Med edu min takes a dip in pool, faces flak

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Bengaluru:14.04.2020

Medical education minister K Sudhakar, who is at the forefront of the state government’s efforts to stem the spread of the virus in Bengaluru and who is in charge of the state Covid-19 war room, has landed in a soup for posting a photograph of himself in a swimming pool.

Sudhakar tweeted the photo of him and his children in a pool at his bungalow in Sadashivanagar, a high-profile residential area in Bengaluru, with the caption, “After a long time joined my children for swimming hope maintaining social distancing here also.. haha (sic).”

The tweet incensed many of his supporters, who said the minister cannot post such “insensitive” pictures in these times of crisis.

Many Twitter users mocked Sudhakar with their own satirical versions of his poses, but some defended him saying his private moments should not be politicised. Sudhakar later deleted the tweet, but it had been widely shared by then.

Sudhakara defended himself, saying he did not nothing wrong. “In the past two months, I have hardly spent time with my family and children,” he told TOI. “We are struggling. My children requested me to join them. How can I not join my children for 10, 15 minutes? It is a children’s pool inside my own house. Is it a crime?”

KPCC president D K Shivakumar, Sudhakar’s neighbour, was one of the first to lash out at the minister, demanding his scalp. “When the whole world is going through a health crisis, Sudhakar is behaving irresponsibly by spending time in a swimming pool. It’s a matter of moral and ethical standards. He must resign of his own accord or else the chief minister should sack him from the cabinet, Shivakumar tweeted.

Full report on www.toi.in

‘Heckled’ US citizen fears coming out of home

-Uttara Varma

Hyderabad: It is not just the North East community that is facing discrimination during the lockdown but foreign nationals too are at the receiving end of the bias. A USA citizen has not left her home in the city since the lockdown began after being heckled at a hypermarket outlet.

Julie Price, who is in the city on business, arrived on January 30 this year. When the lockdown began, she decided to hit the store to buy some essentials. “I was not told why I could not enter the store. The security told me that no foreigners were allowed in. I was turned away at the door,” said Price, who was shocked at the treatment she was meted out considering that she had been shopping at the same store three times a week for six weeks and also during her previous trips.

The resident of Nashville, Tennessee, US, has rented a two-bedroom apartment in Vanasthalipuram and the supermarket is about three blocks away from home.

She said the incident “frightened me so much I have not left my apartment in 20 days.”