People in Deshnur (Bailhongal Taluk) village were stunned to see a low flying helicopter at about 75 meters with something hanging down moving around their village for many hours. It is nothing but the areal survey of Belgaum, Bagalkot and Bijapur districts for uranium deposits.
 In addition to the field survey that has been going on in Deshanur village, Bailhongal taluk, Belgaum district and the ongoing process to acquire land for uranium extraction in Gogi village, Shahapur taluk, Yadgir district.
In fact, the helicopter, which has been flying low over the city, had caused panic among the people as it is fitted with electromagnetic equipment and has a loop of 15 - metre radius dropped down by a 45-metre long cable.
 Atomic Minerals Directorate for Exploration and Research of the Department of Atomic Energy (AMDER) has been surveying the area with prior permission from the district authorities for a possible availability of uranium in this region.
Office of Department of Atomic Energy, Hyderabad, confirmed to the Belgaum district administration that the helicopter was engaged in geophysical surveys in parts of Belgaum, Bagalkot and Bijapur districts of Karnataka and parts of Kolhapur district of Maharashtra.
The chopper contains equipment like the Time Domain Electro- Magnetic sensor, Magnetometer and Gamma Ray spectrometer.
Other instruments housed inside the helicopter are computer-based data acquisition system and DGPS Navigation system.
The survey covers a large an area of 12,000 sq.km covering four districts.

Recently the NDTV Good Times Show "No Big Deal" showcased Belgaum in its show and here is the complete Video for all those who could not manage to see it.

See this link for Video

Thanks Vidhyadhar Nerurkar

Scenes of yesterday of the Belgaum city corporation bring great dis honor to democracy. The outgoing mayor and presiding officer rejected all other forms except of Mr.Nirwani on technical grounds of wrong address and incomplete forms of namely of six candidates –– Dhanraj Gavali, Latifkhan Pathan, Shanta Uppar, Sadiq Inamdar, Netaji Jadhav and Kiran Sayanak.

Latifkhan Pathan, backed by the councillors of Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti, raised a hue and cry in the House and rushed to the Mayor’s podium.
The new mayor who is a lawyer himself, Mr.Nirwani took his chair on his own and adjourned the meeting and hence the Dy. Mayor could not be elected.
All this was planned by the MLA's it is said.
Of the 58, 29 councillors belonged to the Kannada group, 28 to MES and one remained neutral, besides four MLAs -- Firoz Sait and Satish Jarkiholi (both Congress), Sanjay Patil and Abhay Patil (both BJP) and MP Suresh Angadi. The Kannada-speaking faction was supported by all four legislators cutting across party lines and hence their victory was sure. But the twist in the story was done by the king maker Sambhaji Patil who split from the Kannada faction 11 members made a breakaway group along with the Marathi speaking group.
This split within the ruling faction was known to the ruling group and hence the rejection of nomination was sought.
 40 members left for Bangalore yesterday 28 Marathi speaking along with 10 Kannada and Urdu group members along with Sambhaji Patil and Kamar to meet the governor. The group will also meet CM and ministers and also plan to meet the president of India and get the election of the Mayor canceled.
Why did this all happen and Biryani for Nirwani was fixed and all arrangements were made in that fashion and homework of the MLA's was perfect.
A couple of MLA's have shown very keen interest in implementing the 100 crore pacakage for the city as it was their fund only. The said package is approved by the Mayor and hence the MLA's took keen interest in getting their person on the mayors post, for what, we need not tell you readers are very learned, aren't you.
The 40 member team which has reached Bangalore consists of not only Marathi speaking members but 10 members from Kannada and Urdu faction as well. In a house of 58 + 5 elected representatives 40 members dont want this mayor, so now who is in a majority? The Mayor Nirwani or the 40 members.

Secnes seen today at the City corporation show that may it be Delhi or Galli elected representatives behavior is the same.
At the Mayor's election today after 6 nominations were rejected of the opposition Ruling party it was but final that Nirwani will be the Mayor. During all this huhalla in the hall the opposition came in to the well and tried to break the newly created bamboo barricade.
The newly elected mayor Nirwani was seen he himself going and getting seated on the mayors chair. There are Pattewalas and others who have to escort the newly elected Mayor to the chair but that did not happen and the Mr.Nirwani himself occupied the chair which also degrades the overall election procedure.
Once this happened the opposition members were fumed and could not control their anger and threw their footwear at the mayors chair. This was disgraceful to democracy but how can we blame them, they also follow what they see in Delhi and do it in “Galli”(locally).
The police arrangement for today was very very tight and special arrangements were made sighting trouble by the opposition. Some said that all this was a part of a pre cooked Biryani with the help of elected representatives who lately are taking more active part in the corporations affairs.

Here you might be a Kannadiga who will hail their victory or a pro Marathi but what is shameful is how these people act in the house.
In all the pre cooked Biryani was well cooked and served well with Mr.Nirwani.
All the best Mr.Nirwani hope there is some development of the city.

"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