Puttur, Jan 4: As many as 27 passengers travelling in a private bus escaped with minor injuries after it toppled and fell into a roadside trench at Amai near Perne on Mangaluru-Bengaluru national highway last night, police said on Saturday.
Police said that the driver of the Bengaluru-bond bus lost control over the vehicle while traversing through the narrow bridge at Amai.
The bus was damaged in the mishap.
Bengaluru, Apr 5: The COVID-19 related lockdown has substantially improved the air quality of Bengaluru, taking it from satisfactory level to good, a senior state pollution control board offcial said here on Sunday.
"During the course of the lockdown 19 problem, we reached good position from satisfactory.
It is between zero to 50 AQI (Air Quality Index) now. We have good quality air," the Karnataka State Pollution Control Board member secretary Basavaraj Patil told PTI.
He said the indicator for knowing the air quality in
"If the AQI is zero to 50 then it is good. If it is 50 to 100 then it is satisfactory. 101 to 150 is moderate and if it is 151 to 200, then it is poor, he explained.
Patil said as per available recrods, there has been a 60 to 65 per cent reduction in pollution during the lockdown.
The city railway station and Peenya industrial area, which used to be among the areas with highest AQI, has seen pollution levels come down significantly, he said.
Another major contributor of pollution was construction activities, which too had ground to a halt due to the lockdown, resulting in zero dust emission.
Patil opined that the improved air quality would boost the immune system of the people.
"It will improve the immune system of people, including those who have breathing problems like asthma," he said.
He asked the public to learn lessons from the lockdown and later switch to sustainable means of transport such as public transport, walking and cycling,.
"We can still reduce the pollution load even after the lockdown is over," Patil said.
Washington, Apr 29: A US government panel on Tuesday called for India to be put on a religious freedom blacklist over a "drastic" downturn under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, triggering a sharp rebuttal from New Delhi.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom recommends but does not set policy, and there is virtually no chance the State Department will follow its lead on India, an increasingly close US ally.
In an annual report, the bipartisan panel narrowly agreed that India should join the ranks of "countries of particular concern" that would be subject to sanctions if they do not improve their records.
"In 2019, religious freedom conditions in India experienced a drastic turn downward, with religious minorities under increasing assault," the report said.
It called on the United States to impose punitive measures, including visa bans, on Indian officials believed responsible and grant funding to civil society groups that monitor hate speech.
The commission said that Modi's Hindu nationalist government, which won a convincing election victory last year, "allowed violence against minorities and their houses of worship to continue with impunity, and also engaged in and tolerated hate speech and incitement to violence."
It pointed to comments by Home Minister Amit Shah, who notoriously referred to mostly Muslim migrants as "termites," and to a citizenship law that has triggered nationwide protests.
It also highlighted the revocation of the autonomy of Kashmir, which was India's only Muslim-majority state, and allegations that Delhi police turned a blind eye to mobs who attacked Muslim neighborhoods in February this year.
Coronavirus state-wise India update: Total number of confirmed cases, deaths on April 29
The Indian government, long irritated by the commission's comments, quickly rejected the report.
"Its biased and tendentious comments against India are not new. But on this occasion, its misrepresentation has reached new levels," foreign ministry spokesman Anurag Srivastava said.
"We regard it as an organization of particular concern and will treat it accordingly," he said in a statement.
The State Department designates nine "countries of particular concern" on religious freedom -- China, Eritrea, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
The commission asked that all nine countries remain on the list. In addition to India, it sought the inclusion of four more -- Nigeria, Russia, Syria and Vietnam.
Pakistan, India's historic rival, was added by the State Department in 2018 after years of appeals by the commission.
In its latest report, the commission said that Pakistan "continued to trend negatively," voicing alarm at forced conversions of Hindus and other minorities, abuse of blasphemy prosecutions and a ban on the Ahmadi sect calling itself Muslim.
India's citizenship law fast-tracks naturalization for minorities from neighbouring countries -- but not if they are Muslim.
Modi's government says it is not targeting Muslims but rather providing refuge to persecuted people and should be commended.
But critics consider it a watershed move by Modi to define the world's largest democracy as a Hindu nation and chip away at independent India's founding principle of secularism.
Tony Perkins, the commission's chair, called the law a "tipping point" and voiced concern about a registry in the northeastern state of Assam, under which 1.9 million people failed to produce documentation to prove that they were Indian citizens before 1971 when mostly Muslim migrants flowed in during Bangladesh's bloody war of independence.
"The intentions of the national leaders are to bring this about throughout the entire country," Perkins told an online news conference.
"You could potentially have 100 million people, mostly Muslims, left stateless because of their religion. That would be, obviously, an international issue," said Perkins, a Christian activist known for his opposition to gay rights who is close to President Donald Trump's administration.
Three of the nine commissioners dissented -- including another prominent Christian conservative, Gary Bauer, who voiced alarm about India's direction but said the ally could not be likened to non-democracies such as China.
"I am deeply concerned that this public denunciation risks exactly the opposite outcome than the one we all desire," Bauer said.
Trump, who called for a ban on Muslim immigration to the US when he ran for president, hailed Modi on a February visit to New Delhi.
Mangaluru, May 25: Four domestic flights that were scheduled to operate from Mangaluru International Airport today have been cancelled.
A total of six flights were scheduled to depart Mangaluru Airport today.
Among them, two flights to Mumbai, one to Chennai and one to Bengaluru were cancelled due to lack of passengers and other reasons, sources said.
The remaining two flights – both to Bengaluru – are expected to take off with limited passengers later in the day.
Domestic flight operations resumed in the country today after a gap of two months. All flight operations had ceased when the nationwide lockdown was imposed in March.
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this is one of the important case that now seen to be increasing these days. and one of the most problem that is faced and had has to be found a solution is overspeeding by bus driving which have resulted in enomours numbers of accidents with negligence of passengers lifes inside the bus. passengers safety and lifes are not given value anymore. and another important factor is overspeeding in humps which have resulted in backbone injuries in high number of passengers
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