Kore may quit active politics

Senior Congress leader and former MP Prabhakar B. Kore, who belongs to the dominant Lingayat community, is “seriously” considering saying “goodbye” to active politics to devote his time to “social service,” thanks to Congress’s denial of party ticket to him.

Mr. Kore’s decision comes even as State Janata Dal (Secular) vice-president Umesh V. Katti claimed on Wednesday that the former was about to join his party.
Mr. Koreappears to be not just upset but “hurt” after allegedly getting a raw deal at the hands of party leadership.

He was in New Delhi for a few days recently and did everything possible to get party ticket to contest from Chikkodi-Sadalga. But, the party favoured his arch rival Prakash B. Hukkeri. Mr. Hukkeri filed his nomination papers as Congress candidate on Wednesday.
Mr. Kore was keen to contest from Chikkodi-Sadalga in the light of the constituency being left open for “General” category. Hitherto, Chikkodi was reserved for Scheduled Castes. Following redrawing of areas under the latest delimitation exercise, areas of Chikkodi and Sadalga have been merged to form new Chikkodi-Sadalga constituency.
In a brief chat with The Hindu here on Wednesday, Mr. Kore said he was disgusted with the present order of politics. When his attention was drawn to the claims of Mr. Katti and reports in the media, he said: “I want to quit politics, leave alone joining the Janata Dal (Secular), the BJP or any other party.”

AICC leader responsible for Kudachi being denied ticket?

Source The Hindu:
Vijaykumar Patil
Kudachi defeated MES candidates in 1999 and 2004
He has joined JD(S) and is contesting in the same segment

Even as some tend to point figures at senior Congress leader and former Minister A.B. Patil for the Congress having denied ticket to two-time MLA Ramesh L. Kudachi to contest from Belgaum North, there is none to unravel the hidden faces behind the development.

Sources close to Mr. Kudachi told The Hindu here on Wednesday that a senior leader in the All India Congress Committee (AICC) from Maharashtra had deliberately denied ticket to the former to help the MES in Belgaum North. The sources said that the AICC leader had personally told Mr. Kudachi not to insist on ticket this time.
The MES, which was defeated twice by Mr. Kudachi in the 1999 and 2004 Assembly elections, is trying hard to re-capture its lost bastion. But, it would have been difficult for the MES to have its candidate elected as long as Mr. Kudachi continued to contest as Congress candidate. Therefore, the MES was keen to see that Mr. Kudachi did not get party ticket and therefore, took the help of the AICC leader from Maharashtra.

Mr. Kudachi, who quit the Congress after being denied ticket and joined the Janata Dal(S) on Wednesday, is all set to contest from Belgaum North as the latter’s candidate. He took the decision not in a haste but after being convinced that there was no justice in the Congress, which was not prepared to honour his services and contribution. He said it was under his leadership that the Maharashtra Ekikaran Samithi was shown the door for the first time in the 1999 Assembly elections and again in 2004. This was history in its own right as Belgaum city had been an impregnable fortress of the MES or the Marathi-speaking community since the 1957 elections.

He was also confident of being elected for the third time, which meant a precious seat for Congress which is hoping to form the government on its own in the State. But the leaders in the party were not prepared to do justice to his services, he alleged.
He, however, also maintained that the AICC leader from Maharashtra was fully responsible for denying him ticket only to please the MES. But in the process he [AICC leader] did not realise that the Congress could lose one precious seat, he said.

Patils' file nomination for Belgaum,north,south & rural

Three Patils' of BJP filed their nomination papers yesterday. Namely, Belgaum North: Shivangouda Patil.
Belgaum South: Abhay Kumar Patil






Belgaum Rural: Sanjay Patil (head Gomatesh Vidyapeeth)

Still major candidates have to file in the papers and will do so in last 3 days.

Ramesh Kudachi quits to join JD(S)

Source: The Hindu
Beleaguered by the growing rebellion over refusal of ticket to aspirants, the Congress was served another jolt by its two-time MLA Ramesh L. Kudachi on Wednesday.

Mr. Kudachi, who was denied ticket to contest from Belgaum North, quit the Congress and joined the Janata Dal(S) today. The Janata Dal(S) lost no moment to project him as its official candidate from Belgaum North. The Janata Dal(S) will shortly organise a party workers meeting to admit “hundreds of Congress workers loyal to Mr. Kudachi”.

The decision was announced at a crowded press conference addressed by the vice-president of the State Janata Dal(S) and former Minister, Umesh V. Katti, and district unit president Ashok Pujari. Along with Mr. Kudachi, Dalit youth leader Mallesh Chougale also joined the party.
Mr. Kudachi, who quit Maharashtra Ekikaran Samithi (MES) and contested as a Congress candidate in the 1999 Assembly elections, created history by winning against the MES from the erstwhile Belgaum City then. With his election was broken the electoral hegemony of the MES, the pro-Maharashtra outfit surviving on the single-point issue of “boundary dispute” (demanding transfer of Belgaum, Nippani, Khanapur, Bidar, Karwar and other boundary areas to Maharashtra for over five decades).

He was again elected in the 2004 elections. Earlier, he had served as Mayor of the Belgaum City Corporation when he was an active leader in the MES.
Asked about the reasons for his decision to quit the Congress, he said a section of the top leaders of the party ensured that he did not get ticket much against the party’s guidelines on allotment of ticket.

The party had decided to give ticket to all its members of the previous Assembly, while it could consider for alternative candidates in constituencies whose constitution, after delimitation, had been affected by more than 50 per cent. But the party leaders showed disregard to this guideline and refused him the ticket even when 85 per cent of the areas in the erstwhile Belgaum City constituency have remained “intact” in the new Belgaum North Assembly constituency.

Election Photo ID Card Belgaum North Schedule

The Election Photo ID card program is being implemented for Belgaum North as of now. CLikc the link below to find out the place you have to go, to get your photo taken.
http://mahiuk.googlepages.com/epicnorth.htm

I dont have info about Belgaum south as yet, as I get it I will upload the same.
All those who dont have Voter ID cards kindly go and come as these programs are done once in three to four years.

Ye nahi Woh Sahi:Magar Kursi Chaiye

Source: The New Indian Express

TWO-TIME Congress MLA Ramesh Kudachi, whom the party denied a ticket to contest from Belgaum North segment, is likely to quit the party and is planning to contest from other party.

Kudachi,who arrived from Bangalore this morning told The New Indian Express, that he would take a final decision after consulting the party workers, in a day or two. He also told that Janata Dal (Secular), Bahujan Samaj Party and his former party Janata Dal (United) have contacted him and have assured him ticket from Belgaum North segment.

He said that he rejected the offer of Congress, which had asked him to contest from Belgaum South as only a 20 per cent area of his old segment was included in South segment after delimitation. 'I had asked the party to retain me in Belgaum North, as 80 per cent area of my old segment remains in the North constituency,'.

He, will now contest from other party. I want to ask all these candidates" Do they have any ethics in place? or is that its all for the people, not for themselves."

This is seen in all parties these days. You dont get a ticket from one party leave that join another get a ticket, next time they dont give you so you go back to the first party you left. Wow this is opportunism and nothing else. If you are so sure that you can win the election stand as an independent without any political party support and win. People will definitely vote for a person who is good.

Kya hoga is Desh ka.

No seats this weekend:Private bus: Difficult to come home

I had posted this story earlier.
http://belgaumblog.blogspot.com/2008/04/private-buses-will-have-no-pick-up.html
It was about no pick up points in the city after the traffic police issued new orders.

To add to this story: This week and also the weekend is the highest demand for these operators and hence all have increased their fares by Rs.50 to 100. Above that getting to Hotel Ramdev you will need to spend more & if you are coming back home then getting down at Ramdev and then bargaining early morning with the auto to take you home, be prepared to spend a lot of money.
Altough all the pvt. buses have stopped the pick up after they were fined, I found that the police were "Prassanna" on a bus operator as it said its office was located in Tilakwadi. Now this is unfair. All the bus operators have said that the Will meet the SP today and give their memorandum. I don't understand, in cities like Mumbai, Bangalore there are pick up points and in Belgaum no pick up.
Many friends of mine planning a weekend here in Belgaum have cancelled their trip seeing all this.
For the previous post i have received a comment which i would like to share with you:
"It is kind a fair that private buses not be allowed into busy streets. It's safe. One way, these private operators should handle this is by providing smaller pickup vehicles like vans, mini buses etc. On the other hand, the other private mini-bus operators are a big nonsense and the autos in Belgaum are a worth less piece to so called "Services". Never ever have they operated on meters and never have they charged sensibly. Only thing you hear from their mouth is "we dont get return trip" so we have to pay for their incompetence/stupid logic.Hope I had enough money to run my own local transport is Belgaum on meters"

Belgaum's Aniket Chindak makes Limbo Skating record:81 cars this time

Nomination process begins in Belgaum today

Source The Hindu
Last date for submitting papers is May 3
Counting of votes will take place on May 25

A notification announcing calendar of events for elections to the State Assembly from 18 segments in the district will be issued on Saturday. Polling will be held on May 22.
The Deputy Commissioner and Chief Electoral Officer for Belgaum district, M.E. Shivalingamurthy, said here on Friday that the nomination process would begin on April 26 at designated centres between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m.

The last date for submitting nomination papers is May 3. Scrutiny of nomination papers will take place on May 5. The last date for withdrawal of nomination papers is May 7. Counting of votes will take place on May 25 at K.B. Kore Polytechnic for Nippani, Chikkodi-Sadalga, Athani, Kagwad; and B.K. Arts, Science and Commerce College for Hukkeri, Kudachi (SC), Yamkanmardi (ST), and Raybag segments in Chikkodi town. Counting of votes of Gokak, Arabhavi, Belgaum North, Belgaum South, Belgaum Rural, Kittur, Bailhongal, Soudatti-Yallamma, Ramdurg and Khanapur segments will take place at Gogte Institute of Technology at Udyambag in Belgaum.

MES team to meet Pawar, Thackeray

Source The Hindu
Five-man panel to be set up
It will appeal for support to MES in Karnataka polls
‘BJP growth has caused loss to MES’

The Maharashtra Ekikaran Samithi (MES) has decided to set up a five-member committee to work for unity of all political parties enjoying support of Marathi-speaking people in its favour.
The committee members would soon meet Shiv Sena leader Bal Thackeray and Nationalist Congress Party president and Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar in Mumbai and appeal to them to support the cause of MES in the Assembly elections in Karnataka.

This was decided at a meeting of MES members under the leadership of the former Minister and president of Shetkari Kamgar Paksha in Maharashtra, N.D. Patil, here on Wednesday.
The former MES MLAs, B.I. Patil, Manohar Kinekar and Digamber Patil, and senior MES leaders Malojirao Ashtekar, Deepak Dalvi and the editor of Marathi daily, Tarun Bharat, Kiran Thakur, were present.

Today’s meeting was introspective in nature as the leaders tried to look into the reasons that led to the fall of the MES in the previous two Assembly polls in the State. Mr. N.D. Patil observed that, in Karnataka, a sizeable section of Marathi-speaking youth in Belgaum district had drifted away from the MES to the BJP. The losses suffered by the MES were because of the growth of the BJP and not because of the Congress or any other party in the State.

As a majority of workers/supporters of the Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party in Maharashtra were Marathi-speaking, the committee members would request their leaders not to field candidates in Assembly pockets where MES has an edge. This would help the MES to ensure unity and elicit complete support of Marathi-speaking voters in the polls.
The Shiv Sena and the Nationalist Congress Party are expected to make a common cause with MES in the ensuing polls. It was also necessary for the leaders to remain united and work for success of its candidates, he said.

Private Buses will have no pick up points

Private buses in Belgaum, since the past 10 years or so had started pick up points in various parts of the city, especially Tilakwadi, Angol areas.

Now the traffic police have stopped the same as they these busses are causing traffic problems as they are parked on the road and that disturbs the traffic.

The police for this have booked 5 private busses. The police have asked the busses to start only form Hotel Ramdev and that there should be no pick up points in the city. Many travelers complained that by stopping this service it would be very difficult for them, as they would have to take an auto and auto charges Rs.100 from Angol to Ramdev. When complained to the police about this the police have said that if the auto does not ask fare by meter make a complaint to the police. Now you tell me friends when have you complained about the excess fare being charged to the police and when have the police responded to it.

So be prepared to shell more money for the auto to reach Ramdev to catch your bus.

Fortune Financial office in Belgaum

Fortune Financial an independent company providing a complete range of financial services including Investment Banking, Corporate Advisory, Stock Broking and Distribution, DP Services and Commodities Broking.
The company will open its office at Ganesh Empire, Khanapur Road today at the hands of Shri.Ma.Pra.Shivanand Swamigalu M Viraktmath.

Voters List in Marathi

The Voters list for the various Belgaum constituencies is also available in Marathi.
Click the View Marathi Rolls

Belgaum North

Belgaum South

Belgaum Rural

Beggars cannot be choosers:LKG admissions

I had blogged about LKG admission earlier Admission time: Is raat ki Subh Kabhi & my ending lines were “Hope all their dreams of getting admissions are fulfilled”
Mine was not fulfilled as in all the FOUR schools I had applied; I did not find my daughters name in the list of selected candidates.

I have seen this admission process since the beginning, from getting the forms to submitting them and then that waiting time for the result. I failed, my second failure in life (my first was in 3rd Std. in Maths).

In the earlier post, I had mentioned about area wise selection of students but I guess this norm was not 100% utilized. In DP student in Hindwadi did not get admission where as one living in Mahadwar Road got.

There are some points I would like to the young parents who will have to go through this next year.

1. Apply in all schools, if you are looking for English medium, then all English medium schools, when I mean all, I mean ALL. St.Pauls, Xaviers, Marys, Herwadkar, Mahila Vidyalaya etc.
2. When you apply start finding some influence or a person who could recommend your child’s name to the managing committee even before you submit the form.
3. When the lists are out and you don’t find your name in the list try hard again and again for some more influence and of course be prepared to shell out more bucks.
4. Even after all this you don’t find your luck, search for some other school.
5. Even if you are there in the list the donations could hold you back, so be prepared to spend a lot, when I mean lot, I mean LOTS n lots on money.

Some donations paid are at a all time high just like inflation. St.Pauls, I have heard people paid 50 thousand and above that, these are a selected lot of 25-30 people others will be less as still the list is to be declared. In schools wherein you name is not there in the list you can pay a minimum 30 thousand or more and influence of course to get the child admitted. This time the English medium schools had greater demand as the vernacular schools (predominantly non–Kanada) were banned by the Karnatak government for not teaching in Kannada. Many schools had taken permission saying they would teach Kannada but switched to teaching in English. Having received this ban, these schools appealed to the court but unfortunately the court refrained them from teaching in any other language other than the one they applied for.
In these schools a flat rate of 10 thousand prevailed till yesterday which might go up with time. I believe, as you don’t have long queues and you take the form fill it pay money and your child is admitted; to face the competitive world. It is said the world is very competitive, hey friends the world is competitive from the day the child is born.

After all deliberations I have settled for an ICSE applied school by paying a part amount of the donation. I am trying the other tricks I told you above to see if I can put my daughter through those so-called very good schools. If nothing happens I am happy with the school I applied for, after all ‘Beggars cannot be choosers’.

Protest planned against donation menace in schools

Source: The Hindu, Staff Correspondent Belgaum
Many government-aided schools collecting donations: KRV leader
Parents will also participate in the demonstration

‘Government should ensure transparency in admission process’

The Karnataka Rakshana Vedike (KRV) will hold a demonstration in front of the Deputy Commissioner’s office on Monday to protest against “donation menace” in English-medium schools in Belgaum city.

Parents will also participate in the demonstration, KRV district unit president Rajeev Topannavar said here on Sunday.
He said that many government-aided schools in the city were illegally collecting donations ranging up to Rs. 50,000 for admission to pre-primary and primary classes. Despite the State Government’s direction to Deputy Directors of Public Instruction to ensure that no school collected donations, no steps had been taken to check the menace, he said.
Donations were being collected in the name of third party to avoid action from the Government, Mr. Topannavar said.

The Government should either ensure that there was transparency in the admission process or take over the schools that were collecting donations, he added. K.U. Kumar, a parent told The Hindu on Sunday that some schools were demanding a minimum donation of Rs. 15,000 besides recommendation by influential persons for admission to LKG. The maximum donation being demanded was about Rs. 40,000, he said. The donation menace was rampant in English-medium schools, he said and added that some schools had increased the donation amount this year and were collecting it in the name of third party. In addition, the schools were collecting money for expansion fund and poor student fund which would add up to more than the tuition fee fixed by the Government.

Dyanoba B.P., a parent, said that providing education had become a business now days. “Private managements (including those of aided institutions) have converted the education system into a profit-earning venture as there is no one to control them,” he said.