When top judges say democracy is at stake, media focus on Sunny Leone

Bengaluru, Feb 6: A 33 -year-old techie who was on the run after allegedly bludgeoning her mother to death and attempting to murder her brother at their house near KR Puram early on Sunday was arrested along with her friend from a hotel in Port Blair, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, on Wednesday morning.

C Amruta and Sridhar Rao were produced before a court in Port Blair to get a transit warrant, deputy commissioner of police (Whitefield) MN Anuchet said. Police initially thought she had committed the crime as she was unable to repay a loan of Rs 15 lakh and feared being humiliated by the lenders.

"But now we strongly suspect that Amruta and Rao were in a relationship, which was opposed by her mother and brother. We don't see any other reason for her to attack her family members. We can get more details only after questioning the duo," another police officer said, adding, "The most important question is: Did Rao know Amruta was going to kill her mother? Or he got to know about it only later? He'd booked their air tickets to Port Blair on January 31 itself."

Rao and Amruta worked together in a software company in Whitefield till 2017. "Then they joined different firms and were in constant touch," police said.

Preliminary probe revealed the duo flew to Port Blair by catching a flight from Kempegowda International Airport (KIA) at 6.30am on Sunday. CCTV footage had shown Rao - wearing a full-face helmet and carrying a backpack - waiting near Amruta's house on a gearless scooter on Sunday morning. After she arrived, they chatted for a while before riding away. They arrived at KIA on the same bike, police said.

"We checked the passengers' list at KIA for that day and found Amruta's name. With the help of Port Blair police, we traced the duo to a hotel," an investigating officer said.

On Sunday morning, Amruta hit her 54-year-old mother C Nirmala on the head with a digging bar. She later stabbed her younger brother C Harish in the neck. Harish collapsed and thinking that he was dead, she left the house.

In his statement to police, Harish stated, "Around 4.30am, Amruta entered my room and stabbed me. I asked her what was wrong. She said she had a debt of Rs 15 lakh and didn't want the debtors to harass me and our mother."

Johannesburg, Feb 22: To meet shortage of skilled nursing staff, private hospitals in South Africa are recruiting senior Indian nurses for their good work ethics and ability to become efficient trainers for the local staff, according to a media report.

A report at a 2018 jobs summit indicated that the country had a shortage of more than 47,000 nurses.

The shortage of the skilled nursing staff has been attributed to several factors, including preference of highly qualified nurses to emigrate or take up contract employment in countries such as the UK, the United Aarb Emirates, Saudi Arabia or New Zealand for want of higher salaries, a report in the weekly Business Times said.

Mediclinic, one of South Africa's largest private hospital groups, confirmed that it is recruiting 150 nurses from India this year.

“To supplement our training, as an internal strategy, we will continue to recruit senior registered nurses from India,” a Mediclinic spokesperson told the Business Times.

Mediclinic started recruiting nurses from India in 2005 but could not provide details about how many among the more than 8,800 nurses it employs at its hospitals are from India.

Another company, Life Healthcare SA, said it employed 135 Indian nurses between 2008 and 2014.

Top managements at the hospital groups lauded senior Indian nurses as being very efficient trainers for local staff.

“But we find that many of them prefer coming here on short-term contracts due to family commitments," a hospital executive said on the basis of anonymity.

The official said that the few who apply for long-term positions are usually young newly-qualified nurses, which is not the group in demand.

“They work hard, with a patient-oriented work ethic, and do not have the nine-to-five approach of many local nurses, especially those who are unionised," the official said.

“We would be very happy to take in more nursing staff from India," the official added.

Bengaluru, May 11: Ten new positive cases of COVID-19 have been confirmed in Karnataka, taking the total number of infections in the state to 858, the Health department said on Monday.

"Ten new positive cases have been reported from last evening to this noon... Till date 858 COVID-19 positive cases have been confirmed. This includes 31 deaths and 422 discharges," the department said in its mid-day situation update. 

The ten new cases include- three from Davangere, two each from Bidar and Bagalkote, one each from Kalaburagi, Shiggavi in Haveri and Vijayapura. Seven cases are men, three are women.

While most cases are contacts of patients already tested positive, one each are with travel history to Mumbai and Ahmedabad.

One person's contact tracing is underway.