BJP MLA promotes child marriage to prevent Hindu girls falling in love

Bengaluru, May 12: Former chief minister and senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Tuesday said that the Central and Karnataka government have failed in containing the coronavirus spread despite having enough time for preparations.

"Central and state government failed in properly controlling COVID-19. The first coronavirus case was reported in Kerala on January 30. Lockdown was imposed on March 24. Both Centre and state had enough time for preparations," Siddaramaiah said in a press meet here.

He said that the Central government did not stop the airline services on time.

"Karnataka government might have been able to stop COVID-19 properly. However, both the state and central government are playing politics over the issue and blaming Tablighi Jamaat for the spread, which is a political strategy painted by the RSS," Siddaramaiah said.

"Who gave the licence to Tablighi's international convention? Who gave them permission in Delhi? They didn't control it. Central government is directly responsible for the increasing numbers of COVID-19 cases in India," he added.

Siddaramaiah said that the lockdown was imposed without any preparation, which he said caused huge problems for the migrant workers across the country.

"Now, the government is collecting ticket fare and looting migrant workers. They don't have jobs or food, they don't have money, and they earn every day to survive. How will they pay for the tickets? Why the government is not arranging for free trains?" the Congress leader said.

He said that around Rs 35,000 crore have been credited to PM CARES fund, Rs 3,000 crore of which was credited from Karnataka alone. "Why are they not using that money?" he asked.

Siddaramaiah said that the party is demanding for the Centre to arrange for migrant workers to return to their native places across the country free of cost.

"We asked Chief Minister to call an all party meeting. We gave many suggestions, which this government did not consider. We also took a delegation and gave a memorandum about farmers, daily wage workers, road side vendors, barbers, problems faced by the unorganized sector. But this government didn't consider any of it," he said.

Questioning the Central government's suggestion to States to amend their Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) Acts, Siddaramaiah said that the move is against the federal system of the country and claimed that it harms the interests of small scale farmers.

He said that the BJP-led state government has also decided to postpone the Gram panchayat elections in the state and is trying to nominate their party workers for village panchayat elections.

"The Government must continue with the present members of the Gram panchayat. If BJP tries to nominate their party members to village panchayats, we will take to streets to protest despite the lockdown," Siddaramaiah added.

Mangaluru, June 21: The first ever repatriation flight from Saudi Arabia’s Dammam Karnataka’s Mangaluru under Vande Bharat Mission (VBM) today brought home around 165 stranded passengers. 

The IndiGo flight took off from Dammam International Airport at 11 a.m. (Saudi time) and landed at Mangaluru International Airport at 6:30 p.m.

The stranded passengers included pregnant women, senior citizens and those who are in need of emergency medical treatment are on board.

The passengers were screened at the Airport before being despatched for institutional quarantine in special buses. 

Even though a few charter flights arranged by a couple of NRI entrepreneurs have already repatriated hundreds of stranded people from Dammam to Mangaluru, the government of India had not operated any repatriation flight under VBM on this sector so far. 

Saudi Kannadigas Humanity Forum (SKHF), an NGO which came into existence to help the stranded Kannadigas in Saudi Arabia during covid-19 lockdown had been successful in persuading the government of India operate a flight on Dammam-Mangaluru sector under VBM. 

SKHF has also set up an online portal for those who were in need of emergency repatriation. In today’s flight around 100 passengers have obtained seats through SKHF.

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Wayanad, Jul 6: DM Education and Research Foundation (DMERF), headed by Dr Azad Moopen, has come forward to handover DM WIMS Medical College, Nursing and Pharmacy Colleges and its associated institutions in Wayanad to the Kerala Government. 

According to Azad Moopen, Managing Trustee, DMERF, the Kerala Government has been deliberating to set up a medical college in the area over the last 7-8 years to address the challenges being faced by the local population due to lack of local availability of advanced healthcare facilities under the government sector. 

The handover by DMERF would address the Government's need. DM WIMS is one of the few NABH accredited medical colleges in the country, he said.

The DM WIMS Medical College and its associated institutions were established by the DMERF Trust 10 years ago to help the backward community of the district. 

Run in a charitable manner, the medical college has a capacity of 150 seats and has seen two batches of doctors graduate from the institution. With a total built up area of 14 lakh sq feet, it also has a 700-bed super-specialty hospital catering to the local community and helping in training healthcare professionals, a 100-bed specialty hospital, a pharmacy college, and a nursing college.

A new medical college by the government will require substantial investments and minimum of 5 years to become functional. “We think that DM WIMS can cater to the requirement of the government and setting up another medical college might not be required to cater to the existing population,” he said.

Moopen also announced a donation of Rs 250 crore out of the total investment in the institutions to the government to provide treatment to the needy population in the backward, landlocked district and to train good quality doctors from the State.