HC adjourns hearing of plea in CM's Hublot watch case

DHNS

May 9, 2018

Bengaluru, May 9: The High Court of Karnataka on Tuesday adjourned the hearing of a petition that questioned how and why Chief Minister Siddaramaiah accepted a luxurious watch as a gift.

The court was hearing a petition filed by Anupama Shenoy, a former deputy superintendent of police, who sought its directions to the Union government and the director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to act on the representation given by her on July 15, 2017.

The petitioner demanded a CBI probe into how the chief minister got the diamond-studded Hublot watch said to cost over Rs 80 lakh.

The former police officer demanded that the CBI investigate “corruption, criminal breach of trust, criminal conspiracy and nepotism” behind the controversy.

According to Shenoy, on March 2, 2016, Siddaramaiah stated that the Hublot Big Bang-301-M watch was gifted to him by Dr Girish Chandra Varma, an old friend and a Dubai-based cardiac surgeon, that it cost nearly Rs 7 lakh and was a pre-owned one.

The chief minister later handed over the watch to Kagodu Thimmappa, then speaker of the Legislative Assembly, and requested him to give it to the chief secretary to be placed in the Cabinet Hall of the Vidhana Soudha as a “state asset”.

‘Hand it over to Centre’

As an interim prayer, Shenoy urged the court to order the chief secretary to hand over the watch to the Union government represented by its under-secretary and the director of the CBI until they disposed of her representation.

The court observed that the matter should be heard by a regular bench and adjourned the hearing until May 28.

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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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