UAE announces ministers for state ministers for happiness, tolerance, youth

Kasaragod, Jul 26: First funeral, now wedding. Forty-three persons who attended a wedding at Pilankatta in Chengala panchayat in Kasaragod on July 17 have tested positive for Covid-19, said district medical officer (DMO) A V Ramdas.

They include the bride and the groom. Collector D Sajith Babu has asked all those who attended the wedding to go into home quarantine for 14 days. Those with Covid symptoms should get in touch with the nearest primary health centre, he said.

The DMO said samples of 128 persons linked to the wedding were tested, of which 43 turned out positive. Earlier, 44 persons who attended a funeral in Cherkala in the first week of July had tested positive. The funeral was declared a cluster and the government had to test 522 persons linked to the funeral.

The collector said those taking part in funeral or weddings without following the Covid protocol would be booked under the Kerala Epidemic Diseases Act. If convicted, they would face up to two years of rigorous imprisonment and a fine of `10,000. Kasaragod police said they will register a case in connection with the wedding. 

Pilankatta ward member Abdulla Kunhi K B said it was not a big fat wedding. The ceremony held at the bride’s house at Pilankatta was attended by less than 100 people, he said.“Theirs is a big family with four houses in one compound. 

As many as 30 members are staying in these houses,” said Kunhi. Nine of the 30 have tested positive.Of the 15 guests, who came from the bride’s mother’s house, 12 contracted the infection. “The rest of the infected persons were among the groom’s guests,” said Kunhi, who did not attend the wedding. The groom and the bride’s father returned from Dubai three months ago.

1,049: state records biggest recovery
A total of 1,049 Covid patients recovered on Saturday. This is the first time that the number of recoveries crossed the 1,000-mark in the state. The previous highest was 968 reported on Friday. So far, as many as 8,613 patients have recovered.

roping in ayush experts a challenge  
Plan to bring AYUSH practitioners for treating positive patients at CFLTCs is going to be a challenge for the government. It turned out that respective associations were planning to approach the government with an individual charter of demands. 

Bengaluru, Mar 18: Karnataka Congress President DK Shivakumar on Wednesday met the Director-General of Police in Bengaluru and demanded police protection for Madhya Pradesh Congress MLAs and the removal of BJP workers from the hotel in Bengaluru, where the legislators are currently lodged.

"The (Madhya Pradesh) legislators have come here and have requested police protection, that is all. Let the police give them protection, our candidate (Digvijaya Singh) has come, let him meet the legislators. Why are BJP workers protecting them? We know that they are under threat and hence we need to vacate them (BJP workers)," Shivakumar told reporters here after the meeting.

"We will give protection to our men and that is why we are telling them they cannot stop us. They should be in a free and fair position. I have communicated to DGP that BJP needs to vacate," he added.

Earlier today, Congress' Rajya Sabha candidate from Madhya Pradesh and former chief minister Digvijaya Singh was placed under preventive arrest after he sat on a dharna near Ramada Hotel here, allegedly for not being allowed by police to meet the 21 Congress rebel MLAs lodged in a hotel.

"I am a Rajya Sabha candidate from Madhya Pradesh, voting is scheduled for March 26. My MLAs have been kept here, they want to speak to me, their phones have been snatched, the police is not letting me speak to them saying there is a security threat to MLAs," Singh told reporters.

Singh who sat on the dharna with a face mask on said: "We were expecting them to come back, but when we saw they're being held back, messages came from their families...I personally spoke to five MLAs, they said they're captive, phones snatched away, there is Police in front of every room. They're being followed 24/7," Singh said.

The development comes amid the political crisis in Madhya Pradesh after the exit of Jyotiraditya Scindia from the Congress party.

Scindia's departure was followed by 22 Congress MLAs resigning from the party as well as from the state legislative Assembly.

The resignation of these MLAs has left the Kamal Nath government below the majority mark.

Bengaluru, Apr 15: The Karnataka government on Wednesday opened a critical care support unit to monitor the progress of Coronavirus patients in Intensive Care Units (ICUs) of various designated COVID hospitals across the State.

Karnataka is the first state in the country to establish a dedicated unit for critical care support, by linking ICUs of COVID hospitals onto a single platform, Medical Education Minister Sudhakar K, who inaugurated it, was quoted as saying in a statement on Wednesday.

Its objective is to monitor COVID-19 patients in ICUs across Karnataka state so that the hospitals are prepared for the potential onslaught of the virus and thereby to achieve zero COVID mortality in Karnataka, he said, adding, it would enable capturing details of ICU COVID-19 patients in real-time