Bengaluru had its first date with air show a century ago

Amazing Feats, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Records, All, World Opinion

HIGHLIGHTS

  • Bengaluru had its first date with an air show 106 years ago
  • In 1911, Jules Wyck and Belgian adventurer Baron Pierre De Caters were the two pilots who brought their aircraft to Bengaluru

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Bengaluru :

As the curtains were drawn on the 11th edition of Aero India on Saturday, thousands who thronged the Yelahanka Air Force Station need to know that they are not the first patrons of such a show. In fact, they are not even the first generation.

Bengaluru, India’s aviation capital, had its first date with an air show106 years ago. February 3, 1911. Cricket hadn’t become the religion it is today in India. The Chinnaswamy Stadium was a barren land, and parts of Bengaluru were still a functional cantonment.

While people from districts neighbouring Bengaluru had made their way back then to catch what the organizers had called a “miracle in the skies,” Bengaluru’s quest for the flying machines remained intact in 2017 with at least three lakh people reported to have visited the aero show.

In 1911, Jules Wyck and Belgian adventurer Baron Pierre De Caters were the two pilots who brought their aircraft to Bengaluru, for a show that garnered a huge response. “But police had been prepared to handle the crowd here, after things had gotten slightly out of hand in Kolkata,” historian Vemagal Somashekar said.

If the elaborate preparations of the organizers a century ago are any indication then it only shows that a lacklustre event, like the 2017 edition of Aero India — just 53 aircraft on display and four aerobatic display teams — may fail to garner similar response in the coming years.

 

(The poster in Urdu, issued by merchants and businessmen from the Baidwadi (present day Shivajinagar) area. Photo Credit: fly.historicwings.com)
(The poster in Urdu, issued by merchants and businessmen from the Baidwadi (present day Shivajinagar) area. Photo Credit: fly.historicwings.com)

The fact that organizers did not reveal the right number of aircraft at Aero India 2017 is an indication that even they know it. When TOI enquired about the details of the show and the preparations in the run-up to the show, Mayaskar Deo Singh, director, Defence Exhibition Organisation, the nodal government agency organizing the show said: “An official release with final numbers on participation and other details will be issued so that there is no confusion.”

The official release days before the show had claimed that the number of aircraft participating would be 72, as many as the 2015 show, rated much better, had seen. Answering a specific question, defence minister Manohar Parrikar, however, had said on February 14: “There are 53 aircraft participating…”

Also, there are ways to watch the show for free, hundreds of citizens who stood with their cameras on terraces, the highway, some even got hospitality at villages around the air base.

But organizers in 1911 had figured out a plan for such free viewers. A poster in Urdu, issued by merchants and businessmen from the Baidwadi (present day Shivajinagar) area, reveals that the organizers, who had learnt that people would not buy tickets as they thought planes could be spotted even otherwise, had organized the show in such a way that only those with tickets (worth 25 paise each) had a one-hour exclusive.

“…Between 3.30pm and 4.30pm the planes will fly at a height of just 30 metre which only the ticket holders can see. For a few minutes after 4.30pm, the planes will fly a little higher,” reads a translation of the poster documented by the state archives department.

Mustafa Khan (mandi merchants, Ibrahim Sahib Street); Abdul Razak (businessman, Modi Road); Ibrahim Sahib (Meenakshi Kovil Street), Abdul Razak Sahib (steel merchant, Narayan Pillai Street) and Mastan Khan from Baidwadi (present day Shivajinagar) were the men who had signed off on the poster —they are an indication of how Bengaluru had a good trade set-up.
While TOI got a look at the poster, permission to take a photograph was denied. The poster, which has been sourced from fly.historicwings.com, further reveals as Somashekar had pointed out.

Police had been ordered to patrol major roads leading to the venue such as South Parade Road (now MG Road), Brigade Road and Church Street and even in Cubbon Park.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> City News> Bangalore News / Chethan Kumar, TNN / February 20th, 2017

Dharwad hosts international environment film festival

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The Sustainable Development Forum and the Pune-based Kirloskar Vasundara Institution are jointly organizing a two-day international environment film festival — Kirloskar Vasundhara International Film Festival — that begins today at the Srujana Rangamandira in Dharwad .

The aim of the film festival, which is being held in Dharwad for the first time, is to create awareness and concern for the environment. A film show, lectures and debate by the scholars will all be held at the film festival.

Social and environmental worker, Shivaji Kaganikar, from Belagavi, will inaugurate the film festival, at which he will be presented the Vasundhara Award. The Vasundara Mitra will be presented to the Pampayya Malesamath of Hampi.

In the run-up to the fest, several competition, with the environment as a theme, were held in the schools and colleges of Hubballi and Dharwad.
FILMS TO BE SCREENED AT THE FILM FEST

February 18

  • India’s Western Ghats
  • Nagarhole
  • Varasa
  • Miracle Water Village
  • Orange Pennant
  • Dholera Sir
  • Don’t Buy Trouble
  • Story of Bottled Water
  • Not in my Backyard
  • All is Well
  • Umed
  • North Eastern Diaries
  • Vedavati Rejuvenation

February 19 

  • Kali River
  • Guppies Journey
  • Future Starts Today
  • Climate Solver Boond
  • Blocks of Green
  • Towards Sustainable Living
  • Tiger Queen
  • A Plea form Himalaya
  • I Matter
  • Together Possible
  • Crazy on the Rocks
  • Living with Change
  • The Bitter Truth
  • Crabs of Karwar
  • Pakke Paga
  • Khet Chhorab Nahi
  • Path to Resilience
  • Hamburg

— Manjunath Somaraddi

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Hubli News / TNN / February 18th, 2017

ICAI-Bengaluru gets first woman chairperson

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Geetha A.B. has been elected Chairperson of the Bengaluru branch of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) for 2017-18.

She is the first woman head of the professional body. She has over 13 years of professional experience and is specialised in direct taxation and auditing. Her contributions to the CA professional community as Secretary, Treasurer and CA Students’ Head have been noteworthy, said an official press note.

The Bengaluru branch caters to the needs of nearly 13,500 CAs and 30,000 students on its rolls. Ms. Geetha has also been an active member of Karnataka State Chartered Accountants Association and AWAKE, women entrepreneurs association of Karnataka.

Other office-bearers are Shravan Guduthur (Vice-Chairman) Bhat Shivaram Shankar (Secretary), Raveendra S. Kore (Treasurer), and Bhojaraj T. Shetty (nominated-Chairman).

The ICAI, a statutory body, has a Council comprising 40 members, with 32 elected and the rest nominated by the Central government.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Bengaluru / by Special Correspondent / Bengaluru – February 18th, 2017

Bengaluru is also biotech startup capital, says study

Business & Economy, Records, All, Science & Technology, Uncategorized, World Opinion

Bengaluru :

Bengaluru has emerged as the biotech startup capital of India -it’s home to 190 ventures out of the 1,022 set up in the past five years, according to a study by the Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises (ABLE).

The National Capital Region (NCR) comes second with 164, followed by Mumbai and Hyderabad with 163 and 160, respectively. The study finds that $2.6 billion of private equity investments went into these companies, with $851 million coming in 2015 -the highest in a year so far. The segment also received government grants and funds from HNIs.

“This is good news and we are aiming to double this number with the ABLE Startups 2020 initiative to take the count to 2020 companies by the year 2020 and $5 bil lion of investments,” ABLE president PM Murali said.The study observed that 3,000 new entrepreneurs emerged between 2012 and 2016 in the biotech sector and at least a third of them were women. The bio-pharma sec tor continues to dominate the indus try, accounting for 57% share of the companies formed, followed by bioresearch (16%), bio-agri (10%), and bio-industrial (9%). Of the total, about 40% of the companies were involved in manufacture of products and ingredients, and 16% were into research and experimental development.

The study observed that the government’s startup policy, funds allocated for the sector, and presence of bio-incubators such as C-Camp and Bangalore Bioinnovation Centre were helping the sector to grow.

Of the 1,022 new startups, 104 were formed in 2016, 367 during 2014 and 2015. Another 551 companies were established between 2012 and 2014.

Biocon chairman and MD, Kiran MazumdarShaw, also ABLE honorary chairman, said ABLE is initiating a mentoring cell of senior industry leaders to guide the next generation of biotech entrepreneurs.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Bangalore News / TNN / February 2017

Bengaluru students win National Finance Olympiad

Education, Records, All

Bengaluru :

Four students from Bengaluru’s National Academy for Learning  (NAFL) came first in the National Finance Olympiad, the finals of which were held in Delhi in the first week of February.
Shivani Gowda  and Sanyukta Kamath, both from Class 8, Rakshashri Nataraja (class 11) and Siddarth Vinay (Class 12), cleared the school and regional rounds to reach the finals. “We were tested on current affairs, general knowledge, the financial world, terminology and stock markets,” said Rakshashri.

“The team from our school won the Olympiad last year, so there was quite a bit of pressure on us to win it again,” said Shivani. ” We are very glad that this is the second team from our school to win the Olympiad,” said NAFL principal Indira Jayakrishnan.

The team received a cash prize of Rs 1 lakh.

The Finance Olympiad is an initiative to familiarize young people with managing money and inculcating the habit of analyzing finances in their daily life.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Bangalore  News / by TNN / February 17th, 2017

Seminar On Princely States Begins

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PrincelyStatesBF17feb2017

Indian National Congress ignored Princely States till 1930s, says Prof. David Washbrook of Cambridge University.

A two-day Prof. Achuta Rao Memorial International Seminar on ‘Power, Resistance and Sovereignty in Princely South India’ (with special reference to the transfer of power) began at the Rani Bahadur Auditorium, BN Bahadur Institute of Management Studies in city this morning.

The event is being organised under the joint auspices of the Department of Studies in History, University of Mysore and Prof. D.S. Achuta Rao Centenary Programme, Bengaluru. The seminar is a being held as part of the centenary celebrations of Prof. Achuta Rao, who served as a History lecturer in Maharaja’s College in city from 1950 to 1960 and then as a Professor at Manasagangothri till his death in 1965.

The key-note address on “The Princely States and the making of Indian Modernity” at the event was delivered by Prof. David Washbrook, a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge University. David also taught at Warwick, Oxford and Harvard Universities and his special interest is South India between 18th and 21st centuries on which he has published extensively.

Addressing the gathering, Prof. Washbrook said that the Princely States have focused on struggle against the British rule. “In education, public health, industry and commerce, certain of the Princely States (notably, Mysore, Travancore, Baroda and even Hyderabad) have led the country in social development and put backwardness and stagnation of British India to shame,” he said.

“The Indian National Congress ignored the Princely States till the 1930s and then subsumed them under a programme designed to obliterate their ‘difference’. The difficult circumstances of partition and accession also made post-independent India instinctively hostile to the traces of princely privilege and power. Reviled as feudal relics, India’s Maharajas were meant to fade into history and the societies over which they ruled to blend into a single, homogeneous and continuous national modernity,” Prof. David said.

After 1857, princely India may have played little public role in the political struggle against colonial rule. They left lasting legacies and the erstwhile princely cities of Bengaluru and Vadodara were leading centres of science and industry today and Thiruvananthapuram (along with the rest of Kerala) is a pioneer of Indian medical practice, he said.

Acting V-C of University of Mysore Prof. Yashavanth Dongre presided.

UoM Registrar Prof. R. Rajanna inaugurated the exhibition on the life and works of Prof. D.S. Achuta Rao.

Convener of Prof. D.S. Achuta Rao Centenary Programme Advisory Board D.A. Prasanna was present.

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> General News / Friday – February 17th, 2017

Bengaluru’s 81-year-old pilot stays young among the clouds

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Leaders, Records, All, Sports, Uncategorized
Ajit Lamba has served on Indian Air Force for 36 years
Ajit Lamba has served on Indian Air Force for 36 years

Bengaluru :

What’s the right age to start flying an aircraft and when should one stop flying? If you ask 81-year-old Air Vice Marshal Ajit Lamba (Retd), his reply will be: You start flying as early as you can (if not when you are born) and you stop flying the day you die.

He is the oldest pilot to fly in the history of Aero India, but he calls himself the youngest aviator. Lamba will display his skills at Yelahanka Air Force Station on Wednesday. He will be given two slots of six minutes to showcase his skills with Hansa-3, which he will fly from the hangars of National Aerospace Laboratories.

“I had skipped two editions of Aero India as Hansa-3 was grounded for a few reasons. NAL approached me to fly it and I accepted it the very moment. I will fly Hansa-3, which is non-aerobatic. I am excited to perform for the Bengaluru crowd,” Lamba told Express.

An ace pilot with decades of experience, Lamba has served the Indian Air Force for 36 years. He retired in 1991 but continued to fly planes when he is not playing golf. “I fly planes frequently as it is my passion and hobby too,” he said. His last posting was at Bengaluru-based Aircraft and Systems Testing Establishment (ASTE), an institution training test pilots and flight test engineers. He has been living in Bengaluru for the past 25 years.

The veteran pilot has an enormous amount of experience having flown at least 100 types of planes and logging close to 7,500 hours in his 60-year career.

source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Bengaluru / by Express News Service / February 15th, 2017

3 techies develop non-contact baby monitor to track sleep, breathing

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The creators of the monitor, Raybaby, hope to help new parents
The creators of the monitor, Raybaby, hope to help new parents

Bengaluru :

Prachi (name changed), 32, a corporate professional and single mother, is sleep-deprived. So is her five-month-old son, who wakes up in the middle of the night with sudden bouts of respiratory trouble. Despite repeated visits to the paediatrician, the infant’s condition has barely improved.
“My son often wakes up as he can’t breathe. Though I always try to comfort him and put him back to sleep, I don’t know when the next episode will occur. This has been giving us sleepless nights and is affecting my son’s health,” said the exasperated mother.

To help new moms like Prachi, three city-based techies have devised a solution, Raybaby, a non-contact baby monitor which tracks activities like sleeping and breathing. Ranjana Nair, Sanchi Poovaya and Aardra Kannan Amili used their brainchild, Kickstarter — a platform helping artists, musicians, filmmakers and designers find resources and support to make their ideas a reality — to come up with the device which was launched on January 31.

Ranjana, chief executive officer (CEO), Kickstarter, said: “This baby monitor was created to bring back sanity in their lives of new moms and dads. All products in the market and hospitals require the baby to wear the battery-operated device, which is dangerous as there have been many instances of the battery exploding. Raybaby is a first-of-its-kind non-contact baby tracker which monitors the baby’s respiratory rate with 98% accuracy.”

Supported by Johnson & Johnson and HAX as part of the joint consumer health device programme, the monitor helps new parents with sleep training and tells them when the baby is awake, asleep or sleeping, via a Smart Journal app. Its artificial intelligence system tells parents how the baby is doing and whether the child is running a fever or has any respiratory ailment like asthma or bronchitis.
Explaining how the idea was born, Ranjana said: “We were visiting a friend’s baby in a Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU) and saw that in this day and age, the respiratory rate was still being tracked by placing a hand on the baby’s chest or through uncomfortable chest bands. That was when we decided to create a device to help parents. Research and discussions with doctors showed us how the respiratory rate could be used to monitor a baby’s health in a home environment. We worked with top hardware engineers to develop a safe device.”

Speaking about the safety aspect, Sanchi Poovaya, COO, Kickstarter, said: “It is a non-contact device, which rules out the possibility of explosions or other accidents. We are using the radar technology, which works on the principle of ultrasound, and FDA-approved components.”

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News> City News> Bengaluru News / by Sreemoye Chatterjee / TNN / February 15th, 2017

BMCRI doctors reattach severed arm

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The forearm of Subbanna, a resident of Chamrajnagar, got severed when it came under one of the wheels of a train. | Photo Credit: The Hindu
The forearm of Subbanna, a resident of Chamrajnagar, got severed when it came under one of the wheels of a train. | Photo Credit: The Hindu

First time reconstruction surgery of such complexity has been undertaken by a government hospital in the State

Bengaluru:

Doctors of Bangalore Medical College & Research Institute (BMCRI) Super Speciality Hospital successfully reattached the forearm of a 60-year-old man in a 12-hour operation. This is the first time a reconstruction surgery of such complexity has been undertaken by a government hospital in the State.

At 7.30 a.m. on January 22, Subbanna had got off a train at K.R. Puram station to visit his grandson Naveen who works in the city. But he slipped and fell. His forearm got severed when it came under one of the wheels.

“Other passengers pulled him up to the platform and called me. I took him to Bowring & Lady Curzon Hospital,” said Naveen. Doctors put the severed arm in a plastic bag, which was packed with ice.

Subbanna was then taken to BMCRI Super Speciality Hospital. The operation required expertise of the departments of plastic surgery, orthopaedics and anaesthesiology. “We had to identify arteries, veins and muscles and dissect them to identify where to attach them to the corresponding part on the severed arm,” said Smitha Segu, head of the department of plastic surgery.

“We are hoping that he will get sensation in four to six months. He will have to undergo orthopaedic procedures for another 1.5 years,” said Gautham M., associate professor, plastic surgery department, BMCRI.

Ramlingaiah, professor, orthopaedics department, BMCRI, said, “A surgery of this scale would cost between ₹6 lakh and ₹10 lakh in any private hospital in India. But our team did it for around Rs. 50,000.”

However, since it was the first such operation at the hospital, BMCRI has waived off the fee.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Bengaluru / by Staff Reporter / February 13th, 2017

City’s Kaviraj excels in Ice-Skating

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KavirajBF14feb2017

Mysuru :

Kaviraj Prithvi of Mysuru recently participated in the Junior World Ice-skating Championship held in Innsburck, Austria between Jan. 26 and. 29.

The qualification criteria to participate at any ISU (International Skating Union) World Championships are based on the personal best timings in 500 mtrs.

The cut-off is 51 seconds. This is the first time any skater in junior category from our country has qualified with this timing. Kaviraj Prithvi (Mysuru) and Ashwin D’silva (Mangaluru) represented India.

Both the skaters had qualified for this event during the European Championship held in Sofia, Bulgaria during December 2016. Kaviraj trains under Srikanth Rao in Mysuru and was coached by Avaduth Tawde during his participating in World Ice-skating Championship.

source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Sports News / February 08th, 2017