After long wait, Archbishop tells CM not to come for Xmas party

Times news Network

Bangalore: Politicians religiously come late to functions, whether they are related to religion or not. Archbishop Bernard Moras, who had organised a Christmas get-together for important personalities of Bangalore on Friday, got tired of waiting for the chief minister and told his office that Kumaraswamy need not come.

The Christmas party was to start at 5 pm on Friday. After waiting for the CM, the Archbishop got it started around 5.30 pm, but still waited for him. The CM’s office told the Archbishop that Kumaraswamy was stuck in Sira, Tumkur district, and would join the party after landing at Jakkur by a helicopter. Political leaders, the Chief Justice, bureaucrats, the police commissioner and others were already there. Though the governor could not make it as he is in Hyderabad undergoing an eye surgery, he sent two representatives from Raj Bhavan with bouquets to greet the Archbishop.

But no such courtesies from the CM, and the wait continued. The CM’s office kept saying Kumaraswamy was coming by road and would reach the party around 8.30 pm. It was revised to 10.30 pm. By then, it was time for the Archbishop and other priests to leave the venue to attend to their prayers.

On Saturday morning, the Archbishop called the CM’s office at 8.30 am to check if the CM could come over for the occasion. The CM’s office confirmed he would be there at 9.30 am, and revised it to 10.30 am. Again, there was no sign of him till noon, the Archbishop’s office said.

Around 12.30 pm, a frustrated Archbishop started moving out his chambers, when a couple of policemen came running to inform him that the CM was on his way.

It was again the same story. When the Archbishop’s office checked with the CM’s staff, they said Kumaraswamy was attending some function at the Vidhana Soudha Banquet Hall and would be with the religious head in a little while.

The Archbishop, whose patience had already been tested to the limit, conveyed to the CM’s office that he need not come.

“The CM should not always look to capture votes, but also participate in social and cultural gettogethers. He has been late to arrive in virtually every function and he has never apologised. His father H D Deve Gowda too used to come late, but at least he used to apologise,’’ the Archbishop’s office said.

CM clarifies
Kumaraswamy said, “There was some communication gap and I will meet the Archbishop on Sunday morning.”

Of Late...

• Kumaraswamy was to inaugurate a water tank at Ramnagaram at 10.30 am last week. When he landed, it was 6.15 pm.
• For signing an MoU at Oracle for networking 100 polytechnics, he came so late that four corporate honchos finished speaking and then asked the audience to sing to pass time. He came two hours late.
• At the Rajyotsava function where top honchos like Infosys chief mentor N R Narayana Murthy, Biocon CMD Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, Toyota Kirloskar Motors chairman Vikram Kirloskar among others were present, the CM arrived late.

Techie Adhip’s kin in Bengal shocked by the murder

Times News Network

Kolkata: Relatives and neighbours of slain Bangalore-based IT employee Adhip Lahiri’s family in Salt Lake’s Laboni Abasan are shocked. To neighbours, the murder of the ‘amiable, polite and humble’ young man is unbelievable.

Adhip’s father Arun Chandra Lahiri flew to Bangalore on Friday on hearing of his son’s death. The rest of the family, including Adhip’s mother, brother Ayanand and an uncle left for Bangalore in the wee hours of Saturday.

Adhip’s father is a retired employee of an insurance company. He was also president of Laboni Abasik Samiti a few years ago. Adhip’s mother Aparna is an assistant headmistress at Dum Dum Motijheel Girls’ High School. Ayan is a second year mechanical engineering student at Jadavpur university.

Adhip’s aunt Sanjukta Maitra, who lives at Skyline Apartment near Bidhan Sishu Udyan, said Adhip was supposed to arrive in Kolkata on Sunday and fly to Germany on December 26 on an official assignment. “Adhip was a brilliant student. He passed out of IIT Kharagpur and first joined American Express. He did his MBA in New Delhi and got married in November 2000. We cannot even imagine that somebody could kill such a boy,” she said.

The relatives are clueless about the motive behind the murder. “We learnt that Adhip’s laptop as well as his cellphone was lost,” said Sanjukta. “We have heard that there was a deep injury mark on the right side of Adhip’s face,” said a relative.

Known persons may have killed engineer

Police Rule Out Murder-For-Gain Theory

Times News Network

Bangalore: The police suspect some known persons were involved in the murder of software engineer Adhip Lahiri, who was smothered between ITPB and his house on Airport Road on Thursday night.

The police had earlier said it could be murder for gain, but are now ruling it out. The crucial clue is that Adhip’s hands and feet were tied. If the attackers were interested only in money, they would not waste time finding a rope to bind his hands and feet which would take up precious time. The murderers had also placed the body beside the Mahadevapura tank and not thrown it into a ditch or into the tank, the police say.

They are also working on the theory that Adhip was smothered by some known persons at a place known to him, because there were no “major signs” of struggle, except a small injury on his head. Joint commissioner of police (crime) Gopal B Hosur said the victim was bound using cloth, ropes and adhesive tape. The cloth was part of an old dupatta used to clean his car, but the ropes and tapes were possibly carried by the attackers.

“The attackers, possibly three of them, could have stopped him, gained entry into the car and murdered him. The post-mortem report indicates death due to asphyxiation. It also states that there were signs of struggle as his shirt button was torn,’’ Hosur says.

The autopsy was conducted at the Bowring Hospital on Saturday morning. Details of the report were not available. The body was cremated at the Kalhalli crematorium in Cox Town.

Adhip’s wife Aparna, who works for TCS in the city, preferred not to speak to the media and refused to part with her husband’s photo, saying: “That will not be necessary.’’

Other family members, including her father Rear Admiral S S Mukherjee, were present at their residence behind Manipal Hospital.

BSNL broadband goes high speed, to offer 2mbps at Rs.250 a month

Times News Network & Agencies

New Delhi: State-run BSNL will invest up to Rs 2,000 crore to augment its broadband infrastructure in urban and rural areas to aggressively capture subscribers.

"We’ll invest Rs 1,200-1,500 crore for expanding our broadband network in urban areas, while about Rs 500 crore would be invested in rural areas,” BSNL CMD A K Sinha said here, adding that BSNL is already in the process of launching triple play services over broadband in Pune and subsequently in Chennai and Bangalore.

BSNL will provide broadband up to 2 mbps at Rs 250 a month. The speed has been increased eight times, whereas the download has been increased by 2.5 times at almost half the cost. Under the new plan, all the existing 8.2 lakh customers are also being upgraded for the speed up to 2 mbps, depending upon technical feasibility.

With 2007 being declared the Year of Broadband, BSNL will add the 5 million port capacity to existing network of 1 million ports. BSNL at present has a market share of 44% in this segment. BSNL also holds the prime position as the largest internet service provider of the country. More than 1,000 cities and towns and 20,000 villages will come under the broadband map. Nearly 10,000 exchanges in urban areas and 20,000 exchanges in rural areas would be broadband enabled.

The telecom major would start an online gaming service very shortly under two categories — standard and premium packages with monthly fixed charges of Rs 100 and Rs 200, respectively.

IT engineer robbed, killed

Body Found Off Mahadevapura Tank; Murder For Gain Suspected
23 Dec 2006, Times News Network

Bangalore: In yet another crime against IT professionals, a software engineer, Adhit Lahiri (32), was waylaid, abducted and smothered to death on Thursday night. His body was found at an isolated stretch near Mahadevapura tank in Bangalore’a eastern suburbs early on Friday.

The police said software engineer’s wife Aparna Lahiri (in her late twenties), who was waiting for her husband, started getting anxious when he did not return even by midnight. He normally came home around 10 or 10.30 pm.

Aparna rushed to the nearby Airport police station and lodged a complaint about her missing husband. She told the police that her husband was wearing a checked yellow shirt, a ‘sacred’ thread and red ‘sacred’ band around his wrist. Immediately, the police wireless sets started crackling across the city with the description of the missing man.

The police found the body dumped near Mahadevapura tank early on Friday. Adhit had been smothered — prevented from breathing by pressing a cloth or some other object against his mouth and nose. His hands and legs were bound and the police are wondering why the attackers went to such lengths, when they could have just dumped the body.

The police suspect that Adhit, who was commuting by car, may have been waylaid somewhere between ITPB and his house by at least three attackers. There was no sign of struggle at the spot. Initial suspicion was that it could be a murder for gain; Adhit’s car, ring, watch, cash and mobile phone have been robbed. After examination by sleuths and forensic experts, the body was taken to the Bowring Hospital mortuary. The post-mortem will be conducted on Saturday.

Additional commissioner of police Bipin Gopalkrishna, joint commissioner of police Gopal Hosur and deputy commissioner of police P Muniswamy visited the spot where the body was found.

Aparna has been inconsolable and her father, Rear Admiral S S Mukherjee, flew down in the evening to be with his daughter at their residence near Manipal Hospital.

Dental student glitters with seven medals

Swati Anand | Times News Network

Bangalore: When you ask Sharanya Ajit Kumar how she managed to get seven gold medals from the Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences (RGUHS), she smiles modestly. “I’ve always focussed on doing my best. Ranks and medals are just a byproduct,” she says.

By the looks of it, this student of Government Dental College (GDC) has quite a few ‘by-products’ to accommodate. She has been topping her college through the four years and secured first ranks in at least two subjects every year, making it a tally of 13. Sharanya has stood first on two occasions in RGUHS through the four years.

And while she dominated the awards ceremony at her college convocation on Wednesday, at the university convocation to be held in early 2007, she will walk away with medals for oral anatomy, oral pathology, dental materials, community dentistry and conservative dentistry, apart from overall merit for third and final year.

That’s not all. The Indian Association of Periodontics recently commemorated her at Pune for academic excellence in the subject.

“She’s been a firstranker all through school,” says her proud father Ajit Kumar, an ISRO employee. Sharanya graduated from Kendriya Vidyalaya, NAL, with an impressive score of 93 per cent.

Her mother, insurance agent Shakina, doesn’t recall a single day of prodding their daughter to study. “I think it was an inborn trait in her to be organised,” she says.

It’s this trait that has been Sharanya’s key to success. “I study bit by bit every day. So I’m never tensed or overworked when it’s exam time,” she says.

Focus is evidently another strong point. “I began weighing my career options seriously after my 10th and zeroed in on dentistry because I thought it was an upcoming field,” she says. So while she could opt for a medical seat with a CET rank of 1,100, she went ahead with dentistry. “At least half the people in my class are here because they did not get a medical seat. But the step-sisterly treatment towards BDS is changing.”

When not studying, Sharanya’s a regular mallrat, who loves watching movies. “I saw Umrao Jaan recently — it was so slow and weepy,” she frowns. A trained Bharatanatyam dancer, she’s been dabbling with salsa recently. At college, she was the cultural secretary and general secretary of the student body council. And she usually curls up in bed with a racy novel by John Grisham.

Next on cards is a post-graduate degree. “I would like to get into any government college, hopefully back to GDC.” And while she plans to work in a multi-speciality hospital and then, in a private clinic, she eventually wants to teach. “It would be great if I could be a faculty member in a dental college by the day and run my practise in the evening."

Land worth crores gobbled

S Kushala | Times News Network

Bangalore: It cannot be more timely. The ordinance bringing land grabbers and erring officials under the ambit of law has come at a time when government has identified thousands of acres of its land that has been encroached upon.

Sample this: Of the 1.18 lakh government lands in Bangalore Urban, 13,614 acres have been encroached upon. The value of these lands, taking into consideration the guidance value of stamps and registration department, has been estimated at Rs 27,377.75 crore.

The legislature committee for land encroachment survey has identified largescale encroachment of government lands under the purview of 15 departments. Departments occupying top slots are revenue, BDA, forest and wakf, says an interim report prepared by the committee, headed by MLA A T Ramaswamy, which will be released on Thursday.

According to the report, a copy of which has been made available to TOI, information on government lands was obtained from 28 departments and a survey done. Bangalore Urban deputy commissioner M A Sadiq carried out the exercise with 250 surveyors.

The revenue department tops in both murky deals and the quantum of land encroached upon. The committee found that over 3 lakh bogus possession certificates were issued to encroachers of government lands in connivance with revenue department officials.

Housing societies have played a major role too. A large number of societies violated all norms and went ahead with layout formation. Some of these are Shantinagar Housing Society, Vishwa Bharati Housebuilding Co-operative Society and Aircraft Employees Society.

The Pollution Control Board has also come under the scanner. It has been pulled up for renewing licences for stone-crushing units around TG Halli reservoir which has been declared environmentally sensitive. While the government has banned stone crushing activities around 1,493 sq km area of TG Halli, the authorities have still been renewing licences.

In a Nutshell:

• Since stringent action has been initiated in other states to prevent encroachment, land grabbers are migrating to Bangalore who find it easy to lay their hands on government properties.
• Prime temple properties are being grabbed; Muzrai and endowments department has not acted.
• 3.5 acres of NIMHANS property grabbed by a private developer who has constructed an apartment for which BMP has given khata

Top 3 departments:

• Revenue: 9,294 acres valued at Rs 18,588 crore
• BDA: 2,878.2 acres, Rs 5,236.25 crore
• Forest and lakes: 938.54 acres, at Rs 1,877.08 crore