Police deployed at Mumbai office of Dr Zakir Naik as precautionary measure

Bengaluru, Mar 30: Coffee Day Enterprises Ltd (CDEL) has received the first tranche of Rs 2,000 crore following disinvestment of Global Village Techparks to repay debts following the death of its founder V G Siddhartha.
In August last year, CDEL executed definitive agreements with entities belonging to Blackstone Group and Salarpuria Sattva Group for investment in GV Techparks, a wholly-owned subsidiary of group company Tanglin Development Ltd (TDL), at an enterprise value of Rs 2,700 crore.
The balance amount is expected to be received after the receipt of few statutory approvals, CDEL said in a statement.
"Out of the money received in first tranche, the company has paid off its debts in full including principal and interest amounting to Rs 1,644 crore to the lenders despite difficult economic conditions," it said.
Post this payment, the consolidated debt of the company and its subsidiaries stands at Rs 3,200 crore as on March 27. This includes debt of Rs 1,400 crore of its subsidiary Sical Logistics Ltd where disinvestment process is in progress.
"The company and subsidiaries have repaid around Rs 4,000 crore to the lenders since the beginning of this financial year," CDEL said.
"With the continuous support of stakeholders of the company, the current management is working to ensure better liquidity and operational efficiency. The company is confident of the future ahead despite various challenges," it added.
The company has been in rough waters after its founder V G Siddhartha took his own life as debt strains began to emerge in his company. Since his death in July last year, CDEL has been trying to divest its assets to pare debts.
On July 30, 2019, CDEL informed stock exchanges about Siddhartha's disappearance. In a letter that was purportedly written by him, the Cafe Coffee Day founder said: "I could not take any more pressure from one of the private equity partners forcing me to buy back shares."

Mangaluru, Feb 7: To stop the NRC and CAA from being implemented everyone has to fight unitedly highlighting the failures of the ruling party, said National President of Priyadarshini squad, All India National Women’s Congress Kavya Narasimha Murthy.

Addressing the workshop for the protection of Citizenship against CAA, NRC and NPR for the party workers at the Cordel Hall, Kulshekar here Thursday by district Congress party, she said, “Protests are being held everywhere against the CAA, NRC and NPR but if we only go on protesting, the ruling party will implementing divisive policies and new laws every day.

Many think that they may not be affected by the CAA, NRC or NPR and keep away from protesting against it. The congress should fight against the CAA concentrating on three approaches. We cannot fight against divisive politics by fighting only against the CAA and NRC. We need to expose the government’s failures, their divisive politics and continue our protests against the CAA, NCR and NPR.”

Benagluru, Feb 27: The sudden hike in bus fares by the state-run transport corporation has triggered a public outrage and protests by the opposition Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) in Karnataka.

Terming the hike as anti-people and inflationary, the Congress urged the ruling BJP to withdraw it forthwith and spare the commuters from the additional burden.

"KSRTC and its affiliates should not further burden the people when the cost of living has gone up and its bus service is used by the majority in the absence of trains in many regions of the state," said Ravi Gowda of the Congress.

In a surprise announcement on Tuesday night, the Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC) and its two affiliates -- North Eastern Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (NEKSRTC )and North Western Karnataka Road Transport Corporation (NWKSRTC) -- increased bus fares by 12% with effect from Wednesday, drawing the ire of commuters and opposition parties alike.

Condemning the fare hike, JD(S) leader and former Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy urged the KSRTC to roll back the revised fares and give relief to the common man reeling under price rise due to CGST, SGST and food inflation.

"The BJP government has deliberately increased the bus fare ahead of the state budget for 2020-21 fiscal on March 2, catching people unawares. Though student passes have been spared from the hike, regular passengers are forced to pay Rs 5-32 more instead of getting better efficiency, management and productivity," Kumaraswamy said in a statement in Bengaluru.

It's an additional burden on us, said Bengaluru resident K. Venkatesh, while adding,

"The 12 percent hike in bus fares by the KSRTC and its north-east and north-west affiliates from Wednesday will hit passengers hard and make commuting costly.”

"The fare hike will negate the state government's efforts to encourage public transport service and force passengers to travel on the train, which is cheaper, faster and safer," asserted Venugopal Gupta, a cloth merchant in the city.

Justifying the hike, KSRTC Managing Director Shivayogi Kalasad told media that the hike was inevitable due to the steady increase in diesel price, dearness allowance in staff salary and overall cost of operations.

"Since the last fare revision came in May 2014, the operational cost has gone up substantially due to Rs 11.27 per litre hike in diesel price, increase in DA to employees and repairing, maintenance and fleet management costs," Kalasad said.

The financial burden due to fuel price hike is Rs 261 crore, DA Rs 341 crore and operational cost Rs 601 crore per annum for KSRTC alone, he said.

"For the benefit of rural passengers, fares have been reduced to Rs 5 from Rs 7 for the first 3 km. There is no increase in fares for the first 12 km and up to first 6 km in express service," Kalasad added.