KSRTC special buses for Ugadi holidays

The Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) will operate an additional 350 extra buses from April 10 to April 13 during the Ugadi holidays.

KSRTC, in a release, said that special buses will be operated from the Kempegowda Bus Station to Dharmasthala, Kukke Subrahmanya, Shimoga, Hassan, Mangalore, Kundapur, Sringeri, Horanad, Davangere, Hubli, Dharwad, Belgaum, Bijapur, Gokarna, Sirsi, Karwar, Raichur, Gulbarga, Bellary, Koppal, Yadgir, Bidar, Tirupati.

Special buses from the Mysore Road bus terminal will be operated towards Mysore, Hunsur, Piriyapatna, Virajpet, Kushalanagar and Madikeri.

All special buses to Madurai, Kumbakonam, Trichy, Chennai, Coimbatore, Tirupati, Vijayawada, Hyderabad and other places in Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh will be operated from the Shanthinagar bus terminal.

Special buses will be operated from J.P. Nagar, Jayanagar 4th Block and 9th Block, Jalahalli Cross, Navarang Park (Rajajinagar), Malleswaram 18th Cross, Vijayanagar, Ganganagar, Banashankari, Yeshwanthapur and Kengeri Satellite Town to Shimoga, Davangere, Tirupati, Mangalore, Kundapur, Sringeri, Horanad, Kukke Subrahmanya, Dharmasthala and other places based on the traffic potential.

Passengers with advance reservation on special buses to Hubli, Dharwad, Belgaum, Bijapur, Gokarna, Sirsi, Karwar, Gulbarga, Bellary, Raichur, Hospet, Koppal, Yadgir and Bidar can board the buses at the Mysore Road bus terminal. 

more:http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/karnataka/ksrtc-special-buses-for-ugadi-holidays/article4598918.ece

Bidar math was facing financial crisis, says official

Three persons, including a teenager, immolated themselves inside the Sri Ganeshwar Avadhoot Maharaj Math at Chowli village in Bidar taluk of Karnataka in the early hours of Monday. The village is about 7 km from Bidar.

Jagannath Swami (30), Eera Reddy Swami (45) and Pranav Swami (16) are believed to have sat on a mound of firewood and set fire to it after dousing it with kerosene around 4.30 a.m., the police said.

They were all followers of Lingayat pontiff Sri Ganeshwar Avadhoot Maharaj, who died on February 28, allegedly after consuming poison.

Inmates of the math alerted the police about the fire. “Loud cries woke them up. They saw flames and alerted our constables. They called the New Town police station and the Fire Services personnel,” said a police officer, who was present at the math.

Firefighters arrived within minutes and struggled for nearly an hour to put out the blaze, he said. “We started removing the firewood and noticed the bodies. Only then did we know of the suicide,” he added.

While the reasons for the death of the 55-year-old pontiff remain a mystery, the three left a note stating their reasons for committing suicide.

In the two-page, partly printed and partly handwritten note, they stated: “Unable to bear the pain of separation” they were “going to meet their departed guru.”

They also stated that they have “no relatives, friends or foes in this world.” They said their “Guru’s spirit had instructed them to come to him through the route of Agni.”

A police van was stationed outside the math premises after the pontiff’s death and the police personnel were sleeping in the math’s community hall when the incident occurred, the police said.

“The Avadhoot had spoken of suicide before he actually ended his life on February 28. Some devotees told us that he had spoken of a mass suicide along with his devotees,” the police said.“The firewood was stocked for the mass feeding to be organised on the math’s annual fair scheduled for April 11,” Shantappa, a devotee from Bhalki said.

Aravind Patil, a devotee from Humnabad, said Jagannath Swami was the one who oversaw the math’s daily affairs. The police have registered a case of unnatural death. They had matched the handwriting of Jagannath Swami from the math’s account books and correspondence with the suicide note and are sure it was written by him.

‘Successive governments have failed to develop Bidar’

residents of the district will vote to ensure a place for their representatives in the State Assembly, and either continue with the leaders they feel appropriate, or replace them with new ones; however, they still hold a very pessimistic view on some issues which have plagued the district for the last 65 years.

Several studies have placed Bidar on the list of backward districts; the D.M. Nanjundappa panel for one, which identified four of the five taluks in the district as being backward. According to the human development index in Karnataka, Bidar is among the five least developed districts in the State; while the Union government’s Ministry of Minority Welfare put Bidar among the 100 least developed districts in India.

These studies have offered various reasons for the district’s backwardness: the first is livelihood.

Nine out of every 10 persons in the district depend on farming. Three-fourths of them work as agricultural labourers, as per a study of the labour force. “This should have been addressed by setting up agro-based industries and inviting manufacturing or service industries into the district. Successive governments have failed to do so. They have also never focussed on irrigation in the district,” said Ishwarappa Chakote, member of the Zilla Abhivruddhi Horata Samiti.

The second reason: non -remunerative farming practices, such as low acreage of cash crops or horticultural crops. The lack of proper irrigation facilities also adds to the woes of farmers. The existing projects can provide water only to around 7 per cent of the farmland in the district, according to officials in the Water Resource Department.

Irrigation woes

“The biggest let-down is the failure of governments to expand irrigation facilities,” says Veerabhushan Nandagave, Karnataka Rajya Raitha Sangha leader. “Bidar is situated in the Godavari basin, and was accorded 21 tmcft of Godavari water by the Bachawat report; however, successive governments have not even considered this. Some leaders say we will build barrages across the Karanja and Manjra to utilise the allocation, but we have not heard anything concrete from the State government,” he said.

Khaji Arshed Ali, former MLC and editor of Bidar Ki Awaaz says the immediate focus should be education and health. “Most development schemes are focussed on building physical infrastructure. Few seem to think about human resource development, which is sad. Development does not mean having better roads or bridges. It means easy access to healthcare and education and better-paying jobs. Governments should focus on increasing the fundamentals, like literacy rates and basic healthcare and increased admission in higher education courses,” he said.

“Tourism development is another neglected area. Three of our taluks, Bidar, Basavakalyan and Humnabad have heritage sites and can be developed if the government works towards increasing tourist activity. Little has been done on this front till now,” says Shailendra Kavadi, president of the NGO Parisara Vahini.