Andhra Pradesh

Hyderabad, October 31: Heavy rains lashed Nellore and Visakhapatnam while flight services were affected in Tirupati due to vigorous monsoon and trough of pressure formed over the south west Bay of Bengal.

Normal life was thrown out of gear in Nellore and the rains claimed the life of a daily wage earner K Rajaiah (45) in Naidupet in the district. Several villages in Gudur division were cut off from the rest of the district as Kaivalya river, Pambaleru and other streams were in full spate.

The three north coastal districts were also lashed by heavy rains this morning.

Hyderabad, October 31: In order to coordinate the activities of several organisations which have been working for the cause of separate Telangana, the intellectuals in the region came together and launched the Telangana Co-Ordination Committee (TCC) here today.

“We will be like watchdogs of the Telangana agitation. Most of the members in the TCC are senior citizens who include IAS and IPS officers, doctors and professors,” TCC chairman Dr A Gopal Kishan told reporters.

TCC members said they would observe Andhra Pradesh Formation Day on November 1 as a black day.

Hyderabad, October 31: Heavy rains today continued to lash coastal Andhra Pradesh and several places in Rayalseema region for the second consecutive day.

Chittoor, Nellore, West Godavari, Krishna, East Godavari and Visakhapatnam districts have been receiving heavy rains for the last two days.

Hyderabad, October 31: Depressed over alleged humiliation by a headmistress over payment of fees, a 15-year-old girl committed suicide by jumping into a reservoir in Nalgonda district of Andhra Pradesh, police said today.

The body of S Samatha, who was studying in class X at a private school in Devarkonda town, was found floating in Akampalli reservoir under Gudipally police station limits this morning, they said.

Following the incident, the girl’s relatives and local organisations carried her body in front of the school premises and staged a protest.

Hyderabad, October 30: As many as 389 Krushi Bank depositors did not turn up to collect their deposits, when the officials of Crime Investigation Department (CID) distributed the cheques during the last 10 days in coordination with liquidators and Metropolitan Legal Services Authority (MLSA).

Hyderabad, October 30: A few days ahead of AP Formation Day, miscreants set fire to the statue of Potti Sriramulu on the Telugu University campus at Nampally on Friday evening.

Two youngsters poured diesel on the statue and set it in on fire and walked out of the campus in full view of scores of staff and security personnel.

The statue was partially damaged. It was Potti Sriramulu’s fast-unto-death that led to the creation of AP carved out from the then Madras state.

According to police and eye-witnesses, two young men walked into the university building around 5.10 p.m.

Hyderabad, October 30: There may not be any contestant from Andhra Pradesh for the elections to the Congress Working Committee (CWC) member posts, APCC president D Srinivas has said.

The CWC elections will be held at the All India Congress Committee session scheduled for November 2 in New Delhi. All the 141 AICC members (both elected and coopted members) who have been invited from the state, will be treated as special invitees.

Hyderabad, October 30: Officials of the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Friday filed a chargesheet against Lashkar-e-Taiba operative Mohammed Zia-ul-Haq, the prime accused in the Odeon theatre bomb blast case, in the Nampally criminal court.

Besides Zia-ul-Haq, there were several LeT operatives and handlers, including Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, for whom the NIA was still on the lookout for conspiracy to wage war against India by supplying arms and ammunition, the chargesheet said.

Hyderabad, October 30: Rekha Reddy’s exhibitions are often theme-based and have complemented works of eminent artistes.

Ikebana is quite different from conventional western arrangements as it is not based on the massing of flowers and foliage in symmetrical fashion.

A freshly picked twig entwined to a straight rod of dried wood can as well make a pleasant Ikebana arrangement that is sure to steal hearts and stay in them too.

Hyderabad, October 30: With talks between the state government and temple employees turning fruitful, the Andhra Pradesh Temple Employees Association has decided to defer its agitation by a month.

Priests and temple staff have been staging protests demanding implementation of pay revision on par with the state government employees.

The temple staff including priests went on a day-long strike yesterday and stayed away from performing Arjitha sevas causing inconvenience for the devotees.

Warrangal, October 30: Cotton growers ransacked the office of the Yenumamula agricultural market yard on Friday in protest against the low price being offered by traders for their produce.

A farmer, who came to the market yard to sell cotton, entered into an argument with a trader for being offered a mere Rs 3,400 per quintal.

The trader, Bhaskar, told the farmer that the cotton was damp and would offer only Rs 3,400 but not the prevailing market price of Rs 4,370.

Tirumala, October 30: Devotees at the Lord Venkateswara shrine here had the shock of their lives on Thursday night when, all of a sudden, the four giant screens showed girls walking the ramp on Fashion TV channel.

The FTV programme went on for a few minutes around 11 pm and then the SVBC channel came alive on the screen.

According to sources in the TTD Broadcasting Section, the faux pas took place when the technical staff were changing the download frequency of Sun Direct which is one of the services that the TTD uses.

Hyderabad, October 30: A division bench of the AP High Court comprising chief justice Nisar Ahmad Kakru and justice Vilas Afzulpurkar on Friday extended by two weeks time to SKS Micro Finance to make available various details for its registration under the new ordinance.

The bench made the order in an application filed by the micro finance company seeking six weeks’ time to furnish the said details.

State advocate general D V Sitaram Murthy said that certain minimal information must be supplied immediately.

Hyderabad, October 30: In yet another big catch, the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) sleuths today trapped the commissioner of Bhongir municipality when he took a bribe of Rs 50,000 from a contractor.

The commissioner demanded the amount as a ‘reward’ for issuing a cheque to the contractor, ACB officials said.

On a complaint by the contractor, ACB sleuths laid a trap and caught the municipal commissioner, L Baloji, at his residence at Ramanthapur in the city today morning when he accepted the bribe.

Warangal, October 30: It was a classic case of the proverbial serpent and the rope. When smoke engulfed the KTK coal mine Incline II on Friday in Bhoopalpally, everyone, including the officials and miners, thought it was a deadly carbon monoxide leak.

Twenty miners were working underground in the mine and about 750 nearby when the fire occurred. Rumours spread that a miner, Shankar, had collapsed after inhaling the gas, spreading panic.

Hyderabad, October 29: The state government on Thursday constituted four committees for effective implementation of micro finance institutions (MFIs) ordinance promulgated recently.

It is also aimed to deal with many queries from both the MFIs and the district-level registering authorities about the provisions in the ordinance.

The committees will work to improve credit flows to self-help groups (SHGs) and to put the Information Technology system in place.

Hyderabad, October 29: It was almost like a ‘holiday’ for deities and hardship for devotees at various temples across the state on Thursday as temple employees, including archakas, went on a one-day strike demanding higher wages.

The priests boycotted Arjita Sevas but performed daily pujas and offered Naivedyam to the deities.

Without the Arjita Sevas there were just one or two regular pujas and it was rest time for the deities for the whole day.

A large number of devotees looked disappointed and left the temples without performing pujas in their names.

Hyderabad, October 29: As per the new catering policy formulated by the Railway Board, the South Central Railway has taken over catering service on trains from the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) to improve the quality of food served on trains and platforms.

The new system is being experimented on AP Express in the zone. The SCR has taken several initiatives to monitor the on-board catering services.

MS Jayanth, general manager,SCR, inspected the pantry car, on-board catering services for passengers and various passenger amenities in the AP Express.

Hyderabad, October 29: Revised pay scales, as recommended by the Pay Revision Commission, for temple employees are likely to be a reality only after two months. The state government on Thursday expressed its helplessness stating it can take a decision only after the Justice Venkatram Reddy Committee submits its report on the matter in January.

Speaking to reporters here, endowments minister Gade Venkata Reddy said that the government has requested the committee to submit an interim report to enable it to take a decision.

Hyderabad, October 29: Accepting the challenge of the Opposition leader N Chandrababu Naidu for open debate on micro finance institutions (MFIs), rural development minister V Vasantha Kumar on Thursday declared that he was ready to discuss the facts on the issue at the latter’s native place Naravaripally in the presence of mandal samakhyas and district samakhyas.

He also left the choice of fixing the date and time for the debate to the Telugu Desam president.

Guntur, October 29: Vaddeswarapu Jakaraiah (32), a daily wage labourer, of Chivuluru in Duggirala mandal died of alleged harassment by micro finance agents. It is said that the deceased took a loan of Rs one lakh from four micro finance institutions for completion of his Indiramma house. When he fell ill two weeks ago he was admitted to a private hospital and later shifted to Guntur general hospital, where he died.

Hyderabad, October 29: Temples across the state fell silent as priests and temple employees went on a strike demanding higher wages.

With priests boycotting the arjita sevas (special pujas), devotees had to be content to see the daily pujas.

Some of the temples broke with ages-old traditions by not performing mandatory pujas to the deities.

For instance, the daily Kalyanam of Lord Narasimha Swamy at the Dharmapuri temple went unperformed, unheard of in the history of the temple.

The priests and temple employees are demanding pay scales recommended by the Pay Revision Commission.

Hyderabad, October 29: Having started his career as assistant superintendent of police in Anantapur district, which also happens to be his native place, K Aravinda Rao has held several important positions in his career of 33 years.

Well-known for his interest in Sanskrit, Aravinda Rao, who took over as DGP on Sept. 1, is considered one of the most influential officers in tackling the Maoists in AP. He has eight months of service left.

Rao has previously worked as SP of Medak, Warangal and Kadapa districts and also served as the Vijayawada police commissioner.

Tirupati, October 29: A local court on Friday sentenced four persons, including a top Naxal leader, to seven years imprisonment in the 2003 Alipiri landmine blast case in which former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu and three others were injured.

Additional District and Sessions Judge D Venkataramana convicted and sentenced Naxal leader Sagar and three others to seven years of imprisonment and also slapped a fine of Rs 5,000 each on them, court sources said.

Hyderabad, October 29: A top municipal officer from Nalgonda district of Andhra Pradesh was on Monday caught red-handed by sleuths of the Anti-Corruption Bureau (ACB) while accepting a bribe of Rs 50,000.

Bhongir Municipality Commissioner, L Balogi was trapped by the ACB at his residence in Ramanthapur here, where he received the sum through his driver and relative B Lalu Naik, as a bribe from the complainant for doing an official favour, a release said.

The duo will be produced before the Additional Special Judge for ACB cases here, it said.

–PTI