The Bharatiya Janata Party is again learnt to have resolved to go to the Lok Sabha polls under the leadership of BS Yeddyurappa,state president.Although the Lingayat strong man failed to win the vote of confidence in the state Assembly to prove his majority however the party leadership is said to be inclined to retain him in the president’s post till the polls to Lok Sabha are over.
The reasons for such thinking in the higher ups’ are multiple:In spite of Siddaramaiah’s decisive politics of dividing the Lingayat community on according religious minority tag status the outcome of the recently concluded general elections prove beyond doubt that the community has solidly stood behind the BJP.
To further substantiate this point is the fact that of the total 58 MLAs’ elected from all the three parties the strength of BJP alone accounts to 38.Not only the BJP has the highest number of Lingayat legislators the party has been successful in winning from most of the regions like Mumbai Karnataka and Hyderabad Karnataka from the North Karnataka region and Central Karnataka where the votes of Lingayats matter to register a win.
It is taking all these factors into account the party high command is said to have come to a conclusion of further entrusting the responsibility to BS Yeddyurappa for green pastures during the forthcoming Lok Sabha polls scheduled during April/May 2019.
BS Yeddyurappa has already pronounced in the state Assembly:As a mark of gratitude to Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Amith Shah,BJP national president it would be our endeavor to win in all the 28 Lok Sabha constituencies of the state.
Though the claim looks too optimistic but by going through the best of performances of the party so far managing to win in at least 20-22 constituencies shouldn’t be a problem is what party insiders admit.
It is also being said that the responsibility of major tasks like organizing the party machinery by appointing office bearers,selection of candidates and many other challenges related to the polls will be assigned to BS Yeddyurappa considering the wins he has ensured in the just concluded polls.
According to party sources BJP candidates have won in most of the constituencies where he had a say in the selection.Interestingly the Hebbal,Dasarahalli.Anekal,Byatarayanpur,Sringeri,Tumakuru Rural,Sakleshpur,Channapatna,Athani,Afzalpur,Babaleshwar,Ballari Rural,Kampli,Vijayanagar,Hirekeruru which the party had a sure bet of winning failed to win.
But surprisingly in many other constituencies where the party was not so serious about a win it emerged victorious.So under such changed circumstances the party’s top brass is said to have decided to handover the entire responsibility of the party organization to BS Yeddyurappa.
Hindusthan Samachar/Manohar Yadavatti
Hyderabad to face Chennai on May 22 in the first qualifier
In IPL Cricket, all the four play-offs berths have now been decided as Rajasthan Royals has joined Sunrisers Hyderabad, Chennai Super Kings and Kolkata Knight Riders in the top four.
In the first qualifier, Hyderabad will take on Chennai on Tuesday. The winner will enter the Final, while the losing team will have another chance of making it to the title clash.
They will play the winner of Wednesday’s Eliminator between Kolkata and Rajasthan. The Final will be played on Sunday at Mumbai.
Hindusthan Samachar/Shri Ram Shaw
Karnataka State might have Two Deputy CMs
HD Kumaraswamy led Janata Dal Secular-Congress alliance government is likely to have two positions of Deputy Chief Ministers according to Dr G Parameshwar ,KPCC President.However the high command will take a call on this demand shortly,he clarified here today.
He also made it clear:It is true that there has been a discussion over the subject in the party circles keeping the Lingayat factor and the demand to give one DCM post to North Karnataka.But a final decision on the matter would however be possible only after the top brass of the party dwells on it.
On Wednesday 23 May HD Kumaraswamy will take oath of office and secrecy at 4 pm before the Vidhana Soudha.He alone would be sworn in and the remaining members of the cabinet will do so once a discussion between the two parties get over,told Dr G Parameshwar.
One DCM post for a Dalit and more so to Dr.G Parameshwar is almost finalized in the Congress group but the second nominee appears to have become a controversy.There has been hectic lobbying for the second DCM post on caste and region considerations.
The Lingayat leaders are insisting to leave it to someone from their community belonging to North Karnataka region as they argue by doing so they could ward off the feeling that JDS-Congress combine avoided a Lingayat(read BS Yeddyurappa) from becoming the chief minister.
However there are two many a claimant for this position.Shyamanuru Shivashankarappa,86 years old President of All India Veerashiva Mahasabha and Davanagere MLA is said to be seriously trying to become DCM.He also has equally serious contenders in the form of MB Patil and HK Patil.
Apart from these competitors DK Shivakumar,Chairman KPCC campaign committee and Man Friday for the Congress party is also gunning for the top slot while RV Deshpande,another senior leader isn’t hiding his ambitions either.
Hindusthan Samachar/Manohar Yadavatti
Kumaraswamy confident of a strong government
JD(S) State President and Chief Minister designate H.D. Kumaraswamy said on Monday that he would provide a stable government in Karnataka for the next five years. Though difficult, he said he was confident that he would succeed with support from the Congress.
Kumaraswamy and his wife Anita Kumaraswamy were at his native taluk in Holenarasipur to offer prayers at the Lakshmi Narasimha temple, in gratitude for becoming the Chief Minister for a second time. He is later scheduled to visit Eshwara Temple at Haradanahalli, Ranganatha Swamy Temple at Mavinakere and Deveeramma Temple at Yaliyuru.
Nipah virus assert 3 lives in Kerala, 8 under observation
The Nipah virus has so far claimed three lives in Kerala while one person is undergoing treatment and 8 others are under observation in Kozhikode district, Health minister K K Shylaja today said.
The three deaths, which occurred over the past fortnight, were from the same family, including two siblings in their early twenties. The man who is undergoing treatment for ‘Nipah’ is the father of the two brothers who died.
Nipah virus (NiV) infection is a newly emerging zoonosis that causes severe disease in both animals and humans. The natural host of the virus are fruit bats of the Pteropodidae family, Pteropus genus. A bat was found in the well of their house which has now been closed, the minister said.
A nursing assistant, Lini, who had treated three infected persons, died this morning. However, it is yet to be confirmed if she had contracted the virus, which spreads through bats. Five more people have died due to high fever and similar symptoms of the virus here and in neighbouring Malappuram district.
However, it is yet to be confirmed if their deaths was caused by the virus, health department sources said. Health minister Shylaja and Labour minister, T P Ramakrishnan, who hails from Kozhikode, held discussions with officials and assured that the government had taken all necessary steps to prevent the spread of the virus, which has affected the state for the first time.
A high level team from the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) has already arrived in Kozhikode district to take stock of the situation. The state has been put on high alert and two control rooms have also been opened here.
The minister said there was no need to panic as the virus spreads only through direct contact with the infected person. “We have listed the persons who have got in touch with the patients. They have been isolated as precautionary measure,” she said.
The minister said peripheral hospitals in the vicinity of Medical college have been asked to set up isolation wards and if they have patients with symptoms of the virus, they should be directed to the medical college.
NiV was first identified during an outbreak of disease that took place in Kampung Sungai Nipah in Malaysia during 1998. Then, pigs were the intermediate hosts. However, in subsequent NiV outbreaks, there were no intermediate hosts.
Preity apologises for Kings XI Punjab’s loss in IPL
Actress Preity Zinta has apologised on behalf of her team Kings XI Punjab (KXIP) for “not being up to the mark” and losing to Chennai Super Kings (CSK) in the ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL).
The Mahendra Singh Dhoni-led CSK knocked out KXIP from the play-offs race of the IPL, after defeating them in the last league match by five wickets in Pune on Sunday.
Reacting to the loss, Preity said in a tweet: “Who would have thought that after winning five out of six games in the beginning, Kings XI Punjab would have ended the IPL on this note.”
“I am sorry to all our fans and supporters for not being up to the mark this season. Next year we won’t let you down. Disappointed,” she added.
The Punjab side under new skipper Ravichandran Ashwin managed to win six out of their 14 league games to end their campaign at the penultimate spot in the IPL tally with 12 points.
Kejriwal to attend Kumaraswamy’s oath taking ceremony
Delhi Chief Minister and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief Arvind Kejriwal will attend the oath taking ceremony of Janata Dal-Secular (JD-S) leader and Karnataka Chief Minister-designate H.D. Kumaraswamy.
An aide close to Kejriwal told IANS that the Chief Minister was invited by former Prime Minister and JD-S supremo H.D. Deve Gowda and added that the schedule was being worked out.
Kumaraswamy is to take oath as Karnataka Chief Minister on May 23.
Kumaraswamy heads to Delhi to discuss power sharing
H D Kumaraswamy will take a call on the government formation in Karnataka after a meeting with Sonia and Rahul Gandhi in Delhi. Contradictions in the JD(S)-Congress combine remain as both parties are yet to finalize the full list of ministers.
Kumaraswamy said that there would be no rotation of chief ministers and he would complete the full five-year term. The Congress, on the other hand, is pushing for two deputy CMs and wants both those posts.
Party MLA Shivaram Hebbar dismisses bribe tape framing BJP as ‘fake’
In a major embarrassment for the Congress party, one of its own MLAs, Shivaram Hebbar, has diffused the “bribe bomb” the party hurled at the BJP ahead of the Floor Test in Karnataka Assembly on Saturday. Congress had released sting audio clippings purportedly showing BJP allegedly offering bribe to buy the support of the Congress MLA during the floor test. Hebbar has said the tape released by the Congress was “fake”.
Hebbar is a Congress MLA from Yellapur. The said audio tape was released by Congress MLC V S Ugrappa on Saturday. The Congress had claimed that the tape was of a recorded call by BJP leaders offering Rs 15 crore bribe to Hebbar’s wife for his support. The MLA, however, said the tape was “fake and fabricated”.
Hebbar wrote on Facebook on Saturday that the voice of the woman in the audio clipping was not of his wife. She had received no call. Hebbar also condemned those who released such clippings for political reasons.
Another Congress MLA BK Hariprasad, however, was reported as saying by CNN News 18 that Hebbar’s statement was not an embarrassment for the Congress party.
The Indian Express today reported Congress as claiming that it had laid a trap and the BJP walked in. Congress sources told IE that there was an alleged middleman and a planned operation to “trap BJP in the act” of trying to lure MLAs to switch sides before the trust votes.
The Congress had released six audio recording in the run-up to the Floor Test which didn’t take place as Yeddyurappa announced his decision to resign from the CM post.
IE reports Congress sources as saying that the plan to trap BJP started three days ago when the saffron party’s alleged MLA approached Congress leadership. A senior Congress leader said that MLAs who could pretend negotiations with the BJP were selected for trapping the saffron party. The audio clipping released by the Congress included one having a purported conversation with Yeddyurappa.
Not commenting on Hebbar’s statement, Congress MLA BC Patil told that “They (BJP) offered me Minister post & all, it’s a fact. I don’t know about Hebbar. I can talk about myself. Yeddyurappa, Sriramulu and Muralidhar Rao spoke to me.”
Plastic pollution needs to be curbed: UN Environment head
Plastic pollution is one of the biggest environmental threats and countries need better waste management to cope with the sheer quantity of plastic rubbish that is fouling the waters and environment, says United Nations Environment head Erik Solheim.
“Plastic pollution is one of the biggest environmental threats the planet is facing right now,” Solheim emphasised.
Sample these startling facts about plastic pollution: Every year the world uses 500 billion plastic bags. Fifty per cent of the plastic we use is single-use or disposable. Each year, at least eight million tonnes of plastic end up in the oceans, the equivalent of a full garbage truck every minute.
In the last decade, the world produced more plastic than in the whole of last century.
“We’re throwing up to 13 million tonnes of plastic waste into the oceans each year, and in the next decade that could double . We’re turning the oceans into a plastic soup,” the UN Under-Secretary-General told IANS in an exclusive online interview.
“This has to stop, and right now, because it’s harming marine life and ending up in our own food and water supplies. If it’s not resolved, this is a problem that will come back to bite us. It’s also a problem that’s difficult to clean up.
“We’d like to see a mass mobilisation of people around the world and big clean-ups. These are important because no amount of clean-ups can solve this issue. We need upstream change, that means a change in the way we use plastic,” Solheim, who is coming to India, a host to UN Environment-led global event World Environment Day on June 5.
“Beat Plastic Pollution”, the theme for World Environment 2018, urges governments, industry and individuals to explore sustainable alternatives and reduce the production and excessive use of single-use plastic polluting oceans, damaging marine life and threatening human health.
“We need consumers to pause and examine their relationship with plastic. If we look at our daily lives, there is so much single-use and throwaway plastic that can easily be eliminated and replaced with sustainable alternatives. If enough people do this, it translates into colossal consumer power!” Solheim said.
For companies, he says: “Then we want industry to innovate, to find sustainable alternatives and embrace the idea of extended producer responsibility — by which a manufacturer takes responsibility for the entire lifecycle of their product.”
“I strongly believe that the companies that innovate now will be the winners of the future.”
“We also want governments to drive this change through legislation, and ensure we have strong enforcement. It’s about ensuring manufacturers have the necessary incentives in place to do the right thing.”
There’s no single, magic solution to enforce a ban on single-use pet bottles or straws. Every minute we buy one million plastic bottles globally, according to the UN Environment.
“It’s clear that we need better waste management to cope with the sheer quantity of plastic rubbish. But let’s not see this as just a litter problem. We need to stop wasteful practice and to do that bans on certain single-use plastic items are helpful,’ he said.
“Ultimately, though, we need changes in design. We need to see sustainable alternatives emerge on the market to replace so much of the wasteful plastic products that we use.”
Yes, India needs more Afroz Shah, not only for clean-up oceans but also for rivers and mountains.
“Afroz Shah is a great inspiration, not only for India but for the entire world. So yes, we do need more people like him! What is important is not just the quantity of litter that has been collected, but that a powerful message has been sent around the world and that this message has been heard!”
Shah, a young lawyer from Mumbai, and his volunteers have removed around 13 million kg of waste since 2015 in what the UN has called “the world’s largest beach cleanup project”.
Solheim is optimistic that India can act as a catalyst for curbing pollution.
“Prime Minister (Narendra) Modi recently said it would be a crime against future generations not to take action on climate change.
“India, therefore, carries a strong moral argument. In addition, India is among the nations that stand to suffer the biggest impact from climate change; so it’s important that it acts as a powerful voice for action on the global stage,” he said.
“India is also innovating, and that’s what I think will be its biggest act of leadership: showing climate action can also unlock incredible economic gains,” he added.