BENGALURU: Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Wednesday attacked the Union government under the Open Market Sale Scheme (OMSS). He alleged that it was a conspiracy to stop the Karnataka Congress government from implementing the ‘Anna Bhagya’ guarantee scheme — 10kgs of free rice to every member of a BPL family from July 1, as promised in the run-up to the May 10 assembly polls.

The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution, in a letter to the chairman and managing director of Food Corporation of India, dated June 13, stated that the sale of wheat and rice under OMSS (Domestic) for state governments was discontinued. 

Siddaramaiah, who read out the letter, asserted that regardless of the conspiracy, 10kgs of rice per head will be distributed. There is no problem as 5kgs per head will be procured from neighbouring states, and Karnataka Food and Civil Supplies Minister K H Muniyappa will visit Telangana on Thursday to hold negotiations with Chief Minister Chandrashekar Rao.

“The Central government has proved itself anti-poor and anti-Kannadiga, as it has taken a political stance and taken away the state’s share,” Siddaramaiah said, at an emergency press conference called in connection with the Annabhagya Yojana at Shakti Bhavan.

He claimed that on June 9, a letter was written to the deputy general manager of FCI, seeking the requirement of 2.28 lakh MT to distribute 10kgs of rice to each Antyodaya and BPL card holders every month. On June 12, FCI agreed to supply rice through an agreement at Rs 3,400 per quintal. But soon, the Central government had taken a political decision.    

FCI General Manager Harish had said that there is 7 lakh tonnes of rice stock, Siddaramaiah informed. “The motive behind this was to obstruct the Anna Bhagya programme from being implemented, as the Karnataka government will become popular,” he alleged. Muniyappa has already spoken to the rice producing states of Punjab, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Haryana. He said that due to lack of storage facilities in Punjab, rice cannot be supplied, and that he would meet the Telangana chief minister on Thursday. 

“Similarly, the information on rice available from the state of Chhattisgarh will be available and a clear picture will emerge by tomorrow evening,” he said. Despite having sufficient stock of rice, the Centre is writing to FCI to not give it to the states on OMSS should be called anti-poor, he said. However he clarified that the state government will write to the centre again and appeal in this regard. Law and Parliamentary Affairs Minister H K Patil was also present.  

BENGALURU: Days after Deputy Chief Minister and Bengaluru in-charge minister DK Shivakumar inspected flood-prone Mahadevpura Zone, the first rain of South West Monsoon marooned several layouts in Varthur. HAL Layout received 8 cm rain, while the rest of the city 2 mm.

According to Varthur Ramesh, his home flooded like last year and blamed encroachment of stormwater drain and apathy of elected representatives and officials for the mess. “Former MLA Aravind Limbavali promised to fix drains, but it has not happened. Last time, many residents lost their clothes and furniture in the flood. This time, it flooded in the first rain itself,” he said.

Ramesh added that it took one hour for the rainwater to recede and cleaning activity to start. Jagadish Reddy, an activist, said the 60-feet drains have been reduced to 15 feet at many places, causing the flooding. “Due to encroachment at many places in Mahadevapura, this time too we are facing floods. Prakash Layout, Meenakshi Layout and Chinnappa Layout were submerged.

Approximately 3,000 residents were affected as water entered homes and shops,” he said. According to India Meteorological Department, Bengaluru received 2 cm rain between 6.30 pm to 8.30 pm on Monday with HAL alone recording 8 cm rainfall.  Due to heavy rainfall, traffic was impacted in Whitefield, Bellanduru, HAL and Marathahalli.

BENGALURU:   The Karnataka High Court rejected an appeal filed by Imran Ahmad, accused of being involved in the 2020 DJ Halli-KG Halli riots, questioning the order passed by the Special Court for NIA cases, rejecting his bail for the second time in November 2022. A division bench of Justices Krishna S Dixit and Pradeep Singh Yerur, dismissed the appeal as it was devoid of merits.

However, the bench observed, “we have very carefully considered every aspect of the matter, keeping in mind the sanctity of human rights as reco­gnized by the apex court in the light of Constitutional guarantees. We are conscious of the possible societal implications should an accused of the kind be enlarged from confinement”.

“We are of the considered view that the cause of justice would be served more by continuing him in confinement. We hasten to add that the subject case needs to be expeditiously tried since there are several accused persons, who have suffered the rejection of their bail petitions, and as a consequence, are in judicial custody.

• MOST PREFREABLE FROM INSURANCE BACK GROUND
• MUST BE BETWEEN THE AGE GROUP OF 24 TO 38 YEARS
• MUST BE A LOCALITE OF BANGALORE , STAYING IN BANGALORE FROM ATLEAST TWO YEARS
• MUST BE HAVING TWO WHEELERS
• MUST BE A GO GETTER
• TEAM HANDLING SKILLS WILL BE AN ADDED ADVANTAGE
  *,RECRUITMENT OF ADVISORS
• BUILDING A TEAM
• SHARE YOUR RESUMES TO: kulsoom.hr@gmail.com
  Ph: 9513940717
  Only two rounds of face to face intreview.
  Companies hiring for us : Future Generali life and Reliance General Insurance

NEW DELHI: Karnataka chief ministerial aspirant Siddaramaiah on Wednesday met Rahul Gandhi amid hectic parleys in the party to name its chief minister face in the southern state.

The meeting comes a day after Siddaramaiah met Congress President Mallikarjun Kharge at his residence and held discussion with him over government formation.

Karnataka Pradesh Congress chief D K Shivakumar is also likely to meet Rahul Gandhi later in the day.

Both Siddaramaiah and Shivakumar are claimants to the top post in Karnataka after the party wrested the state from the BJP.

The Congress has held a series of meetings on who will be the chief minister of the state after the party staged a stunning victory in the assembly elections, winning 135 of out 224 seats.

BENGALURU: Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) president D K Shivakumar, a strong contender for the Chief Minister’s post, said he has not received any call from the party’s central leadership to discuss the issue.

When asked whether he will be appointed the Chief Minister, he said: “I don’t know. I have done whatever job was given to me. We have sent a one-line resolution to Delhi.”

He also said the government will be formed at an auspicious time. Amid speculation that he has been asked to come to the national capital by the high command, he said: “I have not received any call yet. Let’s see.”

On when the new government would be formed, Shivakumar said, “We will see an auspicious day of the week, auspicious moment and auspicious ‘muhurta’.”

Shivakumar is engaged in an intense competition with senior party leader Siddaramaiah for the Chief Minister’s post.

The Karnataka Congress Legislaure Party at its meeting on Sunday unanimously passed a resolution authorising AICC President M Mallikarjun Kharge to choose the new Chief Minister of the state.

In the May 10 Assembly polls to the 224-member House, the Congress won 135 seats, the BJP 66 and the JD(S) 19. The results were declared on May 13.

MYSURU: Senior Congress leader Siddaramaiah on Saturday said the party will come to power on its own by winning over 120 seats in the 224-member Karnataka Legislative Assembly and claimed the visits of BJP brass led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi had no impact on the voters of the state.

The former Chief Minister was responding to his party surging ahead of the ruling BJP on a day when the votes polled for the May 10 elections in the state were being counted.

Siddaramaih said the visits of Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah and BJP national president J P Nadda have had no impact on the voters of Karnataka.

“Congress party will win by getting over 120 seats, it is still the initial stage, more rounds of counting have to be completed. So Congress will come to power by getting over 120 seats on its own strength,” the Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly told reporters.

“I had been saying let Narendra Modi or Amit Shah or J P Nadda come how many ever times they want to the state (but) that will have no impact on the voters of Karnataka because people are fed up with BJP, their corruption, maladministration, and their anti-people politics,” he said.

People were also not happy with the saffron party since it did no developmental work.

“People wanted change, and they have given their verdict accordingly,” he said.

Siddaramaiaha, a leading contender for the chief minister’s post, said in Varuna he is leading with 8,000 votes after about three rounds and will win with an even bigger margin.

He said his opponent, Minister V Somanna will lose both in Varuna and in Chamarajanagara, the other seat from where the BJP candidate is contesting from, against Congress’ Puttarangashetty.

NEW DELHI: With the leads indicating that the Congress is likely to get a majority in the Karnataka assembly polls, the party on Saturday said it is now certain that it has won and Prime Minister Narendra Modi has “lost” as the BJP had made its election campaign a “referendum on the PM”.

The Congress was striding forward with leads in 117 seats while the BJP was ahead in 75 in Karnataka, according to Election Commission trends, as votes were counted for an election widely seen as a litmus test for both parties ahead of the 2024 parliamentary polls.

“As the results firm up in Karnataka it is now certain that the Congress has won and the PM has lost. The BJP had made its election campaign a referendum on the PM and on the state getting his ‘ashirwaad’. That has been decisively rejected!” Congress general secretary Jairam Ramesh said in a tweet.

The Congress fought these elections on local issues of livelihood and food security, price rise, farmer distress, electricity supply, joblessness and corruption, he said.

“The PM injected divisiveness and attempted polarisation. The vote in Karnataka is for an engine in Bengaluru that will combine economic growth with social harmony,” Ramesh said.

BENGALURU: Congress workers have reportedly caught a crowd, who allegedly came from Chincholi to Vijayapura to cast fake votes, on Wednesday. The Congress workers alleged that they were brought by the supporters of Vijayapura BJP MLA Basangouda Patil Yatnal.

Video clips of several men admitting that they have come in the buses to Vijayapura from Chincholi to cast fake votes have gone viral on social media. One of the men said they were brought to Vijayapura City on Tuesday night and were made to stay in Vijayapura City.

The Congress workers have urged the police to file a case against all the fake voters and said they would also lodge a complaint with the Election Commission demanding stringent action against them.

The voting for the Karnataka assembly elections began at 7 AM today. The state had recorded a voter turnout of 20.99% by 11 AM. 

BENGALURU: Taiwanese electronics giant Foxconn has bought a huge tract of land on the outskirts of Indian tech hub Bengaluru, the key Apple supplier said in a filing Tuesday as it looks to diversify production away from China.

Also known by its official name, Hon Hai Precision Industry, Foxconn is the world’s biggest contract electronics manufacturer and a principal assembler of Apple iPhones.

Both companies are seeking to shift manufacturing away from China after strict Covid policies, a bout of industrial unrest and ongoing diplomatic tensions with the United States hurt production.

The 1.2 million-square-metre (13 million-square-foot) acquisition in Devanahalli, near the airport for Bengaluru, was announced in a statement to the London Stock Exchange.

It said that subsidiary Foxconn Hon Hai Technology India Mega Development was paying three billion rupees ($37 million) for the site, the size of more than 50 Manhattan city blocks.

Another Foxconn unit was acquiring land use rights to a 480,000-square-metre site in Vietnam’s Nghe An province, it added.

Karnataka state chief minister Basavaraj S. Bommai said in March that Apple would “soon” manufacture iPhones at a new plant that would create “about 100,000 jobs”.

Bloomberg News reported that month that Foxconn was planning to invest $700 million in a new factory in Karnataka.

Foxconn chairman Young Liu visited the state then and also met with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has urged foreign firms to manufacture goods in the South Asian nation.

Foxconn has manufactured Apple handsets in India since 2019 at its plant in the southern state of Tamil Nadu.

The company is expected to break ground on a new facility in Telangana state next week, local media reported.

Two other Taiwanese suppliers, Wistron and Pegatron, also manufacture and assemble Apple devices in India.

‘Good growth’

The California-based firm is betting big on the nation of 1.4 billion people — home to the second-highest number of smartphone users in the world, after China.

Navkendar Singh of market intelligence firm International Data Corporation told AFP that Apple had already proved “quite successful” in India, with domestic iPhone sales of 6.7 million last year.

“This is good growth considering that Apple plays at the price range of more than $500 all the time,” he added.

The world’s biggest company in terms of market value is also expanding its manufacturing footprint in India.

Apple said last September it would manufacture its latest iPhone 14 in India, just weeks after launching the flagship model.

The country last year accounted for seven percent of Apple’s iPhone production, according to Bloomberg, lagging behind the United States, China, Japan and other countries.

China, by far the leading producer of Apple products, saw production disrupted by violent protests last November at the country’s largest iPhone factory, also owned by Foxconn.

Hundreds of employees protested over conditions and pay at the plant in the central city of Zhengzhou, spurred in part by public frustration over the government’s zero-tolerance approach to Covid during the pandemic.

“Having contingency or diversification plans helps so you are not too dependent on one region,” Counterpoint Technology Market Research senior analyst Prachir Singh told AFP.

“It’s not like the Chinese operations will come down to zero,” he added. “It is about building a similar world in India so they have multiple locations to rely on.”