Belthangady: Trapped leopard rescued, released in forest

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. 

Mangaluru, May 29: Even as the thousands of Indian expatriates in Saudi Arabia are waiting for repatriation flights to return to India, a few NRI entrepreneurs are sending home their employees through chartered flights. 

The government of India on May 21 had formally approved the repatriation of stranded Indian expatriate workers through chartered flights arranged by their employing companies particularly in Gulf region and elsewhere. 

Expertise Contracting Co. Ltd headed by K S Sheik and Al-Muzain Est. headed by Zakaria Jokatte are among those who have hired charter flights to repatriate hundreds of employees to India amidst corona lockdown. 

Mr Sheik said that his firm had applied for nine charter flights. "Two of the charter flights will carry 360 people to Mangaluru. Seven other flights will repatriate employees to Delhi, Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai and Hyderabad," he said, adding that the company will bear complete expense of their repatriation and quarantine facility after India. 

Mr Jokatte three charter flights will fly from Dammam to Mangaluru International Airport on June 2, 5 and 8 carrying their employees.

Mangalore, Jan 12: Thieves reportedly stole around 70,000 cash from a MESCOM ATP machine located at Chembugudde in Thokkottu, Police said here on Sunday.

Police said that the theft took place in the MESCOM sub-division office at Chembugudde. It was said that the thieves broke open the room where the MESCOM customers bill payment machine was located and stole 70,000 rupees cash from the ATP machine.

This machine had nine lakh rupees cash. The amount was reported to have been transferred at around 1500 hrs on Saturday.