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Siddu writes to Sonia, Rahul defending his move to form separate ACB

[email protected] (Agencies)
March 23, 2016

Bengaluru, Mar 23: Under fire over forming a separate Anti-Corruption Bureau, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddarmaiah has written to his party top brass Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi defending the move, even as he rejected the Opposition demand for ACB withdrawal in the Assembly on Tuesday.

siddaSiddarmaiah has "assured" Congress President Sonia Gandhi that what has been done in Karnataka is in tune with the pattern prevailing in at least 12 other important states, officials in CM's office said.

"It is the endeavour of our Government to give more attention and focus to fighting corruption in the system. In view of that, ACB has been set up and I am confident that this will deliver better results than what is happening at present," a part of the letter shared with media read.

Siddaramaiah has also written similar letters to Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi, General Secretary Digvijay Singh, and Leader of the party in Lok Sabha Mallikarjuna Kharge.

In the Assembly, Siddaramaiah maintained that there was no "mala fide" intention to shield the corrupt or to weaken the Lokayukta through the constitution of ACB.

Replying after BJP and JDS called off their dharna in the well of the House demanding withdrawal of ACB, he said he was willing to discuss with the opposition ways to strengthen Lokayukta. Countering the BJP attack, Siddaramaiah said the police wing in the Lokayukta would also continue and a similar system prevailed in 15 states.

"There is no mala fide intention behind our decision. Nor are we trying to shield anyone," he said.

Refusing to step back, he said, "There is no question of withdrawing the ACB."

Leader of the Opposition Jagadish Shettar (BJP) said the ACB should be withdrawn "at any cost" and his party would take the fight to outside the House and announced withdrawal of their protest to facilitate smooth functioning to discuss other "burning" issues like drought situation in the state.

Opposition BJP and JD(S) have accused government of "destabilising" Karnataka Lokayukta by creating ACB, and have demanded its immediate withdrawal.

Meanwhile, BJP state President Prahlad Joshi has also written to Sonia Gandhi requesting her to advise the Karnataka government against creating ACB and instead make Lokayukta stronger.

Comments

IBRAHIM.HUSSAIN
 - 
Wednesday, 23 Mar 2016

Lokayukta is a one of the corrupt institution which cannot be denied as per the recent incidents ofJustice Bhasker Rao & son, and Justice Madi.
May be Siddaramayya wanted more transparency in administration and right to punish the government corrupt officials, the only way to appointing ACB department. Those talking about this move and agitating, Gujarat have the same ACB and lokayukta is toothless tiger in Gujarat.

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News Network
April 8,2020

Bengaluru, Apr 8: The Karnataka government is in favour of lifting the coronavirus lockdown in districts which remained free of the virus infection, subject to approval from the Centre, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa said on Wednesday.

In an interview to, he also said the state intended to relax liquor sales, stopped since the 21-day lockdown was imposed to contain the spread of COVID-19, after April 14 in a bid to increase state revenues.

The chief minister said the state's legislators would take a 30 per cent salary cut.

According to officials, there were no COVID-19 cases in 12 districts of the total 30 districts in the state.

As on Wednesday, there were 181 COVID-19 cases in the state, including 5 deaths and 28 discharges.

"If the Prime Minister suggests to states to take decision (on lock-down) based on the situation in their respective states, my position is to take a call (on roll-back) in districts free from COVID-19", Yediyurappa said.

This is to allow people to go about their business and move about within the district and not from one district to another, after April 14, after taking the approval of the Prime Minister, he said.

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News Network
May 3,2020

New Delhi, May 3: The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has crossed over one million RT-PCR tests for COVID-19 on Saturday evening marking a big landmark, ICMR officials said.

"We have tested about 10,40000 tests till Saturday evening. In a few days, we have increased our testing capacity. ICMR has been doing more than 70,000 tests in the last two consecutive days," he said.

On Saturday, ICMR released that a total of 976363 samples have been tested till date. From May 1 till evening on Saturday, 1,37,346 tests were done.

The top three states which are doing vigorous testing includes--Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan. As on date, these three states have conducted more than one lakh test respectively.

However, Andhra Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Delhi still need to ramp up their testing capacity.

ICMR has always emphasised that the confirmatory test for diagnosis of COVID-19 infection is RT-PCR test of the throat and/or nasal swab, which detects virus at an early stage. Recently, Dr GS Toteja, Additional Director General of ICMR had said that to contain coronavirus infection, RT-PCR tests must be continued vigorously as the principal diagnostic tests.

RT-PCR tests are now available in 310 government laboratories and 111 private set up across the country.

On Friday, the Centre informed that ICMR has ordered 21.35 lakh diagnostic kits. As on date, India has reported about 37,776 confirmed coronavirus cases and 1223 deaths.

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coastaldigest.com web desk
June 17,2020

Remember social media memes of Chinese companies exporting #BoycottChina hats and t-shirts to India? This time India’s sensational and saffronite TV anchor Arnab Goswami vindicated those memes by hosting an anti-China debate show which was sponsored by Chinese companies!

While the last night's debate was all about boycotting Chinese products in the wake of massacre of over 20 Indian soldiers by their Chinese counterparts in eastern Ladakh, the show was brazenly promoting Chinese products through advertisement placements. 

During the debate, amongst the flashy headlines, there were two brand sponsorships that appeared: VIVO and Xiaomi. Both companies are giant Chinese multinational corporations. 

Twitter user Nirmala Tai, who was among those who spotted this irony, highlighted two instances during the debate where the logo of one of the brands popped up, and one where Xiaomi was found promoting the Mi 10. 

Many Twitterati used Goswami’s some of the favourite words such as ‘hypocrite’ and ‘anti-national’ to target him. They hit out at his channel for accepting sponsorship deals from Chinese brands at a time when anti-China sentiment is strong in the country.

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