Rambhapuri seers warns of waging religious war

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, May 29: Even as the thousands of Indian expatriates in Saudi Arabia are waiting for repatriation flights to return to India, a few NRI entrepreneurs are sending home their employees through chartered flights. 

The government of India on May 21 had formally approved the repatriation of stranded Indian expatriate workers through chartered flights arranged by their employing companies particularly in Gulf region and elsewhere. 

Expertise Contracting Co. Ltd headed by K S Sheik and Al-Muzain Est. headed by Zakaria Jokatte are among those who have hired charter flights to repatriate hundreds of employees to India amidst corona lockdown. 

Mr Sheik said that his firm had applied for nine charter flights. "Two of the charter flights will carry 360 people to Mangaluru. Seven other flights will repatriate employees to Delhi, Thiruvananthapuram, Chennai and Hyderabad," he said, adding that the company will bear complete expense of their repatriation and quarantine facility after India. 

Mr Jokatte three charter flights will fly from Dammam to Mangaluru International Airport on June 2, 5 and 8 carrying their employees.

Mangaluru, July 8: Dakshina Kannada on Wednesday recorded its highest single-day spike in Covid-19 cases with 183 cases reported in the district, while Udupi reported 31 new cases.

DK also recorded two more fatalities – both patients with co-morbid conditions — taking the total death toll in the district to 28. Udupi has recorded three Covid-19 deaths.

The fresh spike saw total positive cases in DK shoot up to 1,542 and active cases to 819. As many as 12 patients were discharged from hospital on Wednesday. The positivity rate in the district now stands at 0.07 %. Health authorities as on date have received 22,181 samples and 20,153 out of 21,695 samples tested have turned out negative.

MLA’s gunman tests positive

The gunman assigned to former minister U T Khader tested positive on Wednesday and three others who were with him in the escort vehicle have been quarantined, said city police commissioner Vikash Kumar Vikash. A section of police commissioner’s office was shut for sanitisation as per protocol after staff working there were treated as primary contacts. The office per se has not been sealed contrary to ‘reports’ doing rounds in social media, he said.

Deputy commissioner Sindhu B Rupesh said the district reported two deaths — one late on Tuesday and the other during the day. The victims are a 57-year-old man and 32-year-old youth. Two of the 183 cases were secondary contacts, 25 were cases of influenza like illness, four cases of SARI, one a case of inter district travel, two with interstate travel, five with international travel history, 22 random samples and five pre-surgery samples.

Udupi district recorded 31 new cases taking the total positive cases recorded as on date to 1,421. Discharge of 1,189 patients meant that Udupi has 229 active cases.

Meanwhile, Kota Shrinivas Poojari, minister for fisheries on Wednesday inaugurated the Covid-19 lab at district hospital in Udupi. Karkala MLA Sunil Kumar inaugurated ambulance monitoring system to ensure expeditious transfer of infected patients to designated treatment centres.