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The blood barrier
Volunteers get caste, religion and gender-based
blood donation requests
Hospital staffers and organisers of blood donation drives have been facing a very bizarre situation with people in need of blood requesting blood from
donors with specific caste, religion or gender.
Arun Menon, a coordinator for The
Save Life initiative, an NGO in
East Bengaluru, said that they have been receiving such bizarre requests through messages on WhatsApp. “People make gender-specific requests for blood donation and say that they need only male donors which I refuse immediately as how would the gender of the donor matter. We have female donors too coming forward to donate and people sending out such messages are not right and we don’t entertain any kind of discrimination. A few months ago, we received a request from a family who wanted blood specific to a caste and requested donors from their religion or caste. Not just us, even the doctors have been receiving such reques
“The contractor has removed the boulders kept around the underground cable access chambers but they have not covered the gaps around the chambers. It is difficult for senior citizens to walk on this road,’’ says Sunita Vaznaik, a resident.
Synopsis
Karnataka is home to over 800,000 medium, small and micro enterprises and the sector provides the second largest employment after agriculture
iStock
MSMEs are hoping the government will offer some relief package similar to last year.
BENGALURU: Medium, small scale and micro industries in Karnataka are battling one of their toughest challenges with last year s lockdown coupled with subsequent downturn and again a lockdown now has led to many of them shuttering their operations.
Industry body KASSIA estimates that about 10-15% of them have closed down due to a variety of reasons including sharp drop in revenues, piling debt, non receipt of receivables, and lack of working capital. Sections of industrialists ET spoke to are concerned that a similar fate might befall the MSME sector.
Junction Oxygen
First
When senior officers asked Gireesh C, a loco pilot, to operate the first
Oxygen Express train to
Karnataka just two hours before its arrival in Jolarpettai railway station, it was a moment of pride for the 36-year-old. A resident of Hennur Bande in East Bengaluru, Gireesh was well aware of city’s urgent need for oxygen to save hundreds of covid-19 patients.
At sharp 7.05 am, the train – with six cryogenic containers carrying medical oxygen - arrived at the station from Tatanagar in Jamshedupur (Jharkhand). The Bengaluru divison took over the train in Jollarpettai station at 7.05 am. Gireesh, the man behind the operations, brought the train to Whitefield sharp at 8.52 am, clocking more than 80-kmph. He is extremely happy.