Lost and found: A grave in Singapore
A chance discovery ends 72-year search to locate the final resting place of a soldier who died in a Japanese PoW camp
Last Sunday, when 22-year-old Nagashree Devyani spoke before her close family members about her great-grand uncle, the late Naik Srikantaraj Urs, it marked the end of an incredibly long wait. She recollected the family’s sustained efforts to trace Naik Urs’ grave for 72 years and how they had finally found it, quite by chance, at the Kranji War Cemetery in Singapore.
The family received official confirmation that it was indeed Naik Urs’ grave only last week. Ms. Devyani narrated the story at the ‘Punya Shanthi’ ceremony the family conducted in the memory of her great-grand uncle.
In 1940, young Srikantaraj Urs was recruited to the 1st Battalion Mysore Infantry and stationed at Munireddy Palya in the Bangalore Cantonment. Two years later, the Battalion was deployed in Singapore on the Eastern front to fight the Japanese. A bachelor, Naik Urs left Bengaluru in August 1942. But soon after, he was taken prisoner by the Japanese, who overran Singapore.
Monthly postcards
“We came to know of it only after he wrote a postcard from the Singapore Prisoner of War [PoW] camp. We would receive one postcard every month,” Ms. Devyani’s grandfather R.S. Veeraraj Urs told The Hindu.
For nearly two years, Naik Urs’ monthly postcards reached his family, who were then living on the Lalith Mahal Palace Road in Mysore. And then, in 1944, they stopped.
“His last postcard came to us during the Dasara festivities in 1944, after which we did not hear from him at all,” said Mr. Veeraraj Urs, who, as a nine-year-old, had seen off his paternal uncle when he left for the war. “Some postcards were addressed to me. Written in Kannada, my uncle would ask me to study well. He never wrote about the hardship in the camp since the letters were being censored.”
It was not until the end of World War II in September 1945 that the family heard any news of him. Another relative, Subedar Major Subramanya Raje Urs, broke the news of his death on his return from Singapore where he was also held as a PoW.
Srikantaraja Urs had died on February 27, 1945, at the age of 27.
Royal compensation
In November 1946, the family received an official communication from Buckingham Palace, in which King George VI and his wife offered condolences to the family. Naik Urs’ mother Devaja Ammani also received four acres of land in Nanjangud and cash compensation, which she spent on providing water and electricity connection to the Ramalingeshwara Temple in the Vidyaranyapura area of Mysore.
“In all, 11 officers and soldiers from the Ursu community took part in the war on the Eastern front. Unfortunately, only my uncle did not return alive,” said Mr. Veeraraja Urs.
With no one to guide them, the family, despite being related to the Mysore Royals, had little hope of finding the soldier’s grave. Meanwhile, Devaja Ammani died in 1952.
In the late 1970s, the family renewed its efforts to trace Naik Urs’ final resting place. In 1980, Mr. Veeraraja Urs, a former chief security Officer at BEL Bangalore, wrote to the Union Government. Over the next two decades, he wrote to various agencies and governments to locate the cemetery, if at all it existed. “War memorials are there in Burma, Singapore and Phillipines. We did not know where to find his grave,” he said.
In the early 1990s, he approached the Commonwealth War Graves Commission. The Commission, which holds exhaustive information on the martyrs of the two World Wars, however, was not of much help.
After an extensive search, the Commission informed him that it did not find any records with the Indian section of the British Library and the Indian Army Association in England. The Adjutant General’s office in New Delhi also informed the Commission that they had no knowledge, while the Army Records Branch said neither their records nor the battalion’s history had any reference to Naik Urs.
Independently, Mr. Veeraraja Urs’ younger brother, the late Naik Subedar Subbakrishne Urs also tried to trace the grave using his network in the Army, and visited the Second World War memorial in Myanmar, but to no avail.
After over two decades of following leads and correspondence with various agencies, a disappointed Mr. Veeraraja Urs gave up.
“I had lost hopes of finding the grave. If the British Army, which is known for its meticulous documentation, could not help me, I had no other avenues,” he said, recalling his disappointment.
A serendipitous sighting
When Naik Urs’ grave was finally found, it was quite by chance. Sometime last year, Mr. Veeraraja Urs got a call from Raja Chandra, the son-in-law of the last ruler of Mysore, Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar. One of Mr. Raja Chandra’s friends, who was visiting the Kranji War Memorial, was surprised to see an ‘Urs’ on a tombstone.
He took photographs and showed it to Mr Raja Chandra who, in turn, called the family, ending a 72-year quest. “I had tears in my eyes and could not speak. It was a great achievement because I had not expected to see it in my lifetime,” said Mr. Veeraraja Urs, who is now 84.
In February this year, Mr. Veeraraja Urs’ son, Dr. Vinod Urs, and his wife, Dr. Naga Jyothi Urs, travelled to Singapore to reconfirm that the grave was indeed that of his grand uncle. “Even with specific information, it was difficult to find his grave among the 24,000 graves of soldiers and airmen in the Kranji War Memorial as the graves are numbered,” Dr. Vinod Urs recalled.
“After a search of nearly three hours, some Tamil-speaking workers helped us locate the grave,” he said.
“We believe that he must have died due to malaria or beri beri [a disease caused by Vitamin B1 deficiency affecting heart and circulatory system] as most PoWs died due to similar causes,” Dr. Urs said.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National / by Sharath S. Srivatsa / Bengaluru – March 04th, 2017
Bengaluru has a superhero…he’s ‘Pothole Raja’
His special powers enable him to reduce a pothole to just a bad memory in less than five days
If you spot a pothole and dread its impact on motorists using that road, what do you do?
One option is to click a picture, ‘WhatsApp’ it to 814POTHOLE (the letters correspond with the numbers 7684653) and wait for ‘Pothole Raja’ to come to your rescue.
The special powers of this new superhero are to make the pothole a thing of the past in less than five days.
The initiative by Prathaap Bhimasena Rao has already drawn customers, including IT parks, large hospitals and some resident welfare associations (RWAs) who got tired of the multiple deadlines announced by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) to rid the city of the menace.
‘Pothole Raja’ claims to have filled over 200 potholes in less than a year.
The brain behind the project, Mr. Rao, is a former pilot who shifted to corporate life after a crash. He started his ‘social enterprise’ after a stint as the global vice-president of a multinational.
Loss of lives
“Close friends and relatives have been impacted directly due to potholes. A friend, who was a doctor, died on her way to Vellore from Bengaluru on the highway two years ago. A team member of mine lost his limbs, while riding his Bullet, in a pothole-related accident,” he said, recalling the trigger for ‘Pothole Raja.’
He pointed out that Bengaluru’s poor road conditions and traffic issues were the topics of discussion everywhere he travelled. “The road infrastructure technology we use is at least 70 years old. I consulted engineering professors and did my own research to see what is being done in other countries. The hot asphalt that we are using is not cost effective for patchwork; it can be used only to lay roads,” he said.
Cost factor
This is when ‘Pothole Raja’ teamed up with a Bengaluru-based company to produce cold asphalt. According to Mr. Rao, the cold asphalt requires a person to fill the hole and run a car over it twice. “A 50 kg bag of this mix can be stored for 10 months,” he said.
The cost: about ₹2,500 for filling one sq.mt. up to 50 mm depth.
“In some cases, we put in our own money to fill potholes,” Mr. Rao said. He has no plans to work with the civic body.
Effectiveness
But some of the people who have tried the new technology are unconvinced.
The member of an association of an IT park said, “Potholes are not a big problem within our campus, as we asphalt the roads every two years. We usually fill concrete if it is a small pothole. If it is a big one, we remove the concrete and asphalt the space. But we are not sure if the cold asphalt will take the wear and tear.”
BBMP’s pothole app
Even as private players have started pitching in to fill potholes, the BBMP is yet to open its pothole app to the public. BBMP Commissioner N. Manjunath Prasad said the app has been used by officials for a month.
“A lot of civil works have already started and filling up of potholes is also in the works. Work orders for relaying roads have been given for almost the full city. We will review the progress after 15 days,” he said.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Bengaluru / by Deepika K.C. / March 01st, 2017
When it gets bloody, shellfish to the rescue
Bengaluru :
When Leo Mavely was in college, he saw a man bleeding profusely after a bike accident. People rushed in to help but there was no way to stem the loss of blood immediately.
This left a lasting impression on his mind and led him to invent a product, Axiostat – the smart band, which is a hemostatic. Today, the band is being used by the general public and the Indian Armed Forces and the paramilitary. In 2014, the Axiostat band was used in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Its website features varied testimonials on its use — from dentists for tooth extraction and senior cardiologists for stopping arterial bleeding to a medical officers with Border Security Force for treating victims of IED blasts and gunshot wounds.
Axiostat is a sponge-like biomaterial dressing that stops moderate to severe bleeding within minutes. This product is manufactured by the Bengaluru-based startup Axio Biosolutions, which is Leo’s brainchild and was established in 2008.
The band is made using chitosan, a natural biomaterial. Biomaterials are engineered substances that interact with human systems to achieve a medical end. Chitosan, which is extracted from shellfish, is highly purified and processed to make this device.
The band carries positively charged components, which when comes in contact with the negatively charged blood cells, form a binding seal.
“The moment Axiostat is applied to an open wound, it reacts with the blood and becomes a very sticky substance that clots blood and stops the bleeding,” says Leo. “The band can be left on the wound for 48 hours. Once the patient has been taken to the Hospital and given medical attention, Axiotat can be removed by applying water on it. It absorbs the water to become a gel-like substance that can be peeled off.”
Hospitals that use the band include Fortis, AIIMS, Manipal, Breach Candy and Columbia Asia.
The smart band received European Union – CE approval in 2013 and Axiostat Biosolutions was named the best emerging startup by BioAsia in 2016. Axiostat, which opened in India, is now also in Middle East, Africa and Europe.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Bengaluru / by Brinda Das / Express News Service / March 02nd, 2017
StayAbode raises angel funding
StayAbode, a start-up that is building co-living spaces, said that it had raised an undisclosed amount of angel funding from a consortium of investors led by Ishan Manaktala and Angie Mahtaney.
Gaurav Bhalotia (Ex-VP Engineering, Flipkart), Vishal Lulla (CEO, Vishal Exports) and investors from online funding platform LetsVenture also participated in the round. StayAbode said it offers more than 180 beds spread over four properties across Bengaluru. The funding would help it expand to other cities.
Mr. Bhalotia said, “StayAbode is using technology to create living spaces that support the new lifestyle of the young.”
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Business / by Special Correspondent / Bengaluru – February 27th, 2017
Waste collector picks up some business tips, turns entrepreneur
Buys truck to increase volume with door-to-door collection to make up for decrease in price of plastic & paper waste
She was a 10 years old when she started following her grandmother as she picked up waste from the city’s streets. Thirty years later, Annamma has established herself as an entrepreneur. She has become the first waste picker in the city to buy a truck for door-to-door collection of dry waste, and is already looking to purchase a second vehicle in the near future.
For somebody who was picking waste from the streets as late as 2013, Annamma’s rise is nothing less than phenomenal. “When the civic body wanted waste pickers to start manning dry waste collection centres (DWCC), I was not confident about taking up the task. I lived in a hut with no electricity and had saved ₹50,000 to build a house. But I invested the money and started a DWCC. This centre has grown into a business today,” she says, beaming with pride.
She has been running the DWCC for ward 101, Kamakshipalya for four years now. She now deals with nearly two tonnes of dry waste every day.
She was able to avail a loan to build a three-bedroom house in Ullal Upanagar, where her hut once stood. “My daughters used to read sitting under a street light or read all night on the new moon day, as there was no electricity. Today, they have a study room,” says Annamma.
Recently, the Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) gave the responsibility of door-step collection of dry waste twice a week to DWCCs, mostly run by former waste pickers in their respective wards. This entails expansion of DWCC operations and capital investment on vehicles and personnel.
Annamma, who is one of the more successful entrepreneurs in the sector, acted decisively and purchased a truck to start door-step collection of waste. “I don’t know how to read or write. But I am good at math because of the business I run. These are tough times as the prices of plastic and paper waste have fallen. The only way to survive is to increase the volume, which is what I expect will happen with door-step collection,” Annamma explained her strategy.
High price to pay
Nalini Shekhar of the NGO Hasirudala, who has been working with Annamma for the past four years, said that it is a challenge for people like her to become entrepreneurs, as the waste sector is not considered an industry by banks.
“The rate of interest on the loan availed by Annamma is 18%. We are looking for some other institution that will charge a lower rate of interest,” she said.
Annamma is worried about the cost of expansion and the need to hire more people. “We need six men to run the show. But we have employed only four with my husband and me doing the jobs of the other two to reduce costs,” she said.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Bengaluru / by K.V. Aditya Bharadwaj / February 27th, 2017
A slice of Bengaluru at the Oscars
It was on a few computer screens in Bengaluru that a blue screen at Hollywood was transformed into a rich canvas of dense forests that hosted the tense drama of Disney’s The Jungle Book.
A significant part of the film, which took home the award for Best Visual Effects during the 89th Academy Awards on Sunday night, was done in Bengaluru, where nearly 300 engineers — out of nearly 800 spread across LA and London — built and provided the finishing touches to a jungle world where Mowgli, his friends and enemies walked and prowled.
“The film was extremely challenging and would be a huge benchmark for visual effects. We had childhood attachments too, for ‘Jungle Book’ is an Indian story. We always hope for the best, but an Oscar is the icing on the cake,” says Amit Sharma, head of compositing at MPC Studio Bengaluru, which was the lead VFX studio for the film.
The mandate given to them was to render a photo-real world, where 224 unique animals would be “captured in their surroundings” as if they were roped in for the film.
Two teams scoured through six forests of south and central India, through three seasons, covering nearly 18,000 km. The result was 20 TB of information and four lakh photographs rendering a landscape, from the rocks to the waterfalls, ferns to pebbles.
“The ‘man-village’ inspiration came from rural Rajasthan, the wolf caves from Badami caves, Banyan trees from Goa, and elephants from those seen at Periyar… these were the references, but everything was created from scratch,” said Mr. Sharma.
From LA to Bengaluru
From Los Angeles, the Oscar statue is expected to come straight to Bengaluru, where the engineers will be given a chance to party with it, said Biren Ghose, executive director of MPC Bengaluru. Engineers in the city had previously played a role in the Oscar-winning Life of Pi in 2012, apart from rendering the graphics for at least six other films nominated for the Academy Awards over the years.
“The complexity, technology and technique used was far beyond Life of Pi because of the scale we were looking at — an entire world that was a crossover of animation and visual effects. All of which was created to an extent that the line between reality and computer-generated characters became blurred… at one point, even Mowgli was computer-generated, and the audience did not know it,” said Mr. Ghose.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Bengaluru / by Staff Reporter / Bengaluru – February 28th, 2017
Bengaluru college students to go vroom in international races
Bengaluru :
The RV College of Engineering’s student racing team, Ashwa Racing will unveil two cars – one hybrid and another combustion-based that have been developed and designed by its students, today. The team will also be participating at two international student competitions in USA and Italy to be held in a few months.
The combustion vehicle will take part in the ‘Formula SAE Italy’ that will take place in July that will see participation from around 80 teams from across the world. The hybrid vehicle will take part at the ‘Formula Hybrid’ competition to take place in May. Both the events have been organised by the Society of Automotive Engineers or SAE.
Dr Ravi Kulkarni, professor and mentor of the student team say that there have been a few tweaks and changes this year in the vehicles. For example in the combustion car they have reduced the weight by as much as 40 kgs compared to previous vehicle. There are also very improvements in the combustion vehicle. “We have been taking part in these competitions for quite now and I can tell you that we do pretty well. For example in the Hybrid category we came fourth last year. This year we want to finish in the top three.”
Kulkarni further says that the team has been improving over the years. “People think that these are primarily racing events however more then racing these test the engineering capabilities of a team. The races test parameters such a drivability and maneuverability, endurance and other factors.”
Rounak Maru, a fourth year instrumentation student and a team member highlighted that there are as many as 110 students from across all years and various branches who are part of the team.
He also highlighted that for the combustion based vehicle, a few teams from India may also be participating. “For the hybrid event however our team is probably the only one from the country,” he adds
Rounak Maru, a fourth year instrumentation student and a team member highlighted that there are as many as 110 students from across all years and various branches who are part of the team. He also highlighted that for the combustion based vehicle, a few teams from India may also be participating.
“For the hybrid event however our team is probably the only one from the country,” he adds.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Bengaluru / by Express News Service / February 25th, 2017
Merging Indian and Japanese arts in Bengaluru
Of late, Bengaluru has been playing host to a number of initiatives that primarily focus on a cultural exchange between India and Japan.
Cut to the latest, the city witnessed the second chapter of the All Women World Arts Festival.
Presented by International Arts and Culture Foundation, the event aimed at women empowerment and promote arts and culture. During the cultural evening, audiences were treated to a host of music and dance performances.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> Entertainment> Events> Bangalore / TNN / February 27th, 2017
Man on a mission to provide clean, cheap drinking water in Belagavi
Belagavi :
Safe drinking water is a mirage for most people in the country. While some urban areas may still have access to potable water, it’s not so in the hinterlands. Despite scientists trying to develop new technologies to provide clean water, they are yet to reach rural areas.
But an engineering student has designed and developed a cost-effective, eco-friendly solution to make safe drinking water available to everyone.
Niranjan Karagi, a final-year student of Angadi Institute of Technology and Management in Belagavi, has come up with a portable water purifier called ‘Nirnal’ that costs just Rs 20.
Ask him how he came up with the idea and the 22-year-old explains, “There is a playground near my house where schoolchildren play daily. I often see them filling up their empty plastic bottles with dirty water from a tank nearby. The sight of children drinking unclean water motivated me to design the purifier.”
He added, “After a few days of working on the product, I filtered some water and sent the sample to the Chief Food Divisional Office in Bengaluru and the results were good.”
And then, there was no looking back for the young engineer. He decided to take the project to the next level and approached Leaders Accelerating Development (LEAD) programme of Deshpande Foundation in Hubballi and Sandbox Startup. Both the organisations partially funded the project and guided Niranjan on developing the filter unit. In July 2016, the product was launched.
“As of now I have sold more than 8,000 units to schoolchildren, farmers and daily wage labourers,” says Niranjan. He also supplied the units to Army commandos who came for training at the base camp in Belagavi in January.
He has also received bulk orders from countries in Africa, and Qatar. At present, he is working on a prototype of the purifier that can be fit into a bottle of any dimension, not just pet bottles. The newly-designed product will be launched in March.
“It is in the final stages of completion. I am also planning to tie up with the Karnataka government so that I can reach more children across the state and distribute the purifier free of cost,” he says.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Karnataka / by Payal Gangishetty / Express News Service / February 19th, 2017