BJP protests demanding instant permission for Ganeshotsav at Idgah Maidan

Mangaluru, July 18: A cab driver sustained head injuries during a scuffle that broke out between cab drivers working for a software company - DIA Systems --in Kavoor police station limits in Mangaluru on Wednesday night.

Sandeep who sustained injuries in the head and other areas after being attacked with a sharp weapon is being treated at a private hospital. Mangaluru Commissioner of Police Anupam Agrawal said Thejas Shetty had an old dispute with Sandeep.

On Wednesday night after completion of night shift, Thejas along with his brother Bhavith Shetty, Preetam and Puneet Devadiga attacked Sandeep with a sharp weapon.

Thejas Shetty also works as a driver in the same company and had an old dispute with Sandeep. An attempt to murder case was registered at Kavoor police station. The reasons behind the altercation is yet to be ascertained, Commissioner added.

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.

Bengaluru: Search and rescue operations resumed on Wednesday morning in Shirur village in Uttara Kannada district, where a massive landslide claimed the lives of four people a day ago.

Vehicular traffic has been temporarily suspended on National Highway 66, where the incident occurred, officials said.

After an intensive rescue and search operation by the local police, a team of National Disaster Response Force, fire and emergency services and officials of other agencies amid rains, four bodies were recovered by Tuesday evening.

"So, far four bodies have been recovered and identified. Restoration and search operations have resumed early morning today," a senior police official said.

Among the four dead were members of the same family, who ran an eatery along the national highway.

Following the incident, the state government had said that three gas tankers had pulled up at the eatery for a tea break when mud and rocks plunged down the hill.

The landslip triggered by incessant rains also swept away two of the three tankers into the Gangavali river flowing on the other side of the road.

According to state government, the National Highways Authority of India while building National Highway 66 "cut the hill steep instead of a 45-degree slope resulting in the accident.

Meanwhile, vehicular movement has been banned till July 22 in Seethalayanagiri-Mullayanagiri area of Chikkamagaluru taluk due to collapse of hills and severe damage to the road surface owing to heavy rains.