Udupi judge’s daughter Meghana is 1st lady fighter pilot from South India

coastaldigest.com news network
June 17, 2018

Udupi, Jun 17: India’s coffee cradle Chikkamagaluru has given South India’s first ever woman fighter pilot. Meghana Shanbhag was the only woman among the 113 flight cadets who graduated as flying officers of the Indian Air Force at the combined graduation parade at Telangana’s Dundigal yesterday.

She has joined the club of five other women fighter pilots of the IAF, who hail from Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh.

Meghana was born in Chikkamagaluru in a family of lawyers. Her father M K Ramesh is a practising lawyer and mother S C Shobha serves as a judge in the district consumer forum in Udupi. She had her schooling at Little Rock Indian School, a boarding school at Brahmavar, Udupi. She did her BE in Information Science and Engineering at the Sri Jayachamarajendra College of Engineering, Mysuru in the 2011-15 batch.

After joining the flying branch of the Air Force Academy in January 2017, she was cleared for flying in the fighter stream in a trifurcation board in December 2017. She will be the sixth woman fighter pilot to be inducted into the IAF. The other five are north Indians. After her graduation in 2015, she did basic mountaineering course in Manali and trained in paragliding at Goa during 2016, before joining the Air Force.

A TV channel quoted the Meghana as saying that she got inspired to become a fighter pilot in June 2016 when she read the stories of Indian Air Force’s first fighter pilots Avani Chaturvedi, Bhawana Kanth and Mohana Singh.

Comments

Runa Mohammed
 - 
Monday, 18 Jun 2018

Congratulations on this achievement. This motivates girls  to take-up challenging assignments in Services.

Ibrahim
 - 
Sunday, 17 Jun 2018

Its a good sign that a woman choosing this field and achieving heights. 

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News Network
May 27,2020

Mangaluru, May 27: The Dakshina Kannada PU College Principals' Association on Wednesday appealed to the authorities to postpone the evaluation of PUC II answer scripts, as the Novel Coronavirus was still active and there was all possibility of the infection spreading.

Speaking to reporters here, Association President Umesh Karkera said, ''It is our duty to evaluate the answer scripts. But amid the fear of COVID-19 and lockdown, evaluators are not able to reach the valuation Centre to take up the work.

''The department of pre-university education has asked the Deputy Chief Examiners and the Assistant Examiners to reach the venue on May 27 and 29, respectively, to take up the evaluation work.

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coastaldigest.com web desk
June 9,2020

Kozhikode, Jun 9: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's daughter Veena T is all set to marry DYFI National President and CPM state committee member PA Muhammad Riyas on June 15. Interestingly, it's the second marriage for both. 

Veena, the elder daughter of Pinarayi Vijayan and Kamala Vijayan, is an IT entrepreneur based in Bengaluru.

According to sources, the marriage will be a simple function in Thiruvananthapuram where only close relatives will participate. The marriage registration has already been done. 

"It's only a private affair of two individuals," Riyas told media persons, reluctant to divulge more details. 

The 44-year-old Muhammad Riyas started his political career with the Students Federation of India (SFI) and climbed up the rungs through DYFI. He had unsuccessfully contested against UDF's M K Raghavan from Kozhikode parliament constituency in 2009. 

The son of retired IPS officer P M Abdul Khadar, Riyas is the familiar face of the left in primetime TV discussions, strongly articulating the CPM stance. 

A law graduate, he had begun at the grassroots level and gradually worked his way up the ladder. 

His marriage to Dr Sameeha Saithalavi, a former syndicate member of Calicut University, happened in 2002. The couple separated in 2015 and they have two sons aged 10 and 13. 

The 40-plus Veena is MD of the IT firm Exalogic Solutions since 2014. 

Prior to that, she was the CEO of RT Technosoft, a Thiruvananthapuram-based company owned by NRI industrialist Ravi Pillai. Before that, she had a six-year stint with Oracle. She has a son from her first marriage. 

"They both were divorced for more than five years. They knew each other and the marriage decision was taken by them only. It's completely a private affair," said a DYFI leader.

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News Network
March 27,2020

Thiruvanathapuram, Mar 27: The state is heading for its worst ever crisis with coronavirus cases increasing rapidly and Kasargod district the worst hit. On Friday alone 39 positive cases were reported in the state of which 34 are from Kasargod.

Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said the situation is grave and Kasargod has been the worst hit. More than the positive cases reported in the district, the worrying factor is that many people have come into contact with these positive cases.

The chief minister warned that the government will be forced to declare the names of the people who are defying the quarantine guidelines in the district. More people have been put under risk in the district and the district administration is much concerned since the results of 215 samples are yet to come.

There is no other way but to tighten the restrictions imposed in the district against the people coming out of their houses. The government has decided to provide more facilities to the hospitals in Kasargod and Kannur to meet an emergency.

The medical college hospital in Kannur will be converted into a coronavirus hospital with 200 bed strength. Steps have been taken to equip the medical college hospital with more facilities. The Central University at kasargood will be converted into as a temporary coronavirus treatment centre. 

The state has also requested permission from ICMR to begin the testing facility here, said the chief minister.

The total number of positive cases reported in the state have now become 176 of which 12 have been discharged after testing negative. At present 164 positive people are admitted in several hospitals of the state.

On Friday of the 39 positive cases, two are from Kannur and one each from Thrissur, Kollam and Kozhikode. With this all the districts in the state have been now affected with coronavirus.

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