Mahasabha firm on Veerashaiva-Lingayat dharma

Bengaluru, Jan 16: Members and activists of social organisation Rakshana Vedike on Thursday staged a protest and demanded the arrest of BJP MLA Somashekhara Reddy, for his 'provocative' remarks and statements.

The protesters gathered near Gandhi’s statue near Maurya circle in the city and demanded that the BJP MLA should be arrested immediately.

The protesters alleged that Reddy’s remark were aimed at inciting communal hatred and that his remarks do not do justice to his being an elected representative of the people in the state assembly.

Mangaluru/Kasaragod, Jun 30: In what appears to be an ego clash between the officers of Karnataka and Kerala, around 150 Mangalureans including 12 pregnant women were evicted from the lodges in Kasaragod in the middle of the night and sent to Mangaluru.

Expressing shock over the incident, Mangaluru MLA U T Khader hit out at the authorities concerned for the lack of concern towards the stranded passengers. “If IAS officers don’t have humanity, what is the use of the IAS tag. Officers in the two states should learn to speak to one another and solve people’s problems,” he said apparently addressing DCs of Kasaragod and Dakshina Kannada. 

The 150 passengers had arrived on Saturday from Dubai in a chartered flight arranged by the Karnataka Cultural Foundation. The flight landed in Kannur after it was denied permission to land in Mangaluru.

But Karnataka’s nodal officer for stranded persons outside India C N Meena Nagaraj, an IAS officer, called up Kerala officials and questioned why the flight was allowed to land in Kannur, Khader said. She reportedly told Kerala officials that the passengers should be quarantined in the cities of arrival and that Karnataka would not take them in.

In the meantime, the Karnataka Cultural Foundation arranged seven buses to take the passengers to Mangaluru. By the time it was conveyed to them that they would not be allowed to enter Mangaluru, the buses had reached Kasaragod district. The representatives of the organisation made frantic calls to several political leaders. Congress leader and district panchayat standing committee chairperson Harshad Vorkady said he got a call for help around 10pm on Saturday. He spoke to owners of three lodges to accommodate them. The lodges were used by the district administration as quarantine centres. 

The lodge owners said they would take the passengers in only if the Kasaragod tahsildar gave permission. “So I called up the tahsildar. He only wanted to know who will pay for the lodging and food. When I told him that the passengers will pay, he gave permission. By midnight, all the passengers were put up in the three lodges,” he said. The police were also at the spot, he said.

According to the Covid protocol, those arriving from abroad should be in institutional quarantine for seven days and in room quarantine for another seven days. But by 4pm on Sunday, the police returned to the lodges and asked the passengers to vacate. They said it was the order of the collector. They produced the order to the lodge owners. The office-bearers of the Karnataka Cultural Foundation said they sought time from the Kasaragod police to arrange rooms in Mangaluru. But Kasaragod police denied it. 

On Sunday, there were Covid deaths in Mangaluru and the Mangaluru deputy commissioner was tied up as residents were objecting to the funeral of one of the victims. “By night, the police started threatening the lodge owners. The members of the Foundation said they would shift the passengers by Monday morning. But the collector would not listen,” said Harshad.

Around 11pm, the Kasaragod district administration brought in four KSRTC buses and sent all the 150 passengers to Mangaluru, he said. By 1am the buses crossed the Thalapdy border and Khader took over from there. But the MLA was livid with how officials treated the people. Collector Sajith Babu in a statement said his enquiry found that the tahsildar did not give permission to accommodate the passengers in Kasaragod lodges.

More than 500 flights are expected to be operated in the fourth phase of Vande Bharat Mission, the “paid evacuation” mission of the government of India during covid-19 crisis.

This includes both Air India and private carriers who are ramping up their operations in a big way. 

Air India will be operating 170 flights till 15th of July to and from 17 countries, including Australia, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Canada, Germany, Japan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Philippines.

Private airlines such as IndiGo and GoAir will have significant participation in the fourth phase of Vande Bharat Mission. 

The Civil Aviation Ministry said that among others, Indigo will operate 238 flights from Qatar and 219 flights from Kuwait. GoAir will operate 41 flights from Kuwait. Phase Four will particularly focus on countries where there still are a large number of Indians who have registered to return.

Meanwhile, a record five lakh stranded Indians have returned safely to India under the Mission till now. The operations commenced on 7th May and in less than two months, nearly five lakh four thousand stranded Indians from 137 countries have returned to their homes.