Coastal Plus

Kambala, the traditional buffalo race event popular in the coastal Karnataka districts of Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Kasaragod of Kerala, has embarked on a new season, entertaining tourists and the rural population in the region known as Tulu Nadu.

A debate is going on in the social and cultural circles of Karnataka over Bhootharadhane, a ritual of spirit worship practised by people of coastal Karnataka, as to whether it is part of Hindu culture. The discussion was opened up with the stupendous success of Rishab Shetty’s Kannada film Kantara, a story based on the traditions and beliefs, including worship of Bhootha Kola, in the Dakshina Kannada region.

Udupi: Now, you can walk over waves at Malpe beach in Udupi district as Karnataka’s first floating bridge has come up here. The 100-metre-long and 3-metre-wide bridge can be easily relocated as it is not a permanently attached structure.

Ganapathi Bhat goes to work most mornings carrying a homemade contraption consisting of a small motor, a rudimentary seat and a set of wheels - all expertly combined to help the farmer swiftly climb tall trees.

Loss, suffering, and death tallies entered the everyday vocabulary of COVID news and dinner table conversations. In this desensitised world, Mafazah Sharafuddin’s ‘In Memoriam’, with a poem by the same name as its headliner, comes as an enclave which wombs each of us to share the burden of these dark times. The poet is an enthusiastic final-year student of Journalism, Psychology, and English.

Google is celebrating the 191st birth anniversary of Indian educator and feminist icon Fatima Sheikh, who is widely considered to be India’s first Muslim woman teacher, by featuring a doodle for her. Alongside fellow pioneers and social reformers Jyotirao and Savitribai Phule, Sheikh co-founded the Indigenous Library in 1848, one of India’s first schools for girls.

‘Tis indeed the season to be jolly but the emergence of a new Covid variant and reimposed restrictions in some places just when things were looking up has the hospitality sector– and party-goers hoping to make the most of Christmas and year-end festivities – worried yet again.

LulLu Group chairman and managing director MA Yusuff Ali has saved a Kerala woman’s house from being repossessed by a local bank in a random act of kindness.

What happens when two nasty Covid-19 variants get together and share their most effective mutations? Omicron and delta have brought us closer to the answer, says Peter White, a virologist at the University of New South Wales who warns of the inevitability of a new Covid-19 "super strain."

With his elevation as the CEO of Twitter, Parag Agrawal, in whom co-founder of the microblogging giant Jack Dorsey has “bone-deep” trust, joins the growing power club of Indian-origin executives helming US-based global multinationals.