Chitradurga: Severe drought conditions, decline in under ground water level and steep fall in humidity in the atmosphere are expected to adversely impact Mango crop in Karnataka state this year. The annual yield of Mango is very likely to fall 30% to 50% in 2017 and this will cause for steep rise in the prices of mangoes in Karnataka state reducing the purchasing power of the consumers, according to the horticulture department experts.

Mango crop is being cultivated on an area of 1,73,080 lakh hectare land annually and 16,41,165 tons of mango harvested every year in Karnataka. Kolar, Ramanagar, Tumkur, Bengaluru rural, Dharwad, Chithradurga and Chikkaballapur are the major Mango production hubs of Mangoes.

Diseases, pests, hot summer and others have destroyed huge number of mango trees in Karnataka. In some cases the growers cut down the mango trees to limit the spread of disease. Generally Mango cultivation requires less water when compared to any other type of crop in Karnataka. Being a largest Mango producer in the globe, India produces 63% of world’s total Mango output.

(Agencies)

Imphal: BJP’s Nongthombam Biren Singh, who on Wednesday took oath as the Chief Minister of Manipur, won the floor test on Monday with the support of 32 MLAs in the 60-member Assembly.

Yumnam Khemchand Singh of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was elected as the Speaker of Manipur Assembly ahead of the floor test.

The Congress had emerged as the largest party in the state winning 28 seats, but the party fell short of majority.

BJP had won 21 seats and made a bid for power claiming it has the support of 33 legislators in Assembly. Biren Singh was sworn in as the chief minister after Governor Najma Heptulla invited the BJP to form government in the state.

On Wednesday, eight other ministers from the BJP and its alliance partners also took oath along with the chief minister. Y Joykumar of NPP has been designated as the Deputy Chief Minister.

A national level football player-turned-journalist, Biren Singh was a key member of the Congress party when he decided to join BJP in October 2016, after falling out with then-CM Okram Ibobi Singh. Singh started his political journey with a regional Democratic Revolutionary People’s Party in 2002.

Manipur Governor Najma Heptulla on Tuesday invited Singh, who was unanimously elected the leader of the 21-member BJP legislature party on Monday, to form the government.

(Agencies)

Bengaluru: Victim of Bengaluru ATM attack, Jyothi Uday has identified Madhukar Reddy in an identification parade held on Friday in Bengaluru. The accused Madhukar Reddy had brutally attacked Jyothi in a Corporation Bank ATM in the state capital 3 years earlier to rob money from her.

The victim of the incident has identified Reddy before the magistrate where the accused was standing with the persons who are similar to him. Initially, Jyothi was confused to identify the culprit, however later she succeeded to identify him. A second identification parade was also conducted to prove her identification. Karnataka police brought the accused from Andhra Pradesh after he was arrested by Andhra police in connection with a criminal case.

(Agencies)

New Delhi: Minister of State for Railways Manoj Sinha is “almost” certain to be the Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister, even as BJP state President Keshav Prasad Maurya was still in the race, informed sources said on Saturday.

A senior BJP leader, who declined to be named as the party was still keeping suspense over the post alive, told IANS that Sinha has emerged as the top choice to head the Uttar Pradesh government after strong backing from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and party President Amit Shah.

“It is almost decided. The announcement is likely to be made after the (newly-elected) BJP MLAs meet in Lucknow” on Saturday evening, the BJP leader said.

(IANS)

New Delhi: Professional Indian car racer Ashwin Sundar and his wife Nivedhitha were charred to death after their BMW car caught fire following a road accident in Chennai.

The car reportedly rammed on a roadside tree on the Santhome High Road in Chennai in the early hours of Saturday and the duo got trapped inside.

The car, which was being driven by Sundar, was stuck in between the tree and a wall after catching fire and the couple were burned to death.

Nivedhitha, a doctor by profession, was working in a private clinic.

Seeing the vehicle on fire, passersby alerted the Chennai city police control room, and a team of police personnel were quickly sent to the spot but it was too late for the couple to be evacuated from the car.

A passerby uploaded the video of the BMW car burning down.

They reportedly found it hard to open the car doors and hence got trapped inside of the burning vehicle.

The couple’s bodies have since been sent to the Royapettah Government Hospital for a postmortem.

Police officials claimed that the racer’s over speeding was the reason behind the crash.

Fire and rescue services personnel from Mylapore also rushed to spot but it took around half-an-hour to put out the fire.

FMSCI chief Akbar Ebrahim and former Indian F1 driver Karun Chadhok wrote condolence messages on Facebook.

Sundar had won the national title in car racing and two-wheeler events on several occasions. His wife Niveditha was a doctor in a private hospital in Chennai.

In 2008, Ashwin had clinched a deal with German racing team Ma Con Motorsport and drove for the German Formula Volkswagen ADAC Championship.

(Agencies)

Dehradun: BJP leader Trivendra Singh Rawat was today sworn in as Uttarakhand Chief Minister.

Governor K K Paul administered the oath of office and secrecy to 56-year-old Rawat, a former RSS pracharak, and nine ministers at a ceremony attended by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah and other national and state party leaders.

Satpal Maharaj, Harak Singh Rawat, Madan Kaushik, Arvind Pandey, Subodh Uniyal, Yashpal Arya and Prakash Pant have been made Cabinet ministers.

Rekha Arya and Dhan Singh Rawat took oath as ministers of state.

The BJP decimated the Congress in the Assembly election, winning 57 of the 70 seats.

Coupled with his administrative and organisational skills and experience, Rawat’s loyalty to the party and RSS ideology catapulted him to the top post in the state.

Rawat was appointed the party’s national secretary in 2013. He was later made co-incharge of the party’s affairs in Uttar Pradesh in 2014. He was BJP in-charge of Jharkhand ahead of the crucial assembly election, a responsibility he discharged well to further strengthen the party leadership’s trust in him.

He had wrested the Doiwala seat from Congress with an impressive margin of 24,869 votes to win it for the third time.

(Agencies)

Lahore: The two missing Indian clerics of Delhi’s Hazrat Nizamuddin Dargah are in custody of Pakistan’s intelligence agency over their alleged links with the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), official sources said today.

Syed Asif Nizami and his nephew Nazim Nizami were offloaded from Karachi-bound Shaheen Airlines on March 14 at the Allama Iqbal International Airport, Lahore, they said.

“The personnel of an intelligence took both the clerics into custody after getting them offloaded and shifted them to an undisclosed location for investigation,” the sources told PTI on condition of anonymity.

They further said both clerics have been detained for their alleged link with MQM of Altaf Hussain.

“They are being interrogated for their alleged links with Altaf’s partymen in Karachi,” the sources said, adding they will be freed if nothing is established against them.

The MQM emerged as a largely ethnic party in the 1980s. It has political dominance in the southern Sindh province’s urban areas – notably in Karachi, Hyderabad, Mirpurkhas and Sukkur where a large number of Urdu-speaking people who fled to Pakistan from India during 1947’s partition reside.

80-year-old Asif Nizami is the head priest of Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia Dargah. He along with his nephew Nazim Ali Nizami had gone to Pakistan on March 8 to see his sister in Karachi. They arrived in Lahore on March 13 and visited shrine of sufi saint Baba Farid Gang in Pakpattan. The two went missing on March 14 from Lahore.

Foreign Office spokesperson Nafees Zakaria yesterday said Pakistan was “pro-actively pursuing” and have asked all departments concerned to look into the matter.

He had told PTI in Islamabad that, “no clue to the missing Indian priests has been found so far”.

India has taken up this matter with Pakistan and ensure the safe recovery of Indian nationals. Official sources in New Delhi said Pakistan has conveyed that it was “seriously pursuing” the case with its law enforcement agencies.

“We have taken up this matter with Government of Pakistan and requested them for an update on both the Indian nationals in Pakistan. Both are missing after they landed in Karachi airport,” External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had tweeted.

“We have also contacted their host in Karachi who appears to be under pressure not to speak to the Indian High Commission. I am in constant touch with our High Commission. However, there is no official confirmation regarding their whereabouts,” she said.

Pakistan has launched a crackdown on the MQM after party leader Hussain made anti-Pakistan comments during speeches at a hunger strike camp in Karachi last year.

Pakistan has charged the self-exiled leader in London with treason for his inflammatory speech that incited party workers to attack media outlets.

(Agencies)