Sri Lanka declares state of emergency to tackle disaster relief operations
Colombo(PTI): Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake has declared a state of emergency throughout the island in view of the emergency situation that has emerged due to the devastation caused by floods.
According to an official gazette dated Friday and released on Saturday, the state of emergency has been declared throughout the island.
On Friday, at an all-party meeting, the opposition leaders called for the state of emergency to be declared. The doctors’ trade union in a letter addressed to Dissanayake underscored the need to impose a state of emergency.
The regulations are expected to expedite the process of relief coordination and rescue operations.
The need for speedy deployment of troops, police, the health sector, civil administration and the civil defence force to tackle the crisis situation is to be facilitated through the state of emergency, officials said.
Cyclone Ditwah on Saturday exited Sri Lanka that left more than 120 dead, amid a trail of destruction and damage to infrastructure, entering the south Indian coastal line, meteorological officials said.
“We noticed Ditwah exiting Sri Lanka and heading towards the Indian coast,” Athula Karunanayake, director general of the meteorology department, told reporters.
“However, its indirect impact with heavy rains and high speed winds will remain for some time,” he added.
The official death toll at 9 am was 123 while 130 remain missing, according to the Disaster Management Centre (DMC).
The figure is expected to be much higher as severely affected areas suffer communication breakdown due to bad weather which has hampered verification of the impact from the disaster.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
