Muthalik urges to arrange paduka darshana

Bengaluru, Feb 24: Census authorities in Karnataka have requested deputy commissioners in the state’s districts to hold outreach and awareness campaigns about the National Population Register (NPR), as they fear misgivings about the exercise could hurt the forthcoming enumeration of population.

The house-listing phase of the Census and updating of NPR will be rolled out simultaneously by mid-April in the BJP-ruled state.

About 1,50,000 enumerators will handle the massive exercise.

Officials believe widespread awareness will help address concerns about the NPR data-gathering process and make people cooperate with enumerators when they visit houses for both NPR and census work.

“Sensing the kind of questions that enumerators may face when they do house visits, in all video conferences with deputy commissioners of districts, we have requested to establish contact with local representatives,” SB Vijay Kumar, director of Census Operations in Karnataka told news agency. “We have asked them to organise outreach programmes to ensure that people’s doubts are resolved before the information gathering work begins,” he added.

Census operations are handled by the Union home ministry. Several district officials are said to have raised concerns about the possibility of people refusing to share information when the work on the census and NPR begins in two months. This would affect the quality of the census work, making the exercise incomplete.

news channel earlier reported that people in parts of Karnataka had declined to share personal information with officials visiting households in connection with government programmes, suspecting them of gathering data for the yet-to-be unveiled National Register of Citizens, following enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) recently.

Kumar said district authorities will train and sensitise enumerators to tread carefully while gathering information. Enumerators will be told not to demand information but seek it gently.

“We will tell enumerators to proactively engage with people. For instance, if an old man in a village does not know his exact date or place of birth, the enumerator may engage in a conversation with the person that may elicit some anecdotes and roughly establish the year and the place of birth,” the census director said.

As of now, the NPR questionnaire has 21queries, but officials say it has not yet been finalised.

With most of the census and NPR data gathering and storage happening digitally this time, the challenge before census officials is to convince people that the data would remain safe.

“Individual data is sealed and all that we can see is collective data. The information is consolidated and tailor-made. We are telling district officials to create awareness about data safety as well,” Kumar said.

Bengaluru/Ballari, Jan 7: Former minister BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan of the Congress set a one-week deadline for the BJP government on Monday to arrest Ballari City BJP legislator G Somashekhara Reddy for his recent speech warning Muslims of dire consequences if they continue to protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.

Police have already booked Reddy, younger brother of tainted mining baron G Janardhan Reddy, under section 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion) of the Indian Penal Code.

However, Khan took the fight to Reddy a step further. “If the government fails to arrest Reddy by January 13, I will stage a dharna outside his house in Ballari, come what may. Let them do whatever they want,” Khan told reporters in Bengaluru.

In his speech at a pro-CAA rally organized by BJP workers and ABVP activists in Ballari, the BJP legislator had said, “We [Hindus] are 83% and they [Muslims] are 17% and if we take law into hands, you know what will happen.”

Khan said on Monday, “I challenge Reddy, the coward, to unsheathe his sword and cut me down first. It is absolutely shameful for a legislator to speak such things against a particular community. Why is Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who often says Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, silent?”

On his part, Reddy on Monday said he stood by what he said. “What I meant was you Muslims should not get swayed by CAA protests and damage public property. We [Hindus] are sons of the same mother and live peacefully. However, they [Muslims] should not test our [Hindu] patience. I stick by my words 100%,” he said.

A delegation of the Ballari district Congress unit also submitted an appeal to the deputy commissioner, inspector general of police and superintendent of police on Monday to arrest Reddy for his provocative speech.

Benglauru, May 25: Nearly one thousand people in the capital city of Karnataka have lost several crores of rupees to online fraudsters during the two months of covid-19 lockdown.

According to official sources, 962 cases of online frauds have been registered in various police stations across Bengaluru March 23 to May 19. 

On an average, 18 cases were reported every day. However, this number isn’t unusually high compared to normal times, according to police. The highest number of cases was registered in west division (227). 

What baffles the cops is the brazenness with which fraudsters attacked. Many fraudsters duped people in the name of providing jobs, insurance money, Employees’ Provident Fund, renewal of credit/debit cards. 
Many people lost money while procuring groceries, alcohol, masks and hand sanitisers delivered at the doorstep. Olx and Facebook scams thrived during the prolonged lockdown. 

Police said malicious links were shared on mobile phones asking recipients to download the Aarogya Setu app and seeking banking information, all targeted at stealing phone data. 

An officer said many were glued to their phones, and cybercriminals took advantage of this, sometimes pretending to be bank representatives wanting to issue/ renew credit/debit cards.