Operation Sindhu: 51 people from Alipur of Karnataka return home
Bengaluru, Jun 24 (PTI): Despite "complete and total ceasefire" being called for by US President Donald Trump, Iran-Israel conflict continues to create uncertainty for Indian nationals in the region, pushing the case for the continuation of Operation Sindhu.
A group of 51 people from Alipur village in Karnataka’s Chikkaballapura district returned home from Iran on Tuesday.
Of the 51 evacuees, the first group of 25 people have already arrived at the Kempegowda International Airport in Bengaluru.
One such returnee, Mir Asif, a student of Islamic Studies, told PTI Videos: “It was scary, but we are happy now that we are back.”
Syed Mohammed Razi, another returning Islamic Studies student, who has been living in Iran for six years now, said, “Although there was a lot happening in Tehran, in our city it was normal.”
Both the students thanked the Indian Embassy and Karnataka government for making it possible for them to return home.
Yet another student of Islamic Studies, Syed Ashraf said he and four of his family members decided to leave even though the situation was fine where they were staying in Iran. “But in general, it was not so good. So, we are glad that the Indian government decided to evacuate all of us. Happy to be back,” added Ashraf.
Alipur is a Shia Muslim-dominated village known for its strong cultural and religious ties with Iran. Over 100 people from here had gone to Iran -- most of them were students, while some were visiting family members or were engaged in business.
Immediately after Israel bombed Iran, the family members of those stuck in Iran had told PTI that most residents from Alipur, who were in various Iranian cities, have been moved to safer areas.
More people from Alipur are expected to come back home in the coming days.
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Bengaluru: In a significant move towards enhancing disaster preparedness, the Karnataka State Natural Disaster Monitoring Centre (KSNDMC), in collaboration with UNICEF, launched the Karnataka State Disaster Risk Reduction Roadmap (KSDRR) 2025-2030 on Monday, marking the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction.
With this initiative, Karnataka has become the fifth state in India to launch the Disaster Risk Reduction Roadmap, following Bihar, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Assam, as reported by The New Indian Express.
The new roadmap is designed to mitigate the impact of natural disasters and reduce the state’s vulnerability. Over the past five years, Karnataka has suffered an estimated Rs 1 lakh crore in losses due to floods, droughts, lightning, hailstorms, fire, and other calamities. Addressing these challenges, Mullai Muhilan, Director of KSNDMC, emphasised that the goal of the KSDRR is to implement a systematic approach to preventing and managing such disasters.
“The theme on this day is ‘Fund Resilience, Not Disasters’, and that is why this roadmap is a framework of existing solutions to reduce and prevent losses by mitigating floods, drought, earthquakes, heat waves and so on,” TNIE quoted Muhilan as saying.
The KSDRR outlines a multi-phase strategy, which includes a vulnerability profile of Karnataka, highlights DRR developments, initiatives taken in the state, financial arrangements, and defines the roles and responsibilities of stakeholders as per the National Disaster Management Act, 2005.
The roles and responsibilities, work implementation in the road map are based on three major milestones divided to achieve in five years. All departments, gram panchayats have prepared disaster management plans with latest data as baseline information.
In milestone 2 for the year 2027-28, the roadmap envisions that the state has to collaborate and partner with various stake holders from local to global level. In milestone 3, for the year 2029-30, it mentions reducing infrastructure damage, human and animal deaths, casualties by 75%.
“Currently, KSNDMC has applications including Varuna Mitra, dedicated mainly to providing weather forecast to farmers across the state. Similarly, we have Megha Sandesha, a mobile app developed in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Science. This app was created to mitigate urban floods and it provides information to various government bodies especially BWSSB, and others. We are still working on this app to provide information and data to BDA, GBA on the areas that might flood in the future. They can use this data before giving clearance to buildings of layouts,” explained Muhilan.
As part of the roadmap, several government departments have been directed to work towards risk identification, risk reduction, preparedness, financial protection, and resilient recovery. For instance, the Education Department will be responsible for developing school-level disaster management plan.
The roadmap also outlines a robust infrastructure for real-time disaster monitoring. Karnataka has already installed 6,500 telemetric rain gauge stations at the gram panchayat level, alongside 850 telemetric weather stations at the taluk level. Other installations include lightning and thunderstorm sensors, water level sensors in Bengaluru and surrounding cities, and seismic sensors at major dam sites.
