Here are the big stories from Karnataka today

Karnataka Today newsletter: Is the urban water system breaking? and more

Bengaluru, often celebrated for being a ‘garden city’, the ‘IT capital’ of the country, and its pleasant weather, has been making headlines this year for facing a severe water crisis following the drought of 2023. The water crisis is also likely to hit other urban centres and rural areas. According to a recent weekly bulletin by the Central Water Commission, even as peak summer is around the corner, most of the major reservoirs in the southern States of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana are filled to only 25% of their capacity or less.

Is the urban water system breaking? T.V. Ramachandra and S. Vishwanath discuss the question in a conversation moderated by K.C. Deepika. Listen here.

Mandya MP Sumalatha Ambareesh joined the BJP on April 5 in the presence of former Karnataka chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa, in Bengaluru. Her close aide, film producer and distributor ‘Rockline’ Venkatesh, too joined the BJP. The actor-turned-politician won the Mandya seat in the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, with support from the BJP. This time, the seat has gone to the JD(S) and the candidate is former chief minister H.D. Kumaraswamy.

Claiming that she was not joining the BJP for securing her own political future, Ms. Sumalatha said, “The future of my district, my State and my country are more important to me than my own political future.” Describing Prime Minister Narendra Modi as ‘a leader who walks the talk’, she said, “The Prime Minister’s leadership and his dream for India’s development are my inspiration.”

Some private schools have alleged poor quality of work and incorrect totalling of marks in the process of evaluation of answer sheets of the board examination (Summative Assessment-2) for classes 5, 8 and 9 in Karnataka. Other errors included improper evaluation, interchange of answer sheets, some pages not being evaluated and not awarding marks for correct answers.

The board exams for classes 5, 8 and 9 were completed on March 28 and the KSEAB completed the evaluation on April 2. Scores of the students have to be entered in the Student Achievement Tracking System (SATS) followed by transfer of the answer sheets to the respective schools before announcement of the results on April 10.

The Soujanya Horata Samiti, in association with Prajaprabhutva Vedike and Rashtriya Hindu Jagrana Vedike, will organise a NOTA (none of the above) campaign seeking justice for the rape and murder of 17-year-old Soujanya, near Dharmasthala in Dakshina Kannada in 2012.