A square dedicated to the former erstwhile commandant of ASC Centre North, Colonel Girdhari Singh, was inaugurated in the city on Saturday. The Colonel was responsible for shifting of the centre from its initial location in Meerut to Gaya city in Bihar.
A memorial for Colonel Girdhari Singh, AVSM, was inaugurated at the ASC Centre and College in the city on Saturday. (Express Photo Service)
A bust of the Colonel was inaugurated by Lieutenant General Vipan Gupta, Commandant ASC Centre and College in a grand ceremony at the ASC Centre on Saturday. “Colonel Girdhari was a thorough professional, under whose dynamic leadership, the centre had successfully moved and re-established itself in Gaya in an incredibly short time. He had been awarded the Ati Vishisht Seva Medal by the President of India in 1978,” a statement from the Ministry of Defence said.
A memorial to the Colonel was already existing in Gaya and when the ASC centre moved to Bengaluru in 2011, it was felt that the new campus must also have a memorial in order to keep up the heritage of the centre.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Bengaluru / by Express News Service / November 11th, 2017
Bengaluru has been ranked first, ahead of San Francisco, for the confidence of businesses in their ability to do digital transformations.
Business leaders in Bengaluru expressed the highest confidence in their digital environment based on innovation and entrepreneurship.
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Bengaluru :
India’s Silicon Valley – Bengaluru -has been ranked first, ahead of San Francisco, for the confidence of businesses in their ability to do digital transformations based on the skills and infrastructure available in their immediate environment.
According to a study by The Economist Intelligence Unit, three Indian cities bagged top 4 ranks. San Francisco is ranked at No. 2, followed by Mumbai and New Delhi. Business leaders in Bengaluru expressed the highest confidence in their digital environment based on innovation and entrepreneurship, people and skills, development of new technologies, financial environment, and ICT infrastructure. In each of these categories, the city ranked No. 1.
“Indian cities may suffer more from infrastructure deficits, pollution, poverty and other ills, but when it comes to the environment for digital transformation, their executives are remarkably optimistic. This is particularly true of Bengaluru, where business leaders express the highest levels of confidence in their digital environment than in any other city in the study,” the report authored by Denis McCauley says.
It goes on to say: “Their compatriots in Mumbai and New Delhi are only slightly less bullish, and they are not alone in the emerging world: seven of the 10 highest confidence levels in the survey are recorded in emerging Asian cities. Among rich-world cities, only San Francisco (2nd) registers in the top five and two others (London, 9th, and Madrid, 10th) made it to top 10. By contrast, developed cities account for eight of the 10 lowest readings in the barometer, with executives in Berlin, Yokohama, Tokyo and Taipei the least confident of all.”
The report notes that across geographies and industries, businesses are embarking on, or preparing for, a mission to put digital technology at the heart of everything they do, an exercise that has come to be known as digital transformation. It can be an enormously difficult and complex un dertaking, requiring not just the deployment of advanced technologies but also the overhauling of business processes and a large degree of cultural change.In most cases, firms’ existing internal resources will not be enough to pull transformation off, and they need to look outside their own four walls for additional support,” the report says.
For this reason, EIU decided to check which cities provide the best environment for their businesses.The analysis in the report is based on a survey of 2,620 executives in 45 cities conducted in June and July this year.
Almost half of surveyed executives (48%) say their firm has considered relocating operations to a city with a more favourable external environment.
Alpesh Shah, senior partner in Boston Consulting Group India, is quoted as saying he is only slightly surprised at the bullishness that executives in Bengaluru, Mumbai and New Delhi display toward their local digital environments.
He notes that these cities’ educational institutions consistently churn out large numbers of quality technology graduates. The report says the three cities also boast a multitude of formal and informal networks, forums and communities where digital entrepreneurs, technology managers and others come together almost daily.
Shah, the report says, reserves particular enthusiasm for Bengaluru’s digital entrepreneurship environment. It is the “closest thing to Silicon Valley” in Asia, he is quoted as saying.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Bangalore News / TNN / November 09th, 2017
As many as 46 individuals and six organisations have been chosen for the district-level Rajyotsava awards in Udupi district for their contributions in different fields.
According to a press release here on Tuesday, the individuals who have been chosen for the award are: Kota Suresh Bangera, Yalampalli Jagannath Achari, Heranjalu Subbanna Ganiga Noojady, K. Sadashiva Amin, Surendra Paniyur (Yakshagana), Padmaraj Hegde (medicine), G.K. Prabhu (education), Babu G. Poojary, Yermal Chaitra A. Salian, Vishwanath B., Krishna Devadiga, G.V. Ashok (sports), Natraj Parkala (literature/culture), Jayaraj (art), Sulochana Venugopal (fine arts), Neelavar Surendra Adiga (literature), Chandrahasa Suvarna, Panduranga Prabhu, Marvin Shirva, Sandeep Shetty Mavinabettu, K. Vasant Shenoy, Srinivas Bhat (theatre/films), Prasad Kharvi G.T. (arts), Matti Lakshminarayana Rao (agriculture), Alevoor Dinesh Kini (journalism), Rukmini Hande (Harikathe), Raghunath Manohar (innovation), M. Ravindra Hegde, Rangayya Shetty, Sitanadi Vittal Shetty, U. Vishwanath Shenoy, Shabbir Hussain, K.S. Jaivittal, Dayananda Hejmady, Ravi Katpady, Santosh G. Poojary, Vishu Shetty Ambalpady (social service), Tukra Panara, Aleya Raghavendra Udupa, Uggappa Parava, Sachin Salian, Altur Gautam Hegde (folklore); Sundar Serigar, Shammi Gafoor (music), Deepak Shetty, and Subrahmanya Hebbagilu (Horanadu Kannadigas).
The six organisations are: Hanuman Vithobha Bhajan Mandir, Nama Tuluver Kala Sanghatane, Chaitanya Yuva Vrinda, Madhur Yuvak Mandal, Udyavara Friends Circle, and Budaga Jangama Tanda.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Mangaluru / by Special Correspondent / Udupi – November 01st, 2017
The awards were in recognition of MESCOM’s strides in power supply.
Mangalore Electricity Supply Company (MESCOM) bagged 27 awards in the recently held Power Awards 2017 organised by the State Energy Department.
A release from MESCOM said the awards were in recognition of the company’s strides in power supply and various innovations. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and Energy Minister D.K. Shivakumar presented the awards.
MESCOM Managing Director bagged first place in minimum commercial loss and third places in effective implementation of Hosa Belaku programme, reduction in failure of transformers and uniform rating of ESCOMs conducted by the Central government.
Kadur, Puttur and Kundapura divisions of MESCOM bagged the first three awards in effective implementation of Ganga Kalyana project in rural areas. Similarly, Udupi, Sagara and Kadur Divisions bagged three awards in rural drinking water projects.
Kavoor, Kundapura and Udupi divisions stood in first three places in handling minimum revenue backlog in rural areas.
While Shree Jayadeva Electrical, Udupi repair centre, was judged the best transformer repair centre, Mangaluru Division I was declared the best transformer bank. Bantwal Division was judged the best in augmenting basic infrastructure for Akrama-Sakrama programme. Thomas Gomes, Malpe branch and M. Nagesh, Kulashekara branch, were judged best linesmen.
Customers felicitated
As many as 10 MESCOM customers were felicitated in the solar roof top electricity project under renewable energy sector. They were M. Balakrishna Nayak, Bannanjep; Raghu Hegde, Mavinakoodlu; Chandramathi Shetty, Koni; John D’Silva, Kuntalpady, Karkala; Harishchandra, Gandhi Hospital, Udupi; Ananth Nayak, Lakshmi Textiles, Thekkatte; Veerendra Nayak, VKR Hollow Blocks, Thirthahalli; Ryako Industries, Bhadravati, and Ganapathi Hegde, Padutirupathi Petrol Pump, Sanur.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Karnataka / by Special Correspondent / Mangaluru – November 06th, 2017
Third-year computer science and engineering studentsof JSS Science and Technology University (Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering) have won the first prize in a hackathon titled #Hackabout 2017, conducted by Royal Philips, Bengaluru.
The winners — Shashank R., Ashwin B.S. and Ajay B. and Amogha Subramanya D.A. — were mentored by Anil Kumar K.M.
Philips, which provides technology for health services and has an innovation campus in Bengaluru, conducted the hackathon based on its data science platform (DSP). Participants were given an opportunity to experience the Philips DSP to create solutions to real-world problems. The two-month-long competition concluded only recently.
#Hackabout 2017 had multiple rounds and the finale was conducted at the Philips Innovation Campus. Seventy teams, with around 300 students from colleges across India, participated.
According to a release from the college, in round one, a problem related to semantic similarities was issued. Based on the solutions, the top 20 teams were selected for the next round. In round two, the teams were given access to the Philips DSP to propose a way to predict the length of a patient’s stay in ICU.
Based on this round, the top 10 teams were selected. They included teams from IIT Madras and Manipal Institute of Technology. The final 10 were invited to the innovation campus for the final presentation.
In the final round, each team made their presentation and answered questions posed by the jury and the audience. The jury comprised Srinivas Prasad, CEO of Philips Innovation Campus, Vijayananda J., senior director, Philips Healthcare, and John Huffman, business lead, Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, Philips.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Karnataka / by Special Correspondent / Mysuru – October 31st, 2017
“Some people refused to go to plague camps because they would then have to mingle with other castes,” said Meera Iyer, co-convenor, Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH). (Image source:Wikipedia)
In a way, Bengaluru owes its expansion to the plague. It was the outbreak in the late 1800s that egged people -until then averse to relocation -to settle in newly-created extensions like Basavanagudi and Malleswaram. A famous incident involving trader-philanthropist BP Annaswamy Mudaliar took place at a plague inoculation camp in the city . The crowd at the camp was leery about inoculations when Mudaliar, a progressive thinker, lectured them about the benefits, folded his sleeve and got himself vaccinated. While this crowd cooperated with the administration’s efforts to curtail the disease, widespread public resistance towards certain control measures culminated in what came to be known as the plague riots. The violence was also a mirror to the caste and cultural identity conflicts prevalent among people .
“Some people refused to go to plague camps because they would then have to mingle with other castes,” said Meera Iyer, co-convenor, Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), explaining that people hid in relatives’ or neighbours’ houses to avoid being forcefully segregated. Apparently , dead bodies were simply abandoned. “Caste was a big factor that hindered plague prevention and treatment. There was also strong opposition to bodies being examined for plague because the last rites would be delayed.
In their book Health and Medicine in the Indian Princely States: 1850-1950, Waltraud Ernst, Biswamoy Patil and TV Sekher state how hospitals were looked upon as jails and slaughterhouses, and how people stopped using public water taps because they believed that the purified drinking water supplied to them would actually poison them. “As an expression of hostility towards administrative measures to curtail the plague, the public set fire to plague sheds. The Health Officer of Bangalore City , Achyut Rao, had stones thrown at him by youth who disapproved of inoculation,” according to the book.
The culmination of these events came to be known as the ‘Ganjam Riots’ (Ganjam is near Srirangapatna). It started with two weavers from Bengaluru dying of the plague within a week of their arrival in Ganjam on November 02, 1898. Locals refused to cremate the second body , stating that the victim was poisoned.People threw stones at officers. The police, with full emergency powers, raided the village and arrested 55 people for the violence.Villagers retaliated with sticks, swords and guns. The police opened fire to control the mob, resulting in death and injuries.
M Jamuna, professor, department of history , Bangalore University, said that this crisis of confidence compelled the administration to focus on sanitation measures instead. “Between 1900-01, 13,223 homes were disinfected with chemicals while 47,801 were disinfected by exposure to sun, air and whitewash. In Bengaluru, 71 homes were demolished. The administration planned to remove congestion and improve drainage systems. Budget provisions were made for plague-relief and surplus revenue was also also spent for the cause.” This resulted in restoration of public confidence and greater co-operation with authorities.
source: http://www.economictimes.indiatimes.com / The Economic Times / Home> News> Politics and Nation / by Divya Shekhar, ET Bureau / November 02nd, 2017
Neelamani N. Raju is appointed as the first woman Director-General and Inspector-General of Police of the State.
Several IPS officers are elated with the appointment of Neelamani N. Raju as the first woman Director-General and Inspector-General of Police(DG & IGP) of the State.
That no woman had occupied the top post in Karnataka so far was a reminder of the glass ceiling in a predominantly male force that has in recent times seen several women IPS officers excel.
Senior IPS officer Malini Krishnamoorthy, who is posted as Additional Commissioner of Police (Law and Order, West) Bengaluru, said the appointment was extremely significant and a signal in the right direction. “Ms. Raju is the senior-most officer in the State and there is no reason why she shouldn’t be given the top post,” she said, and added that this would go a long way in increasing the confidence of all policewomen. “This is a time that we should use to better leverage women police personnel across the State,” she said.
D. Roopa, another IPS officer, said all policewomen in the State were congratulating themselves. “It was high time we had a woman chief and we have got one,” she said.
Historically, the only other woman officer who has come close to occupying the position but was denied was Jija Harisingh, a 1975 batch officer and also the first woman IPS officer of Karnataka cadre. Ms. Harisingh was in the race for the posts of the Police Commissioner of Bangalore in 2006 and DG & IGP in 2009. At that time, she had expressed her unhappiness at the top posts being denied to her. Ms. Harisingh, who retired in 2011, was not available for comment.
The second IPS officer from the State, Prabha H. Rao — a 1982 batch officer — was later absorbed into the Central Intelligence Agency and is still posted there.
Ms. Raju, the third IPS officer from the Karnataka cadre, has had a 23-year-long tenure in the Intelligence Bureau and returned to State service in 2016.
Chief Secretary
In all likelihood, a woman will be in the running for the post of Chief Secretary. The incumbent chief secretary Subhash Chandra Khuntia, a 1981 batch IAS officer, will retire on November 30. The next line of seniority has two women officers, followed by another male officer. The senior most IAS officer is Ratna Prabha K who is also a 1981 batch IAS officer and will retire on March 31, 2018. Two others in the race are 1982 batch officers Latha Krishna Rao G. and S.K. Pattanayak, both on central deputation presently.
However, it will not be the first time the State will have a woman Chief Secretary.
Sources in the government, however, said that no call had been taken on the issue, and that the Chief Minister was likely to go by seniority.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Karnataka / by Staff Reporter / Bengaluru – October 31st, 2017
Today is Karnataka Rajyotsava, a day celebrating the formation of the state in 1956. ‘One State, Many Worlds’ best describes our story, marked by a unification despite the pulls and pressures of socio-linguistic fragmentation
There is not a day on which Kannada, the state language of Karnataka, comes into popular focus more than every November 1. The day marked as Karnataka Rajyotsava, a public holiday, has been typically accompanied by visual symbols everywhere, of the state’s identity – like buntings of an (unofficial) flag and banners about an (official) language.
Translated literally to ‘State Festival’, Rajyotsava marks the day in 1956 when the erstwhile Mysore State was expanded to re-unify into it, some key Kannada-speaking and geographically connected regions of South India. The change of the State’s official name to Karnataka itself happened close to two decades later, with the passing of the Mysore State (Alteration of Name) Act, 1973.
The early C(K)arnatic
The term ‘re-unification’ of the State needs to be understood with some historical context. The geo-political expansion of the region had been commenced by Chikka Devaraka Wodeyar and continued by Hyder Ali, which towards the end encompassed a surprising area compared to what Karnataka State is today.
This growth of the Mysorean region was of course cut short by two key events: The Treaty of Seringapatam (1792) which ended the Third Anglo-Mysore War, and The Siege of Seringapatam (1799) which ended the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War.
The result of the former was that, about half of the Mysorean territory, was divided by the British and their allies at the time – the Mahratta Peshwa acquired territories up to the Tungabhadra River, and the Nizam of Hyderabad was granted land between the Krishna and Pennar Rivers, and the forts of Cuddapah and Gandikota. The East India Company itself retained a large integral central portion (Mysore and Coorg) and some of the Malabar Coast territories between Travancore and the Kali River, as also Baramahal and Dindigul districts. The result of the latter, which marked the final confrontation between the East India Company and the Kingdom of Mysore, was a further division of the remaining parts of the kingdom – Kanara, Wyanad, Coimbatore, Dharmapuri and Srirangapatna were retained by the British and the Nizam acquired Gooty, a part of Chittoor and Chitradurga districts. The effect on the ground was that large pockets of people were placed outside the core Mysore region, but still retained Kannada as lingua franca because of continued trade and commerce across the borders of a larger core region.
Karnataka in focus
The implication of the States Reorganisation Act of 1956 for the Kannada speaking regions at that time was of course, the re-unification of some zones that had been separated over a hundred years earlier, and the merger of other zones that were inherently Kannada speaking but were part of historical empires that had held on to them over time.
Remarkably, the name indicated by the States Reorganisation Committee for the unified state was “Karnataka”. The committee’s report provides explanatory notes
as to why the state was not proposed to be divided into two (keeping the erstwhile Mysore State separate, as was demanded by a school of thought at that time), and Section 329, which clearly states, “For these reasons, we recommend that one Karnataka State should be formed. This state should, in our opinion, comprise the, following areas…” and lists the areas proposed for unification covering the then existing Mysore State, four Kannada-speaking districts of the southern division of Bombay, namely, Belgaum, Bijapur, Dharwar and North Kanara, two districts from the princely state of Hyderabad namely Raichur and Gulbarga, South Kanara, Kollegal from Madras, and Coorg.
There were some exclusions in the recommendations, such as Bellary and Hospet taluks, as well as Kasargod, and further explanations were provided with a note “The territorial limits of Karnataka, as thus proposed, broadly cover the Kannada-speaking areas, but in the case of one or two small units, linguistic considerations have been subordinated to other compelling reasons”. The report also mentions Kolar district as an inclusion despite having a majority of Telugu speakers, for reasons of historical interest of Mysore in its industry as well as proximity to Bangalore versus Kurnool or Hyderabad. It also provides a list of over a dozen additional justifications for inclusions, exclusions, economic considerations, developmental and industrial issues, natural resources, population and administration. Finally, in Section 351, the report makes a defining statement: “Karnataka with the territorial limits which have been indicated so far will have linguistic and cultural homogeneity and geographical integrity. Barring a few dissentients, all those who have been concerned with the Karnataka problem in some form or (Aber will sooner or later recognise that this is so…”
Despite the recommended name in the SRC Report, the name of the expanded State was retained as Mysore in the SRA of 1956. Two decades later, with the passing of the Mysore State (Alteration of Name) Act, 1973, the erstwhile Mysore State officially adopted the name of Karnataka. This was in itself also due to an identity conflict where residents of northern Karnataka felt the name of Mysore reflected only the erstwhile regime, and did not represent the expanded state. Prior to the unification of Gulbarga, Raichur, Bidar and Koppal districts, the High Court jurisdiction was Hyderabad, only 200 km away, but after the unification it had moved to Bangalore, at four times the distance.
(The author is an IT professional and Bengaluru heritage enthusiast)
source: http://www.bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com / Bangalore Mirror / Home> Bangalore> Others / by Kiran Natarajan / Bangalore Mirror Bureau / November 01st, 2017
Ganesh Devy undertook 300 journeys in 18 months to explore India’s languages / ANUSHREE FADNAVIS/INDUS IMAGES
When Ganesh Devy, a former professor of English, embarked on a search for India’s languages, he expected to walk into a graveyard, littered with dead and dying mother tongues.
Instead, he says, he walked into a “dense forest of voices”, a noisy Tower of Babel in one of the world’s most populous nations.
He discovered that some 16 languages spoken in the Himalayan state of Himachal Pradesh have 200 words for snow alone – some of them ornately descriptive like “flakes falling on water”, or “falling when the moon is up”.
He found that the nomadic communities in the desert state of Rajasthan used a large number of words to describe the barren landscape, including ones for how man and animal separately experience the sandy nothingness. And that nomads – who were once branded “criminal tribes” by British rulers and now hawk maps for a living at Delhi’s traffic crossings – spoke a “secret” language because of the stigma attached to their community.
In a dozen villages on the western coast of Maharashtra, not far from the state capital Mumbai, he discovered people speaking an “outdated” form of Portuguese. A group of residents in the far-flung eastern archipelago of Andaman and Nicobar spoke in Karen, an ethnic language of Myanmar. And some Indians living in Gujarat even spoke in Japanese. Indians, he found, spoke some 125 foreign languages as their mother tongue.
Dr Devy, an untrained linguist, is a soft-spoken and fiercely determined man. He taught English at a university in Gujarat for 16 years before moving to a remote village to start working with local tribespeople. He helped them access credit, run seed banks and healthcare projects. More importantly, he also published a journal in 11 tribal languages
Languages of India
The 1961 census counted 1,652 Indian languages
The People’s Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI) counted 780 Indian languages in 2010
197 of these are endangered, 42 of them critically so, according to UNESCO
Arunachal Pradesh and Assam in the northeast, Maharashtra and Gujarat in the west, Orissa and Bengal in the east, and Rajasthan in the north have the most languages
India has 68 living scripts
The country publishes newspapers in 35 languages
Hindi is India’s most used language, spoken by 40% of Indians. This is followed by Bengali (8.0%), Telugu (7.1%), Marathi (6.9%), and Tamil (5.9%)
The state-run All India Radio (AIR) broadcasts programmes in 120 languages
Only 4% of languages are represented in India’s parliament
Sources: Census of India, 2001, 1962, UNESCO, People’s Linguistic Survey of India 2010.
It was around this time Dr Devy had an epiphany about the power of language.
In 1998, he carried 700 copies of his journal written in the local language to a dirt-poor tribal village. He left a basket for any villager who wanted to or could afford to pay 10 rupees (£0.11; $0.15) for a copy. At the end of the day, all the copies were gone.
When he checked the basket, he found a large of number of currency notes – “grimy, crumpled, soggy” – left behind by the tribal villagers who had paid whatever they could afford from their paltry daily wages.
Dr Devy and his team have recorded India’s many sign languages / ANUSHREE FADNAVIS/INDUS IMAGESA story written in Spiti language, spoken in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh / ANUSHREE FADNAVIS/INDUS IMAGES
“This must have been the first printed material they saw in their life in their own language. These were unlettered daily wage workers who had paid for something they could not even read. I realised this primordial pride and power of the language,” Dr Devy told me.
Seven years ago, he launched his ambitious People’s Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI), which he called a “right-based movement for carrying out a nation-wide survey of Indian languages as people perceive them”.
As the indefatigable language hunter turned 60, he undertook 300 journeys in 18 months across the length and breadth of India to search for more languages. He paid for his trips using money he earned by delivering lectures in universities and colleges. He travelled night and day, revisiting some states nearly 10 times, and religiously kept a diary.
Dr Devy also forged a voluntary network of some 3,500 scholars, teachers, activists, bus drivers and nomads, who travelled to the remotest parts of the country. Among them was a driver of a bureaucrat’s car in the eastern state of Orissa who kept a diary of the new words he heard during his extensive travels. The volunteers interviewed people and chronicled the history and geography of languages. They also asked locals to “draw their own maps” on the reach of their language.
The script of a language called Sakal spoken in Maharashtra / ANUSHREE FADNAVIS/INDUS IMAGESThe PLSI has already published 39 books on Indian languages / ANUSHREE FADNAVIS/INDUS IMAGES
“People drew maps shaped like flowers, triangles, circles. These were maps of their imagination on the reach of their language,” says Dr Devy.
By 2011, the PLSI had recorded 780 languages, down from the 1,652 languages counted by the government in 1961. Thirty-nine of a planned 100 books carrying the findings of the organisation’s survey have already been published; and some 35,000 pages of typed manuscripts are being vetted for publication.
India has lost a few hundred languages because of lack of government patronage, dwindling number of speakers, poor primary education in local languages, and migration of tribespeople from their native villages. The death of a language is always a cultural tragedy, and marks the withering away of wisdom, fables, stories, games and music.
‘Linguistic democracy’
Dr Devy says there are more pressing anxieties. He worries about the ruling Hindu nationalist BJP’s efforts to impose Hindi all over India, which he calls a “direct attack on our linguistic plurality”. He wonders how India’s melting-pot megacities will deal with linguistic diversity in the face of chauvinistic politics.
Dr Devy is now planning to check the health of the world’s 6,500 languages / ANUSHREE FADNAVIS/INDUS IMAGES/
“I feel sad every time a language dies. But we have suffered heavier losses in other diversities – like varieties of fish and rice,” he says, sitting in his home in Dharwad, a sleepy, historic town in Karnataka state.
“Our languages have survived tenaciously. We are truly a linguistic democracy. To keep our democracy alive, we have to keep our languages alive.”
source: http://www.bbc.com / BBC News / Home> News> Asia> India / by Soutik Biswas, India Correspondent / October 27th, 2017
20 teams to participate in the tourney slated for first week of January
Along with surfing, Mangaluru is likely to become the go-to destination of the state for lagori too. As the First Lagori Tulunadu Cup 2017 organised by Pathway Mangaluru in June this year with the participation of nearly 20 teams of 12 players each from Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Kasargod was a huge success, the Amateur Lagori Association of India has asked the Pathway to organise the Senior National Lagori tournament for men and women in the first week of January in Mangaluru.
Deepak Ganguli from Pathway told BM, “The association was impressed by the manner in which the district-level tourney was conducted and hence asked us to hold the seventh national level tourney under the Amateur Federation of India. The event will be held in the Karavali Utsav grounds. The sixth edition was held in Rajasthan.”
He said they were expecting at least 15-20 states to participate and were hopeful that at least three players from Mangaluru will be representing the Karnataka men’s team. Before the national tourney, a selection camp will be held in Mangaluru, which will see the participation of at least 200 players (men) from across the state. In an attempt to popularise the game, plans are to hold premier league matches on beachside. “The top 15 players will represent Karnataka in the national match and our aim is to have at least one player from Mangaluru for the World Cup to be held in May next year at Mumbai,” said Ganguli.
Pathway has received queries from women players wanting to participate. “As the Association has informed that the state team (women’s) has already been finalised, we are likely to hold district level matches for women next year,” he said.
source: http://www.bangaloremirror.indiatimes.com / Bangalore Mirror / Home> Bangalore> Others / by Bangalore Mirror Bureau / October 25th, 2017
