1. Karnataka Political Crisis: All eyes on Speaker on Tuesday
All eyes are set on Legislative Assembly Speaker KR Ramesh Kumar as he returns to office on Tuesday, 9 July, and takes a call on the resignations submitted by the 13 MLAs last week. His decision will play a key role in how the fiasco over the government pans out.
The Speaker, on Saturday, promised to initiate the process on Tuesday by calling all MLAs, speaking to them, and then taking a decision. The rebel MLAs are expected to meet the Speaker on Tuesday morning. They would, however, not be attending the Congress Legislature Party meeting, sources claimed.
While the coalition government has emptied out the old Cabinet in an attempt to woo back the rebel MLAs, the Congress and the Janata Dal (Secular) are also planning to fight it out legally. The Congress may petition the Speaker seeking disqualification of the rebel MLAs under Tenth Schedule of the Constitution for defection.
(Source: The Hindu)
2. Two Independents Ditch Cong-JD(S), BJP Has Support of 107 MLAs Now
The 13-month-old JD(S)-Congress government was reduced to a one-man administration of chief minister HD Kumaraswamy on Monday as all cabinet ministers tendered their resignation in a bid to save the regime. The fraught move, however, seemed to be in vain as the rebel MLAs stuck to their stand and turned down the offer of ministerial berths.
In a day of fast-paced developments, the numbers tilted in favour of BJP by noon as two independent MLAs, made ministers just a month ago to save the government, put in their papers and flew to Mumbai, declaring they had withdrawn support to the government. The newly minted ministers, H Nagesh and R Shankar, were the trigger points for the ongoing dissidence.
While the government was reduced to a minority following the resignation of 13 MLAs on 6 July, the two independent-ministers hammered the nail in the coalition’s coffin bringing down its strength from 105 to 103. The BJP enjoys the support of 107 MLAs.
(Source: The Times of India)
3. Bengaluru Urban DC Arrested in IMA Case
The Special Investigation Team (SIT), on Monday, arrested Deputy Commissioner of Bengaluru District (Urban) BM Vijayshankar for allegedly taking a bribe of Rs 1.5 crore from IMA Group of Companies founder Mohammed Mansoor Khan to bail him out of the scam.
Vijayshankar has been charged with receiving the bribe to forward a favourable report to the State government.
The government had asked Vijayshankar to probe the IMA scam and submit a report after the RBI sought a report from the Karnataka government on investment companies, including IMA, about their functioning and their suspected Ponzi schemes, SIT sources said.
(Source: The Hindu)
4. Bengaluru Sees Spike in Dengue Cases
Dengue fever is not new to the state, rather every year around this season, there are a number of cases of dengue fever reported. However, this year, there seems to have been a rather large spike in the number of cases of dengue fever seen in Karnataka, with particular focus on an increase in the number of dengue fever cases reported in Bengaluru alone.
Despite several awareness measures being taken, what is contributing to the rise of cases of dengue?
As per the data released by the Government of Karnataka’s Health and Family Welfare services, the number of cases of dengue in Bengaluru alone from January to June was 531. However, as of Saturday, this number has shot up to 1830. The number of dengue cases reported since the start of the year in the entire state has been estimated to be over 3000.
(Source: The News Minute)
5. 36% of Roads Dug Up, Mahadevapura Crawls
The BBMP says more than a third of Bengaluru roads are not motorable – The city has 83,434 roads extending across 13,215.5 km, and no less than 4,571.9 km is worn out or dug up by utilities agencies.
The worst hit is the technology hub, Mahadevapura, where Cauvery pipeline and sewage network upgrade work have led to the sorry state of affairs, an official said. The west zone, which includes Malleswaram, Rajajinagar, Nandini Layout and Basaveshwaranagar, has the lowest number of stretches which need repair.
A BBMP officer said Sahaya app, where citizens can raise complaints about potholes or quality of city roads, has received 50,628 complaints from 1 January to 30 June this year.
At least 50 percent of them are about potholes, and 16,000 complaints have reportedly been addressed.
(Source: The Times of India)
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