Narayana Hrudayalaya, the Bangalore-based heart care hospital, has set up its new hospital Narayana Hrudayalaya-Mallareddy Hospital at Jeedimetla here today, with a noble aim to provide affordable quality healthcare.

The new hospital will is reported to possess a 30,000-bed strength in its health cities across the country in five years. It has earmarked Rs 1,000 crores for the expansion.

The Rs 200 crores multi-super specialty health centre is a joint venture of the Narayana Hrudayalaya Group and Malla Reddy Group of Institutions.

Bangalore, Jan 23 :  State-run Vijaya Bank reported a net profit of Rs. 125 crore for the October-December third quarter of fiscal 2009-10, down 26 percent from the Rs. 159 crore in same period a year ago.

"Our numbers need to be seen in the light of subdued earnings from treasury during the third quarter in the face of hardened benchmark yields," Chairman and Managing Director Albert Tauro told reporters here Saturday.

Provision of Rs. 113.17 crore against a declared non-performing asset of the state-run State Trading Corporation Ltd (STCL) had a cascading effect on the bank's bottomline for the quarter.

Bangalore, Jan 23 - Fifty percent tax will be exempted for superstar Amitabh Bachchan's film "Paa" as it has created public awareness on the disease progeria, Karnataka Chief Minister B. S. Yeddyurappa said Saturday.

'Paa' is a message oriented film. Big B has invited all members of the legislative council and assembly to view it, Yeddyurappa told reporters.

Yeddyurappa said he will see the film Thursday along with some cabinet ministers.

Amithabh arrived in Bangalore Saturday to promote his film "Rann", directed by Ram Gopal Varma, and meet Yeddyurappa and other ministers.

Bangalore, Jan 22 - Veteran Karnataka theatre and film personality Chindodi Leela died Thursday night in a Bangalore hospital after a brief illness, hospital sources said. She was 72.

Leela single handedly ran the fortunes of a big professional theatre group in Karnataka for over 34 years.

She had undergone bypass surgery last Monday, but she succumbed to heart related ailments at around 10 p. m. Thursday night.

Expressing deep regret over the death of Karnataka's most popular theatre personality, Chief Minister B. S. Yediyurappa said that the state has lost a popular artist who was also involved in many social and developmental activities.

The Bengaluru International Airport (BIA) is going to get bigger as the developers have begun the process of expanding the terminal. The expansion is expected to make the airport of the software city a mega world-class airport.

The expansion planned for the next four to eight years will make the airport capable of handling passenger traffic of 51 million per annum from the current 12 million. The airport now operates at about 80% of its capacity.

The air passenger traffic in the city is to rise 15% in 2010-11.

Bangalore, Jan 19 - Bewitching beauty Nayantara is all set to act in her first Kannada film shortly. She will act in a yet untitled film which will be directed by Upendra and produced by Rockline Venkatesh.

Both Upendra and Rockline Venkatesh felt that Nayantara would be appropriate to do a lead role in this film. The movie will be made in three languages - Kannada, Telugu and Tamil.

Incidentally Nayantara is now working only in a few Telugu films and is all set to sign some new Tamil films shortly. Her Telugu film "Simha" in which she is paired with Balakrishna is now being shot in Hyderabad.

Upendra said that he did try to select his cast only after he had finished writing the script of the film.

Bangalore, Jan 11 : In offices, buses, homes, plush restaurants and at roadside eateries in Bangalore and other places in Karnataka, the talk on Monday was all about former prime minister H. D. Deve Gowda's "bloody b...." and a Kannada equivalent of "S. O. B.".

For several months now people in Karnataka have been treated to low public discourse with epithets like 'rascals', 'emperor of lies' and 'mentally unsound' freely hurled at one another by the leaders of three major political parties - the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular.

Bangalore, Jan 11 : Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers across Karnataka hit the streets Monday tO protest Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) chief H. D. Deve Gowda's use of invectives against Chief Minister B. S. Yeddyurappa. Protesters garlanded the former prime minister's portraits with shoes and burnt his effigies.

The JD-S office in north Karnataka's Bidar town, about 700 km from here, was attacked but no one was hurt as the premises was closed, police said.

Bangalore, Jan 9 : The Karnataka government Saturday announced a series of welfare measures for Bangalore's poor and promised better roads and other facilities for the residents ahead of upcoming civic polls.

Balloting for the 198-member Bruhat Bangalore Mahanagara Palike (Greater Bangalore City Corporation) are scheduled for Feb 21.

Over half a million slum dwellers, poor Scheduled Castes/Tribes and over 100,000 auto drivers will get health insurance, illegal slums will be regularized, roads will be repaired and around 700,000 unauthorized buildings will be regularized on payment of a penal fee, Chief Minister B. S. Yeddyurappa announced after a meeting with ministers belonging to Bangalore, party legislators from the city and senior officials.

Bangalore, Jan 9 : Two people including a woman warden were arrested by the Bangalore Police on Saturday for running a drugs racket, inside the Bangalore Central Jail.

The Bangalore Central Jail houses over 7000 inmates.

Briefing the media, Bangalore Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) B N S Reddy said: "She (warden) was found carrying a packet and was about to hand it over to one Rizwan, who is actually a convicted prisoner.”

The police are investigating the circumstances in which over 850 grams of marijuana got past the heavily guarded gates of the Central Jail.

"There are certain developments that have taken place. We have brought it to the knowledge of jail authorities time and again," Reddy added.

Bangalore, Jan 8 : A university devoted to the study of urbanisation and settlement issues may come up in this tech hub soon, its promoters, who include IT icons and leading industrialists, said Friday.

Said to be the first-of-its-kind university in the country solely devoted to the study of urbanisation and related issues, the privately-funded initiative is being set up by the Indian Institute for Human Settlements (IIHS).

The IIHS promoters include IT icon Nandan Nilekani, a founder of Infosys and now head of India's Unique Identification Number project, industrialists Keshub Mahindra, Jamshyd Godrej, management experts Xerxes Desai and Deepak Parekh and former Reserve Bank of India deputy governor Rakesh Mohan.

The Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers today indicated that the proposed implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) would be postponed as the states raised questions about the methodology applied by the Thirteenth Finance Commission taskforce. A new date is expected to be announced later.

Strides Arcolab, the Bangalore based Pharmaceutical company, has entered into a deal for licensing and supply for medicines with the World's largest drug maker Pfizer.

The deal covers injectables and some oral products from the Indian company along with forty off patent medicines for sale in the US. The financial details of the deal were not disclosed. The first product of the alliance is to be launched as early as 2010.

Bangalore, Jan 7 : The Ideal Foundation, an NGO working for the blind in the country has brought out a Braille calendar here on Wednesday.

More than 45,000 calendars have been printed in various languages and many of them have been distributed free.

"We have done it in 12 languages and 40,000 calendars have been distributed throughout India. In Karnataka 5,000 to 7,000 calendars have been distributed through various sources,” said P. K. Paul, founder of the Ideal Foundation.

Bangalore, Jan 7 : To coincide with the launch of a unique "adventure park" here, the Getiton Funventure will conduct dirt track supercross and autocross competitions for two and four-wheelers, respectively, over the weekend at their facility on the outskirts of the city.

Bangalore, Jan 7 : Janata Dal-Secular chief and former prime minister H. D. Deve Gowda Thursday threatened a state-wide agitation against Karnataka's Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government if it continued to acquire farm land for industry and infrastructure purposes.

"It is a do or die situation in the state as farmers are being arrested, beaten up and their lands acquired without their consent," Gowda told reporters here.

Bangalore, Jan 7 : Tamil movie icon Rajnikanth visited the house of late Kannada film superstar Vishnuvardhan, who died recently following a heart attack, to console his family members.

Rajnikanth spent close to an hour at Vishnuvardhan's house Wednesday night. He was accompanied by his close friend, actor and former parliamentarian Ambareesh, well-known Kannada film producers Rockline Venkatesh and K. Manju. He told the family about some of the moments he shared with the late actor.

Bangalore, Jan 7 - NRI entrepreneur B. R. Shetty may have acquired two floors in the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa, after shelling out a stupendous Rs. 100 crore-plus -- but he doesn't know what to do with them!

According to Shetty's family members, the founder partner, managing director & CEO of Abu Dhabi-based New Medical Centre, has not yet decided on how to utilise the massive space on the 100th and 141st floors in the 200-storey Burj, which was inaugurated Jan 4.

Bangalore, Jan 6 :  A senior Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer in Karnataka is under government scanner for sexual harassment following a complaint by a widow.

"Investigation is on," Chief Minister B. S. Yeddyurappa told reporters responding to questions on the over two-year-old complaint by R. Yamini against D. K. Rangaswamy, who was at that time deputy commissioner of Bangalore Rural district.

The chief minister declined to elaborate on who is conducting the probe.

Bangalore, Jan 6 : Former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa on Wednesday filed a petition at the Karnataka High Court urging it to quash the proceedings initiated by the Special Court against her in disproportionate assests case.

A Bangalore special court is hearing the disproportionate assets case against Jayalalithaa.

Earlier, the Supreme Court transferred the disproportionate assets case against her from Chennai to Bangalore.