Modi plays nationalism card, rakes up surgical strike in Karnataka

Bengaluru, Jul 13: Karnataka Minister CT Ravi has tested positive for COVID-19. However, his wife and staff members have tested negative.

"Yesterday, I along with my wife Pallavi and my staff members underwent COVID-19 test. Fortunately, my wife Pallavi and all my staff members are tested negative. Third umpire's result for me has confirmed that I'm COVID Positive. However, I'm feeling absolutely fine," Ravi tweeted.

"For now, I'll continue to work from here and undergo treatment. Very soon, I'll get cured and come back to work with you all," he added.
So far, Karnataka has reported 36,216 COVID-19 cases, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. 

Bengaluru, May 12: About 101 labourers bound for Rajasthan from Bengaluru in a goods truck were detained near a border Checkpost at Hirebagewadi village in Belagavi taluk on the Pune-Bengaluru national highway and have been sent into institutional quarantine on Tuesday.

Police said that the Labourers comprising of men, women and children had been travelling towards Rajasthan in a goods truck without permission from Karnataka and even from their home State Rajasthan.

In the morning hours, police and other department personnel manning the check post near...check post near Hirebagewadi detained them.

Lucknow, Apr 13: Muslims in Uttar Pradesh are now worried that the intense communal profiling of the Corona patients by the official agencies could lead to lynching incidents once the lockdown is lifted.

Muslim scholar and former SP spokesman, Abdul Hafiz Gandhi, on Monday said, "The manner in which the government agencies are identifying persons belonging to Tablighi Jamaat in the list of Covid-19 patients is now translating into intense communal profiling which has been prohibited by the World Health Organization and the central government. A very small percentage of Muslims subscribe to the Tablighi Jamaat ideology but the impression going around is that the Muslim community, in general, is spreading coronavirus."

He said that there was a strong possibility of Muslims, in general, being attacked after the lockdown is lifted.

"This is exactly what happened on the cow slaughter issue. Even a small rumour led to people being lynched by mobs across the country. Corona is a pandemic and should be treated like one. We should fight against the virus together instead of creating a communal divide. Every day, the government spokesman lays down the number of Corona positive cases and then goes on to say how many of them are from Tablighi Jamaat," he explained.

Amir Haider, a social activist and also a veteran Congress leader, echoed similar sentiments when he said, "We strongly condemn the Tablighi Jamaat for ignoring the protocols and holding the congregation but why is the state government repeatedly harping on the religious angle. Shia and Sunni clerics are repeatedly asking the people to adhere to government guidelines and follow safety protocols.

He said that efforts to create a communal divide on the corona issue could have dangerous ramification after the lockdown is lifted."

A retired IAS officer, who did not wish to be named, said, that people have already started objecting to taking home deliveries from Muslim employees.

"My neighbours refused to take delivery of groceries from a Muslim boy. This is just the beginning of the narrative that is being drilled into the minds. We must check this before it explodes into something very dangerous," he said.