CCTVs mandatory for commercial and religious places in Karnataka

Bengaluru, Jul 22: Karnataka's Covid-19 task force on Tuesday decided that the state government will regulate the supply of Remdesivir, the drug used in the treatment of coronavirus infected patients, to private hospitals to check black marketing and hoarding.

"Remdesivir which is currently available in the government hospitals will be supplied to private hospitals through the government.

This will help curb black marketing of this drug," Medical Education Minister K Sudhakar's office said in a release.

Along with Sudhakar, other task force members, including Health Minister Sriramulu, Deputy Chief Minister C N Ashwath Narayan and Chief Secretary T M Vijay Bhaskar attended the meeting. However, Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai was not part of it as he was out of Bengaluru.

At the meeting, the government has also fixed the rate for Covid-19 tests in private labs- Rs 2,000 for government referred cases and 3,000 for self-reporting cases.

It was also decided to purchase 4 lakh antigen test kits and 5 lakh swab test kits to ramp up testing, the release said, adding that approvals have also been given for additional drugs for the treatment of Covid-19 patients.

The decisions also included increasing monthly salary for Ayush doctors to 48,000, MBBS doctors to 80,000 and nurses to get 30,000 for next 6 months.

The task force also made it clear that private hospitals have to reserve 50 percent beds for the government for Covid-19 treatment. The remaining 50 percent can be used by the private hospitals for Covid-19 and non-Covid-19 treatment.

Private hospitals provide treatment under Ayushman Bharat scheme (ABARK) for Covid-19 patients.

Those cases in which treatment does not cover under the scheme can be charged as per the user charges, the release said.

A committee will be formed to supervise and recommend the purchase of equipment and medicines for Covid-19 treatment, which will be headed by ACS, ITBT Department.

Approval has been given for the procurement of N-95 masks and lakh PPE kits for the safety of healthcare workers. The decision also has been taken to connect oxygen pipeline to 4,736 beds in 17 government medical colleges, which will enable high flow oxygen for these beds besides being beneficial for future use as well.

According to the release, 16 RTPCR and 15 Automated RNA extraction units will be established to ramp up testing and this will help achieve the target of 50,000 tests per day. "On the whole approvals given for purchase of equipment and upgradation of existing facilities at government hospitals is estimated to be about Rs 500 Crore," it added.

Bengaluru, Jul 10: Former Karnataka Chief Minister and Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Thursday condemned the decision of the HRD Ministry to drop chapters on citizenship, secularism and federalism from Class 11 political science syllabus, stating that this will "deprive a generation of students from understanding the important pillars of Indian democracy".

"I strongly condemn the decision of @HRDMinistry to drop chapters on citizenship, secularism and federalism. This will deprive a generation of students from understanding the important pillars of Indian democracy. #Stop Saffronisation Of Education," Siddaramaiah tweeted.

The Congress leader further alleged that BJP does not believe in the principles of citizenship, secularism and federalism.

"Chapters on citizenship, secularism and federalism are dropped from Class 11 Pol Science. syllabus. Does this explain something? Yes, it explains that @BJP4India doesn't believe in these principles and validates its past behaviour," he said in another tweet.

Earlier in the day, Union Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank rejected criticism over alleged conspiracy in CBSE's decision to reduce the syllabus of schools due to COVID-19 outbreak and urged the critics to "leave politics out of education".

"There has been a lot of uninformed commentary on the exclusion of some topics from #CBSESyllabus. The problem with these comments is that they resort to sensationalism by connecting topics selectively to portray a false narrative," the Union Minister tweeted.

"It is our humble request:#Education is our sacred duty towards our children. Let us leave politics out of education and make our politics more educated," he added.

The CBSE has revised the syllabus for the classes IX to XII during the academic session 2020-21 in the wake of the situation created by COVID-19.

In a circular issued to all the heads of the institutions affiliated to it, the CBSE had said that the revision of syllabi has been done due to the extraordinary situation prevailing in the country and different parts of the world.

Bengaluru, Jan 7: The Central Crime Branch (CCB) sleuths held an international bookie in connection with the Karnataka Premier League (KPL) betting scam and spot-fixing racket, police said on Tuesday.

The bookie was identified as Jitin Sait (32), a native of Sonipat in Haryana.

'We had obtained and issued a Look Out Circular (LOC) against Sait, and on Sunday, he was caught after he landed at the Kempegowda International Airport from the Netherlands.