DESARAJU SURYAHyderabad: Hyderabad will soon be home for yet another prestigious national institute, the National Institute of Urban Management (NIUM).NIUM will be developed as a world-class institute jointly by the Government of India and the Government of Andhra Pradesh on a 20-acre site at Khanamet village in Ranga Reddy district on the outskirts of Hyderabad.“NIUM will be a premier institute for training urban managers in tune with the growing challenges of urbanization,” state Minister for Municipal Administration and Urban Development Aanam Ramanarayana Reddy said.The key objective of the institute will be to provide policy prescriptions, innovations for better urban governance, information and training inputs to all those concerned with improving living conditions and quality of life for urban citizens.While the GoI would contribute Rs 50 crore, the state government would spend Rs 15 crore for building the NIUM and setting up the training facilities in the first [...]

DESARAJU SURYAHyderabad: Hyderabad is trying to “reposition” itself as a preferred destination for investments in Information Technology as the sector is showing signs of gradual recovery after a gap of over two years.The Information and Communication Technology Department of Andhra Pradesh has sought to forge a partnership with the sector’s apex body Nasscom to help Hyderabad, and also the state, in the repositioning effort.Members of Nasscom’s executive council, led by its (past) president Som Mittal, held a meeting with state IT Principal Secretary K Ratna Prabha here the other day and discussed the initiatives aimed at repositioning Hyderabad as a preferred destination for IT investments.“First it was the global economic meltdown that cast a spell on the IT sector in Hyderabad. Next, the political turmoil in the state over the demand for and against the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh caused a severe dent to Hyderabad’s image, thereby adversely affecting the IT [...]

DESARAJU SURYAHyderabad: Students in Andhra Pradesh pursuing professional and non-professional education will soon have to mark their attendance in their respective institutions in the biometric mode.The State Department of Higher Education (DHE) has prepared a plan to introduce the biometric attendance system in all professional and non-professional educational institutions from the next academic year with a view to “improve the performance of students.”Also, the state government wants to ensure that the total fee reimbursement scheme, which it has been implementing for the past two years, becomes foolproof with the introduction of biometric attendance system, according to state Minister for Higher Education D Sridhar Babu.“Biometric attendance is a unique system being introduced for the first time anywhere in the country. This will ensure regular attendance of students to colleges and improve their academic performance,” Sridhar Babu said.Biometric attendance was [...]

DESARAJU SURYAHyderabad: It's official now: Indian tennis star Sania Mirza will only be the "second wife" of Pakistani cricketer Shoaib Malik. As per the Hanafi school of Islamic tradition, Sania becomes the second wife of Malik as he has divorced his “first wife” Ayesha Siddiqui. “Irrespective of whether they were married or not, Ayesha naturally became Malik’s first wife now that he had divorced her. This makes Sania Malik’s second wife as per Hanafi tradition,” Major G M Qadri, who was one of the mediators in the Ayesha-Malik divorce deal, pointed out. Both the Siddiquis and the Maliks follow the Hanafi tradition. Meanwhile, there is intense speculation that a “huge sum” was offered by Malik to Ayesha to end their marriage in a “cordial” manner. “The official (maintenance) amount is just Rs 15,000 but you should suffix many more zeros to it to count the actual ‘settlement’ sum,” a ‘family friend’ of Siddiquis claimed. Rumours that did [...]

DESARAJU SURYAHyderabad: After witnessing quantum jumps year-over-year, software exports from Andhra Pradesh nosedived drastically in the financial year 2009-10, registering a sharp 40 per cent drop as compared to the previous year.As per the figures presented to the state Legislative Assembly in the just-concluded Budget session, software exports turnover stood at Rs 22,000 crore in 2009-10 as against Rs 32,509 crore in 2008-09.Significantly, a whopping 25,000 new jobs were created in the Information Technology sector in the state in 2009-10 compared to just 12,786 the previous year.“While the IT sector as a whole looked robust, exports seemed to have tumbled because of various factors like the Satyam fiasco, global economic recession and of course the political turmoil in the state in the last few months. The impact of Satyam saga on the IT sector in Andhra Pradesh in particular could not be undermined,” a top official of the state Information and Communications [...]

DESARAJU SURYAHyderabad: The Comptroller and Auditor General has detected large scale irregularities in the utilization of funds under the MP’s Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) in Andhra Pradesh.“The monetary value of various irregularities\deficiencies in the implementation of MPLADS worked out to Rs 70.29 crore between 2003-04 and 2008-09 financial years. The irregularities include non-completion of works, diversion of funds, irregular payments, etc.,” the CAG said in its report (civil) for the year ended March 31, 2009, tabled in the Andhra Pradesh Assembly.While works taken up under MPLADS have to be completed within one year, as many as 2,657 works taken up between 2003-04 and 2006-07 still remain incomplete. A sum of Rs 9.07 crore was already spent on these unfinished works.Similarly, 1360 works sanctioned during the same period at a cost of Rs 23.37 crore were not even started, resulting in locking up of funds, the CAG report pointed out.In respect of Lok [...]

DESARAJU SURYAHyderabad: The Congress government in Andhra Pradesh, headed by the then Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, doled out “undue benefit” to the tune of Rs 165.75 crore to erstwhile Satyam Computers Limited by allotting 50 acres of prime land at a throwaway price.The Comptroller and Auditor General, in its latest report submitted to the Andhra Pradesh Assembly, while castigating the Congress government on this land deal, observed: “This transaction was violative of the constitutional provisions of equality of opportunity and did not meet the requirement of transparency.”The state government allotted 50 acres of land to Satyam Computers near Visakhapatnam in December 2008 at a concessional rate of Rs 10 lakh per acre. Satyam was actually entitled to get only 7.5 acres at concessional rate and the rest at market value (Rs 4 crore to 4.55 crore an acre).“As against Rs 170 crore payable, Satyam paid a meager amount of Rs 4.25 crore. The allotment of land [...]

Hyderabad: In the last five and a half months since he has become Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Konijeti Rosaiah has been ill-at-ease managing one crisis after the other.Despite being a senior political leader, and one who had been a minister for many years in different governments, Rosaiah somehow has been appearing “helpless” ever since the turmoil over the state bifurcation issue broke out in December last.“None may believe, but really I am peaceful,” Rosaiah remarked in an informal chat with newsmen.On the suggestion that he was sounding alike his predecessor Y S Rajasekhara Reddy, who too took things lightly, Rosaiah observed: “I am unlike him. He was young and had a different style of functioning.”Referring to the ongoing crisis over the separate Telangana statehood demand, the Chief Minister said: “It is an issue that is not in my hands. So, I am not unduly perturbed.”Rosaiah said there were a lot of issues where “we have to apply our [...]

DESARAJU SURYAHyderabad: Andhra Pradesh’s dream project, the Fab City is gone. The state government issued orders for resumption of 78 acres of land allotted to SemIndia Fab Pvt Ltd as it “failed to fulfill any of the obligations in bringing investment and creating employment” at the proposed Fab City near Hyderabad. Andhra Pradesh wanted to emerge as the largest cluster of semiconductor manufacturing and entered into a memorandum of understanding with SemIndia Fab Pvt Ltd as the anchor industry. It was allotted 100 acres of land in 2007 as an investment of 75 million USD was promised in the first phase for an assembling, testing, marketing and packing plant (ATMP) with an employment potential of 2,000 within 18 months. In the second phase, an investment of 750 million USD was promised for setting up semiconductor chip manufacturing facilities with an employment potential of 1,000. The third phase plan was for an investment of 2.25 billion USD for an advanced [...]

DESARAJU SURYAHyderabad: Andhra Pradesh, which is already a leading state in Information Technology and Information Technology-Enabled Services sectors, will develop an Information Technology Investment Region (ITIR) over 50,000 acres of land around Hyderabad.The massive 25-year plan is aimed at attracting an investment of Rs 2.19 lakh crore in the IT\ITES sectors and create direct employment for 15 lakh youths.Besides, it also holds promise for an indirect employment for 53 lakh persons.State Chief Minister K Rosaiah recently approved the ITIR plan and it has been sent to the Government of India for sanctioning. AP will be the first state in the country to have an ITIR.The ITIR would come up around Gachibowli, Mamidipalli and Maheshwaram areas in an extent of 50,000 acres spread over 200 sq km.“The ITIR will enable us to step up our IT exports to Rs 2.35 lakh crore in the next 25 years,” according to the state IT Minister.The state government would also like to develop [...]

DESARAJU SURYAHyderabad: Former Prime Minister P V Narasimha Rao had done a lot of ground work for constructing the Ram temple at Ayodhya but he could not carry his mission forward as he lost power in the 1996 general elections.For two years, Narasimha Rao – with the help of his close aides – meticulously planned to cobble together an apolitical ‘trust’ to take up the task of Ram temple construction at Ayodhya but political demands ahead of the impending general elections did not let him realize his goal, retired IAS officer and PV’s confidant P V R K Prasad revealed in a Telugu book “Asalu Emi Jarigindante” (What Actually Happened) that was released last week.Prasad, an IAS officer of 1966 batch, was an additional secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office and Information Adviser to P V Narasimha Rao. He had a long-standing association with Narasimha Rao ever since the latter’s stint as Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh in 1971.The former Prime Minister, [...]

DESARAJU SURYAHyderabad: From a gram panchayat ward member to a member of Parliament, elected representatives at different levels of the political pyramid cutting across party lines, have resigned to their posts in coastal Andhra and Rayalaseema regions strongly protesting the “unilateral decision” of the Congress to bifurcate Andhra Pradesh.Scores of panchayat ward members, sarpanches, mandal parishad territorial constituency members, mandal parishad presidents, zilla parishad territorial constituency members, municipal councillors, municipal chairpersons, municipal corporation corporators, mayors, zilla parishad chiefs, MLAs, MLCs and MPs belonging to Congress, Telugu Desam, Praja Rajyam parties have put in their papers.Ministers, both Central and state, hailing from the region, however, haven’t yet decided on their resignations despite mounting pressure from their respective regions for them to follow in the footsteps of fellow legislators.The ministers so far have [...]

DESARAJU SURYAHyderabad: The “Jai Andhra” slogan is back.As the struggle for a separate Telangana state is gathering momentum, leaders who took part in the Jai Andhra movement way back in the early 1970s have once again raised the slogan seeking a separate Andhra state.First to raise the call for a separate Andhra is the current chairman of Andhra Pradesh Co-operative Central Bank and former Home Minister Vasantha Nageswara Rao.Former MP and senior leader of Praja Rajya Party Chegondi Harirama Jogaiah quit his party to join the Jai Andhra movement.In Vijayawada, activists performed “ksheerabhishekam” (washing with milk) on the statue of late Kakani Venkata Ratnam, the spearhead of the Jai Andhra movement, and raised slogans demanding a separate Andhra state.“When people of Telangana region want a separate state, let Andhra Pradesh be divided amicably. We shall get separated as good brothers without any misgivings or prejudices,” Vasantha Nageswara Rao [...]

DESARAJU SURYAHyderabad: The K Rosaiah government in Andhra Pradesh finds itself under immense pressure from not only the opposition parties but also a section of the Congress leaders to find out an early solution to the Telangana crisis even as the Chief Minister discussed with his Cabinet colleagues from the region the strategies to be adopted to arrive at an amicable solution.The state government is now looking towards the Centre for a bail out as the Congress MPs hailing from Telangana requested Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to come up with a decision on the contentious issue.With the winter session of the state Legislature set to begin on Monday, the state government was seriously engaged in deliberations to find a solution to the crisis in the wake of the stepped up agitation for a separate state.Telangana Rashtra Samiti president K Chandrasekhar Rao remained stubborn for the fifth day today as he refused to end his fast while two of his party legislators locked [...]

Hyderabad: At least 88 journalists have been killed so far this year and hundreds of media employees have been arrested and jailed, most often following sham trials or without formal charges being brought against them, the World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) said in its half-year review of press freedom world-wide. More than 750 journalists have been murdered world-wide in the past decade, the report presented to the Board of WAN-IFRA at its meeting in Hyderabad said today. The horrific attack in the Philippines on November 23, in which more than 30 journalists were among the 57 murdered, was the deadliest single attack on media in memory. That brought the total of journalists killed in the Philippines to 35 this year, making it the most dangerous country in the world for journalists. The report said: Hundreds of media employees have been arrested for their work in the past year and at least 170 remain in jail today. “The hostility of many [...]

DESARAJU SURYAVijayawada: Rahul Gandhi is on a mission. He is going round the country to tap young talent for politics. He is trying to create leaders from among the people and the first step in this direction is his interaction with students of various educational institutions across the country.Rahul is prodding students to join politics, set a new trend and clean up the system.Given his lineage, and the kind of frenzy in the Congress party, it is but natural that people strongly feel Rahul will become the Prime Minister of India one day, like his father.But Rahul himself seem to dislike being portrayed as the Prime Minister-in-waiting."Please don't consider me as the future Prime Minister. Nobody can predict the future and what lies in store. Anybody can become the Prime Minister," he said during an interaction with over 1500 students at the Loyola College.Rahul said the current Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was doing a good job.It was a freewheeling 90-minute-long [...]

DESARAJU SURYAHyderabad: At last, the word came from the horse’s mouth.“We shall not even entertain such thoughts (of merging the Praja Rajyam Party with the Congress),” Chiranjeevi has announced.It was the first time that Chiranjeevi came up with his assertions after the proposed alliance between his 15-month-old party and the ruling Congress remained stillborn. Chiranjeevi reacted rather angrily to the suggestion made by some Congress leaders, including agriculture minister N Raghuveera Reddy, that it would be better if the PRP merged with the national party. “Such suggestions only indicate that the Congress has weakened. But we shall never entertain such thoughts,” Chiranjeevi added.Questioned on what basis the PRP sought to align with the Congress for the elections to Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, he said it was only to ensure total development of Hyderabad city. “Not that our philosophies are same but our focus is on the total development of the [...]

DESARAJU SURYAHyderabad: There is a rather unknown thing about the one-and-only Alla Rakha Rahman, the great music director, who has accomplished many many things in his 17-year career thus far: his unfulfilled dream.My idol was in Hyderabad today and during an interaction I asked him about his unfulfilled dream.“I am great fan of ace director K Viswanath and wanted to work with him. Since he has stopped making films my dream could not come true,” Rahman revealed.Viswanath is known for making classics like Sankarabharanam, Sagar Sangamam, Swatimutyam (Easwar in Hindi) and Swarnakamalam that glorified the Indian art forms and traditions.Sankarabharanam, the story of a classical musician, won many national awards for the music score composed by the legendary K V Mahadevan.Rahman – who produced music of all varieties from the local to the international level – wanted to compose music on the lines of Sankarabharanam and requested Viswanath to make yet another film on [...]

DESARAJU SURYAHyderabad: A new research which scientists say “rewrites history” has established that Indian populations are an “admixture” of two ancestral populations that are joined by an “invisible thread.” Scientists from Hyderabad-based Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology, Harvard Medical School, Harvard School of Public Health and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, USA, have collaborated for this research project, which is said to be the “first and largest-ever genome-scale analysis of diverse Indian groups.” “Barring the Andamanese, the present Indian population is a mixture of Ancestral North Indian (ANI) and Ancestral South Indian (ASI). The implication of this study is that India is not one population and we are a nation of multiple populations,” former director of CCMB Lalji Singh, who is part of the research team, has said. Releasing the findings of the study, along with fellow researcher Kumarasamy Thangaraj and CCMB acting [...]

DESARAJU SURYAHyderabad: The Government of India’s move to enact the National Food Security Act is causing jitters in the Andhra Pradesh government.For, it may not only lose huge quantities of rice and other commodities under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) but will also be forced to cut down heavily on its populist welfare schemes, what with the gross scaling down of number of below poverty line (BPL) families in accordance with the Planning Commission of India norms.Now, taking a cue from Bihar, the state government has shot off a missive today to the Centre objecting to the “artificially low number of BPL families fixed by the Government of India.” AP has also opposed the “ceiling” on the number of BPL families as stipulated by the Planning Commission.Andhra Pradesh currently has a ridiculous number of 2.20 crore BPL cards through which it has been supplying three lakh tonnes of rice at a highly-subsidised price of Rs 2-a-kg, with the subsidy bill [...]

DESARAJU SURYAHyderabad: Being in power for the past five years, and the possibility that he could set a record of being the longest-serving Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, probably is making Y S Rajasekhara Reddy to amend his thoughts. For, he no longer believes that 60 is the age for politicians to retire. “When I was 50 years old, I thought 60 was the age for retirement. But now I don’t subscribe to that,” Rajasekhara Reddy – who completed 100 days as Chief Minister in his second successive stint -- said in an informal interaction with journalists in the state Assembly today. “People have now started calling me a fitness freak and thus things have changed,” he remarked. Rajasekhara Reddy celebrated his 60th birthday on July 8 this year. He would become the largest-serving Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh if he completes his second full term till May 2014, thus beating his bête noire N Chandrababu Naidu’s record of eight years and nine months.

DESARAJU SURYAHyderabad: From a state that had been a synonym for maladministration, Bihar has now emerged as a role model for other states in the country through its “Aapki Sarkar – Aapke Dwaar” programme.The Government of India has asked nine states that are affected by Left-wing extremism (naxalite menace) to “adopt” Bihar’s novel initiative of providing essential services to people in gram panchayats through a convergence model within a composite campus.“Every Panchayat should, as is being done under “Aapki Sarkar AapkeDwaar” programme of Bihar, provide important essential services such as Public Distribution System, health, banking, NREGS office, post office, police station, residential quarters, etc. “in one secure compound” by convergence of the existing programmes through integrated participatory plans. This is needed urgently in at least the 33 most extremist-affected districts,” the Union Panchayati Raj Ministry said in a recent circular to [...]

DESARAJU SURYAHyderabad: With questions being raised over the party’s survival less than a week ahead of its first anniversary, Praja Rajyam chief K Chiranjeevi has asserted that no force, except the people, could eliminate his outfit. Expressing serious anguish over reports in a section of the vernacular media that the PRP might soon be merged with the ruling Congress party, Chiranjeevi said such “fabricated stories” were part of a “deep-rooted conspiracy” by two newspapers on behalf of a political party. The PRP chief maintained that staying neutral was his political agenda. “How can I be close to either the Congress or the TDP and how many times should I prove my neutrality,” Chiranjeevi wondered. “The party (Telugu Desam) sees us (PRP) as an obstacle in its path to power. Hence this baseless and false campaign against us,” Chiranjeevi alleged. It was neither for the TDP nor the two newspapers to decide whether or not the PRP should exist, Chiranjeevi [...]

DESARAJU SURYAHyderabad: Andhra Pradesh’s dream of emerging as the largest cluster of semiconductor manufacturing units suffered yet another jolt with the promoters of the Rs 2500 crore semiconductor fab unit backing out of the project. The promoters – Nano-Tech Silicon India Private Limited – have merged their company with TF Solar Power Private Limited to develop a thin film solar cell fab project instead of the semiconductor fab unit. Of course, both the companies are promoted by June Min and he informed the AP Industrial Infrastructure Corporation, the nodal agency for implementing the Fab City project, that efforts to set up the semiconductor fab unit in India “have not materialized” and hence the merger. Left with no other option, the Andhra Pradesh government has approved the merger and issued an order allotting 50 acres of land at the so-called Fab City to the new entity. The land, which was earlier allotted free-of-cost, has now been leased at a premium of [...]

DESARAJU SURYAHyderabad: Disaster management will form part of high school syllabus in Andhra Pradesh from the 2010-11 academic year.The Disaster Management Department has requested the Director of School Education to include Disaster Management as a subject in classes VII to X in a phased manner from the next academic year. The course would cover nature and types of disasters, need for their management, challenges and precautions needed to be taken to mitigate the affects and related aspects, according to Commissioner for Disaster Management Dinesh Kumar.“Education and communication in disaster management plays a pivotal role in creating awareness, mobilizing people and also helps in capacity building by transferring knowledge, skills and technique to the people. Disaster management as a part of the syllabus in school subjects invariably aims at providing children with knowledge, attitudes and skills so that they are equipped to contribute meaningfully towards the [...]