K Jayaprakash Hegde releases BJP’s manifesto for Udupi constituency

Dubai, May 3: Over 150,000 Indians in the UAE, who wish to return home amid the coronavirus lockdown, have applied through the online registration process to the Indian missions here, according to media reports.

The Indian missions in the country last week opened online registration for the expatriates who wish to fly back home after getting stuck in the country amidst the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic.

As of 6 pm on Saturday, we received more than 150,000 registrations, Consul General of India in Dubai Vipul told the Gulf News on Saturday.

A quarter of them want to return to their homeland after losing their jobs, he said.

According to a report in the Khaleej Times on Sunday, about 40 per cent of the applicants who have registered are blue-collared workers and 20 per cent are working professionals.

"Roughly 20 per cent have suffered job losses and about 55 per cent of the total applicants are from Kerala," Neeraj Aggarwal, Consul, Press, Information, Culture was quoted as saying in the report.

Aggarwal said that the figures would change as they are expecting registrations from workers from other states, including Telangana, Uttar Pradesh, and Bihar.

About 10 per cent of the applicants are visit and tourist visa holders who got stranded here due to the ongoing lockdown in India.

India extended the ongoing lockdown by two weeks from May 4 to contain the spread of the coronavirus that has affected nearly 40,000 people in the country.

Aggarwal said that a small number of the applications constitute those from pregnant women and other medical cases.

Since the online registration process was launched, the Consulate's website crashed several times due to the heavy rush of applicants wishing to register to fly back home.

The site has been working fine now though it took a lot of time for it to stabilise in the initial phase due to the heavy traffic, the counsel general said.

He said that the missions here have not yet received any information from the Indian government about the mode of transport of the stranded citizens, the prices of the tickets or how the COVID-19 test results of applicants would be assessed for their journey.

There are high-level discussions going on regarding these things, he said in the report.

Meanwhile, Norka (The Non Resident Keralites Affairs) said it has received a total of 398,000 applications from Keralites across the globe who wish to return home.

"Of which, the highest numbers are from the UAE. At least 175,423 applicants have signed up from the UAE," Norka said in an official statement on Saturday.

It also received 54,305 registrations from Saudi Arabia, 2,437 from the UK, 2,255 from the US, and 1,958 from Ukraine from those who wish to return to India, the Khaleej Times reported.

The coronavirus has infected 13,599 people and claimed 119 lives in the UAE, the Ministry of Health and Prevention said on Saturday.

Kalaburagi, Apr 9: An FIR has been lodged against the management and staff of Bahamani Super Speciality Hospital here in Kalaburagi allegedly for not following procedures meant to deal with COVID-19 and hiding details of patients with coronavirus symptoms, said District Deputy Commissioner Sharath B on Wednesday.

The district family welfare department official and nodal officer of KPME Kalaburagi took cognisance of the reports that the private hospitals in the district are not informing the government about patients having COVID-19 symptoms and they are only reporting about such cases at the last moment.

"It has come to our light that some private hospitals in Kalaburagi city are hiding information about the patients who are having COVID-19 like symptoms and these cases are not being reported on time to us," said the District Deputy Commissioner.

"We verified the records of these hospitals and it is clear now that they are revealing the serious cases in the last moment when the treatment has not given any help to patients. Only then such cases are bringing to ESI hospital in Kalaburagi. We have taken steps to quarantine the entire staff member of Bahamani hospital. We have taken legal steps against them for non-compliance of the orders issued to them and for not reporting this matter to us at the earliest stage," he said.

A case has been registered under the Disaster Management Act, 2005 column 51, 58 and sections 269 and 188 of the Indian Penal Code.

He further said that two new cases were reported positive on April 8 and one person has succumbed to the infection because he was having a severe respiratory infection.
He appealed to everyone to strictly follow lockdown restrictions and not violate Section 144 at any cost.

Speaking about the attacks on Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) and Anganwadi workers, who were given a task to collect travel details of locals in view of coronavirus crisis, Sharath said: "Some of the health workers, ASHA and Anganwadi workers, who have been given a task to going from door to door to verify health status were troubled unnecessarily, saying that they have come to collect data for NRC and NPR."

"They are doing a survey on behalf of the district administration as they have to gather travelling information so that a person can be quarantined to contain COVID-19 spread. There has been an attack, a case has been registered in this regard," he said.

Bengaluru, Mar 30: The coronavirus scare has taken a toll on the poultry industry in Karnataka with many poultry farm owners culling the birds, insiders in the poultry industry said.

At least one lakh birds have been culled in the last one week, the sources said.

Ever since the news spread about novel coronavirus spreading rapidly, the poultry industry started feeling the heat.

The lockdown spelt further trouble for the industry with reduced business compelling farm owners to go in for the culling.

According to Muddukrishna of C N Nischchith Enterprises, a live chicken dealer in Bengaluru, the culling had taken place in Shivamogga, Kolar and other places.

"There is a drastic decline in business. There are neither customers nor enough supply of birds for sale. We are badly hit. There are many poultry farm owners who have incurred tremendous loss due to the lockdown," Muddukrishna told news agency.

Another major poultry industry owner, having his farms in Channapatna, Ramanagar, Anekal and surrounding places, said he had to get rid of at least 4,000 birds in each of these farms.

"This is not restricted to me alone. There are about 64 major poultry industries who have gone for the drastic measure of culling," said the farm owner.

He said in the last one week, at least one lakh birds have been culled as it was hard for them to maintain them.

"Each bird needs at least a kilogram of grains in three days to eat whereas each kg of poultry food costs about Rs 32. We have about two lakh birds in our farm. How can we maintain if there is no business," rued the poultry farm owner.

The industry has suffered a double whammy.

People gave up eating chicken following rumours that the novel coronavirus COVID-19 is similar to SARS, another virus.

Further, the lockdown has blocked the transportation of these birds, he added.

According to the farm owner, in the last one month, he had suffered a loss of around Rs 15 lakh and if the situation continues for the next three months, his condition would be beyond imagination.

Muddukrishna said the poultry farm association had given a memorandum to the animal husbandry and fisheries department seeking direction on the transportation of these birds.

Accordingly, the secretary in the department of Animal Husbandry and Fisheries A B Ibrahim issued a circular to all the city police commissioners, deputy commissioners of the district, superintendent of police and the CEO of Zilla Panchayath on Friday that the animal husbandry services have been declared as essential services.

Ibrahim said in his circular that the production of chicken birds, sheep, goat, pigs, etc in the farm and their transportation, manufacturing feed, liquid nitrogen meant for veterinary use and other items related to the Animal Husbandry should be permitted.

"Despite the order, our vehicles are stopped and drivers are harassed," alleged Muddukrishna.