Degree colleges to reopen in Karnataka after lockdown is lifted: DyCM

Bengaluru, Jul 19: A viral video claiming to show crowded condition of a hospital treating COVID-19 patients in the city was found to be false with police on Sunday arresting a person for allegedly circulating it on social media.

Police said such videos have the potential to create panic and asked people to refrain from spreading them.

The arrest was made within hours of the police announcing registration of a case in connection with the video that showed a crowd of people wearing masks at an "outpatient ward" of a hospital, falsely identified as Victoria Hospital, a major dedicated COVID facility here.

The video went viral on social media.

"City Crime Branch swiftly identified and arrested this person who has been circulating false videos of panic in Victoria Hospital, Bangalore. Kudos to all doctors and medical professionals who are doing their best. False news busted," Bengaluru Police Commissioner Bhaskar Rao tweeted.

Police said such videos have the potential to create panic in society and asked people to refrain from it.

"Covid False video about conditions of hospitals in Bangalore circulated on social media. Case registered in Cybercrime PS. While government, society at large fighting the pandemic, some are creating/forwarding messages/videos which has potential to create panic in society. Refrain from it," Joint Commissioner of Police, Crime, Sandeep Patil tweeted.

The video showed scores of people wearing masks gathered in a small space allegedly at an Out-Patient Department in a hospital, and a person filming it, claiming to be a doctor expressing concern that it was a threat to all medical staff, including the patients.

Official sources said the video was reportedly from a hospital in one of the northern states and not from Victoria Hospital.

Bengaluru, Jan 8: The Karnataka government on Tuesday decided to adopt a no-fail approach for Class 7 examinations for government and private schools following the state syllabus.

The report card of a student doesn’t carry ‘pass’ or ‘fail’ remark, but points to his or her strengths and weaknesses in each subject in the exams, which will now be called Common Evaluation Exam.

The quality cell of the Karnataka Secondary Education Examination Board (which conducts SSLC exams) will prepare question papers, which will be evaluated at the district level by government and private schoolteachers. The Class 7 exams will be held in March.

The Common Evaluation Exam follows the Continuous Comprehensive Evaluation (CCE) currently practised under the Right to Education Act. “The formative and summative assessments (tests, projects and quizzes) will be held as usual,”KG Jagadeesha, commissioner of public instruction, said.

Edu dept to launch helpline by March

For the March exam, summative assessment 2 will be held with half the syllabus. Other modalities (exam duration and total marks) will be announced next week,” said KG Jagadeesha. The CCE system will continue for classes 8 and 9. The government hopes the exam and subsequent interventions in classes 8 and 9 will boost students’ confidence for crucial board examinations.

Minister S Suresh Kumar said, “More than an exam, it’s an evaluation of a child’s knowledge. The Belagavi division has done something similar. The Kalaburagi zone found mathematics and science were areas of concern; language was an issue in Urdumedium schools.” The minister said zilla panchayat CEOs have observed that intervention should start from class 8. “Keeping this in mind, we’ve started necessary preparation for class 7 exam ,” he added.

The education department will start a helpline by March for students, teachers, school managements and educationists to 11 raise problems on day-to-day issues.

Bengaluru, Jan 25: To address the grievances of the Industrialists, over the issue of acquisition of land, the state government have plans to dilute the Land Reforms Act, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, said here on Saturday.

Speaking to the media here, on his visit to the World Economic Forum, Davos, recently he said that 'the visit was fruitful and ends with satisfactory note by procuring promises from several Industrial houses to investment in Karnataka'.

Stating that during his five-day stay at Davos, he had met several Industries heads on the sidelines of the summit, and had an interactive meeting with them, Chief Minister said that 'the event had helped us to present our state Karnataka, to convince them about the prevailing industry-friendly environment'.

He said that he had met several heads of global companies, including Arcelor Mittal, Kirloskar, MAHINDRA, Bharat Forge, 2000 Watt, general electrical, Dassault, Dalmia, Lulu Group, Volvo, Nova Nosdik and Domeco.

'The interaction with the corporate heads was encouraging and more investment is expected to flow into Karnataka, in the fields of Mining, Power, Agriculture, Pharma, Education, and Industries.'

Informing that the main grouse expressed by the Industrialists about the bottlenecks being faced in the Land Reforms Act to procure land, he said that 'To make ease of conversion of Agricultural land we have plans to bring amendment and it would be both win-win situation to both Farmers as well as Industries.'

'We have promised them to remove all hurdles, which comes in the way of acquiring land to set up industries, and we have promised to rectify all the administrative problems within a month or two and legal problems in the next couple of months by amending existing laws.'

'We have also plans to present a new Industrial policy in the coming budget and roll out a comprehensive and investor-friendly law', he further said.

Replying to questions, Chief Minister said that 'all those investment proposals which got clearance at the High-Level Clearance Committee would automatically considered as ‘deemed permission’ and start the process of acquisition of land'.

'TheWorldEconomic Forum Summit had also served us as a platform to invite Industrialists to take part in the Karnataka Global Investors Meet scheduled to be held in November this year', he added.