JDS worker chops off Congress activist’s arm with machete

Hassan, Feb 19: A 19-year-old boy, in a bid to impress his girlfriend, stole a sports bike from an OLX seller but cops managed to reach him through her on Tuesday.

The accused, Pramod, who works at a bakery, had been involved in a bike-lifting case two years ago too.

On February 9, Pramod saw an advertisement on online marketing platform OLX from Puneeth, a farmer from Shravanabelagola town, who wanted to sell his sports bike for Rs 1.4 lakh. Pramod called him up and the two agreed to meet around 6pm that evening at Shravanabelagola town bus stand.

Once there, Pramod, a college dropout, assured Puneeth that he would buy the bike but wanted to take it for a test drive. The seller agreed. A few minutes passed and when there was no sign of the bike or Pramod, Puneeth tried calling him. The phone was switched off and could not be contacted since. Puneeth immediately filed a cheating case with the Shravanabelagola police.

SP R Srinivas Gowda and ASP BN Nandini put together a team and began tracing Pramod's call detail records. Maximum calls were made to a single number and it turned out to be his girlfriend's.

Cops called the girlfriend and on Tuesday, asked her to contact him and ascertain his location. They traced him near Hassan city's railway station and nabbed him along with the bike. On interrogation, Pramod confessed that he wanted to impress his girlfriend and take her on long drives on the sports bike.

Police said Pramod, who belongs to Bandithimmanahalli village of Alur taluk, dropped out of college two years ago and has been working at a bakery in Sahyadri Circle.

While working, he has been involved in several incidents of bike-lifting. Cops said he appeared to have strained relations with his family and had taken to crime to make a quick buck.

Mangaluru, Jun 12: A huge crowd gathered for the grand opening of the newly built 175-metre-long two-lane bridge across Phalguni River on National Highway 169 near Gurupura on the outskirts of the city today.

Even as the photos of the bridge inauguration ceremony went viral on social media, netizens took the elected representatives and the district administration to task for flouting safety norms at a time when the coronavirus cases are continuing to mount in coastal Karnataka.

The bridge was completed in a record time of 15 months. Dakshina Kannada MP and State BJP President Nalin Kumar Kateel and district in-charge Minister Kota Srinivas Poojari inaugurated the bridge in the presence of Mangaluru City North MLA Y. Bharath Shetty and others.

The bridge has come as a breather to thousands of travellers between Mangaluru-Moodbidri-Karkala on the busy NH. The age-old steel bridge had become dilapidated and was a cause for concern for road users. The highway is also under the process of getting widened to four lanes.

The bridge was constructed at an estimated cost of Rs 30 crore by contractor Sudhakar Shetty of Mugrodi Construction. Work started in February last and the contractor had time till February next.

While the two-lane carriageway is 16 metres wide, the bridge has 2.5-metre-wide pedestrian paths on both the sides. New approach roads of 500 metres each were also part of the project.

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has rationalised by up to 30 per cent the syllabus for classes 9 to 12 for the academic year 2020-21 to reduce course load on students amid the COVID-19 crisis, Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' announced on Tuesday.

The curriculum has been rationalised while retaining the core elements, the Human Resource Development said.

Among the chapters dropped after the rationalisation exercise are lessons on democracy and diversity, demonetisation, nationalism, secularism, India's relations with its neighbours and growth of local governments in India, among others.

"Looking at the extraordinary situation prevailing in the country and the world, CBSE was advised to revise the curriculum and reduce course load for the students of classes 9 to 12.

"To aid the decision, a few weeks back I also invited suggestions from all educationists on the reduction of syllabus for students and I am glad to share that we received more than 1.5K suggestions. Thank you, everyone, for the overwhelming response," Nishank tweeted.

"Considering the importance of learning achievement, it has been decided to rationalise syllabus up to 30 per cent by retaining the core concepts," he added.

The Union minister said the changes made in the syllabi have been finalised by the respective course committees with the approval of the curriculum committee and the Governing Body of the Board.

"The heads of schools and teachers have been advised by the board to ensure that the topics that have been reduced are also explained to the students to the extent required to connect different topics. However, the reduced syllabus will not be part of the topics for internal assessment and year-end board examination.

"Alternative academic calendar and inputs from the NCERT on transacting the curriculum using different strategies shall also be part of the teaching pedagogy in the affiliated schools," a senior official of the HRD ministry said.

For classes 1 to 8, the National Council of Education Research and Training (NCERT) has already notified an alternative calendar and learning outcomes.

According to the updated curriculum, among the chapters deleted from class 10 syllabus are-- democracy and diversity, gender, religion and caste, popular struggles and movement, challenges to democracy

For class 11, the deleted portions included chapters on federalism, citizenship, nationalism, secularism, growth of local governments in India.

Similarly, class 12 students will not be required to study chapters on India's relations with its neighbours, changing nature of India's economic development, social movements in India and demonetisation, among others.

Universities and schools across the country have been closed since March 16 when the central government announced a nationwide classroom shutdown as one of the measures to contain the COVID-19 outbreak.

A nationwide lockdown was announced on March 24, which came into effect the next day. While the government has eased several restrictions, schools and colleges continue to remain closed.