There is a large volume of public opinion in Coorg in favour of its amalgamation with the Madras Presidency.
This small province is under the administration of the Government of India through the Mysore Resident who is also the Chief Commissioner of Coorg. In him are combined all the functions of a Local Government and a High Court. The Secretariat is at Bangalore where the Assistant Resident is styled Secretary to the Chief Commissioner of Coorg.
During the regime of Lord William Bentinck Coorg was transferred to the Government of the East India Company in accordance with the general wish of the inhabitants. “No people of India,” says Mr. W.W. Hunter, “have given more decisive proof of their loyalty to the British Crown.”
The “Garden of Eden” as His Excellency Lord Willingdon called it is a much-coveted place for the European planters who have made monumental profits in coffee plantations.
The native subjects appear to resent the undue domination of the European settlers over them and demand amalgamation with the Southern Presidency as the result of which they hope to enjoy the “blessings of Reform” and escape the evils of one-man-rule.
A rare opportunity has presented itself to the Government of India to apply the principle of self-determination to the inhabitants of Coorg and grant the prayer by sanctioning the amalgamation as prayer for.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> A Hundred Years Ago – Archives (April 20th, 1920) / April 30th, 2020
As hundreds of plantation workers are stranded in Kodagu and bearing the brunt of lockdown, the district administration has placed boxes in five prominent places in the district requesting the donors to contribute rice, lentils and other items that have a long shelf life.
The initiative, titled “Hasida Hottege Tanivu Pettige,” is directed towards providing foodgrain to the distressed labourers’ families. Under the scheme, boxes have been placed in an old private bus stand in Madikeri, private bus stand in Kushalnagar, private bus stand in Somwarpet, near clock tower in Virajpet and bus stand in Gonikoppa.
Workers, in thousands, from other districts and states work in coffee plantations in Kodagu. They are now stuck in the district and are not able to return to their native places.
They do not have any work and are currently living in the line houses of the plantations.
As these families do not have any ration cards, they cannot get foodgrain distributed by the government through fair price shops. It has become a challenge for the district administration to provide food and other facilities to these labourers.
The condition of labourers living in hilly areas of the district has worsened as the supply of rice, sugar, edible oil, onion and spices is hit.
The people, who purchase grains on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, have been requested to contribute a share in these boxes, towards the less privileged.
The district administration has now been registering the names of volunteers to distribute the collected grains to the needy.
Deputy Commissioner Annies Kanmani Joy said that 2,500 workers had been identified in the district, to whom the food items collected will be distributed. This apart, food kits are being provided through the ITDP department, she added.
source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> State> Karnataka Politics / by DHNS / March 30th, 2020
Farmers hold on to stocks due to great demand for high-quality Indian produce. Some farmers who had finished harvesting had sold in panic.
Pepper prices have turned buoyant again rising by as much as 15 per cent in India to Rs 325 per kg from Rs 285 earlier.
Rohan Colaco, a planter from Karnataka and a member of Karnataka Planters Association, said that pepper prices had been sliding prior to the lockdown. The spice was trading at around Rs 285 a kg and was expected to go down to Rs 260.
Some farmers who had finished harvesting had sold in panic. Also there was unripe pepper wine harvest and selling this year. After the lockdown, the prices opened at Rs 305.
“It is expected that there will be no inward movement of pepper through international borders. There is also good demand for high quality Indian pepper. Many farmers are keeping stocks to sell after the monsoons as winter demand will start strengthening. These reasons are pushing pepper prices up,” said Colaco.
He added that the spice had hit a high of Rs 330 about a year back. He believes pepper may approach this price as there already exists a huge stock of imported pepper.
source: http://www.business-standard.com / Business Standard / Home> Markets> Commodities / by T E Narasimhan / April 27th, 2020
The participants of the training programme were given certification from the police and winners in the shooting event were presented prizes. Women take part in a gun training event in Gonikoppal. (Photo | EPS)
Madikeri :
Every morning for the past five days, a handful of women from South Kodagu had set aside their usual kitchenware in favour of licenced firearms with the aim of becoming expert shooters.
In a land where owning a gun is part of the tradition, taking a break from their daily routine to learn the use of firearms is a small price to pay. It also gives women good self-defence capabilities.
The women who underwent the training needed no coaxing. Proudly dressed in all whites and wearing sneakers, they used to rush to the Cauvery College Grounds in Gonikoppal where they learned to load guns, aim and fire at targets.
The shooting training was organised by the Gonikoppal police and over 60 residents from across South Kodagu took part in the programme. Among the trainees were eight women who have become amateur shooters after the training.
“Gun is worshipped in Kodava culture and it is a cliché to say that shooting is in the blood of Kodavas. However, the men are usually trained in this skill and it is only recently that girls are being trained in this tradition. Nevertheless, when opportunity knocks on the door, you don’t deny it,” said Bharati Bopanna, a resident of Ponnampet, who attended the training programme and won the third place in the shooting competition.
When Bharati heard that the police are training residents in shooting, she registered herself for the programme. “Women, especially married ones, are not used to much physical exercise. And the training programme stressed on physical fitness.
Apart from that, during traditional festivals, women are given loaded guns to perform ritualistic shooting. While I had tried my hands on shooting, I never really knew to load the rifle. After this training, I need not depend on anyone to load a gun.”
The participants of the training programme were given certification from the police and winners in the shooting event were presented prizes.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Karnataka / by Express News Services / December 30th, 2020
The Karnataka district is a rich blend of history and hospitality
Coorg coffee is grown at a high altitude and under a well-defined two-tier mixed shade canopy / Picture: Karen Anand
I recently visited Coorg in southern India. And as my dear husband keeps saying, I immerse myself so wholeheartedly wherever I am that I invariably want to move there… or at the very least make plans to revisit very soon! Coorg is no exception.
About 250km from Bangalore, it’s an area with a sense of nobility and belonging, of dense forests, coffee plantations and some spectacular estates. The terrain is very, very different from the rest of south India. As you take the gentle climb from the plains to Coorg, or Kodagu as it is now known, you have beautiful mountainous rocks, areca palms that produce betel nut, palm trees and then paddy — it’s a really stunning scape that looks like a painting at every glance.
The capital of Madikeri or Mercara as it was called before, looks like a town like any other town in India, but as you dig a little deeper, visit the vast estates and eat with locals, you find a generosity of spirit, an unbelievably high education level (almost 100 per cent literacy) and a joy of preserving traditions… and that includes food.
Coffee and spices
Kodavas look physically very different to people from Karnataka and the neighbouring Tamil Nadu. They are traditionally warriors, hunters and now landowners. Their livelihood is mainly coffee and this area of just 5,000sq km is the largest coffee-producing area in India. History has it that there was a gentleman called Baba Budan who brought coffee beans to the Chandragiri Hills in Chikmagalur from Yemen in the 17th century. Then the British came in the 19th century and found that this was a crop that could be exploited since conditions for growing coffee were pretty perfect. That was the birth of widespread coffee plantations and coffee farming in this area.
Coorg coffee is grown at a high altitude and under a well-defined two-tier mixed shade canopy. Among the bigger evergreen trees are tall jackfruit, rosewood and wild fig trees which protect the coffee from seasonal variations in temperature and also enhance the soil by providing nutrients from deeper layers. The second layer is pepper, cardamom, cloves, orange and banana. It also protects the coffee from the harsh rays of the sun in summer. Conditions are similar in Colombia and Kenya, considered the best coffee-producing regions in the world.
Coorg is known for “spicy” food. There are lots of spices in their spice mixes — pepper, cardamom, cloves and the tiny bird’s eye chilli known as parangi. Spices are roasted and ground, which gives complexity and density of flavour to their dishes, both vegetarian and meat. Although Coorg is known for the famous pork dish, pandi curry, which is a specialty, there are a host of vegetable dishes that use local vegetables like bamboo shoot, wild mushrooms and a kind of red-leafed spinach, all quite delicious and different.
The method of most of their cooking is roasting and dry-grinding spice combinations, which are thrown into a pot of meat or vegetables with a little black vinegar from the kachampuli, a very sour mangosteen-like fruit which is dried till it’s black and from which an intensely sour vinegar is made. Rice is the staple grain and is eaten as is or made into dumplings with coconut and steamed (kadambuttu), rice rotis and rice cakes (paputtu).
Contrary to what I have up to now believed about food in five-star hotels, the cuisine at the rather magnificent and spanking new Coorg Wilderness Resort exceeded all my expectations. It was beautifully served and tasted like real home cooking. From painstakingly researched local recipes to produce wondrous Coorg lunches to the perfect Chicken 65 and velvety fish molee, chef Ranjan and his team nailed it every time. It poured while we were there but the resort itself is something quite fantastic in terms of space and facilities. So if you do want to experience the wilderness, want to have a memorable lunch set in the middle of a forest and come back from a plantation visit to the comfort of a heated bathroom floor and a glass of Paul John single malt, this is the destination for you.
Plantation life
A one-stop shop in Madikeri for all things Coorg is the utterly delightful AINMANE (www. ainmane.com). Thamoo Poovaiah and his partner Narendra Hebbar started the shop four years ago. They source local products like coffee and chocolate made from south Indian cacao beans. You’ll get a brilliant espresso here and have the opportunity to try many blends before you buy.
They produce and package pickles and squashes (passion fruit is a local delicacy), spices and the most extraordinary honey. The problem with Coorg coffee is that half the world’s great brands use Coorg beans in their roasts and blends. The Coorg plantation owners themselves seem content to sell their raw green Arabica and Robusta beans and leave it to others to create the magic, do the marketing and reap the benefits.
We went to Petu Kariappa’s enchanting 100-acre estate called Harangal in Madapur — by Coorg standards this is small. He is one of the few farmers who successfully grows the much-sought-after “diva” of coffee beans, Arabica. The beans are much more difficult to grow than the better yielding and bigger bushes of Robusta. Like many growers, he washes, removes the pulp and dries his beans and sells green coffee to bigger companies who then cure, roast and blend.
We also visited Sadat Sathak, the young man behind Old Kent Estates. One of India’s oldest coffee plantations, it was developed in the 1800s by lieutenant colonel W.R. Wright, an army officer in British India. After his death in 1898, the property remained with his family until 1964 when it was bought by its present owners. Sadat has studied abroad, speaks fluent Italian and has an MBA. It shows. He already successfully exports his beans to Italian coffee companies. The stunning little British-style bungalow has been restored and converted to a boutique hotel with spacious cottage accommodation (the bathrooms are large and built with skylights designed to allow you to have a private spa-like experience) and an English country garden.
We had lunch at the much-talked-about Evolve Back (aka Orange County Resort). It does all it promises in keeping with tradition and nature. And I must say for a 25-year-old property, it has sustained and still gives an excellent level of hospitality.
The rain unfortunately hampered our plans to see more but I will go back and so should you.
Karen Anand is a culinary consultant, food writer and entrepreneur. In recent times her name has been synonymous with farmers’ markets. Follow her on www.facebook.com/karenanand
source: http://www.telegraphindia.com / The Telegraph, online edition / Home> Travel / by Karen Anand / November 02nd, 2019
ndian star hockey player SV Sunil says he has gone through worse compared to the current situation of being locked-up with all the facilities available.
S V Sunil is well known for his speed and dribbling prowess on the hockey field. With the clock ticking fast and the score board favouring the ‘common invisible enemy’, he too agrees that countering the surging attack from coronavirus is way trickier than penetrating through the best rival defenders to score goals.
The 30-year-old forward, with 264 caps and 72 international goals, is looking at the positives to face the Covid-19 situation. Currently, the entire team is based out of Sports Authority of India (SAI) facility here with all the precautionary measures taken to ensure no outsider is allowed inside the campus and people working at the centre are being screened at the gate before entering.
Born to a humble family in Somvarpet of Kodagu district, the soft-spoken attacker is known as a fighter. With the words ‘Harder the battle, sweeter the victory’ inked on his bicep, Sunil says he has gone through worse compared to the current situation of being locked-up with all the facilities available.
“As athletes we have been through far more difficult challenges,” Sunil, who underwent two career threatening injuries in the prime of his career, tells DH. “I have had a few major injuries in my career as a player and during our recovery phase we are advised bed rest with absolutely no physical activity and this could last for weeks. I feel having been through such phases in life, sports people are better equipped mentally to deal with this kind of situation.”
The news of postponing the Tokyo Olympics broke out when the team was in the middle of a high-intensity training programme that started from the beginning of March. Sunil says the team has overcome the news that they won’t be boarding the flight to Tokyo this year. “Though we were initially disappointed, it is behind us now and we continue to be focused on our goal of winning an Olympic medal. While the hockey training is suspended, we are using this period to de-load and cool-off physically and mentally, as we spend more than 300 days a year in training and competition.”
However, the team is following a strict fitness regimen set by the coaching staff who have made significant changes in the schedule to ensure social distancing norms. “Each of us has been given independent workout charts which involves distance-running. We do individual bodyweight training in our rooms, using stretch chords and basic weights of our own and avoid using the gym. For meals in the canteen, we go in batches and sit far away from each other,” he said.
“They have also been assigned various tasks such as analysing different teams and their strategies by the coaching staff who are present in full strength. We use a software to do this and have individual video meetings with our chief coach,” he adds.
Staying away from family is not something new for the right-winger, who has had a stint as captain and vice-captain of the national team. “I decided to stay here although my wife and child live only 20 kms away from the SAI campus because it’s safe for all of us.”
source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> Sports> Other Sports / by Hita Prakash, DHNS, Bengaluru / April 25th, 2020
(from left) Sanchi Poovaya, Ranjana Nair and Aardra Kannan Ambili)
Mysore/Mysuru:
Unique among many medical solutions offered to combat COVID-19 is the new breathing monitor for Coronavirus patients developed by a Bengaluru-based start-up RayIoT and it is a matter of pride that a Kodagu-born and Mysuru-educated innovator is behind the device.
She is Ammanichanda Sanchi Poovaya, a young but experienced engineer, innovator and entrepreneur. She co-founded healthcare start-up RayIoT Solutions Inc. and is the Chief Operating Officer of the start-up that has already made a mark in innovative healthcare products.
Her start-up creates innovative healthcare and baby-tech products using Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Internet-of-Things (IoT) technologies. Very recently, Sanchi Poovaya and her other two co-founders Aardra Kannan Ambili (Chief Technology Officer) and Ranjana Nair (Co-founder and CEO) built a remote respiration monitoring system for COVID-19 patients that allows doctors to remotely monitor less critical patients while seriously ill ones get more attention.
Connected workflow sends alerts to the doctor in case of any abnormal variations in the patient’s vitals. With the high effectiveness of using respiration rate as a predictive vital, early detection especially among at-risk caregivers is a possibility.
“It is a non-contact, Wi-Fi enabled, affordable respiration rate monitor for Coronavirus patients that can run as mini ICU units. In its current form, RayIoT will work as a mini ICU monitoring unit. The algorithms of Artificial Intelligence will allow doctors and other health professionals to track the respiration rate of multiple patients through an app from anywhere in the world,” Sanchi Poovaya said.
In a pandemic like COVID-19 where doctors are falling ill with excessive patient inflow, and the management of quarantined patients have become difficult, the device wirelessly tracks patient’s respiration rate, heart rate, blood pressure and temperature.
Since all the devices can be connected to one central database, using RayIoT, healthcare professionals can monitor more than one lakh patients at a time continuously. By just tracking respiration rate, they will be able to intelligently categorise quarantined patients into mild, severe, and critical cases, she said.
“The idea of a remote respiration monitoring system came to us when a celebrity, who was converting his 14-room sprawling bungalow into a quarantine facility, reached out to us. His problem was remote access to doctors, nurses and medical equipment to fully equip his quarantine facility.”
The team had to come up with a low-cost solution that could monitor the vitals of hundreds of patients at any given point of time and connect to doctors through video when the patients are moving into a severe or critical stage. “The solution also helped Government Task Forces who are monitoring huge swathes of population by providing them a single source of truth with our quarantine database,” Sanchi reveals.
RayIoT has been created by same team that is behind Raybaby (the world’s first non-contact sleep and breathing monitor for babies. This product has won many awards and was mentioned in CNN as one of the must have home gadgets.
Ammanichanda Sanchi Poovaya completed her schooling at Good Shepherd, Ammathi in Kodagu, and JSS Public School, Mysuru. She completed her Mechanical Engineering at the National Institute of Engineering (NIE), Mysuru and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Cornell University, New York.
Sanchi Poovaya is the daughter of Ammanichanda Sunil Poovaya (ex-Merchant Navy) and Shiela Poovaya (Pattada, Betoli). They live in Hosur, Bengaluru.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Covid News / April 26th, 2020
In order to solve people’s problems in an effective way, the district administration will conduct live phone-in programmes between April 24 and May 11 from 3 pm to 4 pm, stated a press release.
The people may call DC’s office control number 1077 and convey there issue on the specified topics.
The topic for the phone-in programme is as follows:
April 24 – Health and Family Welfare, April 27 – Food and Civil Supplies, April 29 – Rural Development and Panchayat Raj, May 2 – Agriculture and Horticulture, May 4 – Urban Local Bodies, May 6 – Specially-abled and senior citizens and Women and Child Welfare, May 8 – Social welfare and ITDP and May 11 – Forest department.
Officials from the respective departments will respond to the issues.
source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> State> Mangaluru / by DHNS, Madikeri / April 27th, 2020
T P Shivaiah, who was serving as Deputy Conservator of Forests of Madikeri Wildlife Division, passed away on Friday. He was 59.
He had suffered a heart attack on April 19 and was admitted to a hospital in Mysuru. However, he did not respond to the treatment and breathed his last on Friday morning.
The final rites were performed with state honours at his native place in Bidalli village in Somvarpet taluk on Friday evening.
Deputy Commissioner Annies Kanmani Joy, CCF Hirelal, DCF Prabhakaran, Nagarahole DCF Mahesh Kumar, Virajpet DCF Shivashankar and other paid their respects to the departed soul.
Shivaiah is survived by wife, a son and a daughter. Both of his children could not take part in the last rites as son is based in USA and daughter in Australia.
source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> State> Mangaluru / by DHNS, Somwarpet / April 24th, 2020
Dr Keekanamada Preethi at her house with husband Subramani. DH Photo
The citizens of USA have offered a hearty felicitation to Dr Keekanamada Preethi, a Kannadiga doctor of Kodagu origin, who is treating Covid-19 patients, as a gesture of thanksgiving for her dedicated service.
Recently, Dr Uma Madhusudan, a native of Mysuru who is also serving in the US, was felicitated grandly by the American citizens. Incidentally, Dr Preethi lives in the same residential layout where Dr Uma resides in South Windsor, Connecticut. Dr Preethi lives with her husband Keekanamada Subramani.
Dr Preethi graduated in medicine from M S Ramaiah College in Bengaluru and migrated to the US in 1999. She is currently working at St Francis Hospital in South Windsor. As a heartfelt gesture, the patients who have recovered from the deadly disease, police and fire and emergency service personnel recognised the service of Dr Preethi by announcing her contributions on publicity vehicles.
Dr Preethi, replying to this unique felicitation, said that she accepts the honour with all humility. The video clip of Dr Preethi’s felicitation is being widely circulated on social media.
Dr Preethi is the daughter of Mundanda Rajappa, a native of Nelaji village. Rajappa was the first player to represent Kodagu district in the state Ranaji cricket team. He is currently based in Bangaluru. He said he is proud of her daughter’s work.
Her spouse Subramani hails from Birunani village of Kodagu.
source: http://www.deccanherald.com / Deccan Herald / Home> State> Top Karnataka Stories / DHNS, Madikeri / April 24th, 2020
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