Mangaluru: College student killed in bike accident at Neermarga

Bengaluru, Jan 24: The JD(S) is looking to leverage anti-Citizen (Amendment) Act (CAA), National Register of Citizens (NRC) and National Population Register (NPR) sentiment sweeping the country to revive itself and will hold protests in Bengaluru and New Delhi.

The Bengaluru protest is scheduled for Friday. At a meeting of party workers in Bengaluru on Thursday, party patriarch HD Deve Gowda and former chief minister HD Kumaraswamy urged the rank and file to participate in the rally to send out a loud and clear message to the BJP.

"The BJP has set out to make Muslims second-grade citizens. India has 40 crore Muslims, can these communal forces eliminate them all?" Gowda said in his address. "We should have the guts to launch a massive protest at Jantar Mantar. We should be prepared to go to jail in the fight against [Prime Minister] Narendra Modi and [Union home minister] Amit Shah."

Gowda said he will lead the rally in Delhi and urged secular parties to unite to take on the BJP. "It is important that regional parties, which share a secular ideology, unite on a common agenda and fight the BJP. Bihar, Kerala and Odisha have said they will not implement CAA. The sentiment is likely to spread to other states," Gowda said.

Kumaraswamy said not only Muslims but many other communities will also bear the brunt of BJP’s "divisive politics". "This pair of Hakka-Bukka [Modi and Shah] is not targeting Muslims alone," he said. "For them, all communities other than upper caste Hindus are inferior Shudras. They will treat even Lingayats, Vokkaligas and Dalits with the same contempt."

The former CM made a special appeal to Lingayats, who generally back the BJP, to stop supporting the saffron party’s caste-oriented politics. "You had appreciated my farm loan waiver scheme and promised support in the elections. But, the results were contrary to that," he said.

The JD(S) passed three resolutions including one to condemn the Centre for enacting CAA. The others were to protest against the Centre’s indifference to the floods in the state and the failed economic policy of the Centre.

Mangaluru, May 15: In a shocking development, five residents of Udupi district, who recently came from United Arab Emirates today tested positive for covid-19.

As many as 49 passengers among over 175 repatriates who were brought from Dubai to Mangaluru International Airport on May 12 were from Udupi district.

Hence they were quarantined in Udupi district and their throat swabs were sent for testing on the same day. Today, five of them obtained positive report. They were today shifted to TMA Pai covid-hospital from their hotel rooms.