Two standout pieces of news from the papers today; stories that shine a light on the India id est Bharat.
Item #1: Pandit Basanna Konalli, a dalit boy hailing from Sarasamba village in Aland taluk of Gulbarga district, has overcome the early loss of his father, gut-wrenching poverty, and braved untouchability and other social hostilities, to bag seven—yes, seven—gold medals in MA (Kannada) in Gulbarga University. Basanna lost his father when he was in the seventh standard. The family neither owns land nor has a definite source of income. “We were required to make our living on my mother Seetamma‘s labour. My paternal uncle helped me a lot. But unfortunately he passed away a fortnight ago and is not here today to witness this glory,” said Basanna. He has bagged six gold medals for scoring the highest marks in MA (Kannada) and the seventh for scoring highest marks in MA Kannada linguistics/ comparative Dravidian linguistics. Basanna always had a fascination for Kannada language and literature. His intense love for the language has helped him get where he is today—and he now wants to complete his research and become a Kannada lecturer.
Item #2: Five of the 65 newly elected councillors of the Mysore City Corporation yesterday could not read the oath of office that was administered to them in Kannada. According to a report in Deccan Herald, Shakeel Ahmed of ward 38, M. Lakshmamma of ward 48, Syed Hasrathulla of ward 49, Ayaz Pasha of ward 54, and Sajidabi of ward 59, would not read the oath. “The election officer read it out for them and they reproduced it, and some of them found it difficult to do even that too,” reads the report. A report in The Hindu says that the regional commissioner announced that any councillor who could not read would receive help.
ref to item #2 : didn’t they try in urdu?
Vatal Nagraj disrupted the oath taking ceremony in the assembly when someone took the oath in English and in other case sanskrit. Lets see what his response will be now as the netas in this case didn’t know proper kannada. Is he afraid to take on members of certain community? We will find out soon.
Hats off to Basanna and a word of caution: stay away from mangalore university.
congratulations basanna avare. adbhuta saadhane. nammagella sphoorti taruvanta saadhane.
The tragedy of our system is many facilities are provided to students in the universities but they are not properly utilised. I don’t blame the entire student community. They are not being properly motivated , guided instead they are misused and exploited. Students will not be aware of the consequences till they come to the final term. In some cases marks are Given. If you just make survey regarding their reading habits the truth will come out. Majority of the students donot enter the university libraries. Xerox shops make roaring business. Many of them will not have seen syllabus. Yet they come out of the Universities with degrees. Go round any university campus…Rarest of the rare case Basanna…you deserve the appreciation and we congratulate you wholeheartedly.
Namma prathinidhigaLige odalu yaake barabeku…avaru elctionage ninthaage, votu haakidaage navenu avara aksharajnaanavannu keLiddeva, yengo aytu, irli biDi angeya vasi ajust maaDkobeku
The article says the corporators mentioned “would not” read the oath. So is there more than what meets the eye here?
Does it mean odalu baruvudilla or odalu bayasuvudilla?
It is the typical disdain by the mullah brigade to learn Kannada. Nothing new.
Do not blame the voters on this. My guess is that these worthies must have contested from a muslim majority area and got elected…where the lingua franca is urdu