New details on the forthcoming plan show the Trump administration is also trying to protect the policy in the courts.
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Wednesday, January 29, 2020
AH Vishwanath, rebel who lost bye-election, seeks Karnataka ministerial position
While 12 BJP candidates won in the December bye-election, Vishwanath was among the rebel leaders who were defeated.
AH Vishwanath, who was defeated in the bye-election from the Hunasuru Assembly constituency, appealed to the state BJP leadership to make him a Minister when the cabinet expansion takes place. The expansion of the Karnataka cabinet is expected to be announced after Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa's visit to New Delhi on January 30. Speaking to reporters, Vishwanath said, "Yediyurappa had told me not to contest bye-elections. But I had to try to retain my constituency. Winning and losing is a part of elections. I am asking them to make me a minister." "I am asking them to make me a minister. I am not asking them to make me the Deputy Chief Minister. Those who have lost have been made Deputy Chief Minister. Who is (Laxman) Savadi? When someone like Savadi who lost has been made Deputy Chief Minister, why are you denying me? I cannot be denied and I have suffered a loss because of you people (BJP)," Vishwanath said. He further added that the BJP should keep its promise made to rebel leaders who paved the way for the party to take power from the HD Kumaraswamy-led coalition government in Karnataka. "Because of my seniority, experience and sacrifice I must be given a chance. Just because I lost, I should not be denied the opportunity. It is not about winning or losing but about keeping promises," he added. The former JD(S) leader had earlier revealed that he planned to write a book about ‘Operation Kamala’ - a moniker for the Karnataka BJP’s plan of poaching leaders from the ruling party to bring down the government in a bid to clinch power. Vishwanath, who was earlier in the JD(S), resigned as the MLA of Hunasuru constituency and jumped ship to the BJP in 2019. Vishwanath had told TNM that BJP MP V Srinivas Prasad approached him with an offer of leaving the JD(S) and joining the BJP. While 12 BJP candidates won the bye-elections to 15 constituencies in December, Vishwanath, Saravana and MTB Nagaraj were among the rebel leaders who were defeated. Currently there are 18 Ministers, including the Chief Minister in the cabinet that has a sanctioned strength of 34. Sixteen positions in the cabinet are vacant. In all, 17 leaders from the Congress and JD(S) jumped ship and helped the BJP form the state government in Karnataka.
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Trouble in Karnataka BJP: Belagavi MLAs skip program with CM Yediyurappa
The decision to skip the event with the CM comes at a time when the Karnataka cabinet expansion is being discussed.
Newly elected BJP MLAs from Karnataka’s Belagavi – Ramesh Jarkiholi, Mahesh Kumatahalli and Srimanth Patil seem to be distancing themselves from Chief Minister Yediyurappa. The three, who had rebelled against the Congress-JD(S) government, did not show up for the event where Yediyurappa inaugurated the Belagavi Smart City Limited’s integrated command and control centre on Wednesday. Their absence in addition to Yediyurappa’s close aide, Umesh Katti’s late arrival to the event has raised several eyebrows. Sources close to Ramesh Jarkiholi say that the three MLAs were expected to travel from Bengaluru to Belagavi along with the CM but they refrained from doing so in order to show their dissatisfaction with the BJP leaders, who are trying to curb them from becoming ministers. When Yediyurappa was asked what he is planning to do to pacify the leaders from Belagavi, he said, “I will go to New Delhi tomorrow (Thursday) and meet with the national leaders and discuss the issue of cabinet expansion. All those who won the bye-polls from Belagavi will be made ministers. Even Umesh Katti (MLA from Hukkeri who was kept out of the cabinet) will be made a minister,” Yediyurappa said. The Karnataka cabinet expansion has put Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa in a rather awkward fix. Yediyurappa, who had promised to induct all 11 rebels, who won the bye-polls, into the cabinet is now facing their ire. This, after the high command suggested that only six to seven of the rebels be given ministerial berths instead of all 11. The fallout: MLAs from Belagavi – Ramesh Jarkiholi, Mahesh Kumatahalli and Srimanth Patil are distancing themselves from Yediyurappa. “Initially all (former rebels) were together and demanding that they all get ministerial berths. Once the infighting began, they began lobbying only for themselves. It is only leaders from Belagavi who are trying to stick together and show that their support is crucial for the BJP as they even managed to ensure that other BJP MLAs Anand (Saundatti), Mahadevappa Yedawad (Ramdurg) and Balachandra Jarkiholi (Arabhavi) did not attend the function today (Wednesday),” the BJP source added. On Tuesday, speculation was rife that the BJP’s national leaders were opposed to appointing all 11 newly elected MLAs as ministers, especially all those who won from Belagavi and Bengaluru districts. This is a bitter pill for them to swallow as they resigned from their posts as MLAs, were cooped up at a hotel in Mumbai, faced the censure of their constituents, all for achieving one goal – to bring down the Congress-JD(S) coalition. The 17 rebels had in July 2019 resigned on the promise from the BJP that they would be made ministers if they won the bye-polls. Although this seemed like a done deal in the past, pressure began building within the BJP as many party loyalists demanded that they be rewarded with ministerial berths as well. In order to quell the discontent, the high command has proposed that six or seven of the 11 rebels, who won, be given ministries. On Tuesday, Jarkiholi and two other leaders from Belagavi met Yediyurappa and expressed their dissatisfaction. Yediyurappa, sources said, is hoping to convince the high command that the new MLAs be accommodated by openly making proclamations that all will be made ministers.
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Coronavirus outbreak: IndiGo suspends flights on Delhi-Chengdu, Bengaluru-Hong Kong routes
Indigo said it will continue to operate the Kolkata-Guangzhou flight which it is "monitoring on a daily basis".
Representational image
IndiGo airlines said on Wednesday that due to the novel coronavirus outbreak in China, it has decided to suspend its flights on the Bengaluru-Hong Kong route from February 1 and on the Delhi-Chengdu route from February 1 to 20. The low-cost carrier said for now, it will continue to operate the Kolkata-Guangzhou flight which it is "monitoring on a daily basis". "And for our operating crew, we are ensuring that they return to India on the inbound flights without any layover in China," the airline said in a statement. Moreover, according to a source, India's largest airline has also told its crew members who are working on flights connecting India with East Asian countries like Thailand and Singapore to wear N95 masks at all times when they are on ground. "However, these crew members have been asked not to wear the mask when they are flying. They have also been told to avoid public places, meat from unverified sources and uncooked meat in East Asian cities. They have also been told to wash their hands frequently," the source added. According to an Air India official, all crew members working on flights between India and South East Asia have been asked to wear N95 masks. In India, many people are under observation in hospitals for suspected coronavirus infection including in Maharashtra, Goa, Odisha and the national capital. People returning to the country after visiting China are being regularly screened for the deadly virus at airports across the country. Novel coronavirus (nCoV) is a large family of viruses that causes illnesses ranging from common cold to acute respiratory syndromes. The virus, which has killed 132 people and affected at least 6,000 others in China, is a novel strain not seen before. In its statement, IndiGo said on Wednesday, "After carefully assessing the current coronavirus situation in China, IndiGo is taking some safety measures for its customers, crew and staff. Due to China travel restrictions, we have seen a high number of cancellations from China on our Delhi-Chengdu route and vice versa." "Therefore, we are suspending our flights between Delhi and Chengdu from February 1 until February 20. We are also suspending our Bengaluru- Hong Kong flight effective February 1," it added. The low-cost carrier stated that these are purely temporary and precautionary measures. "We understand that these measures will cause inconvenience to our customers and we will be refunding the full amount to the impacted passengers," it clarified. IndiGo added that it is in "close touch" with the "relevant government authorities" and "we thank them and our partners in China for all the help and support that they have extended so far". Air India has kept a 423-seater jumbo plane ready in Mumbai to airlift Indian citizens from Wuhan city in China in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak. Wuhan is the capital of China's Hubei province. As India started the preparations to evacuate over 250 Indians, mostly students, stuck in the Hubei province, its embassy in Beijing said these nationals will have to undergo a mandatory 14-day quarantine on their return.
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'Thurthu Nirgamana': Director and cast on what makes this Kannada fantasy film unique
What would you do if you were given a chance to go back three days in time after your death? That's the subject of the film.
What would you do if you were given a chance to go back three days in time after your death? Sounds intriguing, doesn’t it? Hemanth Kumar’s solo debut directorial Thurthu Nirgamana explores this fascinating subject with actor Sunil Raoh in the lead. The unconventional yet mainstream Kannada film, which will see Sunil grace the big screen after 10 years, also stars Raj B Shetty, Samyuktha Hegde, Sudha Rani, Achyutha Kumar and Hitha Chandrashekar. Talking about how Thurthu Nirgamana was born, Hemanth Kumar, who had earlier co-directed Godhi Banna Sadharana Mykattu with Hemanth Rao, says, “The movie portrays what one could do when they get back to the last three days of their life. How do you get this chance, what would you do and what’s the meaning of these three days – these are the metaphors in this film. It’s been narrated in a simple way without getting preachy. It mocks life and death in certain places and suggests that one shouldn’t take life too seriously. The concept was born through my personal experiences.” Hemanth Kumar The project, produced by Kumar and Kumar films and Shylaja Pictures, has visual effects that cinema buffs should watch out for. “When writing it, I didn’t think of it as a ‘VFX’ film, but the VFX is one of the highlights of this movie. When you watch it, you will feel like this can happen to you. There’s surreal stuff in the film and the special effects are such that they should be watched only on the big screen! Technically, it’s been quite a learning experience, as we didn’t have a reference point,” reveals Hemanth, who had initially picked another actor before Sunil Raoh. “When I watched the Loose Connection teaser, I wanted to hire him. It was a hard decision as I’d already confirmed another actor, but thankfully, he was good enough to let go of it. I spoke to Sunil who jumped into it,” shares the filmmaker. For Sunil, who’s back to Kannada cinema after a decade, Thurthu was the perfect comeback choice. “The concept is whacky as revealed in the teaser. On one hand, you have my character Vikram, who’s very laidback and doesn’t value time and life, but these three days make him realise the value of time. His interpersonal relationships, how he realises the importance of these things, his interactions with his mum and sister etc., are some things that appealed to me and will definitely interest the audiences too,” says the actor, who wanted to pick something really out-of-the-box for his comeback. Sunil Raoh As for his director Hemanth, he says, “I was impressed by his clarity and confidence. He’s surprisingly composed for a first-timer and is quite sure-footed. He has a good team that knows its craft well. He’s open to new things and to different ways of thinking.” For actor Samyuktha Hegde, who plays an 18-year-old college student in the flick, the idea of the film was fascinating. And the fact that she got to play yet another character similar to her personality was a plus point for the outspoken artiste. “I love the fact that they’re experimenting with a new genre. My character is really cool, just like myself and loves playing cricket! She’s similar to Arya in Kirik Party. She’s a fun-loving girl who makes sure people are seen and heard,” says the actor, who praises her director for earnestly putting in great effort into the film. Samyuktha Hegde Ask them why the audiences should watch Thurthu Nirgamana and the film’s lead actor instantly replies, “Sunil Raoh! Also, apart from what’s shown in the teaser, there’s so much more in the film in terms of technical stuff and hitting the right notes at the emotional and intellectual level. It’s a neatly made film which has content and entertainment. We’ve also tried things that are quite new to our industry. And the cast is so versatile – from Sudha Rani to Achyutha Kumar playing never-seen-before roles. Raj Shetty will be seen in a totally different avatar too. There’s also some zing factor in terms of visuals and we’ve tried some novel things as well.” Thurthu Nirgamana aka Emergency Exit hits theatres at the end of February.
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Bengaluru wants to impose 2% cess on property tax to increase revenue, residents miffed
This proposal has been passed by the BBMP council and now waits for a nod from the Urban Development Department.
The Bengaluru civic body on Tuesday passed a resolution to impose a 2% ‘road transport cess’ on property tax. The BBMP (Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike) council currently led by Mayor M Goutham Kumar passed the resolution on Tuesday – and while the move still has to be approved by the Urban Development Department of the state government, it is likely that the approval will be given, since both the government and the BBMP council are led by the same party – the BJP. The cess is planned to be used for road, street and drain maintenance, officials said. A sum of Rs 150 crore is expected to be collected through this, as the BBMP has been facing the heat in the High Court over pothole ridden roads and related accidents. However, residents in the city are miffed with the proposal and say this is effectively punishing those who pay their taxes properly. This 2% additional cess has been proposed by two previous Mayors too, but was opposed by BJP corporators in the council who were in a majority. A proposal to hike the property tax itself – of residential properties by 20% and that of commercial buildings by 25% – mooted by the then Congress mayor in June 2019, had also failed to get passed by the Council. But sources said with both the government and the BBMP council led by the same party, these deliberations were worked on beforehand and the state government's assent for the same is now only a matter of formality. While BBMP officials say that this financial boost is necessary for the upkeep of road infrastructure, civic activists say BBMP should be looking to improve tax compliance instead of increasing taxes. “This is a big joke,” said Srikanth Narshiman, co-founder of Bengaluru Nava Nirmana Party, a recently formed party that plants to contest the upcoming civic polls in the city. “First they haven’t been able to collect property tax from all the properties that exist. This move is like making those who actually pay tax, pay more and more. What about the people who are not paying the property tax at all?” he asked. “Let us not even expect 100% collection, they can at least collect 90%,” he added. BBMP currently sees a property tax compliance rate of a little over 80%. “Secondly, BBMP accounts are not internally-audited on time and there is no transparency in ward wise spendings. So when there is a basic lack of accountability, how can they think of adding on tax?” Srikanth asked. Tara Krishnaswamy, co-founder of Citizens for Bengaluru, (CfB) called this an attempt by the BBMP to shore up its revenue despite its inefficiency in collection of taxes and money management. “Every year, they spend only about half of what they budget for,” she said. But she said a major part of the BBMP’s financial problem still is not a result of the BBMP’s wrongdoing. “For example whatever revenue is collected in Bengaluru, there should be some proportion of what goes back to Bengaluru. The State Finance Commission has not published a formula on how funds are devolved unlike the Central FInance Commission. What is worse is that you don't know how much money each ward will get and it entirely depends on whether the ward is run by a ruling party corporator or not,” Tara said. “So it is safe to say Bengaluru generates 80% of the state’s revenue but in turn does not get even 10% of it back. So if the state budget is Rs 2 lakh crore, then Bengaluru should get Rs 20,000 crore, but the budget is only around half of it. So the issue of fund shortage in BBMP is a genuine issue,” she explained. Tara however objected to property owners being made to pay the cess for road transport; she instead suggested that a cess should be collected on vehicle usage like in Punjab, where a road cess is collected for fuel. Srinivas Alavilli, also a co-founder of CfB concurred saying, “As long as BBMP does not get its own funds from the state government by the way of allocations from state finance commission all these cess won’t do justice to city finances. I think property tax is too low and further their collection rate is abysmally low. Fix that first before any of this.” He added, “If the cess is used for making public transport free, then I will welcome it.” Incidentally over the last four fiscals, BBMP had failed to meet even 90% of its property tax collection target with the FY 2016-17 being the most successful with 86% collection. In the last two fiscals, the Palike has managed to collect only around 82% of its target for property tax. Even this year with just two months to go for the FY to end, BBMP has collected only Rs 2425.3 crore (till January 15) out of target of Rs 3,500 crore. TNM could not reach Ramanna Reddy, the Additional Chief Secretary heading the UDD, for a comment.
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Study confirms what Bengaluru always knew: City has world's worst traffic congestion
A report which looks at traffic data from 416 cities in 57 countries named Bengaluru as the number one city for the worst traffic in the world.
Ten days and 3 hours — if you live in Bengaluru, that’s how much time you probably spent in rush hour traffic in a year, according to a new report by Tomtom traffic index. In that time, you could have knitted 61 hats and 11 sweaters, watched 215 episodes of Game of Thrones and completed 49 500-piece jigsaw puzzles. Bengaluru’s traffic has put the city on the global map, becoming the number one city for the worst traffic congestion. According to a report by Tomtom traffic index, which looks at traffic data from 416 cities in 57 countries around the world, Bengaluru had 71% traffic congestion last year. Comparatively, Mumbai had 65% congestion, Pune had 59% congestion, and Delhi is at 56%: an improvement of 2 percentage points from the previous year. Bengaluru’s traffic is a constant headache for its motorists and residents, with social media becoming an outlet for jokes to cope. The traffic in the city has even previously foiled a terrorist attack. The report noted that Bengaluru’s worst traffic day was August 20, 2019 and its best day was April 6 of the same year. From a weekly perspective, Fridays between 7 pm and 8 pm are the worst for rush hour traffic, with congestion reaching 100 to 120%. The second most traffic congested city in the world is Manila, in the Philippines. The remaining top five include Bogotá in Colombia, Mumbai, and Pune. While Manila also has 71% congestion, Bengaluru was higher on the list because of its 107% daily congestion, beating out Manila by a slight margin. Citizens and activists from Bengaluru have been demanding better public transportation in the city to combat the chronic traffic troubles in the city. The buses in the city from BMTC hardly caters to the needs of the population in Bengaluru, estimated at 12.9 million people, with only around 6,500 buses in operation. The Karnataka government has announced that they plan to add another 6,000 buses to the bus fleet in a phased manner. Read: Bengaluru set to add 6,000 buses in phased manner, will double fleet Only recently did the Karnataka government announce that the city would have a suburban railways system, after an extended citizens’ campaign for it, “Chuku Buku Beku”. The proposed project will have 81 stations to connect the city through the already existing railway lines in the city. Read: K'taka govt approves suburban rail project for Bengaluru, will have 81 stations The Bengaluru metro is also being constructed and expanded across the city, which is expected to bring down the traffic in the city considerably. However, the metro has consistently missed deadlines to complete the projects in the city, making the affair more expensive and adding to the congestion in the city, even as many major roads are affected by metro construction activities. Bengaluru currently has two metro lines, at a total reach of 42 kms, along with 40 stations. Meanwhile, the metro authority in the city, BMRCL, put out a proposed master plan recently, which includes the controversial elevated corridor project. Experts and activists have repeatedly pointed out that building more flyovers only increases the traffic rather than reduce it, because of ‘induced demand’; which is a phenomenon where private vehicular traffic only increases due to the existence of infrastructure to support it. Read: Bengaluru Comprehensive Mobility Plan a 'backdoor’ to elevated corridor?
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