Mangaluru: Two officials get 1 year jail for accepting Rs 3,000 bribe

Bengaluru, May 3: The Commissioner of Health and Family Welfare Services in the government of Karnataka KA Dayanand issued an order approving quarantine of asymptomatic COVID-19 infected international passengers on payment basis at star hotels.

The international passengers in the state have been categorised into A, B and C groups depending on their symptoms and co-morbid conditions. Category A passengers are symptomatic and are being sent to isolation hospitals which may be COVID care centres.

Category B and C passengers are asymptomatic and are being sent to institutional facilities like hostels, guest houses, hotels, etc.

"On the basis of demands by category B and C passengers to provide them star hotel accommodation on a self-payment basis, they have been granted the choice of staying in those hotels at their own cost. The BBMP Special Commissioner/Deputy Commissioner can have a meeting with such hotels and finalise the negotiated rate," Commissioner Dayanand said in the order.

"The hotels for category B passengers should have round the clock presence of health personnel while hotels for category C passengers should be visited by health staff once a day," he added.

Mangaluru, Jan 25: Orange vendor Harekala Hajabba, popularly known as 'Akshara Santha' (the saint of alphabets), who went on to build a school at Newpadpu village on the city’s outskirts in 1999 is among this year’s Padma Shri awardees.

When Hajabba received the call on being nominated for the award, he was standing in a queue to buy rations.

As he is not fluent in Hindi, Hajabba handed over the phone to an auto driver, who conveyed the news that the Padma Shri award will be conferred on him.

The unlettered achiever set up a primary school from his meagre savings of Rs 150 per day,  selling oranges in Mangaluru. 

“The first time I felt bad for being an illiterate was when a foreigner enquired about the price of oranges in English. I did not know what he meant. So, I decided to start a school in my village,” Hajabba had said during a felicitation programme.

When Hajabba decided to start a school, he did not get any support. He started the school with 28 children.

The school today has been upgraded to a composite high school and is catering to the educational needs of hundreds of children in and around Newpadpu.

He ran from pillar to post in the Zilla Panchayat to make his dream come true. All cash awards he had received went into building the school. The United Christians Association, moved by the sight of his dilapidated house, built a 760-square-foot house costing Rs 15 lakh for him. 

Hajabba’s life was prescribed for the syllabus of three universities - Davangere, Kuvempu and Mangalore. His success story is also included in a Tulu textbook.

He won the Karnataka Rajyotsava award in 2013, Real Heroes award from TV channel CNN-IBN.

Hajabba, when contacted, said he could not believe his ears when told about the award.

New dreams

The frail vendor, in his 60s, humbly declared that he could achieve all this because of the support of all. Hajabba now dreams of upgrading the school into a full-fledged PU college.

Bengaluru, Feb 6: A flower vendor from Channapatna town in Karnataka got a shock of his life when he found a credit of Rs 30 crore in his wife's bank account. This happened when Syed Malik Burhan was struggling to meet expenses for a medical emergency in the family.

According to reports, bank officials knocked on his doors on December 2 asking him to explain how the money came to his account.

"On December 2, they came searching our house. They only said a huge amount has been deposited in my wife's (Rehana) account and then asked me to come to the Bank along with my wife carrying Aadhaar card," Mr Burhan said.

He claimed that the Bank staff sought to exert pressure on him to sign on a document but he refused. Mr Burhan recalled that he had purchased a saree through an online portal following which he received a call seeking his bank details which, he was told, were needed as he had won a car.

"Since then, we are running from pillars to post to find out how the money came to our account. We had only Rs 60 but suddenly such huge money came, which we are unable to understand," said Mr Burhan.

Mr Burhan said he had lodged a complaint with the Income Tax department, which he claimed was not keen on investigating it initially. Based on his complaint, the Channapatna town police in Ramanagara district registered a case of forgery and impersonation under the IPC besides the Information Technology Act for cheating and impersonation on January nine.

According to police, there were many financial transactions, which Mr Burhan may be unaware of. "We are trying to find out what these transactions mean. We will arrest whoever is behind it. We will not spare them," said a police officer in Channapatna.