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Mekedatu dam row: Siddaramaiah leads all-party delegation to PM

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modi-Siddaramaiah

New Delhi/Bengaluru: Karnataka chief minister Siddaramaiah led an all-party delegation to Prime Minister Narendra Modi seeking the Centre’s “cooperation” for implementing the Mekedatu dam project in his state, which is being opposed by neighbouring Tamil Nadu.

“We sought support from the Government of India to go ahead with the project,” Siddaramaiah told reporters outside Parliament House after meeting Modi.

Terming Tamil Nadu’s opposition to the project as “politically motivated”, he stressed that interests of the neighbouring state would not be affected by this project.

“We are planning to construct a dam across the Cauvery river, which is in our territory. This project will not affect the interest of Tamil Nadu. Tamil Nadu people’s opposition to the project is politically motivated,” he said.

Siddaramaiah said that Karnataka was releasing 192 TMC of water to Tamil Nadu as per the award of the tribunal and asserted that construction of hydro electric project was “within the rights of Karnataka”.

Asked about Modi’s response, Siddaramaiah said, “Prime Minister has not given any assurance. He said that he would examine it.”

The Karnataka chief minister also urged Modi to convene a meeting of chief ministers to discuss about making respective regional languages as medium of instruction in primary schools.

Union Ministers Ananth Kumar and Sadananda Gowda, MPs including senior BJP leader BS Yeddyurappa and Congress leader Mallikarjun Kharge were also present during the meeting.

The Karnataka all-party delegation’s meeting with Modi comes in the wake of Tamil Nadu chief minister O Pannerselvam and opposition parties from the state calling on the Prime Minister separately over the issue recently.

Siddaramaiah in his budget speech, presented on March 13, has proposed preparing a detailed project report for construction of balancing reservoir on the upstream of Mekedatu across the Cauvery river.

(Agencies)

All-India transport bandh: KSRTC, BMTC buses and autos stay off roads

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Bengaluru: The BMTC and autorickshaw unions will be taking part in the all-India bandh, in protest against higher penalties for drivers proposed in the Road Transport & Safety Bill. Most private cabs are booked, while the autorickshaws that will ply the city roads are expected to charge you more – as they already had late Wednesday!

With Friday (Labour Day) too being a holiday, much of the city has decided to skip work on Thursday and travel out of the city on Wednesday evening, leading to a big rush at several bus-stations across Bengaluru.

The all-India transport bandh on Thursday is expected to bring life to a standstill in Bengaluru and other parts of the state, as all state-run transport corporations – BMTC, KSRTC, NWKRTC and NEKRTC – will go off the road from 6 am to 6 pm.

The bandh has been called to protest against the Road Transport & Safety Bill, which imposes higher penalties on drivers. The bill has been proposed by the Union Transport Ministry. Some autorickshaw drivers and owners unions in the city too are taking part in the bandh. With over 1.2 lakh employees of state-run corporations going on strike, daily commuters in the city and across the state will be affected.

With Friday too being a holiday for Labour Day, many employees in the city are planning a long weekend. Eager to beat Thursday’s bandh, they rushed to several bus-stations across the city on Wednesday. Passengers, who had booked their tickets in KSRTC buses for Thursday, will be refunded. “We will start plying the services from Thursday night though,” a KSRTC official said.

Transport Minister Ramalinga Reddy said, “As almost all the unions are participating, we have to stop the service. About 7-8 months ago, all transport ministers from South India had a meeting with Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, where he said he wanted a corruption free transport services and roadside amenities, and his suggestions were welcomed by us. He spoke about penalties for accidents as well and we were agreeable to it, but the quantum of punishment proposed in the bill is very high. It has to be redrafted reasonably.”

City Police Commissioner M.N. Reddi has urged Bengalureans not to treat Thursday’s strike as a bandh. “It is a transport strike being observed by trade unions. All KSRTC and BMTC buses will run and no one can force the strike on unwilling people. Also, essential transport services will run in the city and public can use their own transport without any fear. Bengalureans are requested not to treat this as Bandh, and try to go about their lives normally.”

Alok Kumar, Additional Commissioner of Police (West), said: “To ensure a peaceful strike, a platoon of 30 Karnataka State Reserve Police, 30 platoons of City Armed Reserve police, 500 Home Guards, 300 Civil defence personnel and other civil police officers will be deployed to ensure law and order situation on Thursday.”

(Agencies)

AIADMK, DMK MPs unite to oppose Karnataka members on Cauvery issue

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CAUVERY

New Delhi/Bengaluru: An unusual bonhomie was witnessed in Rajya Sabha today when members of rival Tamil Nadu parties AIADMK and DMK got together to oppose MPs from Karnataka while seeking government’s intervention in stopping construction of dams in the Cauvery river basin.

Raising the issue of construction of a reservoir by Karnataka in the Cauvery river basin during Zero Hour, S Muthukuruppam (AIADMK) urged the central government and the Ministry of Environment and Forests not to grant clearance to any such project.

The AIADMK member also demanded that Karnataka government should be told to maintain status quo on the issue and not go against the directions of the Supreme Court and the Cauvery Disputes Redressal Commission.

This prompted members from Karnataka including B K Hari Prasad (Congress) to rise and raise strong objections to the AIADMK member’s plea, leading to a verbal clash.

The AIADMK member was joined by his party members as well as those of the rival DMK in putting up a strong protest against the objections raised by Karnataka members who were far outnumbered in the verbal spat.

The uproar led the Deputy Chairman P J Kurien to intervene and ask the protesting members from Karnataka to give notice to put across their point of view.

Muthukuruppam then insisted that he be given some more time to complete his mention, but the Chair refused to allow him saying his three minutes were over and he was not allowed to read out in the House as per the rules.

(Agencies)

BMTC, KSRTC buses to be off roads April 30

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bus-bandh

Bengaluru: A nationwide strike has been called by the Motor Transport and Engineering Workers Union and Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) Employees Association to protest against ammendments brought to the central government’s Road transport and Safety Bill, 2014.

The unions have, in a joint statement called the amendments anti labor and anti people. The statement said that the bus employees are opposing the amendments which stipulate jail term and sterner punishments for drivers and conductors even in case of minor accidents and other incidents.

Public transport services across the country tomorrow is expected to be non existent as they strongly believe that the new law will curtail the powers of state-owned transport corporations and will favor private bus operators.

It is reported that the striking employees of public utilities will also be protesting against the attitude of private owners in coastal districts in putting off payment of daily wages to conductors and drivers at the rate already agreed upon. The unions have extended full support to the national level strike call given by different labor unions.

BMTC and KSRTC buses too will be off the roads tomorrow inconveniencing commuters across the state. With the Federation Sr. National Athletics Championship set to take off tomorrow at Mangaluru tomorrow, 4 PM, the organizers are feeling hard pressed to ensure that it goes off smoothly.

(Agencies)

Doctors' team from Karnataka leaves for Nepal

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Bengaluru: As many as 10 doctors from Karnatala have left for Nepal to provide medical aid to the earthquake victims.

While six doctors departed on Monday evening from the residence of Health Minister U T Khader, the other four left on Tuesday morning with almost 200kgs of drugs.

According to Minister Khader, the team will treat the patients not only from India but also foreign countries at army camps in Kathmandu.

Dr Srinivas, Dr Manjunath, Dr Ramesh Dr Dakshin Kumar, Dr Asha are Dr Jayanthi among the doctors who have departed to Nepal.

(Agencies)

Good news for State Government; High Court cancels single bench order

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BBMP-BUILDING

Bengaluru: The Karnataka High Court’s division bench cancelled the order of single bench on BBMP polls giving state government six months time to conduct the BBMP elections.

The Court’s earlier order by a single judge bench, had asked government to hold elections before May 30. The Government then approached the division bench.

HC has given a seven days stay on the plea of the corporators against the dissolution of the the BBMP to enable them approach the Supreme Court

The order of the Division Bench has come as a huge relief to the state government who had superseded the BBMP just 4 days earlier.

(Agencies)

Gowda talks of retirement, says his family never fought for personal gain

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Bengaluru: The former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda, who is keen on strengthening Janata Parivar in the nation, has said that he would retire from politics by next parliamentary elections.

“I am 87 and will retire from politics by next Parliament election,” the veteran leader said in an interview.

He also said that his family neither fought for personal gain nor did it come in the way of leaders taking up issues.

Mr Gowda describes the yet-to-be officially formed political entity Janata Parivar as “Third Force”, an alternative to the Congress and the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Asked about his role in the new political dispensation at the national level, he said that he was not bothered about his position, as his dream of creating an alternative to the Congress and the BJP at the national level is finally realized.

“I have made it clear to the leadership that the power to take decisions concerning Karnataka and Kerala units remains with me, just as Mulayam Singh Yadav, Nitish Kumar or Lalu Prasad Yadav enjoy the powers in their respective States,” he said.

(Agencies)

Karnataka top generator of bio-medical waste

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Bengaluru: There has been a 16 per cent increase in daily generation of bio-medical waste in 2012-13 as against a marginal increase of 0.33 per cent the year ago, Lok Sabha was informed today.

Karnataka was the highest producer of bio-waste at 83,614 kg per day, followed by Maharashtra, which produced 65,660 kg of bio-wastes every day. These two states also reported the highest numbers of violations of the norms in 2013. Out of total 4,430 incidents of norm violations by health care institutions and common bio-medical waste treatment facilities in 2013, Karnataka alone reported 1,233 cases and Maharashtra 602, Environment, Forest and Climate Change Minister Prakash Javadekar said in the Lok Sabha.

Kerala was the third highest producer of bio-medical waste in 2013 with a generation of 47,223.84 kg per day and the state reported 134 violations.

The overall figure of waste generated throughout the country was 484,271 kg per day in 2013, 416,823.6 kg in 2012 and 415,429 kg in 2011, the minister said, replying to a question on quantum of bio-medical waste generated by various states.

The government has recently framed rules for waste management and has put them on the Environment Ministry’s website to invite public suggestions before giving it a final shape. The draft rules pertain to management of solid, plastic, bio-medical and e-waste. The Ministry provides financial assistance to the states for setting up common bio-medical waste treatment and disposal facilities on public-private partnership and for creating awareness and capacity building programmes on bio-medical waster management. The Central Pollution Control Board has also provided guidelines on certain aspects of bio-medical waste management.

(Agencies)

Special package for rain-hit areas announced by Siddaramaiah government

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Photo: IE

Photo: IE

Bengaluru: The Karnataka government on Monday announced a special package for farmers affected by untimely rain and hailstorm in north Karnataka. In a prolonged debate in the Legislative Council on the issue of crop loss suffered by farmers of eight districts due to unseasonal rain and hailstorm, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah said he will shortly announce the package details.

“The crop loss this time is unprecedented and severe. I am waiting for the joint survey report from the agriculture, horticulture and revenue departments to announce the package,” he said.

Revenue Minister V. Srinivas Prasad said the State will also be presenting a memorandum to the Centre urging for a special package for the losses suffered by the farmers, apart from that which is given under the National Disaster Relief Fund and the State Disaster Relief Fund.

He said preliminary reports suggested as many as 14 persons, 90 cattle heads, 774 homes, 55,405.88 hectares of agriculture land and 1,433.85 hectares of horticulture crops have been destroyed. The value of damaged agriculture land, due to heavy rain, is estimated to be Rs. 350 crore. Similarly, the value of horticulture crops lost due to the same rain is Rs. 15 crore.

The combined Opposition of the Janata Dal (Secular) and the Bharatiya Janata Party, however, staged a walkout for not waiving loans of farmers who have lost their crops in the heavy rain and hailstorm. However, Mr. Siddaramaiah said it was impossible to waive the loans.

(Agencies)

Mekadatu project: Karnataka bandh from dawn-to-dusk

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Bengaluru: Karnataka bandh called by pro-Kannada organizations on Saturday to protest Tamil Nadu’s opposition to the Mekedatu drinking water project is expected to be total. Public transport, including KSRTC and BMTC buses, autorickshaws and cabs will be off the roads.

The bandh will be in force from 6am to 6pm.

Educational institutions and business establishments, including petrol bunks, restaurants and cinemas, in Bengaluru and neighbouring districts are likely to remain closed.

Nearly 700 organisations across the State have backed the call. Transportation is likely to be affected severely. While auto-rickshaws will stay off the roads in Bengaluru, Mysuru, Tumakuru, Mandya, Hassan, Kolar, Chikkaballapur and Ramanagara districts among others, the KSRTC and BMTC have decided to maintain skeletal service. However, essential services such as ambulances, pharmacies, supply of milk and vegetables will not be affected.

A senior minister told reporters here on Friday that chief minister Siddaramaiah is keen that the bandh is a success as he wants to send a message that nothing will come in the way of the Mekedatu project, aimed at providing drinking water to Bengaluru and neighbouring districts.

This year’s state budget has set aside Rs 25 crore for the balancing reservoir to be constructed on the upstream of Mekadatu across Cauvery river in Kanakapura taluk of Ramanagaram district.

(Agencies)

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