1. Government to consider proposal to carry out cloud seeding in Karnataka
The Karnataka government will consider a proposal to carry out cloud seeding in the State in the wake of forecast of cloudy weather conditions over the next three to four days, Deputy Chief Minister D.K. Shivakumar assured the Legislative Assembly on December 8.
He acknowledged that previous experiments with cloud seeding in different parts of Karnataka had yielded positive results, and the government is inclined to consider such a proposal again for the benefit of the State’s farmers. Karnataka is passing through a severe drought with the failure of the southwest monsoon, and had declared a drought in 220 out of the 236 taluks in the State.
2. 5,965 driving licences suspended in Karnataka in 3 years for fatal accidents
The driving licenses (DL) of 5,965 drivers have been suspended in the past three years (2020–21 to 2022–23) for causing fatal road accidents across Karnataka. The period saw a total of 29,173 fatal accidents, reveals data from the Transport Department.
Belagavi topped the chart with 2,295 fatal accidents in the three-year period (683 accidents in 2020-21, 754 accidents in 2021-22, and 857 accidents in 2022-23). The district was followed by Bengaluru Urban (1,994 accidents), Tumakuru (1,917 accidents), Bengaluru Rural (1,603 accidents), and Mysuru (1,554 accidents) districts.
3. COVID data missing in Karnataka’s weekly infectious disease reports due to technical glitch
After consistently releasing daily COVID bulletins for nearly 33 months, the Karnataka Health Department stopped the daily updates on November 7. Instead, it started posting weekly infectious disease reports on the Integrated Health Information Platform (IHIP). However, COVID data is missing in the five weekly reports uploaded so far.
As communicated by ICMR on November 7, due to technical issues in its portal, the details regarding COVID-19 testing and positive cases will not be available temporarily. Sources said it may take six weeks for COVID data to be included in the weekly infectious disease reports.
4. Kalyana Karnataka region records increase in crime against women: NCRB data
A total of 2,411 cases of crime against women were registered across seven districts of Kalyana Karnataka region in 2022, up from 2,227 in 2021 and 2,087 in 2020, according to the latest data released by National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
Ballari registered the highest rate of crime against women (530 cases) in 2022, followed by Kalaburagi (520 cases), Raichur (515 cases) Koppal (330 cases), Bidar (283 cases) and Yadgir (233 cases). Comparing the annual NCRB data of the last five years (2018-2022), Kalaburagi recorded the highest number of crimes against women (2643) in Kalyana Karnataka region, while Koppal registered lowest crimes (1,241). It was 2,225 in Ballari, 2,215 in Raichur, 1,339 in Bidar and 1,301 in Yadgir.
