Negligence in constructing pure drinking water unit: Contractor asked to complete it by July 15
Zilla Panchayat general body meeting
Mangaluru, July 02: The issue of neglecting construction of pure drinking water units by the contractors- KRIDL and Pan Asia Company rocked the zilla panchayat general body meeting held here on Monday.
In the continued ZP general body meeting which was ended abruptly on March 27 due to the enforcement of election code of conduct, member Manjula Madhava Mave said that most of the pure drinking water units were not functioning properly. The companies, which got the contract, have handed over the units in haste to the gram panchayat without completing the work. There was no clear picture on who should maintain those units in future, she said.
Members of both ruling and opposition parties supported Manjula and urged the chairperson to take this issue seriously.
Earlier, it was decided to set up 227 pure drinking water units. Later, the construction of 77 units in the list was dropped. But the company has constructed 150 units and of them, 73 are under construction. It was already discussed in the meeting of the higher officers. The companies were directed to complete the work by July 15. Otherwise, they would be held responsible and erring officials would face the music, said ZP CEO Dr MR Ravi.
However, ZP president Meenakshi Shantigodu said that action would be taken after getting the House Committee report on the issue.
GP members are opposing
Garbage is being dumped on either side of the national and state highways. Though the local gram panchayats have installed CCTV cameras to trace the persons who dump the garbage, they were unable to trace the people doing it. When they complained about it to the Haleangadi gram panchayat, no action was taken, alleged some members.
Responding to it, Mangaluru taluk panchayat EO said that some gram panchayat members have been encouraging the garbage dumping by obstructing to take action against those who dump the garbage. Taking it seriously, the meeting asked the officer to give the list of such gram panchayat members.
The ZP CEO said that the national highway is passing through 51 gram panchayats and in these places, penalty was imposed on those who dump garbage, asked the RTO to cancel the registration of the vehicles and asked the assistant commissioner to book cases . Notices were served to 26 gram panchayats and action was taken against PDOs. Apart from this, total 11 clusters were created to dispose the waste scientifically and presently, such unit was set up in Subramanya gram panchayat limit, he said.
Proposal to demolish 187 school buildings
Around 187 school buildings were in dilapidated condition in the district and a proposal has been submitted to the government to demolish the buildings instead of repairing them and construct total 276 classrooms where the buildings would be demolished. A meeting was conducted in Bengaluru and decided to verify the proposal from the PWD and prepare a technical report, said the DDPI.
When some members raised objections about the RTC of the government schools and said that the education department officials did nothing to correct them, the ZP president asked the DDPI to submit a report on the conservation of the school properties within a month.
ZP vice president Kasturi Panja, standing committee presidents Janardhan Gowda, UP Ibrahim, Anitha Hemanath Shetty were present at the meeting.
Verbal duels between BJP-Cong members
Members of both BJP and Congress engaged in verbal duals for a petty issue at the ZP meeting on Monday.
Mid-day meals is being supplied to Kalladka Sri Rama High School and Sridevi high school of Punacha, which caused confusion during election, under the Akshara Dasoha programme. Efforts of the Education Department officials in solving the problem was commendable, said member Mamatha Gatti which was supported by other members Prakash Shetty, MS Mohemmad.
But ZP president Meenakshi Shantigodu also hailed the contribution of local MLA Rajesh Naik in solving the problem. This has led to verbal duels between the Congress and BJP members.
When BJP member Tungappa Bangera raised objection over the mistakes in the meeting agenda, Mamatha Gatti said that “let the president answer this question. Before coming to general body meeting, she should conduct the meeting with the officials to avoid such mistakes”. Enraged by this, Meenakshi said to Mamatha that “do not to interfere in my constituency. Do your duty. Who are you to tell me? Sit down.” Countering it, Mamatha also took Meenakshi into task and engaged in verbal duals.
Meanwhile, Congress members supported Mamatha Gatti saying that the ruling party members were telling that the agenda was not good and you should consider it. This was opposed by the ruling party members. When the verbal duals reached its peak, some members dispersed from the scene saying that the discussion could be continued later after lunch and thus, they tried to pacify the issue.
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Six scholars, including two women, win Infosys Prize 2024
Bengaluru: Two women scientists are among the six winners of the Infosys Prize 2024 for Economics, Engineering and Computer Science, Humanities and Social Sciences, Life Sciences, Mathematical Sciences, and Physical Sciences, announced on Thursday by the Infosys Science Foundation (ISF) in Bengaluru.
The award was instituted by ISF in 2009.
The two women, who have been selected for the award this year, are Neena Gupta for Mathematical Sciences and Vedika Khemani for Physical Sciences.
Gupta, Professor in the Theoretical Statistics and Mathematics Unit at the Indian Statistical Institute, Kolkata, was awarded for her work on the Zariski Cancellation Problem, a fundamental problem in algebraic geometry first posed in 1949 by Oscar Zariski, one of the founders of modern algebraic geometry.
According to a statement released by ISF, she proved the striking result that Asanuma’s three-dimensional affine variety yields a negative answer to Zariski’s original Cancellation Problem in positive characteristic, in 2014.
Khemani, Associate Professor in the Physics Department at Stanford University, has been recognised for her wide-ranging and groundbreaking contributions to theoretical and experimental non-equilibrium quantum matter, most notably the discovery of time-crystals.
Arun Chandrasekhar, Professor, Department of Economics, Stanford University, won the Economics Prize for his contribution to the study of social and economic networks, using innovative data sets and drawing on theoretical methods from machine learning and computer science.
Engineering and Computer Science Prize is to be awarded to Shyam Gollakota, Professor, School of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington for his research in societally relevant areas such as smartphone-based affordable healthcare tools for low- and middle-income countries, battery-free computing and communication, and augmentation of human auditory sensing with artificial intelligence.
The Infosys Prize 2024 in Humanities and Social Sciences goes to Mahmood Kooria, Lecturer, School of History, Classics and Archaeology, University of Edinburgh, for his seminal contributions to the study of maritime Islam in a global perspective, with particular focus on Kerala in the pre-modern and early modern eras.
The Life Sciences Prize goes to Siddhesh Kamat, Associate Professor in the Department of Biology at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research, Pune, for his discoveries concerning bioactive lipids, their receptors, and their metabolic and signaling pathways.
Speaking at the event organised to announce the award, Kris Gopalakrishnan, President, Infosys Science Foundation said the Infosys Prize has played a pivotal role in recognising brilliant minds whose contributions are shaping the future of research and science.
“This year, we refocused on early career researchers under the age of 40, recognising their immense potential and the promise of paradigm-changing work,” he added.
The prize for each category comprises a gold medal, a citation, and a prize purse of $100,000 (or its equivalent in INR). Narayana Murthy was also present at the event that was hosted at ISF’s office in Bengaluru.
According to the press note issued by ISF, previous laureates of the Infosys Prize, one of the biggest prizes announced in India, have gone on to receive several prestigious international awards, including the Nobel Prize (Abhijit Banerjee and Esther Duflo), the Fields medal (Manjul Bhargava and Akshay Venkatesh), the Dan David Prize (Sanjay Subrahmanyam), the MacArthur ‘genius’ Grant (Sunil Amrith), the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics (Ashoke Sen), and the Marconi Prize (Hari Balakrishnan).
