Mangaluru: Cong's Harinath is new Mayor; BJP's Sumithra his deputy

Bengaluru, Feb 13: UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer Sajid Javid quit the Boris Johnson government as part of a cabinet reshuffle unfolding on Thursday and has been replaced by Rishi Sunak, reports said.

Indian-descent Sunak, 39, who is married to Akshata, the daughter of Infosys co-founder N.R. Narayana Murthy, was Chief Secretary to the Treasury since July 2019.

An analyst with Goldman Sachs before joining politics in 2014, Sunak, whose grandparents were from Punjab and emigrated to the UK from east Africa, is MP from Richmond (Yorkshire). He was Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Local Government in the Theresa May government.

Pakistani-descent Javid, who became the first Asian to become a Cabinet Minister when he was made Secretary of State of culture, Media and Sports in the David Cameron government in 2014 after stints as Economic Secretary to the Treasury (2012-13) and Financial Secretary (2013-14), was earlier the Home Secretary in the the Theresa May government.

He had then cleared absconding businessman Vijay Mallya's extradition to India in February last year following the decision by the Westminister Magistrates Court in December 2018.

Javid, who ran for Conservative Party leadership after May quit but lost to Boris Johnson, was made Chancellor by the later. In the reshuffle on Thursday, he was offered to retain his post if he fired all his advisors but declined and quit, the BBC reported.

Mysuru, May 15: The Temple Town of Nanjangud was till now treated as one unit or a Cluster Containment Zone and was put under complete lock-down as per the containment protocol listed under COVID-19 regulations and Disaster Management Act, 2005.

However on Friday, some of the restrictions have been lifted by Mysuru Deputy Commissioner Abhiram G Sankar who permitted certain activities as no fresh positive cases were reported from the cluster area. The Cluster Containment Zone was declared on March 29 following one employee of Nanjangud-based Jubilant Generics tested positive for the killer Coronavirus. As there were chances of the positive person spreading the disease to other employees of the factory, the cluster rules were enforced. Moreover, there were over 1,000 employees in the Pharma Company and a majority of them lived in and around Nanjangud.

The declaration of Cluster Containment Zone with complete lock-down and quarantining of all the Pharma Company employees proved a success to the District Administration as whoever tested positive – over 73 were later tested positive — had already been quarantined and the dangerous community spread phase was successfully prevented. To a major extent, the Corona virus curve has been flattened. As such, restrictions have been relaxed a bit on Friday.

Hubballi, Mar 31: In a bid to increase the country's capacity for isolation facilities, the Railways is converting sleeper class coaches into isolation wards by modifying the coaches as per prototype issued by Railway Board to make them suitable to act as quarantine hubs. On South Western Railway (SWR) a total of 312 coaches will be converted for isolation/quarantine wards.

"The coaches will be equipped with basic facilities needed as per medical guidelines. Provision is being made for charging points of mobiles and laptops. Mosquito nets with space for paramedics etc are also being made available. Each coach will provide 8 berth cabin for isolation facility.

Zonal Railways have been advised to prepare coaches as per isolation cabin prototype to meet the needs of the patients by Railway Board," a press statement of SWR reads.

The efforts of Indian Railways have been aimed not only to supplement the present health infrastructure of the nation but also to contribute to national efforts to fight the coronavirus.

According to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, the total number of coronavirus cases in the country stand at 1,251.