Sunday sees no let up in rush; long queues outside banks, ATMs

Bengaluru, Jan 11: India’s second-biggest IT company, Infosys Ltd, said it found no evidence of financial misconduct by its executives following a investigation into whistleblower complaints.

Bengaluru-headquartered Infosys, which earlier on Friday raised its revenue forecasts due to upbeat demand from Western clients, said an audit committee report exonerated Chief Executive Officer Salil Parekh and Chief Financial Officer Nilanjan Roy of all allegations, including accusations that the duo prevented employees from presenting data on large deals.

“I’m very happy that CEO Salil Parekh and CFO Nilanjan Roy have emerged from this stronger,” Infosys Chairman Nandan Nilekani told reporters. “The last two years since Salil has been here the company has changed dramatically for the better.”

Parekh took over as Infosys CEO in January 2018, after his predecessor Vishal Sikka quit following a public row with the company’s founder executives amid whistleblower allegations of wrongdoing.

The company earlier said it expected revenue to grow between 10 per cent and 10.5 per cent on a constant currency basis in the year ending March 2020, compared with its previous forecast of between 9 per cent and 10 per cent.

“We continue to see momentum in the market and we have an extremely robust pipeline driven by segment leaders,” CEO Parekh told a news conference.

“With the strength of large deal wins and digital momentum, we were able to clearly see that we have support to raise our guidance.”

Jan 2: A year after 12,000 acres of forests in Bandipur went up in smoke, the Karnataka Forest Department is gearing up for the summer even as the Forest Survey of India (FSI) has cautioned that 22.78 lakh acres (9,222 sq km) or about 20% of the green cover spread across three districts in the central part of the state is fire-prone.

The FSI studied forest fire incidents across the country between 2004-05 and 2017 before coming up with state-specific inputs.

According to the 13-year observation, Karnataka has 7,352 “fire points” or areas measuring 5 km X 5 km with frequent fire incidents.

Though the number is lower compared to states like Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Odisha with over 20,000 points, the sheer spread of the fire-prone area itself is a challenge for the Karnataka Forest Department.

According to data, about three lakh acres (1,199.9 sq km) of forest area is very highly fire prone with 26 to 52 fire incidents in 13 years. This is followed by 7.6 lakh acres (3,067 sq km) of “highly fire prone” areas with an average of one to two incidents every year.

Almost all of the “red alert” areas are concentrated in Uttara Kannada, Chikkmagaluru, Shivamogga and Chamarajanagar districts. As temperature rises at the end of January, so does the risk of forest fires, requiring officials to be on vigil till the end of summer.

After an investigation into the Bandipur blaze revealed that faulty fire lines and poor supervision were the reason for the spread of the fire, the department has come up with a multi-pronged approach to prevent similar incidents this year.

“After the Bandipur incident, we have created a fire cell and a standard operating procedure (SOP) which everyone has to follow. Firstly, a fire management plan is prepared and approved by a competent authority.

The SOP has well defined firelines which have to be executed by December-end and burning must be completed by January 15,”  Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (Head of Forest Force) Punati Sridhar told DH.

He said that to ensure its strict implementation, GPS readings of firelines are to be submitted for random verification.

“All the required equipment from fire jackets to shoes, gloves, backpack sprayers and tractors mounted with 2,000-5,000 litre tanks with high pressure pumps will be deployed at vantage points,” he said.

In addition, the department’s fire cell works in collaboration with the Karnataka State Remote Sensing Applications Centre (KSRSAC) to give fire alerts within half and hour of an area catching fire and detected by satellites.

“Earlier, the gap used to be four hours by when the fire would have spread beyond control. Now, with reduced time gap, it would be easier to control fire early,” he added.

Bengaluru, July 14: Girls outshone boys in the Second Pre-University Board examinations in Karnataka, results of which were announced on Tuesday.

As many as 6.75 lakh students had written the examination of which 4.17 lakh students passed.

Thus, the pass percentage is 61.80 per cent, Primary and Secondary Education Minister S Suresh Kumar said while announcing the results.

He said 68.73 per cent girls cleared the exam against the boys whose pass percentage was 54.77 per cent.

In terms of urban versus rural, 62.60 per cent students passed in the urban area while 58.99 per cent were from rural areas.

The three districts where the students' performance was excellent were Udupi, Dakshina Kannada and Kodagu whereas the districts where students fared badly were Chitradurga, Raichur and Vijayapura, the minister said.

Both Dakshina Kannada and Udupi have recorded 90.71 percent results. Kodagu has bagged second position with 81.53 pass percentage. Vijayapura district has recorded lowest pass percentage (54.22)

Combination wise, the pass percentage of students in science stream is 82.57 per cent, Commerce 72.60 per cent and Arts 47.90 per cent, said the Minister.

He also said of those who passed the examination, 72. 45 per cent were from English medium and 47.56 from Kannada medium.

There are 68,866 distinction scorers, 2,21,866 students who got first division and 77,455 students who passed the exam in second division, the minister added.