UT Khader is now Minister for Food and Civil Supplies, loses Health portfolio

May 6: Congress general secretary KC Venugopal on Tuesday termed as "inhumane" the government's decision to "impose excessive costs" on NRIs and expatriates for bringing them into the country from COVID-19-affected nations.

He demanded that the central government fly in the poor and vulnerable free of cost while charge the others with normal fares instead of high costs.

"The central government's decision to impose excessive costs on NRIs flying in special flights from the Covid-affected countries is an inhumane act," he said in a statement.

Venugopal said it was due to protests by a large number of expatriates and their relatives as well as the general public over the past few days that the central government took the decision to bring back Indian citizens from abroad.

"However, it is cruel that the Central government has taken advantage of this plight of expatriates by increasing the price of air fares up to three times. This is inhumane," Venugopal said in his statement.

He urged the Centre to take urgent steps to provide free travel to the most vulnerable, unemployed, sick and pregnant women and to others on normal fare.

Air India will operate 64 repatriation flights for a week from May 7 while the Navy deployed two ships as India rolled out a massive evacuation plan on Tuesday to bring back thousands of its nationals stranded abroad due to the coronavirus-triggered lockdown.

Those availing the repatriation flights will be charged, Civil Aviation Minister Hardeep Singh Puri told a virtual press conference in New Delhi. A passenger on a London-Delhi flight will be charged Rs 50,000 and on a Dhaka-Delhi flight Rs 12,000, he added.

From the Gulf countries to Malaysia and the UK to the US, the multi-agency operation christened 'Vande Bharat Mission' will see the state-owned airline operate the non-scheduled commercial flights till May 13 to ferry around 15,000 Indian nationals from 12 countries.

Bengaluru, May 22: Police commissioner Bhaskar Rao on Friday said the next two Sundays will be ‘full curfew days’ and the city will be under complete lockdown between 7pm Saturday and 7am Monday.

Addressing the media, the top cop said all essential services will be excluded from the curfew. “People attending weddings and other ceremonies can travel. Those wanting to buy food products or medicines too can step out. However, like in lockdown 1.0, people found loitering unnecessarily will be punished,” he said.

According to Rao, city roads will be barricaded like how it was done during lockdown 1.0 and 2.0.

A senior police officer told TOI that during this period, vehicles could be seized under the Disaster Management Act-2005. “So, we request the public not to come out unnecessarily. If we find people roaming in vehicles, we shall seize the rides and owners will have to approach the court later to get them released,” he said.

The government has extended the lockdown till May 31, which includes two Sundays.
Earlier in the day, the state government allowed inter-state travel from Karnataka with the consent of the receiving state. Praveen Sood, Karnataka DG and IGP, said, “Inter-state pass is not required to go out of Karnataka as long as you have the consent of the receiving state. Due to the lockdown, migrant workers, pilgrims, tourists, students and other persons are stranded at different places. They would be allowed to move as usual.”

Bengaluru, Jun 19: COVID-19 cases in Karnataka has breached the 8,000 mark, as the state on Friday reported 337 new cases and ten related fatalities, taking the total number of infections to 8,281 and death toll to 124.

Also, total discharges in the state breached 5,000 mark, with 230 patients getting discharged in a day after recovery.

As of June 19 evening, cumulatively 8,281 COVID-19 positive cases have been confirmed in the state, which includes 124 deaths and 5,210 discharges, the health department said in its bulletin.

It said out of 2,943 active cases, 2,865 patients are in isolation at designated hospitals and are stable, while 78 are in ICU.

The ten dead include- seven from Bengaluru urban, two from Bidar and one from Vijayapura.

Out of the 337 new cases, 93 are returnees from other states, majority of them from neighboring Maharashtra,while 11 are those who returned from other countries.

The remaining cases include contacts of patients earlier tested positive, those with history of SARI and ILI, among others.

Among the districts where the new cases were reported, Bengaluru accounted for 138 cases, followed by Kalaburagi 52, Ballari 37, Hassan 18, Dakshina Kannada 13, Davangere 12, Udupi 11; Bidar 10, six each from Mysuru and Koppal, four each from Yadgir, Kolar and Bengaluru rural, three each from Mandya, Dharwad, Chikkaballapura, Bagalkote and Ramanagara, two each from Tumakuru and Chikkamagaluru, and one each from Belagavi, Uttara Kannada and Shivamogga.

Kalaburagi district tops the list of positive cases, with 1,126 infections, followed by Udupi 1,050 and Bengaluru urban 982.

Among discharges Udupi tops the list with 944 discharges, followed by Kalaburagi 646 and Yadgir 477.

A total of 4,84,060 samples were tested so far, out of which 10,553 were tested on Thursday alone.

According to the bulletin,4,64,338 samples have been reported as negative, and out of them 9,862 were reported negative today.