Andhra Pradesh

Adilabad, February 14: Information and Public Relations Commissioner C Parthasarathi, who was the chief guest at the district literary and cultural festival held at Mancherial on Sunday, said such programmes would revive the folk arts and other traditional cultural art forms at a stage when they were struggling to survive.

Parthasarathi recalled his experience of working as the DRDA project director of the district and said the backward district of Adilabad had achieved good development during the past few years. He praised the organisers for holding the two-day function on a grand scale.

Guntur, February 14: The Endowments Department’s decision to allow construction of a temple in front of the existing Sri Trikoteswara Swamy temple on Kotappakonda has run into a major controversy.

Kotappakonda is the abode of Lord Trikoteswara Swamy also known as Medho Dakshinamurthy, who is in the form of Lingam.

Eluru, FEbruary 14: A pall of gloom descended in Dodditipalta village of Yelamanchili mandal in West Godavari district, as four members of a ryot family allegedly committed suicide today. According to Yelamanchili sub-inspector NSC Rao Reddy, the entire family resorted to suicide due to mounted financial problems.

Vishakapatnam, February 14: After she failed to get family pension from Visakhapatnam Port Trust (VPT) and was unable to eke out a living, a 65-year-old woman sought permission from the district collector to end her life.

G Devudamma of Mallunaidu Palem of Sabbavaram mandal in the district lost her husband Atchiyya, who worked in the ore handling complex of VPT, in 1997 while he was in service. Devudamma requested the VPT authorities for employment and family pension. But when VPT denied her both, she worked as a daily labourer.

Hyderabad, February 14: Power cuts have not yet become ubiquitous across the state, but soon they might be since the demand is slowly going up.

For instance, in Karimangar, Vijayawada, Visakhapatnam and Tirupati there are no power interruptions as such but officials say happy days may not last long.

Vijayawada city’s consumption stood at a record 19 lakh units compared to 16 lakh units last year.

Vijayawada, February 14: Ten poor Muslim couples entered into wedlock at a mass marriage programme organised by the Andhra Pradesh State Wakf Board here on Sunday.

The marriages were performed at Shajahoor Musafirkhana in One Town under the supervision of Krishna district Wakf Committee president Meer Hussain. Vijayawada West MLA Vellampalli Srinivas and former minister MK Baig were present on the occasion. Household articles worth Rs 15,000 were distributed to each couple.

Tirupati, February 14: At the most pressing of times, officials of the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanams (TTD) are a rather stoic sort, quite used to sudden surges of devotees. The temple’s systems are well geared towards meeting unexpected spikes in demand for laddus and such like.

Today, however, there was consternation among devotees at Akhilandam opposite the temple when the TTD’s pooja paraphernalia counters ran out of coconuts.

Srisailam, February 15: One person was grievously injured when the angry devotees clashed with STF personnel here on Monday.

The devotees, who thronged the Shaivite hill shrine for a darshan of Lord Mallikharjuna Swamy on Monday, resorted to protest when many of them failed to get “Rudrabhishekam” tickets. When the police intervened, heated arguments ensued between the devotees and the STF personnel. In the resultant melee, one of the devotees was grievously injured.

NSS

Kadapa, February 15: The Telugu Desam party president, Mr N Chandrababu Naidu, on Monday lambasted the Praja Rajyam party chief, Mr K Chiranjeevi, for joining the ruling Congress party for his “own justice” within two-and-a-half years. He also ridiculed the former megastar saying that “this big boss” who had floated a party in the name of social justice has completed the film very soon and closed the company for his petty selfish interests.

Hyderabad, February 14: AP High Court judge Justice Raghuram Goda on Sunday said that public relations (PR) was not only about managing publicity but also concerned with spreading genuine information to increase public awareness about a product, person, service, cause or organisation.

In view of the developing technology and availability of social networking sites, internet radio and other modes of hi-tech communication, he stressed the need for PR professionals to acquire required skills to advertise in those media as well.

Hyderabad, February 14: A foreign national was among three persons who died in separate road accidents in the city since late yesterday.

A Tanzanian, who was partying late into the night with his friends, died when he met with an accident on his way back home on a two-wheeler.

Nickson Elinwema (20) was on his way to his room at Nacharam in an inebriated condition. He fell off from the vehicle and hit his head while he was returning to Uppal, police said.

Hyderabad, February 14: In order to keep the ‘young guns’ blazing in times of emergency, particularly to deal with insurgency operations and hostage situations, the young Indian police officers will from now on be trained in handling a variety of sophisticated weapons. They will also be put through 3-D imaging warfare technology training.

Hyderabad, February 14: Fake currency printed in Pakistan, routed into the country through the Indo-Bangladesh border, landed in the hands of three persons who were caught by the Hyderabad city police on Saturday.

The accused have already managed to circulate Rs 65 lakh fake currency while the police seized bogus notes worth Rs 6.5 lakh. The accused have been identified as A Narendra Kumar Reddy, Syed Hussain and Maqbool Hussain, all hailing from Kurnool district.

Hyderabad, February 14: Drug-peddlers trafficking cocaine to Hyderabad are normally high-fliers who aren’t the kind who’ll take a bus anywhere.

But that was exactly how Nigerian peddler Daniel Fernandes and DJ Nash brought the stuff into the city.

Closely networked into the foreign drug rings in Goa, they took the long and tiresome journey whenever they had a consignment to deliver to their high-profile clientele here.

Hyderabad, February 14: Posing themselves as policemen, three robbers entered the house of a doctor and threatened the inmates by brandishing a gun and relieved them of their gold chains and bangles at Hayathnagar on Saturday.

Police said that Kalavathi, wife of Dr Rama Rao, and her daughter Harika were there at the time of the incident.

Kalavathi opened the door on hearing the door bell and saw three persons forcefully gaining entry into the house.

They introduced themselves as policemen.

Adilabad, February 14: Do not get irritated by the hurried manner in which your census enumerator goes about his work. He is only trying to finish his part of the job before launch of pro-Telangana non-cooperation movement by employees in the region.

Kadapa, February 14: The Congress is yet to finalise candidates for the Rayalaseema West Graduates and Teachers constituencies, although other parties had named their candidates much before the Election Commission had announced the election schedule.

Notification awaited

Minister for Agriculture Y.S. Vivekananda Reddy’s term as MLC in the local bodies quota will end on March 29 and a notification for the election is awaited.

Hyderabad, February 14: What if a student was genuinely deceived by Tri-Valley University and is now caught up in the clamour? Will the US government help them to get into other schools? What can students do to verify the credentials of a university or a program? What guidance or advice can be given to students? Do you have a list of registered (legal) consultation agencies or consultants that students should use?

Warangal, February 14: Congress MLA and Warangal district Congress Committee president Mr Gandra Venkataramana Reddy has urged the Centre to make its stand clear on Telangana issue, even if there was no scope to introduce the Telangana bill in the ensuing Parliament budget session. He said that it was not possible for him to extend support to the proposed non-cooperation movement commencing from February 17, being part of ruling party.

Narsapur, February 13: ‘Muslims can never succeed without practicing Quranic teachings.’ These views were expressed by Mr. Amir Ali Khan news editor Siasat daily. He was addressing on the occasion of English question bank distribution among SSC students here at Narsapur. He said that the ongoing efforts by the Siasat in educational field will continue and would be further extended.

Chittor, February 13: As expected several PRP leaders are now joining the opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) following the PRP’s merger with the Congress.

Former MLA Chintala Ramachandra Reddy, who was in the PRP till its merger with the Congress, joined the TDP in the presence of party chief N Chandrababu Naidu in Madanapalle today.

Reddy unsuccessfully contested on the PRP ticket in Piler against N Kiran Kumar Reddy, the Chief Minister.

Hyderabad, February 13: The Department of Information Technology & Communication (IT&C), Government of Andhra Pradesh, on Friday maintained that it had no role in the alleged irregularities pertaining to the allotment of land to the Raheja Mindspace IT park.

Responding to a petition filed by advocate T Sriranga Rao against them, K Ratna Prabha, Principal Secretary, M Gopi Krishna, Special Secretary and PS Murthy, Joint Director (promotion, FAC) of the IT & C department clarified that the department was not a party to the ultimate decision regarding transfer of additional land to Rahejas.

Tirumala, February 13: The TTD deposited 1,175 kg of gold with the state-owned State Bank of India today.

On May 23 last year it haddeposited 1,075 kg of gold with the same bank to have a ‘perennial source’ of income to the country’s richest devastahnam.

TTD Specified Authority chairman J Satyanarayana handed over the gold deposits to SBI (Hyderabad Circle) general manager TS Krishna Murthy here today in the presence of TTD executive officer IYR Krishna Rao and member V Nagi Reddy.

Chittor, February 13: Telugu Desam president N Chandrbabau Naidu has declared that his party does not have any immediate plans to move a no-trust motion against the Kiran Kumar Reddy government.

Speaking to reporters at Madanapalle today on the second day of his tour of the district, Naidu said: “TRS has its own agenda. Some persons (read Jagan and Chiranjeevi) have their own agendas. We are not in politics to implement their agendas. We will implement people’s agenda. Other parties cannot decide TDP’s agenda”.

Chittoor, February 13: TDP chief Mr. N. Chandrababu Naidu has described the ‘Racha Banda’ programme of the government as ‘Rochu Banda’ and said it was just a publicity stunt and people were not getting any benefit out of it. He has lambasted the government for its failure to control the prices of essential commodities. He said that before the last elections the government has given ration cards to people indiscriminately to get their votes and withdrew them soon after coming to power.