Puttur: 9-yr-old boys dies, two others wounded as speeding car hits pedestrians

Mangaluru: The MLC by-election for the Dakshina Kannada and Udupi Local Authorities Constituency commenced at 8 AM on Monday, with voting set to continue until 4 PM. A total of 392 polling booths have been established across the two districts, which form the constituency.

The constituency has 6,032 eligible voters, including 3,127 women. Early reports indicated brisk voting at the Mangaluru City Corporation polling booth, where corporators were seen patiently standing in line in the morning.

In a unique moment, Sharath, a gram panchayat member from Kokkada, cast his vote at Kokkada Gram Panchayat before heading to his wedding ceremony.

The constituency features 53 sensitive polling booths. Eligible voters include members of gram panchayats, corporators from Mangaluru City Corporation, city and town municipal councils, town panchayats, MLAs, MLCs, and Lok Sabha members representing the Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts.

Notably, Byndoor MLA Gururaj Gantihole and MLC Prathap Simha Nayak, who do not represent local bodies, were left out of the voters' list. According to electoral rules, only those MLAs, MLCs, and MPs who represent city corporations, municipalities, town panchayats, taluk panchayats, or zilla panchayats are granted voting rights in the MLC elections for the Local Authorities’ Constituency.

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.

A recent survey has exposed a troubling rise in anti-Muslim racism across Europe, fueled by heightened conflicts in West Asia and Europe’s increasingly hostile climate for Muslims. The EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) revealed on Thursday that nearly half of European Muslims faced discrimination in the past five years, with the situation worsening notably over the last year as violence flared in Gaza.

Nicole Romain, a spokeswoman for FRA, confirmed reports of intensified anti-Muslim hate across several EU countries. "Even before the current escalation, it was already becoming increasingly challenging to live as a Muslim in the EU," she said, pointing to dehumanizing rhetoric and profiling practices that target Muslims based on religion, ethnicity, and even physical appearance.

The survey, conducted prior to Israel’s large-scale assault on Gaza, included data from over 9,600 Muslims across more than a dozen EU nations between October 2021 and October 2022. The results highlighted Austria as having the highest rate of discrimination against Muslims at 71 percent, followed closely by Germany (68 percent) and Finland (63 percent). France, home to Europe’s second-largest Muslim population, reported a rate of 39 percent.

Women and children are disproportionately affected, particularly those wearing religious attire such as the hijab. FRA's report sheds light on the pervasive racial profiling Muslims face, from random police checks to discrimination in employment despite high qualifications. Director Sirpa Rautio warned that as conflicts continue to escalate, the impact on Muslims in Europe is likely to worsen, compounding challenges for the EU’s 26 million-strong Muslim population, which makes up more than 5 percent of the bloc's residents.