CM Siddarmaiah to declare gifted luxury watch as state asset

February 25, 2016

Bengaluru, Feb 25: Under attack from the Opposition over his luxurious watch, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddarmaiah today said he would declare it as a state asset and hand it over to the government.cmwatch

"About the expensive watch I was wearing, which has been discussed almost everyday and reported in the media, I have this much to say that I will be declaring it as the state asset and deposit it with state secretariat," he told reporters here.

The controversy was fuelled by former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy who had claimed the diamond-studded Hublot watch was worth Rs 70 lakh and had been gifted to Siddaramaiah and that he had proof for his claims.

Siddaramaiah revealed that the expensive watch was gifted to him by his close friend (NRI) Gopal Pillai Girish Chandra Verma who visited India last July.

"The full name of the person who gifted this invaluable watch is Gopal Pillai Girish Chandra Verma. He had come to India in July last year. I know him since 1983 and whenever he visits India, he meets me," the Chief Minister said.

Siddaramaiah further clarified, "Verma gifted me the watch, even though I was not keen on accepting it. However, he insisted that I accept it and I accepted because of our long friendship but I did not know how expensive it was."

The CM said he would furnish relevant documents of the watch to the Lokayukta and Income Tax.

The Chief Minister's decision to declare the watch as a state asset comes in the backdrop of criticism from various quarters.

State BJP President and MP Prahalad Joshi had sought a probe by the Enforcement Directorate to find out the owner of the watch and whether customs duty had been paid for it.

A complaint had been filed by city-based activist S Bhaskaran with the state Lokayukta seeking Siddaramaiah's prosecution under the Prevention of Corruption Act for accepting the expensive gift and not declaring it before appropriate authorities.

Reacting to Siddaramaiah's announcement, Congress MLC V S Ugrappa, who had yesterday suggested three options including declaring the watch as a state asset, welcomed it.

Seeking to turn the tables, he asked Kumaraswamy to declare his "luxurious" assets, including cars and watches, as state asset.

Replying to a query, Ugrappa said the Chief Minister was busy with recent by-election, and Taluk and Zilla Panchayat polls and hence could not find time to come out with facts about the controversy earlier.

Kumaraswamy had argued that the Chief Minister should have come out openly the very next day the watch controversy came out in public.

Comments

Curious
 - 
Friday, 26 Feb 2016

Once During Umer rah ruling he distributed clothes to every one, after couple of days he was found wearing new kurtha and pajaama. One person stood and asked ' from the cloths which you distributed we could stitch only kurtha and was not enough for pajaama' but how it was possible to you? Umer rah replied for this question my son will answer . His son said, I gave my cloths to father to complete the set. A good lesson for every rulers.

Vaman Rai
 - 
Friday, 26 Feb 2016

state assets means his property only fooling public, corrupt politicians must be killed infront of public so that people are scared of taking bride.

Bhavya Shree
 - 
Friday, 26 Feb 2016

so many uncounted worth of crores gifts he got in the name of bribe, bribe can be called easily as a gift.. his friend is mad o what? he dont have family o what to gift him a 75lakh not even fools will gift this costly gift, siddaramaiah must be lieing.. govt should scan his every property. looted so many tax payers money i myself pay every year altogether around 6000 hard earned money to the fake govt, who cares.

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coastaldigest.com news network
June 28,2020

Mangaluru, June 28: In his apparent bid to win the hearts of the people of Tulu Nadu while leaving this coastal city, Dr P S Harsha, the outgoing Mangaluru city police commissioner, today took to social media and thanked the people. The language he chose for his prolonged Facebook post and one paragraph tweet was Tulu.

“Loveable people of Kudla! I have received the transfer order after serving as the Commissioner of Police of Mangaluru City for 11 months. (During this period) I worked with utmost honesty and pro-people approach with the complete cooperation of my department. I wholeheartedly thank all those who supported me,” tweeted Dr Harsha, who is now posted in Bengaluru as the Deputy Inspector General and Commissioner of Information and Public Relations.

In his Facebook post, Dr Harsha claimed that thanks to his initiative “My Beat My Pride”, the policing in the coastal city has strengthened. 

“My only intention was to put an end to rowdyism and illegal activities. I had given priority to curb the drug mafia. ‘My Beat My Pride’ became a successful initiative thanks to public support,” he said. 

The IPS officer went on to claim that with the with the co-operation of the senior officers, the police department managed to efficiently handle situations during anti-CAA and pro-CAA agitations in the city, detection of explosives at Mangaluru International Airport and also during the covid-19 pandemic. 

However, he did not mention about the death of two people in random police firing following a baton charge during anti-CAA protests in the city on December 19.

Comments

MP
 - 
Tuesday, 30 Jun 2020

power is not permenant. 2 innocents were killed in mangalore,  if it was in USA the cop would have been in jail.

 

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News Network
January 12,2020

Bengaluru, Jan 12: Chief Justice of India, Sharad Arvind Bobde on Saturday hinted at the possibility of Artificial Intelligence being developed for the court system while making it clear that it will never replace human discretion.

Speaking at an event here, Bobde said, "We have a possibility of developing Artificial Intelligence for the court system. Only for the purpose of ensuring that the undue delay in justice is prevented."

"I must make it clear at the outset as there are times when even judges have asked this. AI is not going to replace human judges or human discretion", he added.

Sharing more details of his vision, he stated, "It is only the repetitive, mathematical and mechanical parts of the judgments for which help can be taken from the system...we are exploring the possibility of implementing it."

Bobde stressed on the requirement of developing AI for judiciary while outlining the number of pending cases in different courts.

"Some people are in jail for 10-15 years and we are not in position to deal with their appeals. The high court's and Supreme Court take so long and ultimately the courts feel that it is just to release them on bail", he said.

Bobde also endorsed employing every talent and skill to ensure delivery of justice in a reasonable time.

"We must employ every talent, every skill we possess to ensure that justice is received within reasonable time. Delay in justice can't be a reason for anybody to take law into their hands. But it's very important for us as courts to ensure there's no undue delay in justice", he said.

CJI Bobde also highlighted the need for pre-litigation mediation and said, "Pre-litigation mediation is the need of the hour especially in the backdrop of a significant pendency that the courts are tackling with. There are innumerable areas where pre-litigation mediation could solve the problem."

He also stressed that the position of a judge is very unique under the constitution and they have to deal with a variety of problems.

"The foundation of civilisation rests on the law. Judicial officers have to deal with a variety of problems...Judges without adequate knowledge, skills and experience may cause distortion, delay and miscarriage of justice", he said.

Earlier in the day, Chief Justice of India Bobde inaugurated the phase-1 of the new building of the Karnataka Judicial Academy on Crescent Road in Bengaluru.

The new building has three floors, besides, the ground floor and two basement floors.

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coastaldigest.com web desk
May 22,2020

Newsroom, May 22: Countless netizens including Indians have hailed the action taken by Jazan University of Kingdom of Saudi Arabia against a high-ranking Indian expatriate who had posted called Indian Muslims as radicals.  

Social media platforms such as Twitter and Facebook flooded with appreciation after the University announced on Twitter that the professor, who had posted objectionable messsages, had been fired. The university, however, did not disclose the name of the professor. 

On its Twitter account, Jazan University wrote, “Based on what was monitored by the university about the publication of a contracted faculty member for offensive posts and tweets, his registration has already been folded. #JazanUniversity affirms that it resolutely addresses any perverted or extremist ideas that affect the constants or violate the directions of good leadership.”

After the university’s announcement, many on Twitter posted screenshots of the communal tweets claiming that the professor is Neeraj Bedi and made it clear that the dismissed professor is an Indian.

Bedi has been working as full time Professor in Faculty of Public Health and Tropical Medicine in Jazan University for years.

In his Twitter account, which does not currently exist, he was praising PM Modi and spewing poison against Islam and holding Muslims responsible for the spread of Coronavirus. It is believed that the account was deleted after the protests became severe.

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