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Former railway minister Jaffer Sharief passes away at 85

News Network
November 25, 2018

Bengaluru, Nov 25: Veteran politician Challakere Kareem Jaffer Sharief passed away in Bengaluru on Sunday. The 85 year old former union minister was hospitalised a few days back. 

Born on November 3, 1933, in Chitradurga of erstwhile Mysore Kingdom, Sharief was best known for his tenure as the Railways Minister (1991-95) in the P V Narasimha Rao Cabinet.

He brought several railway projects to Bengaluru and is credited for handling the broad gauge conversion of the railway tracks across the country. Sherief represented the Bengaluru North Lok Sabha constituency without a break between 1977 and 1996.

Sharief, many times, wanted to enter the state politics and even cherished the dream of becoming chief minister. During his last days, Sharief fell out with the Congress as he felt he was being sidelined.

According to his close associate Mr. Sharief had been stressed out as he was busy preparing for the release of the Urdu translation of Moulana Abul Kalam Azad’s ‘India Wins Freedom’. “He had invited former President Pranab Mukherjee for the book release that was scheduled to be held at Palace Grounds on November 28,” he said.

Born in Challakere in Chitradurga district of Karnataka on November 3, 1933, Mr. Sharief was the Railway Minister in the Narasimha Rao government (1991-95).  He represented the Bengaluru North Constituency.

A seven-time Member of Parliament, Mr. Sharief began his political career in the Congress under guidance of the former Chief Minister of Karnataka, the late S Nijalingappa. After the Congress split in 1969, he joined the Congress led by Indira Gandhi.

He became a member of the Lok Sabha in the elections held soon after Emergency in 1977. He was a member of the 6th, 7th, 8th , 9th, 10th , 12th and 13th Lok Sabhas.

His last Lok Sabha election was in 2009, in which he was defeated by BJP’s  D.B. Chandre Gowda in the Bengaluru North constituency.

As the Railway Minister, he was instrumental in gauge conversion (meter gauge to broad gauge) of railways in Karnataka. He played a vital role in getting the Wheel and Axle Plant in Bengaluru.

Congress leaders across the State have condoled the death of the senior leader of the party.

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News Network
February 23,2020

Madikeri, Feb 23: Back-to-back floods and landslides in the last two years, has led to a fall in the number of tourists coming to the coffee-growing region of Kodagu, forcing the district administration to intervene and take confidence-building measures, telling tourists that Kodagu was safe to visit.

According to the statistics of the Karnataka State Tourism Department, Kodagu recorded a moderately good number of tourists in 2018 and 2019, the years that the district witnessed devastating floods and landslides.

The Department’s statistics reveal that 17 lakh tourists visited Kodagu in 2018 and 18 lakh in 2019. This means the flood-ravaged years did attract tourists contrary to what the stakeholders had claimed.

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coastaldigest.com news network
July 30,2020

Mangaluru, July 30: The Social Democratic Party of India has condemned the move by the state government to drop a lesson on legendary Mysuru rulers Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan from the class 7 textbook.

The Department of Public Instruction has omitted the chapter from the textbooks of Class 7 in their attempt to reduce syllabus for state board schools by 30 per cent.

The department, however, has decided to retain similar chapters on Tipu Sultan in 6th and 10th Classes, though the syllabus in text books for all classes from 1 to 10th has been trimmed. 

In a media release statement, SDPI State President Ilyas Mohammed Thumbe termed the move as communally motivated. “By dropping the lesson, the BJP-led government is engaged in saffronisation of education,” he alleged.

He said that Tipu was the most prominent freedom fighter, who had given priority to irrigation, rocket technology and harmony. The BJP government is also planning to scrap lessons on the Constitution, secularism and democracy. By twisting history, the BJP is trying to mislead the younger generation, he added.

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News Network
May 13,2020

Bengaluru, May 13: Former chief minister and senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Wednesday called the measures announced by Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman as 'disastrous' and said it is 'non-existent' in terms of benefits to poor migrants, labourers, contract employees and farmers.

"The first set of measures announced by @FinMinIndia @nsitharaman, after 8 PM speech by @narendramodi, is disastrous & non-existent in terms of benefits to poor migrants, labourers, contract employees, farmers, etc," Siddaramaiah said in a tweet.

The Congress leader said most of the intended benefits may not reach the end recipient.

This comes a day after Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a Rs 20 lakh crore special economic package to revive the COVID-19 hit economy.

"The contribution by the government for the schemes announced are mostly notional and less of actuals and the devil lies in the detail," the Congress leader said in another tweet.

After Sitharaman announced support measures for MSMEs, Siddaramaiah said, "The credit infusion to MSMEs may help them clear dues to vendors but it is doubtful if they shall utilise the credit available to pay their labourers & to prevent job cuts. @FinMinIndia should have taken measures to pay part of the salaries to the employees in MSMEs."

Further questioning the Centre on 'ignoring the spending for boosting consumption', Siddaramaiah said, "The government is interested in capital infusion in the form of credits but totally ignorant of the actual spending that needs to be done to boost consumption. How can credit be considered as government spending?"

Siddaramaiah said the next set of measures should benefit the marginalised sections.

"Will be looking forward to next set of measures & I hope it will be something to benefit the marginalised sections. Direct benefits to the poorest sections will help them survive this pandemic. COVID-19 fight should not be another perception battle but a real one," he added in another tweet.

Sitharaman earlier announced Rs 3 lakh crore collateral-free automatic loans for businesses, including MSMEs.

Besides this, she also stated that to provide stressed MSMEs with equity support, the government will facilitate the provision of Rs 20,000 crore as subordinate debt.

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