Madrasa teacher arrested for alleged unnatural sex with three boys

Bengaluru, Jan 7: Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa on Monday said the much-awaited cabinet expansion will take place in about a week to 10 days and that he wants to complete the exercise before his proposed visit to Davos to attend the World Economic Forum meet later this month.

"Cabinet expansion has to be done in a week or 8-10 days. There is also information that Amit Shah will be coming to Bengaluru on January 16 or 18. Before that I will go to Delhi and get things cleared and will expand the cabinet at the earliest," Mr Yediyurappa said.

Speaking to reporters in Bengaluru, he said he wanted to complete the exercise before his Davos visit.

"I will make all efforts to expand the cabinet before that," he said.

With Mr Yediyurappa making it clear that 11 of the disqualified JDS-Congress MLAs who got re-elected in the December 5 bypolls on BJP tickets will be made ministers, lobbying has been on within the party for the remaining ministerial berths.

Currently, there are 18 ministers, including the Chief Minister, in the cabinet that has a sanctioned strength of 34.

Cabinet expansion will not be an easy task for the Chief Minister as he will have to strike a balance by accommodating the victorious disqualified legislators as promised and also make space for the old guards, upset at being "neglected" in the first round of the induction exercise.

He also has to give adequate representation to various castes and regions in his cabinet and also deal with the allocation of key portfolios.

The Chief Minister, who has indicated that the ministry expansion may take place any time after Sankranti, is likely to travel to Davos on January 20, according to sources.

BS Yediyurappa, along with Union ministers Piyush Goyal and Mansukh Mandaviya, as well as Chief Ministers Amarinder Singh, Kamal Nath, are expected to join over 100 Indian CEOs at Davos in Switzerland later this month for the WEF's 50th annual meeting, which will be attended by thousands from across the globe.

Bengaluru, Feb 1: The police have arrested two miscreants belonging to a saffron outfit after they threatened students in the city who were protesting the firing incident near Delhi’s Jamia Millia Islamia, telling them they would meet the same fate as the injured student.

Saffron extremist Gopal Sharma had opened fire at students protesting the Citizenship (Amendment) Act near the Delhi varsity on Thursday, injuring one.

The Bengaluru incident took place at Maurya Circle, where the nightlong demonstration against the Jamia firing and CAA began around 7.30pm. By 11pm, the number of protesters reduced to 30 but the group decided to stay back after getting the news of another alleged attack on women and Jamia students by Delhi police.

According to Adrian, a student who was at the scene, the small group of protesters stayed within a barricaded area on the road, chanting slogans, singing patriotic songs and playing music. “While we were raising anti-CAA slogans, two men from among us began shouting pro-CAA slogans. The duo was unknown and when we looked at them, they quietly moved away,” said Adrian, adding they were drunk and returned after a few minutes.

Saqib Idrees, another student protester, said the duo began to issue verbal threats. “They threatened us in Kannada that they would repeat the Jamia incident in Bengaluru,” said Saqib, adding the duo also taunted them saying ‘it’s not CAA down down, but you all will be brought down’.

When the students questioned the miscreants, cops stationed at the spot detained the duo. “Police were very cooperative. Almost 20 personnel were with us till 5am,” said Saqib.

Meanwhile, a friend of the duo watched the drama from a distance and approached the protesters to apologise on their behalf. “He said they belonged to the working class and FIRs would destroy their lives. He apologised to us and we decided to let the matter go. After all, we are Gandhians,” added Saqib.

Adrian said though the two men were drunk, their threats exposed their ideology. After the duo was detained, the students continued their protest till 5am and dispersed after singing the national anthem.

According to High Grounds police, the men are bank employees and were detained for disturbing the protesters at Maurya Junction. “They are from Andhra Pradesh and work in a PSU bank in the city. One of them is set to get married in February. He had thrown a party for his other friends for the same reason. The duo was drunk when confronted by the protesters. We booked a case of public nuisance and let them off after a warning,” police said.

Bengaluru, Jun 7: A mobile app and a portal offering technology-driven solutions to manage and mitigate floods in urban areas were launched here on Saturday by Karnataka Revenue Minister R Ashoka.

The mobile app 'Bengaluru Megha Sandesha' was developed to disseminate information on rainfall and flood forecast, location-specific dynamic weather directly to the public. "The in-built features of the app and the information provided for a city is the first of its kind in the country," a press release said. This is a system of providing rainfall, flood forecasts and early warning to the officials of government agencies in the city through SMS to their mobile phones, social media platforms and a dedicated web portal, the release said.

The information provided would help the civic authorities act in advance and manage the floods, it said. The portal 'Varunamitra' is for information on the weather. The information provided is based on real-time data from 100 telemetric rain gauges installed and maintained at various locations across the state, it said. Rainfall forecast is based on the weather research and forecast models developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Ahmedabad, the release said.

The information on flood forecast is based on the hydrological model, hydraulic routing and automation of the results. The Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre, along with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), took up this project on the urban flood model for Bengaluru city. The project was funded by the Central government's department of science and technology, the release added.