Interest in US for higher studies dips, Bengaluru students look to Canada, UK

Education

The education consultancies that TNM spoke to said that there had been a drop in the number of enquiries they are getting for the US, compared to last year.

Geetika Mantri

Image for representation/PTI

Santosh Neelangatil, the principal consultant at Merit Higher Education Consultants, estimates that out of the 200 students he would usually consult for, 120 would go to the United States for higher education. However, this year, a number of unprecedented circumstances have led to students aspiring to study abroad looking at options in other countries. Consultancies say that students are now looking at Canada and the United Kingdom for higher education over the US. “This year, the inquiries for the US have been around 80-100. Even students who are applying to American universities are exploring options in other countries as well, which they wouldn’t earlier,” says Santosh. The US in July rescinded its decision that had disallowed international students from remaining in the country if they did not take in-person classes. This came after a number of lawsuits were filed by educational institutions including Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) over the restriction on student visas. However, the US has also announced that new international students will be barred from coming to the country if they take their classes online during the fall. Additionally, the Donald-Trump led government had also suspended H1-B visa applications till December 31, 2020, back in June. It only introduced exemptions earlier this month allowing conditional re-entry for applicants looking to return to jobs held in the US with the same employer and in the same position and visa category can resume their work.  This, along with the country being worst hit by the COVID-19 pandemic as well as the political situation – recent unrest, along with the precarious position of immigrants – have brought the US lower in the priority list of higher education aspirants, observe consultancies. Saba, the founder of Enrologies, another higher education consultancy in Bengaluru, has observed a similar trend. She says that among her students, Canada is the top contender for higher education aspirants, especially if they are looking at job-oriented courses such as digital marketing, human resources and so on. “Because it is easier to get a job there after completing such courses,” she explains. The same reasoning applies for the UK, which is emerging as the second most popular destination. “Since the US was sending back international students earlier, it has been really demotivating. They don’t want to spend Rs 40-50 lakh for an online course they will do sitting here, online. In Canada, there is more flexibility of visa rules,” Saba adds. Further, Santosh notes that since last year, they are also seeing students from non-STEM backgrounds wanting to go abroad for higher education for both undergraduate and post-graduate courses – such as economics and design. Australia too is emerging as a popular choice, especially for courses like culinary arts, he adds. Some European countries are also seeing an increased interest. Germany for instance, is popular, because public universities provide free education given the candidate has the required percentage, required score in IELTS and/or German, especially for engineering courses. “France too, because of comparatively more affordable courses; and Malta for nursing and pharmacy courses, because they make you eligible to work in any European country,” Saba notes. Saba says that while enquiries for higher education in the US have reduced to just 3-4 a day since March this year from 6-7 calls per day last year, she expects that the country will return to being a top contender next year, if the pandemic situation normalises. “But if the visa restrictions continue to be there, then other countries will continue to be more popular.”

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'KGF' and rowdy Thangam: How influenced by real life is the series?

Sandalwood

According to many, the character of Rocky, played by Yash, is inspired by Thangam.

Sowmya Rajendran

KGF: Chapter 2, the sequel of the blockbuster Kannada film KGF: Chapter 1, is expected to release later this year though there's uncertainty about the date due to the coronavirus pandemic. The film, which traces the story of Rocky (Yash), a young orphan who grows up to become a gangster in Mumbai, takes us to the Kolar Gold Fields in Karnataka. And according to many, the character of Rocky is based on rowdy Thangam, a notorious criminal who was shot dead in a police encounter in 1997. In fact, Paulina or Pouli, Thangam's mother, had filed a petition seeking a stay on the shooting of KGF: Chapter 2 because she felt the first film had portrayed her son in a negative light. Subsequently, the court issued summons to the makers. According to Pouli, the team had promised her that the character would be depicted in a positive manner. However, director Prashanth Neel denied in interviews that the film was based on Thangam. In an interview to TNIE, he said, "In fact, the makers of Kolar, a film based on Thangam, had even questioned this and told me that they have rights on Thangam’s story, and that I should not be making anything related to him. I had promised them that there is nothing based on Thangam in my film, and that I don’t even know what his real life story is." The poster for KGF though, claimed that the film was 'based on a true story'. It isn't clear which true story it's based on if not Thangam's. According to media reports from that time, Thangam was considered to be second only to the infamous sandalwood smuggler Veerappan and was dubbed 'Veerappan Junior'. An India Today report from 1997, dated just a few days before he was shot dead, says that he had 42 offences to his name in the past four years and he had stolen jewellery worth Rs 1.5 lakh from a store on December 2. Thangam reportedly enjoyed the support of the locals because he was something of a 'Robin Hood', just like Veerappan. Shoot at sight orders were issued on Thangam after his last daring robbery which proved to be an embarrassment for the police force. At the time of his death, Thangam was only 25 years old. He was killed by the KGF police on December 27, 1997, in Kuppam of Chittoor district in Andhra Pradesh. The police later killed three of Thangam's brothers in encounters - Sagayam, Gopi and Jayakumar. While Gopi and Jayakumar were shot dead in July 2003, Sagayam was killed in October that year. Their mother, Pouli, filed a petition seeking a CBI inquiry on the encounters and in 2012, decorated police officer Ramesh Kumar was charged by the CBI for staging the encounter of Sagayam along with six others. The film KGF directed by Prashanth Neel has some similarities to Thangam's story but otherwise seems to be a largely fictional account. For instance, Rocky is clearly inspired by his mother, just as Pouli was a strong figure in Thangam's life. In fact, some reports suggest that Thangam's gang was called 'Pouli gang' and they would go around robbing gold shops in and around the Kolar Gold Fields. Screenshot from YouTube In the film, Rocky's mother, who is fed up of poverty, makes her son promise that he would die a rich and powerful man. Driven by her words, Rocky becomes a ruthless criminal who only thinks about how he can fulfil her wishes. However, while Rocky's mother dies in the film, Pouli is still alive. There's also no mention of Rocky's siblings in the film. He's shown to be a lone operator, and he joins a criminal gang in Mumbai to further his ambitions. While the first half of the film takes us through his childhood and his desire to control the Mumbai underworld, the second half takes us to the Kolar Gold Fields where he goes in disguise to carry out an assassination. Rocky's birth in the film happens parallely with the discovery of gold in the mines. However, the history of the mines is more complicated than that. You can read about it here. Just as shoot at sight orders were issued on Thangam, in the film, the Prime Minister asks for Rocky to be put to death. The other players in the film, like Adheera (played by Sanjay Dutt in the sequel), Garuda, Suryavardhan and so on may have been inspired by gangs who ruled KGF in those days but no direct comparisons have been made so far. In the film, Rocky enters the mines for an assassination that will grant him control over Mumbai city but ends up empathising with the workers in the mines who live under inhuman conditions. In real life too, the labourers in KGF lived pathetic lives, in makeshift homes that were rat infested. They reportedly worked in tunnels where the temperatures would shoot up to 55 degree Celsius and accidents were frequent. Thangam, too, is said to have enjoyed the support of the people because he shared his loot with them although he had serious charges against him. Some say that Thangam's family had migrated from Tamil Nadu to work in the mines. In those days, many of the labourers who worked in the mines were indeed Tamil migrants. The resemblance between the real life story of Thangam and KGF might be slim, but since Thangam's story has not been told before on screen, there is great interest in the comparisons. In fact, the first KGF ran into trouble right before its release because another production house claimed that they'd obtained rights to make a film on Thangam.  KGF: Chapter 2 is expected to continue the story of Rocky and how he leads the workers in the mines to emancipation. How closely this will follow the real life story of Thangam is anyone's guess at this point. 

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Karnataka govt to gather evidence to seek ban on SDPI, PFI: Minister CT Ravi

Crime

“We have to ensure that the proof gathered is strong enough so it can be accepted by the court. We will not allow anti-social elements to run free,” CT Ravi said.

Pooja Prasanna

The Karnataka Cabinet on Thursday is slated to discuss the issue of banning Popular Front of India (PFI) and its political party Social Democratic Party of India (SDPI). The agenda was listed for Thursday's cabinet meeting after several senior cabinet ministers pushed for the move in the wake of SDPI’s alleged involvement in the Bengaluru riots that took place on August 11. Tourism Minister CT Ravi said that the state government will have to gather material evidence to prove that SDPI and PFI have been involved in “anti-social” activities, before approaching the Centre to ban the two organistations.  “We will not consider only this one incident where SDPI and PFI were involved. We will look into various incidents that have occurred across the state, gather necessary evidence against them and then make a decision,” CT Ravi said.  He said that the state police will be roped in to furnish evidence gathered in previous cases with SDPI and PFI’s alleged involvement. “This is because this evidence should be admissible in the court. We have to ensure that the proof gathered is strong enough so it can be accepted  by the court. We will not allow anti-social elements to run free,” CT Ravi added.  He condemned Leader of Opposition in the Karnataka Assembly, Siddaramaiah’s statements regarding the violence in Bengaluru on August 11, while stating that Congress leaders do not want stringent action to be taken against the accused in the case.  “I have observed Siddaramaiah and Dinesh Gundurao’s statements. They condemn the act of violence but they don’t want strict action to be taken. Despite the fact that the house of an MLA from their own party was set ablaze, they are still resorting to vote bank politics. Our party does not resort to such politics. We are all about killing two birds with a stone. We will take stringent action against perpetrators,” he added.  In the Karnataka government’s cabinet meeting that took place on Thursday, sources told TNM that several ministers reportedly voiced their opinion that SDPI is directly involved in the DJ Halli riots and asked that the state government send a request to the Centre to ban SDPI and PFI.  Senior ministers like KS Eshwarappa, R Ashoka, and even Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai were strongly in favour of the ban, the source said.  The ministers also are reported to have claimed that the Congress was politicising the issue and blaming BJP for Bengaluru riots and that a fitting response had to be given to the statements. They also said SDPI was involved in the assault on Congress MLA and former minister Tanveer Sait in Mysuru and the violence in Mangaluru during the anti-Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) protests.  SDPI is the political wing of Popular Front of India (PFI). SDPI was formed on June 21, 2009 at New Delhi. It was registered with the Election Commission of India on April 13, 2010. But over the years, its electoral presence has been minimal and limited to Karnataka and Kerala  PFI, the parent organisation of SDPI, was formed by merging three different organisations- Karnataka Forum for Dignity (KFD), National Development Front (NDF) in Kerala and Manitha Neethi Pasarai (MNP) in Tamil Nadu on November 22, 2006.  A few of the founders of PFI, including E Abubacker and P Koya, were also founding members of the outlawed Student Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) in 1977 in Aligarh Muslim University, Uttar Pradesh. Most of the office-bearers of the PFI, including members of the current leadership, have had an association with SIMI before it was banned. Even though members of the organisation have denied connections, critics have often pointed this out.  Both PFI and SDPI have been embroiled in several controversies across Karnataka. Other than several of its members being named in the violence that was witnessed in Bengaluru east on August 11, PFI members were accused in the murder of RSS worker Rudresh in Shivajinagar in Bengaluru in 2018.  BJP leaders in the state have been seeking a ban on these organisations, since 2011.   

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Karnataka HC questions state govt on restrictions for travel to and from Kerala

Transport

The court noted that movement on the border was allowed, but several conditions were in place for such travel.

TNM Staff

The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday questioned the restrictions placed by the state government on inter-state travel between Karnataka and Kerala. The High Court noted that the interstate border between Karnataka and Kerala was opened on August 15, but several conditions, including a mandatory medical examination and registration on the Seva Sindhu portal, were in place. However, these conditions were in place despite the Unlock 3.0 guidelines issued by the National Disaster Management Authority which said no separate approvals or e-permit was required for interstate movement of people. The Unlock 3.0 guidelines also allowed state governments to monitor the pandemic in their state and take a call on imposing lockdowns and other restrictions. The High Court made the observations while hearing a public interest litigation (PIL) by residents of villages in Kerala and Karnataka along the border check post in Saradka in Dakshina Kannada district. The PIL sought directions to allow free movement at the checkpost. The High Court asked the state government whether the conditions laid down for interstate movement of people is legal when Unlock 3.0 guidelines state that no permits or registration is required for interstate travel, Bar and Bench reported.  The orders however did mention that state government can take decisions on imposing lockdowns or travel restrictions based on the situation in their respective states. The High Court also pointed out that the central government has said that downloading the Aarogya Setu application is not mandatory, but the state government is making registration on Seva Sindhu Portal mandatory. It asked under which authority this was made mandatory.  Restrictions were not only placed on the Karnataka side of the border, but it was announced on the Kerala side too.  Earlier in July, TNM reported that the Kerala government had suspended daily e-passes for travel from Kasargod in Kerala to the neighboring Dakshina Kannada district in Karnataka. This affected as many as 1,300 daily commuters as per data recorded by the Dakshina Kannada district administration and included people managing shops, working in petrol pumps and even in healthcare. The Kerala government asked those travelling to Dakshina Kannada to stay at their workplace for 28 days.  Read: Suspension of daily passes by Kerala impacts many people from Kasaragod and Mangaluru The Kerala government has announced that passes for those travelling from Kasargod to Dakshina Kannada will be issued from August 19. The Kasaragod district Minister-in-Charge E Chandrashekaran said that rapid antigen tests will be conducted at the border checkpost in Talapady, 22 km from Mangaluru, before people are allowed to pass through.  In March, at the start of the lockdown period, Karnataka and Kerala governments took on each other in the Supreme Court after the Karnataka government stopped movement from Kerala to Karnataka. This left patients in Kasargod district living in villages close to the border struggling since they generally traveled to hospitals in Mangaluru for treatment. Read: After Karnataka lockdown, Kerala patients on state border struggle to get treatment The issue was resolved in the Supreme Court and Karnataka allowed non-COVID-19 patients to pass through the border check post in April. 

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New guidelines for Karnataka containment zones: No barricades for individual cases

Coronavirus

The state government made these revisions stating that it has been difficult to conduct surveillance of containment zones.

TNM Staff

Representation photo

The Karnataka Department of Health and Family Welfare on Thursday revised guidelines that define containment zones and buffer zones. The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) will now not be required to barricade the streets where individual cases of COVID-19 are detected.  “In view of the evolving situation of COVID-19 in the state, there are a large number of cases reported in houses and apartments that are closely located. This has led to many containment zones, thus making it difficult for authorities to conduct surveillance,” the department said in its notification.  According to the new guidelines, if the person with COVID-19 lives in an individual house, only the building in which the person resides will be a containment zone. Earlier, the entire street where an individual house is located was a containment zone and both ends of the streets were to be barricaded. With revised guidelines, this is not necessary.  Revised Guidelines for Containment and Buffer zones.@iaspankajpandey @Tejasvi_Surya @BBMP_MAYOR @BBMPCOMM @CCBBangalore @BlrCityPolice @KarnatakaVarthe @PIBBengaluru @KarFireDept@BMTC_BENGALURU @NammaBESCOM @tv9kannada @publictvnews @suvarnanewstv @timesofindia @prajavani pic.twitter.com/06N4SIgTxx — K'taka Health Dept (@DHFWKA) August 20, 2020 If there are individual cases in an apartment building, only the floor in which the COVID-19 patient resides will be considered a containment zone henceforth. Earlier, the floor in which the patient resides along with the floors above and below were considered containment zones. If a resident of a slum tests positive, the entire street in which the person resides will now be a containment zone.  The revised guidelines also stipulate that notices cannot be pasted outside the door of the COVID-19 patient. However, if a person resides in an apartment complex, concerned resident welfare associations must be informed of the resident turning positive for the novel coronavirus.  Barricading of roads will be allowed if there are clusters of cases in the same locality and the patients' homes are located close to each other. The Deputy Commissioners of Districts or the Commissioners of urban local bodies are responsible to implement this.  According to the revised guidelines, a buffer zone is the area within a 200-metre radius of a containment zone. Active surveillance of patients in containment zones will be done once a day and surveillance of buffer zones will be done twice a week. 

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With online plays and audio dramas, artistes are trying to keep the theatre alive

Theater

Ever since the pandemic rendered most theatre persons out of work, various groups are turning to the digital medium to keep theatre alive.

Theja Ram

Dimmed lights in an auditorium, the resounding hum of the music, and most importantly, the immersive emotions the audience experiences when an actor is performing at their peak, are some of the most striking aspects of theatre.  With the COVID-19 pandemic demanding physical distancing, however, theatre persons in the country are now adapting to changing times. An industry, which stands to lose its essence, theatre persons are displaying resilience in rolling out innovative ways to keep the audience engaged.  Rewind to '80s radio dramas Dr Anitha Balachander, a theatre actor in Chennai, who is a part of TheaterMania, recounts how the group took inspiration from radio dramas of the 1980s and started their own online version of it.  “TheaterMarina has gone into audio plays. These are short plays with a duration of 10-15 minutes. It is uploaded on YouTube. These are similar to radio dramas of the 1980s which were called Oli Nadagam in Tamil Nadu. We have done many audio plays in the last two months,” Dr Anitha says.  TheaterMania uploads its audio plays every Wednesday at 6 pm on YouTube and have been doing so since June this year. One of the challenges, Anitha says, is the “disconnected connect” through the video calls. Rehearsals are more challenging than they used to be before the pandemic.  “The challenge is that people are in different locations and we don’t get to see them. In theatre, during rehearsals, you wait for the cue from another person. There is no body language to judge on a Zoom call and that is quite challenging,” she adds.  Ram Ganesh Kamatham, an award-winning playwright with Actors Ensemble India Forum, with over 25 years of experience in the industry, says that the audio plays are about listening more than the visual. Ram Ganesh’s hit comedies include Square Root of Minus in 2002, Dancing on Glass in 2004, S.T.R.I.P in 2008 and Ultimate Kurukshetra in 2011, which won him the Sultan Padamsee Award.  “If you watch a play, you are experiencing it and listening to it. This is different from a movie on Netflix or Amazon Prime Video. The difference is in the writing. If people are watching a play online, they will be diametrically opposed to binge-watch plays. This is because plays are written for audiences that are listening than for those that are watching. This is the challenge we are working with. We are overly bombarded with the visual. We experience the theatre despite the fact that it is now a visual medium,” Ram Ganesh Kamatham adds.  Video streaming plays “The loss of presence, the loss of audience, is something theatre persons are grappling with across generations. But we are not letting it get in our way. Some theatre groups are willing to stream their content online,” Ram Ganesh says.  The theatre group he works for has started production for a play he wrote in 2017 and they are planning to stream it online soon. “We were touring with a show in Singapore last year and that was to continue this year but it was pushed due to the pandemic. We have got new productions in the pipeline. The play is called The Echo Chamber/Antigone and it will be streamed online,” he adds.  Actors are rehearsing via Zoom calls. Reading material is mailed to every member of the team and they hold multiple readings. “The scripts are written for the online format, the rehearsals happen without the presence of people on the set. Although it is challenging, the theatre community is adapting to changing times,” he says.  Online theatre workshops and training Krishna Raj, a 31-year-old actor with the Bengaluru-based theatre group Yours Truly, has started theatre workshops online since the last two months. Soon after the lockdown, members of his theatre group, just like several others in the country, were suddenly out of work.  Krishna and his colleague Akshay Alok decided to start the series of workshops titled 'Art Liberates' in order to keep the training going.  “What is the alternative to theatre? This was a question asked a lot by a lot of people. A lot of people wanted to train under us. So we started converting all exercises and rehearsals into online format. We had to change the approach to theatre. We came together and rewrote the entire syllabus, and ways of teaching,” Krishna says.  Krishna and Akshay decided to finetune their training methods. There are different theatre training games which are taught to students and these, Krishna says, are best done in person.  “We have exercises which will help an audience believe that the actor has lived that experience. Ideally, we meet the person and show them how it is done. But now if there is a monologue that requires a person to show grief, we ask them to think of situations they were in which brought that out. We ask the students to talk to each other about their experiences in life, so they can observe the emotions on each others’ faces. The challenge is doing it online. Hence, we ask them to think about how they felt grief or anger or sadness or even joy,” he adds.  Yours Truly conducts online theatre workshops at two levels. A seven-day course for beginners spanning 14 hours in total and an advanced course. This advanced workshop continues for 10 more days and an additional eight days on weekends.  Just like Krishna, Ram Ganesh’s theatre group also conducts online workshops. He says that the online medium has expanded the scope of the concept of “audience” in the theatre sphere. “We have people from Germany, the US and other countries enrolling for workshops. We have had workshops almost every month and free workshops for the public every Sunday. Where we are is a phenomenal space and the audience is everywhere and not restricted to one place. Resilience of the theatre in such hard times is admirable,” Ram Ganesh says. 

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Bengaluru adds 2189 containment zones, total 16669 active

Coronavirus

Bengaluru had reported 2,804 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday.

TNM Staff

Image for representation/PTI

Bengaluru added 2,189 containment zones on Wednesday, taking the total active containment zones in the city to 16,669. The spike comes after the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) did not update containment zones numbers on Tuesday. The total number of containment zones reported in Bengaluru is now 37,863. A majority of the active containment zones continue to be in the west zone (3,802), which has also reported a quarter of COVID-19 cases for the past 10 days. East zone has the second most active containment zones at 3,060, followed by south zone at 3,046 active zones. The latter has also recorded the highest number of containment zones till date at 9,663, with 6,617 having returned to normal status.  South zone, east zone, Mahadevapura and Bommanahlli have more containment zones that have returned to normal than ones that are active. In all, 56% containment zones in the city have returned to normal status, while 44% are active.  While west zone had most of the 2,804 new coronavirus patients reported in Bengaluru on Wednesday, east zone had the second highest share at 16%, followed by south zone at 13%. Mahadevapura had 10% of the patients, followed by RR Nagara and Bommanahlli at 8% each, Dasarahalli at 6% and Yelahanka at 5%. Dasarahalli had the steepest difference between the number of new patients (almost 200) and those who had recovered (less than 50) on Wednesday.  In the last ten days, east and south zones have reported 17% and 16% of the coronavirus cases, while the other zones have all reported less than 10% of the cases each.  Bengaluru reported 2,804 new COVID-19 patients on Wednesday. This is the third time in the last 10 days that the number of new cases in the city has crossed 2,500. On August 14, the highest single day spike of 3,495 cases was reported; and prior to that, on August 11, Bengaluru had recorded 2,802 COVID-19 cases. The active rate and recovery rate in Bengaluru remain the same as Tuesday at 35% and 65% respectively. The positivity rate too is the same at 16.87%.

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