500 hearing impaired children to get cochlear implant: Health Minister K Sudhakar
Bengaluru (PTI): As many as 500 children who were born with congenital hearing loss will get cochlear implant, Karnataka Health Minister K Sudhakar said on Sunday.
Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai had announced the creation of 'Hearing Impairment Free Karnataka' in the 2022-23 state budget.
In the current financial year, 1,939 children below the age of six years have been identified with hearing impairment, Sudhakar said.
"The Karnataka government will gift to 500 children below the age of six who were born with congenital hearing loss by providing them with free Cochlear Implants," the minister said in a statement.
He added that the state health department is working on a mission mode with a slogan 'Health for All' to cover every aspect of health and well-being and a new initiative has been planned to make Karnataka free from hearing impairments.
Special attention has been given to eliminating hearing loss in children under six years of age, Sudhakar further said.
Most of them have suffered from congenital deafness and the main reason for this is the mother's consumption of medicine, viral infection, suffocation and shock during the prenatal period, the minister said.
According to Sudhakar, a cochlear implant is a small electronic device that helps children with severe and profound hearing loss hear sounds. The implant is inserted into the cochlear of the inner ear.
"The processor of the device is placed behind the ear, and the hearing mechanism of the human body that had been dormant starts working again and transmits the audio signals to the brain," the minister explained.
He also said that an honorarium of Rs 250 will be given to each ASHA worker who has helped in identifying such children and have aided in the entire process.
Sudhakar said 20 hospitals including KC General Hospital, Indira Gandhi Children's Institute, Bowring and Lady Curzon Hospital, Bangalore Medical College BMCRI, KIMS Hubli have been identified to perform the procedure as they are well equipped for surgery.
Beneficiaries are identified by audiology teams working under National Programme for the Prevention and Control of Deafness (NPPCD) in collaboration with Mobile Health Teams under the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK).
The identified eligible children will be sent to taluk and district-level hospitals for further evaluation and management, the minister said.
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Gurugram Police arrest BJP Yuva Morcha member for spreading fake murder story on social media
New Delhi: Gurugram Police have arrested BJP Yuva Morcha member Hariom Mishra, for allegedly spreading a fabricated and communally sensitive story on social media about the murder of a college student in Gurugram.
Mishra who is also known as Shaurya Mishra had shared a collage of four photographs on his X handle earlier this month. He claimed that a 24-year-old college student, identified as Nikita Agarwal, had been murdered by her classmate Arif Khan in Gurugram. In the post, he alleged that the woman was blackmailed, forced into prostitution, gangraped, and eventually killed. He also claimed that Arif dumped her body in a forest. The claims were presented as being based on police sources.
The post went viral and garnering over 1.5 lakh views, and was amplified by several right-wing social media handles across X, Facebook and Instagram. A verification of the claims revealed that no such incident had taken place in Gurugram. A search of credible news reports showed no record of any such murder. The police said this news would have inevitably attracted media attention if it were true.
On December 11, Gurugram Police publicly refuted the claims through their official X handle. They stated that the information which was being circulated was completely false. The police warned that legal action would be taken against those spreading misinformation. Despite the warning, Mishra neither deleted the post nor issued any clarification.
Police in Gurugram confirmed Mishra's arrest on December 16. The police said a FIR was filed after he continued to spread false information about the alleged murder of a Hindu woman by Muslim man. Police said Mishra, a resident of Uttar Pradesh's Kaushambi district, is now being investigated.
Gurugram Police spokesperson Sandeep Singh told The Print that the accused had deliberately misrepresented facts and used objectionable content to spread hatred along religious lines. “Such posts can create serious disturbances in society, and the police take these matters very seriously,” he said.
A reverse image search conducted by fact-checkers at Alt News, revealed that the photographs used in the viral post were unrelated to the claims, while two of the images were traced to a Pinterest account belonging to influencer Maulik Chopra and another image was sourced from an Instagram post by influencer Shivam Thakur featuring a woman named Deepanshi Rawat. The fourth image was found on an unrelated Instagram page. The images depicted different individuals and had no connection to any crime.
Police said they are also investigating Mishra’s motive behind sharing the false and provocative content.
