Students will also have an option to schedule the date and time to collect the pass between 8 am and 6.30 pm, beginning Monday. Express Photo: Darshan Devaiah BPKarnataka Bengaluru Coronavirus News December 21 Highlights: Students studying in various degree, professional, technical, medical, and evening colleges in Bengaluru can apply for bus passes from Monday. According to the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC), bus pass applications can be made online on the Seva Sindhu or BMTC website from December 21.
After applying with approval from their respective educational institutions, passes can be collected from BangaloreOne centres, BMTC stated. They will also have an option to schedule the date and time to collect the pass between 8 am and 6.30 pm, beginning Monday.
Meanwhile, 1194 more people contracted the infection across the state on Wednesday while another 1062 recovered from the same. As many as 14,497 cases are active as on December 20, with the total tally since March 8 rising to over 9.09 lakh in the state.
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Leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the regional outfit Janata Dal (Secular) (JD (S)) on Sunday, denied merging parties amid speculation of such a possibility before the next Karnataka Assembly elections in 2023.
Speculation was rife that the two parties will join hands in February after ‘Makar Sankranti’ and that there would be a change of guard at the top by Ugadi in April, with Kumaraswamy leading it.
Dismissing the media reports as rumours, Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa said there is no truth in the matter. “JD-S is extending us issue-based support like removing legislative Council chairman Prathapchandra Shetty and the land reforms bill,” he said in a statement on Sunday evening. State BJP Vice President Aravind Limbavali said that he had heard of the merger reports and would try to find out more about the same.
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The Budget Bus, an integral vehicle of the #MyCityMyBudget campaign, was flagged off by Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Commissioner N Manjunath Prasad in the presence of citizens and RWAs on Monday.
"Around 50 lakh people use BMTC buses. However, a survey reveals that people use 50 per cent of the trips to travel 1 to 2 kilometres. If citizens have access to citizen-friendly footpaths, they would prefer to walk than depend on transport," said BBMP Commissioner Manjunath Prasad.
"Bengaluru has roads and streets that stretch up to 14,000 kilometres. However, many of these roads lack footpaths. Even if existing, many are not pedestrian-friendly. They are narrow, have missing slabs, dumped with garbage/debris and not walkable. Bengaluru weather is favourable for people to walk, but people feel discouraged due to lack of infrastructure. Secondly, Bengaluru has 585 public toilets, but according to our population, we need at least 1600. There is a severe lack of public toilets. Even some of the existing ones are not maintained, which discourages people from using them. BBMP has a budget to construct public toilets. However, we need the help of citizens in highlighting the areas where they feel a public toilet needs to be constructed or maintained better. The #yellowspotsbeda campaign as a part of MyCityMyBudget with Janaagraha is an effective way of crowdsourcing citizen inputs," Manjunath Prasad said.
Hundreds of workers of Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) on Monday staged protests, extending their support to the farmers' agitation happening across the country opposing the new agriculture related laws.
On Monday, the workers and traders shut down their operations at the APMC market in Yeshwanthpura and staged a protest. The workers and traders closed the gates of the market and demanded the state and central government to withdraw the proposed bills, terming it anti-farmer laws.
The workers and traders also demanded the state government to withdraw APMC (Amendment) Bill, 2020. Earlier this month, APMC bill was passed with an voice vote amid walkout by Congress members. The workers and traders alleged that the APMCs have an annual turnover of Rs 40,000 crore and more than 80 percent farmers depend on APMCs to sell their produce. The new bill is not going to just dismantle APMC system but also will lead to unemployment of about two lakh APMC workers across the state, said the workers.
BBMP administrator Gaurav Gupta and BBMP commissioner Manjunath Prasad flagged off the "Fit India Cyclothon 2020", organised by the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) in association with National Urban Health Mission and Bangalore Smart City Ltd on Sunday.
The motive of the event was to attract the youth towards fitness during winter and give them a platform, according to BBMP. The event commenced at 7 am at the Cubbon Park Gate (Hudson Circle) and moved towards Chinnaswamy Stadium (Queens Road), GPO Circle, the Rajbhavan Road, Chalukya Circle, Dr. Amebedkar Veedhi (Via MS Building), KR Circle, Nrupathunga Road and back to Cubbon Park Gate (Hudson Circle).
The campaign was launched with an aim to promote physical and mental health of citizens, Manjunath Prasad said.
As many as four youngsters lost lives in two separate accidents in Bengaluru on Sunday while riding triples of motorbikes while under the influence of alcohol, police said.
According to the police, three of them died in a single accident after a joyride turned fatal in Hoskote, on the outskirts of the city. The deceased have been identified as Lavaneeth (23) who was a football coach, Rajesh (24), and Harish (24) who were small-scale entrepreneurs.
In another accident near Yadiyur Circle on Kanakapura Road Dheeraj M (20) — a private college student who rode a sports bike — succumbed to head injuries, while his friends Puneeth R (21) and Mahadeva Swamy (19) sustained minor injuries.
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Leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the regional outfit Janata Dal (Secular) (JD (S)) on Sunday, denied merging parties amid speculation of such a possibility before the next Karnataka Assembly elections in 2023.
Former Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy on Sunday said that Janata Dal (Secular) may extend issue-based support to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the coming days in public interest
Kumaraswamy said that his party is a party of Kannadigas with self-esteem and it will never think of political merger."
"JD (S) merging with BJP is a rumour and far from the truth. It's speculative. JD-S is extending us issue-based support like removing legislative Council chairman Prathapchandra Shetty and the land reforms bill," said state Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa in a statement in Kannada on Sunday evening.
A 'budget bus' and seven budget electric autorickshaws will ply around the city from Monday in a bid to collect feedback for the upcoming annual budget of the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP).
Earlier, in a joint initiative by the local civic body and Janaagraha, an NGO based in the city, citizens had pointed out the need for better public toilets and footpaths. "The feedback-collecting initiative from Monday aims to provide citizens an opportunity to provide us with more details on the same to enable us to incorporate the same in the next budget," a BBMP official said.
The initiative is scheduled to begin at the BBMP headquarters in the city at 10 am today.
The BJP government in Karnataka must take proactive steps to resolve industrial disputes causing workers unrest in major multinational manufacturing units in the state like Wistron Infocomm India Pvt Ltd and Toyota Kirloskar Motors (TKM), leaders of the opposition Congress and JDS parties in Karnataka have stated.
In a letter to Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa, Congress leader and former Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has said the newly introduced labour laws are at the root of the workers’ unrest in firms like Wistron and TKM.
Using the shield of new labour laws passed during the coronavirus crisis, companies are increasing work hours and are trying to employ more workers under the contract system than a permanent system, Siddaramaiah stated in his letter to Yediyurappa.
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Students studying in various degree, professional, technical, medical, and evening colleges in Bengaluru can apply for bus passes from Monday. According to the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC), bus pass applications can be made online on the Seva Sindhu or BMTC website from December 21.
After applying with approval from their respective educational institutions, passes can be collected from BangaloreOne centres, BMTC stated. They will also have an option to schedule the date and time to collect the pass between 8 am and 6.30 pm, beginning Monday.
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