Cong stages ‘black band’ protest in Karnataka Assembly against BJP’s handling of hijab row

News Network

February 14, 2022

Bengaluru, Feb 14: Congress legislators wore black bands to the Karnataka legislature session on Monday to protest against the BJP government’s handling of the hijab row and the rejection of social reformer Narayana Guru’s tableau for the Republic Day parade.

Congress legislators sat through Governor Thaawar Chand Gehlot’s address to both houses of the legislature with black bands on their arms.

“We’re wearing the black band to protest the raking up of the Hijab issue. It is the BJP government that made boys wear saffron stoles, which is something RDPR Minister KS Eshwarappa himself admitted. He even said saffron will replace the tricolour on the Red Fort, and no action has been taken against him,” Leader of the Opposition Siddaramaiah said.

“The black band protest is also meant to condemn the rejection of Narayana Guru’s tableau,” he added.

The rejection of Narayana Guru’s tableau put the ruling BJP in a spot. The social reformer hail from Kerala, it was the Pinarayi Vijayan government that proposed the tableau - but he has followers in some parts of Karnataka, especially the coastal region where the BJP is strong.

Later in the day, Siddaramaiah will chair the Congress Legislature Party meeting where legislators will formulate a strategy to attack the BJP government during the session. It is likely that the party will explore the option of raising the Hijab issue, which is currently before the High Court for adjudication.

“We will raise the law-and-order issue, corruption, the 40% commission charge levelled by contractors and other failures of the government,” Karnataka Congress president DK Shivakumar told reporters.

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IndiGo CEO says less than 1,000 cancellations on Dec 6; normalcy by Dec 15

News Network

December 5,2025

New Delhi, Dec 5: IndiGo CEO Pieter Elbers issued a public apology this evening after more than a thousand flights were cancelled today, making it the "most severely impacted day" in terms of cancellations. The biggest airline of the country cancelled "more than half" of its daily number of flights on Friday, said Elbers. He also said that even though the crisis will persist on Saturday, the airline anticipates fewer than 1,000 flight cancellations.

"Full normalisation is expected between December 10 and 15, though IndiGo cautions that recovery will take time due to the scale of operations," the IndiGo CEO said.

IndiGo operates around 2,300 domestic and international flights daily.

Pieter Elbers, while apologising for the major inconvenience due to delays and cancellations, said the situation is a result of various causes.

The crisis at IndiGo stems from new regulations that boost pilots' weekly rest requirements by 12 hours to 48 and allow only two night-time landings per week, down from six. IndiGo has attributed the mass cancellations to "misjudgment and planning gaps".

Elbers also listed three lines of action that the airline will adopt to address the issue.

"Firstly, customer communication and addressing your needs, for this, messages have been sent on social media. And just now, a more detailed communication with information, refunds, cancellations and other customer support measures was sent," he said.

The airline has also stepped up its call centre capacity.

"Secondly, due to yesterday's situation, we had customers stranded mostly at the nation's largest airports. Our focus was for all of them to be able to travel today itself, which will be achieved. For this, we also ask customers whose flights are cancelled not to come to the airports as notifications are sent," the CEO said.

"Thirdly, cancellations were made for today to align our crew and planes to be where they need to start tomorrow morning afresh. Earlier measures of the last few days, regrettable, have proven not to be enough, but we have decided today to reboot all our systems and schedules, resulting in the highest numbers of cancellations so far, but imperative for progressive improvements starting from tomorrow," he added.

As airports witnessed chaotic scenes, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) stepped in to grant IndiGo a temporary exemption from stricter night duty rules for pilots. It also allowed substitution of leaves with a weekly rest period.

Civil Aviation Minister Ram Mohan Naidu has said a high-level inquiry will be ordered and accountability will be fixed.

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