Madhu Mailankody: Setting Standards for Sports Presentation

Bengaluru, Mar 4: CM BS Yediyurappa may reconsider plans to hike taxes and curtail populist schemes in his budget on Thursday as the Centre released part of GST compensation it owes the state. Officials said the Centre released the first instalment of the bimonthly compensation for October-November amounting to Rs 2,013 crore.

"This is welcome relief as the government has been scrambling to mobilise funds," said BT Manohar, member of GST consultative committee, government of Karnataka. The second instalment of Rs 1,523 crore is also expected to be released soon.

The CM, in his seventh budget, is expected keep the focus firmly on farmers and give top priority to irrigation, agriculture and welfare schemes.

The irrigation sector is expected to land the lion's share with an allocation of at least Rs 25,000 crore, followed by agriculture. Former CM Kumaraswamy had allocated over Rs 17,000 crore for water resources.

The bulk of funds is likely to go to the Upper Krishna (UKP) and Upper Bhadra projects, as it will help backward Kalyana Karnataka and central Karnataka regions. The two are also significant political blocs. The government will also seek assistance from the Centre for the UKP project in the erstwhile Hyderabad-Karnataka region, which enjoys special status under the Constitution owing to its backwardness. P4

Yediyurappa is also expected to spell out populist schemes for the poor.

Former CM HD Kumaraswamy had allocated Rs 17,212 crore in the previous budget for water resources and Yediyurappa is likely to go well beyond that figure. "Priority will be given to irrigation and farmers," Yediyurappa had said recently. "I am making efforts to present a budget within the financial constraints."

he amounts are released once every two months, but the Centre had fallen behind on payments. PX

"There are indications that another payment will be made."

The state's optimism stems from the fact that the Centre's GST collection crossed the Rs 1 lakh crore-mark for four successive months till February.

However, the CM could still hike tax rates marginally. At a pre-budget meet on resource mobilisation where Yediyurappa is learnt to have expressed willingness to borrow funds, officials from the finance department advocated raising tax rates instead.

Bengaluru, Feb 27: About 60kg of unaccounted gold ornaments worth Rs. 21 crore were unearthed by officers of the Commercial Taxes Department of Karnataka Government.

The ornaments were recovered after the department conducted surprise inspections and raided business premises of wholesale jewellery dealers in Ranganatha Mansion and Sakalajee Market in Chickpet area of Bengaluru on Tuesday.

"The raid was based on information that many traders from other states visit the city and carry gold jewels without any valid documents and supply it to local jewellers without invoices," said Srikar MS Commissioner of Commercial Taxes in a statement.

The officers raided the premises of 23 jewellers and found 60 kg gold ornaments in stock which were not covered by valid documents. A penalty was levied on the undocumented ornaments.

"It is informed that the enforcement wing is keeping a close watch on the interstate movement of gold, silver and all the dealers in the state are hereby advised not to buy any goods without valid purchase invoices, added Srikar MS.

Bidar, Feb 5: The police has intensified investigation into the 'sedition case' against the management and staff of a school here, where children are facing chare of insulting Prime Minister Narendra Modi and others, in the context of CAA, in a drama they staged on January 21.

The police again visited Shaheen School on Tuesday and questioned children and staff -- this time in plain clothes, after their questioning of children in uniform on January 28 drew criticism from some quarters, a school official said.

"Morning three police personnel came with two members of Karnataka State Child Rights Protection Commission. Later, the deputy superintendent of police H Basaveshwara joined them.

The cops were in civil dress," the official said.

The police have been questioning the children and staff about those who wrote the script and assigned to deliver specific dialogues.

Police have already arrested Nazbunnisa, the mother of one of the children, who had allegedly delivered the controversial dialogue and their teacher Fareeda Begum, who oversaw the event.

When contacted, the deputy superintendent of police of Bidar H Basaveshwara refused to comment on the matter saying that he was still investigating the case.

Meanwhile in Bengaluru, Congress MLA and former minister U T Khader slammed the BJP government in the state as well as the Centre for "filing sedition charges against people".

Addressing a press conference, he alleged that the Central and state governments were trying to suppress the voice of people in the country using law enforcement agencies.

Khader claimed that the two women who "depicted the problems they were facing" in the drama were booked under the sedition law. During investigation, the children were forced to sit at the police station, he alleged.