Karnataka govt issues directions on loudspeakers - permission required over next 15 days

News Network
May 10, 2022

Bengaluru, May 10: In the wake of the Azaan versus Hanuman Chalisa row in Karnataka, the state government has issued a set of directions on the use of loudspeakers and to remove them if they were not authorised by the 'designated authority.'

The note issued by the state Chief Secretary P Ravi Kumar to the Additional Chief Secretary Jawaid Akhtar said Forest, Ecology and Environment Department also defined the 'designated authority.'

The development comes following a row from Monday morning on this issue with some Hindu groups, mainly Sriram Sena, Bajrang Dal and Hindu Janajagruthi Samithi organising Bhajan-Keertan from pre-dawn to counter Azaan from mosques.

As the row aggravated, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai held a meeting on Monday, following which the Chief Secretary issued a note to Akhtar. Citing the Supreme Court ruling dated July 18, 2005, and October 28, 2005, regarding the implementation of the Noise Pollution (Regulation and Control) Rules, 2000, the Chief Secretary said loudspeakers or the Public Address System should not be used except after obtaining permission from the designated authority. Rule 5 (2) of the NPRC Rules bars the use of loudspeaker or public address system or any sound-producing instrument at night time except in closed premises, subject to other conditions, the note said.

"All users of loudspeakers or public address system shall obtain written permission from the designated authority within 15 days. Those who don't obtain should voluntarily remove or should be removed by the designated authority," Kumar said in his note.

He also directed that a committee should be formed at different levels to decide on the application of loudspeaker or public address systems. In police commissioner areas, the committee will comprise an assistant commissioner of police, a jurisdictional executive engineer of the city corporation and a representative of the state pollution control board. In other areas, deputy superintendents of police, the jurisdictional Tehsildar and a representative of the state pollution control board.

"This is applicable to all premises which are using loudspeakers and public address system. Necessary government orders or directions shall be issued to all concerned to implement this with IMMEDIATE effect," the note read.

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News Network
October 21,2024

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The UN’s special rapporteur on the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian territories has described Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip as “the collective shame of the century” amid the failure of the international community to protect Palestinians’ rights.

Francesca Albanese made the remarks in an X post on Sunday, as more than a year of the Israeli onslaught has flattened Gaza, killed tens of thousands of innocent people, and displaced almost the entire population in the besieged territory, often multiple times.

“In Gaza, the collective shame of the century continues unabated and unstopped, in defiance of every norm of international law and morale,” she said.

“The Palestinians, exhausted by relentless attacks on their bodies and souls are abandoned to their tormentors.”

Albanese also noted that “summary executions, mass forced displacements, and other egregious abuses” that are being perpetrated by the occupation forces against Palestinians in Gaza are all “a disgraceful testament to our global failure to protect basic human rights.”

“The United Nations, once a believed beacon of hope and a force for peace, are crumbling under the weight of this shame - and the pressure of the inaction or complicity of its most powerful member states,” she emphasized.

Israel unleashed its brutal Gaza offensive on October 7, 2023, after the Hamas resistance group carried out its historic operation against the usurping entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.

The Tel Aviv regime has so far killed at least 42,603 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and injured 99,795 others, according to the Gaza Health Ministry.

In a violation of international law, Israel has issued mass evacuation orders in Gaza and deliberately targeted schools and hospitals, used as shelters by displaced Palestinians.

The US and its allies, which have been supporting Israel, have prevented the UN from putting an end to the brutal aggression against the Gaza Strip despite an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe there.

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News Network
October 29,2024

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At least 60 people, including children, have been killed in Israeli strikes on several areas in Lebanon’s eastern Bekaa Valley, the Lebanese Health Ministry says.

The ministry said at least 58 people were also wounded in the attacks on 12 areas in the Bekaa Valley on Monday.

Of the 60 killed, at least 16 deaths were recorded in al-Alaq, west of Baalbek city, the ministry added.

The casualty figures were preliminary and are expected to rise as rescue efforts were still ongoing, according to to the ministry.

Baalbek governor Bachir Khodr denounced the attacks on the area as the "most violent" since the start of the Israeli aggression.

Israel has been targeting Lebanon since October 2023, when it launched a genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.

Hezbollah has been responding to the aggression with numerous retaliatory operations, including one with a hypersonic ballistic missile, targeting the occupied Palestinian territories.

Since late September, Israel has escalated its strikes against Hezbollah, killing its leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah and a number of its senior figures.

At least 2,710 people have been killed by Israeli fire, and 12,592 others wounded since the clashes began last year, the health ministry says.

The Lebanese resistance movement has vowed to keep up its operations against Israel as long as the Israeli regime continues its Gaza war, which has so far killed at least 43,020 Palestinians, mostly women and children.

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News Network
October 27,2024

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The Israeli regime’s forces have carried out intense bombing raids against six buildings in the city of Beit Lahia in northern Gaza Strip, killing at least 45 people.

Dozens more were also wounded after the raids targeted the structures, including a house belonging to a Palestinian family named as Abu Shidiq, on Saturday.

The attacks came as the severity of the regime’s aggression has forced the Palestinian Civil Defense to cease its activities in the northern side of the coastal sliver, leaving civilians there to their own devices.

Commenting on the situation, Director-General of the Gaza Health Ministry, Medhat Abbas said more than 900 Palestinians had been killed over the past weeks during the Israeli campaign that has targeted the northern areas.

Kamal Adwan Hospital, the last functioning hospital in the north, has been a special focus of the campaign that has either killed all of the facility’s doctors or forced them to flee, with the exception of three physicians, who remain there, he added.

“The occupation is committing genocide by destroying the health system in Gaza,” Abbas noted.

The regime embarked on implementing a so-called “Generals’ Plan” in northern Gaza earlier in the month, deploying hundreds of military vehicles and thousands of forces with immense firepower towards its realization.

The plan seeks to tighten the regime’s siege against the areas, cut off humanitarian aid to hundreds of thousands of Palestinians inside, and label those who remain there as combatants so it could target and kill them after declaring the areas "closed military zones.”

The plan is part of a genocidal war that the regime launched against the Gaza Strip last October, during which it has killed more than 42,924 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and wounded another 100,833.

Also on Saturday, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), a civil rights group, called on the United States, the regime’s biggest supporter, to stop the “systematic extermination of an entire population” in Gaza.

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