Family, friends gather for Jacintha's funeral

[email protected] (CD Network)
December 17, 2012

Jacintha_Saldanha1
Shirva, December 17: Family, relatives, friends and large number of people of this coastal Karnataka town will Monday bid farewell to Indian-origin nurse Jacintha Saldanha, who was found dead Dec 7 in London.

 

The body of Saldanha, 46, will be laid to rest at the cemetery after prayers at the Our Lady of the Health Church in Shirva, about 400 km from Bangalore.

 

The body of the Indian origin nurse reached Mangalore, 50 km from Shirva, Sunday.

 

Her husband Benedict Barboza, son Junal, 16, and daughter Lisha, 14, accompanied the coffin from London via Mumbai by a scheduled Jet Airways flight.

 

The coffin was kept overnight in the mortuary at the Kasturba Medical College hospital in Manipal near Shirva.

 

The body was first taken to Barboza's house at Shirva and shifted to the church for people to pay their last respects.

 

Shirva is the hometown of Barboza where his mother and sisters reside.

 

Saldanha graduated from Father Muller College of Nursing in Mangalore in the mid-1980s. She first worked at Muscat in Oman for a few years and went to London after marriage to live with Barboza, an accountant in the British National Health Service at Bristol, 190 km from London.

 

The nurse was found unconscious Dec 7 morning in the quarters of King Edward VII Hospital in central London where she was working as a senior nurse, and was pronounced dead when wheeled into the hospital in an ambulance.

 

Saldanha got unwittingly involved in a hoax call Dec 4 from a radio station in Australia when she was on duty at the hospital where Duchess of Cambridge Kate Middletown was admitted Dec 3 after she complained of acute morning sickness.

 

When the jockeys (Mel Greig and Michael Christian) from a Sydney radio station called the hospital early Dec 4 imitating the voice of the queen (Elizabeth) and the prince (Charles), Jacintha picked the call in the absence of the receptionist at that time (5.30 a.m.) and transferred it to another duty nurse who briefed them on the health condition of the royal princess (Kate).

 

Though Kate was discharged Dec 6, news about the prank call shocked the royal family and caused outrage the world over, especially in the British media.

 

The autopsy report and an inquest into the cause of her death indicted that Jacintha was found in her room in the hospital quarters with injuries on one wrist.

 

The British Police also recovered three notes from her room, in which she mentioned about the circumstances in which she received the prank call and how remorseful she was about the incident.


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News Network
December 5,2025

Mangaluru: In a significant step to curb online hate and intimidation, Mangaluru City Police have registered a suo motu case against multiple Instagram accounts accused of circulating alleged provocative and threatening content.

While monitoring social media activity on Tuesday, Kankanady Town PSI Anitha Nikkam identified the Instagram handle ‘team_targetttt_900’ for posting a hate message alongside images of lethal weapons. Another account, ‘team_nagara_900’, allegedly shared a threatening post targeting activist Bharath Kumdelu, tagging additional pages such as KARAVALI-OFFICIAL.

Several other accounts — including ‘immu_bhai.fan’, ‘target_boy_900’, ‘kings_of_manglore’, ‘team_target_boys.900’, ‘arshad_mangalore’, ‘target_ka19_ullal’, ‘team_target__’, ‘troll_tigersz_900’, ‘tr_group_900’, and ‘team_target_900’ — are also under scrutiny for spreading similar inflammatory material, police said.

Authorities have urged citizens, especially young social media users, to report suspicious pages and avoid engaging with groups that glorify violence or threaten individuals. Online hate can quickly escalate into real-world harm, and police stress that sharing or promoting such content can attract legal consequences.

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News Network
December 3,2025

arrival.jpg

Mangaluru, Dec 3: A group of Congress workers gathered at the Mangaluru International Airport on Wednesday to welcome AICC general secretary K C Venugopal, but the reception quickly turned into a display of support for Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar.

Venugopal arrived in the city to participate in the centenary commemoration of the historic dialogue between Mahatma Gandhi and Narayana Guru. The event, organised by the Sivagiri Mutt, Varkala, in association with the Mangalore University Sri Narayana Guru Study Chair, is being held on the university’s Konaje campus.

KPCC general secretary Mithun Rai and several party workers had assembled at the airport to receive Venugopal. However, the moment he stepped out, workers began raising slogans backing Shivakumar.

The university programme will be inaugurated by Chief Minister Siddaramaiah.

This show of support comes just a day after Siddaramaiah remarked that Shivakumar would lead the government “when the high command decides.” The chief minister made the comment after a breakfast meeting at Shivakumar’s residence—another public display of camaraderie between the two leaders amid ongoing attempts by the party high command to downplay their leadership rivalry.

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News Network
December 15,2025

Mangaluru, Dec 15: Air India Express has announced that it will resume direct flight services between Mangaluru and Muscat from March 2026, restoring an important international air link for passengers from the coastal region.

Airport authorities said the service will operate twice a week—on Sundays and Tuesdays—from March 1. The initial flights are scheduled on March 3, 8 and 10, followed by March 15 and 17, with the same operating pattern to continue thereafter. The flight duration is approximately three hours and 25 minutes.

The Mangaluru–Muscat route was earlier operated under the 2025 summer schedule, with services beginning on July 14. At that time, Air India Express had operated four flights a week before suspending the service.

Officials said the summer schedule will come into effect from March 29, after which changes in flight timings and departure schedules from Mangaluru are expected. Passengers have been advised to check the latest schedules while planning their travel.

The resumption of direct flights to Muscat is expected to significantly benefit expatriates, business travellers and others, further strengthening Mangaluru’s air connectivity with the Gulf region.

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