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Archives for November 2020

KSRTC to run 1000 extra buses this festive season

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Advance reservation of tickets for the special and scheduled buses of KSRTC can be booked through 706 counters within Karnataka and in other states

BENGALURU: The Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation on Tuesday said it has made elaborate arrangements to run 1,000 extra buses during the Deepavali festival season.

It has also decided to operate special buses from various intra and interstate locations to Bengaluru on November 16.

The special buses will be exclusively operated from Bengaluru Kempegowda Bus Station to various destinations including Dharmasthala, Kukke Subrahmanya, Shivamogga, Hassan, Mangaluru, Kundapura, Sringeri and Tirupati, the corporation said in a statement here.

There will be special buses from Mysuru Road Bus Station exclusively operated towards Mysuru, Hunsur, Piriyapatna, Virajpet, Kushalnagar and Madikeri.

All premier special buses will be operated from Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation Bus Station at Shantinagar to Tirupati, Vijayawada, Hyderabad, Thiruvananthapuram, Kottayam and other places in Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and Kerala.

Tickets can be booked online by accessing www.ksrtc.in.

Also, advance reservation of tickets for the special and scheduled buses of KSRTC can be booked through 706 counters within Karnataka and in other states, it added.

Bypolls done and dusted, now onto Cabinet expansion

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CM Yeddyurappa will have to tread carefully to silence his baiters; A group of cabinet aspirants met him on Wed
 

BENGALURU: After adding two more seats to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s tally in Karnataka with the bypoll victories, Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa is all set to take on the next challenge — silencing baiters within the party. The Chief Minister is looking to use cabinet expansion and appointments to boards and corporations as means to quell any disgruntlement within the party over funds allocation, clamour for ministerial berths and disenchantment among cadres over neglect. 

But having made promises to induct former rebel MLAs of the JDS-Congress coalition, who joined the BJP and helped the party come to power, the task seems more challenging.Currently, there are seven vacant berths in the 34-member cabinet which is Bengaluru- and Belagavi-heavy while there is no representation from more than a dozen districts. Of the 27 incumbent ministers, 11 are those who swittched to the BJP. Four others — MTB Nagaraj, Muniratna, R Shankar and H Vishwanath — are awaiting induction. 

Apart from them, a host of BJP old-timers like CP Yogeshwar, Sunil Kumar, S A Ramadas, Appachchu Ranjan, Umesh Katti, Murugesh Nirani, Arvind Limbavali, S Angara, etc are lobbying hard for ministerial berths. If all four newcomers to the party are inducted, they will make up more than 44% of the cabinet. Maintaining the delicate balance will be the CM’s main challenge during the next cabinet expansion.

With the party eyeing the Maski and Basavakalyan seats too in the next round of bypolls, Yediyurappa will be keen on delivering similar results, but will have to get on to making amends within first. Barely 24 hours after bypoll results, ministerial berth aspirants visited Yediyurappa on Wednesday. 

“I have already submitted my application to be a minister, but it is now left to the CM to decide. He has assured us that a few ministers will be dropped and new faces will be accommodated,” said Shorapur MLA Raju Gowda Naik. He, along with other MLAs Renukacharya, Murugesh Nirani, Shivaraj Patil and Belli Prakash, went straight to Water Resources Minister Ramesh Jarkiholi’s residence from the CM’s residence.

Jarkiholi, who has hosted umpteen number of such luncheons and dinners, returned after a three-day trip to New Delhi only on Tuesday night. Sources in the BJP suggest that Yediyurappa is all for a cabinet reshuffle to accommodate more new faces, but the Central leadership prefers only an expansion to fill the seven vacant berths. Yediyurappa meanwhile, hopes to win over miffed MLAs while appeasing cadres with appointments to boards and corporations. So far, only MLAs have been appointed to boards and corporations, much to the disappointment of party workers. 

With State BJP president Nalin Kumar Kateel’s suggestions, Yediyurappa is likely to appoint cadres to boards, authorities and corporations. Even after inducting new faces, the CM is keen on keeping at least one cabinet berth vacant keeping in mind the Maski and Basavakalyan bypoll.

US hospitals again under pressure with Covid on the rise

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The number of deaths each day is still far from levels seen in the spring, however the US recorded more than 1,300 fatalities in 24 hours on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON: After several weeks of rapidly rising coronavirus cases, hospitals around the United States are once again overwhelmed, forcing local authorities to take new measures to cope with the pandemic.

On Wednesday a record 65,368 people were in the hospital with Covid-19 across the country, marking the second day in a row and second time ever that the tally passed the 60,000 mark, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

Around the country officials were scrambling to staunch the spread. 

In New York state, Governor Andrew Cuomo announced that any establishment with a liquor license, including bars and restaurants, would have to close at 10:00 pm beginning Friday. The rule will also apply to gyms.

New York City was the early epicenter of the nation’s coronavirus pandemic, but hotspots have since popped up across the country, leaving practically no geographical region unaffected.

One such locale is the border city of El Paso in western Texas, a state where coronavirus cases have now exceeded one million.

More than 1,000 people are hospitalized in the county of El Paso alone, a substantial portion of the state’s nearly 6,800 hospitalizations.

“These are dark times,” Ogechika Alozie, chief medical officer at the city’s Del Sol Medical Center, told CNN Wednesday. “I think the biggest word is just fatigue. And there’s frustration.”

Cases are so high that Texas Governor Greg Abbott has requested a military medical center be converted for intake of non-Covid patients in order to free up space in hospitals. County officials, meanwhile, have requested additional mobile morgues.

The situation in El Paso is typical of the difficulties local governments are facing in the United States, where President Donald Trump has downplayed the epidemic and left handling of the health crisis to state, county and city officials.

In late October an El Paso County judge ordered non-essential businesses closed for two weeks, a measure fought by El Paso’s mayor and the state attorney general.

Trump has placed much of his hopes of fighting the coronavirus pandemic on rapid development of a vaccine. 

Positive Phase 3 trials of a vaccine developed by Pfizer mean inoculations are likely to begin by the end of the year or in early 2021. 

But with no vaccine at present, the US is facing troubling circumstances.

The number of deaths each day is still far from levels seen in the spring, however the US recorded more than 1,300 fatalities in 24 hours on Wednesday.

The coronavirus death rate has “declined since the spring partly because hospitals and staff were so overstretched back then. As cases take off across the country, we will increasingly start seeing those limitations again,” said emergency medicine specialist Craig Spencer on Twitter.

The US contamination curve has undergone three notable waves: a first in the spring with an epicenter in New York, a second in the summer that hit the US south particularly hard, and a third since mid-October with records being set in the Midwest.

In North and South Dakota, more than one in 2,000 residents is currently hospitalized with Covid-19, according to the Covid Tracking Project.

North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum this week authorized health workers who test positive to continue working in Covid units in order to cope with the “enormous pressure” on the state healthcare system.

In Minnesota, Governor Tim Walz ordered bars and restaurants to close at 10:00 pm and placed a 10-person limit on gatherings.

Restrictions are popping up beyond the Midwest as well, such as in Utah, where wearing a mask in public is now mandatory statewide.

President-elect Joe Biden pleaded Monday once again for Americans to wear face coverings, telling viewers in a televised speech that “a mask is not a political statement, but it is a good way to start putting the country together.”

He has pledged to tackle the health crisis from day one of his administration, which begins January 20.

After winning in Bihar, Bengal is prime focus for BJP: Vijayvargiya

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Vijayvargiya asserted that BJP’s victory in West Bengal will be “much bigger” as it will “storm to power with a two-thirds majority”.

KOLKATA: After clinching the Bihar assembly polls, West Bengal will be the “prime focus” for BJP where it has set a target of winning more than 200 out of the total 294 seats in the state elections due in April-May 2021, party national general secretary Kailash Vijayvargiya said on Wednesday.

The NDA has won 125 seats in the 243-member Bihar assembly, results of which were declared on Tuesday.

The BJP with its score of 74 seats has emerged as the party to have won the second highest number of seats after Lalu Prasad’s RJD.

The saffron party’s tally is much higher than that of its ally – the JD(U) which won 43 seats.

It will now shift its focus to politically crucial West Bengal, which sends 42 MPs to the Lok Sabha – two more than Bihar, Vijayvargiya, who is also BJP’s in-charge of Bengal, said.

The BJP, which has made deep inroads in West Bengal by winning 18 of its 42 Lok Sabha seat – four less than ruling TMC in the 2019 general election, was waiting for the Bihar election results before mounting its “final assault” on the Mamata Banerjee government, party sources said.

Vijayvargiya is of the opinion that not just Bihar assembly poll results, the saffron party’s victory in several by-polls across the country show that not only has the faith of the people in it increased but also in the policies of the BJP government at the Centre.

“A victory always increases the morale of the party workers. BJP’s win in Bihar and the by-polls will act as a morale booster for its workers in the state. West Bengal will now be our prime focus state.”

“The ground in Bengal is well prepared for a change and we have to ensure that the anger against the TMC government is channelised. We will use all our energy to free the people of the state from the misrule of TMC,” he said.

Vijayvargiya asserted that BJP’s victory in West Bengal will be “much bigger” as it will “storm to power with a two-thirds majority”.

“If you analyse the Bihar and by-poll results you will see that BJP’s strike rate is very good. In Bengal we are fighting alone, so we are confident of crossing the target of 200 plus seats in the state,” he said.

Union Home Minister and top BJP leader Amit Shah during his visit to the state last week had said that West Bengal is the “prime focus state” for the party and it will “fight and win it with a massive mandate”. BJP state chief Dilip Ghosh had echoed him and said “After Bihar it will be West Bengal for the BJP.”

“The saffron wave witnessed in neighbouring Bihar will sweep away the TMC in West Bengal too. The difference between the elections in the two states is that we were in power in Bihar for nearly 15 years, but in West Bengal we are a challenger,” Ghosh said.

A section of the state BJP leaders, however, underlined that the Bihar election results will have little impact on polls in West Bengal, other than seats along the border.

But it will act as a “morale booster” for party workers in Bengal.

Several state BJP leaders said the party will take a cue from the Bihar poll results and “re-strategise” its campaign issues for the West Bengal elections.

To corner TMC, the BJP has been so far stressing on its alleged misrule, law and order issues, violence, corruption and the state administration’s handling of the COVID-19 situation in West Bengal.

“The Bihar election results have shown that issues like unemployment and migrant labour crisis are crucial in several seats. So we need to stress upon these problems as well.”

“As Bihar was the first state to hold assembly poll after the COVID-19 outbreak, there are a few things all of us need to learn from it,” a senior West Bengal BJP leader said.

Although BJP has the advantage of being an “untested challenger” in West Bengal where it has never been in power, the party is well aware that it will be up against Mamata Banerjee, who has the reputation of being a tough fighter, party sources said.

“If RJD leader Tejashwi Yadav can put up such a fight (in Bihar), it is anyone’s guess the kind of contest we will face in West Bengal,” another state BJP leader said.

As per the parliamentary poll results, the saffron camp had bagged 40.5 per cent votes and was ahead in more than 125 assembly seats in the state.

The central BJP leadership has asked the state leaders to fan out to the districts and organise agitations and mass mobilisations on issues the people are concerned about, before the Congress and Left Front capitalises on those problems, sources in the saffron party said.

“People will see several agitations in different assembly segments over local issues from November-December onwards,” a BJP leader said adding the party is also working to plug the gaps in its organisational strength in some districts.

The Trinamool Congress mocked the saffron party’s target of winning more than 200 seats in the state.

“As far as coming to power in West Bengal is concerned, the BJP is still living in a fool’s paradise. Its candidates will lose deposits in most of the seats,” TMC MP and spokesperson Saugata Roy said.

Uttarakhand BJP MLA Surendra Singh Jeena dies due to COVID-19

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DEHRADUN: BJP MLA from Salt in Almora district, Surendra Singh Jeena, who was undergoing treatment for COVID-19 at a hospital in New Delhi, died early Thursday, a party leader said.

The 50-year-old Jeena was admitted to the Sir Gangaram Hospital nearly a week ago.

He breathed his last at around 4 am, Pradesh BJP vice president Devendra Bhasin said.

Pradesh BJP President Bansidhar Bhagat expressed grief at Jeena’s demise, describing it as an irreparable loss not just for the party but for the entire society.

“He was a young and energetic leader always active in public interest and organisational affairs. His death is an irreparable loss for the party and the society,” Bhagat  said.

Jeena’s wife had also passed away recently in Delhi.

Praying for strength to the bereaved family to bear the loss, the BJP leader said he and his party stand with them in this hour of grief.

LAC standoff: China sends proposal to de-escalate border situation as more meetings planned

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The China Study Group will be going through the details and accordingly the Corps Commanders of the two sides will be meeting soon to discuss the same further, the senior officer added. 

NEW DELHI: The India-China standoff along the Line of Actual Control in Eastern Ladakh seems to be heading for some resolution as a proposal was exchanged between the Corps Commanders of the two sides. The proposal is said to comprise a systematic plan for de-escalation, disengagement and de-induction of troops.https://plr.vdometer.com/preprod/c2ef711b-d5fe-4409-b243-6e500a0f7a4b?autoplay=on&adskin=true&seekbar=false&ca=5f7c1e3800e8b67d6bdab260&cr=5f7c1f3400e8b67d6bdab263&s=5f8d7e900b7f9f1ba6830777&source_type=advertisement&zoneid=5f86c03d12b57f21af2d17e8

“The Chinese side extended this proposal during the 8th Corps Commanders meeting. It is being studied at various levels,” a senior Army officer said, confirming the proposal.

The Corps Commanders of the two sides last met in Chushul, the Indian side of the LAC, on November 6.

The China Study Group will be going through the details and accordingly the Corps Commanders of the two sides will be meeting soon to discuss the same further, the senior officer added. 

The China Study Group is a grouping of foreign, home, defence secretaries, and the vice-chiefs of the three services, along with the chiefs of the Intelligence Bureau and R&AW which mulls over the issues related to China. It is involved in finding a solution for the six-month-long fierce standoff right from beginning in May.

As per the officer, India has cleared its stance that the Chinese forces will revert to status quo ante, the positions which existed before first week of May when the PLA unilaterally moved forward its troops along the LAC and moved its troops.

“Everything is in nebulous state at present as there is no fixed position from where the troops will start moving back first. Also, what number of troops will retreat to which new positions is being studied,” said the officer 

There are reports of China agreeing to move its troops back to the old position of Finger 8 from its current position of Finger 4 on the northern bank of Pangong Tso. 

China had been adamant of India withdrawing first its troops from the southern bank of Pangong Tso towards Chushul. India had reoriented its troops and positioned them in advantageous positions. 

Uddhav Thackeray, you lost, says Arnab Goswami as he dares Maharashtra CM

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Soon after his release from Taloja jail near Mumbai around 8.30 pm, Goswami drove to the Lower Parel studio of the channel, of which he is the Editor-in-Chief.

MUMBAI: Back in the familiar environs of the TV newsroom after a week in judicial custody, journalist Arnab Goswami on Wednesday hit out at Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray for arresting him in a ‘fake’ case.https://plr.vdometer.com/preprod/c2ef711b-d5fe-4409-b243-6e500a0f7a4b?autoplay=on&adskin=true&seekbar=false&ca=5f7c1e3800e8b67d6bdab260&cr=5f7c1f3400e8b67d6bdab263&s=5f8d7e900b7f9f1ba6830777&source_type=advertisement&zoneid=5f86c03d12b57f21af2d17e8

“Uddhav Thackeray, listen to me. You lost. You have been defeated,” said Goswami (47), while being surrounded by visibly relieved colleagues from his Republic TV channel.

Soon after his release from Taloja jail near Mumbai around 8.30 pm, Goswami drove to the Lower Parel studio of the channel, of which he is the Editor-in-Chief.

Goswami also singled out Mumbai police commissioner Param Bir Singh for his ‘illegal’ arrest on November 4 in a 2018 suicide abetment case.

Goswami said that while in Taloja jail since November 8, he was subjected to three rounds of police interrogation.

“Uddhav Thackeray, you arrested me in an old, fake case and did not even apologise to me,” said Goswami, who was seen sporting a stubble.

“The game has just begun,” he said and announced that he will launch Republic TV channel in every language and also have a presence in international media.

Saying he apprehended being arrested again, Goswami said, “I will launch (the channels) even from inside the jail and you (Thackeray) won’t be able to do anything.”

Thanking the Supreme Court for granting him interim bail, Goswami spoke a few words in Marathi, rounding off with the ‘Jai Maharashtra’ slogan.

Goswami was released on Wednesday night, hours after the Supreme Court granted interim bail observing it will be a “travesty of justice” if personal liberty is curtailed.

COVID-19 Updates India

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India on Thursday added 47,905 fresh cases to its COVID-19 tally and 550 deaths to its toll, as per the data shared by the Union Health Ministry. 

With this addition of fresh cases, the case-load in India surged to 86,83,917 while the toll reached  1,28,121.

Meanwhile, the total active cases in the country are 4,89,294 after a decrease of 5,363 in the last 24 hours and total cured cases are 80,66,502 with 52,718 new discharges.

The increasing COVID-19 cases in the national capital has become a big concern as Delhi has now become the largest contributor of fresh coronavirus cases in the country.

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