1. 'Operation Lotus': Cong-JD(S) to Parade MLAs Before Guv
The Congress-JD(S) combine may knock on Karnataka Governor Vajubhai R Vala’s door to ward off “threats” posed by the BJP.
Deputy Chief Minister G Parameshwara on Friday, said the alliance partners might take all their legislators to Raj Bhavan with a complaint that the BJP was trying to lure them through ‘Operation Lotus’ – a moniker referring to poaching legislators.
“We will decide when to go to Raj Bhavan soon. The way the BJP is behaving, we will have to take all our MLAs and make them stand in front of the Governor and tell him that the BJP is luring them by offering money and power,” Parameshwara told reporters in Bengaluru.
Parameshwara joined the list of top coalition leaders, including Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy and Congress Legislature Party (CLP) leader Siddaramaiah, in attacking the BJP.
(Source: Deccan Herald)
2. 14 Year Old Killed, 33 Injured in Building Collapse in Karnataka
A fourteen-year-old girl was killed and 33 persons injured when an old building they were standing on collapsed at Hospet in Ballari district.
The incident occurred at Chithvadgi layout in Hospet in Ballari district where the people had gathered to watch an early morning procession for Moharram. The building caved in, killing a 14-year-old girl identified as Usha. According to police 33 persons were injured in the mishap.
The people gathered there acted swiftly and shifted the injured to the hospital by helping them out of the rubble. This immediate action according to the local police saved several people and thus averted a major loss of life.
However, the condition of five persons is said to be critical. They have been admitted to the hospital.
(Source: The New Indian Express)
3. Zoo Authority of Karnataka Plans to Release Captivity-Bred Wolves Into Wilderness
The Zoo Authority of Karnataka has an idea to ‘manage and conserve’ the wolf population in the state. It is planning to release its captivity-bred wolves into the wilderness. As a preliminary step in this direction, it has called a meeting of experts and public at Kamalapur near Daroji in Ballari district to elicit their opinion.
The Jungle Lodges and Resorts in Ballari’s Kamalapur near Hampi is gearing up for a meeting on the matter, which can be considered as the first of its kind in the country. The topic of discussion is “Release of captivity-bred wolves into the wilderness”.
He said the meeting will witness participation of experts from various parts of the country. “They will discuss whether there is a possibility to release wolves into the wilderness. They will be pondering over whether it is a feasible option” a highly placed source in the department told Express. Interestingly, the idea came to the Zoo Authority of Karnataka with the increasing population of wolves in Mysuru Zoo
(Source: The New Indian Express)
4. Activists Push for Law to Enforce Kannada Signage in State
Kannada activists are demanding that the State government enact a Kannada signboard Act.
An online petition demanding this has gathered over 5,000 signatures in just two days. Several attempts to ensure that shops and other commercial establishments use Kannada in their signage have repeatedly suffered a setback. Recently, a directive by the BBMP on Kannada boards in Bengaluru, was challenged in the High Court. The reason: the legal grounds for such directives is weak and an earlier directive had been struck down by the Karnataka High Court in 2014.
The State government and the BBMP has time and again issued directives under Section 24A of the Karnataka Shops and Establishments Act, 1961, asking commercial establishments to ensure signboards in Kannada. However, a prominent Telecom Service Provider (TSP) and retail chain challenged this directive in the High Court in 2014, which ruled that Karnataka Shops and Establishments Act, 1961 was primarily concerned with labour issues, and set aside the directive. But the BBMP’s recent directive in August was also issued under the same Act, again challenged in the High Court by the same retail chain that won a legal victory in 2014.
(Source: The Hindu)
5. Despite Warning, Data From K’taka Police Sites Leaked on Dark Web
A few harmless keystrokes is all it takes to extract citizens’ private data, and lay bare sensitive personal information from the ‘darkest’ corners of the internet.
Hidden away in a folder – on one of the thousands of anonymous websites that constitute the Dark net – are the names, phone numbers, addresses, passport numbers and dates of birth of over 350 Bengaluru citizens, complete with BangaloreOne transaction numbers, email addresses and the jurisdictional police stations.
This discovery was made earlier this year by a Bengaluru-based private cyber security company, two years after the websites of the Bengaluru City Police and Karnataka State Police were hacked in 2016. While the hacking of the Bengaluru city police website led to citizens’ private data ending up on the Dark net, from where it is nearly impossible to remove, the KSP hacking resulted in email addresses, passwords and other account information of cops ending up in the public domain.
(Source: The Quint)
6. Arrested by ATS, Dabholkar Murder Suspect in SIT Custody
A man arrested by the Maharashtra ATS and accused by the CBI of being one of two persons involved in the shooting of Maharashtra rationalist Narendra Dabholkar in Pune in 2013 was on Thursday placed under arrest by a Karnataka police SIT for the murder of journalist Gauri Lankesh in Bengaluru in 2017. Sharad Kalaskar, 25, was produced in the court of the principal sessions judge in Bengaluru on a body warrant by the SIT. He was remanded in 20 days’ police custody under provisions of the Karnataka Control of Organized Crime Act, 2000.
Kalaskar was named as accused number 16 in the Lankesh case by the SIT on September 12 after probe revealed that he played a key role in the handling of guns used for the murder — especially after the murder was committed.
The SIT’s investigations have revealed that two guns that were brought to Bengaluru for the murder were entrusted to Kalaskar after the murder by Sudhanva Gondhalekar, a Satara businessman, who picked up the guns from a hideout used by a supervisory team of Hindutva extremists that monitored the execution of the murder by trained shooters.
(Source: The New Indian Express)
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