Now, Bengaluru eyes Odd-Even formula to check traffic, pollution

Kasaragod, May 27: In a tragic incident, two persons, who were brothers, died of asphyxiation while trying to rescue a calf that fell in their well at Bandhiyod near here on Wednesday.

Police sources said the elder brother Narayanan (50) entered into the well first to save the calf that fell in the well early in the morning.

His brother Sankaran (40) also followed suit after he noticed his brother fainting deep down the well. However, he also fainted inside the well.

Bengaluru, Jan 19: The long-awaited discussions on cabinet expansion finally took place between BJP national president Amit Shah and the state party unit on Saturday, but they produced no result.

Latest indications are that new members will be appointed only after CM BS Yediyurappa returns from Davos, Switzerland, on January 25.

The party held a close-door party meeting at a top hotel in Hubballi. The subject of expanding the cabinet, which currently has 16 vacancies, featured in the talks.

Earlier, Yediyurappa reportedly had a one-on-one with Shah during their 45-minute flight from Bengaluru to Hubballi. He is said to have insisted on accommodating all 11 newly MLAs in the cabinet. These legislators were earlier a part of Congress and JD(S); they contested the December byelections on BJP tickets and won.

This apart, BJP sources said, Yediyurappa and Shah had a brief chat at a private event at Palace Grounds . Separately, Shah, who is the Union home minister, held meetings with Jagadish Shettar, Laxman Savadi and Prahlad Joshi, seeking their views on cabinet expansion.

Shah also wanted to get an idea of what people think about the Yediyurappa government’s performance.

Newly elected MLAs Ramesh Jarkiholi, BC Patil and Srimanth Patil greeted Shah. “We only met him to wish him; we didn’t discuss the cabinet issue. That’s something state BJP members will do,” said Hirekerur legislator BC Patil.

Saturday’s deliberations fail to break the stalemate over the cabinet appointments. There are clear differences in the camp about whether all Congress-JD(S) defectors should be made cabinet members, according to a senior minister attended one such meeting.

Shah reportedly wants only seven to eight newly elected MLAs to be made ministers; the rest of the spots should go to BJP loyalists. Yediyurappa disagrees with this position as he had promised all 13 turncoats places in the cabinet. Two lost in the bypolls.

Shah has now asked Yediyurappa to visit Delhi after returning from Davos to finalise the composition of the cabinet, according to the sources.

Yediyurappa will leave for Davos early on Sunday, while Shah will fly directly to Delhi from Hubballi.

Mangaluru, Jan 19: Karnataka’s coastal city of Mangaluru has been ranked India’s safest city with the lowest crime index (24.14) in the country, according to a survey conducted by Numbeo.

Numbeo is a crowd-sourced global database of reported consumer prices, perceived crime rates, and quality of healthcare, among other statistics.

Mangaluru was named the city with the highest safety index of 75.86 among all major Indian cities.

According to the survey, Abu Dhabi is the world's safest city which has the lowest crime index of 11.33. It has the highest safety index of 88.67 in the list of 374 global cities.

Abu Dhabi sits on number one spot - as an increase in a city's ranking means a drop in its crime rate.

Sharjah ranked fifth safest and Dubai was ranked as the seventh safest city in the world with its safety index at 82.95.

Joining Abu Dhabi in the top ten are Taipei, Quebec, Zurich, Dubai, Munich, Eskisehir, and Bern. Islamabad (74) was ranked the safest in Pakistan.

Meanwhile, Caracas in Venezuela was rated the as the most unsafe city with the highest crime index 84.90.