Bharat Bandh on Thursday

Most of the organizations, especially those involved in transportation have extended their full support to the Bharat Bandh called by BJP led NDA government.

Last Tuesday BJP called for the Bandh on Thursday to force the centre to roll back the hike in diesel prices and restrictions on subsidized cooking gas. The Bandh is also aimed at protecting against the introduction of FDI in retail.

The BJP has appealed to the public to take part in the Bharat Bandh called by them. They have also requested the labour and transport organizations, industries, shops, and other commercial establishments to take active part in the Bandh.

Associations involved in travel and transports like the Bangalore Tourist Taxi owners association, Private Bus Owner’s association have declared that they will take part in the Bandh and will extend full support.  

Though there is going to be a complete shutdown tomorrow, essential services will be available to the public. Emergency services will not be affected at all.

Auto rickshaws may go off roads though they do not support the bandh. The Railways will be working as usual. The Namma Metro service intend not to close but again it depends on the situation.

The police and the paramilitary force will beef up the security in major areas. About 17000 police personals will be on the road to ensure law and order. Policemen in mufti will also be deployed and any incidents during the Bandh will be video recorded. This will help them to nab the miscreants.

Additionally 30 platoons of KSRP and CAR officials will be deployed across the city. Anybody trying disrupting the essential services will be seriously dealt with.

The public transports like the BMTC and KSRTC have not taken any decision about their services on the day of the Bandh. One of the officials has stated that the service will not be affected. There is going to be an enough security in major bus terminals.

Most of the educational institutions have already declared holiday on account of the Bharat Bandh on Thursday. 

Household waste management in Bangalore

Disposing the waste in proper manner

Not many of us follow proper manner of disposing household wastes. The civic authorities in Bangalore have now issued a few guidelines to the residents to dispose their household wastes.

To help our city to get rid of the garbage, we have to start managing the waste right from our home. Let’s segregate the waste and dispose it in a proper manner. 

As a responsible citizen, we shouldn’t have waited until the authorities issue a guideline to dispose of our household wastes.

After Bangalore witnessed the great garbage dumping crisis, the authorities have now issued the guidelines to the general public on the ways to dispose of the garbage.  

The guideline which is expected to be followed very strictly is applicable for all those reside in Bangalore.

Following are the guidelines provided by the BBMP – Bangalore to dispose the wastes from your household?

• Segregate the waste. For example dry waste and wet waste
• Do not use plastic cover to dispose the waste
• Dispose wet wastes every day
• Wrap the sanitary wastes in an old newspaper and mark ‘X’ in red color
• Do not throw waste in public places 

You will have to segregate the waste into wet waste, dry waste, garden waste, rubbish, sanitary waste household hazardous waste.

The waste collector who visits your premises every day will accept only wet waste and sanitary wastes. Make sure that you dispose it off without fail or ensure your maids to do so.

Other wastes will be collected from your premises by a designated person. Else, you may have to visit the nearest point where these kinds of wastes are collected.

Make sure that you wrap the sanitary wastes in an old news paper and mark it in red color. This goes along with the wet waste.

These are the rules which may have to be followed in Bangalore. However, I recommend that you follow this method of disposing the waste no matter wherever you reside. 

Courtesy: Bangalore Folks

Naxals in Subramanya Forest

The Anti-Naxal Force (ANF) is conducting rigorous combing operations in the forest areas of Palligadde near Kulkunda.  

Last Sunday, around 5 naxals were spotted near some houses at 6:00 pm. There were skirmishes between the naxals and the ANF with the exchange of couple of grenades on both the sides.

Five teams of 15 members each have formed for the search operations. The ANF encountered three naxals during Monday’s operations and exchanged about 60 rounds of fire. However, there were no reports of death or injuries.

Deputy Commander of ANF, Mr. Vasudev Murthy led the combing operations. The ANF carried weapons line AK-47 and SLRs during the operation.

It is reported that the ultras stayed in tents within the forest. About eight members occupied the tent. 

Terror suspects from Bangalore and Hubli arrested

About 11 terror suspects were arrested from Bangalore and Hubli last Wednesday. Most of them were educated and employed. One was employed in DRDO, a government organization and the other one was employed in a reputed news paper for about 3 years. Another terrors suspect was a doctor by profession.

The Central Crime Branch of Bangalore was working on the information regarding the terror modules for a couple of months now and finally cracked on the suspects averting some major incident.

It is believed that the handlers of these terror suspects are from Saudi Arabia and had planned to assassinate the Member of Parliament and some high profile journalists and media persons.

The more shocking news is that one of the terror suspects arrested in Hubli was living very close by to the Chief Ministers house. Two suspects were arrested from Sonia Gandhi Nagar in Hubli, natives of Meerut in Uttar Pradesh. They allegedly have links with the LeT and had come to Hubli with the aim of spreading jihad in the region.

Latest report is that the suspects were about to execute one of their targets, a columnist of Kannada daily. Police stated that they may arrest more suspects from Mangalore, Shimoga and AP. 

More about Bangalore Terror Suspects

KMF SCAM

Scams are everywhere, now it was the turn of the Karnataka Cooperative Milk Federation (KMF). KMF was considered the only government organization which was free of scam.

The organization had approved for the purchase of large quantities of cottonseed cake (used for the manufacture of cattle feed) at an inflated price. As per the reports in the national newspaper, the KMF which requires only about 3500 MT of cottonseed cake per month procured about 28000 MT of cottonseed cake (who wanted to consume it?) from a dealer in Andhra Pradesh at a cost of Rs. 30 crore.  The purchase was made last July.

While the average price of the cottonseed cake range from Rs. 11000 to 14000 per MT, about 14600 MT was of cottonseed cake was purchased at a price of Rs. 27100 per MT (double the actual price). The federation has spent about 30 crore for the purchase during July while the annual expenditure on the procurement of the cottonseed is about 30 crore. Thanks to the directors of the KMF who have submitted a memo to the government to probe into the illegal purchases.

Hope that the concerned authorities come with a novel ways to check these kinds of scams. There should be a system where in the maximum price limit for procurement of raw materials should be set by the government authorities. Any dealings which exceed the set price limit should be considered as void. Also there should be some kind of rules and regulations formulated and implemented while recognizing the vendors. 

HAL Fraud

The Bangalore based Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) was in the news for the wrong reasons. A contract worker of HAL, who is working since 2004 cheated the organization for about 2.5 crore.

Thanks to the company’s auditor who noticed suspicious withdrawals through RTGS while checking the company’s books for the year 2011-2012. He observed couple of payments made by HAL to two non-designated persons.

After the internal probe, the contract worker was found to be the culprit who was actually entrusted with the task of carrying documents related to payment via RTGS requests.

He used to tamper the payment release orders by inserting the names of his friends as co-beneficiaries after the document was signed by his superiors. This resulted in the parallel remittance being made to the bank accounts of his friends through RTGS payment.

During the interrogation, the police officials learnt that the contract worker used the fraud money to open his own travel agency. 

Plastic Currency Notes in India

Don’t be confused if you get a Rs. 10 currency note made out of plastic. It is for sure the Indian currency note. The government of India and the Reserve Bank of India are planning to introduce the plastic currency notes in the country. Rs. 10 plastic currency will be released in few cities with different climatic conditions. It is believed that Jaipur, Shimla, Bhubaneshwar, Mysore and Kochi are the cities where the currency will be released on pilot basis.

The idea is to check the instances of counterfeiting and tampering of currency notes and also save money on printing paper currency. Thanks to the plastic notes which have long life when compared to the paper currencies.

Another important feature of the plastic currency is its recyclability. The environmentalist need not worry about the use of plastic in the currency notes.

India is not the first country where the plastic currency notes will be introduced. Plastic currency notes are already in circulation in countries like Australia, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Romania, Bermuda, Brunei and Vietnam.

The hard texture of the currency notes will prevent them from being forged easily. They are water proof and will have enhanced durability preventing rampant wear and tear.

It is also believed that additional security features will be introduced in the plastic currency notes which will help in terms of security and trace-ability.

My question is that, apart from its security features and its durability can the introduction of the new type of currency notes (plastic or otherwise), help the government of India and its people, to make the “Black Money” including those in the “Swiss Banks” void.

I personally believe that it is possible if the new currencies are exchanged for the old one from the public. And those who have black money; will they come forward to exchange? 

Lansdowne Building in Mysore takes 4 lives

Last Saturday at least four people lost their life in Mysore when a part of 120 years old Lansdowne building collapsed. This building has been a major commercial center right from 1892. All four of them who lost their lives were in the ground floor. Two of them were the brothers who were running the DTP center. Annapoorna, an employee in the DTP center also lost her life. She had recently completed her post graduate degree in political science and also won couple of gold medals. The other one who lost his life was a customer.

The lives of these four people could have been saved if some common sense were used among those who are doing business in the heritage building and also the government agencies who collected rentals who are actually responsible for the maintenance of this crowning glory of Mysore city.

This 200m long and 20m wide structure which is located near the city bus stand was in a controversy from last 15 years. There was a demand for renovation and also for demolition when a similar incident happened with the Vani Vilas Market. There were also plans to demolish the entire structure and rebuild it in the same way as it was before.

However, when the concerned authorities initiated measures to evict the shop owners with the intention to renovate the building, the tenants approached the court and succeeded in getting the eviction order stayed.

I would suggest that the people who were responsible for not letting the concerned authorities to renovate this monument be held responsible for the death of these four people. They should be punished with fine and jail terms. Also steps should be taken to punish those authorities who though that this structure will withstand for another century.

A shop owner there stated that the roof which collapsed had developed a small hole from where the rain waters were gushing out for two days. When he informed the concerned officials about the leakage, he was told that there was a plan for renovation and it is in the final stage. The official could have judged the situation or at least cautioned the occupants.

Another shop owner opined that the tenants did not wanted this building to be demolished and/or renovated because of the fear of losing the shops to the new traders. It was this fear that made them to approach the court and get the stay order. I really don’t understand why the court would approve this. Was there no body to make the court understand that this building is more than a century old and may collapse one day?

Saving Kautilya’s Arthashastra

It is very shocking to hear that the 450 years old palm-leaf manuscript of Kautilya’s Arthashastra which is now in Mysore’s Oriental Research Institute (ORI) is in highly neglected state.

As reported in Times of India, dated Aug 25, 2012, Mysore Edition, this manuscript, which is under the custodian of University of Mysore is the reproduction of the original work.

Thanks to Mr. Subbaiah who has taken initiative to preserve the only manuscript of Arthashastra by digitization. This may also help make reach this manuscript to those who are interested to read this.

An official in the ORI has stated that “If we get expertise in digitization, we are ready for it. Thanks, but why wait for somebody to come in? Are the officials not aware of the improvements in the technology? I could find millions of books, right from which are of no use to those which are most valuable being digitized and found on the internet.

However, digitization will save only the contents of the manuscript. Great care should be taken to preserve palm-leaf as well.   

Un-authorised houses of poor’s to be regularised in Bangalore

Only for Below the Poverty Line 

Here is good news for the people below the poverty line who have built un-authorised houses in the urban areas, that is, the areas coming under the limits of Bangalore city corporations, town municipalities and town panchayats. The State Government is believed to introduce an amendment bill in the coming legislature bill session to enable poor people in the urban areas get title deed for their houses built on government revenue land!

The built house should not exceed 40x60

However,  as stated earlier, the applicant should belong to below the poverty line, should have built house in a dimension not exceeding 40x60 (which is difficult for even a middleclass), and should have built in January 2012. The applicant should not posses any other house in the state.

Is this a Strategy?

The opposition and the people with political interest feel this move as an election strategy for the coming Assembly polls next year.

Source: Deccan Herald – Aug 23 – Page 5