Bangalore: 90 Individuals to Get Rajyotsava Awards
DNA
Bangalore, Oct 30: World over governments may be tightening their belts in the face of the impending economic doom. But that has not stopped the government of Karnataka from announcing a huge cash and gold bounty for this year's 90 Rajyotsava awardees.
Announcing the list of the awardees here on Thursday, the government announced that the each of the winners would get Rs 1 lac in cash and and a 20-gram gold medallion.
This is a big hike for the awardess till last year were only eligible for either Rs 10,000 cash or a 10-gram gold medallion.
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Prof P Balaram, Mohandas Pai, Shikha Thandon, M Annadorai, Basavaraj Patil Sedam, Ananth Koppar, Malati Sudhir, Sai Kumar, SP Balasubramaniam, Nitin Shaw, Padmaraja Dadavati, Ravi Belagere, KB Ganapathy, Prof SG Siddaramaiah
Besides, chief minister B S Yeddyurappa's efforts to restrict the awards to 52 individuals too have gone for a toss as the final list had to accommodate 90 eminent individuals.
With 2,500 individuals having applied for this year's Rajyotsava honours, there was intense lobbying in the portals of Vidhana Soudha over the past few days.
"We felt Rs10,000 was too small an amount considering that we are honoring two scientists who were associated with ISRO's moon mission. The award should befit the contribution and the merit of the awardees," home minister V S Acharya said announcing the awards.
ISRO scientists Dr S K Shivakumar and M Annadurai, associated with the recent success of Chandrayan and Indian Institute of Science Director Prof P Balaram are among those honoured with the Rajyotsava awards this year.
Like its predecessors, the Yeddyurappa regime too has not exactly decked up itself in glory as the list of awardees is a litany of controversies as well. Several individuals of "dubious eminence" too have made it to the list, which like every year, has been used to reward loyalties of all hues.
The selection of BJP member and cine actor Sai Kumar, who is notorious the Telugu twang in his roles in Kannada movies, is sure to become a big controversy.
Former state BJP chief Basavaraj Sedam(Education) and Besuna Mallya (Journalism), former editor of RSS mouthpiece Vikrama, are among the other controversial selections.
There was confusion over the the selection of another journalist Madan Gopal from Dharwad as he has reportedly been already conferred with the award once. Acharya said he would look into the matter.
The choice of Nitish Shah, head of Sapna Book House, for the award under the Social Service category invited a barrage questions from the media, as his father Suresh Shah had been conferred the award a few years ago. Acharya failed to provide a convincing reply to these queries.
That regional biases were at work was clear from the fact 21 awardees were from Bangalore, 10 each from Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts and six from Yeddyurappa's home district of Shimoga.
HRD chief of Infosys Mohandas Pai(IT), playback singer S P Balasubramanyam (Cinema), Ravi Belagere (Journalism), ace swimmer Shikha Tandon and heptathlon athlete J J Shobha are among the other prominent awardees.