Supermodel and actress Shubra Aiyappa is excited as she is set to shoot for her second Tamil fim. She has signed an action revenge drama titled Aaganya , where she plays the titular role. Shubra is currently training and working on her physical fitness in preparation for the role. “This film is titled Aaganya, which means rising from the flames, and I play the titular role. I am particularly thrilled about this film as I have always wanted to do an action film. This is the closest that I’ve come to doing it,” she reveals, saying that she had to not just audition with dialogues but also prove to the action director that she is physically fit and capable to do the role.
“The film is akin to the likes of Lara Croft in some ways in terms of the action and I am going to be kicking some serious butt. This revenge drama will see me in two shades. People will get to see a mean action avatar and then there is another side to me. It gives me a lot of scope to prove my worth as an actor and I’m looking forward to giving my best,” says Shubra, who is preparing for the role with some action classes in Bengaluru, following which she will be partaking in more classes and workshops in Chennai.
“I was shooting for the Rishi starrer Ramana Avatara prior to the onset of the pandemic. I haven’t really shot for a film ever since and am glad I get to return to the sets. I did a Tamil film a few years ago, but haven’t done anything after, though I do a lot of Tamil ads, I’m glad that I get to be a part of this film,” says Shubra, who hints that the makers might release this film as a multilingual eventually. Shubra will be shooting for 35 days for this film, as per the schedule, she shares.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> Entertainment> Kannada / by Sunayana Suresh, TNN / March 16th, 2021
Senior IPS Officer from Kodagu district, Maneyapanda A. Ganapathy, yesterday took charge as the Director General of National Security Guard (NSG), an elite counter-terrorism unit under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
Picture shows Mysuru-Kodagu MP Pratap Simha congratulating M.A. Ganapathy at the NSG Head Quarters in Palam, New Delhi, this morning. Also seen are MP’s wife Arpitha Simha and daughter Vipanchi Simha.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> Photo News / March 19th, 2021
With human-animal conflict increasing day-by-day in forest rich Kodagu district, Minister for Forest Aravind Limbavalisaid that a Kodagu-specific Foundation will be formed to mitigate human-animal conflict.
Replying to a question by BJP MLC Sunil Subramani in the Legislative Council recently, Limbavali said it has come to the notice of the Government that attacks on human beings by wild animals such as tigers and elephants are on the rise in Kodagu district. The Forest Department has taken many measures to prevent wild animals from straying into human habitats, he said and added that 47 water ponds have been formed to ensure that wild animals get water within the forests.
Stating that desilting of 66 water bodies is going on in the district, the Minister said that 34.35 km solar fencing and 161.60 km barbed wire fencing has been installed along the forest borders and 91.55 km elephant trench has been dug up. Besides, 33.37 km of suspended solar fencing and railway track barricades have been erected using 24.62 tonnes of old railway tracks. To erect more railway track fencing, the Department has purchased 496.17 tonnes of old railway track, he explained.
Limbavali further said that 52 rapid action teams have been formed and 71 teams to drive stray elephants have been constituted. These teams will also keep a watch on poaching, he said and added that the Government will take all measures possible to end human-animal conflicts, which has become a bane in the region.
He said that an adult female in a herd will be identified for radio collaring, to help track the movements of other elephants. Nine elephants have been radio-collared so far and the staff are keeping a track of their movements round the clock, he added.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> News / March 22nd, 2021
Stating that the huge landslide on Malethirike hillock coming under Virajpet Town Panchayat in 2018 has rendered the hillock unfit for human habitat, Revenue Minister R. Ashok said that a parcel of private land has been identified at Ambatti village of Bittangala in Virajpet taluk for rehabilitating displaced persons.
Replying to a question by Congress MLC Veena Achaiah at the Legislative Council, Ashok said that the process for purchase of the identified private land is underway.
Maintaining that no Government land was available in Virajpet Town Panchayat limits, he said that 7.70 acres of private land is being purchased for rehabilitation. Pointing out that the Geological Survey of India (GSI) has reported that 57 houses in Malethirike Hillock, 5 houses in Ursu Nagar and 9 houses in Nehrunagar are unfit for human living, he said that the GSI report has explained the causes for the landslide, which included digging of the hills for road construction, unscientific foundation for houses and indiscreet felling of naturally grown trees, among others.
Stating that a total of 71 houses have to be relocated, Ashoka said that necessary measures would be taken during the rainy season to shelter people living in dangerous conditions, at care centres .
Welcoming the Minister’s statement on the action taken, Veena Achaiah said that apart from Malethirike Hill, there were over 2,500 people living in landslide prone areas in Nehrunagar and there is a need for rehabilitating them too.
Asserting that the 71 houses that the Government has proposed to construct is not enough, the MLC contended that there is Government lands at Balugodu, Arji, Kedamallur, Bittangala and surrounding places, which should be identified and distributed among the displaced people. Mentioning that the current economic position of the Government is not good, she said that the dearth of funds may further delay purchase of private land and the problem is sure to get more compounded with the onset of the monsoon, which is less than three months away.
Ashok, in his reply, said that he will direct the officials to identify lands if the Government gets inputs on the survey numbers under which Government lands are available.
Claiming that this will help save Government money and also help in rehabilitation, Ashoka said that a proposal has been sent to Union Government on establishing care centres in all flood-prone areas at a total cost of about Rs.10 crore. Asserting that such care centres will have all necessary facilities, he said that during other times, these centres can be used for holding Government meetings and other programmes. The Department is working out a plan in this regard, he added.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> News / March 23rd, 2021
The actor, who is busy prepping for her Tamil action film, says networking exists, but ultimately it comes down to auditions.
Shubra Aiyappa is busy honing her skills for her upcoming Tamil action film Aaganya.
The actor, who is learning martial arts from a Russian expert, says, “I’ve always been a fitness enthusiast, doing yoga and weight training, so thankfully the foundation is decent. We are going to start shooting soon in Chennai and I’m very excited.”
She shares that the film was offered to her two-and-a-half months ago when she was travelling. “The script sounded so fantastic on the phone that I flew down, auditioned and I was like hell, yes, I’m doing this.”
This is the actor’s first project since the lockdown.
She was shooting for Ramana Avatara when things came to a standstill. “The lockdown was an eye opener for me, professionally. I feel, as actors, we are very rigid that we can just be actors. Maybe it’s an egoistic thing (laughs). I realised that you can be so much more. I had a myopic way of looking at things, and that changed.
My mother is a wedding planner and when things opened up, I curated 10 weddings!” she says.
“Personally, I got to spend time with my family in a long time. I left home at 16 for modelling. I was in New York for a year and then in Mumbai. The lockdown turned out to be a blessing as I could be with my family in Bangalore,” adds the Vajrakaya (2015) actor.
source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> Entertainment> Tamil Cinema / by Neha Sharma / March 23rd, 2021
Harshika Poonacha, who is gearing up to make her Bhojpuri film debut shortly, is set to make inroads in that industry.
The actress, we hear, has signed up for two more Bhojpuri films that she will start shooting for after the release of her debut. “My first Bhojpuri film is complete and is ready for release. I will start shooting for my two new projects thereafter,” says Harshika, adding that after a rather lackluster 2020, she is looking at this year with a lot of positivity.
“I am grateful that things are happening for me. I just had two very rough years, first with losing my dad and soon after with the pandemic and, now things are slowly back on track,” she says. Her Bhojpuri films apart, Harshika is also looking forward to her two Kannada projects , in which she says she has challenging roles.
“I have bagged two Kannada film projects and both are romantic thrillers.
Om Prema will see me as a boss lady who is the CEO of a company and gets the job done. She knows how to succeed in the corporate world and take care of her employees,” she says. The other yet-to-be-titled project has her playing a journalist who is extremely critical and curious by nature. Speaking about the character Harshika says, “I play a journalist who looks at every morsel of information with microscopic precision and has a very inquisitive nature. The script has been written well and I have already shot for a few days for the film,” she says. The actress will resume shooting for this film in April.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> Entertainment> Kannada>Movies / by Joyeeta Chakravorty, TNN / March 21st, 2021
Kumar worked with adivasis in Andhra’s Araku Valley for decades, grew coffee of the highest quality and took it to Paris in 2017. On March 19, Araku Coffee opened its first café in India in Bengaluru. Kumar wants to replicate the Araku model for other crops as well, he tells us how
Cafe L’Orange
In the late 1990s, the late Kallam Anji Reddy, founder-chairman of pharmaceutical company Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, appointed developmental economist Manoj Kumar as the head of his NGO, the Naandi Foundation. Kumar’s brief was to foster sustainable livelihoods in rural India.
One of the many projects Kumar embarked on in the early 2000s was to get adivasi farmers in Andhra Pradesh’s Araku Valley to grow specialty coffee, which, simply put, is organic and sustainably grown coffee of the highest quality. To many people, it appeared to a quixotic endeavour. Araku was not a traditional coffee-growing region. Kumar, who grew up in Kerala drinking kattan kaapi, the traditional home-brewed black coffee, had no real knowledge about coffee; and the Araku Valley had been riddled with Naxal insurgency for decades. Kumar worked with, and lived among, the tribals for over a decade and through biodynamic farming and the formation of an adivasi cooperative, one of the world’s largest fair-trade and organic certified cooperatives, he achieved the seemingly impossible.
In 2017, Kumar opened the first Araku Cafe and store in Paris and about a year later, Araku Coffee bagged top honours for the best coffee pod at the prestigious Prix Epicures OR awards in Paris. On March 19, Araku opened its first cafe in India. The 6000 sq ft, two-level flagship cafe in Indira Nagar in Bengaluru features, among others, an in-house roastery, the country’s first Specialty Coffee Association-certified Coffee Academy, a book store, and food that is sustainably procured.
In an interview to Moneycontrol, Kumar talks about the growing interest in specialty coffee in India, its transformative potential, and about replicating the Araku model in other parts of the country. Edited excerpts:
How do you see Araku’s flagship cafe take the specialty coffee story forward in India?
By and large, the production of specialty coffee in India has so far been almost nil, barring a few micro estates. We have been a notable exception. Our success has made coffee growers realise that it is possible to get much higher value and definitely profits if they can elevate their coffee to the level of a specialty coffee. I’m hoping that this desire to excel will be infectious to the community of coffee growers in India. They could learn to look at coffee as being more than just an average-to-poor-quality mass-produced commodity, which is neither financially rewarding nor sustainable. We are blessed to have the climate and topography to grow coffee. Europe and most of the coffee-drinking nations don’t grow coffee. I see our cafe in Bangalore as a place where people can interact and learn more about the power of specialty coffee. And we would want to take it beyond producers to policy makers and to everyone through a consumer movement to inculcate a certain pride in the opportunity we have to make coffee a profitable Indian-origin commodity and revive India’s agriculture to an extent. Araku is not a traditional coffee-growing region, and yet we have grown world-class coffee there. So, you can imagine the potential of places such as Chikmagalur and Coorg…
Tamagoyaki Toastie is on the menu of Araku’s café in Bengaluru.
Have you met people from the coffee-growing community who want to get into specialty coffee?
Absolutely. When we started the Araku journey, we had only between 10 percent to 20 percent of farmers whose coffee could be rated as specialty coffee. Today, I have 80 percent of my farmers all growing specialty coffee. I have requests from many small estate and large estate owners, and even people who are into wine now want to know if we can help them with the same regenerative agricultural practices that made our coffee world-class.
Araku Coffee co-founder Manoj Kumar
You’ve been to specialty coffee hotspots across the world. How have your experiences shaped the flagship store?
Scandinavia inspired me a lot. The quality of service there was based predominantly on knowledge. Every brewer, roaster, and barista I met had a completely different level of knowledge and that knowledge was shared with the customer. A relatable example would be going to an Apple store for the first time and discovering that every staffer has an in-depth knowledge about the products. So, one of the things I took away from there was that our team had to be knowledgeable about what they were selling, even if it meant setting up a coffee school at the cafe. Our team is not just selling a random service, they are selling coffeeology. And our prices are extremely competitive. Somebody even mentioned that a lot of the coffee we serve is, more or less, the same price as the coffee you get at Starbucks.
The Naandi Foundation has been at work replicating or adapting the Araku model in other parts of India. How has that worked out?
The Naandi Foundation is now massively expanding its agricultural footprint. We are now in a large way expanding into Wardha and the Vidarbha region, replicating the Araku model with other crops. We started off with pomegranate and that is very much on track but we are also exploring or expanding into other portfolios. Turmeric in that region is world-class, and it has a Geographical Indication tag. Then, we looked at red gram and other pulses. The idea is to have a bouquet of produce for the farmer to get it to be profitable and to identify one or two which become unique to that region. I think the winners here will be turmeric, pulses, and organic cotton. We are also looking closely at working in Meghalaya and Kerala and the Konkan belt.
You first went to the Araku Valley in 2001. Looking back, which was the turning point of your journey?
I’d think earning the trust and respect of the tribals was the turning point. I had started with just 1,000 farmers, and I would tell them that one day their land would produce a coffee that would be world-class. And they would always tell me that they wouldn’t let me down. That kind of love and trust from their end really made all the difference.
MURALI K MENON works on content strategy at HaymarketSAC.
source: http://www.moneycontrol.com / MoneyControl / Home> News> Trends> Features / by Murali K Menon / March 20th, 2021
The following newly elected Directors of the Mysuru, Chamarajanagar and Kodagu District SC/ST Industrialists and Goods/ Equipment Supplies and Marketing Co-operative Society Ltd., Mysuru, have been appointed as the Convenors and Co-Convenors of the respective districts, according to a press release from the Society President Vijayashankar:
Chamarajanagar: Convenor – D. Eshwar; Co-Convenors – C.S. Akshay and M.S. Chandrashekar; Kodagu: Convenor – Y.T. Paramesh; Co-Convenors – M. Honnaiah and M. Chandra; Mysuru City: Convenor – P. Nanjundaswamy; Co-Convenors – M. Chandrashekar and Theinmozhi; Mysuru Rural: Convenor – Shivanna; Co-Convenors – Dr. P. Shobharani and B. Kalavathi.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> News / March 21st, 2021
Members of this group have a secondary metabolite used in colon cancer: Expert
Researchers of western Assam’s Bodoland University have recorded a new plant species that may go a long way in fighting cancer.
The species, named Ophiorrhiza recurvipetala, has been found at 675 metres above mean sea level in central Assam’s Dima Hasao district. It has been classified under the Rubiaceae family of flowering plants, to which the plant yielding coffee belongs.
Recurvipetala means petals curved back.
The finding was published in the March 2021 issue of the Nordic Journal of Botany.
“This is a new species to plant science and may be a potential anticancer research candidate. All members of this group have a secondary metabolite called Camptothecin used in colon cancer,” Sanjib Baruah, assistant professor of Bodoland University’s Department of Botany said.
He co-authored the study with research scholars Birina Bhuyan of Bodoland University and Selim Mehmud of Guwahati’s Cotton University.
“It is now our turn to find the Camptothecin content occurring in this novel species. There is a possibility to cultivate this species as a promising medicinal plant for the northeast, but its agrotechnology is not known,” Dr. Baruah told The Hindu.
The researchers had spent a few months in the hilly areas of Jatinga and Haflong in Dima Hasao district to locate a few plants on a wooded mound. “The new species is restricted to this area where it grows in moist shady places,” he said.
Ophiorrhiza is a predominantly herbaceous genus distributed from eastern India to the West Pacific from South China to northern Australia. According to the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families, 2017, it is a notably species-rich and taxonomically complicated genus with about 318 species worldwide.
In India, 47 species and nine varieties have been recorded and among them 21 species and one variety are from the northeast.
The Ophiorrhiza recurvipetala is a perennial herb with a maximum height of 60 cm and is branched. It yields a creamy white flower.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National / by Rahul Kamakar / Guwahati – March 19th, 2021
Using social media as their tool and selfie culture as a weapon, this couple is urging the residents across the state to keep aside a bowl of water for the birds during this summer season.
‘Hakkigondu Gutuku’ (a drop to the birds) campaign is receiving an optimistic reaction from many residents across the state including children. (Photo | EPS)
Madikeri (Karnataka):
A couple in Kodagu has started a unique campaign to protect the non-migratory birds during the peak summer season.
Using social media as their tool and selfie culture as a weapon, this couple is urging the residents across the state to keep aside a bowl of water for the birds during this summer season.
‘Hakkigondu Gutuku’ (a drop to the birds) campaign has started from March 10 by Gautham Kiraganduru and his wife Sumana, which is receiving an optimistic reaction from many residents across the state including children. Known for their social works, the couple established ‘Namma Pratishtana’ firm in the district and is promoting various eco-friendly activities.
“Birds are an important part of the ecosystem and they ensure balance in the environment. There is a need to promote and preserve the bird species. Hence, to protect the birds during the summer season, we have started this initiative where we have requested the participants to set up a DIY arrangement to feed birds. The residents have to keep some water and grains for the birds and then click a selfie alongside this setup. We will pick the three best pictures and honour the winners with prizes,” explained Gautham.
The initiative that is making noise across social media has gained attention from not just the residents of Kodagu, but also from the residents across the state including Davanagere, Uttara Kannada, Dharawad, Bellary, Hassan, and Shivamogga among others. “We have received numerous selfie photographs of people setting up the bird feeders. Also, international kickboxer Girish R Gowda has extended support to this initiative,” added Gautham. He explained that numerous trekkers are also participating in this initiative and are setting up feeders across several spots.
Last year, this couple had gained attention after they signed up for body donation during their wedding ceremony. Instead of distributing wedding invitation cards that have low shelf-life, they printed Kannada books with works of unrecognized writers and shared them as wedding invitations. They had also grown over 1,000 different saplings and distributed the same as wedding gifts to the guests.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Good News / by Prajna GR / Express News March / March 18th, 2021
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