bilikere and Mysuru. It will have a road median and the alignment for the new corridor has already been done. It will considerably reduce the journey time between Madikeri and Bengaluru and also connects several cities in North Kerala.

The existing four-lane road between Mysuru and Madikeri (NH-275) has reached a saturation point and there is an urgent need to build a separate road. Travelling on the existing Highway is a nightmarish experience especially during weekends and holidays when thousands of vehicles move between Mysuru and Madikeri. Once completed, the Expressway will reduce the journey time between Madikeri and Bengaluru to five hours from existing seven hours.

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> News / August 19th, 2020

19 cops from Karnataka honoured with President medal

August 20, 2020Leaders, Records, Alladmin

A total of 19 police personnel from the state have been conferred with the President’s Police Medal on the occasion of Independence Day.

Bengaluru U:

A total of 19 police personnel from the state have been conferred with the President’s Police Medal on the occasion of Independence Day. V L N Prasanna Kumar, ASI, Criminal Investigation Department, has been honoured with the medal for distinguished service.

The others are:

R Hemanth Kumar, DySP, Special Investigation Team, Lokayukta; Parameshwar Hegde, DySP, CID; R Manjunath, DySP, ACB, Mandya; H M Shailendra, DySP, Kodagu; Arun Nagegowda, DySP, Mandya; H M Satish, ACP; H B Ramesh Kumar, DySP, intelligence, Bengaluru; Umesh, DySP (Armed), Police Training School, Mysuru; C N Diwakar, Circle Police Inspector, Kodagu; G N Rudresh, Special Reserve Police Inspector, KSRP, Bengaluru; B A Lakshminarayan, SI, City Special Branch, Bengaluru; M H Chandekar, special reserve SI, KSRP, Bengaluru; K Jayapra- kash, PSI, Mangaluru; H Nanjundaiah ASI, Chikkaballapur; Atheeq Ur Rahman, ASI, Shivamogga; Ramanjanaiah, ASI, Tumakuru, R N Balikai, ASI, Haveri, and K Honnappa, head constable, Bengaluru Rural.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Bengaluru / by Express News Service / August 15th, 2020

Fair trade diaries: Arshiya Bose of Black Baza Coffee walks us through the basics of her coffee farming movement

August 20, 2020Business & Economy, Coffee News, Coffee, Kodagu (Coorg), Green Initiatives / Environment, Nature, Records, All, World Opinionadmin

Have you explored Black Baza Coffee's lineup, yet? — Have you explored Black Baza Coffee’s lineup, yet?

Very few coffee lovers actually research how ethical their go-to fair trade coffee brand really is, but Black Baza Coffee ‘s biodiversity-friendly, fair-trade coffee production is going the whole mile when it comes to ethically responsible community-building. The Bengaluru-based label is committed to the idea of ‘creating a local, participatory and meaningful movement for coffee.’ During her PhD in coffee and sustainability, Arshiya Bose, the founder of the label explored some functional biodiversity-friendly coffee farming practises which helped her get a better perspective on responsible production.

“Through my research I met several smallholder coffee producers, and the brand is committed to the idea of helping them grow. Black Baza Coffee is not just about eco-friendly practises but we focus on biodiversity conservation. We take a look at how various wildlife and plants make use of the coffee farms and how they can be conserved on these farms, which also includes changing the way we farm. So we go beyond organic, from looking and understanding habitats to sticking to our all-natural agenda,” Arshiya tells us. Not to mention Black Baza’s line-up is amazingly diverse, featuring coffees with layered flavour profiles, be it fermented Robusta with spicy flavour notes or washed Arabica with a balanced acidity.

"Our Ficus coffee is named after this tree, our focus for conservation efforts in our farms," the label writes on its Instagram page — “Our Ficus coffee is named after this tree, our focus for conservation efforts in our farms,” the label writes on its Instagram page

In fact, you can even follow Black Baza’s Instagram page for their excellent fieldwork stories. We caught up with Arshiya to explore her vision further.

Black Baza Coffee has a focus on nurturing smallholders producers…

Yes, we do not work with coffee estates so we typically look at those coffee growing communities which are marginalised and vulnerable, particularly at a time like this and we work closely with them. We work with those who need our input and support the most and we are actually one of the few certified fair trade coffee brands in the country. We work with around 650 producers, we help set up coffee collectives and cooperatives. We source our coffee from The Biligirirangana Hills in Karnataka, Nilgiris, Coorg etc.

Tell us about your clientele. Do most of them share the label’s philosophy?

Yes, we have a really loyal base of customers who actively want to support communities which have suffered from the shutdown and the pandemic in general. We already had a steady base, but it has definitely grown since the pandemic started.

How has the label’s objective evolved in the four years since you started?

We are not a typical coffee brand, we function like a social enterprise, and we have definitely grown. We started out with four producers and we now work with 650, we have been able to reach so many communities who needed our support. We have also been able to source so many distinct varieties of coffees with varied flavour profiles, that’s been really interesting.

Tell us about how you’ve named each variant, like the ‘Otter,’ or the ‘Ficus’?

These coffees have been named depending on where they are grown, and represent the idea of conserving particular species of fauna which inhabit the region. The Luna coffee, for instance, is named after this interesting species of moth found in Indo-western ghats, we actively make observations of the luna moth on coffee farms, which tells us about their habitat or the vegetation around them. The names are also symbols of what we’re trying to achieve, it speaks to people about the kind of biodiversity which exists in our forests and why conserving them is so crucial.

source: http://www.indulgexpress.com / The New Indian Express – Indulge Express / by U. Roy / August 14th, 2020

Obituary : Berera Shambhu Aiyanna

August 17, 2020Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Famous Personalities of Kodagu / Coorg, Leaders, Records, Alladmin

Berera Shambhu Aiyanna (73), former President of Bengaluru Kodava Samaja, a social worker and a resident of Vidyranyapura in Bengaluru, passed away early this morning at his residence.

He leaves behind his wife and two sons. Cremation was held this afternoon at Bengaluru.

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Obituary / August 18th, 2020

Inspiring a generation: Gandhi’s Kodagu visit

August 16, 2020Famous Personalities of Kodagu / Coorg, Leaders, Records, All, World Opinionadmin

Gandhi Mantapa in Madikeri was built to commemorate Mahatma Gandhi’s visit to Kodagu in 1934. DH file photo

It was a cold February morning in 1934, when a young Seethamma, around 10 years old, woke up with excitement. After all, it was an important day and all she wanted was to catch a glimpse of Mahatma Gandhi, who happened to be in Kodagu.

Gandhi was set to address a gathering at Kakotuparambu grounds in Virajpet that day and Seethamma had to cover several miles on foot to reach the venue.

Her parents and cousins were already waiting outside and they all set out towards the venue immediately, only stopping to wash their faces in a small stream on the way. When they reached the ground, a large crowd had gathered and they saw the Mahatma from a distance.

“Gandhiji was sitting on the stage with his legs crossed to one side,” Seethamma would often tell her children and grandchildren, recalling that historic day. Just a glimpse of the great man was her most treasured memory.

The Mahatma, who was touring Tamil Nadu to mobilise funds for the upliftment of ‘Harijans’, was invited to Kodagu by Pandyanda I Belliappa and other freedom fighters of the district, which was then a Chief Commissioner’s Province.

On arriving at Kodagu, the Mahatma and his entourage first visited a Harijan colony in Gonicoppa, following which he addressed a meeting mostly attended by women. Though on a short visit, Gandhi also addressed gatherings at Ponnampet, Somwarpet and Madikeri among other places. He appealed to the people to donate generously to help the victims of an earthquake that had hit Bihar in January that year and also requested them to contribute to the Harijan Welfare Fund.

He asked the women to donate their gold jewellery and ornaments for the cause, while stating that, “The amount is not important to me because it is a token of tangible sympathy to the suffering. Thus, even a copper coin is valuable.”

Moved by the appeal, writer Kodagina Gowramma, who was around 22 years at the time, famously donated all her gold ornaments to the Harijan Welfare Fund.

Seethamma and Gowramma, and several others like them knowingly or unknowingly became part of the national movement – which was as much about uniting the very diverse people of India as it was about fighting a foreign rule.

Such was Gandhi’s charisma that he inspired people, young and old; women and men; poor and rich. This made the freedom movement a mass movement.

source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> Spectrum > Spectrum Statescan / by Dhanyata M Poovaiah / August 15th, 2020

The Amara Sullia uprising, 20 years before 1857

August 15, 2020Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Famous Personalities of Kodagu / Coorg, Historical Links / Pre-Independence, Leaders, Records, Alladmin

Twenty years before the First War of Independence in 1857, there was the ‘Amara Sullia Dange’ or Kodagu- Canara Mutiny against the British government. This fight, which was labelled ‘Kalyanappana Katakayi’ (Loot of Kalyanappa), to tone down its significance, received unprecedented support from people in today’s Kodagu, Dakshina Kannada districts of Karnataka and Kumble region in Kerala.

After Tipu Sultan’s death in 1799, South Canara (Dakshina Kannada) passed into British hands. Neighbouring Kodagu, however, still maintained a precarious independence.

In 1834, the East India Company resolved to invade Kodagu, which was ruled by King Chikkaveera Rajendra of Haleri dynasty. On April 11, 1834, the political agent of the British at Mercara (Madikeri), Lieutenant Colonel J S Fraser, issued a proclamation annexing Kodagu into the British administration. Fraser also resolved to respect the social and religious customs of the locals, but the promise remained on paper.

The British introduced major economic, social, and even territorial changes in Kodagu, for their administrative convenience. Amara Sullia was separated from Kodagu and made part of South Canara district, which was then part of the Madras province. What further incensed the people was a change in the mode of tax payment, which was now to be made entirely in cash. The farmers were used to giving part of their produce as the tax, but the new system only added to their burden. Now, many of them refused to pay the tax outright.

After Kodagu’s annexation, there was a resistance movement planned. In 1835, Swamy Aparampara, a Jangama saint, appeared in Manjarabad in Hassan district and claimed that he was a legal heir to the Haleri throne.

His plan was to attack and occupy Madikeri Fort on December 5, 1836. The people of Kodagu believed him to be the son of Appaji, who was the uncle of Chikkaveera Rajendra. Aparampara planned a resistance movement with the help of other rebellions including Kalyanaswamy, Kedambadi Rame Gowda and Guddemane Appayya Gowda. Aparampara visited Subrahmanya and met Kujugodu Appayya Gowda and Mallappa Gowda, the representatives of the Ikkeri dynasty. From there, they marched towards Madikeri with a battalion.

The British got wind of the plan and imprisoned Aparampara, with the aid of Kodagu’s Dewan, Cheppudira Ponnappa.

Now, the responsibility of the movement shifted onto the shoulders of Kalyanaswamy. He claimed to be the second son of Appaji and therefore, a member of the Haleri dynasty. Declared a king by his men, he popularised the movement by proclaiming that if he became the king, he would stop collecting revenue for the first three years and abolish the duties on commodities.

Dewan Ponnappa proved that Kalyanaswamy didn’t belong to the Haleri dynasty. However, the rebel leader remained popular and enjoyed support from local leaders.

Kalyanaswamy slowly extended the movement to Sullia and other parts of South Canara. Kedambadi Ramegowda of Sullia was primarily responsible for the organisation of rebellion in South Canara. When Kalyanaswamy was travelling from Kodlipet to Wayanad, he was captured by the British forces, though his imprisonment was concealed. His friend Putta Basappa posed as Kalyanappa and continued the rebellion.

Meanwhile, the resentment against the new tax policy continued, and Kedambadi Ramegowda and Nanjayya decided to start a rebellion in Sullia. They killed Atlur Ramappaya, the Amaldar (Agent) of Sullia, who was loyal to the British.

The battalion, headed by Kalyanappa (Putta Basappa), Kedambadi Ramegowda and others reached Bellare and attacked the British treasury. The rebels then reached Mangalore and hoisted the Haleri flag in ‘Bavutagudda’ on April 5, 1837, to mark their victory over the British.

In response, the British brought in reinforcements from Kannanur, and attacked the rebels. Several leaders were captured and killed, while a few others escaped. Putta Basappa and Appayya Gowda were hanged.

The British Commissioner Cotton, who submitted a report on the Canara Insurrection to the government in 1839, mentioned the movement was a furtherance of the Nagar Peasants’ Revolt of 1830-32, in present-day Shivamogga. “The Amara Sullia insurrection has the features of primary resistance, as well as peasants’ movement; the main intention was to drive away the colonial intruders,” says K R Vidyadhara, a lawyer in Madikeri who has studied the uprising.

A few scholars have conducted extensive studies on the Amara Sullia mutiny, with the incident even being portrayed in a Yakshagana performance called ‘Kalyanappana Katakayi’.

source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> Spectrum> Spectrum Top Stories / by Charan Aivarnad / August 15th, 2020

When Kodagu merged with Mysore: A short political history of the region

August 13, 2020About Kodagu / Coorg, Famous Personalities of Kodagu / Coorg, Leaders, Records, Alladmin

An erstwhile independent state, Coorg was merged with Mysore after the States Reorganisation Act was passed in 1956.

It was S Nijalingappa’s death anniversary on August 8 and I was reading about the unified Mysore state’s first Assembly elections in order to get some insights about the first and one of the longest serving Chief Ministers of our state. One article led to another and I found myself in the middle of several articles about Coorg’s merger with Mysore. It was such an interesting revelation that I kept hopping from one article to another and got deeper into the rabbit hole.

Since most of us outside of Kodagu are informed just in passing in our textbooks about how Coorg was an independent state before the unification, I thought this was a story worth telling.

After more than a century of direct British rule since its annexation from its last ruler Chikka Veera Rajendra (in 1834), Coorg became an independent (Type C) state within India along with other small, hilly, erstwhile princely states like Himachal Pradesh. Coorg had a strong Congress party presence and participated enthusiastically in the freedom struggle, with even stalwarts like Gandhi visiting the state on a few occasions to mobilise the immensely patriotic people from the land of coffee, commanders and Kaveri.

But the Congress leadership within Coorg was heavily divided over whether to remain an independent state or to join the larger neighbouring state of Mysore. While one faction led by the Gandhian CM Poonacha was more pragmatic in seeing the impracticality of a tiny state like Coorg being allowed to remain independent in a country as large as India and being open to the idea of merging with Mysore since Kannada was already the language broadly used in education and administration within Coorg, the other faction led by another Gandhian Pandiyanda Belliappa was , staunchly against the merger. The loyalty of both factions and leaders, however, lay with the Congress.

When the legislative assembly elections were announced in late 1951, to be held along with the first ever election to independent India’s parliament, the Pandiyanda Belliappa faction moved away from the Mysore-sympathetic Congress and formed the Thakkadi Party (weighing machine), contesting as independents on the plank of Coorg’s continuation as an independent state.

In what was a Brexit style election to decide the future of Coorg state, the Congress emerged victorious, winning 15 seats in the 24-member Coorg Assembly, while the Thakkadi Party won the remaining 9 seats. Questions were raised about the fairness of the elections as allegations surfaced that voters were sent from the neighbouring towns in Mysore to vote for the Congress, in effect for Coorg’s merger with Mysore. Poonacha, however, took oath as Coorg’s first and only elected Chief Minister and ruled till 1956 with a two-member Cabinet.

In 1956, the States Reorganisation Act was passed in the Parliament by the Nehru government, allowing Coorg’s merger with Mysore. Several efforts were made by key dignitaries from Coorg to secure an independent state status, including the decorated Field Marshal KM Cariappa, who was then serving as India’s High Commissioner to Australia and New Zealand. He wrote a letter to President Rajendra Prasad, making a case for Coorg to remain an independent state. But it proved too little, too late as the Nehru-led Congress government remained committed to the Act and reined in dissent within the party units across states.

When the bill was taken up to be voted by Coorg’s Assembly as it required ratification by state assemblies before becoming a legislation, 22 out of 24 legislators, including Pandiyanda Belliappa, voted for Coorg’s merger with Mysore. The first and only elected legislative assembly and government of Coorg was thus dissolved, paving the way for its integration with the unified Mysore state.

Poonacha went on to serve both the Mysore and central governments in various capacities as cabinet minister holding various important portfolios, and also served as the Governor of Odisha and Madhya Pradesh. He was also Coorg’s representative in the Constituent Assembly. Coorg also sent two members to independent India’s first elected Parliament. After its merger with Mysore, however, Coorg was clubbed with Mangalore earlier and Mysore later into a single parliamentary constituency. It sends two legislators to the 224-member state assembly of Karnataka.

Many people in Coorg are still divided and emotional over the issue of Coorg’s merger with Mysore. The Codava National Council, under the leadership of NU Nachappa, fought for the restoration of statehood for Coorg for several decades. But it has now toned down its demand to that of an autonomous development board exclusively for Coorg within Karnataka, with many other perks similar to those offered to other sparsely populated hilly regions and tribes in the Himalayas and the North East.

Kodagu, the official name of the district, is one of the most developed districts of Karnataka across most parameters of development. With an HDI of 0.817, it is only behind Bengaluru, Dakshina Kannada and Udupi in terms of human development. As it reels under another bout of floods this monsoon, let us keep the beautiful Coorg in our prayers and cherish its less known history.

Rakshith S Ponnathpur is a financial and economic policy researcher with a keen interest in Karnataka history and politics.

source: http://www.thenewsminute.com / The News Minute / Home> News> History / by Rakshith S Ponnathpur / August 12th, 2020

Daughters Of Talacauvery Chief Priest Reach Kodagu

August 12, 2020Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Records, Alladmin

Madikeri:

As rains have abated in Kodagu, rescue operations have been initiated in full swing and over 150 personnel from National Disaster Response Force (NDRF), State Disaster Response Force (SDRF) and Madras Engineering Group (MEG) are carrying out search for the priest family that was washed away at Talacauvery on Wednesday midnight.

Five persons of a family including the Chief Priest of Sri Cauvery Temple T.S. Narayanachar are buried alive as a portion of the Brahmagiri Hill collapsed on two houses where the priests lived. Along with Narayanachar, his wife Shantha Narayana, Narayanachar’s brother Anandathirtha Swamiji and relatives Ravikiran Bhat and Pavan Bhat are feared to be dead.

In the search carried out on Saturday, the body of Anandathirtha was found. Search is on to find other missing persons. Meanwhile, daughters of Narayanachar-Shantha couple Sharada and Namitha who are settled in Australia and New Zealand have reached Talacauvery and are discussing with the rescue personnel about the rescue operations.

Rains have abated in the hilly district but areas where River Cauvery flows are still deep under water. Flood situation at Balamuri and Kottamudi remains to be grim as water level has not receded. The connection between Murnad and Napoklu continues to be disrupted. Flood waters have receded in Kushalnagar and the residents have begun cleaning their houses to make them fit for living.

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> News / August 10th, 2020

Kodagu First

a Celebration. Positive News, Facts & Achievements about Kodagu, Coorgs and the People of Kodagu – here at Home and Overseas