Mangaluru, Jun 17: The first chartered flight repatriating Indians stranded at Kuwait for months landed at the international airport here.
The Jazeera Airways flight privately booked by the Keralites and coastal Kannadigas living in the Arab country had left sometime in the afternoon with 160 passengers on board.
The flight also carried the mortal remains of Sathish Kochu Shetty (45), who died in a fire tragedy at a refinery in Kuwait on June 14.
Shivamogga, Aug 5: Karnataka Minister KS Eshwarappa on Wednesday hailed the laying of foundation stone (bhoomi pujan) for a grand Ram temple in Ayodhya and said "Kashi Vishwanath and "Krishna Janmasthan temples have to be liberated".
"It is a good day that the foundation stone for Ram Temple has been laid. A beautiful temple will come up, but there are Kashi Vishwanath and Krishna Janmasthan temples which have to be liberated," Eshwarappa said.
The minister said that there is a "sign of slavery" at Krishna temple in Mathura and Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi.
"The whole nation is dreaming of Shri Krishna temple in Mathura and Kashi Vishwanath temple. I have visited the two temples.
There is a sign of slavery. Mosques are there at holy places. When I visited the place at Mathura, I witnessed the wall. When we look at the wall, we feel like we are still slaves," he said.
"While visiting Kashi, there is also a structure of slavery. Dream of Hindus is fulfilled in Ayodhya. One day, it will be fulfilled in Mathura and Kashi. Mathura Sri Krishna and Kashi Vishwanath will be freed and temple will be built," Eshwarappa added.
The Places of Worship Act, enacted in 1991, says that religious character of a place of worship existing on the August 15, 1947 shall continue to be the same as it existed on that day. The Act kept Ayodhya case out of its purview.
Bengaluru, Apr 9: 10 new positive cases have been confirmed in Karnataka, apart from the recent fatality of an 80-year-old woman from Gadag district, the health department said on Thursday.
The fresh cases have been reported in the state from last evening to Thursday noon.
Till date, 191 COVID-19 positive cases have been confirmed, which includes 6 deaths and 28 discharges, the update said.
Among the 10 positive cases, eight are contacts of patients who have already tested positive- one each from Belagavi, Mandya and Chikkaballapura, two from Mysuru, and three from Bagalkote; while two from Bengaluru city are with a travel history to Delhi.
Three cases from Bagalkote are children- two boys of 4 and 13 years of age, and one girl of 9 years old.
The elderly woman died on April 8 in Gadag, the department said in its mid-day situation update.
Confirming that her reports tested positive on April 7, officials had said, she had a history of Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI).
French Nobel prize winning scientist Luc Montagnier has sparked a fresh controversy by claiming that the SARS-CoV-2 virus came from a lab, and is the result of an attempt to manufacture a vaccine against the AIDS virus.
In an interview given to French CNews channel and during a podcast by Pourquoi Docteur, professor Montagnier who co-discovered HIV (Human Immunodeficiency Virus) claimed the presence of elements of HIV in the genome of the coronavirus and even elements of the "germ of malaria" are highly suspect, according to a report in Asia Times.
"The Wuhan city laboratory has specialized in these coronaviruses since the early 2000s. They have expertise in this area," he was quoted as saying.
The theory that Covid-19 virus originated in the lab is making rounds for quite some time.
US President Donald Trump last week acknowledged Fox News report that the novel coronavirus may have been accidentally leaked by an intern working at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China.
The Fox News, in an exclusive report, based on unnamed sources has claimed that though the virus is a naturally occurring strain among bats and not a bioweapon, but it was being studied in Wuhan laboratory.
The initial transmission of the virus was bat-to-human, the news channel said, adding that the "patient zero" worked at the laboratory. The lab employee was accidentally infected before spreading the disease among the common people outside the lab in Wuhan city.
Professor Montagnier was awarded the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine for the identification of AIDS virus, with his colleague professor Franeoise Barre-Sinoussi.
His fresh claim on coronavirus, however, received criticism from scientists, including his colleagues.
"Just in case you don't know. Dr Montagnier has been rolling downhill incredibly fast in the last few years. From baselessly defending homeopathy to becoming an antivaxxer. Whatever he says, just don't believe him," tweeted Juan Carlos Gabaldon.
As per a recent Washington Post, two years ago, the US embassy officials in China raised concerns about the insufficient biosafety at the Chinese government's Wuhan Institute of Virology where deadly viruses and infectious diseases are studied.
Though the institute, located quite close to the Wuhan wet market, is China's first biosafety level IV lab, the US state department had warned in 2018 about "serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory".
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