SARS-Cov-2: Notices outside houses of infected UK returnees in Karnataka

News Network

December 31, 2020

Bengaluru, Dec 31: Authorities have gone back to putting up notices outside the homes of UK returnees who tested positive for the new strain of SARS-CoV-2, in an apparent violation of a Supreme Court directive.

In the first week of September, the BBMP had decided against putting up posters on the walls of Covid patients’ homes so that they are not stigmatised.

All this seems to have changed after three UK returnees were found infected with the new virus strain in the city. The BBMP enthusiastically put up posters and barricades outside their homes with messages that read BBMP Containment Zone’; ‘Covid-19, No Entry, South Zone’ or ‘Home quarantine, Don’t visit us now’.

In the second week of December, the Supreme Court ruled that Covid-19 posters can be put up outside the homes of patients only on the directions of the competent authority under the National Disaster Management Act.

Rajendra Cholan, Special Commissioner (Health), BBMP, said barricades and posters were put up outside the homes of UK moved to hotels. “These are peculiar cases,” he said, adding that no posters or barricades were put up outside the homes of other Covid patients.

Cholan said the BBMP administrator instructed the officials at a meeting not to put up barricades and posters outside individual houses provided the inhabitants agreed to be moved to institutional quarantine facilities.

Thirty-five secondary and two primary contacts of the UK returnees carrying the new virus strain have been quarantined at an apartment in Vittalnagar, Kumaraswamy layout.

Another four primary contacts are quarantined at an individual house in JP Nagar. All other contacts have been moved to hotels. In all, 48 primary and 57 secondary contacts of the UK returnees have been quarantined in hotels, he added.

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Why Mangaluru Could Become India’s Next Offshore Wind Energy Hub

News Network

February 3,2026

Dakshina Kannada MP Capt Brijesh Chowta has urged the Centre to give high priority to offshore wind energy generation along the Mangaluru coast, citing its strategic importance to India’s green energy and port-led development goals.

Raising the issue in the Lok Sabha under Rule 377, Chowta said studies by the National Institute of Oceanography have identified the Mangaluru coastline as part of India’s promising offshore wind ‘Zone-2’, covering nearly 6,490 sq km. He noted that the region’s relatively low exposure to cyclones and earthquakes makes it suitable for long-term offshore wind projects and called for its development as a dedicated offshore wind energy zone.

Highlighting the role of New Mangalore Port, Chowta said its modern infrastructure, multiple berths and heavy cargo-handling capacity position it well as a logistics hub for transporting and assembling large wind energy equipment.

He also pointed to the presence of major industrial units such as MRPL, OMPL, UPCL and the Mangaluru SEZ, which could serve as direct buyers of green power through power purchase agreements, improving project viability and speeding up execution.

With Karnataka’s peak power demand crossing 18,000 MW in early 2025, Chowta stressed the need to diversify renewable energy sources. He added that offshore wind projects in the Arabian Sea are strategically safer compared to the cyclone-prone Bay of Bengal.

Calling the project vital to India’s target of 500 GW of renewable energy by 2030, Chowta urged the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy to initiate resource assessments, pilot projects and stakeholder consultations at the earliest.

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