Sexual assault of school girls, terror blot on Karnataka

India scripting space history with its mission to Mars in its maiden attempt marked the high point of variegated developments from Karnataka during 2014 that also saw a resurgent BJP and rising sexual assaults of minor girls in schools with the year ending on a terror tinge.
In a development causing worry to the security apparatus, engineer Mehdi Masroor Biswas, named by UK-based Channel 4 as the man behind terror group Islamic State's (IS) most influential Twitter handle was found based in Bengaluru and arrested.
On the corporate front, the country's IT capital was a witness to top-level changes in software major Infosys after exodus of senior executives, to bring the company back to its old glory.

Bengaluru also saw a watershed judicial verdict with a special court here sending AIADMK chief Jayalalithaa to jail in the disproportionate assets case that caused a political tumult with her losing chief ministership.
The early part of 2014 was marked by BJP bouncing back with an impressive show in Lok Sabha polls, winning 17 of the 28 seats in Karnataka, where ruling Congress fell short of its expectations ending up with a mere nine seats.
In a disconcerting trend, as many as five incidents of alleged sexual assaults of minor girls in schools were reported in the city in as many months, which have led to growing public outrage and concern over safety of girls.

On September 24, India joined an elite club of three nations when its low-cost spacecraft was successfully placed in orbit around Mars in its very first attempt.

The Rs 450-crore MOM Mangalyaan is the cheapest inter-planetary mission that, at just USD 74 million, costs less than the estimated USD 100 million budget of the sci-fi blockbuster "Gravity" and a tenth of NASA's Mars mission Maven that entered the Martian orbit on September 22.
European, American and Russian probes have managed to orbit or land on the planet, but after several attempts.
Only 21 of 51 missions sent to Mars by various countries being successful, the MOM feat has given a boost to India's global standing in space in general and Bengaluru-based Indian Space Research Organisation in particular.