Four including Ramesh Babu, Arathi Krishna nominated to Legislative Council: Reports
Bengaluru: The Karnataka Government has reportedly nominated four members to fill the vacant seats in the State Legislative Council.
Those nominated include former KPCC Media Cell head Ramesh Babu, Vice-President of the NRI Forum Dr. Arathi Krishna, senior journalist K. Shivakumar, and Dalit leader F.H. Jakkappanavar.
The vacancies had arisen following the expiry of terms of Congress members U.B. Venkatesh and Prakash K. Rathod in October 2024, and JDS member K.A. Tippeswamy in January 2025. Another seat became vacant after C.P. Yogeshwar resigned to contest the Channapatna by-election. These four nominees have now been named to fill the vacant positions.
Ramesh Babu, once with the JD(S), had rebelled against its leadership and later joined the Congress. He currently serves as a party spokesperson and has now been nominated to the Council.
Dr. Arathi Krishna, daughter of senior Congress leader and former Rural Development Minister Begane Ramaiah, has been nominated as well. She has long been associated with the Congress and earlier served as the first chairperson of the KPCC NRI Cell.
Professionally, she worked as a Community Development Officer at the Indian Embassy in Washington DC and as a consultant with the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs’ India Development Foundation.
She also established the Krishna Foundation, an NGO focused on educational facilities and socio-economic development in remote Karnataka villages. Dr. Arathi holds a master’s degree in Political Science from Mysore University and another in International Commerce and Public Policy from George Mason University, Washington. She has also been awarded an honorary doctorate by Kuvempu University.
For the first time in the country, a Dalit journalist has been nominated to the Legislative Council. Senior journalist Dr. K. Shivakumar, originally from Bangarpet in Kolar district, is the son of Krishnappa and Eramma. He pursued his early and higher education in Kolar before completing his PhD from Mysore University. Beginning his career at Andolana daily, he later joined The New Indian Express, where he currently serves as Senior Resident Editor.
Dalit community leader F.H. Jakkappanavar, who has served as a Trade Union president and also headed the Congress Dalit wing in the state, has also been nominated.
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Robert Duvall, Oscar-winning actor and 'Godfather' mainstay, dead at 95
Los Angeles (AP): Robert Duvall, the Oscar-winning actor of matchless versatility and dedication whose classic roles included the intrepid consigliere of the first two "Godfather" movies and the over-the-hill country music singer in "Tender Mercies," has died at age 95.
Duvall died “peacefully” at his home Sunday in Middleburg, Virginia, according to an announcement from his publicist and from a statement posted on his Facebook page by his wife, Luciana Duvall.
“To the world, he was an Academy Award-winning actor, a director, a storyteller. To me, he was simply everything,” Luciana Duvall wrote. “His passion for his craft was matched only by his deep love for characters, a great meal, and holding court. For each of his many roles, Bob gave everything to his characters and to the truth of the human spirit they represented."
The bald, wiry Duvall didn't have leading man looks, but few "character actors" enjoyed such a long, rewarding and unpredictable career, in leading and supporting roles, from an itinerant preacher to Josef Stalin.
Beginning with his 1962 film debut as Boo Radley, the reclusive neighbor in "To Kill a Mockingbird," Duvall created a gallery of unforgettable portrayals.
They earned him seven Academy Award nominations and the best actor prize for "Tender Mercies," which came out in 1983. He also won four Golden Globes, including one for playing the philosophical cattle-drive boss in the 1989 miniseries "Lonesome Dove," a role he often cited as his favorite.
In 2005, Duvall was awarded a National Medal of Arts.
He had been acting for some 20 years when "The Godfather," released in 1972, established him as one of the most in-demand performers of Hollywood. He had made a previous film, "The Rain People," with Francis Coppola, and the director chose him to play Tom Hagen in the mafia epic that featured Al Pacino and Marlon Brando among others.
Duvall was a master of subtlety as an Irishman among Italians, rarely at the centre of a scene, but often listening and advising in the background, an irreplaceable thread through the saga of the Corleone crime family.
“Stars and Italians alike depend on his efficiency, his tidying up around their grand gestures, his being the perfect shortstop on a team of personality sluggers,” wrote the critic David Thomson. “Was there ever a role better designed for its actor than that of Tom Hagen in both parts of The Godfather?'”
In another Coppola film, "Apocalypse Now," Duvall was wildly out front, the embodiment of deranged masculinity as Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore, who with equal vigour enjoyed surfing and bombing raids on the Viet Cong. Duvall required few takes for one of the most famous passages in movie history, barked out on the battlefield by a bare-chested, cavalry-hatted Kilgore: "I love the smell of napalm in the morning. You know, one time we had a hill bombed, for 12 hours. When it was all over, I walked up. We didn't find one of em, not one stinkin' dink body.
"The smell, you know that gasoline smell, the whole hill. Smelled like — victory.”
Coppola once commented about Duvall: "Actors click into character at different times — the first week, third week. Bobby's hot after one or two takes."
