Cops raid slaughterhouse; arrest 3; seize 3 cows, 200kg meat, 3 vehicles

Tumakuru, Feb 5: Former Lokayukta Justice N Santhosh Hegde has questioned the integrity of the B S Yediyurappa led BJP government as it has not taken an action to abolish the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) to re-establish the Lokayukta in Karnataka.

Speaking after felicitating the retired scientist of NASA Gopal Iyengar at the Karnataka Public School at Kadaba in Gubbi taluk he reminded that the BJP had promised to establish the Lokayukta.

"No party will like to strengthen the Lokayukta and now BSY is also tightlipped and even put an end by appreciating that ACB has been doing a good job", he regretted.

In fact, the Lokayakuta had the power to prosecute even the top brass of officials and now the ACB cannot without the government's permission, he clarified.

He denied any remarks on the CAA and NRC but observed that the youths of the country have been misguided by the politicians as they lost their focus on education by involving in protest rallies.

"I suggest they to straight away take a political plunge instead of getting misused at the hands of the politicians with selfish motives", he said.

New Delhi, Feb 12: Cooking gas LPG price on Wednesday was hiked by a steep Rs 144.5 per cylinder due to spurt in benchmark global rates of the fuel.

But to insulate domestic users, the government almost doubled the subsidy it provides on the fuel to keep per cylinder outgo almost unchanged.

LPG price was increased to Rs 858.50 per 14.2 kg cylinder from Rs 714 previously, according to a price notification of state-owned oil firms.

This is the steepest hike in rates since January 2014 when prices had gone up by Rs 220 per cylinder to Rs 1,241.

Domestic LPG users, who are entitled to buy 12 bottles of 14.2-kg each at subsidised rates in a year, will get more subsidy.

The government subsidy payout to domestic users has been increased from Rs 153.86 per cylinder to Rs 291.48, industry officials said.

For Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY) beneficiaries, the subsidy has increased from Rs 174.86 to Rs 312.48 per cylinder.

After accounting for the subsidy that is paid directly into the bank accounts of LPG users, a 14.2-kg cylinder would cost Rs 567.02 for domestic users and Rs 546.02 for PMUY users.

The government gave out 8 crore free LPG connections to poor women under PMUY to increase coverage of environment-friendly fuel in kitchens.

Normally, LPG rates are revised on 1st of every month but this time it took almost two weeks for the revision to take place - a phenomenon which industry officials said was due to approvals needed for such a big jump in subsidy outgo.

Others said the decision to defer the increase could have been because of assembly elections in Delhi. Delhi voted on February 8.

Bengaluru, Apr 1: The price of petrol and diesel will go up by Rs 1.60 and Rs 1.59 per litre, respectively, from Wednesday. This is in line with Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa’s decision to hike the rate of tax on petrol from 32% to 35% and diesel from 21% to 24%.

He had announced this in his March 5 Budget for 2020-21 fiscal. At present, a litre of petrol costs Rs 71.97 and diesel Rs 64.41 in Bengaluru.

The government decided to roll out the hike from Tuesday midnight going into Wednesday, April 1, after briefly considering a postponement in view of the COVID-19 crisis. 

Finance Secretary (Budget & Resources) Ekroop Caur confirmed to DH that the hike will be rolled out. 

The 3% hike on fuel tax was a key resource mobilisation measure that Yediyurappa announced in his Budget. The hike is expected to fetch the government Rs 1,500 crore. 

Yediyurappa had also announced a 6% additional excise duty on Indian Made Liquor (IML), which could help the government mop up Rs 1,200 crore. However, the sale of liquor has been prohibited during the lockdown period. Plus, hiking fuel prices during the lockdown will not hit citizens very hard.