Bengaluru, Apr 20: Amid raging COVID-19 cases in Karantaka, Chief Minister B S Yediyurappa on Wednesday directed all his cabinet colleagues to work more proactively in districts they are in charge of to check the spread of the deadly disease.

The direction comes a day after opposition leaders, at an all party meeting, criticised the government over its handling of COVID crisis.

In a letter to the ministers, the Chief Minister said the second wave of coronavirus is taking the entire nation into its grip and all the districts need to take measures to contain it.

"Against this backdrop, you need to swing into action to prevent the spread of the disease in your district concerned, get in touch with the district authorities continuously and create awareness among people on controlling the spread of the virus," Yediyurappa stated.

The state government has issued guidelines aimed at controlling the spread of COVID, effective from tonight to May 4, according to which night curfew will be imposed in the entire state from 9 pm to 6 am and there shall be weekend curfew from Friday 9 pm to Monday 6 am.

It has also ordered closure of theatres, malls, bars and dine-in services at hotels to keep people from venturing out.

The CM also asked the ministers to ensure medical treatment is provided to those who have contracted the disease, so that situation does not go out of hand.

Karnataka on Tuesday had reported its biggest single day spike of 21,794 new cases of COVID-19, and 149 related fatalities, taking the total infection count to 11.98 lakh and the toll to 13,646.

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Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.

The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.

Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.

The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.

India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.

In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.

Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.

The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.

It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.

Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.

The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.

The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.

On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.