It’s Kalladka Bhat’s order: Churches, dargahs, madrasas must celebrate national festivals

Bengaluru, Apr 1: The price of petrol and diesel will go up by Rs 1.60 and Rs 1.59 per litre, respectively, from Wednesday. This is in line with Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa’s decision to hike the rate of tax on petrol from 32% to 35% and diesel from 21% to 24%.

He had announced this in his March 5 Budget for 2020-21 fiscal. At present, a litre of petrol costs Rs 71.97 and diesel Rs 64.41 in Bengaluru.

The government decided to roll out the hike from Tuesday midnight going into Wednesday, April 1, after briefly considering a postponement in view of the COVID-19 crisis. 

Finance Secretary (Budget & Resources) Ekroop Caur confirmed to DH that the hike will be rolled out. 

The 3% hike on fuel tax was a key resource mobilisation measure that Yediyurappa announced in his Budget. The hike is expected to fetch the government Rs 1,500 crore. 

Yediyurappa had also announced a 6% additional excise duty on Indian Made Liquor (IML), which could help the government mop up Rs 1,200 crore. However, the sale of liquor has been prohibited during the lockdown period. Plus, hiking fuel prices during the lockdown will not hit citizens very hard. 

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.

Bengaluru, Jul 6: With a record 1,925 new cases across the state during the last 24 hours, Karnataka's Covid-19 tally rose to 23,474 including 13,251 active after 9,847 were discharged till date, an official said on Sunday.

"Of the total cases across the state on a single day, Bengaluru accounted for 1,235, taking its positive tally to 9,580, including 8,167 active," said the health official in a statement.

With 37 succumbing to the disease in the state, including 16 from Bengaluru, the state's death toll increased to 372, with 145 from this tech city since March 9.

Of the 603 discharged from across the state during the day, 302 were from Bengaluru, taking its total number of cured to 1,267 so far.

Of the 243 cases in the intensive care unit (ICU) across the state, 132 are in Bengaluru, 15 at Dharwad, 12 at Kalaburagi and 10 each at Ballari and Raichur.

Of the 16,899 samples tested in the day, 14,649 were negative and 1,925 positive. Of the total 7,06,425 samples tested so far, 6,65,525 were negative and 23,474 positive.

After Bengaluru, Dakshina Kannada reported 142 positive cases followed by Ballari 90, Vijayapura 57, Kalaburagi 49 and Udupi and Dharwad 45 each.

Of the total 603 discharged, 52 were from Kalaburagi, 37 from Ballari, 36 from Dakshina Kannada and 22 each from Udupi and Dharwad.