Mulayam, CM Akhilesh attend Iftar party in Bangalore

Mangaluru, May 2: The Dakshina Kannada district administration is gearing up to make necessary arragements at the Mangaluru International Airport as the Centre has shown green signal to bring back stranded Indians from the Gulf countries. 

Karnataka is making efforts to bring back 10,823 people stuck abroad. Apart from Mangaluru, Bengaluru Airport also will be used. As many as 6,100 people will be transported in first stage with speical flights. Soon after their arrival, the administraion will send them to compulsary quarantinement in Dakshina Kannada, Udupi, Kodagu and other neighbouring districts.

Dakshina Kannada MP Nalin Kumar Kateeel said that the govt has made elaborate arrangements to conduct medical test on arrival at the airport. As per plan, based on medical check-up, they will be categorised as group A/B/C. Later, they will be quarantined for the mandated days, he added.

The following is the break-up Kannadigas stranded abroad: 4,408 people are tourists/visitors, 3,074 students, 2,784 migrants/working professionals and 557 shipping crew.

Countries from where stranded people will be brought back to Karnataka in the first stage include Canada (329), the US (927), the UAE (2,575), Qatar (414), and Saudi Arabia (927).

Udupi, Jan 7: Eshapriya Teertha Swamiji, who was appointed as the junior Swamiji of Admar Math, would be ascending the 'Paryaya Peeta' for the first time on January 18, Vishwapriya Theertha Swamiji of Admar Math said.

Speaking to the media at Admar Moola Math at Admar near Padubidri on Monday night Vishwapriya Teertha Swamiji of Admar Math said, 'I had performed my first Paryaya in 1988-90 with the help of Shri Vishwapriya Teertharu.

'The second Paryaya was performed independently by the order of Shri Vibudhesha Teertharu in 2004-06.

A 53-year-old Indian worker in the UAE has missed a special repatriation flight after he dozed off at the Dubai International Airport, a media report said.

P Shajahan, who worked as a storekeeper in Abu Dhabi, was supposed to fly to Thiruvananthapuram on the Emirates jumbo jet chartered by the Kerala Muslim Cultural Centre (KMCC) Dubai, Gulf News reported.

It was the first-ever jumbo jet chartered for repatriation.

Shajahan, who had paid 1,100 dirham (USD 300) for the ticket, said that he did not sleep on the previous night as he kept on waiting for the confirmation of his ticket for the jumbo jet flying 427 stranded Indians to Kerala, it said.

He reached the airport early in the morning and after finishing the check-in procedures and rapid test, he reached the waiting area of the boarding gate at Terminal 3 around 2 PM local time, the report said.

“I sat away from most of the others. But I fell asleep after 4.30 PM,” he said.

S Nizamudeen Kollam, who coordinated the charter flight, said that the airline officials could not trace Shajahan when the flight was to take off.

“He woke up and called us after the flight left. It is sad that he missed the flight, which was the first-ever jumbo jet chartered for repatriation. We are now trying to send him on another Emirates flight that we are chartering on Saturday,” Kollam said.

Since Shajahan did not have any money, Jasimkhan Kallambalam, organising secretary of KMCC Thiruvananthapuram, went to the airport to meet him on Friday.

“Since his visa was cancelled, he could not come out of the airport. He had only eaten the snacks in the kit KMCC had given. We managed to give him some cash for buying food through KMCC volunteer Alamsha Latheef,” Kallambalam said.

In March, another Indian expat had fallen asleep in the same terminal and missed the last flight home before flights were suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

He was stranded here for over 50 days before getting repatriated.