Coastal Plus

A biography of former prime minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, who passed away on August 16, 2018, looks at the hardline roots behind his liberal image. Ullekh NP’s The Untold Vajpayee: Politician and Paradox, (published by Penguin Books India) which was released on December 25, 2016 to mark Vajpayee’s 92nd birthday, looks at his relationship with leaders of his party and his love–hate association...

Bengaluru: The union government of India has urged the Karnataka state government to set up a “detention centre” in Bengaluru exclusively for overstaying foreign nationals and illegal immigrants from other countries. The Union Home Ministry wrote a letter last week to the Principal Secretary of the State Home Department, directing to take up measures to set up a detention centre in Bengaluru at...

Bidar, Jul 30: In the tiny hamlet of Murki in Karnataka’s Bidar district, inspector VB Yadwad surveyed a pile of bricks and stones in a ditch where he and other police officers had been attacked earlier this month while trying to save a group of five men on a road trip from a violent mob. "We tried hard to stop them," said Mr Yadwad, pointing to injuries on his back. "They wouldn't listen to...

Dentist-turned-politician Dr Y Bharath Shetty, who wrestled the Mangaluru City North constituency from Congress leader B A Mohiuddin Bava in 2018 Karnataka Assembly polls, feels that police should be given a free hand to keep a check on communal tensions in coastal Karnataka. The enthusiastic first time MLA, in a candid chat with coastaldigest.com, also elaborates his plan for the constituency...

It was a regular Zoology assignment in 2004 that triggered the sudden interest of then student Sammilan Shetty towards butterflies. Fourteen-years since, having quit his fulltime-lectureship post, this 32-year-old has been successfully running Karnataka’s first private butterfly park in coastal district of Dakshina Kannada since 2011. At the foothills of Western Ghats in Belvai village of...

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...

Mangaluru’s leading architect Dharmaraj, who recently came out in the open about his close association with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its political arm – the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in a candid chat with coastaldigest.com, says that he involved himself to in a campaign to create awareness and unity among people and defeat the “divisive politics” of the Congress. CD: You have...

Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, recently hit the campaign trail in different parts of Karnataka which will go to polls on May 12. Before boarding a Delhi-bound flight, the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir spent an hour at Mangaluru International Airport speaking to Mohammad Asif. He gave zero mark to Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government at...

Pegged at Rs 32 lakh, an innocent owl was on the verge of being a sacrificial object on-behest of a political aspirant, if not for the timely intervention by the Kollegal Regional Forest officer (RFO). In the last two-months, around Chamarajanagara district, the forest officials have booked seven cases of poaching and arrested at-least four-people in this connection. In their statement, the...

At the Mangaluru City Constituency, three-time Congress MLA U T Khader will be contesting once again for the Karnataka Assembly polls (May 12, 2018). This time, the Bharatiya Janatha Party has mobilized all its resources to this so called communally sensitive constituency to ensure the victory of its candidate Santosh Kumar Rai Boliyar, who was a Zilla Panchayat member. For two decades victory has...