The people of Bangalore deeply mourn the sad demise of our life giving trees, which lost their lives due to our callousness. We will be performing a , ”Shraddha” ceremony for them, on Sunday 24th May at 11am. Please join us to pray for the departed souls.

This condolence meet will be followed by a meeting on the next course of action to be taken to save LAL BAGH and our other PARKS

Venue

Park at 32nd Cross and Nanda Road Junction Jayanagar

Organized by

“Sanmathi” and “Hasiru Usiru”

Preferred dress : White dhotis sarees /dress

Interesting to see election posters in Bangalore, with the face that moved America.
As far as my memory goes, I haven’t seen any political icon beyond our shores gracing
an election backdrop in terms of face value.

There’s more.

My investment broker was talking to me about property prices in Bangalore and how things
would steady, now that Obama had taken over as President. At a coffee shop, I eaves-
dropped to hear another amazing take on Obama’s capabilities; how he could single-handedly
take India out of recession. I have seen school children fighting bullies with the ultimate
threat : Obama will come and beat you guys up!

I wouldn’t be surprised to see a small Obama temple springing up somewhere in the city.
And people actually stopping by on the way to office – to say a small prayer …
make a small wish.

The report highlights issues and concerns in and around HAL airport at Bangalore and Begumpet in Hyderabad, here are some important observations / highlights of this report…

• Charging of ADF or UDF for financing of the airport is not advisable in the context of policy objective of making the air travel more affordable. The committee has recommended that the UDF imposed on passengers may be withdrawn immediately and no more UDF may be imposed on passengers in any airport.
• Closures of existing airports had caused a revenue loss of Rs 610 crore in 2007-08 for the Airports Authority of India and hundreds of crore spent on developing this airports were lying unutilised because of closure of this infrastructure although these were used for VIP flights, general aviation and helicopter taxi services.
• These airports may be used for short haul flights as is the practice existing in major cities of the world which had more than one airport.
• Committee was informed that the Notice Inviting Tender did not have any mention about the closure of HAL airport at Bangalore but was brought in at the later stage of concessionary agreement. As regarding the violation of the norm that no new airport should come up within 150 km of existing airport and the permitting the Greenfield airports in the two southern cities seemed to violate the policy of the Government.
• Both Greenfield airports were far away from the cities compelled the passengers to use other means of transport such as road and trains for short distance destinations. UDF charges have made the travel from these airports costlier both in terms of time and money.
• Committee had found that the equity contributions of these two Greenfield airports were Rs 240 crore in Bangalore and Rs 330 crore in Hyderabad and the land was given at a concessionary rate. Rest of the finance had come from Government agencies by way of debt from financial institutions. If such resources were to be given to AAI itself, they could have easily developed the infrastructure
• The panel had observed that the Bangalore and Hyderabad airports were making the passengers pay ”exorbitant prices’ for the food items in the airports, while those waiting outside had not access to affordable canteen facilities, toilets and bathrooms. excessive commercialisation had taken a toll of the passenger amenities

Read the full coverage here and here

&

Exchange Visitors Alumni Association of South India (EVAA)

Cordially invite you for a panel discussion on

MEETING THE CHALLENGES OF TERRORISM

Introductory Remarks by

Ms. Ragini Gupta

(Consul for Cultural Affairs, U.S. Consulate General, Chennai)

Discussions led by

Dr. D.V. Guruprasad, IPS

(ADGP, Recruitment & Training, Government of Karnataka)

Mr. Binod HR

(Senior VP & Units head – India IBU, Infosys Technologies)

Dr. M.J. Vinod

(Professor, Department of Political Science, Bangalore University)

Moderated by

Dr. B. M. Chengappa

(Assistant Editor, Deccan Herald)

on

Thursday, August 14, 2008 at 4:30 p.m.

at

Taj West End (Conference Room), Race Course Road Bangalore

RSVP: 6660-5660 (Taj) or 97413-50318

____________________­­­­­­­­___________________________________

Please join us for tea/refreshments at 4:00 p.m.

Lok Ayukta sleuths swooped down on the Bangalore residence of Davangere assistant commissioner (commercial taxes) Amanulla Sharief on Friday morning, They unearthed documents for property worth Rs 1.35 crore and cash from his house, whereas his entire 30 years’ earnings would have come to just Rs 30 lakh.
The Lok Ayukta also raided residences of nine officials, including an IAS officer, a deputy superintendent of police, commercial tax department officers. The raid yielded properties worth Rs 20 crore, disproportionate to their known sources of income. Read more..

What’s happening is not something new; the corruption has deeper roots in almost everything in our country, the lac of drive from political and administrative fronts to uproot the same. The need of hour perhaps is to protect the public wealth and interest rather than compromising our democratic principles and maintain the ‘chalta hai attitude’. The legal framework though has noted this down the ‘suo motto’ actions from political arena must be deep asleep over these cases for sure…

May 22nd 2008, yes that’s the date! Just a day before HAL is pushed to cease domestic travel. Despite formal position of the civil aviation ministry is that metros require two airports likes of Mumbai and Delhi….

In an interlocutory petition filed by social worker B Krishna Bhat, Bangalore City Connectivity Foundation (BCCF) and advocate G R Mohan, SC sought the details regarding the meeting’s held involving the Chief Secretary and other senior officials on April 19 and May 12, it is learnt that in these meeting they found it impossible to retain the HAL airport.

The petitioner Mr. Bhat does have some interesting points put up before the bench…

• That the decision to close the HAL airport has been taken under pressure as the BIAL is not willing to give up its right under the agreement it has drawn up with the government.
• Even the gazette notification on May 16 for the inauguration of BIAL has come following pressure from BIAL.
• Government has failed to minimize the problems faced by the public and suggested that the airport transport service, economy and efficiency should improve before considering the closure.
• Infrastructure including the road connectivity to Devanahalli is not yet ready and the airport authority itself is not yet clear whether it can function effectively from Devanahalli.
• Quick inauguration is an attempt to pre-empt the dismissal of the PILs which are posted for June second week.
• The new airport is already crowded with a capacity of just nine million, while the HAL airport has a capacity of 10.1 million and is therefore it is necessary to retain the HAL airport.
• Said that none of the respondents — BIAL, Union and State Governments, Airports Authority of India (AAI), Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) — had made any effort to thrash out the contentious issues.

All that and more action is slated in and around May 22nd and public at large continues to keep their fingers crossed…..

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Please cast your vote tomorrow.

To look for your name in the voter list:

click here

Put your name (check the spelling- they are way off mark) and the pin code and it works.

In case the link doesnt work.. go to this link and search name under BBMP area.

To find your polling booth:

click here

“Instead of searching for the polling booths on the day of exercising their franchise in a hurry, he said that the voters could contact the helpline. This facility is available to all voters through out the State on a common number 155212.

For Bangalore Urban and Bangalore Rural Districts, in order to make a clear distinction, owing to the same STD code, a suffix (1) for Bangalore Urban and (2) for Bangalore Rural is attached to 155212, i.e.1552121 for Bangalore Urban and 1552122 for Bangalore Rural district.”

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It *is* we who can make a difference to the governance of this city, this State, and ultimately, our country…so do vote!

So we might not have proper roads, or good infrastructure and we can talk all day about the lack of our public transport system. But one thing is for sure – these folks are so rich they can possibly get a whole highway created just on their wealth!

I was reading an news article about how much these folks are worth and here are some really astonishing figures. These have been declared assets in their affidavits filed for the first phase of the poll.

Prasad Reddy: Declared Rs 220 crores. With assets in real estate, and more than 200 crores invested in land, commercial property and apartments. He owns 15 vehicles at a combined worth of Rs 3 crores!

Kuppendra Reddy: In terms of finance is worth more than Rs 180 crores. Owns commercial buildings worth nearly 55 crores and a residential building worth Rs 5 crores. And added to this are bank deposits, bonds, debentures, shares…

Krishnappa who is a contractor and an agriculturalist. Cash of over 27 lacs and deposits over 14 crores and bonds and debentures over over 19 lacs. Also, around 21 vehicles at 1.79 crores and jewellery of more than 2 crores. There’s more!

It took me a few minutes to let all these crores sink in. I for one, can’t even imagine how anyone can amass wealth of this size and quantity in one lifetime, especially with their respective backgrounds. Amazing!

the election campaign for the Janata Dal is beginning, with this vehicle. Here’s the front view:

The back view:

and the side view:

the name says, “jAthyAtheetha janatha dal” (secular janata dal; literally translated, “beyond caste”).

Then comes the banner that asks if you are on the electoral rolls, and if not, tells you what to do:

The elections, they are a-coming, and we’re getting ready, too……

This synergy of political alliances seen in this shop where all political symbols / flags are seen standing together. This shop in a market area must be running a successful business of democracy!!