Tabassum wins Mangaluru Press Club Award for service to HIV affected children

Bengaluru, June 23: A frustrated chartered accountant has committed suicide after killing his wife and mother-in-law in two different cities of India.

The murder-murder-suicide came amid acrimonious divorce proceedings that might have also involved a property dispute, police said.

Amit flew to Bengaluru last weekend to kill his estranged wife at her Whitefield residence before returning to Kolkata, where he shot dead his mother-in-law and then killed himself at an upscale residential complex in North Kolkata on Monday evening.

Amit and his wife Shilpi Agarwal, who is also a CA, had been living separately since last the two years after their marriage turned sour.

Amit took his 10-year-old son from Bengaluru with him on Monday and dropped him at his uncle’s house before heading to his in-laws’ place Phoolbagan, police said.

Neighbours told cops they heard arguments “appeared to be” over some property documents that Amit wanted his in-laws — 70-year-old Subhas and 62-year-old Lalita Dhandhania — to sign.

The first gunshot was heard a little before 6.30pm, following which Subhas ran out of his flat, bolted the door from outside and took refuge inside his next-door neighbour’s apartment. Police arrived a few minutes later to find Amit and his mother-in-law dead. Police found a suicide note from the flat.

Udupi, June 2: The number of positive cases may continue to be more in Udupi district since the results of more than 3,000 samples are pending with Labs.

The district total cases to 260. The figure had seemed far-fetched on May 15, when the number of cases stood at just three. The latest spike has been attributed to the return of migrants from other States as well as from abroad. These samples are from people who returned to the district in the last two weeks.

This delay is because the laboratories testing samples from Udupi are burdened with a high case-load after more than 8,500 people returned to the district, particularly from the neighbouring state of Maharashtra.

"Samples have piled up after the influx of people returning from other states and from abroad," says Dr Prashant Bhat, nodal officer for COVID-19 in Udupi. This delay has caused returnees in institutional quarantine to stay on for as long as 18 days.

The designated laboratory for coronavirus testing in Udupi is Wenlock District Hospital in Mangaluru. The district administration also sends samples to laboratories at the Kasturba Hospital in Manipal, Yenepoya Medical College, Mangaluru, KS Hegde Medical Academy, Mangaluru, and Viral Diagnostic Laboratory in Shivamogga. Apart from Udupi, the laboratory in Manipal is also testing samples from Uttara Kannada district. The laboratory in Shivamogga is also testing samples from Shivamogga and Bijapur districts. The laboratories in Mangaluru, similarly, have samples from Dakshina Kannada district.

Dr Avinash Shetty, Medical Superintendent of Kasturba Hospital in Manipal, one of the private laboratories being used by the Udupi district administration, said that they are testing samples in batches. "We received around 600 samples today and we will be testing them now. The backlog of samples should be cleared in the next few days," Dr Avinash said.

All 73 cases reported in Udupi on Monday were patients with travel history of returning from Maharashtra or patients with travel history of returning from abroad.

In cases of some patients who tested coronavirus positive in the past week, people were released from institutional quarantine after a stipulated period only to be tracked down again and admitted in hospitals after their results returned positive.

While two such cases emerged in Belapu and Belman in the district, the administration is now following up with others who were released from institutional quarantine to ensure they remain in home quarantine till their test results are confirmed.

The spike in cases among returning migrants in Udupi also comes at a time the Karnataka government reduced restrictions on interstate travel.

Bengaluru, Jan 28: Brace for hefty traffic penalties as the state government is all set to reverse a notification on revised fines which came into effect last September following pushback from road users and opposition parties.

The Karnataka government will implement traffic penalties as stipulated in the amended Motor Vehicles Act, 2019, in a phased manner following a diktat from the Centre. The government did not specify the timeline for it.

“At a recent meeting of transport ministers from various states, the Union government explained why it wanted to implement these huge fines. We found it convincing and will implement it in its original form,” said transport minister Laxman Savadi on Monday.

Savadi said India’s image globally has taken a beating due to the high number of road deaths and the Centre wants to change it at any cost. However, he said the entire set of hefty fines would not be reintroduced all at once.

BJP govt revised rates in Sept

The BJP government last September had revised fines on compoundable offences and those which are fined on the spot by traffic cops by 50%- 80%, barring drunken driving and racing.

As per the revised rates, helmetless riding attracted a penalty of Rs 500 against Rs 1,000 notified by the Centre. Driving without a licence attracted a fine of Rs 1,000 for

two- and three-wheelers and Rs 2,000 for light motor vehicles as against the earlier Rs 5,000 for all types of vehicles.

The central government recently told states and Union Territories they should enforce fines as per the amended Act and they cannot be rolled back. The road transport and highways ministry said fines cannot be reduced below the minimum amount fixed by law, unless the President gives his assent.