Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar on Friday announced that the State government would soon issue an order increasing the refreshment allowance for pourakarmikas from ₹35 to ₹70.

Speaking at the Pourakarmikas’ Day programme in Palace Grounds, Mr. Shivakumar said that a Cabinet sub-committee would be constituted to address the demands of civic workers, including issues related to their boards, welfare and welfare funds.

He said that the government was committed to regularising the remaining pourakarmikas and providing them permanent employment in the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board and Bengaluru Solid Waste Management Limited.

The government plans to construct Karnataka Public Schools (KPS) in urban areas for the children of pourakarmikas, he said. “Our aim is for your children to study, become leaders and create new employment opportunities. We want your children to become IAS and KAS officers,” he added.

Mr. Shivakumar said that the government had decided to provide ₹7.5 lakh for the construction of houses for civic workers. He also announced that a pourakarmika bhavan would be built, and the work would begin within two months.

He said as many as 12,609 porakarmikas had been regularised since the Congress government came to power in 2023, while 6,000 workers had been appointed in local bodies.

The Chief Minister said that the government would organise Pourakarmikas’ Day every year.

The Karnataka Examinations Authority (KEA) will begin the third-round seat allotment process for medical and dental courses from Thursday (September 24).

Candidates eligible to participate in the third round must pay the caution deposit by September 28, depending on the course and type of seat they wish to apply for. Those who pay the caution deposit can enter fresh options from September 25 to 29. Options entered in previous rounds will not be considered.

Candidates who are allotted a seat in this round must report to the respective college and complete the admission process.

The caution deposit is as follows: ₹1 lakh to enter options for government medical seats and all types of dental seats; ₹12 lakh to enter options for government and private medical seats, and ₹25 lakh for all types of seats.

Candidates who have taken admission to a medical or dental course do not need to pay the caution deposit. However, fees already paid for other courses will not be treated as the caution deposit.

If a candidate is allotted a seat in the third round but fails to report to the college and complete admission, the caution deposit paid by the candidate will be forfeited, said a release.

Amidst the controversy over the screening of a documentary on jailed activist Umar Khalid at National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru, Minister for Law and Justice Arjun Ram Meghwal visited the university on Wednesday (September 16). 

After the meeting at NLSIU, a delegation of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), Bengaluru, met him at Lok Bhavan and submitted a memorandum regarding the screening.

ABVP demanded that the postponed screening be cancelled and called for an inquiry into the organisers of such programmes. They also demanded a high-level inquiry against the university administration for having provided permission for the event. The delegation also requested that the university provide students with basic amenities and facilities they require.

According to the students at NLSIU, the Minister came on a pre-scheduled visit on the invitation of the students and faculty associated with the Legal Services Clinic (LSC) even before the controversy over the documentary erupted. 

The High Court of Karnataka has refused to quash criminal cases and money-laundering proceedings against Ozone Urbana Infra Developers, a Bengaluru-based builder and developer, and its promoters on allegations of cheating homebuyers by collecting huge advances from them and diverting funds on a large scale for purposes alien to the construction of the promised apartments.

Justice M. Nagaprasanna passed the order while dismissing petitions filed by the company and its promoters, Vasudevan Sathyamoorthy, his wife Prua Vasudevan, and others. The petitioners had challenged FIRs registered on complaints filed by aggrieved homebuyers and two Enforcement Case Information Reports (ECIRs) registered by the Enforcement Directorate (ED) in 2022 and 2025, as well as the ED’s provisional attachment of assets worth ₹423.38 crore.

The court noted that the complaints disclosed a pattern in which homebuyers were induced through attractive subvention schemes, tripartite agreements and assurances of timely possession, only to be left without homes or refunds. In one case, a complainant discovered that a flat booked in 2017 had been sold to another person in 2021 without the buyer’s knowledge or consent.

“The money is received, the property is not delivered, the loan burden remains with the homebuyer, and the very property promised to him is allegedly sold to another,” the court said, adding that such allegations “travel far beyond the realm of a mere contractual default”.

ED proceedings

The company argued that the ED proceedings were illegal as the predicate offences, namely the FIRs filed by homebuyers, had either been stayed or quashed. However, the court rejected the contention, noting that the 2025 ECIR was based not only on the earlier FIRs but also on a CBI FIR registered pursuant to Supreme Court directions to probe an alleged collusive nexus between builders and financial institutions to cheat homebuyers.

The CBI FIR alleged that Ozone Urbana, in connivance with officials of Indiabulls Housing Finance (now Sammaan Capital), devised a subvention scheme promising “No Pre-EMI till delivery of possession” to lure homebuyers. Loans were allegedly disbursed directly to the builder without adequate due diligence, and the company subsequently defaulted on pre-EMI payments, leaving homebuyers burdened with EMIs for flats that were never delivered.

The ED’s provisional attachment order, issued on October 4, 2025, covered properties worth ₹423.38 crore, including unsold inventory and land parcels belonging to the company and its promoters. The ED alleged that of the approximately ₹927.22 crore collected from more than 1,351 homebuyers, a substantial portion was siphoned off to group companies and personal accounts.

The court also emphasised the gravity of economic offences, observing that they affect a large number of stakeholders, particularly homebuyers who invest their life savings in the hope of owning a home.

Residents of C.V. Raman Nagar on Saturday submitted a memorandum to their MLA S. Raghu, seeking his intervention against the elevated corridors project taken up by Bengaluru Smart Infrastructure Ltd. (B-SMILE).

The residents are part of a citizen campaign urging the government to scrap the proposed elevated corridors and cancel the tenders already awarded for the project. About two weeks ago, the same group hosted a citizen discussion on the project under the title “Dear DK, Flyover Yaake?”

The campaigners have sought that the estimated ₹13,000-crore project budget instead be redirected towards what they describe as scientifically-backed mobility solutions.

A delegation from C.V. Raman Nagar visited Mr. Raghu’s office and submitted the memorandum, which detailed their concerns over the potential impact of the proposed corridor on their neighbourhoods.

The group stated that they also contacted Shanthinagar MLA N.A. Haris from the Congress over the phone and shared a copy of the memorandum. The citizen coalition plans to approach other legislators whose constituencies fall along the proposed elevated corridor routes as part of its campaign against the project.

While more than 80.62 lakh names were deleted from the draft roll after being marked as shifted or absent, and these voters were asked to fill Form-6 to be included in the final rolls, only 6.66 lakh Form-6 applications have been received so far — less than one in 10 of those marked as shifted or absent have applied for inclusion. The figure also includes applications from new voters. 

While 24,328 Form-6 applications were received on September 19, during the second campaign when BLOs were instructed to help the public with the inclusion and correction process, 6,42,670 applications were received between June 16 and September 17. 

While people can fill Form-6 even after the final rolls are published, the current figures suggest that the number of net additions could be low in the final roll. 

When The Hindu spoke to several voters who had been marked as absent or shifted, many said they did not know about the deadline (September 23) or how to fill the form. Several said their applications encountered multiple glitches when they tried to apply online, while others said they did not know whether their names were marked as shifted or absent in the ASDDO list. 

Voters marked as permanently shifted or absent account for the largest share of ASDDO deletions, with more than 80.62 lakh names marked under the two categories out of 1.07 crore deletions. More than 15 lakh were marked absent because they were not present during the enumeration phase, while the remaining had a different address in the current and previous rolls, something many said was common as rising rents and changing jobs have made it difficult to stay in one place in the city. Many also said they were wrongly put under the ASDDO category and did not know about it, as they returned the enumeration form as directed. 

Even in States where the SIR has been completed, the pattern suggests that the net additions have not been enough to offset the large-scale deletions. The claims and objections process, along with fresh registrations, brought some voters back into the rolls, but the total electorate still remained substantially lower overall. 

For instance, Bihar, where the SIR was first conducted, had 7.89 crore electors before the exercise. Although 21.53 lakh eligible electors were added through Form-6 during the revision, the final roll had about 7.42 crore electors — nearly 47 lakh less than before the SIR. Moreover, the figures do not establish how many of those added through Form-6 were electors who had been excluded from the draft roll and subsequently restored. 

The late-night downpour on Saturday (September 19) left the infamous Panathur Railway Underbridge (RuB) flooded yet again, leaving commuters in the busy east Bengaluru locality in misery the next morning. The incident once again exposed the subpar road infrastructure in the eastern part of the city, a day after Varthur-Gunjur Road made the headlines.

Panathur RuB is a key connecting link between Gunjur, Varthur, and the Outer Ring Road (ORR). Several techies and employees of private companies on the ORR use the RuB regularly, as there are very few road options for areas around Varthur, Gunjur and Panathur to reach the ORR.

The Saturday night rain left the RuB flooded, with water coming up to the hip level. Several vehicles stopped midway through the RuB and had to be towed out of the underpass. Two-wheeler riders pushed their motorcycles through the stagnant water to reach the other side. Many used the pavement along the RuB to push their scooters.

Pictures and videos from the RuB began flooding social media on Sunday (September 20) morning, with titles such as “live from Panathur”, tagging the local MLA, Bengaluru Development Minister, and other authorities.

Manoj S., a techie who uses the stretch on a daily basis, explained that the Panathur stretch witnesses severe congestion during peak hours on weekdays and that if rain can cause such a disruption for even two or three days, the whole area will be paralysed.

“It’s a shame that connectivity to the stretch that gives this city a name as Silicon Valley is riddled with such issues,” he said. Many residents took to X to share their frustration, with one Shajith stating, “If we can’t fix such a basic underpass, how do we expect this government to build tunnel roads?”

A senior traffic police officer told The Hindu that the RuB has always been a problem, but the flooding this time was severe. “It was a Sunday, so there wasn’t much disruption to traffic, but such a situation on weekdays would lead to gridlock, especially because S-Cross stretch still witnesses congestion,” he said.

However, the situation at the RuB improved by the evening. Similar problems persisted in areas around Panathur, while towards the south, HSR and Hosur Road witnessed severe waterlogging on Sunday morning.

The Karnataka Food Safety and Drugs Administration (FSDA) has cancelled the licences of 16 pharmaceutical retailers and wholesalers and suspended those of eight others, including the licence of multinational firm Pfizer’s depot in Nelamangala, in connection with the ongoing investigation into the alleged distribution and sale of spurious drugs.

The action follows the department’s investigation into a large-scale unlicenced drug repacking and relabelling racket uncovered at a farmhouse in Bengaluru South district’s Bidadi on August 18. The FSDA had seized spurious drugs, machinery and printing material worth ₹5.05 crore from the premises. When the preliminary investigation revealed the potential involvement of a large network, the State government formed a Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by IPS officer C. Vamsi Krishna.

Health Minister U.T. Khader addressed the press on Sunday (September 20) and said the licences of suspicious firms/pharmacies had been cancelled and those of a few others suspended for not cooperating with the SIT’s investigation. “We have stopped Pfizer’s sale in the State because they did not cooperate with the investigation,” Mr. Khader said. He added that he could not reveal much about the case as the SIT was investigating.

The Minister further stressed that strict action would be taken against those named in the SIT report after the investigation, regardless of how powerful or influential they might be.

When questioned about where people should go for medicines in such a situation, Mr. Khader said, “At present, everything is original in the government hospitals,” reiterating that medicines at government hospitals are safe.

Licences cancelled and suspended

According to the list shared by the FSDA, the firms whose licences have been cancelled include Avesco Healthcare in Prabhakar Reddy Layout, Bengaluru Speciality Pharma in Shivajinagar, Museum Road in Chamarajpet; Patel Medi Trade in Jayanagar, N.S. Pharma in Hubballi, and Sagar Pharma in Kumaraswamy Layout, among others.

The firms whose licences have been suspended include Sagar Pharma in Tilak Nagar, Surya Speciality Hospital in Bommasandra Industrial Area, and Vivanta Pharmaceuticals in Jayanagar, among others.

In a press statement, the FSDA urged citizens to buy medicines from licenced pharmacies and against valid tax invoices. It also urged people to report suspicious packaging or non-functional QR codes on drug labels.

What is the case?

According to the FSDA, the accused allegedly procured low-cost medicines from neighbouring States, refilled them into new vials and relabelled them as expensive, life-saving drugs of multinational companies. The department also seized 30 boxes of expired drugs, along with injection-filling machinery, forged labels and stamps.

The FSDA said the batch numbers and entries of the seized drugs had been blocked on its portal to prevent their further sale or distribution. Samples have also been sent for laboratory testing to verify their chemical composition, sterility and potency.

The department noted that the premises in Bidadi were being used to manufacture, store and distribute drugs without a valid licence. A criminal case has been registered under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940.

More than 200 taluks in the State are likely to be declared drought-affected, Deputy Chief Minister and Revenue Minister G. Parameshwara said in Davangere on Sunday.

“Drought-affected taluks will not be declared all at once. Another 52 taluks are likely to be declared drought-affected in the next three to four days. Already, 124 taluks have been declared drought-affected,” the Deputy Chief Minister told presspersons in Davangere. He said: “Based on the data currently available, more than 200 taluks across the State are likely to be included in the list of drought-affected taluks. The situation will continue to be reviewed until the end of the monsoon season. People need not be anxious about their taluks not being added to the drought-affected list.” In the first memorandum submitted to the Centre, Karnataka has estimated crop losses at around ₹18,000 crore and has sought ₹3,500 crore in compensation.

He said that the losses caused by the drought, assistance to farmers, and relief to be sought from the Union government would be discussed during the special legislature session, and that the views of the Opposition would be considered. “Discussion will also be held on seeking drought relief from the Union government and on the waiver of farm loans. The government will take the Opposition into confidence and present Karnataka’s demands. Considering the severe distress faced by farmers, the Union government should take a decision to support farmers across the country on farm loan waiver.”

Dr. Parameshwara also accused the Centre of adopting a stepmotherly attitude towards Karnataka, as ₹17,000 crore due under the Jal Jeevan Mission is yet to be released.