Secure Nithyananda, Centre tells Karnataka

News Network
December 29, 2019

Bengaluru, Dec 28: The Centre has asked the Karnataka Government to secure with the help of the CBI or the Interpol the absconding godman Nithyananda involved in sexual scandals and facing complaints from parents of young girls in his ashrams.

The Godman recently fled the country following these complaints and has released a video claiming that he has bought an island near Ecuador and established a nation which he has named Kailasam.

Jhansi Rani from Tiruchi  and mother of a 24-year-old girl who died under mysterious circumstances in Nithyananda’s ashram in Bidadi in Karnataka in 2014 has received a copy of the Union Ministry’s letter to the Yediyurappa Government.

Disclosing the copy of the letter to local television channels, Jhansi Rani said her daughter died in the ashram in 2014 and the godman’s men told her that she died after a heart attack. She said that she got a re-postmortem examination done  and it showed her daughter had marks of injuries on her.

Jhansi Rani said that her daughter during a visit before her death gave her a pen drive which contained the sexual exploits of Nithyananda. Jhansi Rani alleged that she was threatened by his followers. But she represented to the Karnataka police and also impleaded herself in a spate of petitions filed in the Karnataka High Court, seeking a CBI enquiry.

She said she recently wrote to the Union Home Ministry to press the demand. The Ministry, which wrote to the State Government on her representation, has also sought status of cases pending against the godman in the high court.

Similar complaints have been made by parents of two sisters from after Gujarat who joined the godman’s ashram in Bidadi. .

The Ahmedabad Police on Saturday filed a status report in the Gujarat High Court on its investigation into the whereabouts of the godman following a habeas corpus petition filed by a former Bengaluru resident Janardhan Sharma who alleged his two daughters aged 22 and 18 were being held against their will in the Bidadi ashram.  The police failed to produce the girls in court.

Sharma said he and his wife Uma Maheshwari were not allowed to meet their daughters when they visited the godman’s ashram in Hirapur in Gujarat.

Sharma said their daughter joined the ashram in Bidadi and they were later brought to another ashram in Hirapur on the outskirts of Ahmedabad. He said her eldest daughter had accompanied Nithyananda in his visits abroad.

The Gujarat police talked to the girls. They said they had become sanyasins and they were not being held against their will. His younger daughter, however told police the Gujarat police that she had been brought up in the ashram for the past six years and she was now a major as she is 19.

When videos went viral that NIthyananda had bought an island near Trinadad and Tobago in the West Indies after denied asylum by Ecuador, the Indian Foreign Ministry clarified that his passport had expired and he had not renewed it. It did not explain how he managed to flee the country then. Reports said he fled the country via Nepal.

According to the website of Nithyananda, he has founded  a nation calling it Sri Kailasa in the island. It says Sri Kailasa is a “nation without borders created by dispossessed Hindus from around the world who lost the right to practice Hinduism authentically in their own countries”.

Nithyananda, a native of Tamil Nadu, fled the State after a video surfaced showing him in a compromising position with actress Ranjitha.

Comments

AJITH KUMAR
 - 
Monday, 30 Dec 2019

Bring him back to India ,punish him severly , disturbing the life of girls and parents. what kind of saadu he is.

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News Network
April 29,2020

New Delhi, Apr 29: WhatsApp on Tuesday said it will now allow up to eight people to connect on a group video call as an increasing number of people turn to digital platforms to connect with friends and family amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Facebook-owned company said over the last month, people on average are spending over 15 billion minutes talking each day on WhatsApp calls, well above a typical day before the pandemic.

"...we see that people all over the world are turning to voice and video calling on WhatsApp more than ever before. Group calling has been particularly useful and our users have asked to connect with more people at once," WhatsApp said in a blogpost.

Starting Tuesday, the company is doubling the number of participants one can have on a WhatsApp video or voice call from 4 to 8 people at a time, it added.

WhatsApp emphasised that like written messages, all calls on its platform are protected with end-to-end encryption.

"We have built group calling in a way that makes it available for as many users as possible, including people on lower-end devices and slow network conditions," it added.

Also Read: Coronavirus India update: State-wise total number of confirmed cases, deaths

WhatsApp said that to access the new, higher participant limit on WhatsApp calls, all participants in a call need to update to the latest version of WhatsApp available on iPhone or Android.

Video calling tools like Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Zoom and others have also seen a significant jump in userbase and traffic as people connect while maintaining social distancing amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Last week, Facebook had introduced Messenger Rooms that will soon hold up to 50 people with no time limit.

It had added that the company will also add ways to create rooms from Instagram Direct, WhatsApp and Portal.

Noting that between WhatsApp and Messenger, more than 700 million accounts participate in calls every day, Facebook had said, adding that video calling on Messenger and WhatsApp more than doubled in many countries.

Also, views of Facebook Live and Instagram Live videos have also increased significantly in March, it said.

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News Network
April 11,2020

Bengaluru, Apr 11: Seven more people have tested positive for coronavirus taking the tally to 214 in the state.

"Coronavirus cases rise to 214 in Karnataka, with seven more people testing positive between 5 PM Friday and 12 PM Saturday," said the Karnataka health department.

According to the health department, all these seven people have a history of contact with COVID-19 patients. Five of them are workers of a pharmaceutical company in Mysuru.

"Out of the total cases in the state, six people have died while 37 others were cured or discharged," added the state health department.

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Agencies
July 25,2020

New Delhi, Jul 25: Nearly a year after Cafe Coffee Day founder V.G. Siddhartha's death, the probe committee appointed by the Board of Coffee Day Enterprises Ltd (CDEL) has given a virtual clean chit to private equity investors and the Income Tax Department who were named in his last letter.
The investigation report noted that Siddhartha may have felt "aversive behavioural stimulus" due to persistent reminders from the PE investors and other lenders.

"However, such reminders and follow-ups by the PE investors and lenders are not something which are beyond normal industry practices and we believe that PE investors were acting as per accepted legal and business norms," said that report.

It further said that the investigators were not provided with any documentary evidence to show any "advertent or inadvertent harassment" from the Income Tax Department.

It however, said that the financial records suggest a serious liquidity crunch which may have arisen due to the attachment of Mindtree shares by the IT Department.

Further, the probe revealed that MACEL, a private firm of Siddhartha, owes Rs 2,693 crore to Coffee Day Enterprises, which the report says, "needs to be addressed".

The Cafe Coffee Day founder's body was fished out of the Netravathi river in Karnataka by a group of fishermen on July 31 last year, a day after he went missing.

His last note raised several questions about the role of investors, and tax officials.

He had written: "Tremendous pressure from other lenders lead to me succumbing to the situation. There was a lot of harassment from the previous DG Income Tax in the form of attaching our shares on two separate occasions to block our Mindtree deal and then taking possession of our Coffee Day shares, although the revised returns have been filed by us. This was very unfair and has led to a serious liquidity crunch."

The massive shock to the industry and the country also led the government to assure that tax officials would not harass businessmen and the situation would improve.

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