By Violet Pereira, Team Mangalorean

Mangalore: St Agnes College (Autonomous), Department of Political Science organized one day seminar on "Sixty Years of Karnataka Legislative Assembly", at the college conference hall, here on July 7.

Chairman Karnataka State Legislative council Hon'ble B H Shankar Moorthy inaugurated the seminar in the morning. Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, Law, Urban development, Government of Karnataka Hon'ble Suresh Kumar delivered the key note address.

Former MLA, MLC Kundapura Winnifred Fernandes; Former Minister/Government of Karnataka/ Former MLA  Udupi Manorama Madhwaraj; Former MLA Puttur Shakuthala Shetty, and Puttur MLA Mallika Prasad were felicitated on the occasion.

MLC Kota Srinivas Poojary spoke on 'Vidhana Sabha - the Temple of Democracy'; A panel discussion on 'People's Expectations from Vidhana Sabha' was also held. Former Chairman Legislative Council V R Sudharshan spoke on 'Outstanding Parliamentarians of Karnataka Vidhana Sabha' .

A valedictory of the seminar was held at 3.30 p.m at the conference hall. In his valedictory address Hon'ble leader of Opposition Karnataka Legislative Assembly Siddharamiah said, "The Mysore territory which functioned as a state within the Union of India between 1947 and 1956 and it was renamed as Karnataka in 1973, Shri Kengal Hanumanthaiah, after becoming the Chief Minister of Mysore from 1951 to 1956, at that time thought of building the Vidhana Soudha. After visiting Europe, Russia, United States and other places he got the idea of building Vidhana Soudha by incorporating various designs from the buildings he had seen. The Vidhana Soudha was completed in 1956.

Attara Kacheri of Bangalore was built under the reign of Tippu Sultan, the Emperor of Mysore. Both Hyder Ali and Tippu were using Urdu words more while speaking Kannada. It is said that during his time, the offices of the eighteen departments of Revenue and General Secretariat expanded to quite an extent. Since the palace could not house the offices, he ordered the construction of a new building, where the offices could be relocated. He named the building as Attara Kacheri, meaning eighteen offices or departments. Now the Attara Kacheri has become the High Court.

While concluding he said that in 60 years of Independence, there are lot of changes in the state. People are recognizing honest persons in the society. Government work was known as God's work in olden days, but the government work did not remain God's work, it has been reversed. People have become selfish and greedy and corruption has increased beyond control, he opined.

KPCC Secretary Ivan D'Souza, Congress leader Vijay Kumar Sorake, College Vice Principal Sr Supriya AC, Political Science Department Head Chandramohana Marathe and Sr Viola AC were also present on the dais.