Ayush doctors to get salaries on par with allopathy counterparts

The State Cabinet on Thursday went on a financial-approval spree clearing two rural road improvement projects worth Rs 3,658 crore in 189 Assembly constituencies across the State. Briefing reporters after the Cabinet meeting, Primary and Secondary Education Minister Vishveshwara Hegde Kageri said that under one scheme, 30 km of rural roads will be developed in each of the 189 Assembly segments at a cost of Rs 42 lakh per km — which includes a maintenance period of five years.

The State government, which has strongly favoured establishment of a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) for rejuvenating areas devastated by illegal mining, has found that mining lessees have made windfall profits with little investment and with negligible concern for sustainability.

The government is in favour of retaining a higher portion of the revenue earned by the lessees so that it could finance infrastructure and environment projects in districts of Bellary, Chitradruga and Tumkur. In its interlocutory application before the Supreme Court this month, Karnataka has presented how mining lease holders have made supernormal profits without investing much funds. The next hearing of the case is scheduled on January 8.

ON 26 NOVEMBER, a CBI court rejected the bail plea of mining baron and former Karnataka minister Gali Janardhan Reddy for the sixth time since his arrest in September last year.

The GI craze in India is as inexplicable as the ways in which the Registry grants it

People of Hoovina Hadagali (population: 27,958), the taluka headquarters of Bellary district of Karnataka, are inordinately proud of their variety of mallige (jasmine). So are the growers from Udipi and Mysore, all of them claiming unique and distinctive features for their varieties of these sweet-smelling flowers which are offered to temple deities or used by south Indian women to adorn their hair.