Karnataka bans mobile phones inside polling booths

Agencies
April 14, 2019

Bengaluru, Apr 14: Electorate in Karnataka will not be allowed to carry smart-phones or mobile phones inside the polling booth while going to vote to prevent them from taking selfies or recording videos, an official said on Sunday.

"The Model Code of Conduct (MCC) prevents voters from carrying mobile phones or smart-phones and cameras inside the polling booth. In fact, no voter will be allowed to take his/her cellphone within 100 metres radius of the booth.

"They will have to leave it at home or deposit it with the police personnel before entering the booth," Karnataka Chief Electoral Officer Sanjiv Kumar told media.

Another poll official admitted that though the MCC has had the ban provision since 2008, it was not enforced strictly during the previous elections for reasons such as manpower shortage and absence of internet-connected smart-phones with a camera.

"The provision to not allow mobile phones or smart-phones inside the booth was observed more in breach in the past, as not many voters had them a decade or five years ago or carried them while going to vote," recalled senior poll official Surya Sen.

With most urban voters now using camera-wielding smart-phones, during the May 2018 Assembly elections many were caught taking selfies while casting their vote or making videos inside the booth as a proof of exercising their franchise.

"This year, the security personnel have been instructed to prevent voters from carrying a mobile or a smartphone inside the booth," said Kumar.

"If the security personnel are busy, the voters can leave their devices with party agents who sit outside the booths with the voter lists," Kumar added.

Polling officials, security personnel and others manning booths, including presiding officers, their assistants and agents of candidates, however, will be allowed to carry and use smart-phones.

Karnataka has 5.11 crore electorate, including 2.6 crore male and 2.5-crore female voters and 4,661 others.

The number of polling booths in 28 seats across the state has increased 7 per cent from 54,265 in the 2014 elections to 58,186 this year.

The state's 14 Lok Sabha constituencies in the central and southern regions go to polls on April 18, while the remaining 14 parliamentary seats cast their vote on April 23.

The 14 constituencies polling in the first phase are Udupi-Chikmagalur, Hassan, Dakshina Kannada, Chitradurga (SC), Tumkur, Mandya, Mysore, Chamarajnagar (SC), Bangalore Rural, Bangalore North, Bangalore Central, Bangalore South, Chikkaballapur and Kolar (SC).

Those in the second phase are Chikkodi, Belgaum, Bagalkot, Bijapur (SC), Gulbarga (SC), Raichur (ST), Bidar, Koppal, Bellary (ST), Haveri, Dharwad, Uttara Kannada, Davanagere and Shimoga. The votes will be counted on May 23.

Comments

MR
 - 
Monday, 15 Apr 2019

Mobile phones should be jammed on the day of election so people can vote in peace.

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News Network
May 28,2020

Mangaluru, May 28: A pregnant woman who returned from Dubai in a repatriation flight suffered miscarriage after she was allegedly denied entry to her apartment flat and also refused proper treatment in the institutional quarantine.

Fathima was put in a paid quarantine facility after she returned on May 12 flight for her first delivery.

On the second day of her return, she tested negative for Covid-19 in the first test. As per SOP (Standard operating procedures) for pregnant women, she was ready to shift to her apartment, Shivdeep Residency, located at Shivbhag in the city for home quarantine.

However, the members of the Resident Welfare Association of the apartment who got a whiff of her arrival, called an emergency meeting the previous night and reportedly informed the pregnant woman that her entry to the flat would put other residents in trouble and suggested that she stay away.

Sources said the RWA consists of some serving and retired police officials.

With no other go, the woman continued in the paid quarantine.

Treatment for a pregnant woman?

Fathima's father-in-law Azeez Bastikar said the doctors who attended her during the quarantine did not provide proper healthcare required for a pregnant woman and also refused to touch her, out of fear.

Many a time, they did not even check her BP, saying that they ‘forgot to bring the kit’. When her situation worsened, the family members contacted several hospitals in the city but all of them allegedly refused to admit her, fearing the sealing down of the hospital in case she tests positive on the 14th day COVID test.

Finally, the six and half months pregnant woman was shifted to a clinic on Wednesday after her 14th day test had turned negative.

The doctors who checked her found out that she had suffered a miscarriage and operated on her to remove the stillborn. The doctors said further delay would have costed the woman her life.

Meanwhile, on Thursday, Azeez Bastikar approached Deputy Commissioner Sindhu B Rupesh, seeking action against the doctors and hospitals who denied treatment and the RWA who refused her entry to the apartment.

Stating that the ill-treatment meted out to her daughter-in-law by doctors and others added to her trauma resulting in the miscarriage, he appealed to the authorities to ensure that no one else is treated in a similar manner.

He said that Fathima and her husband live in Dubai and that she came to India for a safe delivery as the situation was critical in Dubai.

The paid quarantine facility where she had to continue after RWA denied her access, charged her Rs 60,000 for her stay.

Meanwhile, the MCC commissioner Ajith Kumar Hegde on Thursday issued a notice to Shivdeep Apartment for refusing Fathima's entry.

The apartment has to respond within three days, failing which legal action will be initiated against it.

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coastaldigest.com news network
August 1,2020

Bengaluru, Aug 1: The Karnataka government on Friday brought in Additional Director General of Police (Intelligence) Kamal Pant as the Bengaluru police Commissioner in a reshuffle of police personnel.

Pant comes in as the city police Commissioner in place of Bhaskar Rao.

According to a government order, Rao will handle internal security as ADGP, a post which was lying vacant due to the promotion of P S Sandhu.

Along with the two officials, ADGP B Dayananda who was in charge of the Criminal Investigation Department and Economic Offences, has been made the new intelligence chief.

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News Network
March 23,2020

Mangaluru, Mar 23: People in Thukkottu and Ullal area of Mangaluru are in panic after a local woman who recently returned from a foreign country fell ill.

On receiving information the health officials from Ullal PHC visited the house of the woman, who is suffering from fever and cold. They provided her medicines and asked her to remain quarantined at home.

It is said that the woman's mother, who had come to a grocery shop near Thokkottu, informed the shopkeeper that her daughter, who had returned from abroad, was suffering from fever.

The alert shopkeeper, understanding the gravity of the situation, informed ZP Standing Committee on Health and Education President Dhanalakshmi Gatti, who in turn brought the issue to the notice of health officials.

The health officials rushed to her house and diagnosed her. However, the authorities have requested the local people not to be panicked as it is not yet confirmed whether the woman is suffering from COVID-19 caused by the novel coronavirus.

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