Owaisi to campaign for JD(S), BSP candidates in Karnataka

Bengaluru, Jan 24: On the last day of his four-day trip to Davos, Switzerland, to attend the World Economic Forum, chief minister BS Yediyurappa urged the global business community to invest in cities other than Bengaluru in the state.

On Thursday, while extending an invitation to entrepreneurs to participate in the Global Investors Meet in November in Bengaluru, Yediyurappa highlighted the “conducive investment climate” in the state vis-a-vis others by pointing to its 7% growth rate which is much higher than the national average of below 5%.

He also pointed to the state’s rich history and the fact that it is home to a number of desi MNCs such as Infosys, Biocon Wipro and Dynamatics. “At the same time, the state has one of the lowest unemployment rates compared to the national average,” Yediyurappa said.

In his address to heads of businesses, industries minister Jagadish Shettar also urged investors to consider Tier 2 and 3 cities for investment. “Land banks have been created in Tier 2 and 3 cities and regional connectivity has improved. Let us strive to place Karnataka on a highgrowth path,” Shettar said.

Lending a “helping hand”, Union minister Piyush Goyal, in his address, appealed to the community to invest in Karnataka, which “has a robust and congenial industrial atmosphere”, but also urged them to spread “tentacles” to all parts of the country.

Kochi, May 8: Five people, who were among 181 individuals evacuated from Abu Dhabi, have been sent to the isolation ward of the district hospital after they displayed symptoms of coronavirus during thermal screening.

The first repatriation Air India Express flight with 181 individuals from Abu Dhabi landed at Cochin International Airport here on Thursday.

Among the returnees, 49 women were pregnant and four were children. They have been home-quarantine.

Meanwhile, the rest have been taken to quarantine centres in their respective districts.

The Air India Express flight IX452 to Kochi with 177 passengers and four infants took off from Abu Dhabi International Airport and touched down at Kochi post 10 pm.

The government has made it mandatory for foreign returnees to be quarantined for 14 days, either in a hospital or in an institutional quarantine on payment-basis, by the concerned state government.

A COVID-19 test would be done after 14 days and further action would be taken according to health protocols.

India on Monday began phased repatriation of its citizens stranded abroad due to coronavirus lockdown.

The government said that Air India will operate 64 flights from May 7 to May 13 to bring back around 15,000 Indian nationals stranded abroad amid the COVID-19-induced lockdown.

Starting from 7 May, 64 flights will take off for 12 countries including the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, Maldives, Singapore and the US.

Bengaluru, Feb 28: Historian S. Shettar, 85, breathed his last early on February 28 in Bengaluru. He was suffering from respiratory problems and was hospitalised for over a week.

Shettar was known for his multi-disciplinary work, encompassing linguistics, epigraphy, anthropology, the study of religions and art history. He had extensively worked on the Jain practice of ritual death in Karnataka and Asoka edicts. He had studied and compiled early edicts in Kannada and worked extensively on the growth of Kannada language down the ages.

Born in 1935 at Hampasagara, Ballari district, he went on to study at Cambridge University and started his career as a Professor of History at Karnatak University, Dharwad, his alma mater. He later headed the National Museum Institute of the History of Art, Conservation and Museology in 1978 and Indian Council for Historical Research in 1996. He was also a visiting professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, Bengaluru.

He was a bilingual historian who wrote in English for most of his career, but started writing in Kannada in later years. In the last two decades, he developed a keen interest in linguistics and wrote multiple books on classical Kannada and Prakrit. His 2007 book “Shangam Tamilagam” is considered a seminal work in the study of the early period of Dravidian languages. It won him Bhasha Samman from Central Sahitya Akademi. He later wrote two works on Halegannada, classical Kannada. His most recent work was “Prakrita Jagadvalaya” in 2018.