St.Pauls hits the 1st goal

Ground Reporter: Kiran Nippanikar
Dy. Superintendent of police is the chief guest and seating next to him is Royston's Father.
The ground is almost packed. Prayer is being made at this moment.

Ground Reporter: Kiran Nippanikar

Royston Finals Begins

The Royston memorial finals between St.Pauls and G G Chitnis school will begin in a few minutes time.

Blogs reporter Mr.Kiran Nippanikar is on the ground and will be updating us.

The atmosphere is sentalating . Zanjh pathak, drums, bugles, and a host of people are there to witness the match.

Belgaum district since 1836: Did you Know This

Gen.Munro attacked Belgaum and took it from the Peshwas on 20-03-1818 & after 22 days of resistance, the Belgaum fort fell on 12-04-1818.
Belgaum was included in the Dharwad collectorate but a separate Belgaum collectorate was made in 1836. Ravenscroft took charge on May 3 as the new collector of Belgaum. In 1838, Belgaum was later made as a District head quarter.

Source: The Karnataka State Gazetteer
Contributed by MAHANTESH VAKKUND, Bangalore

Car Bomb hoax: Belgaum also tastes terror

Panic struck Club road yesterday when a car was reported to be abandoned there for 2 days and that might have a bomb.
The Maruti Esteem bearing numberMH-01 R-6683 was left there by a Hubli businessperson who was going to Amboli and he left the car there as it had developed some problems.

St.Pauls Vs Chitnis on Thursday for Royston Cup

G G Chitnis beat Military school and entered the finals of the on going Royston Memorial Football tournament.







In the 2nd semi final St.Pauls beat St.Xaviers by 2 goals to 1 in a nail biting match. St.Pauls had taken a 1-0 lead in the first half but in the 2nd half Xaviers came back with only a single attack and scored a goal. Then the St.Pauls team tried hard and at last succeeded in hitting the goal No.2. The St.Pauls goalkeeper took them to victory with some glorious saves in the dying moments.

Local bodies pocket money

Source The New Indian Express
Any guesses on what happened to the education and health cess that citizens have been dutifully paying for the last five years? The funds, or rather the authorities, have performed the vanishing trick - and quite tactlessly at that.

The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has rapped the Bangalore Development Authority, Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike and six other city corporations for illegally collecting education cess from property tax payers, although the education cess has been dispensed in 2003-04. But that's not all.

The local authorities across the State have been levying an education cess of 10 per cent and health cess of 15 per cent on property taxpayers.The local bodies, after deducting 10 per cent of the cess towards collection charges, were supposed to remit the balance amount into the Government account.Test checks by the CAG showed at least eight city/town municipal councils and six city corporations, including Belgaum, Bellary, Mangalore and Mysore, among others, had failed to transfer the cess to the Government.

When I checked my house tax receipt the Education cess was not levied. What about yours? Do a check and come back here.

Rajesh Shinde swims across the English Channel

Mr. Shinde is physically handicapped with his leg affected by polio. He is member of Swimmers’ Club Belgaum and Aquarius Swim Club, Belgaum.

Rajesh took 14 hours and 46 minutes to swim across the 38 kms English Channel. Temperature was about 15 Deg. Celsius.

Raghvendra Anvekar another member of the Swimmers’ Club Belgaum will attempt to cross the channel later today.

Hip Hip Hurray !!!

Today Semis: Royston Memorial Football

Rashtriya Military School Vs G G Chitnis School at 3 pm
St.Pauls School Vs St.Xaviers School at 4pm
These matches are attracting huge crowds and the whole St.Pauls ‘A’ or hostel ground is filled with people of all ages.
I was able to see people who played for their schools now working elsewhere who were here watching the matches and they remembered those days when they played for their school.

Farmers accuse MLA of trying to grab land

Source The HinduThere is no move to take possession of the land now: KIADB
‘Chief Minister should intervene and come to the rescue of farmers’
Members of 20 farmer families have alleged that a “fraud” was being committed upon them both by government officials and their elected representative who, according to them, were grabbing their fertile agricultural land by illegal means.
MLA from the Begaum South Assembly constituency Abhay Kumar Patil and officials of the Karnataka Industrial Area Development Board (KIADB) are hand-in-glove in grabbing their only source of livelihood, they have alleged.
They said they had staged demonstrations in front of the Deputy Commissioner’s office and sent memoranda to the Governor and the President. Yet, the BJP MLA had proved to be powerful, they said.
And, instead of protecting the law, life and property of weaker sections of society, the officials themselves were facilitating illegal proceedings for acquisition of their agricultural land, alleged Ranjit Patil, president, The Belgaum Shahar Shetkari Sanghatana (BSSS), even as he led a group of affected farmers to submit yet another memorandum to the President through the Deputy Commissioner here on Monday.
Talking to presspersons before submitting the memorandum, he said the KIADB had initiated the process of acquiring 16 acres of fertile agricultural land in Survey Nos. 628, 629 and 630 situated on either side of the Pune-Bangalore Express Highway (National Highway 4) 3 km from the city (on Dharwad Road).
The land, owned by 20 families, fell in the area that had been declared as “Green Belt” in the City Development Plan prepared by the Belgaum Urban Development Authority.
The farmers were raising crops such as paddy, wheat and jowar just sufficient to earn a livelihood. Recently, an owner of a piece of land in Survey No. 498:1:1 tried to convert the land for industrial purpose. But, the Government rejected his application on the ground that the area was under the “Green Belt”.
But, the KIADB was going ahead with the acquisition process only to help Mr. Abhay Kumar Patil, who wanted to grab the land through the Parivartan Alpa Sankyanka Krushi Seva Sangh, Mr. Ranjit Patil alleged.
The MLA had an eye on the land of the poor and weak farmers for long and set up the forum involving his family members and relatives with the objective of grabbing the land on the Express Highway, he claimed.
He said when the farmers started protesting, the police officials started harassing them under the influence of the MLA who was trying to take possession of the land. Though under normal circumstances the time taken for acquisition of agricultural land is three years, the KIADB took only 10 days to complete the procedure.
It even changed the names of the owners in the official records, despite the fact that the Supreme Court had, in its various judgments, held that no fertile agricultural land should be acquired for non-agricultural purposes, he said
In this case, the acquisition was being done without even giving proper compensation. Though the Government had given Rs. 60,000 per gunta when it acquired land for the Express Highway, the compensation amount being offered now was just Rs. 1.50 lakh per acre.
Mr. Ranjit Patil said it was ironical that the BJP came to power in the name of farmers. But, its MLA was trying to grab farmers’ land through illegal and coercive means. Chief Minister B.S. Yeddyurappa should intervene and come to the rescue of the poor farmers, he added.
Mr. Ranjit Patil said the matter had been taken up in the Karnataka High Court.
Meanwhile, efforts to contact Mr. Abhay Kumar Patil were in vain.
However, official sources in the KIADB here told The Hindu that in view of the matter pending before the High Court, their Development Officer as well as the Regional Commissioner Amita Prasad directed the KIADB against pursing the matter. Therefore, there was no move to take possession of the land now

This blog has put a realted story to this on Oct.29,2007 its here. We All should stand with the farmers.We want development but not at the cost of the farmers land, if there are no farmers then what shallwe eat Industries.

Shahpur was a commercial center in 1550

The Adilshai of Bijapur ruled over Belgaum and one Sher Khan added Shahpur to Belgaum, which was originally called Shahpet in 1550. It grew to be a commercial center then.

Source: The Karnataka State Gazetteer
Contributed by MAHANTESH VAKKUND, Bangalore

St.Pauls & G G Chitnis enter Semi finals

In the ongoing Royston memorial football tournament favorites St.Pauls School entered the semi finals of the tournament. Chitnis School also has entered the Semis.

Today's Matches:
St.Xaviers Vs Bensons
Rashtriya Military school Vs Oriental

Government of India has an online Grievance forum

Government of India has started an online Grievance forum at http://pgportal.gov.in/

The Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances is the nodal agency to formulate policy guidelines for citizen-centric governance in the country. Redress of citizens' grievances, being one of the most important initiatives of the department, DAR&PG formulates public grievance redress mechanisms for effective and timely redress / settlement of citizens' grievances. This is a Government of India Portal aimed at providing the citizens with a platform for redress of their grievances. If you have any grievance against any Government organization in the country, you may lodge your grievance here, which will go to the Ministry/Department/State Government concerned for immediate redress.

Mr.BIDDU: Our Guest Editor feels:
There are thousands of grievances forum already existing in our country. What is more important is to provide timely redresal of the grievances piling up through these forums. Now, with online grievance cell (hope it will work for few days), there will fresh stock of online complaints, "if I have understood our 'office-ka-babu' and 'hamare neta' properly."

Therefore, Belgaumites, if you faced some problem go ahead try to make a complaint and see if it is redressed.
Original link of portal sent by Bharat. Murgod.

Royston Memorial Quarter finals today

GG Chitins, M V Herwadkar & St.Xaviers won their matches and have entered the next round.

Today's matches:
GG Chitins Vs Islamiya @ 3pm
St.Pauls Vs M V Herwadkar @ 4pm

It’s a long wait for passport applicants in Belgaum

Source The Hindu
There has been an increase in the number people applying for passport
Open more counters to meet the growing demand of local people

The two counters for receiving passport applications in Belgaum are not in a position to meet the growing demands of the local people.

One can see a large number of people waiting for several hours to submit their applications at the counters housed at the Head Post Office and the office of the Superintendent of Police here, on any given day.

Over the last few years, there has been an increase in the number people applying for passport. Among them are students from the city and other parts of the district who look forward to pursue higher education in the United States or the United Kingdom.
According to B.R. Patil, marketing executive of the Regional Passport Office, about 4,000 applications were received at the counter located in the post office in 2007. As many as 3,000 applications were submitted at the counter in 2006.

In 2008, 2,830 applications have been received at the counter till Friday and the figure is expected to cross 5,000-mark by the year-end, according to Mr. Patil.
According to a private agent, service provided at the two counters is “satisfactory”. However, they are not in a position to attend to even 50 per cent of the applicants on any given day. Applications are received at the two counters only between 10 a.m. and 3 p.m. As a result, many people return home without submitting their application after waiting for several hours.
The delay is not due to any lethargic attitude on the part of the officials managing these counters but because of the time spent on verifying each application in presence of the applicant.
The officials assist the applicants if the applications are not filled properly to ensure that they are not rejected. They also enter the data online in the presence of the applicant and despatch the applications to the Regional Passport Office in Bangalore in the evening.

It is difficult for one or two persons to handle so many applications every day, said an applicant and added that more counters should be opened in other localities so that their work load was evenly distributed.

L.N. Lengde, a businessman, who spent over six hours along with his children to submit the applications on Friday, said he lost almost a day’s business waiting in the queue. Much time could be saved if there was a separate officer to verify the applications, he said. Another applicant, who was in the queue from 7 a.m. and submitted his application at 11 a.m., said that the authorities concerned should open more counters to meet the growing demand of local people.

Thank God! I had got my passport done 6 years back at that time I had to wait for 70 minutes to submit my form. So it seems many many have travelled aborad from Belgaum, A good sign of prosperity, may be.