Colourful start to 81st Kannada Sahitya Sammelana

February 1, 2015

Shravanabelagola, Feb 1: The 81st Kannada Sahitya Sammelana got off to a colourful start here on Saturday. Poet Siddalingaiah, president of the sammelana, was taken in a procession in a decorated bullock cart from Yatri Nivas Circle to the sammelana venue at the APMC yard. His wife, Ramakumari, accompanied him.

Charukeerthi Bhattaraka Swami - pontiff of the Shravanabelagola Mutt - H?C?Mahadevappa, the Public Works minister who is also the district incharge minister and legislators C N Balakrishna and A Manju gave a traditional welcome to the conference president, when he arrived on the Mutt premises.

The Siddalingaiah couple were then seated in the bullock cart morphed into the shape of lotus. After Mahadevappa felicitated the couple with Mysore peta and Kannada flags, the procession started. Thousands of Kannada enthusiasts in traditional attire and riding bullock carts, women carrying ‘poornakumbha,’ cultural troupes like Kamsale, Jaggalige Mela, Dollu Kunitha, Yakshagana, Maragalu, Veeragase and colourful tableaux formed part of the procession.

The Kannada chariot took nearly three hours to travel 2.5 km to the venue of the conference. The procession started at 4 pm and reached the A Na Krishnaraya Maha Mantapa in front of the main venue of the conference by 7 pm. Pundalika Halambi, president of the Kannada Sahitya Parishat, Na D’Souza, president of the last literary conference, and other dignitaries welcomed the conference president at the venue.

Kannada slogans were raised by those present on the occasion. The mega meet is set to be inaugurated on Sunday. This will be followed by literary sessions. Halambi said that the procession truly represented the Kannada ethos.

In that, it brought to the fore the local flavour in all its vividity, at a time when the Parishat is celebrating its centenary year.

The rustic theme of the procession was even more significant, given the conference president’s rural background, Halambi said. Siddalingaiah has done extensive research on life in the villages and village deities, he said.

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Elusive bamboo shrimp resurfaces in Mangaluru estuary after 70 years

News Network

December 7,2025

Mangaluru, Dec 7: A rare bamboo shrimp has been rediscovered on mainland India more than 70 years after it was last reported, confirming for the first time the presence of Atyopsis spinipes in the country. The find was made by researchers from the Centre for Climate Change Studies at Sathyabama Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, during surveys in Karnataka and Odisha.

The team — shrimp expert Dr S Prakash, PhD scholar K Kunjulakshmi, and Mangaluru-based researcher Maclean Antony Santos — combined field surveys, ecological assessments and DNA analysis to identify the elusive species. Their findings, published in Zootaxa, resolve decades of taxonomic confusion stemming from a 1951 report that misidentified the species as Atyopsis moluccensis without strong evidence.

The shrimp has now been confirmed at two locations: the Mulki–Pavanje estuary near Mangaluru and the Kuakhai River in Bhubaneswar. Historical specimens from the Andaman Islands, previously labelled as A. moluccensis, were also found to be misidentified and actually belong to A. spinipes.

The rediscovery began after an aquarium hobbyist in Odisha spotted a shrimp in 2022, prompting systematic surveys across Udupi, Karwar and Mangaluru. Four female specimens were collected in Mulki and one in Odisha, all genetically matching.

Researchers warn the species may exist in very small, vulnerable populations as freshwater habitats face increasing pressure from pollution, sand mining and infrastructure development. All verified specimens have been deposited with the Zoological Survey of India for future reference.

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