Dubai: Muhammad Kunhi conferred HMC United International Peace Award

Bengaluru, Jun 11: A love triangle took a violent turn when a final-year engineering student was assaulted by both her current and former lovers. She's now battling for her life in the ICU, police said. 

For the 22-year-old woman, who lives in Sidedahalli, it was a case of fast-changing relationships. She broke up with a fellow student Babith, 21, a few months ago after having dated him for four years. Four months ago, she started seeing another collegemate named Rahul, 22, and everything seemed fine. 

On June 7, she went to Rahul's house, ostensibly for his birthday party, after informing her parents. Babith got wind of it and barged into Rahul's house. The trio got into an argument, and Rahul abused and assaulted her. 

The woman decided to leave him, and went with Babith to his house in Chikkabanavara, North Bengaluru. But things didn't end there. Babith picked an argument with her. Things became so bad that he attacked her with a helmet. 

He then panicked and called her parents, asking them to take her home. When her parents arrived, they found only Babith, his mother and sister in the house. Babith's family directed them to a bedroom where she was lying motionless, with her face being badly wounded. 

When her parents demanded to know what had happened, nobody responded. They took her to a hospital where her condition remains serious. A while later, Babith came to the hospital and gave her parents the key of her scooter. He told them what had happened and allegedly warned them against filing a police complaint. 

Her mother, however, filed a complaint with the jurisdictional Soladevanahalli police. According to her, Babith had fought with her daughter at their house for not taking his phone calls six months ago. 

Shashikumar N, Deputy Commissioner of Police (North), said both the men had been arrested and that further investigations are underway. 

Thiruvananthapuram, Jan 3: Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on Friday wrote letters to 11 Chief Ministers including Arvind Kejriwal--Delhi and Mamata Banerjee, West Bengal-- pointing out apprehensions that had arisen among large sections of society consequent to the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) - 2019.

In his letter, the Chief Minister said "the need of the hour is unity among all Indians who wish to protect and preserve our cherished values of democracy and secularism."

People from various cross-sections of the society irrespective of any difference they might have, need to stand united in preserving the basic tenets of our polity which form the cornerstone of Indian democracy, he added.

"We are sure that our unity in diversity, which has stood the test of times will ultimately emerge stronger. Kerala has decided to address the apprehensions about NRC and that preparation of NPR will lead to NRC by staying all activities relating to NPR in the State," Mr Vijayan said.

In this regard, the Kerala Legislative Assembly had passed the resolution on December 31, 2019, expressing its concern regarding the impact the CAA will have on the nation's secular credentials, he said.

"The resolution requested the Central Government to repeal the CAA, 2019. States, which have the opinion that CAA should be repealed can also consider similar steps so that it will be an eye-opener to the proponents of the CAA and the NRC," the Chief Minister pointed out.

Bengaluru, Jun 7: A mobile app and a portal offering technology-driven solutions to manage and mitigate floods in urban areas were launched here on Saturday by Karnataka Revenue Minister R Ashoka.

The mobile app 'Bengaluru Megha Sandesha' was developed to disseminate information on rainfall and flood forecast, location-specific dynamic weather directly to the public. "The in-built features of the app and the information provided for a city is the first of its kind in the country," a press release said. This is a system of providing rainfall, flood forecasts and early warning to the officials of government agencies in the city through SMS to their mobile phones, social media platforms and a dedicated web portal, the release said.

The information provided would help the civic authorities act in advance and manage the floods, it said. The portal 'Varunamitra' is for information on the weather. The information provided is based on real-time data from 100 telemetric rain gauges installed and maintained at various locations across the state, it said. Rainfall forecast is based on the weather research and forecast models developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Ahmedabad, the release said.

The information on flood forecast is based on the hydrological model, hydraulic routing and automation of the results. The Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre, along with the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), took up this project on the urban flood model for Bengaluru city. The project was funded by the Central government's department of science and technology, the release added.