Siddaramaiah slams Goa minister for his ‘haraami’ remark against Kannadigas

Bengaluru, June 5: Under the leadership of trouble-shooter D K Shivakumar, the Karnataka Congress is planning a political ‘ghar wapsi’ to bring back leaders who quit the party and also rope in those from other parties.

Shivakumar, the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president, has constituted a 12-member committee headed by former minister Allum Veerabhadrappa to liaise to anchor this effort to bring back people into the party fold. 

The committee comprises of former legislators B A Hasanabba, Ajaykumar Sarnaik, Abhaychandra Jain, Satish Sail, Prafulla Madhukar, former MPs R Dhruvanarayan and BN Chandrappa, MLA V Muniyappa, former mayor Sampath Raj, Mahila Congress leader Kripa Alva and former KPCC general secretary V Y Ghorpade. 

This move comes more than a year after over a dozen Congress MLAs defected and joined the BJP, leading to the collapse of the Congress-JD(S) coalition government. Also, several influential leaders quit the party ahead of the Lok Sabha elections last year.

The constitution of this committee also coincides with disgruntlement brewing within the ruling BJP. 

“Many people who left the party and others have applied (to join Congress). Many have met me also. I felt it wouldn't be right for me to make a decision. So, this committee has been constituted,” Shivakumar said. “They will process all applications and send it to the KPCC.” 

According to Shivakumar, any person wanting to join the Congress should accept the party’s leadership and its ideology. “Importantly, they should be first accepted by the cadre. If there's no acceptance from the cadre, then what's the point?” he said.

Bengaluru, Apr 28: Providing respite, Karnataka has decided to ‘conditionally’ allow economic activities to restart in green zones.

The green zones of Chamarajanagar, Koppal, Chikkamagaluru, Raichur, Chitradurga, Ramanagara, Hassan, Shivamogga, Haveri, Yadgir, Kolar, Davangere, Udupi and Kodagu will now see shops and industrial activities starting operations, according to an order issued by Chief Secretary TM Vijay Bhaskar on Tuesday.

Lockdown restrictions in the wake of COVID-19 will continue in Bengaluru Urban, Belagavi, Mysuru, Vijayapura, Bagalkot, Kalaburagi, Bidar and Dakshina Kannada. Here, only essential services and supplies will be allowed.

In green zones, all shops that include neighbourhood shops, standalone shops, shops in residential complexes within the limits of municipal corporations and municipalities can open with 50 per cent manpower but with masks and social distancing mandatory.

Shops in residential and marketing complexes are allowed to open in areas located outside municipal limits, the order states.

Multi-brand and single-brand malls will remain shut across Karnataka.

Industries operating in rural areas of these green zones (except Ramanagara) have been allowed to start. Also, manufacturing and other industrial establishments with access control in special economic zones and export-oriented units, industrial estates and industrial townships will be allowed to operate.

“These establishments shall make arrangements for stay of workers within their premises as far as possible and/ or adjacent buildings. The transportation of workers to workplace shall be arranged by the employers in dedicated transport by ensuring social distancing (sic),” Bhaskar said in the order.

This order comes a day after Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa participated in a video conference with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and with all deputy commissioners.

No decision on relaxing lockdown restrictions has been taken for Ballari, Mandya, Bengaluru Rural, Gadag, Tumakuru, Chikkaballapur, Uttara Kannada and Dharwad. “The decision regarding opening of shops and industries in taluks where there are no active COVID-19 cases will be taken by the concerned district in-charge minister,” Bhaskar said.

Bengaluru, Mar 27: India should take a cue from the UK and Italy and allow final year medical students to skip exam and bring them into the hospital system immediately to fight the war against COVID-19, noted cardiac surgeon Devi Prasad Shetty on Friday said.

The Chairman and Founder of the city-based Narayana Health said there should be some reforms in medical education like the UK and Italy.
In the UK, he noted, final year medical students have been told that they don't need to appear for the exam, and they will be given pass based on the past performance and they can get into the hospital system to fill the shortage.

Italy got 10,000 more doctors following the move to cut short the duration of MBBS by nine months, according to him.

COVID-19 battle can be only won by young doctors and young nurses. Its like a war, Shetty told PTI.

He said: Senior doctorsnone of them will be able to touch the patients because they are past the age of 50. A person who is past the age of 50 is very vulnerable himself.

This is a very contagious disease. "But we dont have that many battalion (of doctors). We need one and half lakh doctors to manage all these government
hospitals and private hospitals (to fight COVID-19)", he added.

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