Of Dasara celebrations and leopard attack scare

The Sandalwood Power Star Puneet Raj Kumar's demise on October 29, 2021 was a great loss to the state. The late actor had a very good relationship and bond with the cultural city. The Dr Raj Kumar family is running Shakthi Dhama in Mysuru providing shelter to thousands of women in the city. Puneet Raj Kumar is a native of Chamarajanagara, neighbouring Mysuru. But this year began without the star.

The Dr Raj family decided to convert Dr Raj's ancestral house in to Puneet Raj's photo museum, which gave happiness to lakhs of fans in both districts.

Puneet had an intention to convert a photo museum of his father Dr Raj Kumar but now the house has been converted as museum. The renovation work was also completed. The museum is not yet inaugurated . The photo museum will not just attract fans from across Karnataka, but also from neighbouring Tamil Nadu. The museum will be in addition to the already existing places of tourist interest like Suvarnavathi and Chikkahole dams, K Gudi Safari at BRT sanctuary, and Bannariamman temple, within 8-km radius of the Chamarajanagar- Coimbatore national highway.

Amid the Covid-19 pandemic, people in Mysuru region, comprising Mysuru, Mandya, Hassan and Chamarajanagar districts, celebrated Makara Sankranti, the festival of harvest, with traditional and religious fervour, on Thursday. The region wore a festive look with colourful rangolis in front of houses. Houses were decked up with mango leaves and the people offered puja and fodder to cows, which were bathed and smeared with turmeric. People also visited various temples to offer prayers.

Women and children, dressed in traditional dress, distributed ellu-bella, mixture of sesame seeds, fried groundnuts, chopped kopra, roasted gram, and jaggery, to their neighbours, friends and relatives and exchanged greetings.

BJP Chamaraja Assembly segment unit celebrated the festival by honouring farmers and offering puja to cattle. The heat of Hijab issue touched cultural city also in the month of February. The Mysuru city police have imposed prohibitory orders within 200 metres of schools and colleges from February 14 to February 28.

City Police Commissioner Chandragupta said the prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (Cr. PC) would be applicable to all schools and colleges in the jurisdiction of the Mysuru City Police Commissionerate. With schools set to reopen for classes I to X from February 14, the police said the prohibitory orders had been imposed to enforce that Karnataka High Court's ruling in the case relating to wearing of hijabs and saffron shawls.

Followed by the increase of Covid cases in cultural city the district administration has increased the testing numbers . The Mysuru district administration had stepped up the number of Covid-19 tests in the wake of the spurt in cases. The daily testing target of 4,500 samples, which was prevailing last year, had been brought down to 3,000 since February first week after the number of infections dipped. But, the sharp rise in the daily infections reported during the last two weeks led the authorities to revise the target to 5,000 initially. But, the target was revised again to 7,000 at present.

The Mysuru-based famous scupltor Arun Yogiraj Shilpi, who shot to fame with his 12-feet tall idol of Adi Shankaracharya that was unveiled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at Kedarnath, in Uttarakhand on November 5, 2021, has got another good opportunity to prove his skills. Arun had been selected by the Union government to sculpt the 30-feet-tall statue of Subhas Chandra Bose installed at India Gate in September. The statue has been installed in a canopy, behind the erstwhile Amar Jawan Jyoti to mark 'Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav', to commemorate 75 years of Independence as well as Bose's 125th birth anniversary.

The KR constituency MLA Sa Ra Mahesh had accused IAS officer Rohini Sindhuri of indulging in rampant corruption when she was Mysuru Deputy Commissioner.

At a press conference, Mahesh accused Sindhuri of misusing power and alleged irregularities of Rs 6 crore in connection with procurement of cloth bags. Sindhuri had procured 14.71 lakh cloth bags to distribute among the people of the district. While each bag costs Rs 13, the officer procured to procure the same at the cost of Rs 52. Mahesh urged the state government and Chief Secretary Ravi Kumar to suspend the officer and conduct an inquiry

In a shocking incident Nazarbad police in Mysuru city have filed second FIR against Shivamurthy Muruga Sharan, the chief pontiff of Muruga Mutt in Chitradurga, for sexually harassing two more minor girls at the mutt hostel. The complaint was filed by the mother of the two girls with the support of NGO Odanadi at Nazarbad Police Station in Mysuru on Thursday. Police said that they have already transferred the case to Chitradurga rural police station.

The medical test of the girls, apart from other other formalities, will be conducted in Chitradurga, he said. Based on the complaint by the 38-year-old mother of the two children, the FIR has been filed under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012, 5(L), 6, 7 and IPC 376 (2) and 376 (3) and 149. As per the FIR, the two daughters of the complainant, aged 12 and 14 years, were abused from 2019 , 2022.

After two years of Covid the government celebrated Dasara festival grandiously . District minister S T Somashekar informed reporters while giving accounts of Dasara said that , Rs. 28,74,49,058 had been spent for a grand Dasara in four districts — Mysuru, Mandya, Chamarajanagar and Hassan — this year out of Rs. 31,08,88,819 received from the State Government and various other sources, "The spectacle was viewed by a maximum number of people in Mysuru and across the world after two years of low-key celebrations," he told

Giving a break-up of the expenditure, Somashekar said that the lion's share of Rs. 6.36 crore was spent on Yuva Dasara and Yuva Sambhrama. "As per the accounts submitted by the 21 Dasara Sub-Committees, they incurred an expenditure of Rs. 26,54,49,058. In the same grant, Rs. 2.20 crore was allocated for the celebrations in Mandya, Chamarajanagar and Hassan districts. In all, Rs. 28,74,49,058 was spent on the festivities in four districts, including Rs. 26,54,49,058 for Mysuru Dasara alone he added.

In a shocking news to wild life lovers the forest department officers issued a 'shoot at sight' order on a leopard in T Narasipura of Mysuru district after it claimed two lives. The Forest Department launched operation from December 2 but did not yield fruit.

Mysuru circle Conservator of Forests Dr Malathi Priya M has said that fifteen teams have been formed for the operation. And each team will have six personnel led by a range forest officer. Villagers had taken up a flash protest near the T Narasipura government hospital where the victim's body was kept. The operation is still going on, and department planned to buy a thermal camera at an estimated cost of Rs 25 lakhs to catch the animal and for using in such operations in future.