"Mayor" (from the Latin māior, meaning "greater") is a modern title used in many countries for the highest ranking officer in a municipal government.
Mayor acts as city bureaucrat who is generally a state-appointed officer. The Mayor in the Municipal Corporation is usually chosen through direct vote for a term of one year. The Mayor generally lacks executive authority. The Municipal Commissioner serves as the Principal Executive Officer subject to the power and administration of the Mayor as the Chief Executive Officer.
Tomorrow the elected councilors will vote to elect the 22^nd Mayor for Belgaum.
In the 26 year history of the corporation 19 times a Marathi speaking was a mayor and the rest were Kannada speaking.
Belgaum has a unique distinction of its Mayoral election for that matter even the election to the city Corporation, elsewhere, where political parties like BJP, Congress, JDS field in candidates in Belgaum there are no officials party candidates, all most all stand as independents belonging to 3 major groups – Marathi speaking, Kannada Speaking & Urdu speaking.
Sambhaji Patil has been elected Mayor on Four occasions and Vandana Belgundkar twice.
This time as well the ill fighting between the ruling Kannada group and Marathi group is out of the box. Allegations of horse trading by the losing parties is common and this year as well same will be repeated. The ruling Kannada group is strong and might get away with the Mayor posts this time as well. Unofficially name of Mr. Nirwani is being brought forward for the post.
The Marathi group is also not behind and is trying to get in. In the 58 member house, over the past years the role played by the MLA's and MP's has become decisive in the voting. MLA's want a different candidate and this could cause some troubles amongst the ruling group.

Many of you might ask what does a mayor do for the city? A Simple answer for the next six months from tomorrow he will spend time getting felicitated from various organizations and the next six months he will try and understand his work and by the time he understands it his term is over.

This is for all those who are away from Belgaum but yet want to see their local Gods they used to wish.

Click this link to see the Belgaum Gods collection of Photos.

All these photos are on the Facebook Fan Page and if you not on Facebook still you can sign up and join the AllAboutBelgaum Fan Page.
All images have been collected from various sources and will be added as and when new images come in. So you can bookmark that photo link.

Under the 100 crore plan Belgaum will get TWO subways for pedestrians and one indoor stadium. The plan has been sent for approval and once the same is approved the work will commence.

The two subways planned are at: DC office to court and another one at fish market to Anthony school. On the empty land of the corporation in Malmaruti an indoor stadium will be built.

Rs.75 lakhs each for the subway and Rs.5 crore is the cost estimated for the indoor stadium. The said project were finalized yesterday at a meet held in Bangalore by district minister Bsavraj Bommai.

Source: Pudhari

The 10 wards in which there is 24x7 water supply got a shock when they got the months water bill. For some it was even more than their electricity bill. The citizens of the 10 wards and the citizens' forum yesterday dashed to the office of Belgaum City Corporation and took corporation commissioner on the task.

The citizens said that this water tariff hike was unreasonable, unaffordable, illogical, unscientific, irrational, unethical and totally unjustifiable and demanded the corporation to withdraw this “unacceptable” rates and restore previous rates with immediate effect. No one will pay their bills until and unless the bills are revised to the earlier rates.

The existing tariff, where the minimum monthly charges was Rs. 83 for a usage of 15,000 litres and an additional Rs. 5.60/1,000 litres, the residents have to pay Rs. 48 for 8,000 litres and Rs. 104 for 15,000 litres a month. Similarly, for different slabs of usages, the corporation has increased price by Rs. 21 to Rs. 1,005 a month.

So earlier if you used to pay Rs.83 now you will land up paying Rs.104 for the 15,000 litres of water. Which is a 25% increase.

Many citizens urged that they do not need 24x7 water supply and they would be happy with the two hour water supply.

The commissioner said that he had no powers to reduce the tariff. The citizens plan an agitation against this in the future.  

A “Center of Excellence” was launched by IBM at the Gogte Institute of Technology to foster innovation.
A Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the college and IBM to give a concrete shape to the collaboration between the two institutions with the objective of imparting training to build skilled human resource base on leading software technologies.
Earlier, the IBM organized “Develothon 2010”, a IBM programme aimed at helping the software developer community in India develop skills in newer technology areas at GIT.
The company is organizing a 32-city road show and integrates with its developer works forum, known for extensive skill coverage and software evangelisation. During Develothon 2010, resource persons from IBM briefed the students and faculty about cloud computing and web 2.0, smarter planet.
Source: The Hindu

No Big Deal – NDTV Good Times Showtime: Thursdays 10 pm
This time Neha Dixit will be in Belgaum.
Join Neha Dixit on her travels around India, as she attempts each destination in 3 days & 3 nights for just Rs 3000/. And this time around she’s going Green.
 
Tree houses, camping in the wild, taking eco-friendly transport, sticking with organic foods – Neha brings you the best green holidays with hardly any money in her pocket. And since she’s keeping to the Green Theme, watch out for eco–tourism and great green vacations ideas like never before.
So pack a recyclable, bio degradable bag and get ready to go green in style. It’s the way to be and it’s No Big Deal!
See the preview video here
 The preview video has ads.

Prof. B.R. Ananthan, Member-Secretary, Karnataka State Higher Education Board, has been appointed as the special officer of newly-created Belgaum University. Prof. Ananthan had retired after serving as the Head of the Department of Commerce in the University of Mysore and had been appointed to the newly-formed Higher Education Board.
Having been appointed as the special officer, it is said that it paves the way to his appointment as the Vice-Chancellor of the University.
Prof. B.R. Ananthan
Date of Birth : 02.05.1948
Education Qualification : M Com, PhD.

The Reserve Bank of India released its ‘Quarterly Statistics on Deposits and Credit of Scheduled september 2009. The publication contains data relating to deposits and credit of scheduled commercial banks including (RRBs) as on September 2009.
 
In march 2008 Belgaum was on position 72 for deposits and 71 for credit.
March 2008 standings
Note: ‘Quarterly Statistics on Deposits and Credit of Scheduled Commercial Banks’ provides data on aggregate credit of scheduled commercial banks as on June, 2008. The data are based on Basic Statistical Return the branches of all scheduled commercial banks (including RRBs).
Source: RBI

Join Neha Dixit as she takes a budgeted holiday in an ECOnomical way in the new season of ‘No Big Deal’ on NDTV Good Times.
The award-winning series ‘No Big Deal!’ is launching its 3rd season. And this time around we’ll bring you the holiday you’ve been dreaming of in the most ECOnomical way.
Join host Neha Dixit on her travels in and around Belgaum, Karnataka …as she attempts to survive for 3 days & 3 nights in just Rs 3000/- …and this time around she’s ‘going green’.
Be it living in a tree house….window shopping in the cattle market….joining the Gavli’s -a local tribe from Karnataka during their festivities or learning all there is to know about insects – the show has it all! Neha brings you the best green holidays that the lack of money can buy!
Block your diaries for ‘No Big Deal’, this Thursday, March 25, 2010 at 10.00 pmwith a repeat telecast on the following Sunday at 12.30 pm only on NDTV Good Times.
About the Show:
After looking forward to your vacation for months, the last thing you want to do is to see how far you can stretch your budget. Now, leave these worries behind because NDTV's travel team will help you live the holiday of your lifestyle in the most economical way. Clearly for us its 'No Big Deal..!'
 You have seen us spend 3000 Rs in 3 days in India, now join us across the World!
Join our travel host every week as she survives the challenge of living in the most exotic destinations across the globe-- a 3 nights -3 day journey in just 300 Euros or dollars as the country's currency warrants.
So, leave your worries behind, pack you bags because we're going to stretch your pocket and take you on a holiday with the real deals from - where to stay, eat, shop, dance, party, and play.

This is yet another exclusive content by AAB (thanks Sahir).
The plan layout of Belgaum fort. I don't know whether the authorities here also have this one.
This was found in the book Military Reminiscences written by Col.James Welsh in the year 1830. Google had digitized this whole book and we are happy to share with you.

Many readers will think this blog is a history blog, but AAB promises to get All the important information about Belgaum, may it be part of history or present.
Google Book link

Source: Deccan Chronicle
Belgaum border row in some time will be an international issue, as mes leader Madhavrao Chavan will file a petition before the United Nation's Human Rights Commission (HRC) against, what he alleges, is the failure of the Karnataka government to protect the rights of Marathi's in the state.
 Article 27 of the special chapter of the International Civil and Political Rights Convention, 1966 of the UN speaks about giving due protection to religious, social and economic rights of linguistic minorities. Mr.Chavan has already confirmed with the external affair's ministry that people from India can file a petition individually before the HRC in such matters. This is last act as no other recourse as Marathi people who form 21 per cent of the population in Belgaum district have been subjected to various problems.
Marathi's have no freedom of expression, Marathi schools lack infrastructure and basic amenities. No official documents are published in Marathi although the constitution says that linguistic minorities should be given all official documents in their mother tongue.
 Other lawyers in the city find this approach to be a dressing and taking such issues internationally would create a divide between the two linguistic communities.

This bit of news has not been covered in the local Marathi Media as yet.

The projected population of Belgaum by the Zilla Parishad is 967566.