Udupi: Sri Krishna Leelotsava attracts thousands of devotees

Bengaluru, May 9: The bar owners in Karnataka, while welcoming the state government's decision to allow takeaway sales of liquor, said that the move is not going to benefit them much.

Venkatesh Babu, a Bengaluru-based bar owner said, "We welcome this move, our bar was closed for two months due to coronavirus crisis. We have been facing losses since then."

"The state government has told us to sell our stocks at maximum retail price (MRP). It is difficult for us to manage as the rent is high and we also have to pay salaries," he added.

The owner of Pingara Bar and Restaurant, Shivamogga said, "The government has said that is for parcel only and that too at MRP. There is no benefit to our business. We are only clearing the existing stock. They have given us time till May 17 and are not even giving us fresh stock. We are only allowed to sell what we have already."

Karnataka government in its Friday order allowed restaurants, pubs and bars to sell liquor at retail prices from May 9 till May 17, the day the third phase of lockdown is slated to end.

Earlier, the government had allowed the opening of liquor shops in order to mobilise revenue.

However, bars, pubs, restaurants were ordered to remain closed amid the COVID-19 lockdown.

Bengaluru, Jun 26: Karnataka's Commercial Taxes Department has sealed off an undeclared warehouse with imported goods worth Rs 4 crore in Bengaluru and found 60 GST registrations linked to a Chinese national from Wuhan.

The tax department officials found 25,446 China-made electronic and fast-moving consumer goods worth Rs 4 crore stored in the warehouse which was not declared to the tax authorities.

Commissioner of Commercial Taxes MS Srikar said in a statement that the officers noticed that one person from Wuhan City, China, got the premises in Bengaluru on lease.

They also found that about 60 registrations (both central and state jurisdictions) under the GST Act, in the name of a number of persons for online trading of imported China-made goods, had a single address which was vacant.

Most of the registrations were found irregular in the filing of returns and payment of tax. Majority of the firms either filed nil returns or were non-filers. The registration data showed that one business was registered in 2017-18, 43 in 2018-19, 14 in 2019-20 and two in 2020-21. Most of the 60 firms were private limited companies and 24 persons were interchangeably directors in 58 firms.

At the time of raid, neither the lessee, the Chinese national, nor any of the other 59 registered taxable persons were available at the business premises and no one came forward to participate in the proceedings in spite of providing sufficient time.

It is learnt that the Chinese national is operating the business from Wuhan City since January 2020 with the assistance of some of his agents/employees in Bengaluru.

It has also been learnt that multiple registrations are being taken for a better rating on e-commerce platforms, Srikar said.

The raids were led by Nitesh K Patil, Additional Commissioner, Enforcement, South Zone.
The Commercial Taxes Department is closely watching the genuineness of newly registered persons and conducting post-registration verification visits.

Any registration taken with mala fide intention of evading taxes will be dealt with seriously, the Commissioner said. 

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.