Karnataka opens detention centre for illegal immigrants

Bengaluru, June 23: Karnataka Congress chief D K Shivakumar has urged his party colleagues to be active on social media to counter the propaganda of Bharatiya Janata Party.

Speaking to media persons, the KPCC president said that no more than 20 out of the 68 Congress MLAs are active on social media.

“All those MLAs who are doing well need to be projected. We want leaders, not mere followers. They all should be the face of Congress in Karnataka. Party should not depend on just my face or Siddaramaiah’s,” he said.

Shivakumar’s diktat has resulted in the party’s social media unit scrambling to get leaders to create their accounts.

“We’re pressuring all the party MLAs and leaders. We’re asking their personal assistants or gunmen to operate their accounts if they are not savvy with social media,” KPCC social media chief A N Nataraj Gowda said.

He pointed out that the 20 MLAs who are active on social media include U T Khader, Dinesh Gundu Rao, Priyank Kharge, Krishna Byre Gowda among others.

“We’re also trying to get the accounts verified of those who are beginning to get active. For example, it was only recently that we got the accounts of S R Patil and Vijay Singh verified,” Gowda said.

Tapping the full potential of social media is crucial for the Congress because the BJP has found much success in reaching out to voters through various online platforms.

In fact, ahead of the 2018 Assembly elections, the Congress found that there were 10 ministers and some 40 MLAs who had turned a blind eye towards social media.

Shivakumar said he was also working on putting in place a system in the party under which all developments related to the state and country will be communicated to all party leaders at 10 am every day.

Mangaluru, Mar 14: Following the avian flu outbreak in neighboring Kerala, authorities at Pilikula Biological Park in Moodushedde, on the outskirts of the city, have taken all precautionary measures to prevent the death of birds in the park.

Park Director H J Jayaprakash Bhandari said that "the behaviour of the birds is being monitored near open water sources on the premises'.

Though no deaths were reported in the Zoo or on lake premises, the staff continue to maintain a strict vigil on open water sources like lakes. He said the Park was being sanitized.

Bengaluru, Apr 28: Karnataka has found that the rapid antibody test kits for COVID-19 that the Centre supplied to the state have only 47% sensitivity. The state will be returning the kits to the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

Karnataka had received 11,400 rapid antibody test kits from the ICMR a few days back, out of which it had sent around 200 of them to NIMHANS for validation.

After the ICMR, on Monday, sent a circular to all states to return the test kits to the suppliers, Dr CN Manjunath, Director, Jayadeva Institute of Cardiovascular Sciences and Research, and nodal officer for lab testing in the state's COVID-19 task force, said, "We have cancelled the orders we placed to Guangzhou Wondfo Biotech and Zhuhai Livzon Diagnostics for one lakh rapid antibody test kits. Since the ICMR supplied us with 11,400 kits out of the 6.5 lakh kits it procured, we will be returning the kits to them."

Manjunath told said that the validation at NIMHANS revealed the kits to have only 47% sensitivity. Sensitivity is the ability of a test to identify the true-positives in a population, i.e., the actual number of people who've been infected with the disease. With the rapid antibody testing kits being shelved, the state's plan to randomly test high risk groups has taken a backseat. 

So far, the state has tested 43,791 samples. 

Karnataka now has 22 testing facilities -- 14 government and seven private labs. Many private labs have not tested any samples so far because of the lack of test kits (the state has made it clear that it will not provide test kits to private labs). So, getting an ICMR approval for testing has become a moot point.p

Agreeing to the setback the state's plans of ramping up testing has taken, Manjunath said, "It is true that RT-PCR test kits are in shortage. Even Pune's Mylabs had a shortage in supplying test kits. But we are relying on institutes like Kidwai, Narayana Health and Biocon's Syngene that have received approval for testing. They're big institutes and we hope that they will test a large number of samples."

On reports that the Centre has RT-PCR test kits that will last for only a week, he said, "We have test kits that will last for eight to 10 days. We have ordered for more. We are hoping to receive them before the current kits run out."