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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coastaldigest.com web desk
January 27,2020

Mangaluru, Jan 27: No power can now stop Kashmiri Pandits from going back to Kashmir, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said on Monday, forcefully defending the NDA government’s decision to reorganise Jammu and Kashmir and abrogating its special status under Article 370.

Addressing a massive pro-CAA, NRC rally organised by the Bharatiya Janata Party at Gold Finch city, Kuloor, on the outskirts of the city, the Defence minister also sent a strong message to Pakistan and said India will not let anyone live in peace if it is harmed.

"We will not touch anyone, but if someone bothers us, then we are not going to let them live in peace," he said.

Referring to the exodus of a large number of Kashmiri Pandits from the Valley in the late 1990s at the height of militancy, Singh said no power now can stop them from returning to their homes.

On the Citizenship Amendment Act, the minister said it is not a law to hurt the sentiments of any religion but to give relief to victims of religious persecution.

Mahatma Gandhi had told Nehru to give citizenship to minorities like Hindus and Sikhs if they come to India and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has fulfilled that vision by bringing in the law, Singh said.

On several non-BJP states refusing to implement the CAA, the defence minister said it it is a central law and everyone should follow it.

Accusing the Congress of misleading people on the issue, he said the party should not forget its duty towards the nation just because it is in opposition.

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News Network
February 10,2020

Bengaluru, Feb 10: The Rashtriya Swyamsevak Sangh (RSS) on Sunday conducted a route march (Pathsanchalan) in Ramanagara to express solidarity with the anti-Christian forces protesting against a project to install 114-feet tall Jesus Christ statue atop Kapalabetta in Harobele town in Kanakapura taluk in Ramanagara district.

Hindutva ideologue Kalladka Prabhakara Bhat, who had led a rally in Kanakapura last month against the project, also led the Sunday’s route march and addressed a public meeting following the march.

“The district name is Ramanagara, but they have not nurtured the culture of Ram here. They have developed a strong culture of Ravana, which we pledged to dislodge,” Bhat told the gathering.

He said the Sangh Parivar will never allow the statue to come up as he said it would foment religious conversion that is rampant in Harobele.

“The so called Kapalabetta is of stones, which are revered as Lord Muneswara by the Hindus. This hillock must be named as Muneswara Betta,” he added.

Referring to the ongoing protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), Bhat said the law was brought in to protect the Hindu minority in Pakistan and Bangla Desh.

“The Muslims living in India hail Pakistan. But when we ask them to go to Pakistan, they will never go,” he took a jibe at the minority community.

Reacting to the RSS route march, senior Congress functionary DK Shivakunar, who represents Kanakapura assembly seat, said the Sangah Parivar is trying to disturb the communal harmony in the district and they will never succeed in it.

“The BJP is operating through the Sangh Parivar in the Ramanagara district. The party has won as may as 26 Lok Sabha seats in Karnataka, still they are doing all these things to keep their support base. People of Ramanagara will never back them,” said Shivakumar.

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coastaldigest.com news network
July 20,2020

Lucknow, Jul 20: Dr Azizuddin Sheikh, who was fighting COVID-19 as a front line worker, passed away after contracting coronavirus in Uttar Pradesh. He is survived by a wife and three small children. 

40-year-old Dr Azizuddin, who hailed from Rajasthan, was serving as a paediatrician at Avanti Bai Hospital and Duffein Hospital, Lucknow for past few years. He had also worked in the Middle Eastern countries. 

When a large number of doctors preferred to stay home following the covid-19 outbreak, Dr Azizudin was working 16 to 17 hours battling the pandemic. 

According to sources, he tested positive for the covid-19 last month. “After the reports came positive, he had to call the concerned authorities many times to take him to the hospital,” recalled his family members.

He was first admitted to Lok Bandhu Hospital and was later shifted to KGMU after his condition deteriorated. Later he was taken to SGPGIMS.
 
“Despite following all the guidelines and taking every precaution while treating coronavirus patients, he tested positive for the covid-19. It’s a shock for all of us,” he said.

He used to console his family members and instill confidence among them, said one of his relatives. 

A local newspaper quoted his friends as saying that he was very dedicated in serving people that he used to take minimal possible fees from his patients. When the family asked him to increase consultation fees his reply would be, “They are poor people, how will they afford”?

After his death, one of his patients Alok Singh wrote about an incident. “When I asked doctor Sahib why he charges so less, his answer was I have to answer Allah. The truth that he has left us will always be the reason for our grief.”

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