Record CET passes make engg, medical quest tough

TIMES NEWS NETWORK 

Bangalore: The competition for those coveted medical and engineering seats has just got tougher with more students becoming eligible in this year’s CET. Never in the recent past had Karnataka seen so many students vying for professional-courses seats. 
    The results, announced on Wednesday, show there are about 2,000 more students eligible for medical and 5,000 more for engineering than last year. Of the 1,18,780 students who wrote 
CET, 15,776 students are eligible for medicine; 59,011 for ISM and homeopathy; 78,694 for engineering; and 836 for architecture. This is against 13,666 and 73,242 last year for medical and engineering respectively. The increase can be attributed to the improved PU pass percentage this year. 
    The seat matrix and the increase in the number of seats available will be announced by July 10. There are more girls eligible for medical seats than boys; while boys hold sway over engineering. 
    Bangalore shines, with four medical toppers out of the top 10 ranks, and six engineering toppers. This includes the first rank in both streams. The capital swept architecture, with eight out of the top ten ranks. 
    Other districts that have done well are Dakshina Kannada, Mysore, Udupi and Shimoga — probably because of the availability of good coaching. On the other hand, Yadgir had only 45 students who became eligible for medical counselling, Koppal had 38 and Kodagu 91; for engineering, these numbers were 244, 291 and 542 respectively.

CELEBRATION TIME: CET toppers (from left) Deepa M (engineering), Archana Sasi (medicine) and Naksha S (architecture)

MLA Sampangi Jailed

1st Karnataka MLA To Be Jailed For Graft
Madhusoodan MK and Rajiv Kalkod TNN

Bangalore: For the first time in Karnataka, the special Lokayukta court has sent a sitting MLA to jail for accepting a bribe. Kolar Gold Fields MLA Y Sampangi was on Saturday led into Parappana Agrahara prison after Lokayukta court judge N K Sudhindra Rao sentenced him to three and a half years’ rigorous imprisonment for accepting a bribe of Rs 5 lakh.
The judge also slapped on Sampangi a fine of Rs 40,000; if he doesn’t pay up, he will have to undergo six months’ additional rigorous imprisonment. The court also slapped a fine of Rs 30,000. He has been convicted on three counts under the Prevention of Corruption Act.
Sampangi entered the prison at around 4pm. Around 6pm, he was shifted to the observation cell, where new inmates are kept. Once they get used to the harsh reality of their arrest, they are shifted to the barracks. As per rules, doctors checked Sampangi at the jail hospital.
“He was tense, anxious and depressed. He silently signed the papers and was moved to the VIP cell,” prison sources told STOI.
Sampangi, who earned Rs 6,667 per day as an MLA — Rs 2 lakh a month — will now earn Rs 30 a day as a convict. As per jail rules, convicts undergoing rigorous imprisonment should do jobs like carpentry, gardening, tailoring and weaving.
Unlike VIP inmates like Janardhana Reddy, Sampangi is not allowed home food.
For his jail stay, Sampangi was given a white shirt and shorts. However, in the evening, he was seen in maroon pyjamas and a white shirt. He was also given a pillow, two towels and a blanket. He will have to share an Indian-style toilet with 30 other convicts. WANTED MONEY TO FIX THINGS
Lokayukta police laid a trap for Sampangi after a KGF businessman, Hussain Moyeen Farooq, complained that the MLA had demanded a bribe of nearly Rs 5 lakh to prevent trespass on his property. The legislator had also promised to have criminal cases against Farooq closed. Sampangi was caught red-handed while accepting Rs 45,000 in cash and Rs 4.5 lakh by cheque at his Legislators’ Home accommodation. HegdeSpeak I’m happy that justice has prevailed. I hope the government will be alive to the institution of Lokayukta. Corrupt people are emboldened by the support they get. In this background, many people are reluctant to file complaints. However, with such verdicts, and with greater awareness, more scams will be exposed.
Justice Santosh N Hegde | FORMER LOKYUKTA, UNDER WHOSE SUPERVISION SAMPANGI WAS TRAPPED IN 2009


OFF TO JAIL: KGF legislator Y Sampangi is arrested after the Lokayukta court denied him bail on Saturday

Karnataka Drought affects WilfLife

M B Maramkal | TNN 

Bellary: The Daroji Bear Sanctuary was specially created to protect the sloth bear. Just 15km from Hampi, this sanctuary gives the town another identity besides heritage. But today with the water zones in the sanctuary almost dry, the bears are forced to trek miles in search of water in this hilly dry deciduous forest region. 
    Most of the tanks located inside the park such as Hirehuli, Hande Gowramma, Obalapur and Karimatti which get filled up during rainy season have either dried up or drying. Along 
with water, food seems to be turning scarce for the bears with the yield in fruit-bearing trees like jamun (Eugenea jambolana) and Kavale (Carissa carandas) dwindling. 
    A park official said that this was for the first time in recent years that tanks inside the park limits had dried up. Efforts of the officials to fill check dams and water ponds created inside the park with water drawn from Tungabhadra high level and low level canals have failed to provide respite. The official said that the worst affected would be bears as they being sluggish in nature cannot trek long distances in search of water. With day temperature rising to 42 - 43 degrees Celsius in this rocky region, the water transported in tankers to these check dams and water ponds dries up within a day or two, a source said. 
    “We are working overtime to provide relief to the bears as this the only sloth bear park in the country and it is imperative on our part to protect them,” the source added. In addition to nearly 200 sloth bears, the park boasts of providing shelter to scores of leopards, 120 species of birds, jackals and monkeys. 
    Admitting the severity of the situation, chief conservator of forests K N Murthy said the department was fully geared up to meet the water demand of bears and other animals in the sanctuary. “We will soon work out a contingency plan,’’ he said.

FEELING THE HEAT: Forest staff fill up tanks to quench the thirst of bears at Daroji sloth bear park in Bellary district

Karnataka Draught : Officials battle to keep butterflies cool

Staff of the country’s first Butterfly Park have installed air coolers and spray water over flowers

Niranjan.Kaggere @timesgroup.com 

    Butterflies, since time immemorial, have coloured human imagination and turned out to be a muse for many. However, for the scientists and staffers of Bannerghatta Biological Park (BBP), they pose a great challenge and risk. 
    Reeling under the scorching heat, the staffers put up a valiant battle against nature every day to breed and carefully protect butterflies to entertain people who flock to the country’s first Butterfly Park in the BBP. 
    The lifespan of butterflies is just two to three days. As a result, employees of the butterfly park trek for about 10 km to the Bannerghatta forest every day with long nets to catch butterflies of various species. They also spend considerable time attracting butterflies to lay eggs on plants in a five acre area adjacent to the park. 
    “Summer is the most difficult time for us. Butterflies cannot withstand high temperatures and perish in less than three days. But you cannot tell this to the people who flock the park during summer to catch a glimpse of butterflies. You need to entertain them by accumulating as many butterflies as you can. That can only be achieved either by catching more and more butterflies or breeding them internally,” explains Venkatachalapathy, senior entomologist at the butterfly park. 
    Inside a Mexican dome, close to 60 to 70 different species of butterflies entertain crowds at the BBP. But because of the increasing temperature and fibre sheet, the inside of the dome is more like an oven. 
    “It is a challenging task for us to maintain the temperature at 30 degree centigrade. Hence, a month ago, we fitted six air coolers at different places. This apart, staff repeatedly spray water over flowers and plants to keep the mercury levels down,” says M Nanjundaswamy, chairperson of Zoo Authority of Karnataka (ZAK). 
BRAVING ODDS TO CATCH BUTTERFLIES 
    Every morning, a couple of staffers set out to the forest to catch butterflies. Manjunath, an employee of the park who catches 250 to 300 butterflies with great difficulty till afternoon, says “We not only catch butterflies to release them inside the park (dome), but also for breeding.” However, it is challenging for the staff to identify male and female butterflies. “We catch them based on their colour or size of the abdomen. Generally females will have a bulged abdomen.” 
    While trying to catch butterflies, there have been times when staffers have been chased by elephants. 
BREEDING IN FULL SWING 
    Perhaps the breeding section of the butterfly park appears like a factory producing butterflies every day. 
    “It is a fairly long procedure to breed butterflies. From mating to moth level, a butterfly would require at least 30 to 35 days. Once they become butterflies, they only live for about a week. Within that time, you need to ensure that they entertain people at the park and also indulge in reproduction,” explains Venkatachalapathy. 
    Out of the butterflies caught by the staff, the male and female butterflies are let into a netted enclosure for mating. The enclosure has host plants on which they lay eggs. Each species has its own host plants and lays eggs only on those plants. Sealed for a day or two, the couples would have mated and laid eggs on the plants. The egg containing leaves are carefully cut and transferred to plastic boxes with a colour pattern for each species. 
    The eggs become larvae or caterpillars in two days and continue to feed on leaves. Soon the larva becomes pupa and finally comes out fluffing as a butterfly. 
    “The caterpillars are fed fresh leaves of their host plant every day. For example, Lime Blue eats only lemon plant leaves, Common Mormon feed on only curry leaves. We ensure that only those leaves are fed. Once they start fluttering, they are put inside the dome,” said Venkatachalapathy.

Entrance to the Butterfly Park

A ‘bedroom’ for the butterflies; one of the host plants containing eggs; Venkatachalapathy shows larvae kept in a ventilated plastic container

Karnataka draught

Parched fields, dry rivers, empty pitchers, thirsty people. The grim scene is driving farmers to sell their cattle and migrate in search of jobs. The situation has prodded the government to take some immediate measures No food, no fodder in Gulbarga district

Mouneshwar Sonnad | TNN 

Gulbarga: Bheemappa Avarad, a farmer, is getting ready to sell his cattle (a pair of bull) at the weekly fair in Gulbarga. He is planning to sell them to the merchants from the neighboring states of Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh. Though Bheemappa owns five acres of land, forget about foodgrains, he couldn’t even get sufficient fodder for his cattle. “I tried my best, but it’s not possible to maintain them. I will sell them in the fair,’’ he said. 
    Gulbarga is one of the most drought-hit districts in the state, with all seven taluks in the district declared as drought-hit. Drinking water and fodder are the major problems here coupled with scorching summer. 
    Sample this. Kamalapur, 20km away from the district headquarters, has a population of around 18,000. Most of the 15 handpumps are under repair and hence people are forced to tread 4-5 km to fetch water from borewells in the farms. Suraj Patil, a farmer who grows red-banana in Kamalapur, feels the situation will worsen if the government doesn’t act immediately and provide water and fodder. 
    Though the district administration has released Rs 3 crore for water supply in the villages, it is far from sufficient. Gulbarga deputy commissioner R Vishal told TOI that he had released Rs 3 crore for 293 water supply works. “We have requested the government to release another Rs 2 crore,’’ he added.

LOOKING FOR WATER

PU Board Teachers Protest Response from Govt