Age limit to be relaxed for Rajyotsava award: Karnataka CM Bommai

Deciding to do away with the age limit during the selection of achievers for the prestigious Rajyotsava awards, Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai on Monday announced that the government would relax the age limit rule from next year, besides increasing the prize money from the existing Rs 1 lakh to Rs 5 lakh.

Presenting the 66th Rajyotsava awards to the achievers of various fields at Ravindra Kalakshetra, Bommai said the government would identify the achievers rather than inviting applications for the award henceforth. "A few years ago, as per the High Court's direction, the government had ordered that minimum age limit to select for the Rajyotsava awards shall be 60 years. We have decided to appeal to the court to allow us to relax these rules and honour the true achievers without any age bar," Bommai said.

Applauding the selection committee for choosing deserving achievers for the prestigious award, he said, "The selection of achievers shall be done on the basis of a search process and not through seeking applications. Also, there is a widespread opinion that it is inappropriate to reward a person based on age."

Kannada police parade commands

Earlier in the day, interacting with the media persons, Bommai said that the government would soon implement Kannada commands during police parades.

"Currently the commands during police parade are in English and the same will be replaced by Kannada in a few days," he said.

Senior IPS officer and current Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) B R Ravikanthe Gowda had experimented with Kannada commands during his stint as Belagavi SP.

Discuss Karnataka Ratna award to Puneeth

Responding to the demand on various social media platforms urging the state government to honour the late actor Puneeth Rajkumar with the Karnataka Rathna award, Bommai said that he would discuss with the officials and other representatives of the film industry and decide.

Govt monitoring Covid situation

Referring to a slight increase in the number of Covid cases in various places and the possibility of an outbreak of the third wave, the CM said, "We are in touch with the health experts both at the state and national level. We are also watching the trends and analysing the situation in other countries. Our experts will give us a report on the same and we will be taking all necessary precautionary measures."

Watch latest videos by DH here: