Editor's Guild suspends memberships of Akbar, Tejpal

Mangaluru: Dakshina Kannada Deputy Commissioner (DC) Mullai Muhilan MP said that election for the South West Teachers and Graduates constituencies will be held on June 3.

The notification for the same will be issued on May 9. The last date for filing nominations is May 16. The nominations must be submitted to Regional Commissioner in Mysuru and the last date for withdrawal of nomination is May 17.

The counting of votes will be held on June 6.

As of December 30, 2023 there are 6753 voters in DK district in the South West Teachers Constituency out of which 4520 are women. On the other hand, there are 16,869 graduate voters in the district for the South West graduates constituency.

The voters can submit their application for enrollment in electoral list of the South West Teachers and graduates constituency till May 6. The applications can be submitted at Mangaluru City Corporation or all the taluk offices.

Bulk applications can be submitted by Bar Association, Doctors association, Chartered Accountants Association, registered engineers association for the graduates constituency.

Those who are graduates prior to November 11, 2020 can enroll for voters list in the graduates constituency  by submitting Form 18 along with photo copy of marks card, Aadhaar card, voters' identity card and residential address.

For getting oneself enrolled in the teachers constituency voters, an individual should be teaching for minimum three years prior to November 1, 2023 in high school or higher educational institutions.

For the teachers constituency, educational institutions can submit applications in bulk. If wrong details are furnished in these applications, then they will be punishable under Section 31 of Representation of People Act, warned the DC.

Mangaluru: This year too, the Mangaluru International Airport has missed being designated as an embarkation point for the annual hajj pilgrimage. 

According to the Haj Committee of India, not many are choosing Mangaluru as an embarkation point. Last year, although Mangaluru was notified as one of the embarkation points, the Union government removed it from the list at the last minute.

Several associations and organisations submitted memorandums to the Haj Committee of India, requesting the reinstatement of Mangaluru as one of the embarkation points, but their efforts have not materialised this year either.

The use of Mangaluru Airport as an embarkation point for the haj began in 2010. In 2019, 1,400 haj pilgrims flew from MIA to Saudi Arabia.

“When the number is less, it is difficult to consider it. It was the same issue as last year,” reacted AP Abdullakutty, chairman of the Haj Committee of India.
Mangaluru as an embarkation point served people from undivided Dakshina Kannada, Kodagu, Shivamogga, Uttara Kannada, and Chikkamagaluru districts.
Last year, the Muslim Central Committee of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts submitted a memorandum to Abdullakutty. They expressed their disappointment with Abdullakutty and stated that Mangaluru had a good number of applicants ever since it was identified as an embarkation point. 
Now, they have to travel to Bengaluru. 

UT Khader, speaker of the Karnataka legislative assembly, pointed out that several Union ministries are involved in the process of designating embarkation points for the haj.

“We are not sure why MIA as an embarkation point was removed. Is it because of fewer applications, or are airlines not willing to bid for MIA as an embarkation point? Is it only an issue with MIA as an embarkation point, or are there other airports in the country facing similar issues? We will try to find out and seek answers. Meanwhile, we will also start working at the earliest so that MIA is considered as an embarkation point for hajj next year,” said Khader.

Gaza civil defense agency has warned of a looming health disaster in the besieged Strip as the decomposition of dead bodies under the rubble of buildings destroyed by the relentless Israeli bombings accelerates.

The agency pointed on Tuesday to the risk of diseases and epidemics associated with the public decomposition of thousands of bodies due to rising temperature.

“The continued accumulation of thousands of bodies under the rubble has begun to cause the spread of disease and epidemics, especially with the onset of summer and the rise in temperatures, which accelerates the process of decomposition,” it said in a statement.

Seven months into the war, the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor warned earlier that the decomposition of dead bodies for long periods leads to the transmission of serious diseases, including blood-borne viruses and tuberculosis.

"Gastrointestinal infections like cholera can also be easily spread through direct contact with dead bodies leaking excrement, soiled clothing, or contaminated tools or vehicles," it added.

In another report last week, Euro-Med Monitor also warned that thousands of corpses left in the streets or beneath house debris are rotting and being consumed by cats and dogs, which is an additional factor contributing to the spread of infectious diseases.

"The spread threatens the environment and public health in the Strip, and health authorities in the Strip have detected about one million cases of infectious diseases," the report added.

The Global Nutrition Group also estimates that at least 90 percent of the Gaza Strip’s children under the age of five are affected by one or more infectious diseases and that 70 percent have had diarrhea in the past two weeks—a 23-fold increase compared with the 2022 baseline.

Unexpected blistering temperatures across Gaza have also added to the daily misery faced by the enclave’s people and sparked new fears of disease outbreaks amid a lack of sufficient clean water and waste disposal, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, also known as UNRWA said on Thursday.

This comes as the death toll from Israel's genocidal campaign against Gaza rose to 34,535. Among the dead are more than 14,500 children and 9,500 women.

Since the war began on October 7, nearly 85 percent of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been displaced.

Vast swathes of the besieged territory are in ruins as Israel continues its onslaught, dropping at least 75,000 tons of explosives on Gaza, according to the Gaza Media Office.

Earlier this month, UNRWA, said 62 percent of all houses in the besieged territory have been damaged or destroyed.

Gaza Media Office recently reported that nearly 90,000 housing units have been destroyed while nearly 300,000 units have been damaged by the Israeli air and ground offensive.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported on Monday that nearly 37.5 million tons of conflict-generated debris are estimated to be present throughout Gaza, based on assessments by UN bodies.

The world’s hunger watchdog, known as the Integrated Food-Security Phase Classification (IPC), said in a report published on March 18 that about 1.1 million Palestinians in Gaza are living through catastrophic food insecurity, warning that famine is likely to strike by May in northern Gaza and can spread across the territory by July.

Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on the occupied Palestinian territory, said in a report published in late March that there were clear indications that Israel has violated three of the five acts listed under the UN Genocide Convention.

These acts Albanese said were “killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to the group’s members; and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.”