'Debate on changing B'lore name a waste of time'

Bangalore, Nov 7: IT icon N R Narayana Murthy today said there was no point in debating over the changing the city's name to Bengaluru from Bangalore, instead, energy should be spent on improving the life of common citizens in the metro and other cities of Karnataka.

The state government has decided to change the names of major cities in the state, including Bangalore, to suit the local dialect.

It has decided to call Bangalore as Bengaluru, Mysore as Mysooru, Mangalore as Mangaluru, Gulbarga as Kalburgi, Belgaum as Belagavi and Hubli as Hubballi.

Speaking to newspersons on the sidelines of the Emergency General Body Meeting of Infosys, for which he is the Non-Executive Chairman, he said, Kannadigas like him were anyway using the names of the cities like it was pronounced locally and there was no point in debating over it. There were other important issues to be debated upon, he said.

"This is not what I would spend my time on. I would spend it rather on improving the quality of life of every citizen. We must spend our energy and enthusiasm on how to improve the infrastructure in the city. We must also find ways to make the city roads safe for our children, give better quality education to poorest of poor, provide better healthcare and reduce pollution levels," he said.

On the government's effort to woo industries to II and III tier cities in the state, he said there was an urgent need to improve connectivity to such cities by providing broadband and better roads, he said.

UNI