1. CM Cancels Meet, Cane Growers Gatecrash Suvarna
Sugarcane farmers in Belagavi, who have been staging indefinite protest since one week, were bristling with rage on Sunday, 18 November, after Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy cancelled his visit to discuss their demand to hike fair and remunerative price for the crop.
Angered by the CM’s last minute U-turn, a group of farmers gatecrashed into Suvarna Vidhana Soudha (SVS), breaching tight police security with sugarcane-laden trucks. They later staged a semi-nude protest.
At Mudhol taluk in Bagalkot district, the situation continued to be tense after some miscreants on Saturday set five sugarcane-laden tractors on fire and damaged 10 tractors. Police and firefighters brought the situation under control. This incident occurred when a group of cane growers objected to the protest by the other group seeking settlement of dues.
(Source: The Times of India)
2. SBI Loses Rs 1.8 crore in Home Loan Fraud
The State Bank of India (SBI) lost Rs 1.8 crore to five fraudsters who got home loans by submitting fake identity and property documents. The transactions were suspiciously timed: they all happened during the SBI’s merger with its subsidiary, the State Bank of Mysore (SBM) in 2017.
The Suryanagar police have registered FIRs against the five people, among them a woman, following separate complaints from the SBI’s Suryanagar branch manager, Srividya S Abdur Kaleem, of Neelasandra; Ranjan Gowda, of Rose Garden, JP Nagar; Suma Suresh, of Sanjivaninagar, Moodalapalya; Prabhakar Muniyappa, of Lakshmipura, Kempegowda Nagar; and Vinay Vasudev, of Srinagar, were booked under IPC section 468 (forgery for purpose of cheating).
(Source: Deccan Herald)
3. Central Team Visits Drought-hit Districts in Karnataka
A 10-member inter-ministerial central team (IMCT) began visiting 17 drought-hit districts across Karnataka for spot assessment of the losses incurred by farmers and the people, an official said on Saturday.
"The 10-member team, divided into three groups are on a three-day tour of the 17 drought-hit districts in the state to assess the grim situation arising out of deficit monsoon rains," a senior revenue official told IANS.
The team, led by Department of Agriculture Cooperation and Farmers Welfare Joint Secretary Amitabh Gautam, has been split into three groups to visit the affected districts simultaneously.
The first group is visiting Ballari, Davangere, Raichur and Yadgir; second group Bagalkote, Belagavi, Dharwad, Gadag and Vijapura; and third group Chikaballapura, Chitradurga, Kolara and Tumukuru.
(Source: The NewsMInute)
4. CBI Probe in K’taka Techie Missing Case Delayed due to Translation of Kannada Documents
A month after techie Ajitabh Kumar went missing, Karnataka High Court had ordered the CID to hand over the case to the CBI.
After the Karnataka High Court ordered a CBI probe into the investigation of the disappearance of Karnataka techie Ajitabh Kumar, it has come to light that translation of over 1,000 pages of Kannada documents is delaying the probe. Ajitabh had gone missing in December after the 29-year-old techie went to meet a potential OLX buyer, who was looking to purchase his car, a silver Maruti CIAZ.
Nearly a month after the state High Court ordered the CID to hand the case, an officer passed the files to the CBI in their Chennai office. It has been reported that this was a mere ‘symbolic gesture’ as it would take a lot of time to go through over 1,000 pages of documents in Kannada and translate the same before further proceedings could take place.
(Source: The NewsMinute)
5. Man Kills Woman Over Her Son's Affair With His Wife
A 35-year-old business analyst stabbed the 45-year-old mother of an auto driver, besides injuring her husband and the driver himself.
The incident happened in Bairathi in Kothanur limits of north Bengaluru on Saturday night when the auto driver, Bharath, tried clearing the air with Anand Kumar over a misunderstanding of his friendship with Kumar’s wife. The police said Kumar, working with a private firm in Whitefield and living for a decade in Bairathi with his wife Sneha and 10-year-old daughter, frequently clashed with his wife over her friendship with Bharath, who resided close by.
A senior police official said Kumar came home drunk on Saturday evening and quarreled with his wife over Bharath.
(Source: Deccan Herald)
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