* Govt. to publish books on places of cultural, historical importance

The State Government plans to publish books on places of cultural and historical importance like Dharwad, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said in Dharwad on Sunday. Among other things, such books will help combat the tendency to twist historical facts, he said.

“Such books will be brought out on several towns and cities in the State. Funds will be allocated towards this project in the coming budget,” the Chief Minister said after inaugurating Channaveeragouda Anna Patil Memorial Trust at the Patil Puttappa Hall, Karnataka Vidyavardhak Sangha (KVS). He said that the work of documenting the cultural history of Dharwad will be given to KVS.

* Lokayukta website launched

The new website of Karnataka Lokayukta was launched on Thursday.

According to an official release, Governor Thaawarchand Gehlot, who inaugurated the website at the Lokayukta headquarters in the city, said the Lokayukta website has been upgraded to provide transparency in the functioning of the organisation and provide timely information to complainants, defendants, and the public.

* New Karnataka govt portal to rate citizens’ eligibility for welfare schemes

Karnataka offers about 250 welfare schemes but most of them still follow the manual process.

The platform, Suvidha, functions directly under Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, who is pushing the welfare plank in the election year, and is part of several e-governance initiatives being rolled out by the government.

“Suvidha is different from the Seva Sindhu, which is meant for services such as certificates or documents. Suvidha is for welfare schemes that involve a direct benefit,” he explained.

* Bengaluru firm Strides Pharma Science to launch oral drug to fight Covid

n a statement, Strides said it will “immediately launch” its generic Molnupiravir, indicated for high-risk adult patients with Covid under the brand Stripiravir.

Bengaluru pharma company Strides Pharma Science Limited said that it has received Emergency Use Authorisation from the Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) to launch Molnupiravir, an oral medication for Covid-19 in India.

In a statement, Strides said it will “immediately launch” its generic Molnupiravir, indicated for high-risk adult patients with Covid under the brand Stripiravir. The company is commercialising the product with a group-integrated supply chain for active pharmaceutical ingredients and solid oral dosage from its large-scale WHO pre-qualified manufacturing capacities, the company stated.

* BMTC launches electric bus services in Bengaluru

The first service will be to Kengeri

In a green milestone, the first fleet of electric buses and BS-VI diesel standard buses hit the city’s road on Monday. With this, the long wait for green public transport of seven years has come to an end.

Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai flagged off the State’s first batch of these buses deployed on a long-term basis on Monday morning and the buses hit the streets making their maiden trips later in the day.

* Mangaluru: Vimala V Pai Vishwa Konkani Puraskar winners announced

Vimala V Pai Vishwa Konkani Sahitya Puraskar, the annual literary awards for Konkani literature instituted by World Konkani Centre for the year 2021 have been announced by The Konkani Bhas ani Sanskriti Prathistan, World Konkani Centre, Mangaluru.

Massam, a collection of Konkani short stories by Antony Barkur (Antony Prakash D’Souza) has been chosen as the Best Konkani Book of the Year (Prose) for Vimala V Pai Vishwa Konkani Sahitya Puraskar 2021.

Indradhonu Udeum a collection of Konkani poems by Uday Narasinha Mhambro has been selected as the Best Konkani Book of the Year (Poetry) for Vimala V Pai Vishwa Konkani Kavita Kruti Puraskar 2021.

Suresh Jaywant Borkar has been identified as the recipient for the Vimala V Pai Vishwa Konkani Jeevan Siddhi Samman 2021 for his life time contribution to Konkani language pedagogy, grammar and lexicography

* Aerospace incubation centre launched at NAL

The centre was described as the first public-private partnership in India

The announcement was made by Social Alpha, a venture development platform for science and technology start-ups.

Dubbed mach33.aero, the centre was described as the first public-private partnership in India.

The centre is housed on the CSIR-NAL campus and will focus on aviation, defence, space exploration, agriculture and climate action.

* Railway cops use novel remote sensing app to record unnatural deaths on Karnataka rail tracks

The Government Railway Police (GRP) is making use of a novel system to ready Unnatural Death Reports (UDR) on railway tracks: an application developed by the Karnataka State Remote Sensing Applications Centre (KSCRAC) to capture all details of a deceased person with location accuracy and related geo-tagged photos.

This innovative usage of technology was initiated by Additional Director General of Police, Railways, South Western Railway Zone, Bhaskar Rao. It is now being utilised by railway cops on a full-fledged basis following the completion of trials that commenced in March this year.

* Azim Premji Foundation, Salesforce to launch app to accelerate Covid-19 vaccination

‘To cover 110 million people in 25 States by June 2022’

Salesforce, a customer relationship management player, and Azim Premji Foundation have entered into a collaboration to introduce VaxIT, an app to help accelerate Covid-19 vaccination in India.

The programme would use VaxIT across 25 States to cover a population of 110 million (11 crore) across over 3,500 Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) by June 2022.

The VaxIT app, developed on the Salesforce platform for Azim Premji Foundation and its partners, would capture the status of vaccination to help individuals plan and stay updated on their progress in the healthcare programme. VaxIT is available on the Android app store and offers multi-lingual, and offline capabilities.

* Mangaluru: Dr Edward Nazareth elected president of Karnataka Orthopaedic Association

Dr Edward Nazareth, renowned orthopaedic surgeon of the city has been elected unopposed as the ‘President-Elect-2022’ of Karnataka Orthopaedic Association. The Karnataka Orthopaedic Association is the registered official organization of the state with more than 1,700 members from all over the state of Karnataka and also a few members from the adjoining states.

Dr Edward has worked from 2012 to 2015 as the founder-editor of the ‘Journal of Karnataka Orthopaedic Association’ and later on from 2015 to 2018, he served the association as the ‘Secretary General’. During his tenure as the secretary general, the financial base of the association was consolidated and several reforms like online voting were initiated.