7.5 lakh Muslims, Christians converted to Hinduism in 10 years: Togadia

Abu Dhabi: Yogish Prabhu K is the newly elected president of Abu Dhabi’s prestigious India Social & Cultural Centre (ISC) and he will serve for the period 2020-2021. ISC’s annual general body meeting and Election for 2020 were held on Thursday, February 27 and the election results of the election were announced during the early hours of Friday, February 28th morning.

In the keenly contested election, Yogish Prabhu emerged victorious. Humble origin and hailing from a small town of Karkala from Udupi district of Karnataka state has never deterred him from setting challenging goals. He belongs to a well-known Gouda Saraswat Brahmin family of K.V.Prabhu Coconut oil mill in Karkala. He is the eldest son of Late Rtn. Krishna Prabhu and Rtn. Bharati Prabhu.  His father and grandfather were freedom fighters who left a profound impression on him and their ideology “serving people is like worshiping God” (Jana seveye Janardhana seve) inspired and guided his life ever since. Prabhu has been a privilege member of ISC since 2003 and has been actively involved in ISC activities throughout. His relationship with ISC spans over 2 decades during which he has immensely contributed in many ways to ISC and the Indian community at large. A banker by profession, Yogish Prabhu is currently working as Vice President, Group Finance & Treasury, First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB).

With some new initiatives in his mind, Prabhu wants to creatively improve the quality of ISC’s services, its humanitarian impact as well as the diversity of its membership. His intentions are always to help everyone irrespective of caste, creed, religion, language or status. As a new elected President of ISC, Prabhu’s main objective is to strategically plan and implement his vision through his ABC 5 Year Plan i.e.,

A-    Accountability & Transparency,

B-    Build a Sound Financial Plan and

C-    Compassion & Affection for the needy

so that ISC is recognized not just in UAE, but worldwide as a mascot of the great Indian community.

Prabhu thinks “as individuals, we can do only so much but with the support of Elected ISC Committee members and all the ISC members together, there is no limit to what we can achieve, and in the process, we can truly transform the ISC”. He proudly says, “I have a strong treasury management experience in ISC as well as in the bank which we need now more than ever”.

With his dynamic leadership, sheer dedication and ambition, ISC will definitely be scaling new heights of glory and prestige in Abu Dhabi and beyond. His humble nature, leadership qualities coupled with his rich administrative experience will surely help boost ISC’s popularity and meet its challenging goals and can serve people in a better way and contribute to the Indian community at large.

Yogish Prabhu has been married for 28years. His wife Chethana Prabhu Kasaragod too has been equally active in ISC and continuously supporting and participating in various sports, entertainment and literary committees throughout these years. She became ISC Women’s Forum Convener in 2016-2017. Their daughter, Aarti Prabhu is an IT Engineer from NITK Suratkal, working in Bangalore. Son, Ajith Prabhu finished his Masters in Mechanical Engineering and Management in Industrial Design in Queens University, Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK and at present doing his internship there. Both Aarti and Ajith are alumni of Abu Dhabi Indian School and both have represented National level CBSE Badminton meet. Also, Aarti was a Gold medalist in the school for scoring 100 in Mathematics in SSLC.

Following are few of his contributions and achievements:

•          Hon. Asst. Treasurer of ISC for consecutive years from 2005 till 2007

•          Hon. Treasurer of ISC in 2011.

•          Member of Finance Committee of ISC new infrastructure and premises from approval till completion.

•          In 2016, initiated the participation of ISC members as officials for International Yoga Day organized by Indian Embassy

•          In 2017, initiated the participation of children as officials to help the organizers so that children could learn their social responsibility and become good citizens.

•          In 2012, initiated ladies throw ball tournament in ISC and now it is extended to men too.

•          Member of IPEF since its inception in 2014. Also served as its Governing board member in the same year.

•          Founder member of ‘UAE GSB group’ since its formation in 2004

•          Committee member of ‘Gandhi Sahitya Vedi’ Abu Dhabi

•                    Treasurer of Abu Dhabi Karnataka Sangha

•          Head of Finance and member of other committees of ‘World Tulu Convention’ held in Dubai - 2018

Election was held for other Posts too. The other office bearers elected to the present committee are:

Vice-President: George Varghese.

General Secretary: Jojo J Ambooken

Asst.Gen.Secretary: C. George Varghese

Treasurer: Shijil Kumar N K

Entertainment Secretary: Jayapradeep K P

Literary Secretary: Elias Padavetty

Sports Secretary: Freddi J. Fernandes

Secretary Southern Region: Raja Srinivasa Rao Aita

Auditor: G.N.Sasikumar

Bengaluru, Mar 4: The Karnataka High Court has issued a notice to the state government in connection with the denial of retirement benefits to a retired deputy commissioner of commercial taxes who had fought against the illegal iron ore lobby.

Justice G Narendra also directed the state to respond to the notice before March 9, stating the reasons for withholding the officer’s retirement benefits.

Advocate Ramananda, appearing for the retired officer Josephat Andrews, explained that the single-judge bench also warned the government of stringent action.

Petitioner Josephat Andrews said his retirement benefits amounting to Rs 25.88 lakh were being withheld since 2014.

In 2009, Andrews detected a huge scam involving Vijaya Leasing, a company associated with former minister Gali Janardhan Reddy. Immediately he wrote to his higher officials explaining to them how the department was owed Rs 1,400 crore in taxes by the company. Immediately after that, Andrews was transferred to Bengaluru.

The media exposed the scam in 2012. Thereafter, to harass the officer, Andrews was served notice for allegedly not conducting an inspection of M/s Vijaya Leasing, which was controlled by the family of then tourism minister Gali Janardhana Reddy, on July 11, 2012.  He was discharged by a full departmental enquiry.

The petitioner was issued a second show cause notice on Jan 29, 2014 on the same charges. Before his retirement, he was docked two increments, denied promotional benefits and his pension was reduced without following due process.

He was served yet another notice with charges that he did not inspect goods vehicles, and an order was passed on April 30, 2019 reducing his pension by 5 per cent, an unprecedented punitive action.

This order was quashed by the Karnataka Administrative Tribunal (KAT), which also ordered payment of retirement benefits to Andrews within five months. However, the benefits were not released to him.  

“Rule 214 of the Karnataka Civil Services Rules (KCSR) make it clear that no enquiry can be held four years after an officer’s retirement.  Belying all statutory rules and precedents of the Supreme Court, Josephat Andrews’ retirement benefits were withheld for five years. Andrews therefore approached the High Court,” advocate Ramananda explained.

Josephat Andrews recalled to Deccan Chronicle that although mining activity was in full swing in 2008, the commercial tax department maintained that it had nothing to do with mining. “I travelled to Gujarat, Maharashtra and Bellary to investigate. I found tax evasion of thousands of crores. When I visited M/s the Vijaya Leasing facility – it was operating from an old oil mill premises–within 20 minutes I got calls from Ali, a person claiming to be the personal assistant of Gali Janardhan Reddy. He told me to get out of the premises as it belonged to his boss. Then calls came from minister Sreeramulu and MLA Nagendra. 

Within minutes 200-300 rowdies gathered around the building and my superior asked me to come back. Instead of filing a police complaint and forming a special team to deal with the situation, the department transferred me to Bengaluru,” he explained.

Talking about the High Court directive, Josephat Andrews said, “I have suffered a lot. Instead of getting a reward for increasing revenues by Rs 2,000 crore, I was punished.”