Mangaluru: Verbal clash erupts over ‘cattle’ at ‘peace and harmony’ meet

Bengaluru, Jul 4: With the increasing number of COVID-19 cases in Bengaluru, the state government has decided to impose a total lockdown in Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) limits.

The lockdown will start from 8 pm today till 5 am on Monday. The sale of essential items will only be allowed during the total lockdown.

"Complete lockdown to be imposed from 8 pm today till 5 am on Monday in Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) limits, as per instructions by Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa in view of COVID-19," BBMP Commissioner Anil Kumar said on Saturday.

"Sale of essential items will be allowed during the lockdown, including meat shops. Police action will be taken against people found roaming outside unnecessarily," he said.

With the number of cases increasing by 994 in the last 24 hours, the total of cases in the city now stands at 7,713. Of these, 6,297 are active cases.

So far, Karnataka has 19,710 cases with 293 deaths. While 8,805 people have recovered from the deadly virus.

At the national level, the total number of cases have now surged to 6, 48,315 out of which 3, 94,227 patients have recorded, while 18,655 have lost their lives.

Bengaluru, May 28: A thousand government schools in Karnataka are set to get Englishmedium sections from this academic year (2020-21). These institutions will function in both English and Kannada medium.

The decision was taken by primary and secondary education minister S Suresh Kumar and officials of the education department at a meeting on Wednesday.

Suresh Kumar said dualmedium will help improve the standard of schools and enable their development. The poorest of the poor spend almost 40% of their income on their children’s education in private schools. With the introduction of dual-medium, the government hopes such families will be able to save their earnings, he said. These schools will impart lessons in both English and Kannada. They will also provide textbooks in both languages.

‘Kannada must for all’

The meeting reviewed implementation of the compulsory Kannada Language Learning Act, 2015. Officials from the Kannada Development Authority were present at the meeting who claimed that some private schools have failed to implement the Act properly.

“Action will be taken against such institutions. Every child studying in schools across the state must learn Kannada,” Kumar said at the meeting.

Mangaluru, Jan 10: Two members of a notorious honey-trap gang that used to lure rich men using women and then extort money from them by staging fake police raid have been arrested by the Dakshina Kannada district police.

Lohith, a resident of Kushalnagara, and Sharif from Vittal, were arrested in connection with a honey-trap case registered in Uppinangady police station. Jamal, Jeevan and Naushad, who were also involved in the case, are absconding.

Police said they received information that a few people under the guise of being Kerala police, were planning to raid a resort near Uppinangady where two couples were staying.

They were informed that they would threaten and try to extort money from them. The police were tipped off about the same by their counterparts in Kerala.

Police said the accused are experts in setting honeytraps, and were involved in similar crimes since a long time. Their modus operandi was to use two women from Mangaluru to lure their intended targets.

Once they trap their target, the woman and victim are sent to resorts. They then raid the resort posing as police officials, and click pictures in compromising positions of the victim with the woman.

They threaten to release the pictures on social media or TV channels, if they fail to pay up.

Police said the accused demanded Rs 10 lakh from each victim, but they denied to pay up. Irked by this, the accused took away the victims’ belongings such as phone, money and car.

The victims who believed that the accused were police personnel, asked them to take them to the police station. Instead of taking them to the police, the accused took them to a secluded place, where they claimed that they were putting the victims under house arrest. Police have seized an SUV from the accused.