Trupti Desai finally enters Haji Ali Dargah, offers prayers

Bengaluru, July 17: A 60-year-old woman who tested positive for Covid-19 allegedly ended her life in the Covid ward at KC General Hospital in the early hours of Friday.

The woman, the fourth Covid positive patient to end her life since April, was a resident of Mariyappanapalya near Jnanabharathi in West Bengaluru. She was found hanging from a window grille in the passage of the Covid ward around 5 am. She had used her sari to hang herself.

The police said that the woman was admitted to the hospital on July 1. She was responding well to the treatment and was almost cured. Her son was infected first and admitted to the same hospital. As she later tested positive and got admitted, her son was discharged on July 11. The police suspect that the woman may have resorted to the extreme step due to depression.

An investigating officer quoted doctors telling the police that they were about to inform the woman about her discharge date on Friday. Doctors were waiting for the report on her latest test before discharging her.

The woman’s body will be subjected to an autopsy as per the Covid standard procedure. The Malleswaram police have taken up a case of unnatural death. Investigations are on. 

On July 11, a 70-year-old man ended his life in the toilet of the Covid ward in Victoria Hospital, while a suicide was reported in the same ward on June 26. A 60-year-old woman also hanged herself in the toilet. Her son, daughter-in-law, and grandson were also admitted to hospital for Covid-19.

Hubballi, Feb 16: Rs 72,000 crore investment proposals were received at the Invest Karnataka meet, here on Friday, for the states northern region, said an official on Saturday.

"About 50 foreign and domestic firms have proposed to invest Rs 72,000 crore in the northwest and northern regions of the state and a dozen companies signed agreements with us," state Industries Department Secretary Gaurav Gupta said.

Rajesh Exports, Bengaluru-based group, signed an agreement to set up a manufacturing unit at Dharwad to rollout electric vehicles and make lithium ion batteries.

"Rajesh Exports proposes to invest about Rs 50,000 crore for manufacturing electric cars and lithium ion batteries for the domestic and overseas markets. It will generate about 10,000 jobs," said Gupta.

Similarly, Sonali Power has signed a pact with the state nodal agency (Udyog Mitra) to set up a solar power plant at Davangere at a cost of Rs 4,800 crore, which will generate 2,100 direct jobs.

Chief Minister B.S. Yediyurappa claimed several firms had come forward to collectively invest Rs 1 lakh crore since the BJP government came into being in July 2019.

"Many Indian and foreign firms will sign agreements with the state government at the 3-day Global Investors meet in Bengaluru on November 3-5," Yediyurappa said at the 'Invest Karnataka' meet.

Noting that Karnataka was rich in natural and human resources, especially in high-tech and skilled workforce, Yediyurappa said investment opportunities were plenty in aerospace, automobiles, machine tools, electric vehicles and bio-technology besides information technology.

"About 40 global firms expressed interest to invest in the state at a roadshow held at Davos, Switzerland, on the margins of the World Economic Forum (WEF) meet on January 23," he said.

Under the new industrial policy, the state government will set up clusters to make toys at Koppal, textiles in Bellari, solar equipment at Kalaburagi and farm machinery at Bidar.

"We are committed to make North Karnataka a power house of industries for the region's development, with Hubballi-Dharwad as the growth hub," Yediyurappa said.

Bengaluru, Jul 9: The total number of Covid-19 infections in Karnataka on Thursday breached the 30,000 mark as the state reported its biggest single-day spike of over 2,200 new cases and 17 related fatalities, taking the death toll to 486, the Health department said.

The day also saw a record 957 patients getting discharged after recovery, out of which 606 were from Bengaluru Urban.

Out of the 2,228 fresh cases reported on Thursday, a whopping 1,373 were from Bengaluru Urban alone.

The previous biggest single-day spike was recorded on July 8 with 2,062 cases.

As of July 9 evening, cumulatively 31,105 Covid-19 positive cases have been confirmed in the state, which includes 486 deaths and 12,833 discharges, the Health department said in its bulletin.

It said, out of 17,782 active cases, 17,325 patients are in isolation at designated hospitals and are stable, while 457 are in ICU.

"Death rate in Karnataka is 1.49 percent, while in Bengaluru is 1.28 percent, and our target is to bring it below 1 percent," Medical Education Minister K Sudhakar told reporters.

"The reason for spike in cases in Bengaluru and other places in recent days is because during the last four months of lockdown we had controlled it very well, but as we relaxed lockdown for economic activities we did not follow certain precautionary measures like distance among other things," he said.

The Minister also conceded that there were lapses on part of the government also in terms of tracing and tracking.

"It has to be improved especially in Bengaluru and we are taking steps in this regard."

Among the 17 dead seven were from Dharwad, two each from Hassan, Kalaburagi, Mysuru, and one each from Raichur, Uttara Kannada, Tumakuru and Davangere.

The deceased include 13 men and 4 women.

The dead are all either with a history of Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) or Influenza-like illness (ILI).

Out of 2,228 fresh cases today, contacts of the majority of the cases are still under tracing.

Among the districts where the new cases were reported, Bengaluru Urban accounted for 1,373, followed by Dakshina Kannada (167), Kalaburagi (85) and Dharwad (75).

Bengaluru urban district tops the list of positive cases, with a total of 13,882 infections, followed by Kalaburagi (1,901) and Dakshina Kannada 1,701.

Among discharges Bengaluru urban tops the list with total 2,834, followed by Kalabuagi (1,392) and Udupi (1,206).

A total of 7,79,209 samples were tested so far, out of which 20,028 were tested on Thursday alone.

So far 7,28,887 samples have been reported as negative, and of them 17,568 were reported negative today.