Author: Rahul M

In the aftermath of the June 4 Bengaluru stampede that left 11 dead and several injured, Karnataka Director-General and Inspector-General of Police M A Saleem has issued standard operating procedures (SOP) to improve crowd management during large events and mass gatherings across the state. In an order released on June 26, Saleem instructed police units to conduct simulations and risk assessments before events. These include spatial analysis to identify bottlenecks and high-risk areas, alongside mandatory safety audits of venues. Saleem made it clear that events failing safety audits should not receive approval. The SOPs emphasise robust coordination with event organisers,…

The Bengaluru city police said on Tuesday that they solved 13 cases of theft after the arrest of a 39-year-old man with a criminal history spanning nearly a decade. They also seized gold ornaments of 546 g from him. The police identified the accused as Balaji Prakash alias Khan, a resident of Cottonpet. “We have seized 138 duplicate keys and valuables worth Rs 75 lakh from the accused. He had stolen 779 g of gold ornaments and 100 g of silver ornaments between June 13 and June 24,” said Seemanth Kumar Singh, Commissioner of Police, Bengaluru. Story continues below this…

The Bengaluru city police said on Tuesday that they solved 13 cases of theft after the arrest of a 39-year-old man with a criminal history spanning nearly a decade. They also seized gold ornaments of 546 g from him. The police identified the accused as Balaji Prakash alias Khan, a resident of Cottonpet. “We have seized 138 duplicate keys and valuables worth Rs 75 lakh from the accused. He had stolen 779 g of gold ornaments and 100 g of silver ornaments between June 13 and June 24,” said Seemanth Kumar Singh, Commissioner of Police, Bengaluru. Story continues below this…

A day after the Karnataka government formed a committee to probe a “series of deaths” due to heart attacks in Hassan district, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday suggested the “hasty approval and distribution of the Covid vaccine could also be a reason for these deaths”. In a post on X, he wrote that more than 20 people had died of heart attacks in the past one month alone. “To identify the exact cause of these series of deaths and to find solutions, a committee of experts has been formed under the leadership of Dr Ravindranath, Director of Jayadeva Institute of…

The Karnataka High Court ruled on June 25 that temporary injunctions and restraint orders can be granted only against defendants in a suit and not against third parties. The ruling by Justice M Nagaprasanna came on a petition related to a trademark dispute between journalist Rachappa Satish Kumar of BTV Kannada and a firm called Eaglesight Media. The journalist and the television channel, where he is a director, approached the high court stating that their pages on all social media platforms had been removed with reference to a civil court order, which was issued in a suit registered by Eaglesight…

A political row erupted between the BJP and the Opposition on Tuesday after the ruling party’s MPs on the parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Development and Panchayati Raj boycotted its meeting in protest against the presence of activist Medha Patkar and actor-turned-activist Prakash Raj who had been invited to depose before the panel.The meeting, which was eventually cancelled, had been convened to discuss the implementation and effectiveness of the “Right to Fair Compensation and Transparency in Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Act, 2013”. While the BJP MPs alleged that the committee’s chairman Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka, a Congress MP from Odisha,…

All India Congress Committee (AICC) general secretary Randeep Singh Surjewala and Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar Tuesday cleared the air regarding speculations about a leadership transition in the state government, ruling out replacing Siddaramaiah as chief minister in the immediate future. However, despite Shivakumar’s reprimand against MLAs asking him to be made the chief minister, his loyalist and Ramanagara MLA Iqbal Hussain stuck to his guns and said that an opportunity should be provided for Shivakumar to lead the government. At a press conference, Surjewala, the AICC general secretary in charge of Karnataka, said consultations being held with…

The Devendra Fadnavis government’s move to revoke the government resolutions (GRs) on the three-language policy in Maharashtra, inducting Hindi as the third language in primary schools, might have helped it to pre-empt the July 5 protest rally called jointly by the estranged Thackeray cousins – Shiv Sena (UBT) president Uddhav Thackeray and MNS chief Raj Thackeray – but the BJP-led Mahayuti has faced a setback following its flip-flop over the issue.On Sunday, while revoking the April 16, 2025 and June 17, 2025 GRs, Chief Minister Fadnavis said that the government had neither undermined the Marathi language nor imposed Hindi on…

The Bengaluru police Tuesday announced the arrests of four members of a gang allegedly involved in creating mule accounts to open shell companies for siphoning money obtained through cybercrimes. The police suspect that the gang laundered a whopping Rs 150 crore using such accounts. Police Commissioner Seemanth Kumar Singh, in a press conference, said the gang members were part of a larger network. The accused have been identified as Lakshmish N, 33, from Nagadevanahalli in Bengaluru; Prakash H, 43, from Thathaguni village near Kanakapura Road; Sunil Kumar, 45, from JP Nagar 7th Stage in Bengaluru; and Puttaswamyya, 54, from the…

Far north in the Atlantic, an enduring enigma has captured the attention of oceanographers and climate researchers. This anomaly, detected by satellites and ocean buoys, has puzzled experts for years. Recent research offers new clues that may finally shed light on the underlying forces behind this phenomenon. Uncovering the Cold Spot’s Connection to Ocean Currents According to The Debrief, a team at the University of California-Riverside (UCR), led by climate scientist Wei Liu and doctoral student Kai-Yuan Li, has traced the likely cause of a persistent cold spot south of Greenland to changes in a major ocean current. The area,…