Haryana BJP govt may soon issue special licence for foreigners to eat holy cow

Bengaluru, May 20: An Air India flight from Dammam in Saudi Arabia landed here with 161 passengers, including 85 for Karnataka and 76 to Hyderabad, an official said on Wednesday. Among Karnataka passengers there were both Bengalureans and Mangalureans.

"AIC-1910 (Airbus A321-211) landed at the city airport at 8.45 p.m. and 85 passengers, including 9 women and one infant alighted here, while 76 will fly to Hyderabad," the airline official said. 

The flight was 45 minutes behind schedule to Bengaluru.

The airline staff and the state government officials received the returnees in the arrival terminal and gave them masks to wear and sanitizer to wash hands.

All the passengers would be screened with thermal device to read their body temperature though only asymptomatic were flown back.

After completing formalities, including immigration check and filling the self-declaration form, the returnees were taken in state-run buses in batches for 14-day institutional quarantine in hotels and resorts across the city.

Passengers have to download the mandatory Quarantine app on their mobile phone before leaving the airport for contact tracing later.

Another evacuation flight from Kuala Lampur in Malaysia to Bengaluru has been cancelled due to Amphan cyclone over the Bay of Bengal that hit the Odisha and West Bengal on the east coast.

The service was the fourth to the southern state in the second phase of Vande Bharat Mission, the national carrier and its Express arm are operating to repatriate thousands of Indians, including distressed workers, migrants, students, senior citizens and tourists, stranded overseas since the government suspended international flights on March 23 and enforced an extended lockdown on March 25 to combat Covid-19 spread.

The first flight in the second phase landed on Monday night at Mangaluru on the state's west coast, with 177 passengers from Dubai in the UAE.

The second flight to the southern state from Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia landed here (Bengaluru) on Tuesday evening, with 94 passengers.

The third flight from Muscat in Oman landed here at 6.31 p.m. on Wednesday evening and at Mangaluru on the state's west coast at 8.01 p.m.

The remaining flights to Karnataka will land in Bengaluru and Mangaluru over the next 13 days till June 3 from 12 more destinations the world over.

In the first phase of the mission from May 7-17, the airline and its arm flew 6 flights to the state from May 11-15, bringing in 800 passengers, including 623 to Bengaluru and 177 to Mangaluru from London, Singapore, San Francisco and Dubai.

Bengaluru, May 17: Karnataka on Sunday extended lockdown for two days until midnight of Tuesday, May 19. Earlier today, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra extended the lockdown till May 31. The state government said that the guidelines and norms as followed during Coronavirus Lockdown 3 will remain in place till 19th midnight or till further notice.

Meanwhile, the total number of coronavirus cases in Karnataka rose to 1,146 on Saturday. With 37 deaths and 497 discharges, there are 611 active corona cases in the state. 

Out of 54 new cases, twentytwo are from Mandya, ten from Kalaburagi, six from Hassan, four from Dharwad, three each from Yadgir and Kolar, two each from Dakshina Kannada and Shivamogga, and one each from Udupi and Vijayapura.

Shivamogga, May 12: As many as six medical staff members, attached to the Shivamogga district hospital, who were members of the Corona Warriors team, were suspended for raising concerns over inadequate facilities, available to the frontline workers.

According to official sources, among the six, who were suspended by the Hospital Director, included three staff nurses and other supporting staff in the hospital.

The cause for the retaliation with punishment, was following concerns raised by the medical staff over aweful facilities, made available to them by the Hospital authorities.