Prakash Raj slams Modi’s silence over Gauri’s murder; threatens to return 5 National Awards

News Network
October 2, 2017

Bengaluru, Oct 2: Acclaimed Bollywood actor and columnist Prakash Raj, who is known as Prakash Rai in coastal Karnataka, has threatened to return his five National Awards and condemned the silence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on certain sections “celebrating” the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh on social media.

“Those who killed Gauri may or may not be traced but that apart, there is a huge crowd out there enjoying and celebrating on social media. We all know who they are, what their ideology is. Some of those celebrating this ghastly episode are being followed by none other than Mr Modi himself. This is what worries me, where is our country is headed to?” he questioned at the 11th state meet of the Democratic Youth Federation of India (DYFI) in Bengaluru.

He went on to say that he would return his awards. “I say you keep it. I don’t want the awards. Don’t tell me that good days will come,” he said at the event.

He went on to call Modi an actor: “I am a renowned actor, do you (Modi) think I will not be able to detect when you are acting. At least show me some respect, considering the fact that I am an actor and I will be able to tell what is the truth and what is acting.”

He said he was “worried about the PM’s silence”.  Gauri was murdered near her Bengaluru home on September 5. Raj was a close friend of the journalist and an ardent admirer of her father, P Lankesh.

Raj had voiced his opinion after Gauri’s murder too. “I knew Gauri for 30 years. In a sense, we were all children of (P) Lankesh, his ideologies and way of life. I never dreamt that this day would come. We were taught to be honest citizens, who would never seize to raise one’s voice. In fact, I don’t think anyone voiced their opinion more than P Lankesh himself. This was how we were taught to be. It is astonishing to see where we have come to today,” he had said.

Also Read: Not a fool to give my awards to Modi or Yogi: Prakash Raj

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News Network
February 16,2020

Bengaluru, Feb 16: Radhakrishnan V Nair embarked on a journey of exploring complex subjects and opening up the cocoon of existence that puts people in a zone of comfort. One sole mission of the book is to encourage the readers to break out of that comfort zone.

The architect by profession has a novel to his credit, 'The Cave of Freedom' that had earned him critical acclaim from Jnanpith Awardee UR Ananthamurthy. On February 13, a discussion and the reading of his book had the audience riveted to their seats.

The launch of the book on February 13 at Bangalore International Centre was presided over by Bhaskar Rao, Commissioner of Police, Bengaluru, along with Vasudev Murthy, Technology Management Consultant, leadership trainer and author and Ramessh RK, an industrial designer and choir singer who read out passages from the book.

'Radhakrishnan is trying to inspire you to discover the pleasure of breaking the glass barrier along with the protagonist Dr Prateek. The story 'burst out'", said Radhakrishnan when it could not be contained any longer.

The glass ceiling saw a lot of interest from the audience present. The book includes Dr Prateek who is obsessed with saving lives in the Emergency Room (ER) as the world slept. Then on an eerie rainy night, he is kidnapped.

He struggles to come to terms with the improbability of waking up somewhere in Europe and making his serendipitous escape and being back at work the next morning - all physically impossible from the point of view of time and locality.

The glass ceiling challenges you to see tragedies and their impact on a person's mental well-being from a different perspective.

Radhakrishnan V Nair is an architect by profession and runs his Bengaluru-based firm - Archaid, the tagline of which is 'Architecture in Collaboration with Nature'.

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News Network
May 6,2020

Bengaluru, May 6: Karnataka has reported 20 new cases of coronavirus taking total number of cases in the state to 693.

The state health department said in a bulletin on Wednesday that 20 new cases have been confirmed for COVID-19 in the state. "The total number of cases in the state is 693," it said.

The count includes 354 patients who have been discharged and 29 patients who succumbed to the disease.

Out of the remaining cases, 303 patients are in isolation at designated hospitals while six patients are in ICU. The bulletin has also reported one death due to non-COVID cause.

The number of COVID-19 cases in the country reached 49,391, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare on Wednesday morning.

This includes 33,514 active cases and 1,694 deaths due to infection so far.

A total of 14,182 persons have been cured and discharged so far, according to the Health Ministry. One patient has migrated.

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News Network
April 13,2020

Bengaluru, Apr 13: Eminent scientist and NITI Aayog member V K Saraswat said on Monday the number of COVID- 19 cases is not going to go beyond what's being reported daily in India as he maintained that the country is in the process of flattening the curve.

The former Scientific Adviser to Defence Minister said the coronavirus positive cases have seen a sharper rise in the last four-five days because of increase in the number of testing.

"It's a good sign; all those asymptomatic cases lying hidden they are also coming out," Saraswat told PTI. "We certainly had a catalytic factor which was basically this (Nizamuddin) Markaz problem which has actually created clusters at different places and that has also been one of the factors for the kind of rise that has taken place."

But he said India is in a much better shape compared to other nations in the battle against COVID-19. "I can only say that the rate is not going to go beyond what has been going on now, may be 700 to 800 cases per day. So, we are in the process of flattening the curve."

The government's decision to declare nation-wide lockdown has paid dividends, Saraswat, a former chief of the Defence Research and Development Organisation, said.

Noting that India has seen a series of virus attacks in the last 15-20 years including Chikungunya and Dengue, he said the emphasis now should be on more and more R & D to find vaccines in advance.

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