Health officials in Hassan on alert after 78-year-old man becomes 1st victim of H3N2 in Karnataka

New Delhi: The government is planning to bring a bill in Parliament to link data related to birth and death with electoral rolls and the overall development process, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Monday.

Inaugurating the 'Janganana Bhawan', the office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India, Mr Shah said the census is a process that may form the basis of the development agenda.

Digital, complete and accurate census figures will have multi-dimensional benefits, he said, adding planning based on the census data ensures development reaches the poorest of the poor.

Mr Shah also said if the birth and death certificate data are preserved in a special way, development works can be planned properly.

"A bill to link death and birth register with electoral rolls will be introduced in parliament. Under this process, when a person turns 18, his or her name will be automatically included in the electoral rolls. Similarly, when a person dies, that information automatically will go to the Election Commission, which will start the process of deleting the name from the voters' list," he said.

Officials said the bill to amend the Registration of Birth and Death Act (RBD), 1969, will also facilitate matters related to the issuance of driving licences and passports and giving benefits of the government welfare schemes to people besides others.

"If the data of birth and death certificate is preserved in a special way, then by estimating the time between the census, planning of development works can be done properly," he said.

Earlier the development process happened in fragments because adequate data for development was not available, he said.

After 70 years of independence planning was adopted to electrify every village, to give a home to everyone, to give tap drinking water to everyone, to give healthcare to everyone, to give toilets to every home, Mr Shah said.

"It took so long because no one had the idea as to how much money will be required to fulfil these basic necessities because the utility of the census was not conceived, the data related to the census were not accurate, the available data was not accessible online and coordination with census and planning authorities were absent," he said.

"I have been involved in the development process for the last 28 years and have seen that the development in our country has been demand-based. Public representatives who had sway could extract more benefits of development for his or her constituency. This is one of the reasons why our development has been fragmented and more expensive due to duplicacy," he said.

Along with the new Janganana Bhawan, the minister also inaugurated a web portal for registrations of birth and death.

A collection of census reports, an online sale portal of census reports, and an upgraded version of the SRS mobile app equipped with a geofencing facility were also unveiled.

Mr Shah said the mobile app equipped with geo-fencing will ensure that the authorities know that the enumerators record data by going to the blocks assigned to him or her and no one can make fake entries without visiting the blocks.

This will ensure that the data recorded are accurate, he said.

"Census is a process that outlines a nation's development process. So it is very much necessary to make it fool proof and flawless by using technologies like upgraded version of the SRS mobile app equipped with a geo-fencing facility," he said.

He said enumeration in the next census will be carried out in an electronic format where self-enumeration will also be allowed. 

Newsroom, May 20: The freshly sworn-in Karnataka Cabinet on Saturday had its first meeting, post which the Chief Minister, Siddaramaiah, announced the approval of poll promises made by the Congress.

"Five guarantees in the manifesto were promised and the order for the implementation of those five guarantees was given after the first Cabinet meeting. All will be in force after next cabinet meeting which will be called within a week," Siddaramaiah told reporters during a press conference in the Vidhan Soudha.

During the campaign for the Karnataka Assembly elections - which the Congress won by a landslide, bagging 136 seats - the party had made five guarantees to the people.

Here are the five schemes announced by the Congress in its election manifesto:

Gruha Jyothi
This scheme assures 200 units of free electricity per month for every household in the state.

Gruha Lakshmi
This scheme aims to provide Rs 2,000 every month to the woman head of a house.

Anna Bhagya
10 kg of free rice will be provided to Below Poverty Line (BPL) card holders per month.

Yuva Nidhi
The scheme promises Rs 3,000 to graduate unemployed youth and Rs 1,500 to unemployed diploma holders of this year maximum of up to two years.

Sakshi scheme
It aims to provide free bus passes for women in Karnataka to travel across the state.

These five guarantees were given in-principal approval the same day as Chief Minister Siddaramaiah and his Cabinet took oath in the state capital.

Prior to the Cabinet meeting, Siddaramaiah announced that his government would fulfill the election guarantees they made.

"We will give an administration which people have expected from us. Five guarantees will be passed in the cabinet meeting and an order will be issued to implement them today itself," Siddaramaiah said soon after taking oath as the Chief Minister.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said the five 'guarantees' promised by the party before the elections in Karnataka would be implemented within a few hours after the first Cabinet meeting.

"I had said we don't make false promises. We do what we say. The first cabinet meeting of the new government will take place in one to two hours. In that meeting, all the five 'guarantees' will become a law," Gandhi said after Chief Minister Siddaramaiah's swearing-in ceremony.

In the May 10 Assembly elections, the Congress ousted the BJP from power, winning 135 seats in the 224-member Assembly. BJP got 66 seats and the Janata Dal (Secular) headed by former Prime Minister H D Deve Gowda managed only 19.

Bengaluru, May 21: Senior Congress leaders in Karnataka, who are being offered the Speaker's post in the new Assembly, are unwilling to take the responsibility, sources have said, adding that a fear of jinx surrounds the post.

Series of leaders who became Speakers in Karnataka have lost elections and their political careers ended. The jinx continued with the defeat of Vishveshwara Hegde Kageri, the former Speaker in the ruling BJP government. His defeat shocked the party and Kageri was distraught as the defeat had raised the question on his strengths as a strong leader.

Political experts maintain that since 2004, whoever sat on the coveted post have suffered severe setbacks in their political careers.
    
Krishna from K.R. Pet constituency, who was the Speaker in S.M. Krishna-led Congress government in 2004 lost the election in 2008.

Senior Congressman Kagodu Thimmappa, who donned the role of Speaker in 2013 lost subsequent elections in 2018. K.B. Koliwad, five term member of assembly, who was speaker in 2016 lost general elections in 2018 and also lost by-polls in 2019.

Rameshkumar, who was the speaker in Congress - JD(S) government in 2018, lost election in the May 10 election.

Congress party is finding it difficult to convince seniors for the post. Chief Minister Siddaramaiah had announced that veteran Congress leader R.V. Deshpande will become pro rata Speaker and new speaker would be elected in the three-day maiden session starting from Monday.

Sources in Congress said that Dr. G. Parameshwara straight away rejected the offer and was made a cabinet minister. The party is contemplating to make any one from the seniors like T.B. Jayachandra, H.K. Patil, B.R. Patil and Y.N. Gopalakrishna as speaker. None of them, however, are interested, sources said.

Jayachandra, who had lost his seat to BJP in 2019 bypolls, had emerged victorious this time. H.K. Patil is a prominent Lingayat leader from Gadag, and is considered for plum cabinet berth. And so is B.R. Patil from the Aland constituency.

Former CM Jagadish Shettar and senior BJP leader K.G. Bopaiah, who were the speakers in the BJP government in Karnataka, lost in the recently concluded Assembly polls, thereby facing setbacks in their political careers.

All the leaders, who are  being offered the post, are maintaining that they would prefer to remain MLAs rather than become the Speaker, Congress sources said.

Eying plum cabinet berths other than Speaker is one of the reason, but mainly it is the fear of jinx that is seeing them refuse the responsibility, sources said.