'Over 4 lakh covid tests conducted in Karnataka so far; recovery rate 44%'

Bengaluru, Jul 18: Veteran actor Hulivana Gangadharaiah has passed away due to novel Coronavirus at the age of 70 on Friday night at a private hospital. He has acted in films, plays and serials as well.

He was acting in the romantic serial Premaloka which has Vijay Suriya and Ankitha Navya Gowda in lead roles.

According to reports, after he showed the symptoms of having Coronavirus, he got self-isolated at his farm house. When his health condition deteriorated, he was admitted to the hospital. Gangadhariah has acted in over 100 films, 150 plays and many serials lived his life in a simple way.

Condoling the death of Gangadharaiah, T N Seetharam on his Facebook page posted, “The death of a friend and a wonderful actor Hulivana Gangandharaiah is painful. In Aaspota play, the role of a driver he played brought immense popularity ro the play. When George Fernandes watched the play he appreciated his character. In the serial Muktha Muktha, he played the role of a politician Rajanandaswamy with ease which was aired for over three years brought us closer. In the modern theatre, Nagesh whom I consider as Guru used to cast Gangadharaiah in each play he directed which reflected the kind of faith he had in him. After a few years, he got involved in agriculture so I did not had much contact with him. It’s been nearly eight years I last met him. It is very sad that we have lost him.”

Lead actor of the serial Premaloka, Vijay Suriya has also mourned the death of Hulivana Gangadharaiah who was seen in a pivotal role in the serial.

Bengaluru, Jan 12: Karnataka’s ranking in Niti Aayog’s sustainable development goals (SDG) index rose by one place to No. 6 in 2019, compared to the year before.

Of the 17 SDGs that are used to compute the overall index, Karnataka topped in two – ‘climate action’ and ‘life on water’. The former is a measure of how well a state integrates climate action into policies and strategies and promote mechanisms for raising capacity for effective climate change planning and management. The latter focuses on preventing marine pollution, ending illegal and destructive fishing practices, and sustainably managing and protecting marine and coastal ecosystems.

It also did well in ‘decent work and economic growth’ and ‘peace, justice and strong institutions’. But it fared poorly, slipping 16 places – from No. 5 in 2018 to No. 21 in 2019 – in ‘industry, innovation and infrastructure’. Rankings in ‘quality education’ and ‘zero hunger’ have also fallen. While in education it is now ranked 7, a drop of three places, in ‘zero hunger’, it has dropped to No. 17 from 13. SDG is a United Nations initiative. Niti Aayog has customised it for India, and 36 states and union territories are ranked. The organisation admits there is an issue of data availability in India, indicating the numbers may not exactly reflect the ground situation.

In ‘industry, innovation and infrastructure, Karnataka scored just 40 out of a target of 100. The country average was 65. It failed to achieve targets in all the four parameters for the category, except in the number of mobile connections, where it has 100 connections per 100 population. The biggest dip was in manufacturing industry jobs and in providing allweather roads under Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana to targeted habitats. Niti Ayog has given a score of 0 for the latter. Speaking on the dismal performance in the ‘industry and infrastructure’ category, state planning commission vice-chairman BJ Puttaswamy said he was yet to look into this parameter. “I have asked the departments concerned to meet me by Monday,” he said.

Mangaluru, June 14: Private schools under the aegis of Association of English Medium Schools in Dakshina Kannada and Udupi urged the State government to reimburse the arrears of the fee related to admission of students under the Right to Education (RTE) Act.

Speaking to newsmen here on Sunday association president Y. Mohammed Beary said the State government has not cleared the arrears for the last two years. “The 400 private schools in two districts have to get around Rs 2 crore,” he said and added that the overall arrears that the government has to pay to schools in the State are around Rs1,200 crore.

Mr. Beary said arrears have made the school managements like his, who collect annual fees of about Rs 20,000 from a student, hard to function. Due to lockdown from March the schools could not conduct annual examinations and hence they could not collect pending fees from parents.