Karnataka Bandh Live Updates

Karnataka Bandh Live Updates:

Normal life has come to a halt in Bengaluru as the bandh called by several Kannada organisations and regional outfits for the Mahadayi river water from the neighbouring Goa state in the northwest.

• Several major IT companies including Infosys and Wipro have decided to suspend the operations.
• Traffic towards town hall circle has been blocked from all the directions as more than 1000 Kannada activists have gathered in front of Town Hall
• Most of the colleges and schools remain shut. 
• Kannada Rakshana Vedike (Protection Forum) Narayana Gowda: We are forced to shut down across the state from 6:00 am to 6:00 pm on Thursday for the Prime Minister's intervention in getting the Mahadayi water to meet the drinking needs of the people in the state's four northern districts
• Essential services like ambulance, hospitals, milk supply, sale of vegetables and fruits and drugs through medical shops  are available to avoid inconvenience to the public
• Hotels, restaurants, bars, malls, theatres, and multiplexes may remain shut as a precautionary measure to prevent an untoward incident.
• All shops, malls and hotels are open in Mysuru
• No incidence of violence reported in Bengaluru so far
• With state-run buses remaining off the road, passengers who had come to the city from outside were stranded at the main bus terminal here. Similar reports have come in from  Mysuru, Gadag, Dharwad and Hassan. Autorickshaws and cabs were plying but in lesser numbers. Cab and auto rickshaw drivers said customers were few today as most of the offices have declared holiday, reports said.

What is Mahadayi river dispute? 

The 77km-long Mahadayi or Mandovi river originates at Bhimgad in the Western Ghats in Belagavi district of north-west Karnataka and flows into the neighbouring Goa and eventually joins the Arabian Sea off the west coast.Though the river runs 29 km in Karnataka and 52km in Goa, its catchment area is spread over 2,032km in the southern state as against 1,580km in the western state (Goa).Karnataka has been asking Goa since 2001 to release 7.6 tmcft (thousand million cubic feet) of the river water to meet the drinking needs of its people in the drought-prone four districts and irrigating their farmlands.