If Barack Obama being nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize within a fortnight of taking office and eventually bagging it was a page straight out of Ripley‘s Believe it or Not, the Congress-led UPA government of Manmohan Singh has sprung an even bigger surprise by decorating Sri Balagangadharanath swamiji of the Adichunchunagiri Mutt with the nation’s third highest civilian award, the Padma Bhushan for “social service”.
While the swamiji‘s spiritual claims are relatively unknown, he has happily mixed religion with politics and business in his tenure. Once seen to be close to former prime minister H.D. Deve Gowda, the two had a much publicised fallout with the H.D. Kumaraswamy regime slapping a criminal case on the seer on charges of encroaching government land. Gowda later went to the extent of seeking to split the Vokkaliga community by patronising a rival seer and mutt.
In openly batting for his caste at most times, Balagangadharanath Swamiji has perhaps been no different from most other swamijis in the State, he has been upfront in trying to make political capital out of it. In the field of education, which is the mutt’s chief claim to fame, the swamiji has, at best, a patchy record. In healthcare, the Apollo Hospital run by the BGS group has played a less-than-honourable role in eyeing prime real estate. Etcetera.
Question: Does Balagangadharanath swamiji deserve the Padma Bhushan? Or not? Does it raise the value of the honour? Who do you think swung it for him? And should the Congress-led UPA have obliged?
churumuri 
PM shielded from being called Ba*tard or Bo*udi maga .
Konde Habba is effective.
Gowda now needs to discover the hindi word for Bharat Ratna.
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Which journalists got the Padma* awards this year?
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At this rate Gowda ji is in for the next big award. Shame
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After BJP came to power recommending religious heads for major awards is so rampant. BJS deserve nothing. All religious have lost the sanctity. They deserve nothing aspect removing them from the society.
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Democracy is 50:50 in India. 50% for people and 50 % for haves like BGS.
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Apart from honouring their flunkeys and political necessities, the govt. has honoured few truly deserving ones from various fields including medicine and music.
mikkavarella haaLaghOgli, svalpanaadru maryaade ide ee gouravagaLige, sadhya!
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Gowda will get “Worst aagi baydheero” AWARDu
Yeddi will get ” Worst aagi bayiskondiro” Awardu
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Nam KrishnegowDru, ade nam vidEshanga sachivaru idaaralla swaami cabinet alli, avru BGS avrige award koDi anta shiphaarassu koTTirtaare. Award BGS ge koTre politically influential Vokkaliga community (almost headed by BGS) Congress buTTige biddhang aaglilve?
Besides that, when Nehru and Indira Gandhi can give Bharat Ratna to themselves during their own rule, ‘Padma Bhushan’ is nothing.
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saar, naanu kooda kaavi batte haakkonDu shalyada keLage yedagaili bottle iTTkonDu, balagaili aasheervaada maaDtaa iddre, padmabhushaNa award siguttaa saar?
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BGS deserves it. I think at this rate Dirty is slated to get Bharath Rathna. unless he institutes a new award called B-M Shree and wins it for posterity. Dirty should also be gives Raitha Rathna, Riots Ratha, Ragi Rathna, Humbug Rathna, Humble Amblee Rathna, and so on.. His son Revu can be given Pork Rathna, Kamaran gets Grama Rathna, Village Marco Polo (Sonia might like this being Italian and all). Kamaran also gets Ramanagaram Rathna…
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Dirty should also be given Raitha Rathna, Riots Ratha, Ragi Rathna, Humbug Rathna, Humble Amblee Rathna, and so on.. His son Revu can be given Pork Rathna, Kamaran gets Grama Rathna, Village Marco Polo (Sonia might like this being Italian and all). Kamaran also gets Ramanagaram Rathna…
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At 90, R.K. Srikantan still gives a 3 hour carnatic music concert. Boys and girls a third of his age are given padmashree. Successive Governments are not even bothered to nominate his name . Shame on all the C.M.s and P.M. from Karnataka , thus far.
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Vishnuvardhan or the ashwaths do not get it (has the state government even recommended vishnu’s name as it had promised to). but saif ali khan gets one – jai ho!
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padama bhushan awardu ge duddu esthu koduthhare? athava bari shallya na
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Bala gangadhara swamy is building various villages at cost of 50 crores for flood hit north karnataka people.The money would have better spend on vokkaligas who atleast would remember him.
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Has any university awarded an honorary doctorate to BGS? If sanyaasa means not being of this world when being in it, why do so many swamys sport the prefix ” Dr.” to their names? There are few things more absurd than this practice.
What is meant by “patchy” and “less than honorable” in the article?
I am no admirer of any swamy, but BGS is a master administrator.
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Last year it was Akshya kumar and a bunch of other bollywood starts, this year it is aamir khan, saif ali khan etc getting padma awards….
What have these guys done to deserve these awards
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ಭಾಳಾ ಚೆನಾಗಿ ನಾಟಕಾ ಆಡೋ ಗೌಡರ ಕುಟು೦ಬಕ್ಕೆ “ಛದ್ಮ”ಭೂಸಣಾ ಕೊಟ್ ಬುಡ್ರೀ!!!!!
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I think here BGS is being given this award for his social work rather than in a religious capacity. At least BGS is involved in some social activities, however controversial they might seem. There are others who have not only been controversial but have done little to justify their awards compared to their peers in the same field.
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err_go:
The Karnataka government recommended R .K.S. for the Bharath Rathna last year.
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err_go,
Amen to that! RK Srikanthan not getting Padma Vibhushana…SLB not getting Jnanpeeth…it’s all the same. A big joke!
On the other hand, BGS getting Padma Bhushana, likes of URA and Karnad getting Jnanpeeth…bigger joke!
I am sure HDD is waiting to put us through the biggest joke of all, sometime soon!
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How did Adichunchanagiri MaTa and Anita Kumaraswamy manage to buy plots in Girinagar 4th Phase (which btw should be one of the biggest land scams in Bangalore) when housing society members (retired persons included) have been waiting for an allocation for the past 15 to 20 years!
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All these awards have become meaningless and stupid.
I dont think these awards carry any respect or meaning.
by the way is this saif khan son of ex cricketer pataudi and sharmila tagore?
If yes, this Saif guy was beaten up for eve-teasing and rash driving by students in my campus some years ago…. he has got an award….
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>>If yes, this Saif guy was beaten up for eve-teasing and rash driving by students in my campus some years ago…. he has got an award….>>
Dr. Reddy,
No Kidding, are you serious?
This guy is married twice and has 2 kids from his first marriage with amrita singh. He married a Italian Bimbo a second time and divorced her after some time. Right now he is on his way to get married a third time to Kareena Kapoor.
And here you are saying he is also doing some freelancing on the side on college campuses and getting beaten up in the process..LOL :)
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Why doesn’t anyone protest when Shivakumar Swamiji of Siddaganga Mutt gets similar awards. He did the same for the Lingayats. I remember Siddaganga Mutt organising conventions claiming Veerashaivism is a sperate religion all together. And this just for reservations.
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Shivakumar Swamiji = BGS?!?!?!?!
Talk about jokes….
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@nanu_nane
valid one there. basavanna’s ideology (religionless cosmic spirituality) is impossible to achieve in the racist costitution like ours ; even for LKG admissions we need to put our religion.
to take some examples of how things work on varna sankara
1. in most of nri schools the whites who are products of misadventures of indian capitalists are not supposed to be touched by indian teachers and maids.
2. in good goa beaches a brown or black is not allowed.
on the other hand
it is balanced by raping and even killing white girls by goan mixed race – now this again results aussies beating and killing indians in australia.
we can safely say that indians are becoming shanda . while they attack manly indians attack women; while again majority(50% are adolescents in India currently;while 25% more act like old adolescents molesting girls) would want to shag in 900 odd films of country also!!!
one of the major failures of karnataka is still clinging on to notion of india and abiding by it’s casteist constitution and reservations.
i would have been happy if siddaganga seer takes initiative to make karnataka a separate country instead of making more entries to manu’s list.
but regarding the article you completely missed the plot.the debate was on futility of prize and not prizeholder.
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What has Saif Ali Khan done anything at all to deserve any award for that matter. All he does is run around girls. Who really nominated him? Just can’t believe it. He himself must have been embarrassed to receive this award. He got the National Award of ‘Hum Tum’, (which was a very very ordinary film, which even our Rajesh Krishnan could have handled that role). His mother Sharmila Tagore was on the Censor board that year. No wonder he got the award. But ‘Padmashree’? Big joke!
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One has every right and reason to question the wisdom behind awarding Saif Ali Khan with Padma shri. While he has done some good cinema in Omkara, Being Cyrus, Parineeta and Eklavya, the rest of his body of work is quite pedestrian and well as some one put it mostly running around the trees or strutting around like a peacock on screen.
However it’s amusing to read the comments on his personal life. How does it matter? Are these awards for public or private morality? He is ostensibly given an award for his work in the field of cinema. Period. Shouldn’t the discussion be centered around his contribution in that filed alone? Why bring in his myriad escapades or serial marriages?
I would rather listen to Pt. Ravi Shankar’s sitar rather than thinking about his equally illustrious work of the stage in bedding numerous nubile and not so nubile belles. Does it in any way discount from his talent?
For that matter should RabindraNath Tagore’s liason with his sis-in-law cloud our reading of Geethanjali? I hope not. Or for that matter Guru Dutt’s private life? Shouldn’t his work in Pyasa, Kagaj ke phool etc be of prime importance than what he did with Vijaya or Waheeda Rehman?
In any case what’s current Indian Gold Standard for morality? Brahmacharya or Eka patni/pativrata?
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Is it Chadmaratna or only NIceratna…..weeping/sleeping ratna for DG.
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@Anshuman Patel
“However it’s amusing to read the comments on his personal life. How does it matter? ”
How does it matter if Ambani gives all money to his son telling workers built company all his life.
How does it matter if Nehru, Rajiv, Sonia, Rahul gets PMship and Gowda and sons CMship.
How does it matter if Infosys founders’ keep on sharing shares of company within themselves and their family while workforce after 2001 never got any share?
How does it matter if TATA is still a family matter being largest company of India.
How does it matter if Mittal or Lalu spend 10’s of crores for family marriages.
How does it matter if ND Tiwari sleeps with three.
How does it matter if Kumara has extra with Radhika. Even Bharatha (navella bharatheeyudu) – was born out of wedlock. Gowda may end up calling indians … magas :)
It’s really amusing to question anything personal;
it’s even more amusing to find what is “professional” in India where prositution is considered the oldest one and only profession!! :)
all your questions are i think not only are valid but decisive ; but it needs a lot to explore the truth. if you explore it
“In any case what’s current Indian Gold Standard for morality? Brahmacharya or Eka patni/pativrata?”
while some think the two options are valid other commenters in churumuri think it’s shagging on 900 odd films that sharmila tagore approves and saif dances.
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amirkhan,saif khan etc getting highest civilian honours is the testimony to the fact that india is fast becoming intellectually,morally bankrupt. BGS definitely has a better case than these bollywood thugs.
by giving award to PUTTARAJA GAWAI, some sanity,credibility has been restored to padma awards.
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@ Kavitha
here goes the raasaleele of saif ali khan The Pata(o)udi. padamshree awardee. bharata ratna would have been better.
That was 15/16years ago in my campus. he must have come couple of times to see a canadian NRI girl friend who had come to India to learn and experience ” true ” indian culture. He was warned to mind his driving and
behaviour many times. he did not bother. one night he was drunk and tried to drag another girl student towards his bike, though the girl was protesting. (this girl and NRI girl are different. ( he used to come in different vaahanas: jeep, bike etc).
Our desi boys and girls got very angry and they tried to tell him politely to stop, he did not listen and did not stop what he was doing. even security staff also warned him. he did not pay any attention. students told him to stop harassing that girl and apologise to her. he did n’t care and started abusing students. students bashed him up. he was shouting in his British English accent. desi boys got all the more angry. innu swalpa laatha bitthu.
ashte. then the police were called in. students refused to hand him over to our “super cops”, until he aplogised to the girl and to the students gathered. his bike and helmet were confiscated by the students. after fewdays bike was given back to him thru the police, but the helmet is still there in one of the hostel under the staircase.
NRI girl was disillusioned with india and went back to canada, without even completing her studies..
I wonder why Sharmila Tagore doesn’t feel ashamed of herself to nominate her own son to the award.
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@ Dr. Sree Reddy,
That’s a nice juicy story about Saif that you have narrated. Your attention to details even after a hiatus of 10-15 years is really commendable.
In any case Saif probably wouldn’t be reading this blog and hence wouldn’t be able to comment on this story nor will be able to defend himself. So your version shall reign supreme. Let it be and since I am not a bhai/lawyer/chamcha/friend of Saif I wouldn’t get into his defence. It doesn’t matter.
However I am concerned about a strand in your thought. It appears from your comments – Once fallen always a fallen ie Once a thief always a thief. There is no way one can redeem him/herself subsequently. Is that the thought process or am I mistaken? Again I don’t or intend to hold any candle for Saif but I would be glad to know your thoughts.
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@ anshuman patel
>”Let it be and since I am not a bhai/lawyer/chamcha/friend of Saif I >wouldn’t get into his defence. It doesn’t matter. However I am >concerned about a strand in your thought. It appears from your >comments – >There is no way one can redeem him/herself subsequently. Is that the >thought process or am I mistaken? Again I don’t or intend to hold any >candle for Saif but I would be glad to know your thoughts.”
what so juicy about it? u find it that way..it is your problem. i just narrated what happend on my campus.
and if you are not holding candle for him, why would you try to defend him”Once fallen always a fallen ie Once a thief always a thief.” etc. you want to say he is reformed person with high morals. why are you sympathising with him?
i got better things to do in life than cook up stories. why would u be so glad to know my thoughts?? am i honoured?
what is his public contribution?
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@ Dr. Sree Reddy,
Madam, chill madi!
I have no intention, capacity, passion or remuneration to defend Mr. Saif Ali Khan. I have written before that one can certainly question Padma being awarded to him.
My grouse is just limited to the following.
– How does his/her personal life matter? Should it matter?
– Even if let’s say one has committed a few mistakes in life, is he/she branded for life? Can’t they get up and turn over a new leaf? Is that impossible?
I was just interested in knowing your thoughts on it and that’s that.
But then on second thoughts I figured out..being inquisitive about your thoughts on this I am getting into your ‘personal’ realm and I have no business to do that!
So we shall call it quits here and keep looking at the world with our own set of lenses, shall we? Thanks.
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Anshuman Patel,
Next year lets hope the other Khan…Salman Khan gets nominated to a padma award..Yes the same salman khan who ran over beggars sleeping on mumbai sidewalk and killed them… the same salman khan who used to beat aishwarya rai (by her own admission)…and who was in jail….
I think he is sufficiently reformed now and is ready to be nominated for a padma award.
And in 2012 let us plan to nominate Sanju Baba for his exemplary service to India
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@ anshuman patel
ayithu. neeru kudukondubandhe. :) (chil agodu)
Personal is public and public is personal (Kate Millet said that I think)and how we draw lines depends on one’s value system.
His attitude towards women and no respect for human beings. Thats’s what I felt. There are many others who can vouch for what Saif had did on my campus.
anyway, a thief can be reformed depending on his/her own will and attitude.
Coming to awarding “prestigious”(prestige has already gone) awards to saif ali khan, salman khan, i feel sorry for the state affairs in our country.
what is there achievement?
sure, we look at the world with our own lenses and parameters of judgement.
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AP/SR
I believe UPA has created a record of sorts by nominating one Ghulam Mohammed Mir aka Mama Khan from Jammu Kashmir in this year’s Padma awards.
Ghulam Mohammed Mir is a J&K terrorist who had surrendered to the police and has been sufficiently reformed as per UPA to get a Padma award.
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