People urged to uphold peace, humanity to build a powerful Hindustan'

Bengaluru, Jan 2: Accusing Prime Minister Narendra Modi of "neglecting" Karnataka ahead of his visit on Thursday, the state Congress questioned why he did not give adequate relief and pay a visit to the state, when most of its parts were affected by severe floods last year.

Modi will begin his two-day visit to the state on Thursday afternoon.

The Congress' Karnataka unit in a series of tweets also questioned the Prime Minister about not conferring the "Bharat Ratna" on Shivakumara Swamiji of Siddaganga Math, who passed away last year at the age of 111 years.

"Why you did not visit the state, when it was affected by floods? Despite the damage of over Rs 1 lakh crore why you did not declare it as a national disaster? Why you did not give interim relief? When the state government has given a report that the damage caused was to the tune of Rs 35,300 crore why did you sit quiet by giving just Rs 1,200 crore," the state Congress tweeted.

As many as 103 taluks in 22 districts of Karnataka were affected due to unprecedented floods in August, in which over 80 people were killed.

Around seven lakh people were shifted to safe areas during the deluge and thousands of houses were damaged.

In October, various parts of the state faced a deluge for the second time in two months, killing over 13 people and damaging thousands of houses.

Asking as to why the Centre was not giving the state's share of GST amount adequately, the Congress questioned as to why dues under MNREGA programme were not paid so far, and why Karnataka was being neglected while allocating grants.

Questioning Modi as to why he did not visit Tumakuru when Shivakumara Swamiji of Siddaganga Math passed away, the principal opposition party in the state Assembly, also sought to know why the seer was not conferred with the Bharat Ratna yet.

It also pointed out that former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had written a letter in this regard in January 2018.

The Congress has also hit out at the BJP-led Central government over imposition of Hindi language by neglecting regional languages and mother tongue.

The Prime Minister will kickstart his visit to the state by paying tributes to the late pontiff's 'Gadduge' (final resting place) at the Math premises near Tumakuru.

Later, he will attend an event organised to give away Krishi Karman awards and to distribute fishing equipment at the government college ground in Tumakuru, before leaving for Bengaluru where he will be attending a DRDO event.

On Friday he will be inaugurating 107th Indian Science Congress here.

May 6: Congress general secretary KC Venugopal on Tuesday termed as "inhumane" the government's decision to "impose excessive costs" on NRIs and expatriates for bringing them into the country from COVID-19-affected nations.

He demanded that the central government fly in the poor and vulnerable free of cost while charge the others with normal fares instead of high costs.

"The central government's decision to impose excessive costs on NRIs flying in special flights from the Covid-affected countries is an inhumane act," he said in a statement.

Venugopal said it was due to protests by a large number of expatriates and their relatives as well as the general public over the past few days that the central government took the decision to bring back Indian citizens from abroad.

"However, it is cruel that the Central government has taken advantage of this plight of expatriates by increasing the price of air fares up to three times. This is inhumane," Venugopal said in his statement.

He urged the Centre to take urgent steps to provide free travel to the most vulnerable, unemployed, sick and pregnant women and to others on normal fare.

Air India will operate 64 repatriation flights for a week from May 7 while the Navy deployed two ships as India rolled out a massive evacuation plan on Tuesday to bring back thousands of its nationals stranded abroad due to the coronavirus-triggered lockdown.

Those availing the repatriation flights will be charged, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri told a virtual press conference in New Delhi. A passenger on a London-Delhi flight will be charged Rs 50,000 and on a Dhaka-Delhi flight Rs 12,000, he added.

From the Gulf countries to Malaysia and the UK to the US, the multi-agency operation christened 'Vande Bharat Mission' will see the state-owned airline operate the non-scheduled commercial flights till May 13 to ferry around 15,000 Indian nationals from 12 countries.

Bengaluru, Jan 12: Karnataka’s ranking in Niti Aayog’s sustainable development goals (SDG) index rose by one place to No. 6 in 2019, compared to the year before.

Of the 17 SDGs that are used to compute the overall index, Karnataka topped in two – ‘climate action’ and ‘life on water’. The former is a measure of how well a state integrates climate action into policies and strategies and promote mechanisms for raising capacity for effective climate change planning and management. The latter focuses on preventing marine pollution, ending illegal and destructive fishing practices, and sustainably managing and protecting marine and coastal ecosystems.

It also did well in ‘decent work and economic growth’ and ‘peace, justice and strong institutions’. But it fared poorly, slipping 16 places – from No. 5 in 2018 to No. 21 in 2019 – in ‘industry, innovation and infrastructure’. Rankings in ‘quality education’ and ‘zero hunger’ have also fallen. While in education it is now ranked 7, a drop of three places, in ‘zero hunger’, it has dropped to No. 17 from 13. SDG is a United Nations initiative. Niti Aayog has customised it for India, and 36 states and union territories are ranked. The organisation admits there is an issue of data availability in India, indicating the numbers may not exactly reflect the ground situation.

In ‘industry, innovation and infrastructure, Karnataka scored just 40 out of a target of 100. The country average was 65. It failed to achieve targets in all the four parameters for the category, except in the number of mobile connections, where it has 100 connections per 100 population. The biggest dip was in manufacturing industry jobs and in providing allweather roads under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana to targeted habitats. Niti Ayog has given a score of 0 for the latter. Speaking on the dismal performance in the ‘industry and infrastructure’ category, state planning commission vice-chairman BJ Puttaswamy said he was yet to look into this parameter. “I have asked the departments concerned to meet me by Monday,” he said.