MANGALURU  FRIDAY  JANUARY 15, 2021  `7.00  PAGES 12  CITY EDITION WHOLESALE INFLATION MODERATES TO 1.22% IN DEC The wholesale price-based inflation moderated during the month on the back of easing prices of onion and potato WPI INFLATION AT 1.55 PC IN NOVEMBER 2020 INFLATION IN CEREALS, GRAINS ALSO EASES According to government data, the WPI inflation was 1.55 per cent in November 2020, and 2.76 per cent in December 2019. “The rate of inflation based on WPI Food Index decreased from 4.27 per cent in November 2020, to 0.92 per cent in December 2020,” data from the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade showed. ■ ■ Onion prices contracted by 54.69% in December, while Potato prices eased to 37.75% during the month Inflation in cereals, paddy, wheat and pulses, also eased in December over the previous month. Meanwhile, wholesale prices P10 of fruits were, however, higher during the said period 4.59% RATE OF RETAIL INFLATION IN DECEMBER CHENNAI ■ MADURAI ■ VIJAYAWADA ■ BENGALURU ■ KOCHI ■ HYDERABAD ■ VISAKHAPATNAM ■ COIMBATORE ■ KOZHIKODE ■ THIRUVANANTHAPURAM ■ BELAGAVI ■ BHUBANESWAR ■ SHIVAMOGGA ■ MANGALURU ■ TIRUPATI ■ TIRUCHY ■ TIRUNELVELI ■ SAMBALPUR ■ HUBBALLI ■ DHARMAPURI ■ KOTTAYAM ■ KANNUR ■ VILLUPURAM ■ KOLLAM ■ WARANGAL ■ TADEPALLIGUDEM ■ NAGAPATTINAM ■ THRISSUR ■ KALABURAGI PM to unveil vaccine drive at 10.30 am tomorrow EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE @ New Delhi House Speaker Nancy Pelosi signs the article of impeachment (see pic below) against US President Donald Trump at the US Capitol, in Washington DC | AFP Trump is first US President to be impeached twice He now faces a trial in Senate; if convicted, he could be barred from holding office EXPRESS NEWS SERVICE JUST eight days before he is slated to leave office, Donald Trump earned the dubious distinction of becoming the first American president to be impeached twice, with 10 of his fellow Republicans joining the Democrats in the House of Representatives to charge him with “incitement of insurrection” for his role in provoking his supporters to storm the US Capitol on January 6. Trump will now face a trial in the Senate where, if convicted, he could be barred from holding office ever again. The Democrats will need 17 Republican votes in the 100-member Senate as a two-thirds majority is required in the Upper House of the US Congress to convict and impeach the president. However, Trump will not have to quit the White House before his term ends as the Senate is adjourned till January 19, a day before Joe Biden takes oath as the 46th President of the United States. The Democratic-controlled House on Wednesday impeached Trump by 232 to 197 votes after an impassioned debate. The House went ahead with the move after Vice President Mike Pence on Tuesday PRIME Minister Narendra Modi will launch the muchawaited Covid-19 vaccination programme at 3,006 designated centres across states at 10.30 am on Saturday . “This will be the world’s largest immunisation exercise. A total of 3,006 session sites across all states and Union Territories will be virtually connected during the launch,” a government statement on Thursday said. The Centre also released a rulebook for the vaccine rollout to all the states and UTs, listing the dos and don’ts which say minors (under-18), pregnant women and lactating mothers should not be given the shots. Healthcare workers in both government and private sec- Farmer leader recuses from SC committee YOUTUBE SUSPENDS DON’S CHANNEL YouTube has temporarily suspended the account of outgoing President Trump, preventing all video uploads by the channel for the next seven days, amid concerns over “ongoing potential for violence”. This follows Facebook and Twitter’s suspension of his accounts. refused to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office. Those who voted in favour of the impeachment included the House’s No. 3 Republican, Liz Cheney as well as all , four Indian-American Democratic members — Ami Bera, Ro Khanna, Raja KrishnamoorP9 thi and Pramila Jayapal. tors, including anganwadi workers, will receive the vaccine during the first phase. As per the details shared, at every centre, 100 healthcare workers have been registered for inoculation on the first day However, the government . fears that the actual count of people who take the jab may be far lower, owing to “vaccine hesitation”. “Over 3 lakh people are being sent messages to receive their vaccines on Day 1 at the designated centres. But it won’t be surprising if lesser than expected number of beneficiaries tur n up,” said a senior official. “This will be just the beginning of the vaccination in India and it’s likely that many will want to see others take the vaccines first before they take the jabs,” the official added. @ Kalaburagi SUICIDES of far mers in Kalaburagi district, which was at an alarming rate in the year 2018-19 with 67 farmers committing suicide, has decreased considerably with 25 cases of farmers’ d e at h s in the nine months from April to December in 2019-20. This further dropped to 22 cases in the corresponding period in 2020-21. This is a considerable drop from a few years ago. It may be noted that there were 61 cases of farmer suicides in the dis- trict during the corresponding months of 2016-17, followed by 60 cases the following year. The number rose to 67 in 2018-19, while 2019-20 witnessed a moderate 25 cases during April-December. Statistics reveal that of the 22 suicides, Aland taluk reported the most cases at six, followed by four in Jewargi, three each in Kalaburagi, Sedam and Kamalapur, two in Afzalpur, and one in Chittapur taluk. In Lad Chincholi of Aland taluk and Sugur (K) village of Chittapur taluk, there have also been instances of woman farmers committing suicide in the H A R P R E E T B A J W A @ Chandigarh ONE of the members of the committee constituted by the Supreme Court to address concerns over the farm laws, 81-year old Bhupinder Singh Mann, recused himself from the committee. Mann, who is national president of BKU and chairman of All India Kisan Coordination Committee, said, “While I am thankful to SC for nominating me in the four-member committee to start dialogue with Kisan Unions on the three laws, as a farmer myself and a Union leader, in view of the prevailing sentiments and apprehensions amongst the farm unions and the public in general, I am ready to sacrifice any position offered to me so as to not compromise the interests of Punjab and the country’s farmers. I will always stand with farmers P7 and Punjab.’’ A day after expanding his cabinet, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa, who was brimming with confidence on Thursday , hit back at the disgruntled legislators. He advised them to take up their issues with the central leadership and not embarrass the party and the state government by making public statements. Addressing the media at the GMIT helipad in the city, he stressed that he had the full backing of the party top leadership. Dissenting legislators can take their complaint to the Delhi leaders, who will decide on it, he remarked in a warning tone. He also said that he has no objecting to MLAs lodging complaints against him with the top brass. “I have no fear of any CD. The cabinet was expanded as per the directions of the BJP national leadership. All the options were weighed before HOW about the government fulfilling your vow to a deity? For commoners, it’s next to impossible, but not for Mudigere MLA M P Kumaraswamy. The government has even gone ahead and granted a whopping `25 lakh to fulfil his vow as a ‘special case’. In his letter to the CM, Kumaraswamy stated that he had taken a vow in 2019 that he Bengaluru’s Victoria Hospital, will start non-Covid services from Monday, over 10 months after they were closed in March 2020 amidst the pandemic. Dr C R Jayanti, Dean of Bangalore Medical College and Research Institute (BMCRI), to which Victoria Hospital is affiliated, said, “We will restart services from Monday.” last nine months. Joint Director of Agriculture Department, Ratendranath Sugur, told TNIE that though Kalaburagi was affected by the pandemic, which was followed by the floods, the district administration did succeed in handling the issue of farmer suicides. Food grains and essentials were distributed to the farmers’ doorstep during the pandemic, while rescue and rehabilitation efforts of affected farmers were undertaken during the floods. The district administration also created awareness about the ill-effects of suicide among farmers, P3 he said. lanatheshwara temple and Rs 5 lakh for the Bhairaveshwara temple, both in his constituency . The Chief Minister has considered the request and instructed the Additional Chief Secretary Rev, enue Department, to treat it as a ‘special case’ and sanction `25 lakh to Kalanatheshwara temple. Vachananda Swamy of Panchamasali Gurupeetha offering ‘ellu-bella’ to Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa in Harihar on Thursday | EXPRESS the expansion was taken up and the best interests of the party have been safeguarded. As per the directions of high command, one berth is still kept vacant,” the CM noted. Many BJP legislators had expressed displeasure after seven new ministers — Umesh Katti, C P Yogeshwara, Mu- rugesh Nirani, S Angara, M T B Nagaraj, R Shankar and Aravind Limbavali — were inducted into the cabinet on Wednesday. Some legislators had even questioned the induction of MLCs and the regional disparity in representation of districts. CONTINUED ON: P5 Yogeshwar had to take D9 cr loan: Jarkiholi Water Resources Minister Ramesh Jarkiholi on Thursday stirred a hornet’s nest when he said that Minister C P Yogeshwar had worked hard to unite rebel legislators prior to the formation of the BJP government and, in the process, raised Rs 9 crore loan by mortgaging his house besides borrowing money from Minister M T B Nagaraj. P4 “Health workers, including all cadres in the facility should , be vaccinated on the inaugural day A maximum of 100 benefi. ciaries per facility on the day of inauguration is planned. The health facility should prepare a list of selected beneficiaries with name and designation and share with district RCH officers,” the document reads. There are nine categories of health care workers including frontline and ICDS workers, nurses and supervisors, medical officers, paramedical staff, support staff, students, scientists and research staff, clerical and administrative staff and other health staff. CONTINUED ON: P3 EXPRESS READ Google removes loan apps from Play Store New Delhi: Google on Thursday said it has reviewed hundreds of personal loan apps in India that were flagged by users and agencies and those found to be violating its user safety policies were immediately removed from its Play Store. P10 Tesla CEO Elon Musk confirms India entry New Delhi: Tesla CEO Elon Musk has confirmed the company’s plans to enter the Indian market, within days of the electric vehicle maker registering its arm in the country. Gujarat cadre IAS officer joins BJP Lucknow: Gujarat cadre IAS officer A K Sharma, who recently took voluntary retirement from the service, joined the Bharatiya Janata Party here on Thursday, a party spokesperson said. Gadag village empties out over bird flu rumours; health officials allay fears R-DAY NO FOREIGN CHIEF GUEST THIS TIME The Ministry of External Affairs on Thursday announced that there will be no foreign leader as the chief guest at the Republic Day celebrations due to the situation arising out of the pandemic. It will be for the first time in over five decades that there will not be a chief guest at the parade. MLA makes vow for BSY as CM, gets govt to pay for it would donate a wooden chariot to the Kalanatheshwara Temple in Palguni village and take up rejuvenation of the Bhairaveshwara temple in Betagere if Yediyurappa becomes the CM. And where will the money come from? The MLA conveniently requested Yediyurappa to sanction `35 lakh to fulfil his vows — `30 lakh for the Ka- Victoria Hospital to open non-Covid services THE first person to get the jab in Karnataka on the inaugural day of the vaccination programme on January 16 will be a sanitation worker/Group-D employee. This is to recognise the efforts of people on the ground who helped in the fight against Covid-19, according to Health Commissioner Pankaj Kumar Pandey . This was mentioned in an internal document related to a meeting held by the Health Department with district deputy commissioners on January 13. The health care workers will include persons above 20 years age, preferably without co-morbidity on the inaugural day , . G SUBHASH CHANDRA @ Davanagere TEMPLE CHARIOT M A N J U S H E T TA R @ Bengaluru R A N J A N I M A D H A V A N @ Bengaluru TAKE YOUR COMPLAINTS TO DELHI, CM TELLS DISSENTERS K’buragi sees drop in farmer suicides RAMKRISHNA BADSESHI Group D, sanitation staff will get first shot in state Speaking to The New Indian Express, the beaming MLA said, “I had taken a personal vow before Yediyurappa became the CM. Thus, I had requested him (CM) to sanction grants to fulfil the vows. I even thanked him on Thursday for sanctioning `25 lakh and posted it on social media to bring it to the notice of the people of my constituency as it was good news for Sankranthi”. CONTINUED ON: P5 R A G H O T TA M K O P PA R @ Gadag WITH as many as 200 residents of Arahunasi village falling sick in recent days, fear is writ large on the faces of people in the district, who believe bird flu is to blame. Several people have moved to the village’s outskirts, with some even shifting to their relatives’ houses. Assurances from the Health Department that no correlation has been not found between the avian flu and the villagers’ sickness has not helped either. It may be noted that there are no poultry farms here, nor has any bird death been reported. But the villagers insist that common flu symptoms like fever, throat and body pain, and mild headache affecting them, could only be because of avian influenza. Recently, 50 birds died in Dambal village near Gadag, and some villagers linked the incident to bird flu, and began spreading rumours. However, with Dambal located 75 km from Arahunasi, health officials clarified that it is not the case. Officials are now creating awareness among villagers that this may be another disease, and there is no need for panic. They are holding a Health Deaprtment officials examining residents of Arahunasi village at Ron taluk in Gadag district | EXPRESS It is not bird flu, but we have still sent blood samples and throat swabs to rule out any fears. We will reveal the results once we get the report District Surveillance Officer temporary health camp and visiting each house. They have taken throat swabs and blood samples to check for H1N1, Cholera and also Covid-19. The source of this unusual situation is still unknown, but villagers affirm that they do not want to take any risks and prefer moving out. Manjunath Chavadi, a resident, said, “I am suffering from fever and throat pain for the last two days. This is the case with over 200 villagers. We also have doubts over the quality of water we are consuming. But some are unknowingly spreading rumours about bird flu, worrying everyone.” “We have visited 70 houses in Arahunasi and provided medicines to villagers, who are recovering. It is not bird flu, but we have still sent blood samples and throat swabs to rule out any fears. We will reveal the results once we get the report, ” the District Surveillance Officer said.