Kumaraswamy accuses Congress leaders of not allowing Kharge to become CM in 2018

Politics

Sources tell TNM that former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah will remain mum on this issue and has instructed his social media team to not tweet any reaction in this regard.

Pooja Prasanna

Sharpening his attack on the Congress, former Karnataka Chief Minister and JD(S) leader HD Kumaraswamy dropped a political bombshell on Wednesday. In a statement released, Kumaraswamy said the Congress leaders opposed making senior leader Mallikharjuna Kharge as the Chief Minister when talks of an alliance was on between the JD(S) and Congress after the 2018 Assembly elections.  'When there was a hung Assembly, former prime minister HD Deve Gowda, in the presence of senior national and State leaders, suggested to make Kharge the CM. It was Congress leaders who prevented Kharge from becoming the CM. The JD(S) though was not keen, the Congress party high command and the State leaders kowtowed requesting to me take the CM's post. After this, you started driving from the backseat and dictating terms and exerting pressure. Where was your morality then?(sic)’ read the statement. The JD(S) leader, further accused the Congress leaders of the state of using only social media to attack, cowering to come forward and indulge in a face-off with him. ‘Unable to question me directly, the so called bigwigs of the party have taken shelter behind the Congress' official twitter handle @INCKarnataka.’ The war of words began in the backdrop of Congress’ 'Save Democracy campaign', a campaign against the BJP for allegedly trying to grab power in Rajasthan. While the Congress leaders in Karnataka had accused the BJP of horse-trading of legislators in the Rajasthan context to which Kumaraswamy hit out saying that the Congress had invented the game and the BJP was just taking it forward. The Congress hit back, questioning why he found the party palatable when he wanted to come to power in Karnataka.  Meanwhile these outbursts are being seen as an attempt to stay politically relevant but most essentially, safeguard the Vokkaliga vote base in southern Karnataka. After DK Shivakumar has been made the Karnataka Congress president, there is a sense of insecurity in the JD(S) first family that their influence over the second largest caste vote bank might be threatened and with that the family’s and the party’s future imperiled, sources claimed. Vokkaligas form the second dominant caste base, after Lingayats, in Karnataka.   Congress party sources tell TNM that their leaders have been instructed to not react to this provocation by their former ally. Former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, in particular, has even instructed his social media team to not tweet any reaction in this regard. Responding to this instigation, sources say the Congress believes, will only give political mileage to JD(S) which has seen its influence dwindling.  In 2018, after the Assembly polls resulted in a hung assembly, the Congress and JD(S) formed an alliance in Karnataka, with HD Kumaraswamy as the Chief Minister and G Parameshwara from Congress as the Deputy Chief Minister. 

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Bengaluru’s positivity rate at 17%, more COVID-19 testing needed: Experts

Coronavirus

Bengaluru has tested on average 8745 samples per day between July 22 and July 28.

Prajwal Bhat

PTI : Image for representation

Bengaluru has recorded a total of 51091 coronavirus cases, as of July 29 with 91% of COVID-19 patients being diagnosed this month alone. Presently, the city has 36224 active cases. However, even as Karnataka’s capital city has emerged as a hotspot, the question is - are health officials in the city testing enough people for coronavirus?  The question arises due to a high positivity rate observed in Bengaluru - 17.19% as of July 28. However, an analysis of data over the past week shows that city’s testing has fluctuated considerably over the past week. On average, 8745 samples were tested everyday (July 22-28) in Bengaluru in the past week and the city has reported on average 1982 positive cases per day in this period.    An analysis of the data shared by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike’s (BBMP) COVID-19 War Room showed that testing numbers in Bengaluru dipped from 9697 on July 25 to 5930 on July 26 before reporting increased testing numbers of 10176 on July 27 and 9773 on July 28. This resulted in the positivity rate jumping from 20.9% on July 25?to 32.8% the next day. Bengaluru, however, saw it’s positivity rate drop to 14.4% and 19.4% over the next two days.That means the positivity rate in Bengaluru for the past week is 22.66% - five percentage points higher than the cumulative figure.   On four days in the past week, the positivity rate was over 25% in the city.  The positivity rate was the highest on July 26 when the rate was 32.8%.    The positivity rate on July 19, a week prior to that was at its peak at 45%. Only 4703 samples were tested on the day and the city reported 2156 COVID-19 cases. While the testing numbers were increased after July 19, the ratio of positive cases in relation to number of samples is significantly high in Bengaluru. The Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) plans to address this by increasing testing in Bengaluru and on Tuesday, the civic body announced a plan to conduct free testing in the city. “In order to control the spread of coronavirus, BBMP has arranged free testing facilities in almost every ward,” BBMP said in a statement by its Commissioner Manjunath Prasad.  “Early detection of coronavirus will help us stop its spread to others...Please do not be afraid of getting tested as majority of the people who get tested at early stages recover very fast,” the statement added. It also included the phone numbers of testing centres in different zones in the city. Experts agreed that the testing numbers in Bengaluru needed to be increased in view of the rising number of cases. Dr Giridhar Babu an epidemiologist with the Public Health Foundation of India, who is part of expert committees formed by both in state and Centre is of the opinion that testing should be five times the number of samples tested currently. He said, "We should be looking at an ideal positivity rate of 5% as recommended by the WHO. Also for testing we can't look at the numbers from a state or a city level. Rather there should be targets set on a ward basis as otherwise it would give a wrong impression that some areas are safer than others without any evidence." Dr Sanjiv Lewin, Chief of Medical Services, St John's Medical College, says that the rising number of COVID-19 cases in Bengaluru means that there is a need for more targeted testing in the city. “We should be testing everybody in communities where positive cases are found. I would suggest randomised testing in localities with COVID-19 cases. The reluctance of public to test themselves due to stigma and discrimination is something that the government should change,” Sanjiv says. He also adds that there should be blanket testing of patients in Bengaluru’s hospitals. “I would recommend mandatory testing for everyone getting hospitalised. This is when patients are hospitalised for any reason because it will help protect healthcare workers from getting exposed to the virus,” Sanjiv says.  BBMP is also grappling with issues of patients registering with fake phone numbers and addresses. The civic body has introduced an OTP mechanism to ensure that there is no room for errors in entering the data or patients giving fake contact details while giving their samples for testing.

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Bengaluru has over 14000 active containment zones, 1362 added in a day

Coronavirus

Bengaluru’s east zone has the highest number of containment zones that have returned to normal.

TNM Staff

Image for representation/PTI

Bengaluru now has 14,143 active containment zones, as the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) identified 1,362 new zones in the last 24 hours. The city reported 2,270 new COVID-19 cases on Wednesday, and has 36,224 patients under treatment for the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. According to the BBMP COVID-19 war room report, Bengaluru has reported a total of 19,001 containment zones till date. However, there appears to be a discrepancy in the data, because, on Wednesday, the city had a total of 21,873 containment zones. While the number of active containment zones increased on Thursday, the report seems to have erroneously said that the total number has reduced. The west zone has reported the highest number of COVID-19 patients (24%) in the last 24 hours with close to 600 cases. This is a departure from the previous trend where the south zone had been reporting the most number of COVID-19 cases. South (23%) and east (21%) zones reported the second and third highest number of cases in Bengaluru in the past day. An almost equal number of people reported recovery from COVID-19 in south and west zones, followed by the east zone. In the last 10 days, Bengaluru South has reported the most coronavirus cases (23%), followed by the east zone (23%) and west zone (21%). A total of 191 (out of 198 wards) in Bengaluru have reported over 50 active cases since the outbreak started in the city. These include wards like Jayamahal, Shanthala Nagar, Domlur, Koramangala, Chamarajapet, Varthur, Bellandur, BTM Layout, Jakkur, HBR Layout and Ramamurthy Nagar, among others. When it comes to containment zones, Bengaluru East has the highest number of containment zones that have returned to normal status – nearly 1,500. Bengaluru South has the highest number of containment zones, and proportionally, the fewest that have returned to normal in the city. Dasarahalli has the least containment zones in Bengaluru. As on July 25, 13,276 streets in the city have been demarcated as containment zones, and the number for apartments with floors that have the same status is 1,276. Twenty-three slums areas and one hotel in Bengaluru are also containment zones. There are 40 clusters of epidemiologically linked COVID-19 cases in the city. Karnataka has reported the fourth-highest number of coronavirus cases (1,12,504) till date in the country, following Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and New Delhi in that order. Bengaluru, meanwhile, is the fourth highest in COVID-19 cases among Delhi, Mumbai and Chennai among major metros. Kolkata follows Bengaluru with 19,531 total positive cases till date.

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Drugs valued at Rs 1.25 crore seized in Bengaluru, 4 youth held

Crime

Police said that the four were all highly qualified and were supplying drugs procured through international couriers.

IANS

Pexels

Four men in Bengaluru have been arrested for peddling drugs to youngsters in the city. Contraband valued at Rs 1.25 crore has been seized from them, a police officer said on Wednesday. "All four accused are from Kerala and were into supplying drugs procured through international couriers from Germany and Netherlands," Central Crime Branch Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Kuldeep Jain told IANS. The accused Nitin Mohan, 29, K. Ajmal, 22, Shahad Mohammed, 24, and Ajin K G Varghese, 21, hold high educational qualifications in professional courses like engineering and MBA. They allegedly procured drugs from overseas locations through the dark net using bitcoins. Police seized 2,000 LSD strips, 20 ecstasy tablets, 5 kg marijuana (ganja) and 105 gm MDMA from the four. According to Sandeep Patil, Joint Commissioner of Police, the seized drugs are valued at Rs 1.25 crore. Underscoring the seriousness of Karnataka government's fight against drugs, Home Minister Basvaraj Bommai and Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao attended a press conference to announce the peddlers' arrest from Sola Devanahalli area, and the seizure of narcotics. Explaining the modus operandi of the gang, the DCP said that they visited raves and pubs to establish contacts with young people interested in buying and consuming drugs. "They generally targeted pub-hopping young people and lured them into buying LSD strips for around Rs 5,000 each and employed similar other tactics," explained Jain. Jain said that though international courier packages are scanned, there is always some loophole which the peddlers take advantage of. Once procured from the international locations, the drugs were further divided into smaller quantities for local peddling. The police are also focusing on any nexus between disc jockeys (DJ) and peddlers as one of the arrested persons, Ajmal, was also a DJ. The DCP said police are on the job to hunt for bigger fish involved in drug supply. He said the international drug suppliers transact in bitcoins and only deal with very exclusive contacts. All the four accused have been booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act and will be produced in court on Wednesday.

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Bengaluru reports 2,270 new cases of COVID-19, Karnataka's tally rises to 1.12 lakh

Coronavirus

At present, 36,224 patients are under treatment for the coronavirus in Bengaluru.

Alithea Stephanie Mounika

PTI

For yet another day, Karnataka reported more than 5,000 cases of COVID-19, taking the state’s total tally of active cases to a new high of 67,448 cases. There have been 1,12,504 cases reported in the state so far. Out of the 5,503 new cases reported in the state on Wednesday, Bengaluru reported 2,270. With this, the total reported cases of coronavirus in the city rose to 51,091. At present, 36,224 patients are under treatment for the coronavirus in Bengaluru. Other districts have also reported a spike in the number of new cases. Ballari reported 338 new cases while Balagavi reported 279. Davangere reported 225 cases, followed by Dakshina Kannada at 208 and Mysuru at 200. Among the districts that reported more than 100 cases, Dharwad reported 175, followed by Udupi at 173. Kalaburagi reported a dip in new cases with 168 people testing positive for the coronavirus on Thursday, while Shivamogga reported 131 cases. Tumakuru reported 128 cases and Yadgiri reported a total of 114 new cases. There were 92 deaths reported in the state on Thursday, taking the total death toll of coronavirus in Karnataka to 2,147. Out of the 92 latest deaths, 30 took place in Bengaluru. Kalaburagi reported 10 deaths, while Dakshina Kannada and Dharwad reported seven deaths each. Meanwhile, Mysuru reported five deaths in the district. There are currently 639 patients who are battling COVID-19 in intensive care units (ICUs) in various parts of the state. The most patients on ventilators were reported in Bengaluru, at 352. Dharwad reported that the district has 40 patients on the ventilator. Meanwhile, the state reported that 2,397 people recovered from the coronavirus on Thursday, and have been discharged. This takes the total number of recoveries in the state to 42,901. The most discharges have taken place in Bengaluru at 1,118. Dharwad reported 180 discharges and Mysuru reported 134 discharges. When it comes to the number of tests which are undertaken by the state, the Karnataka government reported that 32,990 tests were conducted in a 24-hour period, of which 16,995 were rapid antigen detection tests and 15,995 were reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests. So far, the government has undertaken 12,75,761 COVID-19 tests, according to the latest figures.

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Cong alleges Dakshina Kannada DC transferred for standing up to cow vigilantism

Politics

Just hours before Sindhu Rupesh IAS was transferred, some right wing activists had taken strong objection to her warning to cow vigilante groups ahead of Bakrid.

Pooja Prasanna

File photo

The transfer of Sindhu Rupesh IAS, the Deputy Commissioner of Karnataka’s Dakshina Kannada district, has taken a political turn as Congress leader and former minister UT Khader  alleged that the state government chose to ‘punish’ the bureaucrat. Just hours before her transfer order was issued, some right wing activists had taken strong objection to her warning to cow vigilante groups ahead of Bakrid festival. Sindhu had served as the DC of the communally-sensitive Dakshina Kannada district for less than a year when she was replaced on Tuesday by Rajendra KV, who was serving as Chief Executive Officer, Zilla Panchayat, Belagavi district. Sindhu was transferred as the Director of Electronic Delivery of Citizen Services (EDCS), Department of Personnel and Administrative Reforms (E-governance), Bengaluru. On Monday, in response to a news link with a headline stating that the DC will deal with cow vigilante groups ‘with an iron fist’, a WhatsApp user, allegedly on a group called ‘Rama Sena’ had written, “First, she should be chopped”. In the chat discussion, members of the group are reportedly seen complaining against the DC’s actions, viewing it as ‘favourable’ to Muslims. After the screenshot went viral, the Moodabidri police suo motu registered a case and started an investigation. On Wednesday, a youth named Ranjith was arrested from Malpe after he was identified as the person who had issued the death threat. Sindhu has issued orders that enabled government veterinary doctors, officials of the Animal Husbandry Department, to issue permission for the legal transport of cattle. She had also warned vigilante groups that the district administration will take action against anyone who intercepts or attacks those transporting cattle ahead of Bakrid which falls on Thursday. Congress leader Khader took to Twitter on Wednesday, alleging, “Dakshina Kannada DC Sindhu Rupesh was given death threat for saying action will be taken against those who take law into their hands and do moral policing. Instead of punishing those who threatened murder, the government has punished the official.” ಕಾನೂನು ಕೈಗೆತ್ತಿಕೊಂಡರೆ,ನೈತಿಕ‌ ಪೋಲಿಸ್ ಗಿರಿ ಮಾಡಿದ್ರೆ ಕ್ರಮ ಕೈಗೊಳ್ಳತ್ತೇನೆ ಎಂದಿದ್ದಕ್ಕೆ ದುಷ್ಕರ್ಮಿಗಳು ದಕ್ಷಿಣ ಕನ್ನಡ ಜಿಲ್ಲಾಧಿಕಾರಿ ಸಿಂಧೂ ರೂಪೇಶ್ ರವರಿಗೆ ಕೊಲೆ ಬೆದರಿಕೆ ಹಾಕಿದರು.ಸರ್ಕಾರ ಕೊಲೆ ಬೆದರಿಕೆ‌ ಹಾಕಿದವರಿಗೆ ಶಿಕ್ಷೆ ನೀಡುವ ಬದಲು ಜಿಲ್ಲಾಧಿಕಾರಿಗಳಿಗೆ ಶಿಕ್ಷೆ ನೀಡಿದೆ.(1) @CMofKarnataka @BSYBJP @BSBommai — UT Khadér (@utkhader) July 28, 2020 Meanwhile, the BJP dismissed allegations that the threat or the warning issued to vigilante groups had anything to do with her transfer and dubbed the transfer ‘routine’ and part of a list of other IAS officers who were transferred on Monday.

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Karnataka High Court refuses to stay K-CET exams

Education

The examinations are scheduled for July 30 and 31.

TNM Staff

PTI : Image for representation

The Karnataka High Court on Wednesday rejected the interim prayer to postpone Karnataka Common Entrance Test (K-CET) examination and it will now happen as per schedule on July 30 and 31. "Authorities shall make sure that conditions in the standard operating procedure issued by the Union Ministry of Health and the guidelines of the state are scrupulously followed by all," the High Court stated in its order. It also asked the Karnataka government to provide transport to students on a case by case basis. It also directed the state government to upload the SOP for the exam before 8 pm on Wednesday. Hearing based on a petition filed by students on Wednesday, the High Court bench of Justice Aravind Kumar and Justice M I Arun heard arguments in the absence of Chief Justice Abhay Oka. The Karnataka government presented a written submission to the High Court confirming its plans to go ahead and conduct the K-CET exam on July 30 and 31. The counsel representing the state government said 1.84 lakh students had downloaded the hall tickets for the examination stating it is "neither feasible nor proper in the larger interests of students" to stop the examination. The High Court on Tuesday had asked the state government to reconsider its decision to conduct the K-CET examinations at a time a high number of COVID-19 cases are being reported in the state. Advocate Ponanna appearing for National Students Union of India (NSUI) said that the conditions were not ideal for conducting examinations in the state. There are 497 exam centres in 54 places in the state. There are also 1881 students coming from outside Karnataka of which 1300 are coming to Bengaluru, the advocate told the High Court. Even COVID-19 patients are being allowed to write the K-CET in separate rooms, a move that was questioned by advocates appearing for NSUI. The counsel appearing for the government said that 40 students were identified beforehand and that they will be dropped to the exam centres in ambulances. The High Court bench also questioned the counsel appearing for the government about a second chance for candidates who could not write the exam on July 30 and 31. The bench further stated that the standard operating procedure (SOP) for the exam was announced too late. But ultimately, the High Court bench decided to allow the examination to be held in the state. "We respect the verdict of the High Court. The responsibility of the examinations lies on the state government. The state government had a chance to rethink its decision but this is a risky move to hold the examinations when COVID-19 cases are increasing," Eric Stephen, one of the petitioners and secretary in-charge of NSUI in Karnataka told TNM.  

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