State news

Wrong info given to assembly: Minister writes to speaker

MANGALURU: Under fire from the speaker Kagodu Thimappa for supposedly having given wrong information to the state assembly, U T Khader, minister for health and family welfare has striven to put the records straight. Khader in a letter to the Speaker has clarified that he has not furnished any wro

Want to free Karnataka of Congress rule: Amit Shah

BJP national president Amit Shah said on Saturday that he came to the city to free Karnataka of the Congress rule and to review the party's ongoing membership drive. In a 30-minute interaction with the media, a major part of which he devoted to the Modi government's achievements, Shah credited the S

Trio try to sell 'nuke material' for Rs 150 crore

The Central Crime Branch police arrested three persons who went around cheating people by selling what they claimed was red mercury, used in preparation of nuclear bombs. The arrested are Manikanthan and Mohammed Haneef from Hosur, and Nagaraja of Hoskote, all real estate agents. While Nagaraja h

Cops seek to mine info from terror suspects in jail

BENGALURU: With clues from ground zero not providing enough leads, city police have got down to brass tacks to unravel the labyrinthine network of terror groups they suspect was involved in Sunday's subversive act on Church Street. Investigators are screening all activists of homegrown terror gro

Dampness due to rain reduced blast intensity?

NEW DELHI: Even as central investigators visited the bomb blast site in Bengaluru, probe has been expanded to several cities in search of possible leads into the Sunday attack in IT city. Some sources said there is indication that the dampness caused by the rain may have contributed to reduction

Mini Vidhan Soudha will be ready within 3 months: DC

MANGALURU: A foundation stone laying ceremony for new Mini Vidhan Soudha was held in the city more than seven years ago by the then chief minister HD Kumaraswamy and deputy chief minister BS Yeddyurappa. However, the work of three-storied Mini Vidhan Soudha is being continued in a snail's pace even

Conman dupes tens, dies twice

Bengaluru: On March 27 this year, Kaushik Punita Sharma, 40, identified as a realtor, was found hanging in his Vakil Garden residence, Talaghattapura, south Bengaluru. The bodies of his wife Sreelatha, 36; son Kaustubh, 9; and daughter Sreeraksha, 11, were in different rooms. A message written in

State of SEZs in Karnataka

The announcement of a special economic zone (SEZ) is invariably surrounded by hype and public statements promising how they could change the face of the economy, but do most SEZs actually live up to the tale that’s told at the start? In Karnataka, for instance, of the 60 approved SEZs, as many as

Autos back in demand, but safety concerns remain

Bengaluru: Autorickshaws may have gained in the fallout of the recent rape of an MNC employee by a driver of cab aggregator Uber in New Delhi. With operations of some cab agencies suspended in the state, auto drivers are now not only in demand, but the aggregator model is being tried on this transpo

IT firm will dissect Mehdi Biswas’s 1.29 lakh tweets as cops can’t

BENGALURU: A company from India's Silicon Valley will have a new account in its hand, thanks to Bengaluru police. The cops are outsourcing the task of analyzing 1.29 lakh tweets on @ShamiWitness, Mehdi Masroor Biswas' pro-ISIS Twitter handle, because they lack the expertise to do the job. The invest

Karnataka BJP’s anti-cow slaughter bill withdrawn

Members of Cow, Cattle protection force(CPF) and All Religions Parliament (ARP) took out rally from Town hall to Rajbhavan to protest against slaughtering of Cow Progeny and Cattle in Bangalore. (TOI file photo) BELAGAVI: The Congress government fulfilled one of the assurances it had made during

Mangaluru hospital to be the first centre in Karnataka to have e-ICU

MANGALURU: SCS Hospital in the city will be the first medical centre in Karnataka to introduce e-ICU facilities. Dr Jeevaraj Sorake, chairman and managing director of the hospital said InteleICU, the IntelliSpace Consultative Critical Care (ICCC) of Philips Healthcare has developed the ICCC solut

Applying under Tatkal? Wait for passport to get shorter

BENGALURU: Passport applicants have reason to cheer. To provide faster service, the Regional Passport Office (RPO), Bengaluru, has increased the number of appointments for those applying under Tatkal category. At the Passport Seva Kendra (PSK) in Lalbagh, the number has shot up from 140 to 240 pe

KHB paid Rs 8.52 cr to land owners without verifying documents: CAG

Belagavi: Rapping the Karnataka Housing Board (KHB) for rampant discrepancies in its works, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has said fixing allotment rate before completion of three projects resulted in Rs 146.26 crore loss to the exchequer. In its report for February 2008-July 2013, the

Special train via Mangaluru from today

MANGALURU: Konkan Railway will run special trains between Nizamuddin - Trivandrum via Konkan route to clear extra rush of passengers. Details of train service are as follows: Train no. 04410 AC premium special will leave Nizamuddin on every Tuesday on December 16, 23, 30 and on January 6,13, 20 a

Ambitious English training programme fails to benefit students

BENGALURU: An endeavour to hone the skills of government school English teachers in writing, reading and communication through the British Council (BC) has all but fallen flat. The state government had spent more than Rs 1 crore for the training programme to improve the quality of English teaching i

Bengaluru to get dedicated 100-bed ICU hospital

MANGALURU: Minister for health and family welfare UT Khader on Saturday announced that an intensive care hospital with 100 beds will be set up in Bengaluru soon. The move has been mooted following the death of two boys due to lack of ventilators in Bengaluru hospitals. TOI had highlighted the iss

Karnataka Speaker bans mobile phones in Assembly

Use of mobile phones in the Karnataka Assembly was banned on Friday, a day after the House was rocked by chaos over a BJP member watching a zoomed in picture of Priyanka Gandhi during proceedings. Speaker Kagodu Thimappa suspended Prabhu Chavan said: “I hereby pronounce that the use of mobile pho