Around 12,000 school teachers on Covid duty want mid-term holidays like peers

BENGALURU: A day after the government announced midterm holidays for state board schools and suspension of the Vidyagama project due to the spread of Covid-19, other teachers and lecturers have also begun demanding relief from their duties. About 12,000 primary and high school teachers are still undertaking Covid-19 duties, as per department sources. These teachers are now seeking holidays, just as their peers who were given a three-week break from work since Monday.

“Teachers in Bengaluru North and South have been deployed for Covid-19 duties since the past four months. Yet, they have not received any clarity on these holidays,” said Chandrashekar Nugli, secretary, Karnataka State Primary School Teachers’ Association. He has written to Minister of Primary and Secondary Education S Suresh Kumar urging him to extend the midterm holidays to these teachers as well.
Teachers have been allocated duties such as contact tracing and uploading information, surveying houses and hospitals on necessary infrastructure for the care of positive patients, and are also part of the ward and booth level committees.

H K Manjunath, president, Karnataka High School Teachers Association, said, “In case the government finds it difficult to give these teachers too holidays due to their Covid-19 duties, it should at least provide a proportionate number of earned leave to them,” he said.A P Ranganatha, president of School Teachers and Administration Forum, sought holidays for pre-university teachers too until October 30. He also sought a holiday for teachers on October 28, to ensure their participation in the Teachers constituency elections.

Lecturers from government colleges have put forth demand for work-from-home during the Dasara vacation. More than 250 lecturers and administrators in the state have tested positive and 10 have died, said T M Manjunath, president of Karnataka Government College Teachers Association.He said since the evaluation of final semester exam papers is in its final stages and with Covid-19 cases expected to increase, the government should give short-term vacation for pre-degree, BEd, Law and university lecturers and thereafter, provision to work from home.

Holidays for teachers on offline training
The Department of State Educational Research and Training (DSERT) on Monday announced mid-term holidays from October 12 to 30 for teachers who are undergoing offline training. Online training, however, will continue, the DSERT director said.

After lockdown lull, police back in action with over 48,000 cases in a week; helmet-less riding biggest violation

BENGALURU: Vehicle users, especially two-wheeler riders — who were used for a care-free ride without wearing helmets and flouting traffic rules during the lockdown, are in for a shock over the last few days, as the traffic police have started cracking down on even smallest of violations.The Covid-induced lockdown had reduced vehicular movement to a large extent in the city, and the traffic police too had stopped enforcement. As a fallout, motorists and bikers started violating traffic rules, such as riding without a helmet, triple riding, signal jumps, over-speeding and others.

The traffic police, due to the pandemic, had started contactless enforcement and issued notices through Field Traffic Violation Report (FTVR). Now, with normal vehicular traffic back on city roads, the traffic police have also started fining the violators. “Commuters tend to violate rules if there is no police presence. That is what exactly happened during the lockdown. Though it had come to our knowledge, we did not go for strict enforcement keeping the safety of our staff in mind, but contactless enforcement was on. However, the enforcement is back like pre-Covid times now,” a senior police officer said.

The police are sending a strong message to violators by checking vehicles on main roads and major junctions. In just seven days, from September 13 to 19, the police booked 48,141 cases, collecting Rs 2,14,38,000. More than 50 per cent of these cases were booked for helmet-less riding. 

Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) BR Ravikanthe Gowda said, “Due to the pandemic, we were following contactless enforcement. There were also some accidents because of this. We started the enforcement again four weeks ago and it is in full swing over the past week. Discipline is back among commuters. We are taking all precautionary measures to ensure the safety of our staff.”

“I appeal to my farmers, who are being given wrong information, to wait for six months and watch how things are going to be favourable due to the reforms,” said Yediyurappa Karnataka CM

BENGALURU: On the day farmers in Karnataka called for a statewide bandh, Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa said they are being fed misinformation and added that he would undertake a statewide tour to meet them personally and create awareness on the amendments to the farm and land bills.

“The Congress and a few farmer leaders have conspired and are holding protests against farm bills. I am a farmer’s son and have come to power with the support of farmers. These laws were brought into effect after much thought to help farmers and give them independence and freedom to sell their crop at a price that they fix. They can sell it to APMCs too. It’s their choice,” BS Yediyurappa said in his first response to the agitating farmers. He appealed to farmer union leaders to discuss their concerns with him after they finish their agitation.

“I appeal to my farmers, who are being given wrong information, to wait for six months and watch how things are going to be favourable due to the reforms. Under land reforms too, nobody will be allowed to sell land belonging to SC/ST farmers, land of small and marginal farmers will be protected,” he said adding that the reforms will allow some 18 to 20 lakh acre drylands in the state to be used for industrial purposes that will generate employment.

“With these reforms, anyone can take up agriculture. Irrigated lands will be used only for farming. Drylands can be used for setting up industries. I urge farmer unions leaders not to mislead farmers,” BS Yediyurappa said.

Listing out the various pro-farmer measures taken by his government as well as Narendra Modi led Union government, Yediyurappa said the Congress was deliberately misleading people against the reforms that their leaders have been pushing for decades.

“APMCs are riddled with middlemen that cheat farmers. I speak from my own experience as a farmer who sold his produce at APMCs,” the Chief Minister said adding that his talks with the farmer unions leaders on Friday failed because they had already decided to protest without considering discussions.

“85 out of 100 farmers will realise the reforms’ benefits. I will tour the state and explain it to them personally,” Yediyurappa said adding that his government had reduced APMC cess from 1.5% to 0.5%.

On Tuesday, 66-year-old Dr Venkatesh, a resident of Nanjangud in Mysuru, succumbed to dead

MYSURU: On Tuesday, 66-year-old Dr Venkatesh, a resident of Nanjangud in Mysuru, succumbed to Covid-19. He is the 43rd doctor in Karnataka to die of the disease while battling a pandemic that has tragically claimed thousands of lives the world over. Indian Medical Association data shows 43 doctors on the frontlines of the pandemic died of Covid-19 since March, with the highest casualties in  Bengaluru and Mysuru regions. Data shows seven doctors each from Bengaluru and Mysuru died of the illness and of the 43 doctors who died, 21 were aged 60-69 and five were above 70 years. 

Data show that over 14 doctors were in the 40-59 age group, and three were between 27-37 years old. IMA data shows that over 80% of the deceased doctors were affiliated with private hospitals, nursing homes and clinics. While most of them were general practitioners and physicians, the number also included psychiatrists, ENT specialists, gynaecologists, radiologists, anaesthetists.

The medical community is enraged that many of the deceased doctors have not yet received government compensation they were privately employed. “We submitted a memorandum to Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, appealing that the government include private doctors under the state insurance cover of Rs 50 lakh, but have not received a response. We have also requested the government to compensate doctors called for duty according to the  Seventh Pay Commission guidelines,” said Dr Madhusudhan Kariganuru, president of the Indian Medical Association, Karnataka.

Yeddyurappa informed the PM that the state has set up 136 testing laboratories and testing has been increased to about 70,000 samples per day.

BENGALURU: Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa, who interacted with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday regarding the Covid-19 situation, pointed out that the fatality rate in Karnataka was coming down and presently stands at 1.54 per cent, while it was 2.6 per cent in July. The PM held a video conference with the CMs of the seven high Covid-prevalence states — Maharashtra, Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Punjab — to take stock of the situation.

Yediyurappa informed the PM that the state has set up 136 testing laboratories and testing has been increased to about 70,000 samples per day. So far, about 43 lakh samples have been tested. All symptomatic patients are shifted to hospitals immediately after the test results are out and a target has been set to identify all contacts of Covid-19 positive cases in 24 to 48 hours and quarantine them, he said.

The CM said the number of oxygen beds in government hospitals has been increased from 7,000 to 18,000, and will be further enhanced to 31,000. Over 3,000 ICU beds in government and private hospitals have been reserved for Covid patients. Besides standard treatment, “We are also ensuring that patients are given ‘novel drugs’, including Remdesivir, for free.’’ The government has also made available 2,000 ambulances, he said.

Govt working on increasing oxygen  capacity in hospitals, says BSY

On the issue of oxygen supply, Yediyurappa said permission has been given to convert industrial oxygen cylinders into medical cylinders and work on increasing the storage capacity in hospitals has been taken up on a war-footing. It may be recalled that during the previous video conference with the PM, Karnataka had requested for setting up of liquid oxygen plants. Availability of liquid oxygen for medical purposes is presently around 375 metric tons per day. “But if there is a surge in the number of positive cases, we will not be able to provide sufficient medical oxygen without affecting industries”, the CM said.

He suggested that the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion can incentivise the industry to set up new oxygen generation units. Hospitals are also being encouraged to ramp up oxygen production at their levels, he said.

Other suggestions by the CM included a mission mode approach for the next six months, strict enforcement in containment zones and dynamically redefining them, re-testing of all symptomatic negatives in antigen tests, graded opening of economic activities after ensuring adequate testing and hospital infrastructure, regular monitoring of those in home isolation and more focus on the nine districts with high mortality rates.