Once a Place of Pride, Kodialguttu Now under Siege...

Once upon a time, the Kodialguttu House, off MG Road in Mangalore, was lord of all the surrounding landscape, as far as the eye could reach. Presumably the vast Kodialbail derived its name from Kodialguttu.

The heritage Guttu House, about 250 years old, occupies the better part of a 2-acre plot along the road linking MG Road to its parallel road to the east, leading to Bijai. The Guttu House itself is a rambling structure with patchwork additions and deletions to the original complex. Lush green paddy fields once fronted the Guttu House.

Kodialguthu House

Now the advancing concrete jungle, with high-rises encircling it, makes it a dwarfed relic of another age. That, and the loss of land and revenue from vast properties under the land reforms and declaration regimes, makes Kodialguttu seem under siege - both literally and figuratively.

For,  once earlier Kodialguttu owned all the land as the eye could see - and one could see very far in the pre-high-rise era -  surrounding the Guttu House, including the land on which SDM College, Canara College, Besant College and T M A.Pai Convention Centre have their foundations on now.

Besides, Kodialguttu had vast tracts of land at Arkula, Suratkal, Konchadi-Derebail, Kallamundkur and Kuttar. The Guttu had in its heyday about 40 family members under one roof, attended on by a retinue of cooks and servants. The annual 'geni' ( rent in rice ) then was said to be 5000 to 6000 'muras' or 'mudis'.

Dr. Kalidas Shetty (Microbiology and Food Safety, University of Massachusetts, Amherst).

Dr. Shetty accepted an assignment with the Bureau of Economic and Business Affairs (EB), where he is focusing his efforts on promotion of U.S. agricultural biotechnology. In this connection he has traveled to a number of capitals in Asia and elsewhere to lecture on the benefits of agricultural biotechnology (i.e.., GM crops) in terms of food production and food safety for the developing world.

Dr.Kalidas Shetty

Intellectual property pertaining to genetically-modified crops is another area in which Dr. Shetty is making an important contribution to EB. In addition, he is the bureau’s primary adviser on food safety issues such as BSE and soy rust. In this connection, Dr. Shetty is available to other bureaus as an expert advisor on agricultural terrorism, as well as terrorist-related water and food contamination issues. He serves as the State Department representative on the USG Interagency Working Group on Biotechnology Risk Assessment. Dr. Shetty’s work is contributing to U.S. national security, regional security, advancement of U.S. AgBio exports and thus enhancement of trade and economic prosperity, greater alimentary security and capacity building in the developing world.