Bengaluru, Apr 11: Amid nationwide lockdown in the wake of COVID-19, former Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy on Saturday urged the state government to announce a relief package for farmers.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday held a video conference with Chief Ministers.
Taking to Twitter, Kumaraswamy wrote, "As the lock down continues, what action plan does the government have to tackle the challenges of ensuring marketing channels for farm produce with timely transport and ensuring uninterrupted supply of essential groceries to towns and cities?"
He later asked the government to act "swiftly and effectively".
"On one hand we see farmers throwing their produce in despair and losing their livelihoods. On the other hand supplies to towns are depleting. This is threatening both lives and livelihoods. The government must act swiftly and effectively," Kumaraswamy tweeted.
"I urge the state government to immediately announce relief package to farmers by way of direct benefit transfer mechanism and purchase all the agricultural produce so as to avoid farmer suicides," he added.
With 40 deaths and 1,035 new COVID-19 cases in the last 24 hours, India on Saturday witnessed a sharpest ever increase in coronavirus cases, taking the tally of the infected people in the country to 7,447, according to the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.
Bengaluru, Jan 12: Janata Dal (Secular) chief and former prime minister H D Deve Gowda on Sunday refuted reports of him contesting in the Rajya Sabha elections and added that he is more concerned about strengthening his party in Karnataka.
"I am not interested in going to Rajya Sabha. My concern is to build and strengthen the party in the region to the best of my ability. I had declared earlier that I will not contest elections anymore," Deve Gowda told ANI here.
"My party MP D Kupendra Reddy is there in the Rajya Sabha as of now and further decisions will be taken by the party. In March 2019, towards the end of the 16th Lok Sabha I had declared that I will not contest any more elections," Deve Gowda added.
Four Rajya Sabha seats in Karnataka are about to fall vacant in June this year as two of Congress, one of BJP and JD(S) MPs retire.
Bengaluru, Apr 17: The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on Thursday served a show cause notice to a Kannada news channel for broadcasting a programme in which it purportedly said that the Centre would 'air drop money' to the poor, owing to the COVID-19 lockdown.
The notice said that the channel was "spreading false information, creating panic and social unrest.
" The channel had allegedly aired a show titled, "Helicopter Money" on Wednesday which claimed that the Centre would drop money from helicopters during the lockdown period.
A Twitter user took a serious note of it and complained to the Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Prakash Javadekar.
The fact check team of the Press Information Bureau, under the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, refuted the claim.
In its notice to the channel, PIB said, "You are hereby directed to show cause why your channel should not be taken out of air immediately. You are instructed to send your reply in this regard within 10 days of receipt of this notice."
Reacting to the notice, the management of the news channels said, "A programme which has been seen in bits and pieces and those who have not even seen the programme appears to have complained. Notice will be replied accordingly."
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