Uproar over deletion of lessons on Tipu and Constitution, Karnataka puts move on hold

Education

As opposition parties up the ante against the Karnataka government, Suresh Kumar has instructed for the move to be put on hold.

Pooja Prasanna

After furore over ‘selected deletion’ of lessons relating to Tipu Sultan, Prophet Mohammad, Jesus Christ and the Constitution, among others, TNM has learnt that the Minister of Primary & Secondary Education, Suresh Kumar has instructed Karnataka Textbook Society (KTBS) to put the syllabi trimming plan to be kept on hold. Opposition parties and several intellectuals had accused the BJP government in Karnataka of using the opportunity of a shortened academic year to further their political agenda.    On Tuesday, Karnataka Congress Chief and former minister DK Shivakumar had accused the BJP of pushing their ‘right-wing’ agenda and hate for historical figures like Tipu Sultan and Hyder Ali. DK Shivakumar had also said that he will constitute a committee to look into these ‘mischievous deletions’ and will take up the issue with the state government strongly.    This, after the Department of State Education Research and Training (DSERT) recommended that some chapters in Social Studies textbooks relating to history of Mysuru during the time of Tipu Sultan and Hyder Ali, as well as the Constitution, Prophet Mohammed, Jesus Christ, amongst others be deleted and substituted through online assignments to compensate for the loss of school days.    The 30% cut in the syllabus was recommended as schools are expected to reopen only on September 1 across Karnataka due to the pandemic. The school academic year for 2020-2021 has been shortened to 120 days now.    There were several attempts made by leaders of BJP, after the party returned to power in 2019, to have references to Tipu Sultan omitted from school lessons. At that time, drafting committee for text books in Karnataka had resisted the move an d the issue had been put on the back burner.    While BJP, yesterday, had defended the move claiming that there was no malintention in deleting the chapters and lessons on Tipu will continue to feature for other classes under the state board syllabus, today’s move by the minister seems to be taken under pressure, to avoid a controversy.

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Bengaluru hospital faces action for giving COVID-19 patient Rs 4.10 lakh bill

Coronavirus

In a tweet, the minister K Sudhakar said that he was ‘disappointed’ that the hospital was continuing to charge huge sums of money despite warnings.

Alithea Stephanie Mounika

PTI/Mumbai

The Karnataka Medical Education Minister, Dr K Sudhakar pulled up a private hospital in Bengaluru for violation of state government guidelines by charging in excess while treating a COVID-19 patient. Sudhakar also tweeted that strict action will be taken against the erring Apollo hospital in Bengaluru’s Seshadripuram for breaching the price cap prescribed by the Karnataka government. Read: COVID-19 price cap for private hospitals: Docs, public health experts, patients slam K'taka govt According to the government guidelines which were issued last month, there is a set price cap which private hospitals must follow while treating patients during the coronavirus pandemic. The cost per day for the general ward in a private hospital was capped at Rs 10,000, as per the guidelines. However, according to a copy of the bill tweeted by the minister, the hospital has given an outstanding bill amount to the tune of Rs 4,10,319, with Rs 5000 already deducted as an advance deposit. In a tweet, the minister says, “I have received information that Apollo hospital in Bengaluru’s Seshadripuram is exorbitantly charging the public. This particular hospital has been warned for the same offense several times. I was shocked to learn that despite that they have charged a corona patient a Rs 5 lakh bill.” https://twitter.com/mla_sudhakar/status/1288340843967860737?s=20 The hospital will face action for charging patients a high amount, the minister added. In a second tweet, the minister said, “The hospital’s management has gone against the government’s order, and charged much more than the prescribed rate. This information has come to my notice today and I will take strict action against the private hospital.” https://twitter.com/mla_sudhakar/status/1288340543420788737 In its defense, the hospital claimed that the bill tweeted by Sudhakar shows the insurance company’s tariff. A statement released by Apollo Hospital said the insurance company's tariff was taken into account and not the government's price cap. "In the said case, the patient has been in the hospital for the last 21 days, which includes 9 days in the ICU, and the billing is as per the tariff agreed with the insurance company. At Apollo Hospitals, we maintain strict transparency and the treatment and cost of care is clearly discussed upfront with the patient and/or family. (sic)" This is not the first time that this particular hospital has been pulled up by the government for overcharging coronavirus patients. On July 6, the hospital had charged a patient Rs 6,000 when the government had capped the price for coronavirus tests conducted in private hospitals to Rs 4,500. Meanwhile, IPS officer D Roopa offered her services to the Karnataka government to deal with private hospitals who were overcharging coronavirus patients. Quoting the minister’s tweet, she said, “Sir, if I am given the responsibility of (overseeing) all the hospitals, along with Harsha Gupta IAS (who is currently in charge of COVID-19 administration in Mysuru district), we will immediately handle the problem and fix the systems in place of several hospitals. We will see that the violation of the government order is investigated as a criminal offense under the disaster management act, with the permission of the court,” the tweet read. https://twitter.com/D_Roopa_IPS/status/1288403462523195392

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Activists fume at Bengaluru civic body’s misplaced priorities of lake beautification

Enviornment

Activists say BBMP can utilise these funds for more pressing needs which will ensure the lakes are full of fresh water.

Soumya Chatterjee

రవిచంద్ర via Wikimedia Commons

Activists working to revive lakes in Bengaluru are dismayed at the misplaced priority of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) as it wants to take up landscaping and other ornamental works in the name of lake restoration. In a newspaper ad published on Monday, the BBMP had said that they are looking for contractors for works involving landscaping and median development for Devarabisanahalli and Kaikondrahalli lakes in Bellandur ward. The total sum of money quoted for seven such projects will cost Rs 20 lakh each. Activists point out that major death knell for the city’s lakes are the unchecked flow of untreated or undertreated sewage into the lakes. They say instead of other beautification works, BBMP can utilise this funds for more pressing needs which will ensure the lakes are full of fresh water. A trustee at Mapsas (the Kannada acronym for Mahadevapura Environment Protection and Development Trust) which looks after these two lakes along with other water bodies of the area said this is a major wastage of public money by the BBMP.   He said both lakes have adequate trees planted in its periphery and putting exotic species in the name of horticulture will do more harm than good. He alleged when they approached the concerned lake officials they denied knowledge about this development until the tenders appeared in the newspapers. “This means that the authorities do not want to engage their own staff, leave alone the local communities involved in the regular upkeep of the lake. We can make better use of the money for desilting, deweeding, and sewage management which needs to be done regularly and involves costs. So this amount of huge money can be spent to revive other lakes as well,” he added.  Alleging mismanagement and corruption on part of the authorities, a Bengaluru-based sustainability campaigner, Sandeep Anirudhan, alleged, “The issue points to the foundational problems of lake management due to lack of a scientific, ecological outlook and zero scope of public consultation. With the system flawed, you get such situations, where expenditure is done for the benefit of corruption and contractors, and not for the health of the lake.”   He suggested a decentralised approach to managing water bodies and usage of water, and a Water Law which looks at all sources of water holistically with a localised approach; where local bodies are in charge of all water bodies falling under them, and have financial implications too.  He said, “The subsidies given for Cauvery water should be invested instead on reviving local water sources and groundwater.  Then each ward or area sabha or panchayat will be worried about the health of its lakes and groundwater, and take measures to manage them well such as planting urban forests, and local watershed management. This is how the lakes were created centuries ago and this is what will revive them now.” 

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Bengaluru introduces OTP system to tackle complaints of ‘missing’ COVID-19 patients

Coronavirus

The civic body’s chief had earlier said that over 3,000 patients who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Bengaluru could not be traced.

TNM Staff

Representational image/PTI

The Karnataka Health Department, along with authorities in Bengaluru, have begun enforcing a one time password (OTP) authentication system to ensure that there is no error in recording phone numbers of patients undergoing COVID-19 testing.This method has been implemented to ensure that there is no room for data entry errors or patients themselves giving bogus contact details at the time of giving their samples for testing.  The OTP system will work in the same way as it does for one booking a cab service or doing an online bank transaction, for the purpose of authentication.The system which is already in place in Bengaluru is expected to begin in other districts shortly.  It may be recalled that earlier in the week, Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Commissioner N Manjunath Prasad said that over 3,000 patients who have tested positive for the novel coronavirus in Bengaluru could not be traced. He said that these persons could not be reached on the mobile phone number or the address they had provided. The BBMP Commissioner had also said that to ensure such lapses do not reoccur, they will verify the details given by the patients with the help of government-issued identification cards. BBMP and police officials involved in contact tracing work said that while at times, patients themselves give wrong address and contact details, sometimes there are genuine errors on part of the data entry operators. Officials said that with the OTP system in place, the condition of the patient can be assessed correctly and it can be ensured that they get adequate care. It would also ensure that they do not infect others due to lack of information. Speaking to TNM, Mysuru Deputy Commissioner G Abhiram Sekhar had said that the issue was not unique to Bengaluru but was also observed in Mysuru and the rest of the state as well in varying degrees. Speaking to TNM, a Deputy Commissioner of Police posted in Bengaluru city said that police personnel could help trace 90% of such ‘missing’ patients if their mobile number was correct, with the help of call data records.

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Meet Shantaram Budna Karnataka's first MLC from Siddi community of African descent

Politics

The Siddi community, an African-origin tribe, is recognised as a Scheduled Tribe in Karnataka and have lived in relative seclusion in forested areas for over five centuries.

Prajwal Bhat

Shantaram Siddi

Shantaram Budna Siddi was waiting in a garage when he received a call from Bengaluru telling him he had been made a Member of Legislative Council (MLC) by the  BJP but he did not believe the news immediately. Shantaram, a member of the African-origin Siddi tribe, had experienced this before. "Two years ago, there were WhatsApp messages that I received a doctorate from Belagavi's Rani Chenmamma University but I never received the doctorate! It was a hoax", Shantaram says speaking to TNM. But the leader who hails from a modest home in Hitlalli village in Yellapur in Uttara Kannada district soon realised that the news was true after he received a slew of calls congratulating him. He had become the first member of the African-origin Siddi tribe to be made a political representative in Karnataka.  "Siddi community members have become Gram Panchayat secretaries and even Taluk Panchayat secretaries but there were no other political representatives in our community," Shantaram says. The Siddi community is recognised as a Scheduled Tribe in Karnataka. There are around 40,000 community members living in the forested areas of Yellapur and Haliyal in Uttara Kannada district while around 10,000 others live in neighboring areas including in Dharwad and Belagavi.  The community has lived in relative seclusion in India for over five centuries and historians say that the Siddis docked in India in the 16th century as domestic slaves of Portuguese traders from Mozambique, which was also a Portuguese colony at the time. Some suggest their arrival in India predates that.  When slavery was outlawed in Portuguese colonies in 1869, the Siddis migrated from Goa to forest areas in Karnataka, Gujarat and Maharashtra, where they are found today. Members of the community live in poverty, mostly doing coolie work for plantation owners. They also face racial discrimination on a day-to-day basis, something Shantaram says he is familiar with. "Siddis are made fun of especially in coastal areas like Karwar and Ankola in Uttara Kannada. People refer to us as Africans and they assume we are all Christians. But that is not the case. We speak fluent Kannada and sometimes even Kundapur Kannada," says Shantaram. (Kundapur Kannada is a dialect of the Kannada language spoken in Kundapur and its surrounding areas in coastal Karnataka) Santhan Juje Siddi (81), one of the oldest members of the community in Uttara Kannada Shantaram was one of the first graduates from his community to pass out of Karnataka University in 1988. "Ever since then, I have been involved in social service. I have toured the state and represented my community proudly. But today, I also want to say that I will stand for other communities in Uttara Kannada like the Gawlis and Halakki Vokkaligas and not just for the Siddi community," Shantaram says. Shantaram also worked as state secretary of the Vanavasi Kalyan Prakalpa, a tribal welfare initiative of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).  He hopes to initiate changes that would help forest dwellers from existing government schemes under the Forest Rights Act (FRA). Forest dwellers are asked to produce documents dating back 75 years to qualify as an Other Traditional Forest Dweller (OTFD) and claim rightsunder FRA. "They have to prove that they primarily lived in forests for three generations and this also involves getting an old member of the community to say this person's ancestor was living in the forest 75 years ago. On top of that, they have to produce a certificate ascertaining the mental health of the 80 year old is stable," explains Shantaram.  He says this process is often laborious and requires forest dwellers to search for documents dating back to India's independence. "I want to change this laborious process and I will be doing this starting with the Vidhana Parishad," he says.  Shantaram is an environmentalist who served as a member of the Western Ghats task force in 2008-09. He is also involved with the Vruksha-Laksha NGO working for afforestation and environment awareness.  Uttara Kannada district is situated in the central Western Ghats region and it is one of the eight biodiversity hotspots in India which is home to many species of plants and animals. Siddi community members live in forested areas in this region. Siddi community members live in forested areas in Uttara Kannada district of Karnataka. Speaking about the controversial Hubbballi-Ankola railway line, Shantaram says that the state government should adopt sustainable development models. "We need railway lines and there are not many forest areas from Hubballi to Yellapur but from Yellapur to Ankola, there are green forests which should not be disrupted. TV Ramachandra from (Indian Institute of Science) has published a report and the state government should heed his advice since he is a sound scientific voice," Shantaram says. A study by researchers from IISc showed that forest cover in Uttara Kannada reduced from 74.19 % in 1973 to 48.04 % in 2018. If the railway project goes ahead, the forest cover is expected to reduce further by 16%. Another project, the Sharavathi hydropower project, is also planned in this region and environmentalists have opposed it on the grounds that the project falls inside the limits of the Sharavathi Valley Lion Tailed Macaque (LTM) Sanctuary. "The Sharavathi valley has evergreen forest areas that protect biodiversity and medicinal plants and they should be preserved. The project needs to be reconsidered if it displaces forest dwellers in the region," says Shantaram.  He says he is overwhelmed and surprised that he was made an MLC but vowed to help marginalised communities gain representation through his position.  Read: Racing for a better future: The African-origin tribe in K’taka that’s turning to sports

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Bengaluru has 12,781 active containment zones, most in Bengaluru South

Coronavirus

1,898 new COVID-19 cases were reported in Bengaluru on Tuesday.

TNM Staff

There are 12,781 active zones in Bengaluru, as per the data released by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike. On Monday, there were 12,325 active containment zones in the city. Bengaluru South continued to report the most number of containment zones.  According to the BBMP bulletin, Bengaluru South has 3,935 active containment zones, followed by Bengaluru East at 2,256, Bengaluru West at 1,770 and Bommanahalli at 1,548. RR Nagar has 1,124 active containment zones, followed by Mahadevapura at 937, Yelahanka at 437 and Dasarahalli at 318. These numbers have remained unchanged from July 27, as per the BBMP bulletins. The number of containment zones that have returned to normal is highest in Bengaluru East at 1,373, followed by Bengaluru West at 751 and South Bengaluru at 435. This number, too, has remained unchanged. 1,898 new COVID-19 cases were reported in Bengaluru on Tuesday. People between the ages of 30-39 were the most affected, with 273 men and 145 women testing positive. However, the age groups of 20-29 and 40-49 also saw more cases. 246 men and 126 women between 40-49 tested positive, and 207 men and 137 women between 20-29 also tested positive.  Out of the 198 wards in BBMP limits, 175 have over 100 COVID-19 cases.  The COVID-19 death toll in Karnataka breached the 2,000 mark on Tuesday while the state reported its biggest single-day spike of 5,536 new cases, taking the total infection count to 1,07,001. This is the fifth consecutive day that the state is reporting over 5,000 fresh cases. The day also saw a record 2,819 patients getting discharged after recovery, the health department said. As many as 102 people succumbed to the disease, taking the toll to 2,055. 40 of these were from Bengaluru Urban. Of the fresh cases, marginally higher than the previous biggest daily spike of 5,324 on Monday, a total of 1,898 cases were from Bengaluru Urban district. Bengaluru Urban district tops the list of positive cases, with a total of 48,821 infections. It also tops the list in the number of recoveries with total 12,761 discharges. Karnataka Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar said on Tuesday.that a centralised system would be put in place to classify asymptomatic, symptomatic and mild symptomatic persons and recommend treatment based on the severity of the infection.  A statement issued by Sudhakar's office said that he explained the new system to a team of experts from government and Infosys, which will coordinate with authorities to provide technical support for it, through video conference. Sudhakar told the team that various existing mobile applications related to COVID-19 will be brought under one platform to get the real-time information which will assist in strategising allocation of hospitals and beds to the needy. With PTI inputs

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We saw two extremes of Bengaluru police, say lockdown relief volunteers

Lockdown

While some found the police going out of their way to help those in need, others had less pleasant experiences.

Chikkajala traffic police/Twitter

By Deeksha Sudhindra/CitizenMatters.in The COVID-19 crisis has forced many institutions to up their game and work round the clock. Their resilience and efficiency in crisis management has been thoroughly tested over the past few months. The police is one such institution that has been in the forefront. Pushed as it was, into the frontlines of an unfamiliar task – policing a contagion – the institution received as much flak as praise, in varying degree. Relief volunteers who plunged into food and ration distribution, fund-raising and working with migrant labourers, were possibly at a vantage point to assess the role of the police at the height of the lockdown. This article is based on the experiences of a few volunteers, from the period between the last week of March till the end of May. A broken system Lalitha Mondreti, a relief volunteer worked closely with the police in South Bengaluru. She was coordinating travel arrangements for migrant labourers who were trying to return to their homes in the Shramik trains. Lalitha and a friend saw migrants queueing up in large numbers in nearby police stations, waiting for information about the availability of trains. They decided to help them out by providing them with food while they stood in a queue. “People were happy to receive the food, but they wanted information”, said Lalitha, noticing the anger and frustration of the migrants. At that time, Lalitha did not have any rapport with the local police and hence could not directly approach them. Along with her team, Lalitha took some time to talk to the migrants and understand their issues so that they could better present it to police authorities. Then they approached the police and asked how they could help as citizen volunteers. After this meeting, some citizen groups started helping out the police with registration of migrant workers on the Seva Sindhu platform, and some with distribution of ration.  This still did not solve the problem of the dearth of information regarding the Shramik trains. The police were supposed to call up registered migrants and inform them about departures. However, the police themselves received information regarding the next day’s trains only on the previous night. And, they were too overworked to call 300 people and relay the information. As a result, the migrant workers ended up walking 10 km to the police station everyday, just to receive information about the train availability. Lalitha took up the responsibility of informing the migrants when she received information about the trains and assured the migrants that they would not have to walk such long distances every day. Soon, as a rapport developed between her team and the police, the latter updated Lalitha about the train situation and her team would call up the migrant workers every night. Stepping into many roles Breaking the ice and establishing a rapport made the law-keepers go beyond the call of duty and turn into sympathetic volunteers themselves in many instances. “At first, they (the police) were sceptical of volunteers who were helping, but soon they genuinely began helping us out,” said Sharoon Sunny, another citizen volunteer. Migrants wait in line for information about Shramik trains in South Bengaluru. Photo: Lalitha Mondreti Sharoon praised the police for their cooperation. She runs an after-school programme called ‘The Real School’, which caters to the children of migrant labourers. In her experience, the police came as a blessing during distributions in densely populated areas. The police went out of their way to identify families who were in dire need of food and reported the number so that Sharoon could be better prepared. Sharoon described distribution time as chaotic and charged with emotions – anger, grief, helplessness. The police, she said, were quick to provide emotional support during such times too. “They even stepped into the shoes of a counsellor.”. If elderly women got distressed while waiting in lines, the police offered to console them.  Mohammed Ibrahim Akram, a co-director of restaurant chain Beijing Bites and a citizen volunteer, approached deputy commissioner of police Chetan Singh Rathore on the very first day of the lockdown and obtained permission to move around. As a result, he faced no problem from the police during distribution and his commutes. The sorry side Malarvizhi, a volunteer working with ActionAid, described her experience on the first day of food distribution. They were prepared with 500 packets of food but a thousand families turned up. Her team had sought prior police protection, but on that day the police turned up very late. As soon as they arrived, the police asked her team to stop the distribution since people were crowding. Malarvizhi said that the whole purpose of seeking police protection was for crowd regulation. But they were helpless in the crowded area. “I still remember the faces of people who had to go back empty-handed”, she said.  Khizer Alam, a volunteer with Swaraj Abhiyan, also did not have a pleasant story. Khizer was working mainly in the Padarayanapura area. Given that the area witnessed incidents of violence from the people as they resisted quarantine measures, the police were extra wary. Khizer Alam (in black shirt) and fellow volunteers with food they packed for distribution in Padarayanapura. Pic Credit: Khizer Alam Khizer said that the police would not allow volunteers to distribute food even though they had an NGO pass that allowed them to do so. He related an incident when he was prevented from distributing the meals even after he told them that he had painstakingly arranged for the food and that it would all get spoiled. “I left the packets of food there and asked him to throw it away” Khizer said, adding “because I did not have the heart to do it.”  The Bengaluru police force has been instrumental in maintaining order and facilitating processes throughout the crisis. But they have had their shortcomings. Intense workload during this unprecedented crisis could be a reason. But that cannot absolve the lack of empathy and sensitivity exhibited by a few members of this institution. This article was first published in Citizen Matters, a civic media website and is republished here with permission. (c) Oorvani Foundation/Open Media Initiative. 

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