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Mangaluru, May 30: Speaker of the Karnataka legislative assembly and Mangaluru MLA UT Khader directed officials of various departments in Dakshina Kannada district to be prepared to tackle natural disasters during monsoon.

Chairing a meeting on monsoon preparedness on Monday, Khader said that departments should take measures to reduce loss of life and properties. 

“Based on previous experiences, measures can be taken to prevent loss of properties and protect domestic animals. Officials and people’s representatives should be prepared to respond to the complaints of people. Officials should form teams at the village-level and in urban areas. Excessive rain in catchment areas may result in flooding. Hence, awareness should be created among people to prevent damages,” he said.

Officials should rush to the spot immediately in the event of landslides or incidents like compound wall collapse. While Rs 10,000 should be given as immediate relief, a detailed report on damages to properties should be prepared so that maximum compensation can be distributed within 10 days. The district has an amount of Rs 3.5 crore for disaster management. If required, more funds can be sanctioned to the district, he said at the meeting and directed the officials to inform him of any support required from the government.

While deploying National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) teams, involvement of youths from local organisations also should be ensured to take up rescue operations. Officials should convene meetings in gram panchayats and urban local bodies to discuss plans. Fire and emergency and health departments should be prepared to respond in emergency situations. 

The department of rural development and panchayat raj, public works department, national highways and the National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) should immediately fill potholes on the roads. The Mescom and forest department should work jointly to cut branches of trees that are likely to fall on electric lines. Junior engineers of the Mescom and rangers of the forest department of the respective areas will be held responsible for any death related to electrocution, the speaker warned.

He also directed the district administration, all urban local bodies and gram panchayats to start a 24x7 helpline.

Bengaluru, June 10: The government of Karnataka will henceforth give paternity leave to single male parents including the ones who are abandoned or ditched by their wives. 

While until now, childcare leave in the form of maternity leave was applicable only to women, from now on single male parents will be eligible for this leave too. 

According to an order issued on Friday, government employees who are single male parents include unmarried, divorcees and widowers.

There were several requests to allow leave for single men who were raising children. The government felt it was a justified demand, the order said. 

Accordingly, single men will be eligible for six months' paternity leave. 

However, if during this leave they get married, their leave will automatically end from that day, the order stated.

Earlier, the government had recognised adopted parents on par with biological parents for leave, by allowing such parents to avail maternity leave as well. 

Around 40 medical colleges across the country have lost recognition over the past two months allegedly for not following standards set by the National Medical Commission (NMC), official sources said on Tuesday, May 31.

About 100 more medical colleges in Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Assam, Punjab, Andhra Pradesh, Puducherry and West Bengal may also face similar action, they said.

The colleges were not found to be complying with the set norms and several lapses related to CCTV cameras, Aadhaar-linked biometric attendance procedures and faculty rolls were found during inspections carried out by the Commission, an official source said.

According to government data, the number of medical colleges has increased significantly since 2014.

There is an increase of 69 per cent in medical colleges from 387 before 2014 to 654 as of now, Minister of State for Health Bharati Pravin Pawar had told the Rajya Sabha in February.

Further, there is an increase of 94 per cent in MBBS seats from 51,348 before 2014 to 99,763 as of now and an increase of 107 per cent in PG seats from 31,185 before 2014 to 64,559 as of now.

To increase the number of doctors in the country, the government has increased the number of medical colleges and subsequently increased MBBS seats, she had said.

The measures and steps taken by the government to increase the number of medical seats in the country include a centrally-sponsored scheme for establishment of new medical colleges by upgrading district/referral hospitals, under which 94 new medical colleges are already functional out of 157 approved.

Reacting to his derecognition of medical colleges, experts from the medical field said the NMC is largely relying on the Aadhaar-enabled biometric attendance system for which it considers only the faculty which are on duty during daytime from 8 am to 2 pm.

"But the working hours of doctors are not fixed. They have to work in emergency and at night shifts also. So the NMC's rigidity with the working hours has created this issue. Such micro management of medical colleges is not practical and the NMC needs to be flexible to such issues," an expert said.

Another expert said, "The NMC is derecognising medical colleges believing there are deficiencies. At the same time, the NMC has also allowed the registration of students in such colleges, which is a contradiction. Moreover, such experiment is tarnishing India's image at the global level because India is the largest supplier of doctors and with such instances coming to light, the world will lose confidence in Indian doctors."