Women in Karnataka now allowed to work night shifts at factories

Labour

Employers have been directed to put in place facilities conducive for women to successfully carry out night shift jobs.

TNM Staff

The Karnataka government on Wednesday issued a notification enabling women to work in night shifts in factories. "The labour department has issued a notification with 24 pointers for employers to adhere to hire women in the night shift," an official in the Chief Minister's Office said.  The notification stated, "The Government of Karnataka hereby allows employment of women workers, who come forward to work during night shifts, between 7.00 P.M to 6.00 A.M. in the factories registered under the Factories Act 1948," subject to certain conditions. The Karnataka government cited the Madras High Court judgement declaring section 66 (1) (b) of Factories Act 1948 as unconstitutional, violating Articles 14, 15 and 16 of the Constitution of India which deal with the right to equality, and employment. Right to equality and right to employment here being interpreted as the demand to treat women at par with men so as to allow them to work in night shifts like men. However, employers have been directed to put in place facilities conducive for women to successfully carry out night shift jobs. Employers are required to set up mechanisms to avert sexual harassment and also establish a complaints committee to address women's grievances. The notification also adds that it will not be made compulsory for anyone to work night shifts. It also lays down rules for workplaces to be made safe for women, including proper lighting and CCTV cameras at the workplace, transportation to and from the workplace, separate canteen facility, medical facilities, appointment of women wardens and welfare assistants.  One of the rules in the notification states that "women workers will be employed in a batch not less than ten and the total of the women workers employed in a night shift shall not be less than 2/3rd of the total strength.”  Presently, women are allowed to work in night shifts in the IT and IT enabled services offices such as call centres and IT offices. With IANS inputs.

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KPL betting: Bookies blackmailed players through honey-trapping, says B’luru top cop

Sport

The Bengaluru police commissioner made the revelation while announcing that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was being formed to investigate the scandal.

TNM Staff

Abrar Kazi and CM Gautam

In a new development in the Karnataka Premier League (KPL) match-fixing scandal, Bengaluru Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao on Wednesday revealed that players had allegedly been blackmailed through honey-trapping tactics by bookies.  The police commissioner shared new details of the scandal while announcing that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) was being formed within the Central Crime Branch (CCB), which is currently investigating the match-fixing scandal that has jolted the league.  Bhaskar Rao said that bookies filmed players enjoying themselves on luxurious trips. The players were sent on trips to places like Dubai and the Caribbean. They were provided with five-star accommodation, money and escorts. Their activities were filmed and they were later blackmailed with the videos from their trips. Worried that the tapes would be leaked, the players followed bookies' instructions, the Deccan Herald reported. The police commissioner added that some of the results of matches played in the league were decided before the matches began.  The match-fixing scandal came to light in September this year with the arrest of Belagavi Panthers owner Ali Asfak. Since then, details have slowly emerged revealing a wide web of match-fixing in the Twenty20 cricket league, by bookies.  Former Karnataka cricketers CM Gautam and Abrar Kazi were arrested by the CCB on charges of fixing in the KPL final held in March this year.  Gautam, who was the captain of Bellary Tuskers, and Abrar who plays for the same team, allegedly accepted Rs 20 lakh for "slow batting" in the final against Hubli Tigers. Bellary Tuskers lost the final by 8 runs and the manner in which they lost has now raised suspicions of a match-fixing scandal. Chasing 153 runs, Bellary Tuskers ended their innings at 144. Opening batsman Gautam scored a 37-ball 29 while Kazi struck 13 off six deliveries. KPL is run by the Karnataka State Cricket Association (KSCA) every year on the lines of the popular Indian Premier League (IPL) tournament by the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI). Bhaskar Rao said that the regulatory bodies - KSCA and BCCI - should have acted soon after the scandal came to light and confirmed that members of both bodies will be summoned for interrogation.  In all, seven people have been arrested in connection with the scam. Investigating officials had recently issued a ‘lookout circular' against the Bellary Tuskers team owner Arvind Venkatesh Reddy. 

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Karnataka police arrest history-sheeter for allegedly raping minor girl in Udupi

Crime

The incident occurred at Moodadu village in Udupi on Sunday.

Harsha Raj Gatty

The Udupi police on Wednesday arrested a 33-year-old history-sheeter for allegedly raping a 15-year old girl at Moodadu village on Sunday. According to the police, Ashok Poojary was known to the survivor. On Sunday, Ashok allegedly coaxed the girl, who was in Class 10, to accompany him in his car at the pretext of dropping her home located in Satsan village. Since Ashok was known to the victim through a common acquaintance. However, when they reached Moodadu, Ashok allegedly raped the girl and allegedly threatened her with dire consequences if she spoke about the incident to anyone. The girl allegedly went home after the incident. However, her parents noticed that she was distraught and shaken. They repeatedly questioned her about her whereabouts since she was away from home for a long time during the day. After repeated pleas from her mother, the girl broke down and narrated her ordeal to them. Her parents accompanied her to the Kota Police Station and reported the matter. In her complaint to the police, the survivor alleged that Ashok Poojary was accompanied by two others when the incident occurred. We have also booked the unidentified persons under relevant sections of POCSO, the police said. “We are looking out for them. We are yet to determine conclusively whether they were involved in the rape,” the police added. Meanwhile the police said that the girl has been sent to the government hospital for a medical examination and are awaiting the report. According to the police, Ashok is also wanted in connection with several other cases including theft and illegal sand transportation. “He is a habitual offender and has been listed as rowdy-sheeter in different police station across the district. He is married and has two children. However, owing to some domestic disputes, Ashok is staying away from his wife and children,” the police officials said. Kota police have registered a case against Ashok Poojary under Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POSCO) and section 376 (rape) of the IPC, his two friends have been booked under the POCSO Act. Since the victim belongs to Dalit community, a case was also booked under Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities). On Wednesday, Ashok Poojary was produced before the court at Udupi, which remanded him to 15-day judicial custody. (Story by Story Infinity (Subs and Scribes Media Ventures LLP.)

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Trump FDA pick stops short of committing to flavor ban

Trump in September announced his intention to ban flavored vapes, then reportedly held up FDA action on the ban.

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K’taka govt again announces free WiFi for users in Bengaluru, will it work this time?

Internet

Since 2014, successive state governments have announced this project but have not been able to deliver.

Alithea Stephanie Mounika

The Karnataka government has once again announced that Bengaluru city would get free WiFi hotspots. Since 2014, successive state governments have announced this project but have not been able to deliver.  Speaking to the media at the Bengaluru Tech Summit, Deputy Chief Minister and Minister for IT and BT, Dr CN Ashwath Narayan said that the city would get 4,000 WiFi hotspots all across the city.  “All 800 sq km of Bengaluru will soon be connected with the internet,” Ashwath Narayan said.  The Karnataka government has joined hands with ACT Fibernet to provide free WiFi connectivity. “We expect this to boost tourism,” he added. The entire project is expected to take nine months or a year to be completed before it is made available to the public.  However, it may be noted that the project is still at the proposal stage and ACT Fibernet has not signed any agreement with the government yet.  Under the proposal, the first one hour of internet access would be free, after which people can choose to pay for the WiFi at the rate of Rs 50 per hour. As part of the proposal, people can also opt to continue using the free WiFi while the speed is expected to remain 1 Gbps.  The project is estimated to cost ACT Fibernet Rs 100 crore without involving any investment from the state government.  In response to a question from TNM, Bala Malladi, CEO of ACT, said that the money for this extremely expensive project would come out of their CSR funding. “Our intention is to offer seamless connectivity to all citizens,” he said. He also said that they want to offer WiFi as a service to people, and that a similar public WiFi project is already underway through ACT’s fibernet network, in Hyderabad and Chennai. The state government, however, has agreed to subsidise the cost of setting up hotspot towers for ACT. ACT says that they are also ready to pay the huge electricity bills that come with setting up a WiFi hotspot network across the entire city, through regular electricity metering. The WiFi hotspots are also proposed to have CCTV cameras installed along with them. These cameras will be managed by the Bengaluru Police. In January 2018, former Deputy Chief Minister Dr G Parameshwara, had announced that 5,938 free WiFi hotspots would come up across the city.  The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) had also announced that ACT Fibernet would provide hotspots at 766 locations, while Honeycomb and DVOIS would provide 2,516 towers each, and Indus Tower would provide the remaining 140 towers.  Indus Towers had also begun setting up these towers in a few areas in the city in October last year. However, the project was stopped due to high operational costs. According to BBMP Commissioner Anil Kumar, the other partners dropped out of the project as they were not sure about the profits they could make by installing these hotspots.  “They were not sure that people would switch from using 4G to paying for the free hotspot after one hour. Besides, the operational costs, they said, were too high and risk of returns was also high,” he said.  Since 2012, several governments have announced free WiFi schemes. The first scheme was announced in 2014, and the project was piloted on MG Road. Even when the public WiFi was established, the connection was found to be extremely slow. For example, the public WiFi that was available during the initial stages, when the MG road metro was open to the public in 2014, was barely useable, with speed less than 2G. This project was sidelined. Thereafter, in 2016, 2017 and 2018, the government made announcements for providing free WiFi in the city. These projects did not come to fruition as internet service providers (ISPs) were not keen on taking up the project.  However, ACT Fibernet has promised that the WiFi is guaranteed to be fast, and that the speed would be 1 Gbps. In a similar exercise, Kerala had announced in July this year that 1,887 free WiFi zones have been set up in select areas across all districts of the state under the K-Fi project of the state government and that more were being set up to meet the targeted figure of 2000 free WiFi centres.  Read: Nithyananda ashram raided, managers arrested on allegations of child abuse, kidnap

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Nityananda ashram raided, manager arrested on allegations of child abuse, kidnap

Crime

The Gujarat HC is hearing a case filed by a former disciple who has accused Nithyananda of holding his daughters hostage.

Soumya Chatterjee

In yet another controversial development surrounding self-styled godman and rape accused Nithyananda, police in rural Ahmedabad on Wednesday arrested two women ashram managers for allegedly abusing children. The FIR also mentions the name of Nithyananda, other than the two disciples who were arrested- Pranpriya and PriyatattvaThis comes after police freed three minor children (a boy and two girls) from his Hirapur Ashram in the outskirts of Ahmedabad city and united them with their parents. The arrest on Wednesday was made based on the statement by the minors. The FIR, which TNM has accessed, says that the children were subjected to child labour. "They were verbally abused horribly, they were beaten. In order to make sure that the person who gave the complaint does not meet the children, they were kidnapped and illegally locked up/confined at a house in Pushpak city for two weeks. The accused conspired to kidnap and the children were threatened that they will be killed," says the FIR. The police raid at the ashram and the house was prompted by the Gujarat State Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (GSCPCR) which in turn was approached by a man named Janardhan Sharma.  Sharma, a former disciple of Nithyananda, who was once closely associated with him, approached the Gujarat High Court alleging that his children were brainwashed and tortured at the ashram. He said that he had admitted four of his children in Nithyananda ashram in Bidadi near Bengaluru in 2013, when his eldest daughter was 15 years old. After he had a fall out with Nithyananda, his children were shifted to Gujarat’s Yogini Sarvagya Peetham (run by Nithyananda) earlier this year, without the family's consent. This gurukul functions inside the premises of the Delhi Public School in rural Ahmedabad (eastern outskirts). While his younger children were returned to him, his two daughters refused to leave the ashram. In fact, the eldest daughter Lopamudra, now, 21 came out with a video alleging that her parents had enabled her sexual abuse and she would rather stay at the ashram. According to the video, they are currently touring in Trinidad in West Indies. Police had earlier said that these children were subjected to physical violence inside the ashram. Sharma has however alleged that his daughters were under Nithyananda's influence and were unable to understand that they needed to get away from 'his clutches'. Though Sharma's daughters refused to come back home, the raids prompted by his complaint resulted in the rescue of three other children. While the children have been moved to a government home, the trio have been booked under Sections 365 (abduction), Section 344 (wrongful confinement), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (intentional insult to provoke breach of peace) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code along with sections of the Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Act. “The two are in custody. We are carrying on with our investigation,” Vivekanand Nagar Inspector RB Rana told TNM. As far as Nithyananda is concerned, incidents like these are not new. A rape case was filed against Nithyananda in 2010 by a disciple. After prolonging the trial for years using various tactics, he has been skipping trial for more than a year now. In 2014, there was a mysterious death in his Bidadi ashram. Sangeetha Arjunan, a native of Tiruchi in Tamil Nadu died in the ashram premises on December 28, 2014 and the ashram officials claimed she died of a heart attack. Her parents however, have said that Sangeetha did not have any heart condition and that they suspected foul play  

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Two Bengaluru youth consume painkillers at birthday party, die of alleged overdose

Crime

They diluted a prescription painkiller in water and injected it into their bodies.

TNM Staff

Two young men from Bengaluru, who were celebrating a birthday, died on Tuesday after allegedly overdosing on painkillers. Abhilash alias Abhi (23), Gopi (27) and Suman (25), met up at Abhilash’s house in Kodandaramanagar near Malleshwaram on Sunday night to celebrate Abhilash’s birthday. According to DCP (Central), Chetan Singh, the three friends who were drinking, also decided to use painkillers and had allegedly procured a prescription drug illegally. "Tydol is an opioid painkiller and has several side effects. It can cause dizziness, nausea, itchiness and dryness in the mouth. If a high dosage is taken, it can lead to death," DCP Chetan added.  The trio allegedly consumed the drug during the party on Sunday night. “They diluted the Tydol tablets in water and injected it into their bodies. Tydol is a prescription drug and used only for those who have undergone surgeries. It is not supposed to be bought or sold without a prescription. We are trying to find out who sold them this drug,” DCP Chetan said. On Monday morning, the trio, who were at Abhilash’s home began complaining of severe stomach pain and high fever. While Abhilash and Suman were rushed to Suguna Hospital, Gopi was taken to Vega Hospital in Malleshwaram. Police say that Gopi had developed a fever in addition to the stomach pain. “The doctors at the hospital told Abhilash’s father that they found high doses of Tydol drug in their system. The doctors at Vega hospital told Gopi’s parents the same thing,” DCP Chetan said. While Abhilash and Gopi died on Tuesday afternoon, Suman is currently undergoing treatment at Suguna Hospital. The police have registered a case of unnatural death after Abhilash’s father filed a complaint with the Vyalikaval Police on Tuesday afternoon. “We have taken a preliminary statement from Suman about the incident. We have to question him once he gets better and find out how they procured the drugs. Once we arrest the culprits, and question them, we will register an FIR,” DCP Chetan added.      

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