It’s Kalladka Bhat’s order: Churches, dargahs, madrasas must celebrate national festivals

Bengaluru, Mar 25: Former Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday targetted Centre over surge in coronavirus cases in the country, alleging that the government has miserably failed in tackling the unprecedented situation and was still not managing the crisis well.
"The government has miserably failed in tackling this very serious disease. They are not properly managing the crisis," senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah told ANI.
Siddaramaiah's response comes a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a 21-day lockdown in the entire country to deal with the spread of coronavirus, saying that "social distancing" is the only option to deal with the disease, which spreads rapidly.
In a televised address to the nation, Prime Minister Modi said that it is vital to break the chain of the disease and experts have said that at least 21 days are needed for it.
The Prime Minister said the lockdown has drawn a "Lakshman Rekha" in every home and people should stay indoors for their own protection and for that of their families.
Noting that the Centre has on Tuesday allocated Rs 15,000 crore for the treatment of coronavirus patients and to strengthen health infrastructure, he said testing facilities, personal protective equipment, isolation beds, ICU beds, ventilators and other necessary materials will be ramped up.
The Prime Minister said the country will have to bear the economic cost of lockdown but saving the life of every citizen is his priority and the priority of the Central and state governments as also of local administrations.
Noting that the virus spreads like fire, he said that if care is not taken for 21 days, the country, a family can go behind by 21 years.
According to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), India has reported about 536 individuals have been confirmed positive among suspected cases and contacts of known positive cases. A total of 22,694 samples from March 24 till 8 pm.
Ten people have died so far due to the deadly virus, according to the data by Union health ministry.

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The Karnataka BJP, which faced action on Twitter earlier this month over incendiary tweets, this time has passed the blame of Sangh Parivar sponsored Delhi violence to the victims.

In an insensitive tweet on Friday, it dubbed the protests against the notorious Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) as "fake" and added that the violence that followed was "the most well-planned assault on the Idea of India," in an apparent attempt to portray the victims as villains.

The handle, notorious for tweets targeting Muslims, blamed the clashes that erupted in Delhi between people demonstrating for and against the CAA on "so called 'Peacefuls'" - a known right-wing slur for Muslims.

ZERO - Number of Indians who lost their Citizenship due to the #CAA.

40+ - Number of Indians who lost their lives due to the #CAARiots.

The fake protests against CAA and subsequent riots by the so called Peacefuls are the most well planned assault on the "Idea of India."

— BJP Karnataka (@BJP4Karnataka) February 28, 2020

Many people on social media called out the tweet for misleading people and covering up the role of Delhi BJP leader Kapil Mishra's provocative speech for triggering the violence or the failure of the Delhi Police, which reports to the former BJP chief and Union Home Minister Amit Shah, in controlling the riots.

Earlier this month, the Karnataka BJP had tweeted a video of Muslim women standing in queue to vote in the Delhi elections, showing their voter ID cards, with the snarky caption: "Keep the documents safe, you will need to show them again during NPR (National Population Register) exercise."

Soon after, the party unit's Twitter handle was blocked by the social media platform for 24 hours after many accused it of encouraging Islamophobia.

NPR has been widely criticised by opposition parties as a precursor to the government's planned NRC or National Register of Citizens which intends to make Indians prove their citizenship with documents that many poor or illiterate do not possess.

Many fear that combined with the already imposed CAA - which promises citizenship to only non-Muslim refugees from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh - the NRC can be used to make millions of Muslims stateless.

The government has denied the allegation and said the CAA only intends to help those who have faced religious persecution. In recent weeks, it has gone back on its rhetoric on the NRC which was announced by Amit Shah in parliament as "it will certainly happen".

The CAA, which was cleared by parliament in December, has triggered deadly protests in the country which left at least 25 dead till Sunday. Since then, at least 42 more people have been killed as large-scale violence erupted in northeast Delhi and hundreds of homes and shops have been burned to the ground.

Mangaluru, Apr 23: The scarcity of water in Kukkavu area of Belthangady town in Dakshina Kannada district has forced school-going children to dig a well with their hands.
The children studying in primary schools were seen lifting the heavy buckets of water from the well.

The residents were facing the water shortage from the past couple of days, amid the coronavirus lockdown.
A group of five adolescents managed to dug the well as deep as 12 feet within just a span of four days.

" We are facing water problem now. With the support of my five more friends, we dug this well. At the beginning we just found soil, then in the deeper layers, we also found stones. We got access to the water at 10 feet down," said Dhanush, a class 9th student, while speaking to news agency.

The shortage of water during the summer months is a perennial problem in across several states in India, and the growing population has only added to the woes.

In extreme conditions, poor have to draw water from small water holes.