Coastal Plus

It was a regular Zoology assignment in 2004 that triggered the sudden interest of then student Sammilan Shetty towards butterflies. Fourteen-years since, having quit his fulltime-lectureship post, this 32-year-old has been successfully running Karnataka’s first private butterfly park in coastal district of Dakshina Kannada since 2011. At the foothills of Western Ghats in Belvai village of...

Udupi, Jun 17: India’s coffee cradle Chikkamagaluru has given South India’s first ever woman fighter pilot. Meghana Shanbhag was the only woman among the 113 flight cadets who graduated as flying officers of the Indian Air Force at the combined graduation parade at Telangana’s Dundigal yesterday. She has joined the club of five other women fighter pilots of the IAF, who hail from Madhya Pradesh...

Mangaluru’s leading architect Dharmaraj, who recently came out in the open about his close association with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its political arm – the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in a candid chat with coastaldigest.com, says that he involved himself to in a campaign to create awareness and unity among people and defeat the “divisive politics” of the Congress. CD: You have...

Ghulam Nabi Azad, the Leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha, recently hit the campaign trail in different parts of Karnataka which will go to polls on May 12. Before boarding a Delhi-bound flight, the former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir spent an hour at Mangaluru International Airport speaking to Mohammad Asif. He gave zero mark to Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led NDA government at...

Pegged at Rs 32 lakh, an innocent owl was on the verge of being a sacrificial object on-behest of a political aspirant, if not for the timely intervention by the Kollegal Regional Forest officer (RFO). In the last two-months, around Chamarajanagara district, the forest officials have booked seven cases of poaching and arrested at-least four-people in this connection. In their statement, the...

At the Mangaluru City Constituency, three-time Congress MLA U T Khader will be contesting once again for the Karnataka Assembly polls (May 12, 2018). This time, the Bharatiya Janatha Party has mobilized all its resources to this so called communally sensitive constituency to ensure the victory of its candidate Santosh Kumar Rai Boliyar, who was a Zilla Panchayat member. For two decades victory has...

At the heart of the District Headquarter of Dakshina Kannada, the election fever heats-up as Congress’ leader and first time MLA J R Lobo will test his mettle from Mangaluru City-South Assembly constituency in the May 12 Karnataka polls. The former Karnataka Administrative Service (KAS) officer, who on his debut in 2013 sent back-packing then four-times MLA of the constituency N Yogish Bhat, will...

Fighting the odds of disability and poverty, Prajwal and Pratheeksha, the siblings from Borgalgudde in Nitte village of Karkala in Udupi district on April 30 cleared the Pre-University exam. While the 22-year-old Prajwal and 19-year-old Pratheeksha secured 51% and 49% respectively in the arts stream, they claimed disappointment that they could not secure 70 per cent similar to their matriculation...

A news-maker for all seasons, the legislator of Mangaluru City North, B A Mohiuddin Bava is contesting for the third time at the upcoming polls. Though Bava had lost to the then-BJP stalwart Krishna J Palemar in 2008 by a margin of 14,426 votes, the former became a giant killer in 2013 and defeated the latter by a margin of 5,373 votes. The incumbent Congress MLA speaking to coastaldigest.com says...

Want to win polls, ask these tried, tested, trusted candidates of the political parties, who beyond the day to day political dynamics, have remained larger than life figures at their respective constituencies. More than these individuals needing a political backing, it is the parties who end up bee-lining at the doors of these evergreen leaders to add-up to their victory. Leadership, personality...