Countdown for Modi government has begun: Siddaramaiah

Bengaluru, Jan 10: Working President of Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee, Eashwar Khandre on Friday said that his party has extended its support to the demand made by the former chief minister of Karnataka, HD Kumaraswamy, that a House Committee should be formed to probe into Mangaluru violence.

Emphasising the need for a judicial probe into the incident, Khandre said, "Congress has always said that the truth should prevail and that there should be a judicial inquiry and investigation by a sitting Supreme Court judge or a High Court judge into the incident."

"We support his (HD Kumaraswamy) statement that a House Committee should be set up to probe into the incident of Mangaluru violence. Two innocent people lost their lives during the anti-CAA protest, it is very unfortunate," he added.

Two people were killed in Mangaluru in the alleged police firing after protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act turned violent on December 19.

The Act grants Indian citizenship to refugees from Hindu, Christian, Sikh, Buddhist and Parsi communities fleeing religious persecution from Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Bangladesh who entered India on or before 31, 2014.

Bengaluru, May 17: Karnataka on Sunday extended lockdown for two days until midnight of Tuesday, May 19. Earlier today, Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra extended the lockdown till May 31. The state government said that the guidelines and norms as followed during Coronavirus Lockdown 3 will remain in place till 19th midnight or till further notice.

Meanwhile, the total number of coronavirus cases in Karnataka rose to 1,146 on Saturday. With 37 deaths and 497 discharges, there are 611 active corona cases in the state. 

Out of 54 new cases, twentytwo are from Mandya, ten from Kalaburagi, six from Hassan, four from Dharwad, three each from Yadgir and Kolar, two each from Dakshina Kannada and Shivamogga, and one each from Udupi and Vijayapura.

Bengaluru, Jun 17: Amid rising COVID cases in the past two weeks, the Karnataka government is planning to increase testing capacity to 25,000 samples a day, said a minister.

"Due to increase in cases in the last two weeks, the government is trying to scale up testing to 15,000 to 25,000 samples per day," said Medical Education Minister K. Sudhakar.

He said people living in crowded places, sanitation workers, street vendors, healthcare workers, police and other frontline staff would be extensively tested.

"It has also been decided to mandatorily test all those who have symptoms of Influenza Like Illness (ILI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI)," he said.

Similarly, all people over 50 with ILI symptoms will be tested.

The health department will also randomly test samples in old containment zones to make sure that the infection is not recurring.

Currently, there are 72 Covid testing labs in the southern state, 41 government operated and 31 private labs.

However, for a few days, the number of Covid tests in the state have plummeted.

On Monday, the health department has tested only 5,362 samples across the state.

Likewise, on Tuesday, only 7,936 samples were tested, diverging from earlier weeks when around 10,000 cases were tested on an average.

In all, 4.57 lakh samples have been tested so far, of which 4.39 lakh have tested negative.