COVID vaccination underway

Six health facilities in the city are primed for the COVID vaccination programme, inaugurated nation-wide by the Prime Minister today (January 16). The Victoria Hospital campus has 11 vaccination sites, St John’s Hospital nine, KC General Hospital three and CV Raman Hospital one. The other two are Jayanagar General Hospital and Mallasandra primary health centre. In all, there are 243 centres across the State where the initial phase of vaccinating healthcare workers will be carried out over a week.

The chosen hospitals have also readied a separate ward to observe and treat severe allergic reactions, if any, to the vaccine.

Meanwhile, the Centre release a comparative fact sheet for Covishield and Covaxin vaccines, their contraindications and minor adverse events. For Covishield, possible adverse events following immunisation are: injection site tenderness, injection site pain, headache, fatigue, myalgia, malaise, pyrexia, chills and arthralgia and nausea. Pregnant or lactating women have not been part of Covid vaccine trials anywhere, so they are advised not to take the vaccine.

Victoria Hospital will also resume non-covid services from Monday, over 10 months after it closed in March 2020. 

Source: Deccan Herald, The New Indian Express

Green Line goes further south

The first commercial Metro line of Bengaluru Metro Phase II — an extension of the Nagasandra-Yelchenahalli (Green) Line, started operations on Friday. The 6.29 km extension, which overshot several deadlines, took five years to build.

The extended line has five stations after Yelchenahalli. They are: Konanakunte Cross, Doddakallasandra, Vajrahalli, Thalaghattapura and Silk Institute. Now, the Green Line, totalling 30.49 km, connects Silk Institute to Nagasandra. The extension is likely to increase the Metro’s ridership by 75,000.

Source: The New Indian Express, Bangalore Mirror

BBMP aims for Water Plus ranking

After bagging the ODF++ (open defecation free) certification, the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike is now aiming for the Water Plus certification under Swachh Survekshan 2021. This certification is given to cities that have achieved safe, sustainable sanitation for all, ensuring that no untreated wastewater is discharged into the open environment and ensure adequate capacity of wastewater and sewage treatment facilities. The city must have 100% connection to the sewage network, apart from using the treated water to some extent.

The Water Plus protocol aims to provide a guideline to ensure that no untreated wastewater is released into the environment, enabling sustainability of the sanitation value chain. Despite the ODF++ certification, the BBMP’s ranking was a low 214 last year.

Source: The Hindu, Bangalore Mirror

HC slams govt’s “negligence”: DJ Halli PILs

Justice H S Kempanna, a retired judge of the High Court, has complained to the High Court of Karnataka that he has not been provided with sufficient infrastructure to carry out his duties as the Claims Commissioner in the DJ Halli and KJ Halli violence. Following a series of PILs, Justice Kempanna was appointed by the High Court to assess and the damage caused to property in the August 11 violence.

A division bench observed that the government had “miserably failed” in providing infrastructure due to “gross negligence” by officials despite several directions issued by the court since October 2020.

Source: The Hindu

Metered sales of Bescom fall

Bangalore Electricity Supply Company saw metered sales plummet last year. Post lockdown, HT sales reduced by 24.5% from April to November when compared to 2019–20 and LT sales by 9.5% for the same period. This is said to be the biggest drop in recent years.

Domestic consumption too saw a marked reduction. The power utility recently filed a tariff revision petition with the Karnataka Electricity Regulatory Commission (KERC) seeking an average ₹1.39 per unit hike, partly due to lower metered sales. According to Bescom, its major expenditure is power purchase, the cost of which accounts for nearly 84% of the total expenditure.

Source: The Hindu

Fastest growing global tech hub

Bengaluru is the world’s fastest growing mature tech ecosystem in the world since 2016, followed by the European cities of London, Munich, Berlin and Paris. India’s financial centre, Mumbai, in sixth place, according to Dealroom.co data analysed by London & Partners.

The Mayor of London’s international trade and investment agency reveals that investment in Bengaluru grew 5.4 times from $1.3 billion in 2016 to $7.2 billion in 2020, with Mumbai growing 1.7 times. London registered an impressive three times growth between 2016 and 2020.

Source: Deccan Herald

Air India flight with all-woman cockpit crew lands

An Air India flight from San Francisco to Bengaluru with an all-women cockpit crew made a successful landing at Kempegowda International Airport on Monday. It was the first ever non-stop service between two destinations flown by women pilots. The Boeing 777-200LR, after 17 hours, reached KIA with 288 passengers.

The direct distance between Bengaluru and San Francisco is 13,993 km, and the cities are diametrically at opposite ends of the globe, with a time zone change of 13.5 hours.

Source: The Hindu

Offline college for all years

Offline classes for students of first and second year postgraduate and undergraduate courses in degree, diploma and engineering courses began on January 15. Attendance, however, remained thin on Friday. College canteens, libraries, sports, cultural activities and NCC and NSS training open, as also the hostels and bus-pass facilities, have also begun. Precautionary measures, including COVID-19 tests and sanitisation, are prescribed.

Source: The Hindu

[Compiled by Revathi Siva Kumar]