Kuruba Siddaramaiah gets goat, blanket as gifts

Bengaluru, Jul 1: The Meteorological Department has issued a yellow alert and forecasted heavy rains for three coastal districts and 12 more in the south interior Karnataka region, an official said on Tuesday afternoon.

"Thunderstorm with lightning is likely to occur at isolated places over south interior Karnataka from Tuesday to Wednesday," said a Met official.

For Bengaluru city, the Met department has forecast a generally cloudy sky with light rain for the next three days.

Coastal Karnataka -- Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Uttara Kannada districts have been issued a yellow alert for the next two days with thundershowers and gusty winds.

Winds blowing at speed of 40-50 km per hour are expected on the coast and the Met department warned fishermen against venturing into the sea.

Meanwhile, heavy showers on Sunday night in Vijayapura district gave rise to flash floods in the Doni river and Sogali stream.

An overflowing Doni river submerged the Talikote - Hadaginal bridge, a remnant from the colonial era, and also submerged some agricultural lands. Only recently, these agricultural lands were sown with toor dal plants.

Similarly, many SSLC students also struggled to cross the bridge to reach their examination centres on Monday.

Many houses were also flooded due to the rainfall at Nalatwad and Talikote taluk. Muddebihal, Basavana Bagewadi and Sindagi taluks also witnessed heavy rainfall.

A 40-year-old farmer from Dharwad district was washed away in the Tuppari Halla stream, which is prone to flood during the monsoon season.

Likewise, a truck carrying cotton also got washed away in a stream in Yadgir district.

"There is an offshore trough and a circulation, because of which rain will continue in the coastal area. Only Malnad has not got sufficient rain this year. Probably after two days, Malnad may get some rains," Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC) Director Srinivas Reddy said. Otherwise, entire state got normal rainfall, said Reddy, though it is not active over Malnad.

Mangaluru/Mysuru, May 19: Though the Karnataka government permitted the private buses, operators in Dakshina Kannada district have decided not to operate buses until May end. In Mysuru district too the private buses remained off the roads.

Dakshina Kannada Bus Owners’ Association President Dilraj Alva said “Technically, private bus operators are not able to operate services as all of us have surrendered our permits. If we start services we will have to pay the tax for entire month. Hence, we have decided to resume bus services from June 1.”

The private buses had suspended their services since March 24.

In addition, bus owners also have two more demands which the state government needs to consider on priority, he said.

“We have requested the government to exempt private buses from paying tax for the next six months. We were not plying buses during lockdown and it will be tough for us in the next three months to operate as per new conditions.”

“The government has allowed only 30 persons in each bus to maintain social distancing. In addition, we have been urging the state government for bus fare revision since 2013. The government has revised the bus fares of KSRTC twice after that,” Alva said adding that bus owners will be meeting Mangaluru RTO on Tuesday.

Bengaluru, Jun 10: The Karnataka government on Wednesday said coronavirus tests conducted in the state has crossed the four lakh mark, while the recovery rate remained at 44 per cent.

Sharing the daily COVID-19 bulletin on his Twitter handle, Medical Education Minister Dr K Sudhakar said till Tuesday 4,00,257 samples were tested in 71 COVID-19 testing labs across the state.

"Karnataka crossed 4 lakh tests mark on Tuesday. So far, we tested 4,00,257 samples in 71 #COVID19 testing labs across the state with a positivity rate of 1.4 per cent," he said.

He tweeted that the state's recovery rate remained healthy at 44 per cent with 2,605 discharges and 5,921 cumulative cases.

The minister said Karnataka was home to nearly a tenth of the total testing labs in India.

According to the Karnataka Health department, out of the four lakh odd samples tested, 3,87,027 samples were reported negative.

The total active cases in the state as on Tuesday evening were 3,248 whereas 66 people lost their lives to coronavirus so far.

Major contributors to the spike in COVID-19 cases in Karnataka are those who returned from Maharashtra recently.