6 women die, 10 injure as jeep hits tractor trailer

Bengaluru, Jul 18: Bringing a major change in the  administration of Bengaluru, which has emerged as a Covid-19 hotspot, the state government on Saturday transferred B H Anil Kumar out of the BBMP and brought N Manjunath Prasad to take his place. 

Manjunath Prasad, who headed the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) before being replaced by Kumar, will take over with immediate effect. The government has also placed him in concurrent charge of the Revenue Department as well as the Disaster Management, Bhoomi and UPOR.

Kumar, an Additional Chief Secretary, has been put in a place where earlier a secretary was posted. He now heads the Department of Public Enterprises. The posting would have brought him two spots down had it not been for the government upgrading it to the level of additional chief secretary. 

Anil Kumar, who was earlier praised for his work to contain the coronavirus pandemic, had faced criticism by the High Court of Karnataka for the BBMP's failure to help people in containment zones as well as other issues on the spread of the pandemic. 

Sources in the government said, pressure has been building up against Anil Kumar over the last two months after most of the Bengaluru MLAs complained to the chief minister's office.

"No MLA backed him. Everyone had a problem," a source said. 

Things came to the head with regard to a Rs 436 crore project given to KRIDL. "The issue reached the chief minister's office as all the MLAs took an issue with the way the project was awarded," a source said. 

Another source said that Kumar came under fire after a central team flagged the issue of failing Covid-19 surveillance measures in Bengaluru. The central team's criticism, it is widely believed in the government, came as the last straw. 

Bengaluru, Jul 16: Former Prime Minister and JDS supremo H D Devegowda on Thursday gave a clarion call to party workers to take steps to strengthen the party from the grossroots level and to 'expose the failures' and 'anti-people' policies of BJP government both at the Centre and State.

In an open letter to the workers here, he alleged that the urgent need is to create awareness among the people about failure of the governments which have brought in policies which are deterrent to the poor and downtrodden.

BJP government headed by Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa in Karnataka has come up with an amendment to the Land Reforms Act,1961, which is 'against' interests of the small and medium farmers as even a non-agriculturist can purchase agriculture land, thus giving an opportunity to the rich people to 'exploit' illiterate farmers and purchase their land and use it for some other purpose after some time.

Bengaluru, Apr 20: Former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy, reacting to the incident which happened in Padarayanapura area of the city last night, in which a group of men vandalised a police barricade, said that the perpetrators of the violence should be dealt with severely.

He further said, "It was not at all needed to attack Asha workers, police or doctors. These kinds of incidents are not acceptable. It is an act of shame. It does not matter which community the perpetrators belong to, each and everyone must follow the guidelines and law. Whoever indulged in such an act must be punished."

Earlier on Sunday, a ruckus erupted in Padarayanapura on Sunday allegedly over the shifting of suspected COVID-19 persons to a quarantine facility by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) officials.

The incident occurred in the late evening at Padarayanapura, which is recognized as a 'Red Zone', when BBMP officials went to shift 15 secondary contacts of corona positive patients. However, some people created a ruckus, broke the barricade and removed the police post in the area.

In Karnataka, 390 people have detected positive for COVID-19, of which 16 people have succumbed to the infection, as per the Union Health Ministry.