Serial blasts by ULFA terrorists across Assam on Republic Day

Bengaluru, Mar 16: Stepping up measures to curb spread of coronavirus in the state, the Karnataka government would start thermal screening of visitors at various places including the vidhana soudha, high court, secretariat, and city civil courts, from Tuesday.

In view of coronavirus scare, screening of visitors has already begun at Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa's residence at Dollar's Colony in the city.

A medical team has been deployed for the purpose, sources close to the CM told PTI. Medical screening of passengers arriving at the Kempegowda International Airport here was underway. So far seven people have been tested positive in the state while one of them died due to COVID-19 in Kalaburagi.

The Department of Health and Family Welfare said the procurement of equipment such as scanners would be completed by Monday.

"The procurement of scanners, other supplies, deputation of staff nurses and trainingshall be held and completed on March 16, Monday itself on war footing basissetting aside other works," Commissioner of Health and Family Welfare department, Pankaj Kumar Pandey said in his order to district level health officers.

The KarnatakaState Drugs Logistics and Warehousing Society (KSDLWS) would procure and give the thermal scanners to the district health and family welfare officers of Bengaluru Urban, Kalaburagi, Dharwad, it said. Sufficient virus filtering N95 masks, handgloves and sanitisers would also be provided to the officers, it added.

Kasaragod, Mar 28: A pregnant Bihari migrant woman in labour gave birth in an ambulance after the Karnataka police allegedly refused to allow the ambulance carrying her to cross the border road to Mangaluru to reach her hospital.

The border road was shut due to the lockdown. The woman used to consult a doctor in Mangaluru across the border.

As Karnataka police stopped the vehicle at the border in Talapady, saying no vehicle, including ambulances from Kerala, could be permitted to their state, the drivers decided to take the woman was taken to the general hospital here, but she went into labour and delivered a baby girl in the vehicle

Both the mother and baby are doing fine, authorities said.

Hailing from Patna in Bihar, 25-year-old Gowri Devi and her husband were working in a local plywood factory in this north Kerala district, from where the maximum number of coronavirus cases have been reported so far in the state.

Those living in the border towns and villages of Kasaragod are dependent on the hospitals in Mangaluru as it is nearer, local people said.

The ambulance drivers- Aslam and Musthafa- said they stopped the vehicle by the wayside, making it safe for the woman. The baby girl and the mother were soon shifted to the government general hospital here and both of them are safe and healthy, they said.

Local people complained that not only pregnant women, but even patients requiring daily dialysis and emergency cardiac and cancer treatment were being sent back by Karnataka.

Mangaluru, June 10: The first direct repatriation flight from Damma to Mangaluru International Airport under Vande Bharat Mission will be operated on June 21.

Thousands of people from coastal districts of Karnataka are stranded without flights in different parts of Saudi Arabia after the announcement of covid lockdown in March this year. 

Even though the government of India launched Vande Bharat Mission to repatriate Indian expatriate through special flights, no flight was scheduled from Saudi Arabia to Mangaluru.

Several organisations had exerted pressure on the government of India and government of Karnataka to bring back stranded Kannadigas from Saudi Arabia.  

With the sole intention of helping the stranded Kannadigas, a few philanthropists in Saudi Arabia last month formed an NGO called Saudi Kannadigas Humanity Forum under the leadership of Zakariya Bajpe and Sheikh Expertise.