Puneeth Rajkumar to be conferred Karnataka Ratna posthumously on 'Rajyotsava'

News Network
August 5, 2022

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Bengaluru, Aug 5: Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Friday said that Kannada film star Puneeth Rajkumar, who died last year, will be conferred with the 'Karnataka Ratna' award posthumously, on November 1, which happens to be Kannada Rajyotsava, the state's formation day.

He will be the 10th recipient of the state's highest civilian honour.

"We have decided to confer the Karnataka Ratna award to Puneeth Rajkumar on November 1, we will be forming a committee consisting of Rajkumar family members to prepare for it, it will be conferred with full honour," Bommai said. He was speaking after inaugurating the annual Independence Day flower show at Lalbagh's glass house.

This year's flower show pays a special floral tribute to Kannada thespian Dr Rajkumar and his son and actor Puneeth Rajkumar.

Considered the Kannada cinema's reigning star, Puneeth, the youngest of five children of Kannada matinee idol Dr Rajkumar, died of a cardiac arrest on October 29 at the age of 46.

The Chief Minister had made an announcement to confer the award on the late actor in November last year, at the ''Puneetha Namana,'' an event to pay homage to Puneeth Rajkumar, organised by the Karnataka Film Chamber of Commerce (KFCC), in association with Sandalwood film actors' and technicians' associations.

The Karnataka Ratna was last awarded to Dr Virendra Heggade for social service in 2009. Interestingly, Puneeth's late father Rajkumar is among the first recipients of the Karnataka Ratna award in 1992, along with poet Kuvempu.

Other recipients of the award are S Nijalingappa (Politics), CNR Rao (Science), Dr Devi Prasad Shetty (Medical), Bhimsen Joshi (Music), Shivakumara Swamiji (Social Service), and Dr J Javaregowda (Education & Literature).

Puneeth, popularly known as 'Appu' and 'power star' by his fans, made his debut on screen when he was just six months old and went on to win a national award as a child artiste for the film 'Bettada Hoovu'. He then re-emerge as a lead actor in 2002 and went on to star in 29 films, delivering some big hits.

Noting that the flower show has been on since 1922 and attracts a large number of people, Bommai said this being the 75th year of India's Independence it has a special significance and from tomorrow lakhs of people will be coming for next ten days to witness the show.

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News Network
March 21,2024

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New Delhi: India has now become more unequal in terms of wealth concentration than the British colonial period as income and wealth of the top 1% of the country’s population have hit historical highs, according to a paper released by World Inequality Lab.

By 2022-23, the top 1 per cent income share in India was 22.6 per cent and the top 1 per cent wealth share rose to 40.1 per cent, with India’s top 1 per cent income share among the very highest in the world, higher than even South Africa, Brazil and the US.

Co-authored by economists Nitin Kumar Bharti, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, and Anmol Somanchi, the paper stated that the “Billionaire Raj” headed by “India’s modern bourgeoisie” is now more unequal than the British Raj headed by the colonialist forces. 

The paper said there is evidence to suggest the Indian tax system might be “regressive when viewed from the lens of net wealth”. A restructuring of the tax code is needed, the paper said, adding that a levy of a “super tax” of 2 per cent on the net wealth of 167 wealthiest families would yield 0.5 per cent of national income in revenues and create space for investments.

“A restructuring of the tax code to account for both income and wealth, and broad-based public investments in health, education and nutrition are needed to enable the average Indian, and not just the elites, to meaningfully benefit from the ongoing wave of globalisation. Besides serving as a tool to fight inequality, a “super tax” of 2% on the net wealth of the 167 wealthiest families in 2022-23 would yield 0.5% of national income in revenues and create valuable fiscal space to facilitate such investments,” the paper said. 

The paper has analysed data based on the annual tax tabulations published by the Indian income tax authorities to extract the distribution of top income earners between 1922-2020.

The share of national income going to the top 10 per cent fell from 37 per cent in 1951 to 30 per cent by 1982 after which it began steadily rising. From the early 1990s onwards, the top 10 per cent share increased substantially over the next three decades, nearly touching 60 per cent in the most recent years, the paper said. This compares with the bottom 50 per cent getting only 15 per cent of India’s national income in 2022-23.

 The top 1 per cent earn on average Rs 5.3 million, 23 times the average Indian (Rs 0.23 million). Average incomes for the bottom 50 per cent and the middle 40 per cent stood at Rs 71,000 (0.3 times national average) and Rs 1,65,000 (0.7 times national average), respectively.
The richest, nearly 10,000 individuals (of 92 million Indian adults) earn on average Rs 480 million (2,069 times the average Indian). “To get a sense of just how skewed the distribution is, one would have to be at nearly the 90th percentile to earn the average income in India,” the paper said.

In 2022, just the top 0.1 per cent in India earned nearly 10 per cent of the national income, while the top 0.01 per cent earned 4.3 per cent share of the national income and top 0.001 per cent earned 2.1 per cent of the national income.

Enlisting the probable reasons for sharp rise in top 1 per cent income shares, the paper said public and private sector wage growth could have played a part till the late 1990s, adding that there are good reasons to believe capital incomes likely played a role in subsequent years. For the shares of the bottom 50 per cent and middle 40 per cent remaining depressed, the paper said, the primary reason has been the lack of quality broad-based education, focused on the masses and not just the elites.

“One reason to be concerned with such high levels of inequality is that extreme concentration of incomes and wealth is likely to facilitate disproportionate influence on society and government. This is even more so in contexts with weak democratic institutions. After largely being a role model among post-colonial nations in this regard, the integrity of various key institutions in India appears to have been compromised in recent years. This makes the possibility of India’s slide towards plutocracy even more real. If only for this reason, income and wealth inequality in India must be closely tracked and challenged,” it said.

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News Network
March 27,2024

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The Enforcement Directorate has filed a money laundering case against Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's daughter Veena Vijayan, her IT company and some others to probe a case of alleged illegal payments made by a private mineral firm to her and the company, official sources said Wednesday.

The agency has registered a case under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and is expected to summon the people involved, the sources said.

The ED case has been booked after taking cognisance of a complaint filed by the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO), an investigative arm of the Union corporate affairs ministry, they said.

The case stems from an Income Tax Department investigation that alleged that a private company called Cochin Minerals And Rutile Ltd (CMRL), made an illegal payment of Rs 1.72 crore to Veena's company-- Exalogic Solutions-- during 2018 to 2019, even though the IT firm had not provided any service to the company.

The Karnataka High Court had last month dismissed a plea filed by Exalogic Solutions against the probe initiated by the SFIO.

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News Network
March 16,2024

Mangaluru: In the wake of complaints regarding middlemen menace, sleuths of Lokayukta on Friday, March 15, conducted a raid at the Mangaluru Urban Development Authority. 

The Lokayukta team found unaccounted money and several files, which were not disposed of for a long period.

Lokayukta SP CA Simon said that the Lokayukta has received complaints that middlemen have been interfering in the MUDA office, and files pertaining to the public are not being cleared on time.

A raid that commenced in the evening on March 13, lasted for 18 hours. During the raid, Lokayukta officials found cash in a bag in MUDA office, and also with officials and others. MUDA officials could not inform the source of money found in their office, the SP said.

Further, he said that many people gathered at the MUDA office during the Lokayukta raid, and have raised complaints about the harassment at the urban development authority. “We have gathered evidence for MUDA officials carrying out file disposal processes through brokers on phone calls. The investigation on the MUDA network will be continued,” he said.

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