Dubai: The father of a 16-year old girl who came on a visit visa to the UAE to visit him is desperate for help as she has been hospitalised, even as he has been rendered jobless.
On February 6, Amber D’Couto flew into Dubai from Mangaluru, India, along with her older sister, Alison, 19. The girls wanted to visit their dad Vivian D’Couto who was working in an automobile company at Jebel Ali.
The father was overjoyed to meet his girls until things took an ugly turn.
Two months into her stay, Amber fell seriously ill, even as D’Couto was served a termination letter by his company.
D’Couto said his daughter, a Grade 10 student, was perfectly healthly but suddenly developed high fever and began vomiting. She was rushed to a private hospital in Qusais which could not accommodate her because of the ongoing COVID-19 situation.
On April 30, she was admitted to another private hospital in the same area. After testing negative for COVID-19 thrice, she was diagnosed with acute pancreatis and Rheumatoid fever.
While the girl remains in hospital, the bill has spiralled to over Dh50,000, D’Couto said, adding that without a job now, he had no means to pay the huge amount.
“Amber is a very sweet child and a very bright student. She was living a very healthy life prior to coming to Dubai. But she is so ill now and under round-the-clock vigil in the ICU. The treatment for her condition is very specific and costly.”
A worried man, he said: “My daughter was on a visit visa and she had no insurance. We appeal to compassionate people to help us out in this difficult hour. Due to the current situation, I have lost my job and I am unable to pay for her medical expenses. Her condition has not stabilised yet and I am taking each day as it comes. I trust the doctors to help her recover, and we hope to be repatriated to India at the earliest so she can get further medical care.”
New Delhi, Jun 9: Elections to seven seats of the Karnataka Legislative Council will be held on June 29, the poll panel announced on Tuesday.
The seven seats are falling vacant on June 30, according to an Election Commission statement.
Members of the Karnataka Legislative Assembly will vote on June 29 to elect the seven new MLCs.
The Commission has directed the Karnataka chief secretary to depute a senior officer to ensure that the instructions regarding COVID-19 containment measures are complied with during the elections.
The counting of votes will be held on the evening of June 29 after completion of polls, as per practice.
The notification for the elections will be issued on June 11, the statement said.
MLCs are usually elected by four types of electors -- MLAs, Graduates, Teachers and members of local authorities.
On Monday, the Commission had deferred elections to four seats of the Karnataka Legislative Council -- two each from Teachers and Graduate constituencies -- falling vacant on June 30 due to the outbreak of the novel coronavirus.
"If MLAs are electors, the size of the electorate is small and the assembly building is the only polling station. When the electorate is teachers or graduates, the number of those who can vote is higher.
Due to the virus, Commission only allowed polls to seats where MLAs are the electors to prevent large gatherings," explained a senior EC functionary.
Mangaluru, Feb 10: Sandeep Malani has been of lately winning back to back awards at various events and film festivals. Being an actor, he has won 3 Best Actor awards (2 for his gripping performance in the Kannada feature film, Mookavismitha, directed by Gurudutt Sreekanth and one award for his multi faceted performance in the short film, Nishyabda Nishi directed by his son Silver). These awards were honored at the Indian Cine Film Festival in Mumbai and Karunadu Kannada Rathna Award in Bengaluru.
He also won an award for his woman empowerment film, Sulige Sikkidaaga in Pune, while his musical documentary on Sridevi titled SrideviBaaz won him two awards at Pune and Kolhapur International film festivals. His other short film on transgender Mamta (Maternal Love) won the Audience Awards in USA.
Very recently he was honored by the Filmaholic Foundation in Bengaluru for being a successful short film maker with two Kannada films Jo Jo Laali and Sulige Sikkidaaga, both featuring award winning actress Kalpana Pandit, winning multiple awards and making news at International Film Festivals. This honor was given at the Karnataka Youth International Short Film Festival.
With donning so many feathers of awards in his hat, he recently bagged the most prestigious one; that being receiving the Award for Best Feature Film shot on Mobile for his film ‘Maa – Yeh CineMaa Hai’ shot on iPhone at the 1st ever IMFF India (International Mobile Film Festival India 2020) held at World Trade Center, Mumbai on 8th February.
With a whole lot short films in the category and barely few feature films in the Feature Film Category, Malani verged out to be the winner as his Hindi film was a complete family entertainer that of 5 songs, sentiment value, and a wholesome entertainer with 100 artists working in the film that consists of stage and television actors, newcomers, models and common people. The film starred Sandeep’s family members playing important roles. His mother, Meena Malani (playing the title role), wife Reshma Malani (playing one of the lead actress) and son Silver Malani (playing an important character). The cast includes Mahesh Dulam, Anita Dulam, Ranjeet Jha, Bharath Lakshmikanth, Mahendra Pandey, Vishal Digani, Akash Hora, Shuba Raksha, Sanjukta Ghosh, Sharanya Kaur, Varsha Acharya, Kkewal Sharma, Anant Joshi, Vivek Punjabi, Valerian Menezes, Nigel Pereira. Veteran actresses Sarojini Shetty, Deepali Khambadkone, Vinny Fernandes also features in the film while Kalpana Pandit, Sudha Chandran, Sonal Monteiro, Adaa Khan and others give a social message on mother, womanhood and empowerment. The film has been jointly produced by RKJ Film Productions, The Studio Agency and Malani Talkies.
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