After Karnataka techie loses over R 1 crore in IPL betting, 23-year-old wife dies by suicide

Bengaluru: Dengue cases in Karnataka are inching closer to the 10,000-mark, with the total positive cases as of Monday reaching 9,962 according to the health department's bulletin.

Another death in Shivamogga has brought the total fatalities due to dengue to eight. This is, however, not inclusive of the death of an 11-year-old boy in Bengaluru on July 5 that BBMP officials later confirmed was due to dengue.

Nearly 37 per cent of the all dengue positive cases reported across the state till Monday evening were among those aged up to 18 years. The number of dengue cases among children aged 0-1 years has also been on the rise, with 176 cases reported across the state.

The health department has tested over 73,900 blood samples for dengue so far, testing a few thousand samples every day.

A total of 363 cases were recorded in Bengaluru on Monday, with 35 hospitalisations. This brings the total number of positive cases in the city to 3,487. Suspected dengue cases, where people might be displaying similar symptoms as dengue but would not have yet tested positive for the infection, stood at 19,066 cases.

Between January 1 and July 1, the city recorded 1,563 positive cases with 6,443 suspected cases, according to the bulletin. Within the next two weeks, these numbers doubled to 3,124 and 14,281, respectively.

This, according to Dr Savitha S K, programme head of the vector-borne disease control programme wing of the BBMP, was not any cause for alarm. "We are actively searching for cases during our door-to-door surveys and also passively collecting data from hospitals. Last year, data was lost or not captured accurately, particularly in private hospitals, which did not record the addresses of patients. This impacted our total numbers but we are documenting cases better this year," she said.

Sources in the health department who wished to maintain anonymity noted that some of the underreporting at the city level was also in a bid to avoid panic among residents. Therefore, comparison with data from the previous year would not yield accurate results, they noted.

Rights groups and social media frequenters react to US President Joe Biden’s decision to cancel his re-election bid, saying he will be remembered by how he facilitated the Israeli regime’s ongoing war of genocide against Palestinians.

The reactions began pouring in on Monday, immediately after Biden announced in a letter on social media that he was stepping aside as a candidate for the 2024 presidential election.

The decision came following a disastrous performance at a debate also featuring arch-rival Donald Trump that raised questions concerning Biden’s capability to run another term.

Commenting on the decision, however, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights Action (USCPR), a rights group, said, “It was not Biden’s failed debate that showed he is unfit to lead. It was the tens of thousands of bombs he sent to kill Palestinian families.”

Biden had “repeatedly funded, armed, and backed Israel’s mass slaughter of the Palestinian people,” the USCPR said, adding, “Nothing will erase the fact that” Biden’s “legacy is – and always will be – GENOCIDE.”

Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of Drop Site, an independent news website, and a former journalist at The Intercept, an online American news organization, chimed in.

“When I read the lionizing of Biden, emphasizing his decency and heroism, all I can think of is that little girl in Gaza whose jaw was blown off and all the other Palestinian children who were dismembered, burned alive, murdered with US weapons in a war Joe Biden facilitated,” he wrote on X.

The group was referring to the United States’ sustaining and even invigorating its already unfaltering arms support for the Israeli regime during the war, which has so far killed nearly 39,000 people and wounded some 90,000 others.

Owen Jones, author and activist, likewise underlined that Biden had the blood of tens of thousands of Palestinians on his hand, calling him “A monster, who belongs in jail.”

“Israel would never have been able to raze Gaza to the ground without him,” Jones noted, adding, “…if hell exists, that man would have a first class ticket there.”

Human rights campaigner Sophie McNeill echoed the criticism, saying, “The next Democratic nominee must end their support for this criminal war.”

Bengaluru, Jul 16: Karnataka Deputy Chief Minister, DK Shivakumar expressed his displeasure over the Central Bureau of Investigation's (CBI) handling of his Disproportionate Assets (DA) case, stating that the agency was overstepping its limits.

Speaking to the media on Tuesday at the Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru, Dy CM Shivakumar said, "The state government has referred the same case to the Lokayukta, which is currently investigating it. I don't understand why the CBI is going beyond its limits in their investigation."

He added, "I will meet them personally soon and convey my objections. I have done nothing wrong, and they are trying to harass many unconnected people. I'm confident that I've done nothing wrong."

When asked about Union Minister for Heavy Industries and Steel, HD Kumaraswamy's criticism over the all-party meeting on the release of Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu, Dy CM Shivakumar accused him of not taking interest in the Cauvery dispute.

He is not bothered about the interests of Karnataka, he stated.

"Kumaraswamy only makes allegations in a dramatic style. He is nursing a grudge against me and harbouring envy. He has been doing this since the beginning, which is why I'm asking him for a discussion," he stated.