SP, journos among several injured as Dalits temple entry row turns violent

Bengaluru, Apr 11: Karnataka Congress chief D K Shivakumar on Saturda said that he was hopeful that the Karnataka Chief Minister would take stern action against BJP MLA M Jayaram--who was on Friday seen celebrating his birthday with several villagers in Gubbi taluk in Tumkur, in violation of social isolation measures and nationwide lockdown to fight the coronavirus outbreak.

"I am sure that the Chief Minister will take action on all these types of activities. We have already petitioned the DGP. Suo moto case should be registered immediately," the Karnataka Congress Chief told media.

Speaking about the video conference meeting that Congress President Sonia Gandhi held with all Pradesh Congress Committee (PCC) presidents via video conference, he said: "She has given us directions that the party has to play its own role. She said that the party needs to be very active, apart from the government."

With regards to the farmer's struggles due to the national lockdown, the Karnataka Congress Chief said that the farmers are in a 'very grim situation'. "I appeal to all the people of Karnataka that we should go to the fields and discuss with farmers and buy the materials. Let us purchase their fruits and vegetables and distribute them at the village level."

Hassan, Feb 2: Former prime minister and JD(S) supremo H D Deve Gowda has said that the controversy over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act should be resolved peacefully through discussion.

Speaking to reporters in Halebeed on Saturday, Gowda said that the Act affects only Muslims but would also prove troublesome for the Hindus. “Opening fire on anti-CAA protesters is the not solution to the issue,” he said.

Deve Gowda said that during his tenure as prime minister a number of problems concerning Muslims were addressed. “But, in the run up to election, Rahul Gandhi described us ‘B’ team of BJP. This led to vote swing,” he added. When his comment was sought on the budget, the former prime minister said that he had not yet read the budget document.

Bengaluru, Jun 17: Amid rising COVID cases in the past two weeks, the Karnataka government is planning to increase testing capacity to 25,000 samples a day, said a minister.

"Due to increase in cases in the last two weeks, the government is trying to scale up testing to 15,000 to 25,000 samples per day," said Medical Education Minister K. Sudhakar.

He said people living in crowded places, sanitation workers, street vendors, healthcare workers, police and other frontline staff would be extensively tested.

"It has also been decided to mandatorily test all those who have symptoms of Influenza Like Illness (ILI) and Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI)," he said.

Similarly, all people over 50 with ILI symptoms will be tested.

The health department will also randomly test samples in old containment zones to make sure that the infection is not recurring.

Currently, there are 72 Covid testing labs in the southern state, 41 government operated and 31 private labs.

However, for a few days, the number of Covid tests in the state have plummeted.

On Monday, the health department has tested only 5,362 samples across the state.

Likewise, on Tuesday, only 7,936 samples were tested, diverging from earlier weeks when around 10,000 cases were tested on an average.

In all, 4.57 lakh samples have been tested so far, of which 4.39 lakh have tested negative.