This award list was worth a watch. Not because who and who were among the nominees. But, who wasn’t. Consider this: A week ago, the list for Karnataka’s state day (Rajyotsava) awards stood at 101. On the big day, November 1, it grew to 127. By the time the ceremony began it swelled to a whopping 175.The Congress-Janata Dal Secular government reduced the once prestigious awards for excellence in various fields by Karnataka’s people into an ordinary me-too event, forcing two prominent Kannada writers and a former bureaucrat, named in the mammoth list, to boycott the event.The list was drawn up from recommendations made by both Congress and the JDS leaders. The list, usually restricted to around 60, grew by the minute in the run-up to the final ceremony on Tuesday. The last name, that of M.V. Prasad for sports, entering the list minutes before the event reportedly on the recommendation of JDS chief H.D. Deve Gowda. Finally, Chief Minister Dharam Singh, in a back-breaking, marathon feat, handed out 170 citations, shawls and cheques for Rs 10,000 each in 110 minutes flat.‘‘Many of you thought that I would not be able to stand through this ceremony. This is an indication of my stability and that of my government,’’ Chief Minister Dharam Singh joked after the ceremony.The Dharam Singh government had outdone itself when it came to doling out Rajyotsava awards. Last year the coalition government had named 110 awardees, a record that had matched former CM S Bangarappa’s Rajyotsava magnanimity of 1992.That the 2005 awards ceremony did not go down well with a lot of people was evident with members of the committee for picking the awardees themselves absent from the awards ceremony, along with writers Vyasaraya Ballal, Krishnamurthy Hanur and former state bureaucrat Chiranjiv Singh.‘‘What really is the need for a committee? We are also aware who is eligible. We are in a coalition and this is the situation,’’ Dharam Singh said laying the blame for the endless list on his deputy CM, M.P. Prakash, a theatre artist and actor himself, who headed the award committee.‘‘I have not given in to pressure or put my own people in the list. Every one of them deserves to be there. From now on, the lists will be longer,’’ the chief minister said.The awardees included a tailor who unfurled the national flag when Jawaharlal Nehru visited Hubli and a woman who saved people from snakebites.In the run-up to the awards a question mark had hung over whether the coalition government would honour people from the IT fraternity, given the standoff between the IT sector and the government. The Dharam Singh government finally chose Mphasis Technologies CEO Jerry Raoand 19-year-old IT entrepreneur Suhas Gopinath for the awards in the IT category.
