Udupi: Veteran RSS leader Somashekhar Bhat gets call from PM Modi

News Network

April 25, 2020

Udupi, Apr 25: Senior RSS leader H Somashekhar Bhatt received a call from Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday enquiring about his health.

Bhatt got emotional hearing the Prime Minister's voice at the other end, family sources said.

The Prime Minister called at 8.30 AM and began the conversation with 'Somashekharji' and spoke for about six minutes.

The 85-year-old veteran recalled how the Jana Sangh came to power in Udupi municipality under the leadership of V S Acharya in 1968 and about his association with the Sangh Parivar through the decades and his imprisonment during the Emergency.

Bhatt, former Udupi municipality president, later said it was a rare honour for him.

"I am very glad that PM Modi called and spoke to me. I shared the experience of meeting him at the Jaipur session.

Asked to take care of health and expressed concern," he said.

The Prime Minister has been calling senior functionaries of the party who worked for the Sangh Parivar in the time of adversities to build up the BJP in its present form and seeking advice from them.

He had also called in recent days former MLA Ram Bhat who was elected from Puttur in Dakshina Kannada and D H Shankar Murthy, who was former chairman of the state legislative council, BJP state president Nalin Kumar Kateel tweeted.

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Evacuation flights with stranded Indians from Maldives and Qatar land in Bengaluru

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May 22,2020

Bengaluru, May 22: Evacuation planes from Male in Maldives and Doha in Qatar landed in Bengaluru with returnees from Karnataka after they were stranded for two months due to suspension of international flights since March 23 and the extended lockdown, an official said on Friday.

"An Air-India flight (#0266) with 152 passengers from Male and its subsidiary Express flight (IX-0822) with 177 returnees and 5 infants from Doha landed here safely at 6.50 pm. and 9.05 pm respectively," an airline official told media persons in Bengaluru.

Both the flights are first from their respective countries to Bengaluru, bringing in returnees to the southern state in the second phase of the Vande Bharat mission, being carried out to evacuate Indians stranded the world over.

"As per the standard operating procedure and guidelines of the state health department, all the passengers were screened with thermal device and tested to ensure they were asymptomatic before leaving the airport," a nodal officer said.

The returnees were given a spare mask to wear all the time and a sanitiser to wash their hands.

"The luggage of all passengers was screened and disinfected before handing over to them after they completed formalities such as filling the self-declaration form and downloading of the Quarantine App for contact tracing later,” said the official.

The passengers were ferried from the airport in state-run buses in batches for 14-day institutional quarantine in hotels and resorts across the city.

The flights were the 6th and 7th flights to Karnataka, of the national carrier and its Express arm, which are operating the service to repatriate thousands of Indians, including distressed workers, migrants, students, senior citizens and tourists, stranded overseas.

Five flights have flown about 650 returnees till date from May 18-21 under the mission's second phase to Bengaluru and Mangaluru on the west coast. The passengers have been brought from Dubai in the UAE, Kuala Lumpur in Malaysia, Muscat in Oman, Dammam in Saudi Arabia and San Francisco in the US.

The remaining flights to Karnataka will land in Bengaluru and Mangaluru over the next 12 days till June 3 from 9-10 more destinations the world over.

In the first phase of the mission from May 7-17, the airline and its arm flew 6 flights to the state from May 11-15, bringing in 800 passengers, including 623 to Bengaluru and 177 to Mangaluru from London, Singapore, San Francisco and Dubai.

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Thief breaks into house in Uppinangady, falls asleep on sofa, caught

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February 27,2020

Mangaluru, Feb 27: An utterly unprofessional thief, who fell asleep after breaking into a house, was caught by the house owner and handed over to the police in the coastal district of Dakshina Kannada.

The hilarious incident took place on Wednesday in the one-storey, tiled-roof house owned by Sudarshan at Ullas Junction under the limits of Uppinangady police station.

The thief, who gained entry into the house by removing the roof-tiles, has been identified as Anil Sahani, a native of Bihar’s Majipur district. He was snoring on the sofa with a set of keys clutched in his hand when the house owner woke up in the morning.

The house owner, who was sure that the thief was drunk, woke him up by hitting him with a stick and then handed him over to the police.

According to police, the thief was tired after removing the tiles on Tuesday night and hence he decided to take a nap soon after entering the house.

He grabbed a bunch of keys kept near the TV stand and then lied down on the sofa. He woke up only when the house owner hit him with a stick the next morning.

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Inspired by the Rabbit which was defeated by the Tortoise

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Karnataka CM Yediyurappa turns 78; PM, leaders wish him

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February 27,2020

Bengaluru, Feb 27: Karnataka Chief Minister and veteran BJP leader B S Yediyurappa turned 78 on Thursday with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and a host of leaders greeting him.

Modi hailed Yediyurappa as a "hardworking" chief minister and wished him long life and good health, while several state leaders flocked to his residence and greeted the Lingayat strongman.

"Birthday greetings to Karnataka's hardworking CM @BSYBJP Ji. He is passionately working for the state's progress, especially on farmer welfare and rural development. I pray for his long life and good health," the Prime Minister tweeted.

A large-scale "non-partisan" birthday bash will be held here later in the evening.

The felicitation function will see Defence Minister Rajnath Singh and former chief minister S M Krishna besides Siddaramaiah of Congress and H D Kumaraswamy of JD(S) sharing the stage.

Union Ministers D V Sadananda Gowda, also a former chief minister, Pralhad Joshi and Suresh Angadi will be in attendance.

BJP National General Secretary (Organisation) B L Santosh and state party chief Nalin Kumar Kateel are among those who will be gracing the event.

While Santosh will release a felicitation volume in Kannada with 78 articles from a cross-section of people, including politicians, writers, bureaucrats, and spiritual leaders; Siddaramaiah and Kumaraswamy will unveil a coffee table book and documentary respectively.

Yediyurappa, on the eve of his birthday on Wednesday, had said whatever he has achieved is a result of the people's "blessings and faith" and requested well-wishers not to bring bouquets, flowers, shawls, sweets, turbans or any souvenirs to greet him.

The birthday function organised by "Yediyurappa Abhinandana Samiti" (Yediyurappa Felicitation Committee) is being seen in some quarters as an attempt by Yediyurappa and his loyalists to send a message to the party leadership that he was still "strong".

The BJP's current dispensation under Narendra Modi and Amit Shah has retired several senior party leaders who crossed the age of 75.

However, an exception was said to have been made in Yediyurappa's case after the BJP won 25 of 28 seats in the Lok Sabha election under his leadership.

In the 2018 elections, he spearheaded the campaign of the BJP which emerged as the single largest party but fell short of the majority mark following which Congress and JD(S) came to power stitching a post-poll pact.

However, the coalition collapsed in July last year, paving the way for return of Yediyurappa as Chief Minister for the fourth time.

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