46 students take ill after breakfast at Palike school

January 13, 2012

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Bangalore, January 13: Coming to school on an empty stomach proved dangerous for 46 students of BBMP Girls’ High School, Mathikere, on Thursday morning as they took ill after having the classroom breakfast supplied by Iskcon.

The girls — students of Class VIII and X — ate rice and ‘majjige huli’ (buttermilk curry) around 9.15 am, shortly after they turned up for special classes. Although many more girls attended school, the “hot, nutritious, and freshly cooked” food was served only to those who could not have breakfast at home.

Many of them are from Abbigere and Singapura, localities as far as 15 km from the school, the head master, H M Muralidhar said.

The girls first vomited and felt giddy before experiencing exhaustion. Then, most of them collapsed, panicking their teachers who called the parents before rushing them to the K C General Hospital around 12.30 pm.

Teachers say not all students who had the breakfast complained of food poisoning right away. The panic button was pressed first by students of Class VIII as their condition worsened around 10 am. The school authorities, however, thought the matter was not serious. They acted only when students of Class X showed similar symptoms two hours later.

Upon reaching the hospital around 12.45 pm, the students were given antiemetics (drugs for vomiting and nausea) and antacids.

But the condition of 29 students was more serious and they had to be administered IV fluids, Dr R L Chandra Prabha, Medical Superintendent, K C General Hospital, said. The rest were treated as outpatients and discharged after a while.

According to Dr Lakshmipathi S R, Senior Specialist, Paediatrics, all students had “gastric irritability,” complaining of pain in the abdomen. Dr Mallikarjunaiah, another paediatrician at the hospital, said the students had vomiting sensation.

Barring three, all the students were discharged after a few hours. The condition of three girls — Shobha, Roopa, and Nethravathi — is said to be stable, but they will be kept under observation for a day.

Roopa, a student of Class X, already has an infection in her upper lip. Hence, when she ate the food, her condition deteriorated fast.

Shobha, another Class X student, said she felt very weak. Nethravathi, a Class VIII student, was discharged. But had to be admitted again when her condition worsened at 6 pm.

Causes for the mayhem?

Teachers say the utensils used for storing the food were probably not cleaned properly. Students are served food in plates they bring from home.

But the cookware brought by Iskcon might not have been maintained properly.

Doctors say the contamination might have happened because of either the food or water.

But, Dr Mallikarjunaiah thinks food, rather than water, might have been contaminated. The chances of it happening during handling are less.

“Had the food been contaminated while handling, not so many students would have been affected,” he said.

The BBMP Chief Medical Officer, Dr K E Manjula, said the food samples had been sent to the laboratory for chemical analysis.

Iskcon Clarifies

The Akshaya Patra Foundation has issued a clarification stating that the food has been supplied from the HK Hill Kitchen and the same food has been supplied to about 85,000 children on Thursday and none of the other children had reported any symptoms.

They stated that the food samples have been collected from the school and sent to a third party National Accreditation Board for Testing and Calibration Laboratories .

“The Akshaya Patra Foundation has been implementing the mid-day meal programme for the past 11 years without any untoward incident, and maintains very high quality standards in all its kitchens. The HK Hill is ISO 22000:2005 certified and adheres to all the conditions thereunder.

We have traced the batch of the food that was supplied to this school; the same batch has been supplied to over 20 schools on the same route. None of the other schools have complained or reported any problems with respect to the food supplied today including the immediately preceding school (Government Higher Primary School, Gokula) and the immediately succeeding school (M S Ramaiah High School). Hence it appears that the problem is local; however, we are further investigating the same,” ISKCON?PRO Bhara- tha­rashabha Das stated.

Das also said that they were considering the possibility of water contamination at the school or the food being served by some, who had not washed their hands, before serving. “We wash the vessels ourselves and they are sterilised, so there can be no question of the vessel being contaminated either, but sometimes if the teacher is not present, then someone else might serve and not observe cleanliness,” Das explained.

Meanwhile, the Karnataka State?Commission for?Protection of Child Rights has taken suo motu cognisance and registered a complaint.

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Agencies
July 17,2020

New Delhi, Jul 17: The first FIR against Volkswagen and Audi in India for installing cheat devices in their cars to misrepresent emissions has been filed in Noida.

The FIR was filed by Noida resident Aniljit Singh against the top officials of Volkswagen and Audi in India and their headquarters in Germany. These include Rahil Ansari, Brand Director, Audi India, Balbir Singh Dhillon, Head, Audi India, and Bram Schot, Chairman, Audi AG.

The FIR reviewed by media agency cites forgery, cheating and criminal conspiracy under various sections of the Indian Penal Code.

The complaint has cited the global emissions scandal where VW was found to be installing a cheat device in its cars, in the absence of which, the cars produced 10-40 times emissions beyond the permissible limits.

The complainant said that in 2018 he had purchased seven Audi cars worth crores of rupees. At the time of taking the delivery, the complainant said that he inquired if the cheat devices were installed in India and he was told by the company that they were not, as in India's emission norms were not as stringent and the country being a growing market for Audi, no such device was implanted.

The complaint said that the authorities in India observed that Audi cars' emissions for nitrogen oxide were 5-8 times the permissible limits and after the National Green Tribunal imposed a penalty of Rs 500 crore on VW, the complainant realised that he had been duped of his hard earned money.

He alleged that the accused persons had misrepresented the complainant by forging the documents and devices and caused wrongful gains to themselves and wrongful losses to the complainant. These officials had made wrong records to capture the market, with malafide intent and under a pre-planned conspiracy had induced and defrauded the complainant.

The accused persons are guilty of cheating the customers and have induced the complainant to part with hard earned money for sub-standard cars. The accused are also guilty of forging the documents on which they had sought various clearances.

The complainant has demanded that the allegations may be thoroughly investigated by a senior official.

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Agencies
April 14,2020

New Delhi, Apr 14: A 35-year-old man has been booked by the police for refusing to eat food at a quarantine centre on the ground that it had been cooked by a Dalit.

Reports said Siraj Ahmad, a native of Bhujouli Khurd village under Khadda police station in Kushinagar district, had returned from Delhi on March 29, and was staying at the quarantine centre at the village primary school along with other four people.

On Friday, village head, Lilawati Devi, in absence of the cook, prepared food in the quarantine centre for all the five people but Siraj refused to eat it.

Police, after conducting investigation, registered a FIR against him under the SC/ST Act on Monday.

The village head had lodged a written complaint with the police on Friday and also informed sub-divisional magistrate Desh Deepak Singh and block development officer Ramakant.

SHO Khadda police station, R.K. Yadav said that a case against Siraj was registered under the SC/ST Act.

Meanwhile, on Saturday evening, Vijay Dubey, the local BJP MLA, went to the house of village head and asked her to serve him food cooked by her.

"Untouchability is a social evil that cannot be tolerated at any cost," he said.

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Agencies
January 9,2020

Bareilly, Jan 9: In a bizarre development, a woman has been arrested for inflicting 101 cuts on her sister-in-law in Uttar Pradesh's Bareilly district, the police said on Thursday.

The woman was practicing exorcism to cure her father who had been ailing for some time.

The woman, Moni, was helped by her husband Mooli and brother Raju in the act, which happened on Tuesday.

The sister-in-law Renu who suffered the cuts, was given 300 stitches on her face and other parts of the body by the doctors.

Renu has been admitted to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) where her condition is said to be serious.

Moni, 30, has been sent to jail while Mooli and Raju are absconding.

Baradari police station officer inspector Naresh Tyagi said that a complaint had been filed by Renu's brother under section 307 (attempt to murder) of IPC.

"We will record Renu's statements in a day or two once she is stable and in a condition to talk to us. We have sent Moni to jail," the inspector said.

Renu, a resident of Ganghora village in Bareilly, was married to Sanjeev around eight years ago.

Her father-in-law, Jagdish, fell ill a few months ago.

"Accused Moni, who practices exorcism, decided to cure her father by initiating the act. Going by superstitious beliefs, they inflicted as many as 101 cuts on Renu's face and body. It cannot be ruled out that they wanted to sacrifice her to complete the act," police inspector said.

On Tuesday night, the accused had locked Renu's husband and mother-in-law in another room when they tried to stop them from making her a scapegoat.

When the accused trio started inflicting cuts on Renu, she struggled to get out of their clutches and somehow managed to escape from the house.

She had run a short distance when she collapsed and became unconscious. A police constable on patrol reportedly spotted her and she was taken to a district hospital. Once regaining her consciousness, she narrated her ordeal to the police who then informed her parents.

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