Siddaramaiah gifts his wife Rs 1.08 lakh 'water-proof' saree

Bengaluru, Feb 15: The new Karnataka Minister for Forest Anand Singh on Friday said that he is ready for 'change in the portfolio' as opposition parties are leveling charges against Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa for appointing him, despite having 15 cases registered under Forest Act against him.

"If Chief Minister wants to change my portfolio, I am ready," he added.

Speaking to newsmen here, he said that there are 15 cases pending against him. The Legislator from Vijayanagara in Mine rich Ballari district said anyone can go through the Chargesheets and find out whether there are any direct charges against him. Claiming that the cases against him were 'minor violations', he had earlier linked them to traffic violations by a vehicle owner.

Bengaluru, May 17: Left to itself, Karnataka will look to spring back towards normalcy under Lockdown 4.0 as the state government is on standby to resume public transport services from May 18, if the Centre allows it. 

Though KSRTC and BMTC have been preparing for resumption of services, officials in the two corporations told DH that they cannot make a move till the government makes a decision.

Transport Commissioner N Shivakumar said the department will take a decision based on the state government's orders. "The government will take a call on buses as well as taxi and other transport services," he said.

Senior officials in the state government said Deputy Chief Minister and Transport Minister Laxman Savadi has written to Union Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari seeking a nod for resumption of the services. 

Transport Secretary Gaurav Gupta has written a separate letter to his counterpart in the Union government requesting permission to operate public transport. "The state government wants the services to open. The official has listed out the steps the corporations will take to ensure social distancing other steps that will be taken to check spread of Coronavirus," a source said.

The B S Yediyurappa administration has been bullish on easing lockdown restrictions. 

If the Centre empowers the states to define Lockdown 4.0, Karnataka is likely to do away with the red-orange-green zoning of districts and allow public services to resume, except in COVID-19 containment zones. The government is also likely to redefine its containment strategy by micromanaging localities where COVID-19 cases are reported, without letting life in an entire district get affected. 

The government has already shown willingness to allow hotels and gyms to open after May 17 subject to social distancing norms and restrictions. In fact, the government has proposed to allow the resumption of all economic activities in standalone establishments. The government, however, is not keen on opening malls, theatres, diners and establishments that have centralized air conditioning. 

“Everything depends on the Centre,” Deputy Chief Minister CN Ashwath Narayan said. “Our only stand is that the red zone should be treated at par with the other zone when it comes to relaxation.” 

Mangaluru, Feb 10: Sandeep Malani has been of lately winning back to back awards at various events and film festivals. Being an actor, he has won 3 Best Actor awards (2 for his gripping performance in the Kannada feature film, Mookavismitha, directed by Gurudutt Sreekanth and one award for his multi faceted performance in the short film, Nishyabda Nishi directed by his son Silver). These awards were honored at the Indian Cine Film Festival in Mumbai and Karunadu Kannada Rathna Award in Bengaluru.

He also won an award for his woman empowerment film, Sulige Sikkidaaga in Pune, while his musical documentary on Sridevi titled SrideviBaaz won him two awards at Pune and Kolhapur International film festivals. His other short film on transgender Mamta (Maternal Love) won the Audience Awards in USA.

Very recently he was honored by the Filmaholic Foundation in Bengaluru for being a successful short film maker with two Kannada films Jo Jo Laali and Sulige Sikkidaaga, both featuring award winning actress Kalpana Pandit, winning multiple awards and making news at International Film Festivals. This honor was given at the Karnataka Youth International Short Film Festival.

With donning so many feathers of awards in his hat, he recently bagged the most prestigious one; that being receiving the Award for Best Feature Film shot on Mobile for his film ‘Maa – Yeh CineMaa Hai’ shot on iPhone at the 1st ever IMFF India (International Mobile Film Festival India 2020) held at World Trade Center, Mumbai on 8th February.

With a whole lot short films in the category and barely few feature films in the Feature Film Category, Malani verged out to be the winner as his Hindi film was a complete family entertainer that of 5 songs, sentiment value, and a wholesome entertainer with 100 artists working in the film that consists of stage and television actors, newcomers, models and common people. The film starred Sandeep’s family members playing important roles. His mother, Meena Malani (playing the title role), wife Reshma Malani (playing one of the lead actress) and son Silver Malani (playing an important character). The cast includes Mahesh Dulam, Anita Dulam, Ranjeet Jha, Bharath Lakshmikanth, Mahendra Pandey, Vishal Digani, Akash Hora, Shuba Raksha, Sanjukta Ghosh, Sharanya Kaur, Varsha Acharya, Kkewal Sharma, Anant Joshi, Vivek Punjabi, Valerian Menezes, Nigel Pereira. Veteran actresses Sarojini Shetty, Deepali Khambadkone, Vinny Fernandes also features in the film while Kalpana Pandit, Sudha Chandran, Sonal Monteiro, Adaa Khan and others give a social message on mother, womanhood and empowerment.  The film has been jointly produced by RKJ Film Productions, The Studio Agency and Malani Talkies.