Hospital bed scam: Searches at Bengaluru corporation COVID war rooms
Bengaluru, May 6: Searches were carried out by police at the city corporation's COVID war rooms and data collected, in the backdrop of allegations of a scam in booking hospital beds for COVID-19 patients.
The development comes two days after BJP MP Tejasvi Surya alleged that hospitals here 'blocked' beds in fake names to make money, at a time when COVID-19 cases were rising in Karnataka.
Surya said officials of Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike 'colluded' with private nursing homes and hospitals to block beds and reserve it for exorbitant fees.
"Searches were conducted on Wednesday at eight zonal war rooms of the BBMP.
Lots of data has been collected," the city police said in a statement.
Eight teams were scrutinising all the data collected from the zones. Further action will be taken based on information taken out of the data, they said.
Police are also investigating the hospitals where four people were arrested for allegedly blocking beds in fake names for COVID-19 patients paying bribes.
So far seven people have been arrested in connection with the bed scam.
The Karnataka government has ordered reservation of 80 per cent of beds for COVID patients in private hospitals, in the wake of increase in cases.
With the spurt in coronavirus cases, the demand for hospital beds with ICU and ventilators have gone up.
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Affront to non-Hindi speaking people: Chidambaram slams use of Hindi words in bills' names
New Delhi (PTI): Congress leader P Chidambaram has slammed the "increasing practice" of the government using Hindi words in the titles of the bills and said the change is an "affront" to the non-Hindi-speaking people.
Chidambaram said the non-Hindi-speaking people cannot identify a Bill/Act with titles that are in Hindi words written in English letters, and they cannot pronounce them.
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"I am opposed to the increasing practice of the government using Hindi words written in English letters in the title of the Bills to be introduced in Parliament," the former Union minister said late Monday night.
Hitherto, the practice was to write the title of the Bill in English words in the English version and in Hindi words in the Hindi version of the Bill, Chidambaram said.
"When no one pointed out any difficulty in the 75 year practice, why should government make a change?" he said.
"This change is an affront to non-Hindi speaking people and to States that have an official language other than Hindi," the Congress leader said.
Successive governments have reiterated the promise that English will remain an Associate Official Language, Chidambaram said.
"I fear that promise is in danger of being broken," the Congress MP said.
