Dalit boy murdered for love affair with upper caste girl; 7 arrested

Ballari, July 26: Karnataka's minister for forests and environment Anand Singh has tested positive for COVID-19 and is in quarantine at his residence in Hospet town of Ballari district.

Minister's son-in-law Sandeep Singh confirmed it and said he has been home-quarantined and the doctors are treating him at home. It is not known who have contracted the virus from him, he told.  

A few days back, the car driver of the minister had tested positive for Covid-19. Old house of the minister located at Ranipet here was sealed down and he was quarantined at his bungalow off the ring road. 

A week ago, the minister held a meeting which was attended by doctors, hotel owners, the officials and journalists. Hence, they have been advised to undergo Covid-19 test, said a Government hospital doctor.

Bengaluru, Feb 18: Deputy chief minister Laxman Savadi was elected to the legislative council on Monday and although it was a done deal that he would win, a vote from across the aisle spiced up the election.

Counting was conducted soon after ballots were cast and Savadi polled 113 of the 120 votes cast, including the vote of disgruntled JD(S) legislator GT Devegowda. Seven votes were declared invalid. Members of the two opposition parties — Congress and JD(S) — abstained from voting.

The election was necessitated following the resignation of Rizwan Arshad of the Congress. Rizwan resigned after he was elected to the legislative assembly from the Shivajinagar constituency in the assembly bypolls held for 15 seats in December last year.

BR Anil Kumar, who was initially promised the support of both Congress and JD(S) was supposed to contest as an independent candidate. However, as both parties refused to support him at the last minute, he withdrew, paving the way for Savadi’s victory.

The BJP has 117 members in the 225-member assembly, but N Mahesh of the BSP and two independents, H Nagesh and Sharath Bachchegowda, besides GT Devegowda also voted, taking the total electorate to 120 (including the speaker). BJP’s SA Ramadas did not turn up because of health reasons.

“I would like to thank all those who were responsible for my victory. Special thanks to leaders of my party and chief minister BS Yediyurappa, who gave me the opportunity to be the BJP candidate,” said Savadi.

Winning this council election was crucial for Savadi to retain his ministry as he was not an elected member of either of the houses. Rules mandate that a non-member must get elected either to the assembly or council within six months after taking over as minister. February 20 was the deadline for Savadi, who had lost 2018 assembly polls from Athani, to get elected.

Officials in the assembly secretariat said seven votes were invalid because voters had wrongly marked their choices on ballot paper. According to norms, a voter has to mark numerical one, two and three against the names of the candidates in order of preference. Marking only numerical one is allowed. However, six ballots had a tick mark, while a voter had registered a cross mark. Since it was a secret ballot, it was not known who the MLAs were whose votes were invalid.

“The ballot papers bear serial numbers and they are randomly distributed. It is virtually impossible to say who a voter cast his or her vote for,” said assembly secretary MK Vishalakashi, the retuning officer for the bypoll.

Mangaluru, May 19: Team Be Human, a city based group of philanthropists, has taken commendable initiative to satiate the hunger of the civic workers of Mangaluru City Corporation that are endangering their lives to keep the city clean amidst covid-19 lockdown. 

On Friday, April 18, gorcesary kits were distributed among around 180 civic workers at Eidgah Maidan in Light House Hill in the presence of Corporator Abdul Raoof Bajal, Mansoor Ahmed Azad, Aina group Ashraf, Ceco Asif, Advocate Abdul Shukoor, U B Saleem, Sahil Zaheer, Rash Beary, Munna Kammaradi and Abdul Muttalib.

The Team swung into action on hearing the civic workers' plight due to the delay in payment of their wages by the Antony Waste Management firm. The Team was helped by the alumni of the St Aloysius College, Mangaluru (batch 1989). 

This is not the first time the Team Be Human distributing kits among the needy. Amidst lockdown it has already distributed around 1200 grocery kits among the poor people including the daily wage workers, migrant labourers in Dakshina Kannada district with help of Ahnaf Deals, Altaf, Shameem, Basha, Pradeep, Vincent,  Shiyaz Deals, Nawaz and Haneef. 

In its next step the Team Be Human is planning to distribute the kits among civic workers in Urva and Suratkal region, said Asif Deals, founder president of Team Be Human. He called upon the youth and students to come forward to help the needy and poor people who are deprived of basic facilities.