The login issue that was faced has been sorted out.
For the curious few:
There has been a change in the way mysql works and we have been using an earlier collation that was incompatible with the character set. The login script has had the collation order changed.
If you are a serious developer on mysql / mariadb, maybe it will be a good idea to look at the road map.
Thanks to Mr Gopi of CTS who has helped in bringing out a solution.
Thanks for understanding,
JSP