15-year-old orphan girl raped, stabbed to death; 2 held

Bengaluru, Mar 3: Bengaluru mayor Gautam Kumar on Tuesday said that the decision to ban protests in front of Town Hall was made by the council and not only by him.

"The decision to ban the protest in front of the Town Hall was made by the entire council and not only my decision. Also, the things which are approved by the councillor are also read by the ruling party leaders," Bengaluru mayor told media.

"Still it is the discretion of the Commissioner to take a call after the council also. As of now, we have banned any protests in front of Town Hall," he added.

Meanwhile, Congress leaders staged a protest against Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Mayor Gautam Kumar and BJP at Council BBMP building against the decision.

"If people will start protesting, it will badly affect the traffic of the city," said Kumar, while commenting on the protest. If they want to talk about the matter, let us have a healthy discussion. I don't have a problem with and I don't think the ruling party has a problem too," he added.

On Sunday, pro-Kannada activist and former MLA Vatal Nagraj staged a protest in front of Sir KP Puttanna Chetty Town Hall (Bangalore Town Hall) against the decision taken by Bengaluru mayor.

Talking to reporters, Nagraj had said: "He does not know the history of the Town Hall. It is a historic building and protests can be staged there."

"Mayor's decision is against Bengaluru's tradition and culture, that's why we are condemning it and are protesting against this decision. We will not allow Mayor's programs in Bengaluru and he will be shown black flags", he added.

Bengluru, Apr 20: Lockdown restrictions have been extended by a day by the Karnataka government, in an order issued by chief secretary TM Vijay Bhaskar on Sunday.

The order directed all heads of departments, district deputy commissioners and superintendent of policies to "continue to implement the measures presently in force" as per Ministry of Home Affairs guidelines dated April 14, "till the midnight of April 21, 2020."

The MHA guidelines had earlier allowed the state government to relax lockdown norms post-April 20.

Bengaluru, Jun 8: Karnataka recorded 308 new COVID-19 cases in the past 24 hours, with the majority of patients being domestic returnees, raising the state's tally to 5,760 an official said, here on Monday. "Over 308 new cases were reported from Sunday 5 pm to Monday 5 pm," said the health official.

Like everyday Maharashtra returnees accounted for 96 per cent (267 cases) of the 277 new cases. Majority infections in Karnataka nowadays are returnees, mostly from the state's northern neighbour.

A few returnees also came from Tamil Nadu, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh. There was one international returnee, a 23-year-old man from Dakshina Kannada, who came from the UAE. Only 24 new infections were contacts of earlier cases.

On Monday, cases spiked in Kalaburagi, Yadgir, Bidar, Udupi, Bengaluru Urban, Ballari and Gadag.

Among the new cases, Kalaburagi contributed (99), followed by Yadgir (66), Bidar (48), Udupi (45), Bengaluru Urban (18), Ballari (8), Gadag (6), Shivamogga and Dharwad (4 each), Hassan and Dakshina Kannada (3 each), Bagalkote (2) and Koppal and Ramnagar (1 each). Four patients are suffering from Influenza-Like Illness (ILI).

Meanwhile, record 387 patients got discharged in the past 24 hours. On Monday, three persons - A 67-year-old man, a 48-year-old woman and another 65-year-old woman, all from Bengaluru Urban, succumbed to coronavirus.

Of all the cases, 3,175 are active, 2,519 discharged, 64 dead and 14 in the ICU.

In the past 24 hours, Karnataka tested 8,779 people. Of this, 8,231 reports returned negative. A number of tests were lower than other days. In total, 3.93 lac samples have been tested so far, of which 3.8 lac have returned negative.

Currently, Udupi is leading the state's COVID-19 burden with 628 active cases, followed by Kalaburagi (539), Yadgir (488), Raichur (276) and Bengaluru Urban (176) among others.

Bengaluru Urban has accounted for 18 deaths, followed by Kalaburagi (7), Bidar, Vijayapura, Davangere and Dakshina Kannada (6 each) and Chikkaballapur (3 each), among others.