Bengaluru: Based on a crowd-sourced design, a logo was unveiled on Sunday at the ‘Namma Bengaluru Habba’ fest to promote ‘Brand Bengaluru’ on the global tourist map.

“The logo captures the spirit of the city and its 11 million people. Its design is a crowd-sourced, creative identity representing the city and its denizens,” said Karnataka tourism minister Priyank Kharge. The city is the first to gets its own identity badge.

With a new identify and a new look, Bengaluru joins New York, Paris, Berlin, London, Melbourne, Singapore and other global cities in having its own tourism logo.

“As a vibrant city of many cultures, colours and flavours, Bengaluru is on the move. It’s a dynamic city where tradition and modernity co-exist and its people thrive to aspire,” said Kharge.

The state tourism department will promote Bengaluru by leveraging its new identity through the logo and showcase the city’s heritage, architecture, gardens, art, music, food and its modern lifestyle, driven by technology.

“The logo will also help to leverage Bengaluru’s identity and create a brand value that could spur its economy and generate jobs by attracting more investments,” said Kharge.

Scripted in English and Kannada, the logo is similar to the tourism department’s ‘One State Many World’s’ logo, with options to change its colour into green, red or yellow to suit the occasion.

Observing that Brand Bengaluru was not about its coffee cafes and shopping malls but a new identity representing its people, their lifestyle and culture, the minister said the logo would provide an opportunity for tourists to feel the vibrancy of the city and its ethos.

Kharge also launched the tourism department’s mobile app with audio and video facility at the street fest held around the Vidhan Soudha.

The day-long street fest also had live performances by folk artists, story-telling sessions, interactive workshops and a flea market, with stalls displaying handicrafts, terracotta jewellery, herbal products, organic grains, including millets and a variety of food items.

(IANS)

Mumbai: The Bombay High Court today set aside the sanction granted to the CBI by Maharashtra Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao to prosecute senior Congress leader Ashok Chavan in the Adarsh housing society scam.

A division bench of Justices Ranjit More and Sadhana Jadhav ruled that though the CBI had claimed to be in possession of fresh evidence against Chavan at the time of seeking the sanction, it “failed to present any fresh evidence.”

The bench said the material presented by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) before Governor Rao could not be converted into credible fresh evidence against Chavan.

“The sanctioning authority is an independent body that can’t allow itself to be influenced by anyone’s opinion,” the court said.

The bench was hearing a petition filed by Chavan, challenging the sanction granted by the governor in February 2016 to prosecute the former chief minister of Maharashtra under various sections of the IPC related to criminal conspiracy and cheating, besides provisions of the Prevention of Corruption Act.

Chavan had challenged Rao’s order in the high court, calling it “arbitrary, illegal and unjust” and passed with “malafide intentions”.

Chavan, currently the president of the Maharashtra unit of the Congress, had served as the chief minister between December 2008 and November 2010 before he was asked to step down on charges of corruption in the Adarsh scam.

The CBI has accused Chavan of approving additional floor space index (FSI) for the Adarsh society in posh south Mumbai, and accepting two flats for his relatives in return when he was the chief minister.

He is also accused of illegally approving, as revenue minister earlier, allotment of 40 per cent of flats to civilians even though the society was originally meant for defence personnel.

The CBI had earlier told the HC that if Chavan’s petition is allowed, it would amount to his acquittal, which would render the entire probe exercise futile.

(PTI)

New Delhi: India has witnessed a growing appetite for both domestic and international cuisine in 2017 but majority of them stayed indigenous as desi dishes topped the list of most ordered food items online and Chicken biryani topped the list.

According to the order analysis from food ordering and delivery platform Swiggy for 2017, chicken biryani continues to rule the Indian plate. The order analysis was done for seven cities — Mumbai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Pune, Chennai and Kolkata.

According to Swiggy’s order analysis, Masala Dosa, Butter Naan, Tandoori Roti and Paneer Butter Masala rounded off the top five most ordered items of 2017.

While Pizzas did not rank amongst the top five most ordered items, it was the most searched. In fact, Indians have searched for it over five lac times! The other searched items include burgers, chicken, cakes and momos.

Leaving its mark on the calendar, December 3 saw maximum foodies order online (on Swiggy).

Overall, Swiggy’s order analysis highlighted India’s love of logging on and dining in across the country. In fact, online food ordering has become such an integral part of the lives of urban Indians, that Swiggy saw a single user order 1415 times in 2017.The analysis includes meal categories, late-night ordering, snacking, upcoming food trends, desserts, healthy and international cuisine.

The other insights of the analytics are :
* Masala Dosa, Idli and Vada rule breakfast menus for most Indians while for lunch and dinner, they preferred biryanis that includes chicken, mutton and vegetable followed by paneer butter masala and masala dosa, dal makhani and chicken fried rice.

In 2017, Indians munched the most on pav bhaji, french fries, samosas, chicken roll, chicken burger and bhel puri during snack time.

(IANS)

Patna: An Opposition Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader in Bihar was shot dead on Friday by unidentified assailants, police said.

Hareram Yadav, 50, was out on his morning walk when motorcycle-borne men shot him dead in Bihar’s Samastipur district.

According to a district police official Ajeet Kumar, the incident took place at Pukar chowk near his village. “Hareram Yadav was killed at close range after the assailants enquired about his well being.”

The police officer said it appeared to be the handiwork of people who knew how to handle weapons.

Angry over the incident, hundreds of villagers staged protest by blocking Hasanpur-Bithan road and shouted slogans against Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and demanded the arrest of the killers.

Hareram is the fourth RJD leader in Bihar to be murdered after Nitish Kumar formed the new JD-U-BJP government after dumping the Grand Alliance with the RJD and Congress in July end.

RJD chief Lalu Prasad and his younger son Tejashwi Yadav, who is the Leader of Opposition in Bihar assembly, has repeatedly slammed the state government in last few days over “spurt in crimes and total failure of law and order”.

(IANS)

Belagavi: Mallamma, wife of Yogesh Gowda, the BJP member of the Dharwad Zilla Panchayat, who was allegedly murdered recently, joined the Congress party on Wednesday.

Karnataka Pradesh Congress women’s wing president Lakshmi Hebbalkar welcomed Mallamma into the party fold by handing over the party flag to her at a hurriedly convened press conference, after Mallamma took primary membership of the party.

Addressing the gathering Mallamma said “I have voluntarily joined the Congress and there was pressure on me to join the party”

When she was questioned on her sudden decision to join politics, Mallamma said that the BJP leaders were using her husband’s murder as a tool to gain political mileage and so, she took the step.

(Agencies)

Mumbai: Announcing the largest ever debt reduction exercise by an Indian corporate, Reliance Infrastructure (RInfra) on Thursday said it has signed a definite agreement for the sale of its Mumbai power business to Adani Transmission Ltd for a total consideration of Rs 18,800 crore.

While the total deal value of the sale of the Mumbai power utility Reliance Energy is Rs 13,251 crore, regulatory assets estimated at Rs 5,000 crore and net working capital on closing estimated at Rs 550 crore would also accrue to RInfra as part of the agreement, a company release said here.

“Reliance Infrastructure Ltd today announced signing of a definitive binding agreement with Adani Transmission Ltd (ATL) for 100 per cent stake sale of its Mumbai power business, which includes the integrated business of generation, transmission and distribution of power for Mumbai,” it said.

“Total deal value is at Rs 13,251 crore. This comprises of business valued at Rs 12,101 crore and regulatory assets approved so far of Rs 1,150 crore. In addition, regulatory assets under approval estimated at Rs 5,000 crore and net working capital on closing estimated at Rs 550 crore will flow directly to RInfra.

“Total consideration value is estimated at Rs 18,800 crore,” it said.

“RInfra will utilize the proceeds of this transformative transaction entirely to reduce its debt, becoming debt free and up to Rs 3,000 crore cash surplus,” the statement added.

The proposed transaction is subject to the customary approvals.

Describing the deal as the largest ever debt reducing exercise by any corporate, RInfra said that monetisation of the Mumbai power business is a major step in the companmy’s deleveraging strategy for future growth.

“Reliance Infra’s Mumbai power business (known as Reliance Energy) is India’s largest private sector integrated power utility distributing power to nearly 3 million residential, industrial and commercial consumers in the suburbs of Mumbai, covering an area of 400 sq km,” the statement said.

The Mumbai utility caters to a peak demand of over 1,800 MW, with annual revenues of Rs 7,500 crore with stable cash flows, it added.

RInfra also said that, going forward, it will focus on upcoming opportunities in the asset-light engineering, procurement and construction, as well as defence businesses.

(PTI)

New Delhi: A special CBI court on Thursday acquitted all the accused including former Telecom Minister A Raja and DMK chief M Karunanidhi’s daughter Kanimozhi in the multi-crore 2G spectrum allocations cases. Fifteen other accused in the case and three companies were also acquitted.

Others acquitted in the case are former telecom secretary Siddharth Behura, Raja’s erstwhile private secretary R K Chandolia, Swan Telecom promoters Shahid Usman Balwa and Vinod Goenka, Unitech Ltd MD Sanjay Chandra and three top executives of Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (RADAG) — Gautam Doshi, Surendra Pipara and Hari Nair.

Directors of Kusegaon Fruits and Vegetables Pvt Ltd Asif Balwa and Rajiv Agarwal, Kalaignar TV director Sharad Kumar and Bollywood producer Karim Morani are also acquitted in the case.

Besides them, three telecom firms — Swan Telecom Pvt Ltd (STPL), Reliance Telecom Ltd and Unitech Wireless (Tamil Nadu) Ltd — were also accused and acquitted in the case.

Special CBI Judge O P Saini pronounced the judgement in the 2G scam which had rocked the UPA government.

In its charge sheet filed in April 2011 against Raja and others, the CBI had alleged that there was a loss of Rs 30,984 crore to the exchequer in allocation of 122 licences for 2G spectrum which were scrapped by the Supreme Court on February 2, 2012.

All the accused facing trial in these cases had denied allegations levelled against them by the CBI and the ED.

The court’s verdict came more than eight years after the CBI filed an FIR against “unknown persons” and began its investigations following a recommendation by the Central Vigilance Commission.

(PTI)