Sameer Siddique, Ratheesh Kumar and Aadil Bandukwala(Belgaum) flagged off their Tantalizing India trip today at 6pm from Bangalore.
The trio plan to cover pan India 16000 kms in 18 days thus breaking the previous record of 19 days plus.
The trio has got good corporate support for the trip and sponsors were present to flag them off.


The will now take this route
Bangalore (Karnataka) – Vellore – Chennai (Tamil Nadu) – Puducherry (Puducherry) – Madurai (Tamil Nadu) – Thiruvananthapuram – Kochi – Kozhikode (Kerala) – Mangalore – Karwar (Karnataka) – Panaji – Mapusa (Goa) – Belgaum (Karnataka) and plan to reach Belgaum in about 40 hours time.
They will face a lot of bad weather as they enter Kerala as the Met dept. has warned for heavy to very heavy showers in the next 48 hours in the Kerala, Konkan & Goa regions.

Noted English author Manohar Malgonkar ages 97 passed away yesterday at his bungalow named Burbusa in remote Jabalpet in Joida, Uttara Kannada district.
Born in a Royal family on July 12 ,1913. He graduated from Bombay University in English and Sanskrit. He served in the Maratha Light Infantry, in counter-intelligence, and on the Army's General Staff during the Second World War, rising to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. He later took to business and farming. He owned and operated manganese mines near Jagalbet.
Malgonkar has to his credit eight novels and nearly 50 stories. He has also been an acclaimed writer of non-fiction and history. For several years Manohar Malgonkar’s weekly column covering a wide range of topics featured in Indian newspapers including The Statesman and Deccan Herald.
He had a very good connection with Belgaum and often visited the city.
He wrote five English novels: Distant Drum (1960), Combat of Shadows (1962), The Princes (1963), A Bend in the Ganges (1964), and The Devil's Wind (1972). His works of history are Kanhoji Angrey (1959), Puars of Dewas Senior (1962), and Chhatrapatis of Kolhapur (1971). He wrote scripts for movies,short stories and many newspaper articles.

Belgaum needs new solutions. New ways of thinking. A proactive approach on the many challenges that the city faces in its drive to be a modern city on par with other cities in the world. Going by recent developments: the size of the city and its population of over 7 lacs; the fact that it will hold political relevance as the winter capital of the state; the funds being allocated to the city from centre sponsored schemes such as JnURM; the assurance of funds from the chief minister and the collections on the corporation taxes, the city is looking at a corpus of close to 800 crores, which would be invested in urban development in the near future.
A key area of focus that BelgaumNext will bring to fore would be on the issue of better infrastructure systems that will play a critical role in Belgaum’s development, since it constitutes the backbone, the nerves and arteries of the urban system. The planned infrastructure systems must ensure the adequate provision of water, energy and transport services, and the effective removal of waste water and solid wastes, so that we can have a healthy living environment. When we have good transportation systems, we will be less inclined to use our own vehicles. When we have better roads and connectivity, we will be more productive and also face less congestion and pollution. With a stable system of power and power generation, the dependency on utilizing fossil fuel generators would reduce. If homes and commercial zones are designed well, then there will be better utilization of available energy with a lighter footprint on the environment.
Belgaum’s sustainable development is not a one-time goal – it will be an ongoing process in which the harmony between society, economy and environment will be ensured at all times.
Unfortunately, the establishment has been equating so called development with superficial work such as maintenance of roads that at times do not need attention. There is a gross misuse of funds in the name of development. With BelgaumNext, we aim to build awareness and put the spotlight on such misappropriation of public money with an idea to and to initiate an open and frank two way discussion on the issues prevalent.
The Agenda
Our agenda is to ensure sustainable development. So what is sustainable development? The most popular definition of sustainable development could be described as ‘meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet theirs”. Though there are different views and interpretations, it could be loosely defined as an ideal system with a set of wishful characteristics. Our idea of sustainable development isn’t limited only to infrastructure. We plan to have initiatives across sectors such as Infrastructure, Education, Healthcare, Power & Utilities, Waste management and Environment. We aim to achieve our objectives by creating a participatory dialogue that includes people from across industry, government and the academia. The resulting directions would form the blueprint or the actionable paths to work on.

Rains have been welcomed by all farmers and citizens as well. But the rain also brought it with itself the problem of water logging in various areas.
Globe theater road was full of water, other low lying areas were also drowned in the first rains, tough no heavy damages were reported.
In the next few days similar rains are expected by the met dept.
Happy Rains and enjoy the monsoons.

Engine and four coaches of the Miraj-Hubli express derailed at Tavaragatti station on Hubli-Londa section on Tuesday in the wee hours of the morning.
No injuries were reported but due to this time table of trains was disrupted.
Following the derailment, Chennamma express from Dharawad and Kolhapur, Hubli-Bellary-Dharwad passenger and Londa-Hubli passenger trains have been cancelled.
In the wake of the incident, the Bangalore-Jodhpur express has been diverted via Gadag, Bijapur, Sholapur and Pune, Dadar-Yeshavantpur Chalukya express regulated at Belgaum railway station and Tirupati—Kholhaur Haripriya express at Hubli and Howrah-Amaravati express at Londa.

Year	Population
1820	7652
1852	13000
1866	16514
1868	24366
1872	26947
1881	32697

 The earliest record of Belgaum population is in 1820, when it had population of 7652people lodged in 1309 houses. One- third of these were Marathas, one-sixth Musalmdins mostly connected with religious establishments, one-sixth Lingayats, one-eighth Jains, one-ninth Brahmans chiefly
Deshasths and Karhades, and the rest artisans of various sorts.
The choice of Belgaum as the head-quarters of the Collectorate and as the chief military station in the Karnataka brought a large accession to the population, chiefly Marwadi traders, Madrasi Mhar
and Pendhari camp followers, and upper class Hindus in Government.
In 1852 the population of Belgaum including the village of Khasbag and probably Shahpur amounted to about 30,000 including between 13,000 to 14,000 who lived in the camp. In 1866 the town population numbered 16,514.
Increasing to 19,371 and to 24,366 in the next two years. In 1870 the opening of the Amboli pass and the direct communication with the port of Vengurla in Ratnagiri brought a further increase to the trade and population of the town.
The 1872 census showed a population of 26,947, of whom 19,384 were Hindus, 5517 Muslims, 1757 Christians, and 289 Others.
The 1881 census gave for the city a population of 23,115 and for the Cantonment of 9582, that is a total population of 32,697. Of these 22,939 were Hindus, 7136 Muslims, 2481 Christians, 53 Parsis and 88 Jews. This on 1725 square acres gives an average density of about nineteen to the square acre.
Belgaum does not appear to have been a large town either under the Houses, Musalmans (1350-1750) or under the Marathas (1750-181 8). In 1820 two years after its capture it had 1309 houses lodging about 7700 persons, and of these a good many must have been added in 1818 when about 300 houses in the fort were pulled down. In 1820 the houses which were thinly scattered are described as better than in most parts of India.
In 1872 Belgaum had 4388 houses, 827 of which were of the better. These lodged 26,947 persons or and 3561 of the poorer sort. Average of 6.14 persons to each house. Of late the town has spread towards the north-west and south-west and many houses have been built chiefly by husbandmen who hold land near the town. In 1881 the number of houses was increased to 7713. All the houses are tiled.

Source: Gazeetteer of Bombay Presidency (1884)

Various parts of the city have reported increased cases of people affected with Gastroenteritis.

Areas like Ganeshpur, Peeranwadi, Uchagon have been badly affected.
Yesterday about 85 people were admitted with Gastro from Ganeshpur.
People have been advised to drink only boiled and cooled water.
Gastroenteritis (also known as gastric flu, although unrelated to influenza) is inflammation of the gastrointestinal tract, involving both the stomach and the small intestine and resulting in acute diarrhea. It can be transferred by contact with contaminated food and water. The inflammation is caused most often by an infection from certain viruses or less often by bacteria, their toxins, parasites, or an adverse reaction to something in the diet or medication.

Sunday June 20, 2010 starting from Kittur Rani Chennamma circle at 8 am
Belgaumnext.com - City of Pride, an initiative by proactive Belgaumites, will host a marathon event on Sunday June 20, 2010 starting from Kittur Rani Chennamma circle to promote and create awareness of the forthcoming conference on sustainable development and next generation infrastructure systems for Belgaum in July.
The event will be attended by dignitaries, government officials, celebrities, industrialists, students & businessman from Belgaum.
The “Run for Belgaum's Development”, will benefit in bringing awareness regarding the issues taken up to ensure systematic & sustainable development of Belgaum city.
“The marathon event will lead to creation of awareness regarding various people to people initiatives taken up by Belgaumnext. The event will also promote public and multi party participation process in development and infrastructure activities taken up by Government and local bodies. The main objective is to create awareness in people and to get them involved in the decision making process so that they become proactive in the community and they city will lead to systematic development said Mr. Rajeev Topannavar, Director, Belgaumnext. “With the help of local administration & citizens of Belgaum, we anticipate enthusiastic participation, in large numbers, for the marathon.”
About Belgaumnext
“Belgaum Next” is a open platform for all Belgaumites desiring to witness, Belgaum prosper and develop in a sustainable & systematic environment. It is an effort to bring all citizens of Belgaum under one common roof in order to achieve enthusiastic people to people participation in upgrading the status of Belgaum.

AllAboutBelgaum.com is now on BGM's official website as important district websites.
http://belgaum.nic.in/distsites.html
AAB is the only private website to be listed on the important district websites page.
This is a great achievement for a small blog like AAB.
Thanks readers for making it upto here.

INOX Chandan opens today (Thrusday) evening
Todays Shows: Rajneeti at 5.45 pm, 6pm & 8.45 pm
Huu (kanada movie) 5.30 & 9.15 pm
Prince of Persia at 8.45pm.
Inox Chandan has three screens and capacity of 897 persons. Online ticket booking has not yet been activated.

Belgaum showed the way of voluntary subscriptions of road repairs in 1848
“The example of Belgaum thus followed in several towns and villages of the district. “ says the Thornton's Gazetteer, 66.
 In 1848 the leading men of Belgaum formed a committee and Roads, in four months by voluntary subscriptions repaired all the roads, and lanes of the town, extending to a length of between nine and ten miles. In reward for their public spirit Government granted the, people of Belgaum a sum of £600 (Rs. 6000) to improve the town. Still much remained to be done in windeninh the old roads and in making new roads until the municipality was established in 1852.
In 1853-54, £59(Rs.590) and during the next four years £40 to £50 (Rs. 400-500) were spent. In 1864-65 £242 (Rs. 2420) were, spent, and from 1865 to 1880, £253 (Rs. 2530) have been yearly spent on roads. There are at present fifty-seven sections of roads known by the names of the streets through which they pass. Most of these sections have been metaled within the last eight or ten years and a few of crumbled trap or murum are being gradually metalled. Every day all the municipal roads are cleaned by sweepers.
The sweepings consisting of grass rubbish dry leaves and decayed bones are gathered in dust-bins in different parts of the town, removed in carts, and thrown into a pit to the south of the town. The sweepings were at first used to fill old quarry holes and the low lying spaces in and near the town. When rotten and decayed the sweep ings are sold as manure. The leading streets are lighted with kerosene lamps, of which severity-one are kept alight at a yearly cost of £165 (Es. 1554). During the dry weather nine carts water the roads at a yearly cost of £65 (Rs. 650). The town is surrounded by a hedge chiefly of karvi or milk bush with openings for the roads. These openings are called gates or veses, and some of them roads and are said to have formerly been provided with gateways and gates which were closed at night. The chief gates are! The Patil, the Bogar and the Gondhalivada in the west; the Kangrali & Kakti.
The Bogarves was the largest gate, as Oaten, the term is still applied to any unusually broad passage. The other gates have been opened as the town limits ex;tended. Near the Kotval chavdi in Sherkhanvada are traces of a gate which must have led to the fort. At each of the present gates is a police post a small pretty building and a municipal toll bar. Besides the gates several small openings lead out of the town, where toll men are stationed.

Source: Gazetter of Bombay Presidency 1884.
Most of the thins mentioned in 1884 still are true even currently. If the people come together again and work together we could make a difference again.
“Belgaum Next” is a similar platform being built for citizens on the same grounds.

The Mahadev Temple next to the School of Culture is commonly called as “Biscuit Mahadev”.
But why this strange name? Looking for the answer----- Read it then
There was a bakery beside the temple, then a very small place of Mr. Jambotkar.
He used to daily keep biscuits made in his bakery infront of the lord, and hence the name, “Biscuit Mahadev”.




The temple has recently been renovated.
Photos: Santosh Purohit

3 Dudes. 18 days. 16,000 kms. A Ford Endeavor. And Indian to explore.
 Three friends – Aadil Bandukwala (Belgaum), Sameer Siddique & Ratheesh Kumar and intend to travel to each and every state in India including that particular state’s capital city in a Car covering a distance of more than 16000 kilometers in less than 18 Days beginning June 16^th 2010 from Bangalore.
 They will attempt this in a Ford Endeavor and their journey will originate and terminate at Bangalore. They intend to do this purely out of passion for travel.
The trio are big time travel aficionados and recently came to know that someone did this same feat in 19 days and 23 hours which was festered as a record by Limca Book of Records. They intend to crack shack this feat and will be striving to break this record in less than 18 days.
28 States and 5 Union Territories including the National Capital Territory of Delhi is what we intend to touch. A minimum distance of 16,000 km will be covered between the starting and finishing point – Bangalore.
 
The Trio says: -

• Whose idea was it and why? -
  We have done lots of road trips in the past and almost covered the entire country by road. However, when we were planning our next road trip we chanced upon a record from the Limca Book of Records for the longest and fastest to drive across india. No sooner we saw that, it gave us a rush of adrenalin. Since Sameer and Ratheesh both are Indian Nomads, in the sense since driving and traveling is in their veins, they knew that until and unless they do not give this a shot they would not rest. Then they met Aadil who's equally fanatic about travel and wala! They decided to overhaul this purely from a record breaking maneuver to a trip that explores the geographies of India. To add to that we also intend to taste, indulge in and blog about tantalizing food from all over the country. Thirdly, we plan to use social media as a tool to share and discuss our experiences online with the world. Fourthly, Bottom line - record or no record, we're into this for the kick of it. :)

• Motto behind it -
  When we started discussing this with our friends and family, the fact that the three of us intend to drive 24x7, 18 days on the trot for over 16000 kms, get into the not so peaceful corners of the country, most of them said we're out of our skulls, that we'd be smitten by worms, that we've got to be smoking pot. That in itself was inspiration for us. Every one used a common word - impossible. However, we strongly believe those who do the impossible are often unaware that what they did was impossible. Our motto is 'The Journey is the Reward'.

• Social Message -
  Do what you believe in. These days, its difficult for anyone irrespective of whether the individual is in the corporate world or a self employed entrepreneur or a freelancer or an academician - taking over 20 days off just for a trip that your heart beats for - is quite a feat. We've always followed what our hearts have longed for and have always believed in our abilities. The sense we make out of this is we never know what turn our life will take tomorrow, so while we're at it, make the most of it! We're dreamers and adore the fact that we do so.

The route:
Bangalore (Karnataka) – Vellore – Chennai (Tamil Nadu) – Puducherry (Puducherry) – Madurai (Tamil Nadu) – Thiruvananthapuram – Kochi – Kozhikode (Kerala) – Mangalore – Karwar (Karnataka) – Panaji – Mapusa (Goa) – Belgaum (Karnataka) – Satara – Pune – Mumbai – Palghar (Maharashtra) – Silvasa (Dadra, Nagar Haveli) – Daman Daman (Daman & Diu) – Bharuch – Vadodara – Gandhinagar – Godhra (Gujarat) – Indore – Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh) – Rajgarh – Kota – Jaipur – Bikaner – Ganganagar (Rajasthan) – Firozpur – Amritsar – Pathankote (Punjab) – Jammu – Udhampur – Srinagar – Kargil – Leh – Pang (Jammu & Kashmir) – Jispa – Manali – Bilaspur – Shimla (Himachal Pradesh) – Chandigarh (Punjab, Haryana & UT) – Nahan (Himachal Pradesh) – Dehradun (Uttarakhand) – Delhi (NCT) – Agra – Kanpur – Lucknow – Varanasi (Uttar Pradesh) – Patna – Khagaria – Purnia – (Bihar) – Dalkola – Siliguri – Jalpaiguri – Cooch Behar (West Bengal) – Goalpara – Guwahati – Dispur (Assam) – Shillong (Meghalaya) – Karimganj (Assam) – Agartala (Tripura) – Silchar (Assam) – Aizawl (Mizoram) – Imphal (Manipur) – Kohima – Dimapur (Nagaland) – Jorhat – North Lakhimpur (Assam) – Itanagar (Arunachal Pradesh) – Tezpur – Nalbari – Kachugaon (Assam) – Alipurduar – Madarihat – Mal Bazar – (West Bengal) – Gangtok (Sikkim) – Darjeeling – Malda – Baharampur – Calcutta – Kharagpur (West Bengal) – Baharagora – Jamshedpur – Ranchi – Chaibasa (Jharkhand) – Kendujhargarh – Bhubaneshwar – Sambalpur (Orissa) – Raipur (Chhattisgarh) – Nagpur / Chandrapur (Maharashtra) – Nizamabad – Hyderabad – Kurnool (Andhra Pradesh) – Anantapur – Bangalore (Karnataka).

While they are doing this monstrous drive, they do not intend to stop at cities and check into hotels. They would be driving 24 x 7. While 2 of them keep the car on the road, one of them will every now and then catch up with some sweet sleep.
Bottom line: 18 Days, 24 x 7 Driving, Over 16,000 kms, Tweeting, Blogging, Hogging and Discovering India.
And just when does this trailblazing extravaganza begin? 16th June 2010.

About the Trio:
Sameer Siddique

Sky Diver. Bungee Jumper. 21st Century Nomad. Globe Trotter. A few words that describe a box of adventure called Sameer. While most kids had aspirations to be doctors, engineers and scientists, Sameer very ripely expressed his desire to be a Truck Driver. Traveling is in Sameer’s blood. After having holidayed in UK, Germany, New Zealand, Azarbhaijan, Malaysia, Dubai, China and India, Sameer these days dreams of setting his footprint on the world map. As for work, Sameer is a Flight Attendant with a Leading International Airline Company.
Ratheesh Kumar
Born and brought up in God’s Own Country, Kerala, Ratheesh is as composed a man you will ever find. From Hotel Management Roles in one of India’s Largest Five Star Group’s to being a Swashbuckling Bar Tender at one of Bangalore’s hottest clubs, from freezing experiences in Leh to getting heat burns in Rajasthan, Ratheesh can never cease to surprise you. While not tripping, Ratheesh is employed with an International Airline.
Aadil Bandukwala
Aadil is the essence of overconfidence! Fast food and fast cars are his instant gratification. 27 years into life, Aadil is an entrepreneur running an executive search firm armed with a Doctorate Degree. He calls himself speculation, adventure and the spirit of pursuit. His wife though calls him an incorrigible nincompoop. While not head hunting, Aadil likes to spend time, googling around, exploring multi cultural cuisines, taking vacations now and then, riding his Royal Enfeild and killing time on his Mac.
http://tantalizingindia.com/
 One can follow their site with their Twiter updates as to where they are at that moment.
All the best to the Trio for the record breaking attempt.