From Our Special Correspondent

Daijiworld Media Network

Bengaluru, Oct 26: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has directed the high level committee on selection of Rajyothsava Awardees for this year to adopt the criteria on Regional and Social Justice, Talent and Merit in the selections.

With Karnataka completing 68 years since the unification of the State on November 1, the Chief Minister said the number of awardees should be 68 and in addition another 10 awards to Institutions and Organisations which had worked for the development of the official language of Kannada must be given special awards to mark the completion of 50 years since the renaming of the erstwhile Mysuru as Karnataka State.

In view of the large number of applicants, the Chief Minister asked the committee to restrict the number of awardees to the number of years since the unification of the State as was decided by the previous Congress government.

Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar, Kannada and Culture Minister Shivaraj Thangadagi, Home Minister Dr G Parameshwar, Social Welfare Minister Dr H C Mahadevappa, Chief Minister’s Political Secretaries Govinda Raju and Nasir Ahmed along with Kannada and Culture Department Secretary N Manjula and Director DharanideviMalagatti attended the meeting.

The members of the high level Rajyothsava Awardees selection committee, who attended the meeting are: Prof Janagere Venkataramaiah, AllamaprabhuBettadoora, PindipapanahalliVenkatapa, Takappa Kannur, Picchalli Srinivas, Dr Vittal I Bengai, Dr Sannaramu, Venkataramaiah, Dr M S Murthy, Dr Geetha Shivamogga, Dr JayadeviJangama Shetty, AirodiGovindappa, Sadhu Kokila, Sukanya Prabhakar, Fayaz Khan, Hrishikesh Bahadur Desai, NarasimhaluVadavati, D N Narasimharaju, Dr PurushotthamBilimale, Channabasavanna, Shaileshchandra Gupta and J Lokesh.