Mangaluru: Homestay attacker Subahsh Padil attacked on court premises

Mangaluru, Jul 19: Palakkad Division of Southern Railway that has jurisdiction over Mangaluru Railway region has established a business development unit (BDU) to cater to the transportation of various sectors, including non-bulk goods traffic, namely, white goods, finished products, manufactured products, agricultural produce and raw material.

In a statement issued here on Sunday said that the BDU’s mandate was to facilitate seamless interaction between the Railways on the one hand and industry, trade representatives and rail freight customers on the other at appropriate zonal or divisional levels. The unit was also expected to help expeditious clearance of their proposals for freight movement.

Palakkad Divisional Railway Manager Pratap Singh Shami established the BDU in line with the similar unit at the zonal level with other divisions of SR too setting up similar units. Palakkad BDU would work under the supervision of Additional DRM-II CT Sakkeer Hussain while Senior Divisional Operations Manager PL Ashok Kumar was its convener with Senior Divisional Commercial Manager Jerin G Anand, Senior Divisional Mechanical Engineer KV Sundaresan and Senior Divisional Finance Manager AP Sivachandrar were its members.

Bengaluru, Jan 24: Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa on Friday said the much-delayed Cabinet expansion will take place in the next three days.

At the Kempegowda International Airport, after his arrival from Davos, he informed that he would discuss the matter with Union Home Minister Amit Shah to take a final decision on the distribution of important portfolios.

Deputy CM Ashwanath Narayna, Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai and others received the Chief Minister at the airport. The issue of Cabinet expansion was kept in abeyance, ever since the spectacular victory of 12 Assembly seats for BJP, for which the by-elections were held recently. The bypolls were necessitated, following the resignation of about 17 sitting Congress and JD (S) MLAs, which resulted in the collapse of the JDS-Congress coalition government in the state.

BJP had reportedly lured the Congress and JD (S) MLAs into their camp, after promising them to give party ticket to contest the elections, as well as ministerial berths. The Chief Minister had kept as many as 16 Cabinet berths, along with plum portfolios, vacant, after forming the BJP government, with the support of the deserted Congress and JD (S) MLAs, in July last. However, the issue of Cabinet expansion had postponed on one reason or the other, as Yediyurappa was struggling to keep the promise he had made to the former Congress and the JDS MLAs, on whose sacrifice the BJP came back to power.

With the strong demand for ministerial berths within the loyal BJP MLAs, the BJP high command had reportedly advised Yediyurappa to accommodate only a few of the turncoat MLAs and strike balance between the groups.

However, Yediyurappa, who had assured the Congress and JD (S) MLAs of giving them Cabinet berths, had been in dilemma ever since and found it tough to convince the party's Central leaders.

According to party sources, the Chief Minister is not only facing problems over the expansion of his Cabinet, but is also worried over the demand for creation of more number of Deputy Chief Ministers, adding to the present list of three.

Chikkamagaluru, Jan 28: Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister and Minister for Public Works Govind Karjol on Tuesday said that he is ready to quit if the post asks him to do so to pave way for smooth expansion of the Cabinet.

Responding to a question from media persons on the issue here, he said he was ready to quit his post any time.

“If the party asks me to resign now, I will send back my official car and return by bus”, he added.

Further, he opined that there should not be efforts to seek a berth in the Cabinet based on caste.

“Putting pressure on the party based on caste is not right. The party will consider those who worked for the party and also take district-wise representation into account while filling up the vacancies”, he added.