Congress leaders stage protest against VHP

Bengaluru, Jun 5: The Karnataka government has asked all its departments and authorities to avoid during all official transactions the nomenclature "Dalit" for members belonging to the Scheduled Castes.

"All the departments and authorities of government of Karnataka are requested that (use of name Dalit) for all official transactions, matters, dealings, certificates, among others," the official circular said.

The Constitutional term Scheduled Caste in English and its appropriate translation in other national languages should alone be used for denoting the persons belonging to the Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled Tribes notified in the presidential orders issued under Article 341 of the Constitution, the circular said.

The circular issued on May 20 notes instructions issued by the Central government in 2018, with reference to the order of the High Court of Madhya Pradesh, Gwalior Bench.

"That the Central government/state government and its functionaries would refrain from using the nomenclature "Dalit" for the members belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes as the same does not find mentioned in the Constitution or any statute," the order had said.

Pointing out that the Central government had earlier issued instructions that the words "Harijan" and "Girijan" should not be used, the circular said accordingly the Karnataka government also had issued a Government Order in 2010.

Jan 6: A Thane resident lost a little over Rs 1 lakh in an online fraud involving popular payment gateways, police said on Saturday. The complainant, a resident of Patlipada, wanted to sell his furniture and posted an ad on Facebook on December 21, an official said.

On December 24, he received a call from one Rajendra Sharma who offered to buy the furniture and wanted to transfer the amount through payment gateways — Paytm and Google Pay, he said.

However, instead of the money getting credited to his account, the complainant found that Rs 1.01 lakh were debited from him during three transactions on two payment gateways, the official said.

The complainant realised that he had been cheated when the accused assured that he would return the money and asked him for another account number, he added.

An offense has been registered against the unidentified accused under section 420 (cheating) of the Indian Penal Code and Information Technology Act and further investigations are underway, he said.