Ever since the Mysuru city police stepped up their drive against traffic offences by booking cases and penalising errant motorists, it was presumed that the fines collected during 2015 will surpass the Rs. 6.68-crore collected during 2014. A sum of Rs. 3.92 crore was collected in 2013.
While many traffic offenders, who had coughed up a penalty, even complained that the traffic police were penalising them to meet their annual targets in fine collection, some senior policemen told reporters on condition of anonymity that the city’s target for 2015 was Rs. 10 crore, which they admitted was unrealistic. But City Police Commissioner B. Dayananda sought to scotch the rumours by clarifying that there was no such target. Interestingly in Bengaluru, the traffic police for the first time in the State have started booking cases against pedestrians too for jaywalking. They have penalised more than 700 pedestrians for careless and wrongful crossing of roads on Hosur Road alone in the last two months.
No clarity on
farmers’ plight
Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and two Ministers made three different statements pertaining to farmers in Bidar in the Legislative Assembly recently. The question by MLC Raghunath Rao Malkapure about commercial banks filing criminal cases against defaulting farmers received different replies. This raises questions about how the State government gets its feedback from districts.
While Home Minister K.J. George said the police had been asked to file cases against banks that had registered criminal cases against defaulting farmers, Mr. Siddaramaiah said the banks were not wrong about initiating criminal procedure as some farmers had forged documents to seek loans.
Agriculture Minister Krishna Byre Gowda gave a general reply saying the government would protect the interest of farmers by supporting them with easy access to loans and farm inputs.
District-level officials said while Mr. George got his information from the district police office headed by the Superintendent of police, the CM got his reply prepared by the Deputy Commissioner’s office. Mr. Gowda was intimated by the Agriculture Department. Now, do separate departments give different feed back to the State government?
Filmy politics
There is an umbilical cord relation between cinema and politics. The Legislative Council is a testimony to this. Actors Tara, Jaimala, Jaggesh, and producers Sandesh Nagaraj and E. Krishnappa are now members of this “august” House. That is why, discussions take a filmy turn. When Ms. Tara demanded benefits for Hamalis working with Karnataka State Beverages Corporation, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah sought to know from when the actor started visiting the corporation in the midst of her busy shooting schedule.
Undeterred by the way Mr. Siddaramaiah tried to undermine her “concern” for Hamalis, the actor-turned-politician said, “I am acting only in selective films and focusing more on the problems being faced by people.”
Mr. Siddaramaiah then wanted to know how long she would continue to act in films. The debate took a cinematic drift with Congress MLCs V.S. Ugrappa and H.M. Revanna suggesting K.S. Eshwarappa (BJP) to produce a film for Ms. Tara.
Beaming a quirky smile, Mr. Eshwarappa said, “I am ready to produce a film, if the director is ready to cast me as the hero. But Mr. Ugrappa should essay the role of villain in that film.” If it were to be a mythological film, Go. Madhusudan (BJP) should be given Ghatotkacha’s role, Mr. Ugrappa suggested. The next question was what roles would Housing Minister M.H. Ambareesh and Ms. Jaimala play in that film? Making use of the opportunity, Mr. Eshwarappa said Mr. Ambareesh might be a hero. However, he turned out to be a villain for Mr. Siddaramaiah in recent days.
Without getting affected by the comment, Mr. Siddaramaiah asserted that Mr. Ambareesh is the real star even today and he was made Minister just because of his star status.
When Malimath smiled
Linguistic harmony between Kannada and Marathi-speaking people is not the same as it exists between politicians and the two linguistic communities of Belagavi, the centre of boundary dispute pursued by Maharashtra and pro-Maharashtra forces in Karnataka.
V.S. Malimath, Chairman of the Karnataka Border Protection Commission, seems to have belatedly understood this contrasting linguistic harmony, which he acknowledged with a silent smile during an interaction with presspersons here. When it was pointed out to him that none of the legislators and MPs from the district had bothered to attend a ‘meeting with prominent persons’ convened by the commission to elicit suggestions to protect State’s interest in the boundary dispute before the Supreme Court, he clarified that he had asked Deputy Commissioner N. Jayaram to invite all prominent members but the latter obliged by inviting them via media and not with due respect to legislators and MPs.
When asked if MLAs and MPs needed an “invitation” to play a responsible role and attend such a serious meeting, the chairman advised to pose the question to elected representatives. And as someone remarked that the Kannada MLAs and MPs enjoyed strong linguistic harmony with Marathi people (read voters) in Belagavi and therefore avoided the meeting to avoid harming it (as it could to disappoint their Marathi voters), Mr. Malimath simply smiled away.
Laiqh A. Khan,
Rishikesh Bahadur Desai,
Muralidhara Khajane, and
Vijaykumar Patil
