Govt gives a hand to Bangalore Habba

Govt gives a hand to Bangalore Habba
Deccan Herald

On the eve of the fourth edition of the annual cultural extravaganza, ‘Bengalooru Habba’, the State government has extended a hand of partnership to the festival organisers, AFFA (Artistes’ Foundation for the Arts). The gesture coming in the Suvarna Karnataka year is seen as a boost towards “institutionalising” the festival, which has thus far leaned wholly on private sponsorship.

Addressing a press conference along with Ms Nandini Alva and Ms Padmini Ravi, AFFA trustees, on Thursday, Kannada and Culture and Tourism Secretary I M Vital Murthy noted “this habba which has turned out to be a prestigious event will be a good example of the growing public-private partnership initiatives.”

The festival is scheduled to run through the week December 3-10 and will have a curtain-raiser in the form of an all-night Hindustani Mehfil on December 2, featuring well-known performers like Rajeev Taranath, Balekhan Sahodararu, Sangeetha Katti Kulkarni, Fayaz Khan and so on.


The curtain-raiser, billed as ‘Suvarna Karnatakakke Belli Habbada Samskruti Baagina’, starts at 10 pm and will run on till 6 am on December 3, at the Ravindra Kalakshetra.

The notable other event is the Bengalooru Habba Golf Tournament on December 8, where AFFA has teamed with the Karnataka Golf Association to reach out to “the niche corporate segment of Bangalore society”. The formal inauguration on December 3, at 6.30 pm at Ravindra Kalakshetra, will see a concert by M S Sheila and a Bharatanatyam performance by Lakshmi Gopalaswamy. The week-long event will see 2,800 artistes showcase over 20 different art forms in 55 locations around the City.

Ravindra Kalakshetra, Samsa Auditorium, Nayana Hall and ADA Rangamandira, located next door to one another, will host most programmes specific to the Suvarna Karnataka theme -- among them, Dasavani, Vachana Sangeetha, Nrityanjali and Geethothsava. Separate sections on upcoming and veteran musicians will be a ‘first’ in this Habba edition. Sangeethothsava and Hiriya Diggajarige Namaskara as the programmes are titled will be held daily at Nayana, 3.30 pm onwards. For details, hit the website: www.bengaloorruhabba.com

RAGA-CHARGED!

The Habba will see a section of the cellular network in Bangalore City ringing ragas galore.

Airtel, the main sponsor, has launched recharge coupons on various ragas on the Airtel Easy Music segment. The coupons are in three categories -- as collections of morning ragas, evening ragas and the best of ragas. New Airtel connections purchased during the Habba will get a free ragas recharge coupon. The coupons are in denominations of Rs 260 and above.

Airtel also partners with Google to offer search. Bharti Airtel and Google announced on Thursday in Bangalore that they have formed a strategic partnership to provide mobile search.

Google will power searches on Airtel Live in two areas - on net (on Airtel Live) and off net (Internet on Mobile). Airtel Live has over 50,000 exclusive pieces of content including information like news, stock ticker and sports scores and downloadable content like games, music, video clips and wall papers, said a company release. Google will also incorporate Mobile Ads.