Byndoor, Jun 30: Byndoor, a growing town in the taluk, had long been deprived of a proper bus stnd. The long-felt need of the citizens of Byndoor and surrounding villages has at last been met, with the operationalising of a newly-built bus stand here.

Yadthare gram panchayat which administers Byndoor town, has built a spacious bus stand at Byndoor. A meeting attended by the bus owners, representatives of local people and Karnataka Rakshana Vedike as also government officials recently, agreed to utilize the services the bus stand properly. The Regional Transport Officer has, through an order, recognized this bus stand and asked all the buses plying on Byndoor route to enter the new bus stand without fail. The woes of the commuters here, who hitherto had to stand by the roadside without shelter and facilities, have ended.

Important persons who attended the meeting were Udupi zilla panchayat president Raju Poojary, Yadtare gram panchayat member Krishna Devadiga, Bus Owners' Association Kundapur regional unit president Sabladi Manjaiah Shetty, taluk panchayat member Bhasker Devadiga, KSRTC official Nagaraj Bhat, KSRTC depot manager Nanda Kumar, Rickshaw Owners Association president Suresh Bantwadi, Byndoor Railway Station Struggle Committee working president Venkatesh Kini, Byndoor police circle inspector Basheer Ahmed etc.

Mangalore, Jun 29: BJP once again proved that it has strong vote bank in coastal district by winning the lone MLC seat on Saturday June 28. The seat which was vacated by the demise of Blasius M D’Souza of Congress has now been snatched by BJP. Election for the same seat was held on Thursday June 26.

BJP's candidate Kota Srinivas Poojary who is also Udupi district BJP president won the seat by a thin margin of 293 votes over his rival candidate Nityanand Mundodi of Congress. Out of the 6026 votes, BJP managed to garner 3110 while Congress earned 2817 votes. A total of 99 votes were rejected.

JD (S), which has in the last few years had formed coalition governments with BJP and Congress, did play a decisive role in this election, sources said. Since JDS voters were asked to go as per their conscience, it was expected that they would vote for Congress.  But the results now clearly indicate that JD (S) voted BJP. Though BJP and JD (S) coalition does not exist at the state-level, it does exist in the Dakshina Kannada zilla panchayat and other local bodies.

Elsewhere in the state Sushil Namoshi of BJP won the election for the third consecutive time. BJP also pocketed one more when Mohan Limbekai defeated Congress leader H K Patil. However, JD (S) candidate Puttanna cantered to victory in Bangalore teachers' constituency defeating BJP candidate Neelaiah.

Halady, Jun 29: Unlike the congenital twins that have recently hit the headlines there are some other pairs of twins who have been separate, yet inseparable since birth. So, what is unique about them, you may wonder.

Five wonderful pairs of twins are reported from an interior village called ‘Moodu Haladi’, in Kundapur taluk. Normally twins are a common place.

But these pairs of twins who study in Moodu Haladi primary school are unique in that they are good not only at assisting their teachers in teaching, but also in detracting them. These cute pairs of twins named Sachin-Sanjana, Pramoda-Prasada, Vani-Veena, Kamalesh-Kamalaxi, Rakshitha-Ranjitha, and Pramoda-Prasada are known for their mischief and one cannot easily make out who is who.

Rakshitha-Ranjitha are intelligent and are appearing for the Navodaya examination. Vani-Veena are Dalits from a family of freed bonded laborers. These two girls would be an interesting study for psychiatrists wishing to examine the bioelectrical phenomenon in detail.

Kundapur, Jun 27: An ambitious project to build a mini Vidhana Soudha in Kundapur will soon be kicked off.

The project has received a grant of Rs 2 crore from the revenue department and the proposed site is the government land of 2-13 acre in front of the office of assistant commissioner. The Vidhana Soudha will have an area of about 15,000 sq ft  and will house all the government offices under a single roof, with priority being given to offices of the tahsildar, sub-registrar, and the treasury.

The detailed sketch of the building shows it will have three floors, the first of which will have an area of 610-80 sq ft. The plinth area of the entire building is 1491-92 sq ft. The existing taluk office is in a dilapidated condition and dates back to the colonial period.

MLA Haladi Srinivas Shetty has succeeded in obtaining the required approval from the state government. As the mini Vidhana Soudha is to accommodate the office of the assistant commissioner also, this will free up the existing building for administration department purposes.

He reiterated that the state government was committed to empowering the local governance with administrative powers that will help the villages achieve significant progress.  Dr Acharya said that the BJP-led government aimed to make optimum use of funds to achieve positive results in its five-year term.
 

Union minister of state for labour, Oscar Fernandes, was the chief guest. In his address, he said that of the 30 lac gram panchayat members in the country, women account for 10 lac which indicates significant participation of women in local governance.  Moreover, national growth would be assured if they get their due share of administrative powers.

Fernandes stressed that if people are involved in local administration, under panchayat raj, there would be all round progress. He called on the zilla panchayat administration to concentrate on reducing casualties from Chikungunya that has been rapidly spreading across the undivided Dakshina Kannada district.  He also assured financial assistance from the union government in combating the disease.
 
Kaup MLA Lalaji R Mendon, Karkala MLA Gopal Bhandary, Byndoor MLA Laxminarayan, MLC Pratapchandra Shetty, Moodbidri MLA Abhayachandra Jain, district-in-charge secretary Ramesh Jalake, Deputy Commissioner P Hemalata, zilla panchayat chief executive officer N S Prasanna Kumar, and zilla panchayat vice-president Sujata Vasudev, were also present.