Upright IAS officer Rohini Sindhuri shunted out for trying to prevent misuse of funds?

News Network
September 24, 2019

Bengaluru, Sept 24: Upright IAS officer Rohini Sindhuri, who was the secretary of the Karnataka Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board, was shunted out after she strongly resisted the attempts to misuse funds meant for upliftment of labourers, according to sources.

35-year-old Sindhuri was transferred by Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa led BJP government on September 20. Labour Commissioner K G Shantaram has been given concurrent charge of the Board, while Sindhuri has not been given a new posting. Yediyurappa himself holds the labour portfolio.

The Board has a corpus of about Rs 8,000 crore, which is mostly through labour cess of 1% that is levied on all construction projects — government or private. Sindhuri was taking steps to streamline the Board’s expenditure, what with only about Rs 800 crore spent in the last eight years.

But according to sources, Sindhuri was under pressure to spend these funds in ways that could have led to pilferage. These claims were corroborated by a senior IAS officer who said was aware of the reasons behind Sindhuri's transfer.

For instance, Sindhuri was asked by one senior IAS officer to award various works of the Board to the state-run Karnataka State Electronics Development Corporation Ltd (Keonics) without following the tendering process. Sindhuri insisted on choosing service providers from the open market through a tendering process, given that Keonics was found to have an uninspiring track record in implementation of projects, sources said.

One such project that Sindhuri was expected to hand over to Keonics was a six-digit, 24/7 helpline dedicated to labour welfare. On August 30, Labour Secretary P Manivannan urged Sindhuri to expedite the helpline project.

Sindhuri was also under pressure to divert a portion of the Board’s funds towards flood relief. Sources said Sindhuri was initially asked to part with Rs 3,000 crore — and then Rs 1,000 crore — to distribute food packets, furniture and lighting in flood-hit areas.

Internally, Sindhuri argued that the Supreme Court monitored the use of the cess money and that there were clear guidelines on how it should be spent. Sindhuri was worried that without a proper system in place, money given to flood relief could be misused.

Sindhuri’s transfer came at a time when the Board was all set to launch mobile creches for children of construction workers across 100 locations in Bengaluru.

Chief Secretary T M Vijay Bhaskar said the government was aware of the concerns expressed over Sindhuri's transfer. Earlier, the 2009-batch officer, as Hassan deputy commissioner, locked horns with the then ministers A Manju and H D Revanna because she reportedly did not toe their line.

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coastaldigest.com news network
May 17,2020

Mangaluru, May 17: With the detection of two more covid-19 positive cases in Mangaluru, the total number of cases in Dakshina Kannada today mounted to 52.

A 35-year-old woman who was under quarantine along with her husband after returning from Maharashtra today tested positive for the coronavirus. 

A 31-year-old man also tested positive for covid-19.  More details to follow.

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News Network
March 21,2020

New Delhi, Mar 21: The Indian Railways has cancelled all train services on Sunday in view of the Janata Curfew called by prime minister Narendra Modi. All mail and express trains will stop services from 4 am to 10 pm on Sunday while all suburban train services will be reduced to a bare minimum.

Around 1,300 long-distance, mail express services will also stand cancelled in light of the curfew to bat Covid-19. These long distance trains will remain cancelled between 4 am to 10 pm on Sunday.

All passenger trains originating between the midnight of Saturday-Sunday will not be run till 10 pm, Sunday, a railway ministry official said.

However, the passenger train services already on run at 7 am on the day will be allowed to run to the destinations, a railway ministry circular to zonal railways issued on Friday said.

The Indian Railways operates around 9,000 passenger trains and 3,500 mail express services each day.

“We have sent a directive to all zonal railways, and they will get back with the total number of train services affected, by Saturday afternoon,” an official ET spoke with, said.

In his address to the nation on Thursday, the Prime Minister called for a ‘janta curfew’ between 7 am to 9 pm on Sunday, in a social-distancing drive amid the coronavirus outbreak.

Passengers alighting at enroute stations from trains already on run, and desirous of staying at the station, may be accommodated in the waiting rooms at railway stations, without overcrowding them, the circular said.

The ministry has advised zonal railways to arrange for hassle-free refund to passengers affected because of cancelled trains, while regulating train services on Sunday.

Meanwhile, to contain the spread of Covid-19, all the food plazas, jan aahar stalls have been advised to be shut until further notice by IRCTC.

The on-board catering services in mail express trains are to be closed until further advice, while static units supplying meals to prepaid trains in operation, will continue to function.

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News Network
July 12,2020

Bosnia, Jul 12: Bosnians commemorated on Saturday the massacre of about 8,000 Muslim men and boys in Srebrenica, marking the 25th anniversary of killings that shocked the world and have stood out as Europe's only atrocity since World War Two constituting genocide.

Nine newly identified victims were buried at a flower-shaped cemetery near the town, where tall white tombstones mark the graves of 6,643 other victims.

"After 25 years we succeeded in finding his mortal remains, so they can be laid to their final rest," said Fikret Pezic, who buried his father Hasan.

The remains of some 1,000 victims of the massacre in the eastern town during Bosnia's 1992-1995 war are still missing.

Ifeta Hasanovic decided to bury incomplete remains of her husband, saying: "We were aware they cannot be complete after 25 years, at least there are some, I did not want to make any new delays."

World leaders addressed the ceremony by video link, unable to attend because of coronavirus epidemic. Instead of the tens of thousands visitors who typically attend the commemoration each year, only a few thousand came after organisers banned organised visits.

During the Bosnian war, Bosnian Serb forces pushed non-Serbs out of territories they sought for their Serb statelet. Fleeing Muslims took shelter in several eastern towns, including Srebrenica, that were designated as United Nations "safe zones".

On July 11, 1995, the Serb forces commanded by General Ratko Mladic overran Srebrenica, which was protected by lightly armed Dutch peacekeepers.

They sent women and children away and captured and executed the men and boys they found. The bodies were dumped into mass graves and later exhumed by U.N. investigators and used as evidence in war crimes trials of Bosnian Serb leaders.

"We grieve with the families that tirelessly seek justice for the 8,000 innocent lives lost, all these years later," said U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Washington brokered Bosnia's peace deal months after the massacre.

Most people at the commemoration were Muslim Bosniaks, reflecting conflicting narratives about the bloodshed - which hinders reconciliation nearly 25 years after the end of war in which about 100,000 people were killed.

The U.N. war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia convicted Mladic and his political chief Radovan Karadzic over Srebrenica genocide but they remained heroes for Serbs, many of whom deny that genocide happened.

On Saturday, the Serbs in the nearby town of Bratunac organised an event marking July 11 as the "Srebrenica Liberation Day".

Sefik Dzaferovic, the Bosniak chairman of Bosnia's tripartite presidency, called for legislation that would ban denial of genocide.

"There can be no trust as long as we witness attacks on the truth, denial of genocide and glorification and celebration of executors," Dzaferovic told the commemoration gathering.

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