Archives for 2024

BENGALURU: Air India on Monday commercially launched of India’s first Airbus A350 flight from Bengaluru to Mumbai carrying 297 passengers on board. Flight AI 589 departed from Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) at 7.05 am and reached Mumbai at 8.50 am.

The Airbus A350 aircraft is part of Air India’s record setting order of 470 aircraft signed with Airbus and Boeing in June 2023. The first Airbus A350-900, registered as VT-JRA arrived at IGI Airport, New Delhi on December 23, 2023, said an official release. One aircraft will arrive every six days in 2024.

The configuration of the aircraft is 316 seats – 28 private business suites with full-flat beds, 24 premium economy seats with extra legroom and 264 spacious economy seats. The latest generation Panasonic (eX3) in-flight entertainment system and HD screens in them will offer a superior flying experience to flyers, it said. “Fitted with the Rolls Royce Trent XWB engines, this aircraft is 20 percent more fuel efficient tan other similar aircraft,” it added.

Bengalurean Naveen, who flew on this spacious aircraft during one of its subsequent trips later on Monday from Bengaluru to Chennai told TNIE, “I have been waiting for long to travel by this magnificient aircraft. This model has been operated by international airlines to India and I have flown by them. But this is the first time that an Indian airline is operating one and that too on a domestic route.”

Asked what impressed him about this make, he said, “The entertainment systems available were impressive. Overall, it has more space than regular aircraft.”

AI 589 will operate from KIA on six days of the week barring Tuesdays to the same launch timings.

The release added, “Initially the aircraft will be deployed on domestic routes for crew familiarisation and regulatory compliance purposes. Passengers from Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad and Mumbai will have the opportunity to experience the unparalleled comfort and state-of-the-art technology of the A350 – part of the 470 new aircraft order that Air India placed less than a year ago. The aircraft will be later deployed for long-haul flights to destinations across continents, strengthening AI’s growing fleet of wide-body fleets, comprising its own and recently leased aircraft.”

BENGALURU: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who did not declare a holiday for the consecration of Ram Lalla at Ayodhya on Monday, made a point that he is not an atheist. He inaugurated the Rama Sita Lakshmana Temple and the 33-ft monolithic Anjaneya Swamy statue at Hirandahalli village of Bidarahalli hobli in Mahadevapura in Bengaluru East.

Chanting ‘Jai Shri Ram!’ along with the public, he said the slogan is not someone’s private property, but belonged to every devotee of Lord Ram. He also participated in the Maha Kumbhabhisheka organised by the Sri Rama Temple Trust, which built the temple.

“God does not accept worship if you are unrighteous (adharma) and inhuman, and worship in a dramatic manner. The ideal of Sri Rama is that all people should live with equality and love,” he remarked.

“Rashtrakavi Kuvempu’s aspiration of Karnataka as a garden of peace for all races lies in the ideal and personality of Sri Rama. The message of Ramayana and Mahabharata is that man should not hate man. Valmiki, who belonged to a scheduled caste, wrote the Ramayana and gave it to the world. Basavanna said God is present in our soul and body,” the CM said, and cited ‘vachanas’.

Ministers Byrati Suresh and Eshwar Khandre, BJP MLA Manjula and her husband, former ministers Aravind Limbavali and HM Revanna, and CM’s political secretary Govindaraju were present.

CM Siddaramaiah said he condemns the propaganda that the Congress is against Sri Rama, and said the Ram Mandir should not be politicised as Sri Ramachandra is the god of all Hindus and not just the BJP. “We (Congress) are also devotees of Sri Ramachandra. BJP is trying to project that we are against Sri Rama and it is not right to slander us,” he told reporters here. “Mahatma Gandhi used to recite Raghupati Raghava Rajaram and even breathed his last, saying ‘Hey Ram’.

Replying to a query on a holiday for the Ram Lalla consecration, Siddaramaiah maintained that many states, including Delhi, Punjab, Telangana, West Bengal, Tamil Nadu and Kerala had not declared a holiday on Monday. “Building a Ram Rajya was our dream. Five guarantees implemented with the objective of realising it are successful today. Life will be meaningful if we follow Rama’s ideal, Hanuman’s loyalty. Best wishes for the inauguration of Sri Rama Mandir in Ayodhya,” DCM D K Shivakumar posted on ‘X’.

Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Monday accused the BJP of using the Ram temple as an election issue and questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modi to explain to the people the status of the implementation of BJP’s election promises, including doubling farmers’ income. The CM mentioned “I Modi is a true devotee of Ram, he should tell people how many of the promises made to the people of this country through the BJP election manifesto were implemented and how many are yet to be implemented”. “In your election manifesto, you promised to double farmers’ income. But what did you do for this?” he questioned Modi. “You have not doubled the income of farmers, nor have you given drought relief to drought-stricken farmers. Similarly, you promised to build a cooperative union for the empowerment of all the states. But, today the states have also been robbed of their fair share. Along with this, you have increased cess and surcharges.”

BENGALURU: Defining that Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) cannot demolish a building straightaway for not having obtained a sanctioned plan, the Karnataka High Court said the civic agency has to ascertain if there is any violation of building bylaws in case construction is carried out without a sanctioned plan, or has deviated from the plan, before passing orders under Sections 248(3) and 356 of the BBMP Act, 2020.

The order was passed to explore chances of saving a building from demolition by permitting the owner to obtain plan sanction from the BBMP if it was constructed without a plan or asking the owner to remove the portion of the building or deviations from the plan if it violated the sanctioned plan, instead of demolishing the entire building.

The court said that essentially, if one were to contend that the construction is illegal or unauthorised when there is a violation of the sanctioned plan or against building bylaws. To put it differently, if construction were to comply with building bylaws, but construction was to be carried out without obtaining a sanction, it cannot be said that the construction violates building bylaws. However, it could be said that the construction is illegal since no sanction plan has been obtained, the court added.

Justice Suraj Govindaraj passed the order while allowing a batch of petitions filed by M Chandrakumar and others, questioning the demolition notice issued by the authorities of the BBMP.

BBMP’s allegations against the petitioners were that without applying for and obtaining a plan sanction, construction has been put up. Therefore, it is illegal and requires demolition. In a counter, the petitioners contended that there is no finding given as to what manner their construction violates the building bylaws. Merely because there is no plan sanction issued by the BBMP, the construction does not become illegal so long as it is in accordance with, and complies with the requirements of Building Bye-laws, they argued.

BENGALURU : The State government will release the first instalment of compensation money to 30 lakh farmers in the next one week, Revenue Minister Krishna Byregowda said here on Friday.

The minister told reporters on Friday that though the State government has announced 223 taluks as drought-hit and crop loss on 48.19 lakh hectares, and appealed to the Union government for compensation in September 2023, even today, compensation funds have not been received.

Byregowda, in a video conference with DCs, told them to ensure the compensation money is released to farmers on time. He said that under the Farmer Registration and Unified Beneficiary Information System (FRUITS), land details of 75 per cent of farmers are uploaded. In the next one week, the first instalment of compensation money will be released to bank accounts of farmers.

He said there have been cases of compensation being misused earlier, which will now be prevented as money will be released based on FRUITS data. Lakhs of farmers’ data was not uploaded and officials had been working on it for the past 15 days. Expressing displeasure over the Union government, Byregowda said that in spite of meeting Central government authorities, money was not released. “But farmers are in distress, so we are releasing the first instalment of Rs 2,000 to farmers from our treasury,” he added.

AC cases reduced: Byregowda

Speaking on Assistant Commissioner courts, the minister said close to 60,000 cases were pending before these courts which were more than five years old. Of these, 33,000 cases were sorted out in the past three months. There were 2,215 cases in Tahsildar courts earlier, which are now reduced to 170.