Karnataka Health minister asks people to be on guard, cautions about possible second COVID wave
Bengaluru, Feb 20: Urging people to take necessary precautions, while cautioning about the possible second wave of COVID-19, Karnataka Health Minister K Sudhakar on Saturday said according to experts till March end it is crucial.
Also ruling out any COVID curbs like lockdown or curfew measures in Karnataka for now, he said the state has not come to that situation and all necessary precautions were being taken so that the state does not reach such a stage.
The Minister also said the health departmentis seeking cooperation from Home and Revenue departments besides district administrations to control COVID spread in districts bordering Kerala and Maharashtra, states that have seen a spike in cases in recent days.
Karnataka has issued new guidelines mandating all those coming from Kerala and Maharashtra to the state to carry a negative RT-PCR test report not older than 72 hours.
"There are laws on one side, but civic senseis also required in protecting our own health, so people of the state have to understand and make necessary changes in their conduct by following necessary precautions... till March end is an important stage according to the technical advisory committee report," Sudhakar said.
Speaking to reporters here, he said necessary precautions have to be taken at least till March end by compulsorily following things like wearing masks, maintaining distance, and all those who have the opportunity should get vaccinated.
"The Union Health Ministry has said vaccinations are likely to be given to common citizens from March....now frontline warriors and health workers should take vaccines," he said.
Further stating that there is no spike in the number of cases in Karnataka and the mortality rate is 1.3 per cent, the Minister said, "we will have to stop the possible second wave in the same way."
"There is a sense about the second wave coming in Maharashtra and Kerala. It should not come in our state, we have to control it," he said.
Noting that three kinds of strains from South Africa, UK and Brazil have been identified, Sudhakar said "we have been able to control the spread of UK variant in the state through returnees from there, by taking adequate precautions including genomic study."
"With Brazilian and South African strain also around, we have to take adequate caution.They are already present in parts of the country," he said.
Stating that Maharashtra and Kerala for the last few weeks have seen a spike in cases, Sudhakar said about ten districts share borders with these two states and it is time for Karnataka be cautious.
"We are also thinking about what is to be done for those coming by air from the two states."
As per the guidelines by the state COVID Technical Advisory Committee, it mandates all those coming from Kerala and Maharashtra to the state to carry a negative RT-PCR test report.
"To implement the guidelines fully we will soon, by today or tomorrow, be holding meetings with district administrations, Home and Revenue Ministers and senior officials, and seek their cooperation," he added.
Terming it as "unfortunate" that many working in the health sector have still not taken the vaccination yet, Sudhakar said till now only 51 per cent have taken the vaccine, and called on Doctors, Nurses, Paramedics, Medical students and other health care workers, also frontline workers to take the vaccine.
"District administrations should also take it seriously. As per research even if those who have taken the vaccine are infected by the virus, death is very unlikely....despite vaccines being administered freely by the government the act of irresponsibility or laziness by not taking the vaccine was not right," he added.
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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.
