1. Gauri Lankesh Murder Probe to Conclude in ‘Weeks’
The probe into the murder of activist and journalist Gauri Lankesh is nearing completion and the names of the perpetrators will be revealed in a “matter of weeks,” said Home Minister Ramalinga Reddy.
Interacting with reporters on Saturday, Reddy said the probe had narrowed down on suspects responsible for the killing of Gauri Lankesh.
“There is no deadline for the completion of the probe, but it is only a matter of weeks now. Unlike the murders of Dabholkar and Pansare (who were killed in Maharashtra in the past three years) where the probe has stretched on for years, the Special Investigation Team here has definite clues and knows the identities of those who killed Gauri Lankesh. The process of evidence collection is on,” he said in a meeting organised by Press Club Bengaluru.
(Source: The Hindu)
2. Pothole Padayatras Get at Ground Truth in Bengaluru
Bengaluru’s traffic hold-ups have grown worse with potholes, but the city’s residents are not at their wits’ end when it comes to protesting. After turning road craters into painted mermaid ponds, conducting poojas and corporate social responsibility exercises, they have zeroed in on walkathons.
That is because, they say, the chief minister’s many directives and even the suspension of three Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) engineers haven’t got things moving. So on Sunday morning, 30 members of a local political outfit, the Nav Bharat Democratic Party, organised a ‘pothole walkathon’ in Koramangala to do a spot check on the administration’s pothole filling exercise.
(Source: The Hindu)
3. My Government Is Free From Scandals: Siddaramaiah
Chief minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday said that his government was free from all scandals. The CM was speaking to mediapersons at Mangaluru International Airport on Sunday. He was on a private visit to attend a marriage function.
He said the BJP is spreading lies as they have no issues to target the Congress government. "Is there any FIR registered against me? Did I go to jail," the CM reacted as saying when asked about Yeddyurappa's statements that the BJP has documents to prove corruptions of Congress government.
BS Yeddyurappa recently had announced that the BJP legislators will present documents related to corruption against Congress government in the Legislature session that begins in Belagavi on Monday.
(Source: Times of India)
4. ATM Cash Custodian Arrested
Kumaraswamy Layout police have arrested a 30-year-old custodian of a cash management firm on charges of stealing over Rs 1 crore from ATM where he was depositing cash over the last five years hoodwinking security checks and audits. Accused Shiva Kumar, a resident of JP Nagar, had joined the firm in March 2013 and worked until October 2017 before it came to the knowledge of the firm that Rs 42 lakh went missing.
The firm suspected Kumar's role and lodged a complaint with KS Layout police who arrested Kumar on Friday. During interrogation, Kumar not only revealed that he had stolen Rs 1 crore in the past few years, but also confessed how he had stolen cash and manipulated records.
According to police, Kumar being the custodian would visit the ATM and deposit 80 percent of the cash and would pocket the remaining amount. He would then manipulate records by mentioning the total amount deposited was the full.
(Source: Deccan Herald)
5. Bengaluru Chokes on Its Own Waste, Garbage Jumps 1,750% in 15 Years
From handling only 200 tonnes of garbage per day in 2000-01, the Bengaluru city corporation found itself having to deal with a massive 3,700 tonnes in 2015, that's a whopping rise in workload by over 17 times (1,750%). During the same time, its population – which generates the largest amount of waste – grew by just 60%.
Bengaluru's garbage generation rate surged more than all other major cities barring New Delhi.
While Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP), the sole authority accountable for handling the mess and menace, appears pretty helpless, the city's waste woes also has genesis in the way it grew disproportionate to its population in the past 15 years, pointing fingers at increasing consumerism.
(Source: Times of India)
6. Bugs Can Heal the World, Bengaloreans Show How
“You are watching National Geographic,” Richard Gomes declares teasingly as he lifts the lid off a wooden crate. Inside, dark-ling beetles are wriggling their way through maize bran, and two blocks of thermocol. “The Swiss cheese-like holes that you see on thermocol is their hard work. They have been munching on the thermocol for two weeks, and have reduced them from 50gm to 25gm. I am waiting for them to start mating and producing larvae (called meal-worms), because it’s the hungry larvae that eat more, and faster,” he explains.
Thermocol-eating mealworms are as healthy as those feeding on a normal diet of bran, the Stanford University established in 2015. Plus, the worm waste is safe to use in soil for plants and crops. While the 100 mealworms under study could only consume Styrofoam of the weight of a pill every day, all thanks to the bacteria in their guts, scientists see these insects as potential fighters of plastic pollution. The quest for their marine equivalent is on too.
“Imagine if we were to do this experiment in Bengaluru, and get a dustbin full of thermocol and 10,000 meal-worms. The bin won’t get full because meal-worms are hard at work,” the 26-year-old hypothesises. Is BBMP, who declared thermocol as the new plastic in town, one that blocked the storm drains during rains last month, listening? Wax-worms can decompose polyethylene bags, the biotechnology professional adds.
(Source: Bangalore Mirror)
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