Bengaluru, Apr 26: Amidst threat to the stability of the one-year-old JD(S)-Congress coalition government, Karnataka Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy has convened a meeting of the JDS Legislators here on April 28.
In a statement, the JD(S) State President H Vishwanath said that a meeting of the party MLAs, had been called by Kumaraswamy on Sunday.
Bengaluru, Jul 28: After the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) reduced the syllabi for Classes 9 to 12 due to COVID-19 pandemic, the Karnataka government has followed the suit. The Department of Public Instruction has omitted the chapters on legendary south Indian rulers Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan 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.
The trimmed textbooks uploaded on the website of the Department of State Education Research and Training (DSERT) by Karnataka state Textbook Society revealed removal of chapters on Tipu Sultan for the seventh grade.
Justifying the decision, officials said, "students study similar chapters in Class 6 and more in the 10th grade." Yet another senior official from the Text Book Society said, "Trimming does not mean we have removed half of the syllabus from textbooks. It is only keeping in mind the repetition we have condensed the chapters. In case students study about a particular dynasty in higher grades, then the same had been removed from lower grades."
A few months ago, there was an uproar over dropping of content on Tipu Sultan and MLAs from the ruling BJP also demanded the same and petitioned to the Chief Minister. Even an expert committee led by Prof Baraguru Ramachandrappa suggested to not drop any content on the historic figure. However, the department still decided to drop lessons from one of the classes while keeping the syllabus short for the next 120 active academic days.
Earlier this month, a controversy had erupted over the CBSE's decision to omit topics like federalism, secularism, citizenship, etc while reducing the syllabus for Classes 9 to 12. The education board had issued a detailed clarification later, stating that topics claimed to be dropped "are either being covered by the rationalised syllabus or in the Alternative Academic Calendar of NCERT".
"The rationalisation of syllabus up to 30 per cent has been undertaken by the Board for nearly 190 subjects of class 9 to 12 for the academic session 2020-21 as a one-time measure only. The objective is to reduce the exam stress of students due to the prevailing health emergency situation and prevent learning gaps," it said.
Last week, the Congress in Uttar Pradesh expressed its concern over 'deliberate and systematic' deletions of chapters related to the freedom struggle and the party's role in it from the Class 10-12 syllabi of the Secondary Education Board.
Bengaluru, July 14: The Karnataka government has allowed some relaxations during the week-long lockdown in Bengaluru urban and rural districts. The lockdown will commence from 8p.m. today (July 14) and end at 5a.m. on July 22. The government has released the guidelines for lockdown.
Restrictions
*No new flights or trains will be permitted; only flights and trains already scheduled will continue to operate. Flight and train tickets shall serve as passes for movement by taxis/cab aggregators/auto rickshaws.
* Metro rail services prohibited
* Taxis and services of cab aggregators will be prohibited except for emergency and as permitted in guidelines.
* Schools, colleges, educational/training/coaching institutions etc. will remain closed. Online/distance learning shall continue to be permitted. Examination already scheduled shall be permitted
* Hotels, restaurants, and hospitality services, prohibited except those meant for health/police/government officials/healthcare workers. Hotels and restaurants shall be permitted to operate kitchens for takeaway/home delivery of food items only.
* All cinema halls, shopping malls, gymnasiums, sports complexes, stadia, swimming pools, entertainment parks, theatres, bars and auditoriums, assembly halls and similar places.
* All social/political/sports/entertainment/academic/cultural religious functions/other gatherings and large congregations.
* All religious places/places of worship shall be closed for public. Religious congregations are strictly prohibited. Commercial and private establishment shall be closed down
Relaxations (outside containment zone)
* Shops including ration shops (PDS), dealing with food, groceries, fruits and vegetables, etc. to open only from 5 am to 12 noon. Home delivery of essential items shall be encouraged.
* All facilities in the supply chain of essential goods, whether involved in manufacturing, wholesale or retail of such goods through local stores, large brick and mortar stores or e-commerce companies.
* All food processing and related industries.
* Banks, insurance offices and ATM.
* Print and electronic media.
* Telecommunication, internet services, broadcasting and cable services, IT and IT-enabled services with minimum staff for essential purposes. As far as possible, work from home should be encouraged.
* Delivery of essential items such as food, medicines, pharmaceuticals, medical equipment through e-commerce.
* Power generation, transmission and distribution units and services.
* Capital and debt market services and notified by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi)
* Cold storage and warehousing services.
* Private security services.
* Delivery of goods by E-Commerce companies. Industries/industrial establishments as listed below will be allowed to operate (outside containment zones):
i. Production units which require continuous process, and their supply chain.
ii. Food processing industries, manufacturing of essential goods, including drugs, pharmaceuticals, medical devices, their raw material and intermediates.
iii. Manufacturing of packing materials.
iv. Manufacturing and other industrial establishment with access control in Special Economic Zones (SEZs) or outside municipal limits and Export Oriented Units (EoUs), Industrial townships. Construction activities will be allowed in continuation of works in construction projects, where workers are available on site.
Bengaluru, Jan 18: Amidst the ongoing probe into the multi-billion IMA ponzi scam, another similar scam has come to light in the city wherein around 2500 depositors, most of them Muslims, are fearing that them may lose Rs 350 crore.
Shockingly, Shafiullah, Rafiullah, and Zabiullah, three brothers who run the Baraka Investment Consultant Private Limited, have accused the police of taking over 10 crore rupees bribe from them.
The depositors say that when they recently demanded their investments back from the accused the trio, they allegedly told them that they had paid the Central Crime Branch (CCB) and the RT Nagar police over 10 crores and they could collect that money from the police.
The aggrieved investors alleges that the RT Nagar police have charge-sheeted the three accused only on the complaints of 13 affected depositors who lost precisely Rs 97 lakh and the case is being probed under the Prize Chits and Money Circulation Schemes (Banning) Act, 1978 instead of Karnataka Protection of Interest of Depositors in Financial Institutions Act, 2004 (KPID Act) or the Banning of Unregulated Deposit Schemes Ordinance, 2019 (BUDS) Ordinance.
Aggrieved victims alleged that when the Baraka Investment Consultants had a Registration Certificate of Establishments from Department of Labour issued on November 28, 2017. The CCB took up a suo-motu case against Tellnet Computers on August 16, 2018, after they received complaints from Baraka investors.
Apparently, the CCB knew that Baraka Investment Consultants and Tellnet Computers was one and the same and operating from the same office, but they did not mention the name of Baraka in the case initially for reasons best known to them, said the victims of the Ponzi scheme. A few victims who wished to remain anonymous told BM that a CCB police inspector and one of the accused, Zabiullah, were childhood friends, neighbours and both hailed from Chikkaballapur. This is one of the reasons, they allege, the inspector has protected the accused by downplaying the scam.
The case registered by the CCB states that there are only 500 to 600 depositors who deposited amounts between Rs 50,000 to Rs 1 lakh expecting returns ranging from Rs 5000 to Rs 7000 a month, but in reality there are more than 2500 investors who have deposited amounts ranging from Rs 50,000 to Rs 50 lakh, expecting returns between 12% to 24%, said the victims. Despite this, the CCB was sitting on the case and making no investigations, the victims alleged.
It was later on in May 9, 2019, an FIR was registered by the RT Nagar police when many victims approached the police commissioner and petitioned him. “Even in this case, the accused Zabiullah was not arrested. Zabiullah’s two brothers, Shafiullah and Rafiullah, and his father Abdul Rahman were arrested, but were later granted conditional bails,” one of the victims Mohammed Yahya (42), a software engineer said.
Yahya had invested Rs 10 lakh with Baraka. “Though this case has been charge-sheeted, the police have not made any recoveries or they have not confiscated any properties of the accused,” alleged victim Habibur Rehman (42) who had invested Rs 5 lakh in Baraka. “There is clear-cut evidence that the accused was dealing in foreign exchange using the investors’ money without their knowledge and was offshoring and parking crores and crores in countries like Russia, Dubai, Malaysia, and Singapore. Though the police knew about this, they did nothing to stop it or bring it back,” said Azgar Pasha (44), a businessman who had invested Rs 41 lakh.
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