Promise fulfilled: Bahrain gives Rs 9L to Odisha man who carried wife's body

Bengaluru, Mar 23: Karnataka Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai had warned those who chose to defy the lockdown order clamped in nine districts, to prevent the spread of the dreaded COVID-19 virus in the state. 

Speaking to newsmen, he said, "We have ordered for a lockdown in nine districts in the state to prevent the spread of the coronavirus and issued guidelines to follow it."

The nine COVID-19-affected districts are Bengaluru, Bengaluru Rural, Mysuru, Kodagu, Dakshina Kannada (Mangaluru), Dharwad, Belagavi, Kalaburgi and Chikkablapur.

According to Mr. Bommai, the State government will put in place further measures next week depending on how the situation will unfold in the State and the neighbouring States.

"Government offices will be operational in the State, including in the nine COVID 19-affected districts. As per the current schedule, the legislature sessions will also continue. Pourakarmikas will be working at 50% strength," he added.

Mangaluru, June 13: Commending the Karnataka government move to ban the online classes for children up to Standard 5, Mangaluru MLA U T Khader has demanded to impose ban on all education apps that offer online coaching to school children.

"I welcome the government’s decision of banning online classes up to class 5. I would like to know why education apps of corporate companies are allowed to continue when schools are banned to conduct online classes. Why the government could not ban those education apps that offer online classes?” the former minister questioned.

He warned that private schools in the state may commence their online classes through such apps of corporate companies if the present situation continues.

Not all parents in the state can afford buying smart phones required for online classes, he said. "Only 30% of the school children in the state have access to smart phones. Most of the parents cannot afford to buy smart phones for their children. Government should take into consideration the mental stress of academically brilliant children among poor families. Those children may go under depression when they do not have access to online classes. The government can cancel some of the schemes like distribution of bicycles and reserve such funds to find solutions to the problems poor children face at present,” Khader said.

Mangaluru, Jan 1: Led by two local MLAs belonging to Bharatiya Janata Party, dozens of people today forcibly stopped toll fee collection at Talapady toll gate on the outskirts of the city allowing vehicles plying between Karnataka and Kerala on the national highway 66 to travel without paying any fee for some time.

Mangaluru City South MLA D Vedavyasa Kamath and Mangaluru City North MLA Y Bharat Shetty, who led the workers, said that the Navayuga Udupi Tollway Pvt. Ltd. (NUTPL), the concessionaire of the about 90-km-long highway widening project between Talapady and Kundapura in Karnataka, had failed to complete the project since over a decade.

The service roads and two flyovers under the project remained uncompleted. Hence motorists were facing a hardship. Notwithstanding Nalin Kumar Kateel, Dakshina Kannada MP, arranging ₹56 crore loan to the NUTPL through Axis Bank to complete the prominent Pumpwell flyover in the city, the company had failed to complete it.

The MLAs said that they stopped the toll collection as a symbolic protest to bring pressure on the company to complete the project within this month.

The BJP workers who gathered near the toll gate around 7.30 a.m. forcibly removed the barricades and made the vehicles ply without paying the fee. The workers of the company managing the toll booth did not resist.

The BJP workers said that vehicles would ply without paying toll till about 6 p.m. If the company resumed the collection during the day on Wednesday, the party workers would again forcibly stop it on Thursday, they said.

Shivaprasad Rai, in-charge of toll collection of the company at Talapady, Hejmady and Sasthana on the same highway told The Hindu that the NUTPL collected about ₹7 lakh as toll fee daily at Talapady from over 12,000 vehicles. The loss on Wednesday could be about ₹4 lakh.

The project is being implemented under build, operate and transfer basis.