Chikkamagaluru, Apr 30: A couple died when lightning struck them at Teguru village of Chikkamagaluru district on Monday late evening.
Police said on Tuesday that the incident took place when they were returning home with domestic animals tied in the agriculture land and all off a sudden heavy rain lashed and lightning struck them.
The victims have been identified as Photographer Manjunath Achari (51) and his wife Bharathi (44).
Bengaluru, Jul 30: As the protest by Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) workers entered the 20th day, Karnataka Health Minister B Sriramulu on Wednesday assured them that he would take up their demands with Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa.
The ASHA workers are sitting in protests with a number of demands that include a minimum salary of Rs 12,000 per month.
Assuring that their matter will be taken up, Karnataka Health Minister B Sriramulu said while speaking to reporters, "We know how hard ASHA workers have been working as frontline warriors in the fight against COVID-19. I will discuss with CM about their demand for a minimum wage of Rs 12,000 per month and the final decision will be taken soon."
"We went to the police to allow us to protest. Officials then took us to the CM. During the meeting, he demanded some time to sort out our issues.
We told him we are protesting for the past 20 days and that it was he who needs to call a meeting with us. Only then will he know the problems being faced by ASHA workers," an ASHA worker said clad in her signature pink sari.
"When asked as to why salaries of ASHA workers were not hiked, while it was done for doctors and other healthcare officials, the CM requested for time to look into the matter.
We are not much happy now, but will if he comes in front of the media and promises to sort out our issues, then we will listen to him", she added.
Bengaluru, Jan 10: The National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST), which met with officials of the Social Welfare Department Thursday, has urged the state government to increase the reservation provided to the ST community.
The Commission's suggestion comes even as a committee headed by Justice Nagamohan Das is currently studying a demand for increase of reservation for the community from the existing 3% to 7.5%.
Addressing mediapersons on Thursday, Commission Chairperson Nand Kumar Sai, said the Commission had discussed the issue with the Social Welfare Department, Karnataka, asking officials to expedite the process.
In response to this suggestion, Social Welfare Department Principal Secretary G Kumar Naik said the government would take a call based on the Nagamohan Das Committee's report.
A meeting was held between members of the National ST Commission and the Social Welfare Department Thursday with regard to various projects taken up by the department.
In June last year, the then Kumaraswamy-led coalition government constituted the Justice Nagamohan Das Committee, after protests from members of the Valmiki community for an increase in reservation to 7.5%. At present, Karnataka provides 15% reservation for SCs, 3% for STs and 32% for other backward classes (OBC).
The national commission also urged the state government to ensure permanent faculty in all the 824 residential institutions run by the department. At present, as much as 50% of the faculty in these institutions have been hired on a contractual basis. "We have assured that the recruitment will be done in a short time," Naik told mediapersons.
The euphoria over the claim that around 3,000 tonnes of gold reserves, worth Rs 12 trillion, have been discovered in Uttar Pradesh’s Sonbhadra district could not last even 24 hours, with the Geological Survey of India (GSI) clarifying on Saturday there had been no such discovery.
The GSI, headquartered in Kolkata, rebutted the claims of the Uttar Pradesh Directorate of Geology and Mining (UPDGM), and said “miscommunication” must have led to the wrong reporting of facts.
M Sridhar, director general of the GSI, said nobody in the agency gave any such data. He said 52,806 tonnes of gold ore was found in Sonbhadra district during the exploration work in 1998-2000. From this reserve, only 160 kg of gold can be extracted.
“There must have been some miscommunication of facts because of which the gold ore deposits have been overestimated. We have written a letter to Uttar Pradesh (UPDGM), stating the facts. The GSI has not estimated such kind of vast resource of gold deposits in Sonbhadra,” Sridhar said.
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The UPDGM had said on Friday that gold deposits were found in Son Pahadi and Hardi areas of the district. Sridhar said while gold ore was found in the area during the GSI’s exploration work in 1998-2000, it had told the state government about the discovery in November last year.
Under the new regulation, which came into effect from 2015, the GSI has to inform the state government when ore deposits are discovered. Earlier, no such action was mandatory. In its report, the GSI estimated that only 3.03 gm of gold can be extracted from a tonne of ore. It also clarified that even the extraction amount was tentative and could not be established for certain.
Moreover, Sridhar said the deposits were spread across only 0.5 sq km in forest land, which made the mining of ore economically unviable. “When there are several mines nearby, we can club it into a block and then it makes sense to mine the ore. But in this case, the deposits are too small to make it viable for any company to mine it,” he said. The GSI usually prioritises its exploration work based on the needs of the Centre. While strategic minerals like tin, cobalt, lithium, beryllium, germanium, gallium, indium, tantalum, niobium, selenium, and bismuth are atop the list in GSI exploration, gold is another commodity on its priority list.
According to the World Gold Council, India has reserves of 630 tonnes of gold.
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