Endosulfan: Mothers' agitation gains momentum

[email protected] (CD Network)
April 30, 2012

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Kasargod, April 30: The agitation by mothers of hapless endosulfan victims in Kasargod district appears to be picking up momentum with more and more organisations coming forward to express their solidarity with the aggrieved persons.

They have accused the State government of having failed to fulfil its assurances on an enhanced relief and rehabilitation package in a time-bound manner.

Most of the assurances by successive governments have remained on paper, driving the victims and their families to frustration, said office-bearers of the Kasaragod People's Forum and leading cultural activists, addressing the mothers of the victims as the strike entered the 10th day on Sunday.

The agitation is sponsored by the Endosulfan Satyagraha Samithi. It was decided at a meeting to launch a massive campaign on May 3 and submit a detailed memorandum enlisting the unfulfilled promises to Chief Minister Oommen Chandy during his visit here on May 10, said forum president M. K. Radhakrishnan, presiding over the fast near the collectorate premises here on Sunday.

Forum activists V. Gopinathan, V.V. Prabhakaran, V.D. Joseph, M. Padmakshan, E. Chandrasekharan Nair, besides social and cultural activists Subaida Neeleswaram, Narayanan Periya, among others, addressed the fasting mothers.

The Democratic Youth Federation of India will observe a day-long hartal on May 5 in areas falling under the worst affected 11 panchayat, where the victims are leading a life of agony and trauma in the aftermath of indiscriminate aerial spraying of endosulfan in the cashew estates of the State-owned Plantation Corporation of Kerala.

Meanwhile, a meeting of the Kerala Sasthra Sahitya Parishath Kasaragod district unit at Vellikoth in Kanhangad on Sunday expressed solidarity with the mothers' agitation, and demanded that the State government initiate steps to solve the problems faced by their families.

In a resolution at the close of the two-day meeting, the parishath urged the government to meet the mothers' demands. Implementation of relief and rehabilitation packages should get top priority.

The parishath criticised the Health Ministry's stand of overruling a study done by the Government Medical College, Kozhikode, on the health hazards posed by endosulfan.

The study report had been submitted before the Supreme Court.

The organisation demanded that the huge stock of endosulfan kept in the godowns of the Plantation Corporation of Kerala in the district be destroyed. Steps should be taken to promote organic farming to supplement the efforts of the Central Plantation Crops Research Institute and the Krishi Vigyan Kendra. It demanded that the district administration conserve rivers with the participation of people to address water scarcity.

T.K. Devarajan was elected president of the parishath's district unit and B.S. Babu Secretary.


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News Network
May 23,2020

Bengaluru, May 23: The Karnataka government on Friday said returnees from six states with high COVID-19 cases will be kept in institutional quarantine for seven days.

The states are - Maharashtra, Gujarat, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

As per the standard operating procedure released by the government, all people to arrive via rain, air road are expected to quarantine.

After they test negative for the disease in pool testing, they will be sent for home quarantine for another seven days, the government said.

Returnees from other low prevalence states will be asked to follow 14 days of home quarantine, according to the standard operating procedure (SOP) for entry of persons from other states to Karnataka issued by the state health department late on Friday night.

However home quarantine is allowed for pregnant ladies, people above 80 years, patients with comorbidities and children below 10 years of age, along with one attendant after they test negative.

In special cases like businessmen coming for urgent work, the quarantine period will be waived if they furnish a report from an ICMR-approved laboratory showing they tested negative for COVID-19, it said.

However, if they don't have reports, they will have to stay in institutional quarantine and can leave once their results test negative.

In case their stay exceeds 5 days, they will be sent to the fever clinic and get a five-day extension if found asymptomatic.

The report should not be more than two days old from the date of travel.

All Karnataka returnees who entered from 4 May will be tested from 5-7 days from the time of their arrival.

If found COVID-19 negative, they will be sent to home quarantine and will have to follow due precautions, the SOP stated.

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News Network
June 9,2020

Bengaluru, Jun 9: A 42-year-old founding director of an engineering consultancy firm lost Rs 65,000 to online fraudsters who posed as representatives of a mobile service provider and lured him with the offer of a fancy number recently.

Asif (name changed) received a text message on May 19, informing him that a platinum number, 9099999999, was available and interested people could dial a mobile number to avail it.

“Asif, who runs a mechanical, electrical, plumbing (MEP) engineering consultancy near Shivajinagar, decided to get the fancy mobile number. He called the number and the receiver said they would generate an invoice for his request. After a fake invoice for Rs 64,900 was generated, Asif paid the money through online transaction that day. Asif waited for two weeks for the SIM card with the fancy number to reach him,” an officer said.

East CEN Crime police registered a case of cheating under section 420 of IPC and sections under the Information Technology Act after Asif lodged a complaint on June 6.

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News Network
July 10,2020

Bengaluru, Jul 10: With 2,313 more people testing positive for coronavirus in Karnataka in the last 24 hours, its overall tally of patients rose to 33,418 on Friday, health officials said.

57 patients died in Karnataka in the last 24 hours, with majority (27) of them from Bengaluru, taking the state''s death toll to 543, the officials added.

Bengaluru accounted for 1,447 or 63 per cent of the new COVID-19 cases, spiking its tally to 15,329, out of which 11,687 are active cases.

The city alone accounts for 46 per cent of all the cases in the state.

As many as 45 deaths had Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI) as a common symptom.

Among the new cases, excluding Bengaluru, Dakshina Kannada accounted for 139 infections, followed by Vijayapura (89), Ballari (66), Kalaburagi (58), Yadgir and Mysuru (51 each) among others.

On Friday, a record 1,003 patients got discharged, 601 of them in Bengaluru alone with the total number of discharges rising up to 13,836.

Until now, Karnataka has tested 7.79 lakh samples for Covid, out of which 7.28 lakh tested negative.

Despite the record number of discharges, patients in ICU rose to 472.

Of the 33,418 cases, 19,035 are active in the state.

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