Category Archives: Records, All

Appointed As High Court Registrar

Mysore/Mysuru:

Judge K.S. Bharath Kumar, who was serving as the Third Additional District Judge at Mysuru, has been appointed as the Statistical Registrar of Karnataka High Court in Bengaluru.

Bharath Kumar, who was selected as a District Judge in 2015, had been serving in Mysuru for the past one year.

A native of Virajpet in Kodagu district, he is the son of former Kodagu ZP member K.B. Shanthappa and Rathnamma couple. Shanthappa is also the Working President of Karnataka State Kurubara Sangha.

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> News / May 06th, 2020

Catch Of The Day! 38-Kg Fish Caught From Harangi Backwaters

FishKF06may2020

Kushalnagar:

A group of youths who were fishing at Harangi backwaters in Kodagu District this morning were in for a pleasant surprise as they caught a giant fish that weighed 38 kgs. The fish was caught with the traditional method of fishing rod and angler.

The fish, Catla variety, was caught at Nakoor village along the Harangi backwaters by Preveesh, who then uploaded the same on his Facebook page. He said that though he was hoping for a good catch he did not expect this big a catch. Earlier too he had caught giant Catlas but this particular fish was his biggest catch. Today’s fish was sold at the local market.

Due to lockdown and lack of activities, there is a lot of fishing going on in the Harangi backwaters where youths come in many groups to fish. Typically, the fishing activity starts early in the morning and ends at around 11 pm. Local villagers from Nakoor, Shirangala, Suntikoppa, Hosathota, Kusboor and Madapura come to the backwaters to fish on the 5.6 km Harangi River stretch from the Harangi Dam to Koodige Bridge.

Traditional fishing is being held from many years in the backwaters of Harangi, which spreads over 1,886 hectares in area. Lakhs of fingerlings are released into the reservoir every year.

Some innovative villagers have even dug up irrigation ponds in the backwaters to supply water in summer to their fields. When the water storage is high at the Harangi Reservoir, these irrigation ponds get filled and submerge and when the water at the dam recedes, these ponds are full of water and fish.

Varieties of fish, including Mahseer, Catla and Rohu are released to Harangi every year and along with these, fingerlings procured from Kabini and Bhadra reservoirs are being provided to farmers at subsidised costs. Many families in this belt depend on fishing for their livelihood.

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> News . April 29th, 2020

New Discovery By Kodagu-Born Dr. Jagadeesh Moodera And Team At MIT

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Quantum Physics deals with the behaviour of subatomic particles and is arguably the most complex branch of Theoretical Physics. I do not profess to understand this highly abstract subject but know that classical laws of Physics fail at quantum levels.

It boggles the mind when told that a subatomic particle exists simultaneously at two different spots. One location could be on your table and the other on the surface of Jupiter!

English Physicist Paul Dirac theoretically proved way back in 1930s that fundamental particles known as fermions should have a counterpart somewhere in the universe with an opposite charge – known as anti-particle.

Complicated. Difficult to fathom. I fail to comprehend. Based on this theory it is theoretically possible to have ‘teleportation’ that are portrayed in science fiction movies and books.

Coorg-born Physicist Dr. Jagadeesh S. Moodera has been a scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) since 1981. He has several path-breaking research papers to his credit. My wife and I had the good fortune of a guided tour of his laboratory at MIT during our visit to Boston to attend the Kodava Convention-2019, in September last year.
DrJagadeesh02KF05may2020

Dr. Jagadeesh explained the intricacies of the experiments that he and his team were involved in. It was fascinating to see a huge setup with myriad tubes, probes, cables and instruments in order to create a 100% vacuum in a space of about 2 cubic centimetres.

Part of the experiment was conducted in this small space which was absolutely contamination free. There was another setup equally complicated where a space was created for the experiment which was free of any kind of vibration – not even that created by the traffic in the streets distance away, or footsteps of students in the nearby corridors. In addition, this space is cooled to -273 degree centigrade (that’s as close as one could get to -273.15 degree centigrade which is absolute zero). The experiments were conducted under these ideal conditions and usually between 10 pm and 6 am when chances of vibration were the least.

The experiment Dr. Jagadeesh and his colleagues have been working on since 2012 was to discover what Italian Theoretical Physicist Eltore Majorana, extending on Paul Dirac’s theory, had postulated in 1937 that there should be some subatomic particles that are indistinguishable from their anti-particle.

Scientists have been looking for these particles named Majorana fermions. Many theories have emerged over the years. Theoretical Physicists at MIT and elsewhere predicted that Majorana fermions may exist on solids such as gold under certain conditions. Dr. Jagadeesh and his team were on a mission to discover the existence of the elusive Majorana fermion.

The experiment, extremely complicated, needed many long hours in the laboratory. Dr. Jagadeesh explained how the delicate research was carried out at nano-particle level and observed through Scanning Tunneling Microscope (STM). STM is capable of ‘feeling’ the presence of atoms and molecules. 3mm x 3mm was the size of the surface on which the experiment was carried out, consisting of nano-wires of gold, grown on superconducting material: Vanadium.

MIT News dated 10th April 2020 has announced the successful sighting of the mysterious Majorana fermion by Dr. Jagadeesh Moodera and team. This is a major breakthrough. In Dr. Jagadeesh’s words ‘We have shown they are there, and stable, and easily scalable.’ Please visit webpage: http://news.mit.edu/2020/first-majorana-fermion-metal-quantum-computing-0410

The finding that Majorana fermions are scalable and could be made into qubits (individual computational units) is spectacular. These qubits could be used to build the most powerful and error free quantum computers. This will be a step closer to the phenomenon known as Singularity, which predicts that by the year 2042 AD there will be computers that will have computing power of all the human brains put together!

Once Singularity is achieved, humans need not invent anything further. Solutions to the most complex problems will be arrived at within seconds. If we had these computers today, a remedy for the current Covid-19 would have been found in a jiffy!

Dr. Jagadeesh’s wife Dr. Geetha Berera is a senior lecturer in MIT and we had an opportunity to visit her laboratory as well. The couple are totally dedicated to academics and research. Every year they visit Coorg and conduct a Quiz programme for school students. They are in the process of starting a school in Coorg under their organisation – CREATE Gurukula Trust – focusing on encouraging young minds in research activities. Meritorious students at Coorg Institute of Technology (CIT) are recipients of annual scholarships and awards instituted by Dr. Jagadeesh and Dr. Geetha. Dr. Jagadeesh and Dr. Geetha are eminent role models for young Kodavas to emulate.

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Feature Articles / by C.P. Belliappa / May 04th, 2020

Lt Gen PC Thimayya proceeds on superannuation after serving Army for four decades

Shimla, (PTI) :

Lieutenant General Pattacheruvanda Chengappa Thimayya proceeded on superannuation after serving the Indian Army for nearly four decades, a defence spokesperson said.

He retired as the 21st General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, Army Training Command here, a charge that he took from Lt Gen Manoj Mukund Naravane on November 1, 2018.

The General Officer”s illustrious career included numerous Command and Staff appointments both in India and abroad. “A true gentleman and an officer,” he always upheld the motto of “service before self” till his last day in the office. He refused to have any ceremonial farewell, customary to an officer of his rank and stature, while proceeding on retirement due to the nationwide lockdown, said the defence spokesperson.

He paid his farewell courtesy to Himachal Pradesh governor Bandaru Dattatraya and Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur over telephone and proceeded to his hometown to start his next innings.

Born on April 4, 1960 at Coorg in Karnataka, the General Officer is an alumni of Sainik School, Bhubaneswar and National Defence Academy.

He was awarded the Sword of Honour at Indian Military Academy and was Commissioned to 5th Bn, the Mechanised Infantry Regiment (14 KUMAON) on June 13, 1981.

PTI DJI RAX RAX
source: http://www.outlookindia.com / Outlook / Home> The News Scroll / by PTI / April 29th, 2020

Out-of-the-‘box’ solutions to labourers’ hunger woes

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As hundreds of plantation workers are stranded in Kodagu and bearing the brunt of lockdown, the district administration has placed boxes in five prominent places in the district requesting the donors to contribute rice, lentils and other items that have a long shelf life.

The initiative, titled “Hasida Hottege Tanivu Pettige,” is directed towards providing foodgrain to the distressed labourers’ families. Under the scheme, boxes have been placed in an old private bus stand in Madikeri, private bus stand in Kushalnagar, private bus stand in Somwarpet, near clock tower in Virajpet and bus stand in Gonikoppa.

Workers, in thousands, from other districts and states work in coffee plantations in Kodagu. They are now stuck in the district and are not able to return to their native places.

They do not have any work and are currently living in the line houses of the plantations.

As these families do not have any ration cards, they cannot get foodgrain distributed by the government through fair price shops. It has become a challenge for the district administration to provide food and other facilities to these labourers.

The condition of labourers living in hilly areas of the district has worsened as the supply of rice, sugar, edible oil, onion and spices is hit.

The people, who purchase grains on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, have been requested to contribute a share in these boxes, towards the less privileged.

The district administration has now been registering the names of volunteers to distribute the collected grains to the needy.

Deputy Commissioner Annies Kanmani Joy said that 2,500 workers had been identified in the district, to whom the food items collected will be distributed. This apart, food kits are being provided through the ITDP department, she added.

source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> State> Karnataka Politics / by DHNS / March 30th, 2020

Pepper prices rise 15% amid lockdown on hope of healthy post-monsoon sales

Farmers hold on to stocks due to great demand for high-quality Indian produce.

Some farmers who had finished harvesting had sold in panic.
Some farmers who had finished harvesting had sold in panic.

Pepper prices have turned buoyant again rising by as much as 15 per cent in India to Rs 325 per kg from Rs 285 earlier.

Rohan Colaco, a planter from Karnataka and a member of Karnataka Planters Association, said that pepper prices had been sliding prior to the lockdown. The spice was trading at around Rs 285 a kg and was expected to go down to Rs 260.

Some farmers who had finished harvesting had sold in panic. Also there was unripe pepper wine harvest and selling this year. After the lockdown, the prices opened at Rs 305.

“It is expected that there will be no inward movement of pepper through international borders. There is also good demand for high quality Indian pepper. Many farmers are keeping stocks to sell after the monsoons as winter demand will start strengthening. These reasons are pushing pepper prices up,” said Colaco.

He added that the spice had hit a high of Rs 330 about a year back. He believes pepper may approach this price as there already exists a huge stock of imported pepper.

source: http://www.business-standard.com / Business Standard / Home> Markets> Commodities / by T E Narasimhan / April 27th, 2020

Kodava women set aside kitchenware, learn to aim and fire in Karnataka

The participants of the training programme were given certification from the police and winners in the shooting event were presented prizes.

Women take part in a gun training event in Gonikoppal. (Photo | EPS)
Women take part in a gun training event in Gonikoppal. (Photo | EPS)

Madikeri :

Every morning for the past five days, a handful of women from South Kodagu had set aside their usual kitchenware in favour of licenced firearms with the aim of becoming expert shooters.

In a land where owning a gun is part of the tradition, taking a break from their daily routine to learn the use of firearms is a small price to pay. It also gives women good self-defence capabilities.

The women who underwent the training needed no coaxing. Proudly dressed in all whites and wearing sneakers, they used to rush to the Cauvery College Grounds in Gonikoppal where they learned to load guns, aim and fire at targets.

The shooting training was organised by the Gonikoppal police and over 60 residents from across South Kodagu took part in the programme. Among the trainees were eight women who have become amateur shooters after the training.

“Gun is worshipped in Kodava culture and it is a cliché to say that shooting is in the blood of Kodavas. However, the men are usually trained in this skill and it is only recently that girls are being trained in this tradition. Nevertheless, when opportunity knocks on the door, you don’t deny it,” said Bharati Bopanna, a resident of Ponnampet, who attended the training programme and won the third place in the shooting competition.

When Bharati heard that the police are training residents in shooting, she registered herself for the programme. “Women, especially married ones, are not used to much physical exercise. And the training programme stressed on physical fitness.

Apart from that, during traditional festivals, women are given loaded guns to perform ritualistic shooting. While I had tried my hands on shooting, I never really knew to load the rifle. After this training, I need not depend on anyone to load a gun.”

The participants of the training programme were given certification from the police and winners in the shooting event were presented prizes.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Karnataka / by Express News Services / December 30th, 2020

Mysuru-Educated Innovator Creates Respiration Rate Monitor For COVID-19 Patients

(from left) Sanchi Poovaya, Ranjana Nair and Aardra Kannan Ambili)
(from left) Sanchi Poovaya, Ranjana Nair and Aardra Kannan Ambili)

Mysore/Mysuru:

Unique among many medical solutions offered to combat COVID-19 is the new breathing monitor for Coronavirus patients developed by a Bengaluru-based start-up RayIoT and it is a matter of pride that a Kodagu-born and Mysuru-educated innovator is behind the device.

She is Ammanichanda Sanchi Poovaya, a young but experienced engineer, innovator and entrepreneur. She co-founded healthcare start-up RayIoT Solutions Inc. and is the Chief Operating Officer of the start-up that has already made a mark in innovative healthcare products.

Her start-up creates innovative healthcare and baby-tech products using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet-of-Things (IoT) technologies. Very recently, Sanchi Poovaya and her other two co-founders Aardra Kannan Ambili (Chief Technology Officer) and Ranjana Nair (Co-founder and CEO) built a remote respiration monitoring system for COVID-19 patients that allows doctors to remotely monitor less critical patients while seriously ill ones get more attention.

Connected workflow sends alerts to the doctor in case of any abnormal variations in the patient’s vitals. With the high effectiveness of using respiration rate as a predictive vital, early detection especially among at-risk caregivers is a possibility.

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“It is a non-contact, Wi-Fi enabled, affordable respiration rate monitor for Coronavirus patients that can run as mini ICU units. In its current form, RayIoT will work as a mini ICU monitoring unit. The algorithms of Artificial Intelligence will allow doctors and other health professionals to track the respiration rate of multiple patients through an app from anywhere in the world,” Sanchi Poovaya said.

In a pandemic like COVID-19 where doctors are falling ill with excessive patient inflow, and the management of quarantined patients have become difficult, the device wirelessly tracks patient’s respiration rate, heart rate, blood pressure and temperature.

Since all the devices can be connected to one central database, using RayIoT, healthcare professionals can monitor more than one lakh patients at a time continuously. By just tracking respiration rate, they will be able to intelligently categorise quarantined patients into mild, severe, and critical cases, she said.

“The idea of a remote respiration monitoring system came to us when a celebrity, who was converting his 14-room sprawling bungalow into a quarantine facility, reached out to us. His problem was remote access to doctors, nurses and medical equipment to fully equip his quarantine facility.”

The team had to come up with a low-cost solution that could monitor the vitals of hundreds of patients at any given point of time and connect to doctors through video when the patients are moving into a severe or critical stage. “The solution also helped Government Task Forces who are monitoring huge swathes of population by providing them a single source of truth with our quarantine database,” Sanchi reveals.

RayIoT has been created by same team that is behind Raybaby (the world’s first non-contact sleep and breathing monitor for babies. This product has won many awards and was mentioned in CNN as one of the must have home gadgets.

Ammanichanda Sanchi Poovaya completed her schooling at Good Shepherd, Ammathi in Kodagu, and JSS Public School, Mysuru. She completed her Mechanical Engineering at the National Institute of Engineering (NIE), Mysuru and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University, New York.

Sanchi Poovaya is the daughter of Ammanichanda Sunil Poovaya (ex-Merchant Navy) and Shiela Poovaya (Pattada, Betoli). They live in Hosur, Bengaluru.

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Covid News / April 26th, 2020

Phone-in programmes by Kodagu district administration

In order to solve people’s problems in an effective way, the district administration will conduct live phone-in programmes between April 24 and May 11 from 3 pm to 4 pm, stated a press release.

The people may call DC’s office control number 1077 and convey there issue on the specified topics.

The topic for the phone-in programme is as follows:

April 24 – Health and Family Welfare, April 27 – Food and Civil Supplies, April 29 – Rural Development and Panchayat Raj, May 2 – Agriculture and Horticulture, May 4 – Urban Local Bodies, May 6 – Specially-abled and senior citizens and Women and Child Welfare, May 8 – Social welfare and ITDP and May 11 – Forest department.

Officials from the respective departments will respond to the issues.

source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> State> Mangaluru / by DHNS, Madikeri / April 27th, 2020

Birthday special: 5 movies that make Rashmika Mandanna everyone’s favourite ‘Kodava Beauty’

Rashmika Mandanna. (Credit: Facebook/RashmikaMandanna)
Rashmika Mandanna. (Credit: Facebook/RashmikaMandanna)

The much-loved Rashmika Mandanna is arguably one of the most popular young actresses in Telugu/ Kannada cinema. She enjoys a strong fan following due to her charming screen presence, bindass nature and sincere performances. On Sunday, as the star turns a year older, here is a look at the films that make her everyone’s favourite ‘Kodava Beauty’.

Kirik Party (Kannada)

One of the biggest hits of 2016, Kirik Party established Rashmika as a household name and clicked with the aam janta due to its lively presentation. The film featured her as the leading lady opposite Rakshit Shetty and this created a great deal of buzz among fans. The Rishabh Shetty-helmed flick was later remade in Telugu as Kirrak Party.

Chalo (Telugu)

Chalo, which marked the young woman’s Tollywood debut, emerged as one of the biggest sleeper hits of 2018 and helped her add a new dimension to her career. The film had a strong cast that included Naga Shaurya, Vennela Kishore, Achyuth Kumar and Mime Gopi.

Geetha Govindam (Telugu)

A lively romantic-comedy, Geetha Govindam featured Rashmika in the role of lively young girl and marked her first collaboration with young hero Vijay Deverakonda. Released in 2018, it fared well at the box office and establied the young diva as a synonym for success.

Yajamana (Kannada)

While Yajamana was essentially a Darshan starrer, it proved to be a high-profile affair for Rashmika as it marked her return to Sandalwood after a hiatus. The film featured the Dear Comrade star in a desi avatar and helped her impress fans courtesy her crackling chemistry with ‘D Boss’.

Sarileru Neekevvaru (Telugu)

Arguably the biggest Tollywood film of Rashmika’s career, Sarileru Neekevvaru hit screens this Sankranti and emerged as a sensational hit despite releasing a day before the Allu Arjun starrer Ala Vaikunthapurramloo. The film featured her in a stylish avatar and marked her first collaboration with ‘Prince’ Mahesh Babu

source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> Entertainment> Entertainment News / by DH Web Desk / April 05th, 2020