• Over1000 student from 15 schools participate: Adults welcomed.
• ‘More to come’ promises Aanya. Urges children to support other children.

nThe first ever free integrated eye camp a dream project of Mission Vision, founded by Aanya Aurora – a student of Class XI at Mallya Aditi International School was inaugurated by Dr. Antony Sebastian, Chairperson, Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, Bangalore.The camp for the underprivileged children was organised in association with Child Rights and You (CRY) and Ananya Education and Empower Trust.

Speaking at the Inauguration Dr. Antony Sebastian,Chairperson, Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, Bangalore lauded the efforts of a teenager and her concern towards the underprivileged that has resulted in such fruitful efforts.

Aanya Aurora in her address said ‘This was just the beginning and there were more to come’. She expressed gratitude to the multitude that have helped her to shape her dreams into reality and invited children to support others to gift sight – a gift bound to change lives.

However as Aanya says, “Mission Vision aimsis to improve the lives of children by not just enhancing their eyesight but more importantly, by gifting them with the power of vision. It is this vision that will enable them to see beneath the surface, beyond horizons and energize new hopes for a brighter future.”

Presently a crowd funded effort from family and friends; Aanya hopes to driveher free of cost spectacle distribution in schools with innovative ideas – like used frames collection drive (which she herself has done by door to door collection) volunteering and donations from people who empathise with the Mission Vision goals.

Dr. Krupa Amar Alva, Former Chairperson of Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, Bangalore,Mr. Y Mariswami Chairperson & Member, Karnataka State Commission for Protection of Child Rights, Bangalore)&Dr. John RobertsGeneral Manager (Programmes) CRY, South India, Dr.Ummer Beejadakatte VP HR Pharmed & John Baptist D,Souza – Program Officer & Ananya Education & Empowerment Trust were present at the camp.

To help contribute to aid the eye camp and save someone’s sight, please donate at http://www.missionvision.in/donate

Nasheman News : Three men on Friday staged a nude protest near the Secretariat here in protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill.

The protesters were swiftly removed by security personnel, police said.

Protests against the Bill have enveloped virtually the entire north-eastern region since the Bill was passed in the Lok Sabha on January 8.

The Bill seeks to provide Indian citizenship to six non-Muslim minority groups from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh. The fear in the northeast is that if this is done, “outsiders” will overwhelm the locals in the region. 

A nude protest was also staged last month by 10 Assamese youths in front of Parliament in the national capital.

Social activist Anna Hazare‘s hunger strike entered the second day on Thursday as he remained defiant on his demand for appointment of anti-corruption watchdogs at the Centre and in Maharashtra and resolution of farmers’ issues.

A bandh was also observed by locals in Hazare’s native Ralegan Siddhi village in Maharashtra’s Ahmednagar district in support of his demands.

Hazare is sitting on a hunger strike in his village since Wednesday against “non-fulfilment” of assurances by the Centre and the Maharashtra government on the appointment of Lokpal and passage of the Lokayukta Act in the state.

The 81-year-old Army man-turned-activist has also been demanding appointment of Lokayuktas in states where such statutory anti-corruption watchdogs do not exist.

He has also been demanding implementation of the Swaminathan Commission recommendations on ways to address agrarian distress, besides some electoral reforms.

Locals of Ralegan Siddhi village issued a statement on Thursday to local tehsildar, as an official representative of the state government, to look into Hazare’s demands.

Doctors conducted a check-up of Hazare and asked his caretakers to monitor the activist’s condition closely.

“He is over 80 years’ old. He needs to be looked after,” the doctors told Hazare’s close aides.

Hazare had earlier declined to meet state government envoy and minister Girish Mahajan for talks over his demands.

However, Mahajan said on Wednesday that talks were going on with Hazare and his supporters.

“There will be some solution,” Mahajan, a confidant of Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, told reporters in Nashik.

The anti-corruption crusader had earlier told media that he welcomed the Maharashtra Cabinet’s decision to bring the office of state chief minister under the ambit of Lokayukta.

“However, the strike will continue till the government fulfils promises they made before coming to power about passage of Lokayukta Act, appointment of Lokpal (at the Centre) and to tackle farmers’ issues,” he said.

Hazare had written a letter to Fadnavis Monday, saying he would launch the agitation in his village from Wednesday.

“It has been five years since the Lokpal Act was passed.

Yet, the Narendra Modi government has not appointed Lokpal. Lokayukta Act has not been passed in Maharashtra for four years,” Hazare observed in his letter dated January 28.

The activist said Fadnavis had mediated when he had launched the agitation at Ramlila Maidan in Delhi in March last year.

Hazare said he had withdrawn that agitation after the Centre assured in writing it would fulfil his demands.

“Nine months have passed, yet the demands have not been fulfilled,” he had said in the letter.

The Fadnavis Cabinet had on Tuesday decided to bring the office of chief minister under the purview of Lokayukta.

Hazare welcomed the government’s decision to set in motion the process to appoint Lokayukta, but said that does not mean he will not stage hunger strike.

“The agitation will go on until the Act is in place,” he had said.

The Lokayukta is a statutory body that is empowered to probe complaints of abuse of position and corruption against public servants.

The final list of voter’s announced, 5.03 crore voter turnout in the state has been revised following the Lok Sabha polls, state Chief Electoral Officer Sanjeev Kumar said. Speaking at a press conference in the Election Commission’s office on Wednesday, he said that a special registration campaign was held to add voters’ list to 18 persons who had completed 18 years. Total 17.45 lakh applications were received and 7.12 lakh voters were newly listed. He added that 7.52 lakh people have been removed from the list of voters.

Accordingly, 6.35 lakh voters who have not registered in the list of voters have listed their names. During the special campaign 7,54,829 applications were received for the name, 7,21,653 applications were approved. Similarly, 7,59,277 applications have been received for removal of the names and 7,52,901 applications have been approved. In addition, there were 2,31,376 applications for amendments, of which 2,25,306 were tuned.

The voters’ list is allowed to be named until the date of filing the nomination papers. The youth who are 18 years old on January 1, said their name can be included in the voter list and can be filed online at the government offices without any documents.

As per the revised voter turnout, the state has 5.03 crore voters, of which 2,54,84,972 are men, 2,48,46,976 women and 4,718 other voters. 2,54,84,972 male voters have 2,54,55,976 general and 28996 service voters, 2,48,46,488 general and 488 service voters in 2,48,46,976 women voters. The final list of service voters will be announced on February 22.

Over 7.52 lakh voters have been dropped during the Special Comprehensive Revision Program of voters list. Out of this 4.72 lakh voters have been displaced and 1.95 lakh voters have died. The number of voters in the 2019 voter turnout was 3.82 lakh and this time it was 976 women voters per thousand men.

1.14 lakh fake identification cards detected: 1,14,377 photographs recovered in the state have been identified and some cases have been initiated. Of the 54,140 cases of photographic repetition cases detected in voter list revision, He said that no action was taken in 64,600 cases.

1.82 lakh photographs have been identified, and 1.47 lakh cases have already been taken. As many as 34,000 cases have been pending and voters have migrated to other places for work. In addition, 10.41 lakh voters have been recovered and 31,372 cases have been reported. Thus, those who do not have a portrait in the identity card requested their photographs to be given to the authorities.

Parties should
be appointed by a polling agent The Political parties should proceed to the polls to appoint 58,186 polling booths across the state. Those who are not included in the list of voters should work to identify unauthorized persons. Currently, the agency has appointed 9,497 polling booths from the Congress, 14,696 from the BJP, 1,038 from the JDS and an agent of 950 polling booths from BSP, Sanjeev Kumar said.

PTI

TV screens across Karnataka using a conventional local cable connection as opposed to satellite Direct to Home services will go blank in Karnataka, including Bengaluru, on January 24 from 6 am to 10 pm, reports said. The Karnataka State Cable Television Operators Association has announced that they will hold a strike protesting against the new tariff policy by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) coming into effect from February 1.

There are currently more than 60 lakh users for conventional locally-operated TV service in the state.

VS Patrick Raju, president of the association, called the decision regressive and said the new tariff fixed by TRAI will prove beneficial neither to the customer nor the cable operators. He alleged the new rules are made only to favour the big players in the market.

The Hindu quoted him, saying, “The TRAI has come out with the new regulations without taking operators into consideration. At present, the operators are giving 450 channels for Rs 300 and if the new rules come into place, the subscriber will end up paying Rs 1,500 for same number of channels as the channel rate ranges from Rs 1 to 19. In addition, a provision has been made to charge 18 percent. The TRAI regulation is a regressive act and new rules are introduced just to favour big corporate bodies.”

Following a meeting by member cable operators, Patrick Raju said that the association will demand an alternative tariff structure including a GST rate cut before the new one comes into force and make sure that these local cable operators are not driven out of business.

In the new fee guidelines, a consumer will have to pay a fixed fee of Rs 130 a month for 100 free-to-air standard definition channels, including 26 mandatory Doordarshan channels. For every other channel, the user has to pay respective prices. However, TRAI claims that consumers will be able to choose their own channels and pay for it, thereby providing them with freedom of choice and direct control.

Similar strikes have been held in other parts of the country including neighbouring Andhra Pradesh and Telangana over the same issue.

Nasheman News : Four persons, including two women, were injured here on Tuesday during a police crackdown on protestors demanding scrapping of the Citizens (Amendment) Bill.

Students from schools in and around Imphal and women vendors in the three markets in the city took out the demonstration. 

As police obstructed them, there was a scuffle. Mock bombs, tear gas shells were fired at many places and police also tried to take away one student.

Chief Minister N. Biren Singh also met a people’s delegation in the Secretariat during the day but refused to give details to the media.

Manipur has been witnessing various forms of agitations since January 8 when the Lok Sabha passed the contentious Bill. 

People in the Northeast have not accepted assurances of Home Minister Rajnath Singh who said that the Bill, when it becomes an Act, will not harm the rights of the indigenous peoples. 

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Nasheman News : As the 48-hour nationwide trade strike entered its second day on Wednesday, angry protesters stormed into the cabin of a State Bank of India (SBI) manager here and vandalised it

“At around 10.15 a.m., angry protesters came into my cabin and asked if I did not know that today is a protest day. I told them that although we are open, banking operations were not taking place. Then they threw the computer and other properties on my table,” Santosh Karunakaran, the manager, told the media here.

This branch is located near Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan’s office and also the temporary union office of the protesters.

The bank has lodged an official complaint and the police have launched a probe.

Nasheman News : The two-day nationwide strike called by trade unions was near total in Kerala on Tuesday and was by and large peaceful, with train services badly hit.

Barring the BJP-backed BMS trade union, all other unions are protesting in support of demands including a raise in minimum wages to Rs 18,000 amongst others.

At the stroke of midnight, employees attached to the Government Press took out a protest march here.

Demonstrators got into the act across the state by blocking rail traffic, following which several trains ran behind schedule.

Protesters blocked trains at practically all major stations in Kerala.

State-owned private buses and contract vehicles went off the roads but pilgrims to the Sabarimala shrine were allowed to proceed from all places.

But during the day, even Sabarimala services got affected especially from Kottayam bus station amid angry exchanges between the pilgrims and the staff of the state owned transport service.

Private vehicles, however, plied.

Banks, state and central government offices remained shut but shops and establishments including hotels opened in several parts of the state.

According to the striking bank employees, over 22,000 bank employees in the state took part in the strike, leaving banking activities in shambles.

Workers at Cochin Port and Cochin Export Processing Zone were stopped by the protesters.

Even though there was a general advisory given by the trade unions that they will not force closure of shops, there were heated arguments between the protesters and those who tried to open their shops at Malappuram and Kozhikode.

All university examinations slated for the day have been postponed and educational institutions were closed.

Senior CPI-M Rajya Sabha member and trade union leader Elamaram Kareem told the media that the two-day protest was total in Kerala.

“The labourers at all the estates in the state are on strike. This is a protest against the wrong policies of the Centre,” said Kareem.

Attendance at the State Secretariat was very poor. But in the nearby Accountant General’s office of the Comptroller and Auditor General, it stood at 80 per cent.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and his cabinet colleagues also failed to turn up at their office in the Secretariat complex.

But with the strike set to enter a second day, more shops and establishments are likely to open on Wednesday.

The two-day nationwide strike was called by a coalition of trade unions’ against the alleged anti-labour policies of the central government.

Services were partially affected in Karnataka on Tuesday after a two-day nationwide general strike was called by a coalition of trade unions against the dilution of labour laws by the central government. No major incident of violence was reported across the state.

Streets and major junctions in the state saw smaller crowds compared to usual days, though shops and other establishments functioned normally. Protesters gathered and marched at important junctions and landmarks across the state, including Bengaluru.

Bus services by the four state-run transport corporations – BMTC, KSRTC, NWKRTC, NEKRTC – were severely impacted. Major bus stations across the rest of the state, including Bengaluru’s Majestic, were empty, and as of 12 pm, only 26.5% (854 out of 3226) of scheduled departures in the city had completed their journeys. Some commuters were stranded at junctions, even though train and private bus services were largely unaffected by the bandh strike.

KSRTC ran only 1,518 buses out of a total 4,122 (36.8%) buses, according to its schedule. The NWKRTC and NEKRTC were hit worst with only 242 (9.8%) and 243 (10.8%) buses operating till 12pm.

Bengaluru Metro ran according to its normal schedule as did cab-hailing apps and autos from Ola and Uber. Auto rickshaws were also fewer that usual on the city’s roads on Tuesday.

In one isolated incident, a BMTC bus was vandalised by protesters near Basaveshwaranagar in Bengaluru.

Hundreds gathered at Bengaluru’s Town Hall with a coalition of left-leaning organisations chanted anti-NDA slogans. In Hubbali and Gadag, effigies of Union Minister of Road and Transport Nitin Gadkari were burnt by protesters who opposed the proposed Motor Vehicles Act (Amendment),

A procession was also led by BBMP Guttige Powrakarmika Sanghatane members demanding abolition of contractual work, minimum wages of Rs 18,000 per month and universal public distribution scheme in Magadi Road.

Schools and other educational institutions declared holidays based on orders from respective district commissioners in majority of the thirty districts including Bengaluru and Mysuru. In some cases, examinations were postponed, including preparatory PU-II exams, those in Bangalore University, Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences and Vishveshwarya Institute of Technology.

The strike is being supported by All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC), Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU), Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC), Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) and Labour Progressive Federation (LPF) among others following the National Convention of Workers held on September 28.

TNM

The State Bank of India said that it will function, but other nationalised banks are likely to remain closed because of participation by union members. 

BENGALURU:  Schools and colleges across several parts of the state will be closed on Tuesday, the first of the two-day bandh called by several trade unions against the alleged anti-labour policies of the Narendra Modi government. In addition, examinations being held at several universities have been postponed. 

On Monday, Deputy Commissioners of several districts, including Bengaluru, issued orders for schools to remain closed on Tuesday. The bandh is also likely to affect public transport as buses operated by the state government will mostly stay off the roads as union members are supporting the bandh call.

However, both the BMTC and KSRTC said that the final call will be taken on Tuesday morning after monitoring the situation.  Autorickshaws, cabs and trucks services will continue to ply. The State Bank of India said that it will function, but other nationalised banks are likely to remain closed because of participation by union members.  

Schools and colleges in city will not function on Tuesday, following the bandh call given by various trade unions across the nation. Bengaluru Urban DC Vijay Shankar issued an order declaring a holiday, considering the inconvenience due to lack of  transport. However, this order applies only for Tuesday and does not mention Wednesday. Parents need not worry even if a school says it is functioning, as the order is binding on all schools, including ICSE and other schools.  

Meanwhile, several state universities have postponed examinations scheduled on January 8 and 9. As per official information provided by Visvesvaraya Technological University, Bangalore University, Davangere University, Tumakuru University and Rajiv Gandhi University of Health Sciences, Kuvempu University and Rani Channamma University, examinations scheduled for January 8 and 9 have been postponed and students can check their university websites for the revised dates. Several private schools have declared holidays for two days  Parents angrySome private schools have yet to take a decision and communicate this to parents, which is causing inconvenience, says parents.

A few schools which have put up a notice saying the school will function as usual, but parents have to make their own transportation arrangements. “Every time such situations arise, schools leave us in the lurch. They don’t send any message till morning, and sometimes send kids back after we take them to school, “ said a parent. “Some have even put up a notice saying schools will function, but transport will not. This is inconvenience to working parents,” says another parent.