Bajrang Dal workers raid police station, ‘force’ cops to free saffron leader

Hassan, Mar 13: In what could have been a major tragedy, an under construction flyover across Hassan-Mangaluru railway level crossing, near the new KSRTC Bus stand here collapsed today.

Fortunately no casualties occurred despite six concrete beems of 50 feet height, collapsed and broke into pieces.

The much awaited project was completely neglected by the successive governments for over a decade due to politics.  It was sanctioned eight months ago.

The Rs 42 crore project was taken up by a joint venture between state, center and South Eastern railway. The contractor or the Engineer were not present when the incident occurred.

Blaming the contractor, the locals alleged that poor quality of work led to the incident. No contractor or engineer was present even during construction, they added. Siddaiah, who runs an eatery near KSRTC bus stand said that it could have been a major tragedy if people were underneath the flyover when it crashed. The incident should be probe and the contractor should be punished, he added.

A 53-year-old Indian worker in the UAE has missed a special repatriation flight after he dozed off at the Dubai International Airport, a media report said.

P Shajahan, who worked as a storekeeper in Abu Dhabi, was supposed to fly to Thiruvananthapuram on the Emirates jumbo jet chartered by the Kerala Muslim Cultural Centre (KMCC) Dubai, Gulf News reported.

It was the first-ever jumbo jet chartered for repatriation.

Shajahan, who had paid 1,100 dirham (USD 300) for the ticket, said that he did not sleep on the previous night as he kept on waiting for the confirmation of his ticket for the jumbo jet flying 427 stranded Indians to Kerala, it said.

He reached the airport early in the morning and after finishing the check-in procedures and rapid test, he reached the waiting area of the boarding gate at Terminal 3 around 2 PM local time, the report said.

“I sat away from most of the others. But I fell asleep after 4.30 PM,” he said.

S Nizamudeen Kollam, who coordinated the charter flight, said that the airline officials could not trace Shajahan when the flight was to take off.

“He woke up and called us after the flight left. It is sad that he missed the flight, which was the first-ever jumbo jet chartered for repatriation. We are now trying to send him on another Emirates flight that we are chartering on Saturday,” Kollam said.

Since Shajahan did not have any money, Jasimkhan Kallambalam, organising secretary of KMCC Thiruvananthapuram, went to the airport to meet him on Friday.

“Since his visa was cancelled, he could not come out of the airport. He had only eaten the snacks in the kit KMCC had given. We managed to give him some cash for buying food through KMCC volunteer Alamsha Latheef,” Kallambalam said.

In March, another Indian expat had fallen asleep in the same terminal and missed the last flight home before flights were suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

He was stranded here for over 50 days before getting repatriated.

New Delhi, Mar 19: The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the validity of Karnataka's 2018 reservation law, which granted reservation in promotion to employees belonging to SC and ST categories.

A bench headed by Justice DY Chandrachud holds that applications filed by a group of general category employees for applying 'post-based quota' and the principle of the creamy layer at entry-level in public employment are not maintainable.

The apex court had, in November last year, reserved its order on the applications filed by general category candidates in the matter.

In May last year, the top court had upheld the law allowing reservations in promotions for SC and ST candidates with consequential seniority.