Centre should enact law to check cow slaughter: Sadhvi Saraswati

Alappuzha, Jan 9: The houseboat of Nobel Laureate Michael Levitt was blocked in the backwaters here for some time by trade union activists, who were on a nationwide strike against the Centre's "anti-labour" policies on Wednesday.

Michael Levitt, an American-British-Israeli biophysicist and a professor of structural biology at the Stanford University in the United States, said the incident sent a bad message to tourists.

Levitt, who was in Kerala as a state guest, also said he felt as if a bandit had stopped his wife and him at gunpoint. Police said Levitt, who received the 2013 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, was in Alappuzha with his wife and they were stopped by the protesters near Kainakary.

"Being stopped by criminals on the backwaters sends a very bad message to tourists. It is as if a bandit stopped us at gunpoint and delayed us under the threat of force for one hour," Levitt wrote in an email to his tour agent at Kottayam.

In the email, which was later released to the media, he also said the person who blocked them "ignored all arguments that tourists were exempted" from the strike.

"This person, who did this, ignored all arguments that tourists were exempted and that I am a VIP guest of the Kerala government. He was obviously acting, knowing that he was safe from prosecution. Sadly, this makes me fear that India is sinking into lawlessness," Levitt wrote in the email.

The police registered a case after the houseboat owners filed a complaint in this regard.

Reacting to the incident, state Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran said the government would take strong action. "Strong action will be taken against those anti-social elements who stopped the boat. Levitt was here as a guest of the state government. The government had made it clear that the tourism industry was exempted from the strike," he said.

Trade union leaders had also announced that the strike would not affect the tourism industry.

Ten trade unions, including the INTUC, the AITUC and the CITU, had called for the nationwide strike to protest against the labour reforms, FDI, disinvestment, corporatisation and privatisation policies of the Centre and press for a 12-point demands of the working class, relating to minimum wage, among others.

Udupi, May 16: Close on the heels of six Covid-19 cases being detected in a little over 24 hours, Udupi recorded its first death of a Covid-19 patient. The victim is a 54-year-old man from Mumbai, who died due to a heart attack on Thursday. His reports came back on Saturday, and confirmed that he had Covid-19. The Udupi district administration has arranged to carry out his last rites as per government designated guidelines for Covid-19 victims.

A medical bulletin issued by the superintendent of Kasturba Hospital, Manipal, stated that the patient was admitted due to a heart-related issue on May 13.

Some members on the team that treated the patient have been quarantined. The hospital’s emergency department will operate as usual, and the outpatient department will operate as usual from 8.30am to 1pm, following government guidelines, the bulletin said. Deputy commissioner G Jagadeesha said that since the patient was from Mumbai, the authorities collected his swab sample for testing, as a precautionary measure.

The man suffered from chest pain, and was initially taken to the taluk hospital at Kundapur from where he was shifted to Kasturba Hospital, due to the seriousness of his condition. The doctors operated on him on May 13, and he suffered a severe heart attack on May 14 and died, the DC said. “Three hospital staff without PPE kits, who attended to the patient, have been quarantined,” the DC said, adding that the operating doctors and nurses had worn PPE kits.

In addition, 5 others who travelled with the person from Mumbai and 57 people with him at the Kundapur isolation centre, have been designated as primary contacts, and 38 others as secondary contacts, and quarantined. The staff at Kundapur taluk hospital too had taken precautions in handling the patient, the DC said. Udupi presently has six active cases, including a 1-year-old child and 5 others, all of whom returned from Dubai on May 12.

Madikeri, Jan 5: Frequent attacks by Tigers on their cattle in South Kodagu region has left the dairy farmers a worried lot and causing concern for their life.

Several farmers have been rearing cows to supplement their income when low prices of pepper and coffee affect their earnings. At least 13 cows have fallen prey to Tigers in the months of November and December last year.

The Forest Department provides a compensation of Rs 10,000 if a cattle is killed by a tiger or in the attack. The compensation amount is meagre when it comes to the loss incurred by the farmers.

Though the Forest Department has submitted a proposal to increase the compensation amount to the government, no action has been initiated in this regard.