KARNATAKA

Karnatakais one of the key states fast losing large swathes offorest landto mining and developmental projects.

And the most recent instance is the Hubballi-Ankola rail, clamour for which has reached a new crescendo, especially after the visit of an experts’ committee, even as conservationists oppose the proposed diversion of 595.6 hectares of forest land for the project.

The state has lost 746.1 hectares of forest land in just three years, including two pandemic years which saw minimal activity. According to data from the forest department, Ballari andUttara Kannadahave been the worst-affected districts losing much of the forest areas.

Karnatakais all set to get three more materials-recoveryfacilities(MRFs) in the next one year through Rural Drinking Water and Sanitation Department. The first MRF of rural Karnataka has been operating since August this year at Nitte gram panchayat (GP) limits inKarkala.

The first facility is collecting nearly 2.5 tonnes of dry waste everyday, said Sharath Kumar, project coordinator of Saahas Zero Waste Management Pvt Ltd, which has facilitated the project. He said the work on three more projects are in progress. In Ballari and Ramnagar, the construction works are in progress, while in Dakshina Kannada, land-levelling work at Yedapadavu is being taken up. The government plans to set up about 100 such projects across the state in the next three years, he said.

Continuing its good run for the third year in a row, IIT-Madras has topped the India Rankings 2021 released by the ministry of Education on Thursday, while Karnataka has improved its performance with one Mangaluru and two Bengaluru colleges breaking into the list of top 100 colleges.

The three colleges which have made the cut are Bengalurus MS Ramaiah College of Arts, Science and Commerce (No. 62) and St Josephs College of Commerce (74) and Mangalurus St Aloysius College (95).

This is the sixth edition of India Rankings instituted by theNational Institutional Ranking Framework(NIRF) by the ministry of education, which now ranks higher education institutions in 11 categories.

IIT-Madras retained top position in the engineering and overall categories. Among the universities, IISc-Bangalore is ranked number one, followed by JNU. In the research category introduced this year, IISc-Bangalore emerged topper and IIT-Madras second.

Region-wise, Nadu has 19 institutions in top 100 universities, followed by Maharashtra with 12 and 10 from Karnataka. Karnatakas star institutions aced their respective domains: In law,National Law School of India Universitycontinued to be no. 1 and IIM-Bangalore was ranked no. 2 in management.

The directed the State Government to place on record orders passed regarding withdrawal of cases against MPs and MLAs after September 16, 2020.

This comes a day after theSupreme Courtorder stipulating that no case against an MP orMLAcould be withdrawn without the Consent of high courts.

A division bench headed by chief Justice Abhay Shreeniwas Oka pointed out that as per directions of the apex court, legality of the actions taken by the state government after September 16, 2020 for withdrawal of prosecution against a sitting or formerMP/MLAwill have to be considered and for facilitating the same, the state is required to furnish details.

Excise revenue from liquor sales inKarnatakahas seen a 65% jump over the last five years, increasing from Rs 17,948.5 crore in 2017-18 to Rs 29,600 crore in 2022-23.The revenue is estimated to double by March 2024, given the budgetary target of Rs 36,000 crore from liquor sales, as enumerated in CM Siddaramaiah’s budget proposal.

Revenue from liquor sales over the past decade and-a-half has seen a whopping 600% jump, with the trend likely to continue as successive state governments find tipplers an easy target whenever faced with the challenge of mopping up revenue. In his budget proposal, Siddaramaiah announced a hike of 20% in the additional excise duty levied on liquor to mobilise funds to meetCongress’ five poll guarantees.

The hike, to be effective from next month, is the 11th since 2008 and the eighth in the last ten years. The has hikedAEDby a massive 52% over just three years, apparently to meet a shortfall in revenue generation owing to the pandemic.

With physical classes unlikely to start soon, the Education department has chalked out a plan to reach children through various ways depending upon the availability of gadgets with them. Dropping the last years plans– where teachers met students outside schools (Vidyagama-1) and when they started meeting inside schools (Vidgyagama-2)– the education has asked teachers to be in continuous touch through worksheets or gadgets, if available, and meeting them or their parents twice a week in school to distribute the worksheets and discuss their progress.

Soft copies of textbooks can be downloaded using QR code. Teachers must make WhatsApp groups of parents and students, make short Videos, audio clips and share with students, send practice sheets on mobiles.

The department has emphasised the need of maintaining continuous and extensive evaluation and profiles of each of every student. Teachers have been asked to advise parents to support children in whichever way they can.

Kalaburagi, facing acute shortage of ambulances, became the only city inKarnatakato deploy autorickshawambulancesto ferry Covid-positive patients to hospitals free of cost. The service with a fleet of fiveauto ambulancesbegan late Tuesday evening and aims at ensuring patients reach hospitals without much wait.

The idea behind introducing auto ambulances is not only about shortage of ambulances. Many patients have been requesting autorickshaw drivers to reach out to hospitals and many drivers refuse fearing the virus spread and stigma.

It is now Bengalurus turn to get spotted on the drone-delivery map with Hyderabad-based Scandron Pvt Ltd partnering with Bengaluru-based company CriticaLog India Pvt Ltd to fly out organs.

About 20-25 drones will be deployed in Bengaluru alone. At present, these can handle a payload of 5kg-20kg, at an operational speed of 12 metres per second, powered by lithium ion batteries.

A PARTNERSHIP worth Rs 600 crore was signed on Wednesday to provide drone-based logistics solutions in 160 cities across India, including Bengaluru, thereby eventually aiming to do away with ambulances and green corridors.

Karnataka Rural Development Ltd (KRIDL) has completed just 28% of the 85,000 works assigned to it between 2016 and 2021 resulting in an accumulation of funds to the tune of Rs 17,320 crore.

This was found in several instances between 2016-21, all adding up to Rs 303.8 crore. The report also highlighted how KRIDL misused the exemption clause of the Karnataka Transparency in Public Procurements Act by splitting works worth more than Rs 2 crore into small pieces, there – by avoiding the tender process.

The pandemic and its impact on the economy had compelled the to reduce its revenue forecast for what is considered the largestchillimarket in Asia:Byadagiin Haveri district.
Although the state government had set a revenue target of Rs 9.5 crore from the market for the 2021-22 fiscal year, the market has already registered a turnover of Rs 11.2 crore, having far outstripped the conservative estimate of the state government.

In 2020-21, when the state government had forecast that the Byadagi market would register revenue to the tune of Rs 15 crore, the sales touched a sum of Rs 18 crore. The stakeholders attributed the impressive sales to the reduction in theAgriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture Produce Market Committee(APMC) cess.

The spike in the price of Byadagi Chilli, with one quintal of the crop selling for a record Rs 70,000, ensured that the many farmers in North Karnataka continued cultivating it. The sale of Byadagi Chilli helped increase revenue of the market this year, with the crop registering sales higher than what it had registered in the previous fiscal year.