Here's the first phase flight plan for return of Indian nationals stranded abroad

Mangaluru, Apr 19: In order to boost the Coast Guard's (CG) surveillance and reconnaissance capabilities on the country's west coast in Karnataka, CG OPV Varaha and CG Dornier 785 ex Kochi were pressed to service to undertake extensive surveillance.

"Both seawards and aerial surveillance of Karnataka coast line will be undertaken from Sunday," said S Babu Venkatesh, Commander, Coast Guard, Karnataka. The surveillance will be an air-sea coordinated operation.

The Coast Guard ships and aircraft maintained extensive search in the area for intercepting any suspect vessel. Indian Coast Guard ships classified various contacts in the area and kept them under constant surveillance.

Chikmagalur, April 5: BJP Lok Sabha MP from Udupi Chikmagalur Shobha Karandlaje on Saturday claimed that "efforts to spread coronavirus throughout the country" began at Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi and termed it as "corona jihad".

"Efforts began at Tablighi Jamaat event in Delhi to spread coronavirus throughout the country.

Most of the attendees of that event are untraceable. There seems to be 'corona Jihadi plan' behind that meeting," she said while speaking to reporters here.

Meanwhile, according to officials, out of the seven new cases from Mysuru, two cases are connected to the Jubilant Generics cluster while the rest five cases have a travel history to Delhi.

Total positive cases of COVID-19 in India stand at 3072.

Mangaluru, May 8: After continuous pressure on Union government from Karnataka NRI Forum- UAE, the first special flight carrying 180 Kannadigas who stranded at UAE due to Covid-19 pandemic will fly from Dubai to Mangaluru on May 14.

The special flight will take off from Dubai at 4.10 p.m. UAE time to reach Mangaluru at 9.10 pm IST on May 14. Earlier it was reported that the flight will operate on May 12. However, sources of Mangaluru International Airport and Air India today confirmed that first flight will be on May 14.

The state government has directed Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts authority to quarantine all passengers once they reach.  

All Kannadigas will be given permission to travel back home only after they test negative in Covid test at Dubai airport.

In fact, Karnataka was missing in the list of states to receive special flights when Ministry of External Affairs arranged them to bring stranded Indians at UAE. Special flights were arranged only to Kerala and Tamil Nadu people stranded at UAE in the first stage.

Thanks to Karnataka NRI Forum of UAE which opened helpline (https://uaekannadahelpline.club) to seek assistance to Kannadigas, nearly 2000 Kannadigas have registered for assistance in which 127 pregnant women, 27 senior citizens, 700 people who have lost jobs aftermath of coronavirus sought assistance from NRI forum.

After providing food and shelter to Kannadigas who lost jobs at UAE since March 2020, NRI forum put pressure on both state and Centre to arrange special flights to send them to home. 

The NRI Forum has approached Indian Consulate at UAE and chief minister BS Yediyurappa to evacuate Kannadigas, but got no response. Following this, Karnataka NRI Forum President Praveen Shetty approached Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers DV Sadananda Gowda for help. Gowda immediately responded the call and he spoke to MEE to arrange special flight for Kannadigas as well.

Indian government has promised to arrange special flight to Mangaluru or Bengaluru by next week to bring Kannadigas.

Comparing to other Indian States, Karnataka has the highest number of its people working in UAE. Around 1.25 lakhs Kannadigas are working in UAE in which majority are working classes. Due to Covid-19 pandemic thousands of workers have lost jobs, Mr. Shetty explained.

"Indian government had arranged special flights from US, UK, Singapur and other countries to bring back Indians, but excluded UAE in the list. Actually, lakhs of Indians are working in UAE as labourers and in odd jobs, the government should have given first priority to bring labourers rather rich one", he opined.

"BJP has 27 MPs from Karnataka. We continuously requested all BJP MPs and state government but none of them came to our help. Thanks to Mr Gowda for his timely intervention to bring stranded Kannadigas", Mr Shetty said.