COVID: No restrictions on inter-state travel, says Karnataka Health Minister
'Covid marshals would be deployed to monitor wedding'
Bengaluru, Feb 22: The Karnataka government on Monday clarified that it had not imposed any restrictions on inter-state travel, but has mandated RT-PCR certificates not older than 72 hours for those arriving in the state from neighbouring Kerala and Maharashtra.
Health Minister K Sudhakar, while stating this, also cautioned people against negligence towards observing protocol and of stricter steps if the number of cases increase and said marshals would be deployed to monitor weddings as they were taking place without following any norms or guidelines.
"We have not imposed any restrictions on passengers traveling from Kerala, Maharashtra or any other state to Karnataka.
Let me clarify this, because other states may have got a wrong opinion....For inter-state travelers there is no restriction," Sudhakar said.
Speaking to reporters here, he said Karnataka has made it mandatory for people arriving in the state to have a negative RT-PCR certificate that is not older than 72 hours.
This measure was taken last week for those arriving by flights, buses, trains, personal transport from neighboring Maharashtra and Kerala, following the recent spike in COVID cases in those states.
To a question on people staging protests at the Kerala borders demanding withdrawal of "restrictions", Sudhakar said no restrictions had been imposed, but checking negative test reports could have caused some inconvenience to travelers.
"According to Dakshina Kannada Deputy Commissioner, there is movement of about 2-3 lakh people between both states every day.
If test reports of such a large number of people has to be done, it definitely causes inconvenience, so we may not be able to do it 100 per cent, but we are trying random at least," he said.
Sudhakar also said he would speak to the Health Ministers of Kerala and Maharashtra in a couple of days and request them to issue strict circulars to travelers in their states.
"Many people travelling from those states don't have information. We have issued a circular in our state. But if circulars are issued in those states also, it will benefit both," the minister said.
He noted that events, fairs, marriages and agitations with large crowds were being held despite repeated appeals by the government, all of which were against the guidelines issued by the COVID technical advisory committee.
"Civic sense and responsibility is also important. If we don't understand it, in the days to come, if the cases increase, you (people) will be responsible for forcing the government to take strict measures.
At a few places in Maharashtra there is lockdown...you decide if such a situation has to come in Karnataka," he said.
The Minister said marshals would be deputed at weddings to ensure that not more than 500 people gather at the events, wear masks and maintain social distancing.
Further, if five people in a place test positive, the area would be designated as a containment zone, he said, adding there is already a circular in this regard.
Stating that more than 4.24 lakh health department employees and 1.20 lakh front line warriors have been administered the first dose of Covid vaccine,Sudhakar said the government was cleaning up registration data by eliminating duplicate entries.
"We have a target of 80 per cent and 90 per cent coverage for Health department staff and front line warriors respectively by the end of this month.
All officials have been requested to get the dose."
"Bengaluru is lagging in vaccination... instructions have been given to all districts to achieve 80 per cent target," he said.
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Modi govt rattled by Rahul’s Great Nicobar visit; project concerns need Parliament debate: Cong
New Delhi (PTI): The Congress on Sunday flagged in detail concerns related to ecology, tribal rights, transparency and security, over the Great Nicobar project, and asserted that these considerations must be debated in a parliamentary forum.
The opposition party claimed that the Modi government is "rattled" and in damage control mode after Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha Rahul Gandhi's visit to Great Nicobar last week.
In a statement, Congress general secretary in-charge communications Jairam Ramesh said, "The Modi Government, clearly in damage control mode after the hugely impactful visit of the Leader of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha, Rahul Gandhi, to Great Nicobar on April 28 2026, issued a press note on the Great Nicobar Island Development Project three days later."
This press note does not address any of the serious concerns that have been raised on it by local affected communities, environmentalists, anthropologists, academics, civil society experts and other professionals, Ramesh said.
"These concerns had already been conveyed in detail by me to the Union Minister of Environment, Forests & Climate Change on September 10, 2024 and in a follow-up on September 27, 2024," the former environment minister said.
During his visit to Great Nicobar, Gandhi last week alleged that the Great Nicobar project at Campbell Bay in Andaman and Nicobar Islands was "one of the biggest scams and gravest crimes against the natural and tribal heritage of the country".
The government on May 1 released a detailed statement with answers to FAQs (frequently asked questions).
"The Great Nicobar Project is a strategic initiative to strengthen India's presence in the Andaman Sea. It seeks to balance port-led growth with calibrated environmental safeguards. Protection of indigenous communities remains central to its planning," the government statement had said.
"The project combines strategic, economic, and ecological priorities. This ensures that development is sustainable, inclusive, and aligned with national interests," it had said.
In his four-page detailed statement, Ramesh spelt out the key concerns over the Great Nicobar project.
Flagging ecological concerns, Ramesh said the Great Nicobar is unique and distinctly different from all other islands in the Andaman and Nicobar group.
"The Government's claim that only 1.82% of the total land of the island group is being used for the project is irrelevant and misleading. It ignores the ecological and biological richness of the Great Nicobar ecosystem, which is unique both in the island group and in the world," he said.
"Galathea Bay, the site of the port, is unequivocally a Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) is a site where port construction is not allowed. As per records of the Zoological Survey of India, Galathea Bay is home to more than 20,000 coral colonies, a key marker of a CRZ-1a categorisation. Similarly, the beach here is the most important nesting site of the Giant Leatherback turtle in the Northern Indian Ocean," Ramesh said.
The recently concluded turtle nesting season saw record turtle nesting at Galathea Bay, he pointed out.
Ramesh alleged that institutions like the Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) were literally coerced to play a key role in the environmental clearance and related process for the project.
"These very institutions have now been awarded projects for biodiversity research and monitoring in Great Nicobar. There is a clear conflict of interest here," he argued.
In addition, a couple of reputed and independent-minded institutions that have been very critical of the project have been blacklisted by the Modi government, he said.
Similar is the case with the high-powered committee (HPC) constituted by the National Green Tribunal (NGT) in the matter of the challenge to the project's environmental clearance granted, he said.
All the HPC's members either represented the project proponents or agencies which granted the clearances, Ramesh said.
He said the proposal for compensatory afforestation in Haryana is a travesty of ecological principles.
Flagging tribal rights concerns, Ramesh said the Nicobarese Tribal community has expressed concerns multiple times about the project and its impact on their forests, rights, and way of life.
"In November 2022, they withdrew the NoC they had granted for forest diversion saying that they were rushed to sign by concealing the extent of tribal areas to be affected by the project. Representatives of the Nicobarese community also stated in a recent press conference that they were being forced to voluntarily surrender their land for the project," he pointed out.
The claims stand even more exposed in the matter of the Shompen, a Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Group (PVTG), that lives a life of hunting and gathering in the deep forests of Great Nicobar, Ramesh said.
The Shompen are a primarily uncontacted community and there are no non-Shompen speakers of their language, he pointed out.
"It is not clear then how the project authorities have taken their informed consent, which is both ethically appropriate and legally mandated," Ramesh said.
Pointing out that government release has claimed that the airport in Great Nicobar will eventually handle 10 million passengers annually, Ramesh said this appears prima facie to be a huge over-estimation given that the current airport at Port Blair handles 1.8 million passengers annually.
"The deliberations of the Forest Advisory Committee for granting the project's forest clearance were not made public. The report submitted by the High-Powered Committee that examined the clearance granted to the project was kept confidential. The field report prepared by the National Centre for Sustainable Coastal Management (NCSCM) that pronounced the status of the site of the port from CRZ-1A to CRZ-1B overnight, remains confidential," he pointed out.
Ramesh also flagged security concerns about the project, saying no less a person than the courageous former Chief of Naval Staff Admiral Arun Prakash (Retd) himself has argued in an article that "the security capabilities of ANC (Andaman & Nicobar Command) need to be addressed separately and must have no linkage with the developments contemplated for GNI (Great Nicobar Island)."
"There is thus no need to link India's legitimate security imperatives with the so-called 'development project' - complete with a township, high-end tourist infrastructure, and large transshipment terminal - that the Modi Government is intent on bulldozing through and on which it is now trying to muzzle genuine and much-needed debate hiding behind "security considerations", he said.
"These considerations must, at the very least, be discussed and debated in a Parliamentary forum," Ramesh said.
