Mangaluru may not face drinking water shortage this summer

Bengaluru, May 26: Former Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah today held a video conference with Kannadiga businessmen in Saudi Arabia and paid heed to the woes of Saudi Kannadigas amidst covid-19 lockdown.

Sheikh Karnire, Director of Operations Expertise Contracting Co, Mohammad Mansoor, Chairman of Saara Group and President of OIC Bahrain, and Ismaeel, CEO of Realtech Industrial Services among others explained Mr Siddaramaiah the need to operate repatriation flights from Saudi Arabia to Mangaluru and Bengaluru. 

They said among the thousands of stranded Kannadigas in Saudi Arabia there are a large number of pregnant women, elderly people, patients who need immediate medical attention. 

They urged Siddaramaiah to exert pressure on the chief minister of Karnataka B S Yediyurappa and union ministers to arrange repatriation flights in the current schedule of Vande Bharat Mission itself. 

Siddaramaiah assured to take up the issue with the chief minister and other authorities concerned.

Chithradurga, Mar 25: COVID-19-positive cases in Karnataka jumped to 42 from 33 on Tuesday, with nine cases added to the list overnight. The daughter of G M Siddeshwara, Davanagere MP, is the latest case.

Sources from the Siddeshwara family said that the MP’s daughter, along with her two children, who started from Guyana, first landed at New York airport and from there, she took a flight to New Delhi.

From Delhi, she flew to Bengaluru. And then, she and her children travelled with her father in a chaffeur-driven car on March 21 to their house in Bheemasamudra.


Siddeshwara said that protocol for COVID-19 had been followed and all who returned were under self-quarantine at his house. However, the administration was not informed of her travel history till the samples were given for test, Chitradurga Deputy Commissioner Vinoth Priya R told TNIE. The DC said the test results of the MP’s daughter were collected by district health authorities and sent to Shivamogga Institute of Medical Sciences on March 22.

The test turned out to be positive for COVID-19 and she was shifted to the isolation ward at Chigateri district hospital in Davanagere. This is the first positive case in Chitradurga.The patient, who is the wife of an Indian Diplomat in Guyana, complained of flu-like symptoms and remained self-quarantined at her house at Bheemasamudra. Her condition was informed to the health department, which collected her samples and forwarded it to the SIMS for tests, results of which arrived on Tuesday evening.

The DC said that samples of family members including the two children, and those working at the MP’s house would be collected and sent for testing to ensure proper protocol is followed. The administration has declared a ‘red zone of a 5km radius around Siddeshwara’s house at Bheemasamudra. DHO Dr Palaksha said that the patient is not suffering any serious problems and is normal. However, we have put her in the isolation ward of Chigateri District Hospital in Davangere, he said.

Kasaragod, May 25: An autorickshaw driver from Belur in Kasaragod was admitted for surgery to a hospital after being hit on the head by a falling jackfruit. He was tested positive for the coronavirus. It is not clear how he contracted the viral infection.

“While he was trying to pluck a jackfruit off a tree, one of them fell on him, injuring his spine. His hands and legs were weakened too. His condition required surgery. Our protocol dictates that we subject everyone who require immediate surgery to the covid test, just to be sure. That’s when he tested positive,” said Dr K Sudeep, superintendent of the Pariyaram Medical College in Kannur.

“He had symptoms of Covid-19. But he has no recent travel history or contact with any infected person. We’re not sure if he got it through one of his passengers in the rickshaw. He had visited the district hospital once so he could have got it from there. Anyway, we are examining it and preparing the route maps,” he added.

His family will be quarantined and health workers have begun to trace his immediate primary contacts.

Though there have been a number of cases in Kerala where a person’s source of infection could not be correctly ascertained, such people have gone on to recover without spreading the infection to others.

The Kerala government is conducting testing of high-risk persons on the frontlines, such as police officials, grocery vendors and health workers, as part of its sentinel surveillance programme, but maintains that there’s little evidence of a community spread in the state.