The much awaited Monsoon has hit Kerala today. The met department made an official announcement of the same this afternoon.
Conditions are favorable for further advance monsoon into some parts of central Arabian Sea, coastal & south interior Karnataka and Goa during next 48 hours.
Further advance of monsoon will depend upon the intensity and direction of movement of the low pressure area currently lying over central Arabian Sea at 0830 hours IST of today.
Light pre monsoon showers hit the city at about 7.30 pm. The weather is very cool and people have got respite from the heat.
As of now the monsoon will hit Belgaum anytime between 5 June and 10 June. Which is on time.
If the rains come on time citizens will not have to face any more water scarcity as the Rakaskop reservoir has just 7 feet of water left.
Hope we have a wonderful Rainy season.

A devotee Vinay Kollumath, who hails from Belgaum in north Karnataka and works as software professional in Bangalore, suffered a minor injury as the bullet brushed past his right thigh. He too talked to the media and said he was not sure whether Ravi Shankar had left the complex or not as he was trying to find out what was causing him severe pain suddenly in his thigh. He said he was not near the convoy of the spiritual leader.
An unidentified person shot a bullet after the satsang was over yesterday in Bangalore.

Belgaumite Swati Gambhir and her husband Sunil Laxman Shinde (Pune) were killed in a car crash in USA. The crash happened at about 5:30 p.m. Monday.
The State Patrol said a Lincoln Zephyr entering the freeway struck a Toyota Corolla, causing it to lose control and cross the median. The Lincoln kept going. The Toyota was struck by a Chevy Tahoe and Volkswagen Golf. Then a Kenworth semitrailer struck all three vehicles.
The woman and man in the Toyota died at the scene. They were identified Tuesday as Swati Manohar Gambhir, 32, and Sunil Laxman Shinde, 35. They were from Germantown County of Maryland.

Anyone interested in helping can check Swati and Sunil's profiles on orkut where regular updates are being posted by friends who are trying to handle the legal formalities there.

After some technical hiccups and delays, BSNL has launched its 3 G services in Belgaum and Gokak from Saturday 29 May.
Applications like video telephony, mobile broadband, mobile television and video-on-demand will be offered to consumers with immediate effect. The 3G services will bring high quality voice services along with high-speed data and video services. The data speed is expected to go up to 2 Mbps or higher.
Source: Advertisement of BSNL

The date is out Inox Chandan will open its doors Belgaum cine goers from June 4^th.
The INOX Chandan will have THREE SCREENs and total capacity of 897 persons.

Disclaimer: opening date has been told to us by our sources and some technical snags could take the launch forward.

Belgaum: In the city today Gold soared to a high of Rs.19100 for 10 grams and Silver touched Rs.288 for 10 grams.
In the recent past Gold has become dearer thanks to the Marriage season.

From a bulky box at the center of family life to a gizmo for the iFirst generation, the radio has shrunk in size. The memories haven’t.
Then one has to have a license from the Director General P&T to operate the radio.
The bulky radios of the 1960s that came with valves, aerial wiring and earthing and took long minutes to warm up before the first cackle came through are now the stuff of reminiscences and mostly a Murphy.
Here is a journey back to the 1960's after one sees that Radio License issued on 6-3-1968 to Smt.Deshpande of Hindwadi. The license fees were Rs.15 for a new one and Rs.3 for renewal every year. An additional radio in the same premises meant another Rs.3 as fees.

For the new generation who haven't seen Murphy radio and never knew that a license was needed yes, the license raj did exist then. Later on it was removed with time.
All the images have been shared by Uday Deshpande.
Thanks to him for preserving a part of history.

Vikas Patnekar is talented young water colour artist from Belgaum who studied under the guidance of Late Shri. K.B. Kulkarni. Vikas has received a number interesting commissions during 2006 and 2007 and his paintings now hang in the offices of the British Deputy High Commission in Mumbai, the Mumbai and Delhi offices of Macquarie Bank and the office of Impact India Foundation. They have now also reached the shores of USA, Australia and the UK, where Lord Attenborough now has two of his paintings hanging in his home. 
Today the 27^th May happens to be his birthday, Happy Birthday Vikas!! Keep your brush painting.
 Born in 1966, Vikas Patnekar was born and educated in his home town Belgaum. He studied at Benyon Smith high school Belgaum.
 When reflecting back on the past Vikas always states that it was such a blessing to have grown up in Belgaum where he had to create his own entertainment from the natural world that always surrounded him. He lived in his imagination and expressed himself through drawing and painting.
 After completing his education in 1985, Patnekar relocated to Mumbai in search of job opportunities. Finally, after slogging, he landed a job as an illustrator at an advertising agency. In addition he freelanced for various advertising agencies in Mumbai and gulf countries. Finally, in 1997, Patnekar made a major career decision to leave advertising in pursuit of his muse – watercolors. He loves to portray the villages, the green fields, the ever buzzing streets in India , waterfalls, the miseries, etc.
 For an artist, life is very interesting when looked at very closely. For the past 22 years. Continuing, he shares his enthusiasm for watercolor painting, the joy of spontaneous creation that comes with watercolor and the emotional release of telling a story of the beautiful world around him. Vikas believes an artist’s work should reflect what’s going on inside the artist. An artist should always bring in some kind of emotions or feelings into his work and when it comes, there is a possibility that the painting might look wonderful. Secondly, an artist should never describe a painting verbally. He has to leave it up to the viewer to decide.
 Vikas has always said that he is not interested in just painting pretty landscapes or seascapes unless he can pull some deep feelings out of it, because REPRESENTATION is not ART! In addition, he feels one has to see the drama in the ordinary. It is all there, if one will only take time to discover it.
His collections are at the following places:
Alex de Grunwald - England, Claire Tuhey -England, Lord Attenborough - England, Maurice Sinclaire -Australia, Helen Deas - England, Stuart Smythe -Australia,
Fraser Kitione - Figi, Helen Balke -Germany, Peter Forby -Australia, Fred Means -England,
Rachel Eccleston - England, Dedorah Shurvell - England, Phill Michell -Australia, Garry Luton - Canada, And many more in India and abroad.
 Contact details:
Vikas Patnekar
B/14, Sainam C.H.S., B.P. Road,
Kandarpada, Dahisar (W),
Mumbai - 400 068. (India)
Email: vikpats@vikaspatnekar.in

Belgaum has seen some very good inflow of funds in the form of the special grant from the Chief Minister and under the said scheme a new project has been finalized by the city corporation and the draft proposal has been forwarded to the govt. for approval.
The proposal is of building an INDOOR STADIUM on the vacant land of the corporation near Dharmanath Circle MalMaruti Extension.
The stadium will be built on 2 lakh 60 thousand sq foot with an indoor stadium of 35 thousand sq.feet area.
A swimming pool has also been planned in the same premises.
Another attraction of the stadium will be the LASER show to be installed in the stadium.
Still this is a proposal and the same has been sent for approval.

Here are two pictures (not so great) from top of one of the tallest buildings in town.
Photos: Uday.
There are more photos taken by Mr.Akash Patil which will be uploaded in due course.

Click on the photo to see the large size image

Belgaum looks green and beautiful from the top of eight floor building. (name not disclosed for security reasons, but one can easily guess).
Click on the photo to see the large size image

The recent mishap at the Mangalore airport has made the people, the government and the airlines as well to think at the airports Tier-II cities like Mangalore, Mysore, Hassan and Belgaum.
Civil aviation experts say that government has neglected these tier II cities and have foucused more on lucrative metro airports.
Take Mysore for example, which was inaugurated on May 15 still has no flights from there and now after the Mangalore incident no airline is willing to use smaller runways.
Belgaum is no excuse with no commercial flights for over a year now the new terminal building built will be in rags in no time.
The airport has good potential for growth. In addition to night landing facilities and fire-fighting crew, it is equipped with Navigational Aid (DVOR) used by international aircraft flying over Belgaum airspace (more than 100 domestic and international aircraft fly over Belgaum every day) from which the income to the AAI is much more than what is got by providing landing facilities to airplanes. VOR/DME and NDB are available on 24-hour basis while VHF main/stand-by is available during ATC watch hours. At present, scheduled flights are not being operated but only unscheduled ones, including those of the Indian Air Force.


AAI is spending about Rs.17 lakhs every month on establishment costs and maintenance of the airport.
The AAI wanted to upgrade the Sambra airport to facilitate landing of bigger aircraft. About 370 acres of land was required to extend the length of the runway from 4,500 ft. to 7,500 ft. and for construction of a second terminal. Partial land acquisition has been done but no work other than the terminal building is complete even after it was announced in 2006.
Not many airlines are interested in flying from these places due to lack of passengers.
The Airports Authority of India (AAI) spent Rs3534.62 crore in the 10th Plan and is expecting to spend Rs12417.17 crore in the 11th Plan period. Currently, Mumbai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Bangalore are operated by private companies, along with AAI, under the private public partnership (PPP) model. On the other hand, the government has not been able to rope in private partners for most of the Tier-II airports.
The recent mishap at Mangalore have made people raise their eyebrows when they hear of these tier II cities airports.
Actress Ramya, a self-confessed white-knuckle flyer said that Private jets and helicopters also have higher crash rates, so when she was invited to Belgaum for a function and the organisers offered to arrange a private aircraft, she politely declined.

Source: DNA
Image courtesy Sahir Kittur

AAB had posted a story on Systematic development to make Belgaum a model eco city in April where a group of like minded people have agreed to come aboard and make a plan for Systematic development to make Belgaum a model eco city.
The organizers of the conference to be held in June have organized a first meeting to get inputs from readers here so that a blue print could be prepared.

A meeting has been arranged at Hotel EEFA, Club road from 4 pm to 5pm on May 27^th 2010.
People interested kindly join the meeting and help Belgaum become a systematic developed city.

A terrorist of the banned outfit People’s United Liberation Front (PULF) of Manipur was arrested by the Police from Haji Building in Azam Nagar area last night.
Mohd.Islamuddin Khan aged 48 was staying in a building in Azam Nagar for over six months. The Manipur Police were on his look out and when they got information they informed the Karnataka police who arrested him and took him to Bangalore for further investigations.
 About PULF:
A communal clash between the dominant Meiteis and the Pangals (Muslims) on May 3, 1993 over monetary transaction in the Lilong Bazaar area of Thoubal district led to approximately 150 deaths in the Thoubal and Imphal districts. Subsequently, discontented members of the minority Muslim community formed a number of Islamist militant outfits. People’s United Liberation Front (PULF), founded in 1993, was one of them.
On May 30, 2007, another Islamist outfit operating in Manipur, the Islamic National Front, INF, merged with the PULF. The INF chairman, Mohammed Raffisuddin, and several of his fellow cadres formally joined the PULF. The INF was established in the 1980s’ and its cadres were reportedly trained by the Kuki National Front (KNF) in the Churachandpur district. Addressing a joint press meet with the PULF leadership in an unknown location in the Imphal East district, Raffisuddin said that there was no point in the various outfits pursuing their struggle in a disjointed manner.

Pramod Mutalik Shri Ram Sena founder president facing allegations of running ‘rent-a-riot’ allegedly made and aired by Aaj Tak and Head Lines Today recently, has filed a private complaint against the two channels and also the Editor and Publisher of Tehalka.com under Section 200 of CR.P.C for offences punishable under Sections 109, 120B, 153A, 296, 298, 499, 500, 504 R/W Section 149 of IPC in the court of JMFC IV on Saturday evening.
Mr.Mutalik, who filed the complaint through his advocate R.C. Ingalgi, has prayed for an award of heavy compensation of Rs.10/- crore for causing defamation, mental agony, economic hardship.
The cases are filed against Pushp Sharma, Reporter; Officials and staff of Aaj Tak namely, Bureau Chief, Anchor, News Reader, Managing Director of Aaj Tak and Rahul Kanwal, Executive Director of Head Lines Today.

It was a year ago that AllAboutBelgaum.com spurted the idea of collaboration between the various IT & ITeS companies based in Belgaum. The Idea was well picked up by all companies and resulted in the formation of ITBELGAUM group where one can meet share and explore. At this moment there are 15 companies which are run by first time entrepreneurs in different aspects and streams of IT. IT-BELGAUM was set up in May 2009, at Belgaum to facilitate business and trade in software and services and to encourage software technology.
To encourage and make awareness of the presence of IT companies in Belgaum aPremier Special Interest Group called IT-BELGAUM has been formed. IT-Belgaum is the premier Association of the IT-BPO companies in Belgaum.

IT-BELGAUM aims to drive the overall growth of the global off shoring market by taking up the role of a strategic advisor to the industry. Our goals include:

1. Accelerating economic development efforts and improving local talent supply.
2. Strengthening local infrastructure.
3. Building cohesive partnerships and driving operational excellence.
4. To promote IT business with local companies and to retain local talent.

IT-BELGAUM's members and associate member companies are broadly in the business of software development, embedded systems, software services, software products, consulting services, recruitment services, BPO services, e-commerce & web services, engineering services off shoring, animation and gaming.
The IT sector in Belgaum is very encouraging. Considering the human talent around and the blooming companies which have chosen Belgaum as their Playground, it was thought of collectively coming on a single platform where all the IT companies could share their knowledge with the community and also collaborate with each other. Human resources
Management, taxation problems, INTERNET connectivity, grooming the upcoming talent in colleges are some of the points IT-Belgaum group will emphasize on.
The ITBELGAUM.COM website is a platform where one can meet, share and explore opportunities in Belgaum. This site aims to be the one stop site for your entire search or queries related to IT & ITeS firms in Belgaum, IT jobs. The site also serves an as a medium where experts will attempt to answer to your queries in the domain of IT & IteS. We also plan to enable all employees of the group companies to use this site as a platform to share their ideas and gain knowledge by collaborating. By coming together, our voices could be heard by the government as well.
In a nutshell IT-Belgaum group is a place to Meet, Share & Explore.
It is not big promises made here, we have come together to Meet, Share & Explore opportunities for a BETTER and BRIGHTER BELGAUM.

Dr.Ekroop Caur has been promoted as the Deputy Commissioner of Belgaum district, she replaces J Ravishankar who has been transfered elsewhere.



Dr.Ekroop Caur was the CEO of Zilla Panchayat.
Dr.Ekroop Caur has an M.A(psychology), Ph.D degree to her name and is a 2001 batch IAS.
J. Ravishankar, has been posted as Managing Director for Rajiv Gandhi Rural Housing Corporation.

This has been one of the worst summers for the country and Belgaum as well. Trees have been cut all over the city for road development works. Even tough there were some voices raised against it none of them were heard.
Now to top the icing on the cake towards deforestation and global warming, the state forest department has formulated a proposal to amend the Karnataka Tree PreservationAct, allowing expansion of a list of trees that are exempted from its purview. With 11 trees being exempted from the Act now, one would need no prior permission for felling them. The forest department now proposes to have 41 trees in the list.

File photo of tree chopped on angol Road

Activists of various environmental organizations, under the aegis of Belgaum Active Citizens' Forum (BACF), will stage a protest demonstration in front of the Forest department today at 4 pm.
The amendment means giving license to civic authorities, infrastructure developers, timber contractors, miners and others to cut the enlisted trees at will.
Save Vaccine Institute (Belgaum), Paryawaran, Parivartan, Social Justice Forum, Belgaum Walkers' Club, Multiple Varsity Student Circle are supporting the protest.
Even state wide demonstrations have been planned by the various Green brigades today.

Live coverage
The Shiv Jayanti procession, with tableaux on different topics and cultural troupes dressed in colourful costumes, started from Bhave chowk this evening at 8 pm.
All these photos have been taken at Maruti galli, Ramdev Galli from 9.15 to 10pm.
This is treat to the eyes when ones sees the young children dressd up as shivaji and more elder ones performing Marshal art skills.
The presence of the young females was quite commendable and the acts performed were of great standard.
See complete images here

Sanjay Patil, MLA Belgaum rural is ready with his first Kannada production ‘Parikshe’ under the banner of Gomatesh Film makers. He has produced and also acted in the movie as a MLA himself. The movie releases on May 28 in Nirmal Theater and across Karnataka.
The movie about caste conflict, adversity of women.
The film, “Parikshe”, is apparently a challenging task for all those concerned, right from the boy on the sets to the actors, producers, musicians and the director himself. Story writer and director A.R. Raveendra, for the first time, is trying his hands independently at a feature film with a running time of 135 minutes.
The film is about caste conflict that reflects the typical feudal character of influential individuals in a village and the exploitation of women belonging to the underprivileged or the lower caste. Bangari is a beautiful woman from a lower caste whose husband is an alcoholic. This is reason enough for some to cast their lustful eyes on Bangari.
Anu Prabhakar plays the lead character of Bangari, while there are several new faces. The most prominent among them is Yenagi Balappa, who plays the conscientious village headman. That apart, politician-producer Sanjay Patil, MLA, and Nataraj (both from Belgaum), Muniraj, Shantamma, Siddaraj Kalyankar, Master Kiran, C.S. Patil and Girish Jatti form the cast.
Hemant Kumar provides the music while vocalist Sangeeta Katti, also from north Karnataka, is the only singer for the one song in the film. Sitaram Karant has scripted the story, while Shashidhar Bhat has written the dialogues using typical Kannada dialect akin to north Karnataka, particularly Belgaum district.
The film has been shot in the villages of Hannikere, Gajapati, Bairanahatti, Kukkadali and Bendigeri.

Yes this could be reality in Belgaum soon, and one could say Cheers even at 2 am at a bar in town.
Excise Minister B Renukacharya today indicated the government might concede the demand of pub and bar owners here to extend the business hours till 2 am from the present 11.30 pm.
In th first phase it will be implemented in Bangalore and then others cities Mangalore, Mysore, Belgaum and Hubli.
It would be a boon for tipplers.
Apart from tourists, a lot of businessmen also had been visiting various parts of the state and they had expressed disappointment about the unavailability of liquor at midnight and this is what has caused this change the minister added.
Govt may permit alcohol serving till 2 am in five-star hotels first and extend the same to bar -and-restaurants across the state.

Today May 15, all schools were bustling with activity since early morning. Each parent was very anxious to know whether his child has been lucky enough to get admission for LKG in school.

Normally all this activity is over by April but this year the Education department had made a new order and issued a timetable in which all schools will do the admission process.

There were others as well how could manage to get admission into 4 schools they had filled in forms. One parent told the blog, “I had filled forms in 4 schools but my child number is not there in even one. What do I do now he asked in anxiety.”

Parents who have not been able to secure admissions now they will face a grim task of getting admissions in other schools as the time gap is very less, as schools will start in 15 days.

Many parents allege that new admission procedure has been purposefully done so that huge donations can be collected as there would be very little time for parents.

The Right to education bill has been passed but what about Admissions first.

My personal experience speaks that, my child was not selected in any schools (5) and last had to strive hard to get her in school and all was possible as the process had begun in April itself which gave us time of a month.

This year the parents will face a tough time and all we can say is God Bless them.

Also see the previous year’s post which will help you understand the process much better.

Beggars cannot be choosers:LKG admissions

Admission tensions are boiling over!

Admission time: Is raat ki Subh Kabhi

Reliance Retail Limited (RRL) launched its flagship apparel, luggage and accessories store, Reliance Trends, in Belgaum at Nucleus Mall on the first floor this afternoon.
Apart from the ready-to-wear garments, the store also caters to consumers who prefer to shop for fabric and tailor their clothes. Reliance’s captive brands include Pureza, Network, Netplay DNMX and Graviti for men and Sparsh, Hushh, Panda and Frendz.

Shivaputra Siddramayya Komkalimath or known as Kumar Gandharva was a Hindustani classical singer, famous for his unique vocal style, refusal to be bound by the tradition of any gharana, and his innovative genius. The name Kumar Gandharva is a title given to him when he was a child prodigy; a Gandharva is a musical spirit in Hindu mythology.
He was born in Sulebhavi near Belgaum. He studied music under the well-known Prof B R Deodhar.
He married Bhanumati Kans in April 1947 and moved to Dewas, Madhya Pradesh. Soon after moving there, he was stricken with lung cancer which was wrongly diagnosed as tuberculosis. He was forced into having a surgery to remove the cancerous lung or face eventual death by the disease. Kumar opted for the surgery after much persuasion by his family and despite warnings that he might not be able to sing anymore. Recovering from the trauma of a surgery in Khanapur near Belgaum in Kumar Gandharva was visited by a fan who was also a physician. The doctor noted his surgical wounds had healed and asked Kumar Gandharva to attempt singing once again. Gradually, helped by this doctor, medicines of those yesteryears and care from Bhanumati Kans, Kumar Gandharva recovered and began singing again. However, his wonderful voice and singing style would always bear the scars of his surgery, which are evident to any person who listens to his songs such as 'Runanubandhachya" from the drama "Dev Dina Ghari Dhavla".
 The house of Kumar Gandharva, which could have been developed into a memorial, has now become a restaurant and it is owned by Rudrappa in Sulebhavi. His father, the late Malleshappa Naganur, purchased the house about 50 years ago. Kumar Gandharva kept visiting the village and performed at the annual Sri Laxmi Mahotsava even after he shifted to Dewas.
His last performance was about three decades ago, and thereafter he did not visit the village.
Bhanumati Kans, who was learning music first under Deodhar and later under Kumar Gandharva himself, nursed him through his illness. His first mehfil after recovery from illness took place in 1953. The illness greatly affected Kumar's singing in later years – he was to be known for powerful short phrases and his very high voice. He may not have reached the same heights of popularity as contemporaries like Bhimsen Joshi, but he always enjoyed the love and support of dedicated and connoisseur enthusiasts. His singing was also true to the Indian classical music tradition of dialogue with the listeners, of impromptu creation and interactivity. Kumar Gandharva was awarded the Padma Vibhushan award in 1990.
Kumar Gandhrav died on January 12, 1992 (aged 67) at Dewas.