Take care of your wife; stop thinking about Muslim women: Cong leader tells PM Modi

Bengaluru, Mar 11: DK Shivakumar has been appointed as the new president of the party's Karnataka unit, an official said on Wednesday.

"Congress president (Sonia Gandhi) has appointed D.K. Shivakumar as the president of the Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC)," said party's general secretary K.C. Venugopal in a statement from New Delhi.

Party's state unit leaders Eshwar Khandre, Satish Jharkiholi and Saleem Ahammed are the working presidents in the southern state.

"Former chief minister Siddaramaiah will continue as the Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader and opposition leader in the state legislative assembly.

MLC M. Narayanswamy and MLA Ajay Singh will be the party's chief whips in the state legislative council and assembly.

Congress appoints Anil Chaudhary as DPCC chief

The Congress on Wednesday appointed former MLA Anil Chaudhary as its Delhi unit chief, while also naming five vice-presidents for the DPCC.

Congress president Sonia Gandhi named Chaudhary president and Abhishek Dutt, Shivani Chopra, Jaikishan, Mudit Agarwal and Ali Hassan vice-presidents of the Delhi Pradesh Congress Committee (DPCC), a party statement said.

Subhash Chopra had resigned as the Delhi Congress chief in February, taking moral responsibility for the party's debacle in the Assembly polls.

The Congress drew a blank for the second time in a row in the Delhi Assembly polls and reduced its vote share from 9.7 per cent in 2015 to 4.27 per cent this time.

A 53-year-old Indian worker in the UAE has missed a special repatriation flight after he dozed off at the Dubai International Airport, a media report said.

P Shajahan, who worked as a storekeeper in Abu Dhabi, was supposed to fly to Thiruvananthapuram on the Emirates jumbo jet chartered by the Kerala Muslim Cultural Centre (KMCC) Dubai, Gulf News reported.

It was the first-ever jumbo jet chartered for repatriation.

Shajahan, who had paid 1,100 dirham (USD 300) for the ticket, said that he did not sleep on the previous night as he kept on waiting for the confirmation of his ticket for the jumbo jet flying 427 stranded Indians to Kerala, it said.

He reached the airport early in the morning and after finishing the check-in procedures and rapid test, he reached the waiting area of the boarding gate at Terminal 3 around 2 PM local time, the report said.

“I sat away from most of the others. But I fell asleep after 4.30 PM,” he said.

S Nizamudeen Kollam, who coordinated the charter flight, said that the airline officials could not trace Shajahan when the flight was to take off.

“He woke up and called us after the flight left. It is sad that he missed the flight, which was the first-ever jumbo jet chartered for repatriation. We are now trying to send him on another Emirates flight that we are chartering on Saturday,” Kollam said.

Since Shajahan did not have any money, Jasimkhan Kallambalam, organising secretary of KMCC Thiruvananthapuram, went to the airport to meet him on Friday.

“Since his visa was cancelled, he could not come out of the airport. He had only eaten the snacks in the kit KMCC had given. We managed to give him some cash for buying food through KMCC volunteer Alamsha Latheef,” Kallambalam said.

In March, another Indian expat had fallen asleep in the same terminal and missed the last flight home before flights were suspended due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

He was stranded here for over 50 days before getting repatriated.

Bengaluru, Mar 27: With the numbers of COVID-19 optimistic instances rising at an alarming price in Karnataka, the state is on the verge of coming into stage three of the coronavirus epidemic. Which means that the virus is spreading to individuals who haven’t any journey historical past to Covid-19 affected international locations or contact with a COVID-19 optimistic individual with such a historical past.
Consequently, authorities in Karnataka expect a surge in optimistic instances within the coming days. This surge is probably going to come from pockets throughout the state which have a lot of coronavirus suspects, primarily individuals who have returned from Covid-19 affected international locations.

Within the parlance of the corona epidemic fighters, these pockets are referred to as clusters. Bengaluru is one massive cluster with many suspects, a lot of whom are IT professionals who lately returned from Europe, USA and Australia, and many others. The coastal belt is one other cluster, with suspects who’ve lately travelled to Center East. There are different clusters in Karnataka, the place suspects are those that returned after a pilgrimage to Mecca.

Medical schooling minister Ok Sudhakar admitted that the speed of enhance of COVID-19 positives in Karnataka is alarming. For over a month, the state had restricted the variety of optimistic instances to single digits. Nevertheless, within the final 4 days, the quantity has gone up sixfold and Karnataka now has 55 instances, the third largest variety of COVID-19 optimistic instances within the nation.

Dr Sudhakar stated the federal government was changing each authorities hospital right into a quarantine centre to accommodate any variety of optimistic instances.

“Our goal just isn’t to get right into a scenario like Italy, the place the federal government has been lowered to expressing helplessness. In subsequent 20 days, now we have to keep away from moving into such a scenario. I visited Chinnaswamy and Kanteerava stadiums and we’re working out if the stadiums will be transformed into quarantine centres, if warranted,” Dr Sudhakar stated.

The state police are struggling to implement the lockdown due to non-cooperation from some folks. They plan to rope in celebrities to ship throughout the message on social distancing.

Whereas some with home-quarantine seals are discovered roaming within the streets, some nonetheless assume the lockdown is a vacation.

“We’re roping in film stars in addition to sports activities personalities to give out a critical message on COVID-19. If the message goes dwelling, it could assist us management folks to a big extent,” he added.