Fisherman feared dead; search operation called off

Bengaluru, Mar 19: Karnataka High Court on Wednesday rejected the plea by Congress leader Digvijay Singh seeking directions to the police to allow him to meet rebel Madhya Pradesh Congress MLAs who are lodged in Bengaluru.

Earlier in the day, Singh said at a press conference, "I have filed a plea in the Karnataka High Court, seeking permission to meet Madhya Pradesh Congress MLAs who are putting up at Bengaluru. I have decided to be on fast and shall take a call on that after the decision of the Supreme Court and the High Court," Singh said at a press conference here earlier.

Singh said, "The BJP is busy in toppling duly-elected governments. We had successfully thwarted their plans to destabilise the MP government but we were let down by Jyotiraditya Scindia who had a very successful career in Congress."

"We never expected that he would ditch us and join hands with the BJP," he added.

The Congress leader also said that the BJP government had become insecure since the Kamal Nath-led government started tightening the laws on mining.

"Chief Minister Kamal Nath drafted a new mining policy for the sand under which the mines were allotted through auction. All this was unpalatable to the BJP and from Day 1 they started offering money to our Congress legislators," he said.

"In BJP, the Atal Bihari Vajpayee's kind of leadership no longer exists. The leadership which controls the BJP now includes people who have joined hands to do all kinds of unscrupulous things which has led to a stage in India where the banks are collapsing, non-performing assets and unemployment are growing," he added.

Earlier today, he was put under preventive arrest after he sat on a dharna near Ramada Hotel here allegedly for not being allowed to meet the 21 rebel Congress MLAs lodged in the hotel.

Tumakuru, Feb 5: Former Lokayukta Justice N Santhosh Hegde has questioned the integrity of the B S Yediyurappa led BJP government as it has not taken an action to abolish the Anti Corruption Bureau (ACB) to re-establish the Lokayukta in Karnataka.

Speaking after felicitating the retired scientist of NASA Gopal Iyengar at the Karnataka Public School at Kadaba in Gubbi taluk he reminded that the BJP had promised to establish the Lokayukta.

"No party will like to strengthen the Lokayukta and now BSY is also tightlipped and even put an end by appreciating that ACB has been doing a good job", he regretted.

In fact, the Lokayakuta had the power to prosecute even the top brass of officials and now the ACB cannot without the government's permission, he clarified.

He denied any remarks on the CAA and NRC but observed that the youths of the country have been misguided by the politicians as they lost their focus on education by involving in protest rallies.

"I suggest they to straight away take a political plunge instead of getting misused at the hands of the politicians with selfish motives", he said.

Bengaluru, Jun 8: Normal life is slowly returning to normal across Karnataka with the state government further easing the restrictions by throwing open places of worship, hotels, malls for the public.

Despite these places being opened after a gap of more than two months, the places wore a deserted look as the people are and cautious and not ready to take of risk of venturing out amid the ongoing Corona threat.

"Business is not as heavy as expected though it was allowed after a gap of almost three months. You can see for yourself the crowd, it is not what it should have been in a commercial area like this prior to the imposition of lockdown. However, hope it will improve", a Cloth merchant B Ramesh told UNI when asked for his reaction.