Coffee King laid to rest in family estate

coastaldigest.com web desk
July 31, 2019

Mudigere, Jul 31: Café Coffee Day founder V G Siddhartha, who apparently committed suicide by jumping into the Netravati river near Mangaluru following harassment by I-T department, was on Wednesday cremated at his family’s coffee estate in Chatanahalli village.

His eldest son Amartya Hegde lit the funeral pyre after the last rites were performed in an atmosphere marked by quiet grief, as his mother Malavika Hegde and her father and former Chief Minister S M Krishna struggled with their emotions.

Earlier in the day, thousands of people paid their last respects to Siddhartha at Coffee Day Global Ltd, a firm owned by him in Chikkamagaluru town. Siddhartha’s biggest entrepreneurial innovation, CCD, had its roots in the coffee-growing hilly districts of Chikkamagaluru and Hassan where his father owned large estates.

It was in the early hours of Wednesday that the body of Siddhartha was found by a group of local fishermen in the Netravati river near Mangaluru. He had gone missing from the bridge on the river since Monday evening and an intensive, all-day search by a 300-strong team on Tuesday had failed to find the body. Three fishermen found the body floating near the Hoigebazar area where the river joins the Arabian sea, at 6.30 a.m. They brought it ashore and informed the police. The police have also recovered the mobile phone of Siddhartha.

Meanwhile, the police are continuing investigations into the circumstances that led to his death, with a letter purportedly written by him, blaming the Income Tax Department for his “succumbing to the situation.”

While the IT department has expressed doubts about his veracity of the letter, the police say that it would be treated as dying declaration, after checking its authenticity. Kamal Pant, Additional Director-General of Police (Law and Order), Karnataka, confirmed to The Hindu, “We have recovered the letter from his family members. We will take necessary action further.”

The board of Coffee Day Enterprises Ltd. (CDEL), that met on Wednesday, is also considering getting an independent forensic study of the letter. They need not wait for the police investigation to take up independent inquiry, said a source.

The day saw many politicians in the opposition camp, including former chief minister Siddaramaiah, saying that “harassment” by central agencies had pushed the entrepreneur to the brink.

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News Network
March 26,2020

New Delhi, Mar 26: While the humans are on lockdown and spending time with their families, animals are free and without any fear roaming around on the otherwise busy roads. From Malabar civets to large Indian bisons, animals are enjoying this time.

Indian Forest Officer Susanta Nanda recently shared a video with the caption, "Indian bison( the gaur) goes for a street walk. The largest extant Bovine, is native to South and Southeast Asia. It can be very aggressive. Rare to see in markets."

The 8-second video shows the large animal freely walking in the market area of Chikmagalur district, Karnataka, while the few onlookers on the road get aside and watch the Bison with utmost amazement.

The videos of animals having a gala time on the roads have become common. After the video was posted online, it became a hit. The clip garnered over 3.1k views and over 100 retweets.

Twitter is amazed at the video. Have a look at the comments.

One user wrote, "Oh! We should vacate this place for them. Guess humans have stayed for too long."

Another Twitter user wrote, "That’s one thing people would follow social distancing with!"

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News Network
February 24,2020

Bengaluru, Feb 24: Census authorities in Karnataka have requested deputy commissioners in the state’s districts to hold outreach and awareness campaigns about the National Population Register (NPR), as they fear misgivings about the exercise could hurt the forthcoming enumeration of population.

The house-listing phase of the Census and updating of NPR will be rolled out simultaneously by mid-April in the BJP-ruled state.

About 1,50,000 enumerators will handle the massive exercise.

Officials believe widespread awareness will help address concerns about the NPR data-gathering process and make people cooperate with enumerators when they visit houses for both NPR and census work.

“Sensing the kind of questions that enumerators may face when they do house visits, in all video conferences with deputy commissioners of districts, we have requested to establish contact with local representatives,” SB Vijay Kumar, director of Census Operations in Karnataka told news agency. “We have asked them to organise outreach programmes to ensure that people’s doubts are resolved before the information gathering work begins,” he added.

Census operations are handled by the Union home ministry. Several district officials are said to have raised concerns about the possibility of people refusing to share information when the work on the census and NPR begins in two months. This would affect the quality of the census work, making the exercise incomplete.

news channel earlier reported that people in parts of Karnataka had declined to share personal information with officials visiting households in connection with government programmes, suspecting them of gathering data for the yet-to-be unveiled National Register of Citizens, following enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) recently.

Kumar said district authorities will train and sensitise enumerators to tread carefully while gathering information. Enumerators will be told not to demand information but seek it gently.

“We will tell enumerators to proactively engage with people. For instance, if an old man in a village does not know his exact date or place of birth, the enumerator may engage in a conversation with the person that may elicit some anecdotes and roughly establish the year and the place of birth,” the census director said.

As of now, the NPR questionnaire has 21queries, but officials say it has not yet been finalised.

With most of the census and NPR data gathering and storage happening digitally this time, the challenge before census officials is to convince people that the data would remain safe.

“Individual data is sealed and all that we can see is collective data. The information is consolidated and tailor-made. We are telling district officials to create awareness about data safety as well,” Kumar said.

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coastaldigest.com news network
July 14,2020

Udupi, Jul 14: Kundapura police in Karnataka have booked a case against a businessman who had violated home quarantine rules as many as 163 times.

Accused Sahab Singh had arrived at his rented house at Koteshwara from Mumbai on June 29. He was asked to remain quarantined in his house till July 13. 

However, he was found loitering and visiting hotels in Udupi. Officials tracked his movement through mobile GPS. He breached the quarantine period 163 times. 

Following the violation, Flying Squad officer N G Bhat filed a complaint against Singh in Kundapura Police Station under IPC Sections 269, and 270.

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