Eveninger reporter attacked by gang near Uppinangady

Bengaluru, Apr 21: The Karnataka Government may spare its employees from salary cuts this month despite severe resources crunch it faces following steep fall in revenue collection due to the ongoing lockdown to fight the coronavirus, official sources said on Tuesday.

As of now, there is no problem with April salary and we can manage. But if May also turns out to be a wash-out (in terms of revenue collection), then the situation is going to be very tough, a senior Minister said.

Ministers and members of Karnataka Legislature are taking a 30 per cent pay-cut for a year from April 1 this year. Opposition Congress in the state has vehemently opposed any possible move to cut salaries of government employees.

You just cant even imagine, the Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa had told news agency in an interview earlier this month on the economic impact of the lock-down on the state's finances. Yediyurappa had also said that the government is now not in a position to implement Budget proposals, barring important ones, with all kinds of revenue collections having completely stopped following the lockdown.

The government recently said it proposes to regularise unauthorised properties in the state by imposing penalty, and also auction more than 12,000 corner sites belonging to the Bengaluru Development Authority, as part of resource mobilisation drive.

Bengaluru, Feb 3: A wave of dissatisfaction has hit the six-month-old BJP government against the backdrop of chief minister B S Yediyurappa's announcement to induct 13 aspirants in the second cabinet expansion on February 6.

In the first cabinet expansion, the chief minister had inducted 17 ministers on August 20, 2019.

Among the 13, ten will be those defectors from Congress and the JD(S) who were disqualified earlier and won the assembly by-election in December last year.

The rest will be the 'native BJP leaders', as deputy chief minister Govind Karjol put it.

Speculations are rife that Mahadevapura MLA Arvind Limbavali, Hukkeri MLA Umesh Katti and C P Yogeshwar, who had lost to H D Kumaraswamy from Channapatna assembly segment,would be inducted.

If Yogeshwar is included in the cabinet then he will bethe second minister after Deputy chief minister Laxman Savadi who had lost and yet made it to the cabinet.

The possible induction of Yogeshwar and Savadi, who was made deputy chief minister despite losing the assembly elections, are also a "reason" for discontent in the BJP.

Hectic activities began in the power corridor and MLAs started forming groups to impress upon the chief minister to include their members in the ministry.

While one group was from the "Kalyana Karnataka" region, the others were the defectors who will be excluded in the cabinet expansion.

A few MLAS from 'Kalyana Karnataka' region or erstwhile Hyderabad-Karnataka region comprising six districts, met at the Legislature Home and held a meeting.

The meeting was led by Shorapur MLA Narasimha Nayak akaRaju Gouda and Honnalli MLA M P Renukacharya.
The MLAs of the Kalyana Karnataka region were unanimous that their backward region should get representation in the cabinet.

Later, Gouda met the Chief Minister and requested that their region be given adequate representation in the cabinet, which is lacking development.

Talking to reporters, Gouda said, "We had given representations to all the MPs, MLAs and the chief minister. Today also we all had a meeting and later called on the Chief Minister requesting him to make any MLA from our region a minister."

He said any imbalance in cabinet expansion will cause trouble to the MLAs from Kalyana Karnataka region.

"If you make the defeated candidates ministers then include 120 people in the cabinet," an aggrieved Gouda taunted.

Renukacharya too echoed the same sentiments.

"If you give preference to the defeated candidates then what will happen to those who won the election? Where should the winners of election go? We emphasise upon giving preference to the winners."

On the other hand, the defectors who jumped the Congress and the JD(S) ship and helped form the BJP government too had a meeting in Bengaluru, said BJP sources.

They were unanimous that not only the 11 MLAs who won theelection be made ministers but also A H Vishwanath and M T BNagaraj who had unsuccessfully contested the assembly by- polls from Hunasuru and Hoskote on a BJP ticket.

Vishwanath, who was quite vocal on Sunday for dropping his name, was mellowed down on Monday after meeting Yediyurappa.

However, his insistence for getting a cabinet berth remained intact.

"I did not make any proposal before him and will not do it in future because he (Yediyurappa) knows what has to be done,"Vishwanath told reporters after meeting the chief minister.

When he was reminded of Yediyurappa's statement that therewere legal complications in making him a minister, Vishwanath said, "This government has legal experts and the advocate general. They will speak."

Amid speculations that Athani MLA Mahesh Kumathalli may not get a cabinet berth in the reshuffle, the defected MLAs led by Gokak BJP MLA Ramesh Jarkiholi, had a meeting to decide their future strategy, said party sources.

Currently, there are 18 ministers, including the chief minister, in the cabinet, which has a sanctioned strength of 34. Sixteen berths are vacant.

The cabinet expansion exercise will be a delicate task for Yediyurappa as he has to ensure adequate representation for various castes and regions.

The ministry already has eight Lingayats, including Yediyurappa; three Vokkaligas; a Brahmin; three SCs, two OBCs and one ST.

Opposition parties have been critical of the BJP and Yediyurappa over the delay in the cabinet expansion, alleging he is weak and his administration has collapsed.

Reacting to the cabinet expansion, former chief minister Siddaramaiah quipped, "A drama is taking place. Let it happen on February 6. Afterwards we will see what all happens."

Bosnia, Jul 12: Bosnians commemorated on Saturday the massacre of about 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, marking the 25th anniversary of killings that shocked the world and have stood out as Europe's only atrocity since World War Two constituting genocide.

Nine newly identified victims were buried at a flower-shaped cemetery near the town, where tall white tombstones mark the graves of 6,643 other victims.

"After 25 years we succeeded in finding his mortal remains, so they can be laid to their final rest," said Fikret Pezic, who buried his father Hasan.

The remains of some 1,000 victims of the massacre in the eastern town during Bosnia's 1992-1995 war are still missing.

Ifeta Hasanovic decided to bury incomplete remains of her husband, saying: "We were aware they cannot be complete after 25 years, at least there are some, I did not want to make any new delays."

World leaders addressed the ceremony by video link, unable to attend because of coronavirus epidemic. Instead of the tens of thousands visitors who typically attend the commemoration each year, only a few thousand came after organisers banned organised visits.

During the Bosnian war, Bosnian Serb forces pushed non-Serbs out of territories they sought for their Serb statelet. Fleeing Muslims took shelter in several eastern towns, including Srebrenica, that were designated as United Nations "safe zones".

On July 11, 1995, the Serb forces commanded by General Ratko Mladic overran Srebrenica, which was protected by lightly armed Dutch peacekeepers.

They sent women and children away and captured and executed the men and boys they found. The bodies were dumped into mass graves and later exhumed by U.N. investigators and used as evidence in war crimes trials of Bosnian Serb leaders.

"We grieve with the families that tirelessly seek justice for the 8,000 innocent lives lost, all these years later," said U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Washington brokered Bosnia's peace deal months after the massacre.

Most people at the commemoration were Muslim Bosniaks, reflecting conflicting narratives about the bloodshed - which hinders reconciliation nearly 25 years after the end of war in which about 100,000 people were killed.

The U.N. war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia convicted Mladic and his political chief Radovan Karadzic over Srebrenica genocide but they remained heroes for Serbs, many of whom deny that genocide happened.

On Saturday, the Serbs in the nearby town of Bratunac organised an event marking July 11 as the "Srebrenica Liberation Day".

Sefik Dzaferovic, the Bosniak chairman of Bosnia's tripartite presidency, called for legislation that would ban denial of genocide.

"There can be no trust as long as we witness attacks on the truth, denial of genocide and glorification and celebration of executors," Dzaferovic told the commemoration gathering.