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 web desk
July 24,2020

Indore, Jul 24: A woman who sells fruits on a cart and who lashed out at municipal officials here has done PhD in Materials Science. Her siblings too are well educated and sell fruits as they did not find jobs.

Dr Raisa Ansari, who lives at Bakery Street in Pardeshipura with her family said she wanted to be a scientist but did not get a job anywhere.

Speaking to media persons, Raisa said, "I have done PhD in Materials Science and wanted to be a scientist but did not get job anywhere. I sell fruit here but the municipal officials are bothering us. We are being forced to move from here to there like cattle. Our religion may be the reason why we are not getting jobs but we are proud to be Indian. I am still looking for a job."

Dr Raisa's mother Ayesha Ansari said she herself is not educated, but has four children of whom three girls and one boy studied a lot but no one got job.

Speaking to media persons Ayesha said, "I have four children and they are well educated. I have not studied but all my children are educated but did not get job so all of them sell fruits."

"When the matter came to marriage, one of the daughters got married. Raisa and Shahjahan Bi wanted an educated boy, but they were not able to find a suitable match because of their complexion and sometimes they rejected the proposal because of dowry, so both are single. Two of my grandchildren are studying biology. They will become doctors," said Ayesha.

Meanwhile, people in the neighbourhood lauded the family's abilities. They said theirs was an educated family had to sell fruits as they did not get jobs.

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News Network
February 24,2020

Bengaluru, Feb 24: Census authorities in Karnataka have requested deputy commissioners in the state’s districts to hold outreach and awareness campaigns about the National Population Register (NPR), as they fear misgivings about the exercise could hurt the forthcoming enumeration of population.

The house-listing phase of the Census and updating of NPR will be rolled out simultaneously by mid-April in the BJP-ruled state.

About 1,50,000 enumerators will handle the massive exercise.

Officials believe widespread awareness will help address concerns about the NPR data-gathering process and make people cooperate with enumerators when they visit houses for both NPR and census work.

“Sensing the kind of questions that enumerators may face when they do house visits, in all video conferences with deputy commissioners of districts, we have requested to establish contact with local representatives,” SB Vijay Kumar, director of Census Operations in Karnataka told news agency. “We have asked them to organise outreach programmes to ensure that people’s doubts are resolved before the information gathering work begins,” he added.

Census operations are handled by the Union home ministry. Several district officials are said to have raised concerns about the possibility of people refusing to share information when the work on the census and NPR begins in two months. This would affect the quality of the census work, making the exercise incomplete.

news channel earlier reported that people in parts of Karnataka had declined to share personal information with officials visiting households in connection with government programmes, suspecting them of gathering data for the yet-to-be unveiled National Register of Citizens, following enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) recently.

Kumar said district authorities will train and sensitise enumerators to tread carefully while gathering information. Enumerators will be told not to demand information but seek it gently.

“We will tell enumerators to proactively engage with people. For instance, if an old man in a village does not know his exact date or place of birth, the enumerator may engage in a conversation with the person that may elicit some anecdotes and roughly establish the year and the place of birth,” the census director said.

As of now, the NPR questionnaire has 21queries, but officials say it has not yet been finalised.

With most of the census and NPR data gathering and storage happening digitally this time, the challenge before census officials is to convince people that the data would remain safe.

“Individual data is sealed and all that we can see is collective data. The information is consolidated and tailor-made. We are telling district officials to create awareness about data safety as well,” Kumar said.

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coastaldigest.com news network
May 22,2020

Bengaluru, May 22: Karnataka reported 138 fresh cases of coronavirus on Friday, taking the state tally to 1743.

26 patients have been discharged on Friday and in total, 597 people have been discharged in Karnataka while total number of active cases in the state is 1,100. 41 people have succumbed to the virus, informed the state health department.

Out of the 138 cases, 111 are returnees from Maharashtra.Out of the 138 cases, 47 are from Chikkaballapura alone, 10 cases from Raichur eight cases each from Bidar and Mandya, five cases each from Bengaluru Rural and Bengaluru Urban, and 14 are from Hassan.

From Bengaluru Rural, three patients are returnees from Maharashtra. A fifty-five year old female from Bengaluru Rural, has contracted the virus and has been diagnosed with a history of SARI. She is currently under observation at a designated city hospital.

Five patients have tested positive from Bengaluru Urban. A 42-year-old woman tested positive in Bengaluru Urban and has been diagnosed with a history of Influenza-like Illness (ILI). She is currently under observation at a designated city hospital.

Two men, who have tested positive from Dharwad are returnees from Delhi. Both of them are currently under observation at a designated hospital in Hubli. A seventy-five year old male who has contracted the coronavirus has returned from Jharkhand.

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