KARNATAKA

TheMumbai-Karnatakaregion will be renamed as ‘Kittur Karnatakaregion’ as there is no point in retaining the old name when border disputes often emerge, chief ministerBasavaraj Bommaisaid.

The CM was apparently referring to the repeated claims made by Maharashtra politicians demanding the merger of Belagavi district and a few border regions of Karnataka with Maharashtra owing to the presence of a substantial Marathi speaking Population.

He argued that the changes in the region should have happened in 1956 when the State Reorganisation Act came into effect.

The CM said the government has given utmost importance to Kannada making the language compulsory in higher Education under the new National Education Policy.

With the Karnataka State Universities (Amendment) Bill-2022 being passed in the legislative assembly on Wednesday, eight new universities will spring up, taking the total number of varsities in the state (including 25 private and 11 deemed-to-be ones) to a staggering 69.

New universities will be established at Bidar, Haveri, Kodagu, Chamarajanagar, Hassan, Koppal, and Bagalkot, while the unitary degree college in Mandya will be upgraded into a varsity.

The state will initially spend Rs 14 crore to set these universities and will earmark Rs 2 crore a year for each university later. Narayan insisted that a university in each district is in consonance with the National Educational Policy.

Forest minister Umesh Katti expressed the idea of acquiring Agriculture-notes-for-state-psc-exams”>Agriculture land near forest areas, claiming that farmers are unable to cultivate them due to regular raids by wild animals, in the assembly recently. The statement enraged farmers, who demanded that the government take measures to prevent wild animals from straying into farmland, instead of acquiring the land.

The farmers want the forest department to buy their land, and provide compensation, so that they can buy land in other places, he said during the assembly session.
Reacting to the issue, minister Katti said that he will discuss it with the deputy commissioner and forest officials, and take a decision to acquire the land from farmers, which are in the fringes of forests.

TheKarnatakaState Stamps (Amendment) Bill, 2021, is ready and it will be tabled in the legislative assembly and council in the monsoon session thats scheduled to begin on September 13, according to officials in theparliamentary affairs department.

The cabinet cleared the amendment for the stamp duty reduction last month and chief minister Basavaraj Bommai reportedly asked officials to bring the bill to the House on priority.

The Karnataka BJP legislature party on Tuesday evening had elected Basavaraj Bommai as its new leader to succeed outgoing chief ministerB S Yediyurappa.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Yediyurappa took to twitter to congratulate the new chief minister.

The swearing in ceremony was attended by the Union ministers Dharmendra Pradhan, Kishan Reddy, appointed as observers by the BJP parliamentary board, outgoing chief minister BS Yediyurappa, all top leaders of the state. Barring senior Congress leader RV Deshpande, opposition leaders remained absent.

CM Siddaramaiah revealed that the size of the budget he will present on July 7 will be about Rs 3. 35 lakh crore.

At the inauguration of a three-day training programme for first-time MLAs organised by legislative assembly speaker UT Khader, Siddaramaiah said the budget size will be at least Rs 25,000 crore more than the previous budget presented by his predecessor Basavaraj Bommai. In February, Bommai presented a budget of Rs 3. 09 lakh crore.

Siddaramaiah said, The size of the budget will be increased to make provision for Congress five poll guarantees.

He said the government needs about Rs 60,000 crore annually for the schemes.

He urged newly elected legislators to read and understand the nitty-gritty of the financial statement and actively participate in the discussion on the budget. You all should learn and understand budgets and , he said.

The first budget after Independence was Rs 21. 3 crore. In the 12th century, Kayakayogi Basavanna spoke about budgets. Kayaka and Dasoha are key factors of a budget.

Kayaka means production, Dasoha means sharing. He explainedthat the value of the budget is understanding where production is and to whom it is distributed in Society.

Both the state and central governments have been aggressively pushing the cause of digital administration, and although the advantages of many such initiatives are evident, the beneficiaries of many such schemes, on the other hand, are complaining of poor implementation on the part of the authorities.

Smartphones were distributed to anganwadi workers with the idea of streamlining the functioning of the Annganwadis including effective implementation of the various welfare schemes including PoshanAbhiyan . Unfortunately for the authorities, with the validity of the prepaid data and voice vouchers that the phones came with expiring, the scheme has now been rendered moot.

Anganwadi workers alleged that, in some taluks inKarnataka, the validity of the vouchers had expired six months ago. Disgruntled staff took exception with the fact teachers continue to be held responsible for the failure of such schemes. Anganwadi workers said that the cost of data vouchers was too prohibitive for them to recharge their phones by spending from their pockets.

The Association of Managements of Primary and Secondary Schools of Karnataka has alleged there has been a data breach on the U-DISE (Unified District Information System for Education) website and information pertaining to schools has been leaked.

According to the association, cluster resource persons across the state shared their ID and password with the schools and allowed them to update the institutions information on the Database. This task was usually done by CRPs.

KAMS said the breached data is being used by schools to poach students.

The Chief Minister’s Covid-19 Relief Fund, which was set up by theKarnataka governmentin May-June 2020 soon after the pandemic broke out, attracted Rs 318 crore until November-December last year. In the second wave that has exposed chinks in the state’s medical , the fund has received as little as Rs 2 crore in April-May this year.

Sources said the State Government was expecting private companies, philanthropists and individuals to loosen their purse strings and make generous contribution to ramp up medical infrastructure, with the state witnessing a frightening surge in new infections and deaths in the past month. However, the state’s Covid-19 relief fund is now left with Rs 9 crore – Rs 2 crore raised this year and Rs 7 crore unspent from last year.

Another likely reason is that the Centre has tweaked exemption terms under corporate social responsibility (CSR) spending.

Now, the Centre allows private companies to seek CSR exemption for funds directly spent on Covid relief work or on material assistance they are providing to the public. This, sources said, may have forced a majority of big companies to reduce their financial assistance.

Departments of school Education and Literacy, and Women and child development have released the draft ofKarnatakaState Curriculum Framework for Foundational Stage, in keeping with National Education Policy (NEP) for pupils in the age group of three to eight years.

The national curriculum framework for this age group was released in October 2022. Karnataka is the first state to prepare the state framework, which will be finalised and adopted for use from the 2023-24 academic year.

The framework proposes changes in the curriculum of existing practices of ‘Chili pili’ in anganwadis and ‘Nali Kali’ for students in grades 1-3.

Similar reports on the curriculum of five other age groups will also be framed as part of a revamp of the Early Childhood Care and Education (ECCE) in the state. Reports for the other age groups will also be released soon.