Will protest if Indian Muslims are troubled by NRC, says Ramdev

Mangaluru, June 11: The Saudi Arabia based Expertise Contracting Company, which is repatriating its employees to India and other countries, today allocated around 90 seats of one of its chartered flights to Kannadigas stranded in Saudi Arabia. 

The Gulf Air flight took off with around 175 passengers on board from Dammam International Airport around noon local time. It is expected to land at Mangaluru International Airport at around 7 p.m. Indian time. 

In fact the company had chartered the flights only to repatriate its employees. However, due to the lack of special flights under Vande Bharati Mission, the company decided to help the other stranded Kannadigas in Saudi Arabia, who had approached Saudi Kannadigas Humanity Forum for help. 

A company official said that around 2,000 employees from various countries in the Indian subcontinent are being repatriated, of which 1,665 are Indians.  Already hundreds of them have reached India, and hundreds are still waiting for repatriation. 

“We are grateful to Expertise for allowing to travel in the flight which the company had chartered to repatriate its own employees,” said one of the passengers before boarding the flight at the airport.  

Director of Expertise, KS Shaikh said the 20-year-old Expertise group, one of the largest conglomerates in the GCC operating in petrochemical and heavy equipment sectors, has more than 10,000 employees and their family members in the Gulf, mainly in Jubail, one of the largest industrial cities.

Of these, the company has chosen over 2,000 employees for the covid-related repatriations considering various emergencies. He said 12 chartered flights have been engaged to carry out the repatriation exercise to the Indian subcontinent.

Bengaluru, Feb 10: Former Karnataka chief minister HD Kumaraswamy's son Nikhil Kumaraswamy today got engaged to Revathi, the grand-niece of Congress leader and realtor M Krishnappa.

On February 6, Mr Nikhil shared a picture with Ms Revathi on his official Facebook account.

Mr Nikhil's grandfather and former prime minister of India HD Deve Gowda attended the event along with several other politicians at the Taj West End.

BJP leaders including Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa former chief minister Jagadish Shetter were also present.

Mr Nikhil, 30, is a Kannada film actor who made his debut in the bilingual movie Jaguar in 2016. The actor will soon start shooting for his new movie Production No-1.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, he lost to Sumalatha Ambareesh, widow of former Karnataka actor Ambareesh, in the Mandya constituency in Karnataka.

Bengaluru, June 10: The Department of Primary and Secondary Education of Government of Karnataka today ordered a ban on online classes for children from KG to class 5.

The decision was taken following a report based on the report submitted by director NIMHANS, recommending online classes only above the age of 6 years and also following the complaints from several parents about online classes conducted by private schools even for kindergarten kids.

Briefing the media soon after the meeting with department officials, S Suresh Kumar, primary and secondary education minister said, "We have taken two major decisions today. The online classes for LKG, UKG and primary classes should be stopped immediately."

Even collecting fees in the name of online classes should be stopped, said the minister. "We have already issued a circular about it insisting that schools not collect fees in the name of online classes and also requesting schools not to increase fees for the 2020-21 academic year considering financial constraints of several people due to the COVID-19 pandemic," said the minister.

The department, however, also discussed how to engage children during this period as there was no clarity over the reopening of schools for the 2020-21 academic year. "We have constituted a committee to prepare guidelines on how to engage students and increase their knowledge. The committee is headed by Prof. MK Sridhar," he said.

Before taking this decision, the department had three rounds of discussions with various experts, including Prof. MK Sridhar, Prof. VP Niranjanaradhya, Dr John Vijay Sagar and other departments, including the home and health departments.