No move to shift Bengaluru air show to Lucknow: Minister
Bengaluru, Aug 13: There is no move to shift "Aero India 2019" from Bengaluru to Lucknow, as clarified by Defence Ministry officials, said Union Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Ananth Kumar on Monday.
"I have spoken to (Defence Minister) Nirmala Sitharaman, who has confirmed the same -- no decision on shifting Aero India 2019 venue out of Bengaluru to Lucknow," said Kumar in a tweet.
Kumar is a six-time Lok Sabha member from Bengaluru South constituency, while Sitharaman is a Rajya Sabha member from Karnataka.
"There were similar rumours last time too, which were proved to be unfounded," added Kumar, referring to media reports then that the 2017 air show would be shifted to Goa, from where former Defence Minister Manohar Parrikar hailed.
Kumar's tweet came within hours after Karnataka Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy wrote a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, seeking his intervention to ensure that the February 2019 five-day biennial event is held in this tech hub only.
"I seek your indulgence for conducting the 12th edition of Aero India-2019 in Bengaluru, where the mega event was held successfully for 11 times biennially since 1996," said Kumaraswamy in the letter to Modi.
The letter was written following media reports that the Defence Ministry was planning to shift the upcoming air show to Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh, ahead of the general elections in mid-2019.
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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.
