Bengaluru: Karnataka state recorded a pass percentage of 67.8% out of 7, 94, 940 students who appeared for the Secondary School Leaving Certificate (SSLC) examinations conducted for 2016-17 academic year. This year the SSLC pass percentage witnessed a decline of 8% when compared to the last year.

Udupi district topped in the list whereas Bidar recorded worst pass percentage in the state continuing its weakest performance after second PU exam results announced yesterday.

Udupi district remained in the list of the districts with highest pass percentage of 89.72% followed by Dakshina Kannada (88.1%) and Chikkodi. Three students secured 625 marks out of 625 total marks whereas 23 students recorded 624 marks out of total 625 marks.

Karnataka State Minister for Primary and Secondary Education Tanvir Sait declared the result in a press conference held in Bengaluru on Friday. The candidates who appeared for the examinations can check their results on http://karresults.nic.in from 03.00 PM today, May 12.

(Agencies)

New Delhi: The Congress has appointed popular Kannada actor and former MP Ramya as head of its social media team, party sources said on Thursday.

“Ramya has taken charge as the head of the party’s social media team,” a source told IANS.

She takes over from Haryana’s Rohtak MP Deepender Hooda, who handled the social media team since 2012.

Ramya, 34, had joined the Congress in 2012. She has served as Member of Parliament from Mandya.

In 2016, Ramya had stirred controversy after she in a tweet said: “Pakistan is a good country, not hell. Parrikar’s comments (that going to Pakistan or hell is the same thing) are not true.”

(IANS)

Thiruvananthapuram: A public outcry erupted in Kerala after the State Bank of India (SBI) announced that charges would be levied on all cash withdrawals from its ATMs from June onward.

The bank’s new order states that every time a SBI customer withdraws cash from an ATM a charge of Rs 25 would be levied and charges would also be levied for exchange of old and sullied notes above Rs 5,000.

“This is outrageous and the central government is cheating the people. Ever since the demonetisation began, the Centre has been bullying people. This is going to be taken up in and out of parliament very strongly,” said CPI-M Lok Sabha member M.B. Rajesh.

Popular film personality Shobi Thilakan called it an “anti-people policy of the Centre”.

“The SBI has turned out to be worse than the local money lenders and is out to fleece the common man. There has to be a public outcry against this new policy,” said Thilakan.

Customers spotted in front of an SBI ATM here also expressed anger.

“The Centre has cheated people and it has to be seen from the perspective that they did this very tactfully because Kerala’s own bank (State Bank of Travancore) has been merged with the SBI. The people who banked with SBT have now become SBI customers and now they are at the receiving end,” said a retired teacher, after withdrawing money from the ATM.

Another angry SBI customer from Kottayam said barring the lone Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) legislator in the 141 member Kerala assembly, all others strongly opposed the merger and passed a resolution to this effect.

“This was bound to happen and these are measures to pick the pockets poor people. We wish to know what the state BJP leaders have to say on this. There should be mass protest in Kerala against the SBI,” said the angry SBI account holder.

Of the 880 SBT branches in Kerala, more than 400 were closed and at present there are over 800 SBI branches in the state.

(Agencies)

Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh’s ruling BJP has expelled 87 party leaders and workers for six years for “anti-party activities”, a leader said on Thursday.

State General Secretary Vidya Sagar Sonkar said the action was taken following a probe by the disciplinary committee of the state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The expelled leaders and workers had either contested against the BJP candidates in assembly elections or backed the opposition, he added.

The expulsion was cleared by state President Keshav Prasad Maurya.

Prominent among those sacked are Kapil Dev Kori (Rampur), V.K. Saini (Moradabad), Inderdev Singh (Bijnore), Shanti Swaroop Sharma (Bulandshahr), Chandra Shekhar Rawat (Hathras), Ashish Vashishtha (Baghpat) and Pratibha Singh, Mahesh Narayan Tiwari, Nirmal Srivastava, Vaibhav Pandey and Vidyabhushan Dwivedi from Gonda.

(IANS)

New Delhi: A five-judge Constitution bench of Supreme Court on Thursday commenced hearing on a plea that the triple talaq and nikah halala violated Muslim women’s rights to equality and dignity.

As the hearing began, the SC cleared that it would examine whether the practice of triple talaq among Muslims is fundamental to their religion.

“We will also examine whether triple talaq is part of the enforceable fundamental right,” added the SC.

The Constitution bench comprising Chief Justice Jagdish Singh Khehar, Justice Kurian Joseph, Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman, Justice Uday Umesh Lalit and Justice S Abdul Nazeer are likely to hear the matter for seven days. Interestingly, the members of the bench are from different religious communities including Sikh, Christian, Parsee, Hindu, and Muslim.

The SC, however, said the issue of the practice of polygamy among Muslims may not be part of its deliberations as this aspect is not related to triple talaq.

The apex court made it clear that each side will get two days each for canvassing their arguments on the two questions formulated by the bench and one day will be given for the rebuttal.

The apex court also made it clear that it would stop any counsel who will repeat the arguments.

“Each side can argue whatever they want but there should not be any repetition. They will only focus on the validity of triple talaq,” the bench said.

The hearing holds importance as the Allahabad High Court, in its verdict pronounced in the last week of April, had held the practice of triple talaq as unilateral and bad in law.

The High Court verdict had come while dismissing a petition filed by one Aaqil Jamil whose wife had filed a criminal complaint against him alleging that he had tortured her for dowry and when his demands were not met, he gave her triple talaq.

The copy of High Court verdict was made available only on Tuesday.

Influential Muslim organisations like the All India Muslim Personal Law Board (AIMPLB) have opposed court’s adjudication of these matters, maintaining these practices stemmed from the Holy Quran and were not justiciable.

The Muslim women who have filed the petitions have challenged the practice of triple talaq in which the husband, quite often, pronounces talaq thrice in one go, sometimes even by phone or text message.

On other hand, nikah halala is a practice intended to curb the incidence of divorce under which a man cannot remarry his former wife without her having to go through the process of marrying someone else, consummating it, getting divorced, observing the separation period called ‘Iddat’ and then coming back to him again.

On March 27, the AIMPLB had told the apex court that pleas challenging such practices among Muslims were not maintainable as the issues fell outside the realm of judiciary.

The Board had also said the validity of the Mohammedan Law, founded essentially in the Holy Quran and sources based on it, cannot be tested on the particular provisions of the Constitution.

It had said there was a need for “judicial restraint” before going into the constitutional interpretation of these unless such an exercise becomes unavoidable.

The Ministry of Law and Justice, in its affidavit, had referred to constitutional principles like gender equality, secularism, international covenants, religious practices and marital law prevalent in various Islamic countries to drive home the point that the practice of triple talaq and polygamy needed to be adjudicated upon afresh by the apex court.
The Centre had on October 7 last opposed in the Supreme Court the practice of triple talaq, nikah halala, and polygamy among Muslims and favoured a relook on grounds like gender equality and secularism.

(Agencies)

Mysuru: According to the reports, Janata Dal Secular state unit party president HD Kumaraswamy (HDK) slapped one of his party workers here in Mysuru after a booth level meeting when the youths pressured HDK to issue party ticket to Harish Gowda, son of sitting JDS MLA GT Deve Gowda on Wednesday afternoon.

A booth level meeting was organised in the city to prepare a strategy for the upcoming state assembly elections. A group of party workers who were gathered in the meeting forced HDK to issue party ticket to their beloved leader Harish Gowda to contest from Hunsur assembly constituency. HDK tried his best to answer their queries on the spot, however, one of the party activists physically touched HDK and tried to pull him back which made him loose his patience and slap the youth.

There are a number of reasons to what have forced Harish Gowda supporters to provoke HDK, as many of the party leaders are trying to get party ticket from Hunsur constituency in the next assembly elections. Meanwhile, HDK rejected the media reports on slapping and said no such incidents occurred in Mysuru.

(Agencies)

New Delhi: Sacked Delhi minister Kapil Mishra on Wednesday began an indefinite hunger strike at his home here and threatened not to eat anything till Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal “reveals” who funded foreign trips of five AAP leaders in the last two years.

In an open letter to Kejriwal, Mishra, suspended from the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) after he alleged corruption by the Chief Minister, said he was on a “satyagraha” at his home.

Mishra also alleged that he was getting “life threats from international numbers,”

“I got the call from an international number, but I didn’t respond to that, then I received a death threat on a Whatsapp message,” he said.

Mishra said he was fasting “all alone in one corner of my house” and would not end his protest till Kejriwal made public the details of foreign trips of the Chief Minister’s “five friends — Sanjay Singh, Ashish Khetan, Satyendar Jain, Raghav Chadhha and Durgesh Pathak”.

He said he “won’t eat anything, will only drink water”.

Mishra said he knew Kejriwal was not bothered about his life and would persist with his protest till it was known “where they all visited, why they went, what did they do (during foreign trips) and from whose money did they do all these things”.

“Many people have said the amount of the hawala money, discrepancies in donations, cash transactions would be revealed in minutes if these information are made public.”

Mishra on Tuesday filed a graft complaint with the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) against Kejriwal, his relatives and other AAP leaders. Mishra was earlier removed as Delhi’s Water Minister on Saturday.

(IANS)