Hearing-impaired kids to get TTD help
KARIMNAGAR: To help out hearing impaired children below three years of age in the district, the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam ( T T D ) has launched a health initiative.
Under the initiative, Sri Venkateswara Sravana Organisation (SVSO) will identify hearing impaired children and impart training to them for two years at a special camp in Tirupati.
According to TTD sources, SVSO has adopted three districts in the first phase to detect and train the hearing impaired in early stages. It has already identified children in Kadapa. The identification programme in Krishna and Karimnagar is yet to begin.
However, the training programme for the hearing impaired would begin only after June, once the poll process comes to an end. District Medical and Health Department would help TTD in identifying a list of hearing impaired children by June.
TTD Chief Medical Officer Dr Sharada and District Medical and Health Officer N Subhadra jointly conducted a special awareness camp to doctors of Primary Health Centres, health workers and ICDS staff to identify children suffering from hearing problems.
They will come out with a list of hearing impaired to be enrolled into SVSO. According Dr Sharada, two in 1,000 children are born with hearing defeciency. The programme was launched with a service motive, she said.
The programme was named Sravana (ability to hear) after the birthstar of Lord Venkateswara.
The chosen children will be trained under the guidance of experienced audiologists and speech therapists at a special camp where a child along with his guardian would be provided lodging and boarding facilities for a period of two years.
The camp will continue to run till the children achieves perfection like normal children.
If required, the children would be provided with free hearing aids at the end of the camp.
www.expressbuzz.com
SVUCET results declared
TIRUPATI: SRI Venkateswara University Vice- Chancellor N Prabhakar Rao released the results of SVUCET-2009 on May 14, 2009.
The entrance test was conducted at Tirupati, Kadapa and Nellore from May 2 to 10. The results were announced within three days after the test. As many as 19,004 applications were received for 5,574 PG seats in Sri Venkateswara University and 150 seats in Vikrama Simhapuri University (VSU) of Nellore. In all, 17,361 candidates appeared for the test and 16,817 of them qualified.
The entrance test was not conducted for 13 subjects due to less number of applicants. Admission to PG courses offered by the SVU and VSU will be given on the basis of marks obtained by the students in the qualifying examination, following the rule of reservation.
SVUCET results are available at www.svudoa.com, www.svuniversity.in and www.internetpubplus.com.
Rank cards along with the admission schedule will be sent to candidates soon. Candidates can download their rank cards from the website www.svudoa.com.
The centralised admissions of the constituent and affiliated colleges of SVU and VSU will be taken up by the Directorate of Admissions at Srinivasa Auditorium. Counselling is likely to be held in the third week of June.
APPLICATIONS INVITED: Applications are invited for admission to various courses offered by the TTDrun Sri Venkateswara Arts College and Sri Padmavati Women’s Degree and PG College.
Applications can be had from May 25 on payment of Rs 25.More details can be obtained from the college principals.
Source: www.expressbuzz.com
Thousands worship deity
Gangamma Jatara
TIRUPATI/CHITTOOR: On the third-day of the ongoing Gangamma Jatara, the annual folk festival of village deity Gangamma, the devotees worshipped the Goddess in Banda Veshams today.
Thousands of devotees thronged the temple premises to offer their prayers from early hours of the day. It is customary to don different forms, as the Goddess herself had roamed the streets centuries back to engage Palagadu who was terrorising women and causing untold grief to the families of the young women.Provoking the demon in human form, Gangamma finally vanquishes the evil and in celebration of her victory, the nine-day Gangamma Jatara is celebrated in the town.
PRP, TD PLEA: Meanwhile, PRP MLA candidate for Chittoor A Srinivasulu, TDP candidate Balaji Naidu and TDP leaders B N Rajasimhulu, A S Manohar, BJP leader M R Mohan, in a letter to the Chief Election Office, copies of which were sent to the DGP and Endowments Commissioner, have urged the officials to prevent Congress candidate and Rayalaseema Development Board chairman C K Jayachandra Reddy alias C K Babu from conduct ing Gangamma Jatara in Chittoor town on May 12 and 13.
They said the festival should be supervised and conducted by higher officials of Endowments department in a peaceful manner.
In the letter, copies of which were provided to mediaperosns, they said that C K Babu, who has criminal record, should be restrained from conducting the Jatara by the district administration
Source: expressbuzz.com
Tirupati bound flight makes emergency landing
Indian-Airlines [not the one that landed
HYDERABAD: Passengers on board the Hyderabad-Tirupati Indian Airlines flight underwent tense moments for an hour after it made an emergency
landing at the Shamshabad International Airport 15 minutes after take off on Thursday afternoon.
Indian Airlines flight IC 942, took off from Shamshabad Airport at 1.40 pm. Soon after take off, the pilot noticed a technical snag and informed the airport authorities about the need of emergency landing. The flight was permitted to land at 1.55 pm. All the 135 passengers on board were safe.
The authorities later sent all the passengers to Tirupati by an alternative Indian Airlines flight around 3.40 pm. The minister for Endowments J Ratnakar Rao was among the passengers. However, the minister was not available for comment.
Source: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com
No power cuts from today?
TIRUPATI: With high mercury levels pushing up the demand for power, and low water levels in reservoirs hitting electricity generation, people can only imagine one possibility – a liberal dose of power cuts soon making the lives of both urban and rural folk more miserable. But believe it or not, power companies say soon, which can be as soon as tomorrow, there won’t be any power cuts at all in cities and towns! Rural areas will have reduced cuts. Thanks to private producers, power shortage will be solved to a large extent in the State, they add.
According to a highly-placed source, towns and cities will have no power cuts while mandal headquarters will have a one-hour cut per day as against the current 3-7 hours off. In rural areas, the power cut duration may be reduced by half to 3-4 hours.
Further, it is also being planned to increase power supply to agriculture sector by an hour subject to government decision.
For industrial sector, the emergency load relief is likely to be brought down to one day a week from three days.
“All this will be possible due to power supply from private power companies. A trial run has been going on for this purpose since April 21,’’ the sources said. It is likely that Reliance Power, which is being supplied to the State on a trial basis, will be regularised from May 5, according to a senior official with electricity board, who visited gas grid points at Kakinada and Rajahmundry.
As per the MoU, Reliance has to supply 943 mw, which will be shared by GVK Power Project (210 mw), GMR Power Project (350 mw), Konaseema Project (133 mw) and Gowthami (250 mw).
At present, the supply is only 143 million units against the demand of 215 mu. With the additional power, the supply will increase to 195 mu stabilising the power situation in the State to some extent.
Source: expressbuzz.com
Family reunions, tours on candidates’ agenda till May 16
TIRUPATI: With elections over and 20 more days to go for the final verdict of the voters to be made public, politicos who were in the electoral fray have changed gears and put themselves in neutral mode.
Relaxing may not be the right word, since most of them are quite anxious and biting their nails to find out what their fate would be. Since they need to wait for two-and-a-half weeks more to know the people’s verdict, they are restless, and to cover it up, they are engaging themselves in various kinds of activities.
Some have gone out on tours to other places, while others have preferred to stay put and enjoy the leisure with members of their families.
There are some who still prefer to continue what they always do — be politicians and be with the people. Even though many of them have switched of their mobile phones in order to keep the media at bay and not be drawn into the speculative game of who will win and who will not, ‘Express’ was able to contact some and find out what they were up to during the waiting period.
R K Roja, who was engaged in an intense battle of the ballot for the Chandragiri constituency, seemed a bit relaxed when contacted over phone. She said she would be going to Chennai to be with her husband and children, as she missed them a lot while campaigning for the elections.
She said she and members of her family were also planning to go on a tour to some yet-to-bedecided place. However, her opponent, Galla Aruna Kumari, seems to have different ideas.
She spent some leisurely hours with her husband and son after elections, but with repolling ordered in a polling station in her constituency, she is concentrating on it. When contacted, she said she would be tidying up the election- related work for three more days and also thanking her people.
Only then she would decide what to do till May 16.
R Chenga Reddy, minister in the incumbent government, is quite confident of his victory and is even thinking of what portfolio he is likely to get when his party forms the government. He has decided not to leave the district and wait for the outcome.
Y S Jaganmohan Reddy, who contested the Kadapa Lok Sabha seat, left for the State capital in his helicopter. When contacted, he exuded confidence over his victory and said he was not worried about the result. “It will be as usual… my business, my paper and of course, I will allocate two weeks in a month to my constituency and my people,’’ he said.
TDP leader S Raghurami Reddy, who contested the Mydukur constituency, said, “Araam haraam hai (relaxation is taboo). I am happy and relaxed when I am with people.’’ Nedurmalli Rajyalakshmi, another minister in the incumbent government, who is at present in Hyderabad, will be leaving for Delhi to attend the swearing-in ceremony of her husband, N Janardhan Reddy, as Rajya Sabha member. She said she would be returning to Venkatagiri on April 30 to attend a marriage and there after, till May 16, she will be in her house, looking after domestic affairs.
Another minister, Anam Ramanarayana Reddy, said he would be spending time in Nellore with his party people, analysing the post-poll situation and the party’s prospects. Nellore TDP president S Chandramohan Reddy, who contested the Sarvepalle Assembly seat, too expressed a similar opinion and said he would wait in the district till May 16 and spend time with his family, and, of course, with his activists.
Source: www.expressbuzz.com
Seeing the (LED) light
Karat to attend Grand meet at Tirupati today
Karat
TIRUPATI: The Grand Alliance is holding a mega meeting at Tarakarama Stadium here tomorrow. Telugu Desam senior leader and former minister T Nageswara Rao told mediapersons here today that along with TDP
supremo N Chandrababu Naidu and his star campaigner N Balakrishna, CPM general secretary Prakash Karat and CPI senior leader D Raja will be attending
the meeting which will commence at 4 pm. Some AIDMK leaders are also likely to participate in the meeting. Rao said that it was customary for the TDP to start its Vijaya Sankalpa Yatra in Tirupati but this time it was concluding its more than a month of election campaigning. “The meeting will herald the
dawn of a new era in the political history of the State. For the past five years, the people of the State had to witness a decline in the self-respect of Telugus with the Congress Government reverting to its `Yes Delhi’ policy. It will no
longer be the case as people will send the TDP-led Grand Alliance to power to re-earn the lost pride and tear away the veil on the self-respect of Telugus.’’
Rao said that going by the voting pattern in the first phase of elections, the Grand Alliance would bag more than 110 of the 154 seats for which elections
were held and over a hundred in the second phase. Predicting the downfall of
YSR and the Congress, the TDP leader said that Andhra Pradesh was second only to Gujarat in development when TDP was in power but today thanks
to the inept governance by YSR the State had been lowered to the status of Bihar. CPM district secretary Kumar Reddy said the Grand Alliance
would make a clean sweep in Chittoor district. CPI district secretary Harinath
Reddy said all necessary arrangements had been made for the meeting. He said that the chief minister, smelling defeat of the Congress, was provoking regional differences. TDP Lok Sabha nominee V Rama Rao, district leaders J Srinivasulu and others were present.
Source: www.expressbuzz.com
YSR has lost his cool following intelligence reports: Pawan
Pavan Kalyan
Tirupati, April 18: Taking advantage of Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy’s comments on the Telangana issue to the hilt, Yuva Rajyam chief and filmstar Pawan Kalyan predicted the downslide of the Congress in the State.
Addressing a series of roadside meetings during his poll campaign in Tirupati on behalf of his brother Chiranjeevi, who is contesting the Tirupati Assembly seat, Pawan Kalyan said Rajasekhara Reddy, who was always dignified and smiling, seemed to have lost his cool following intelligence reports that pointed out the poor performance of the Congress in the first phase of elections in the State.
“Perhaps for that reason only he is racking up the Telangana State issue and its effects on the rest of the State, to garner the support of people here. But, dividing people in the name of region for the sake of votes is not right,’’ he said.
Pawan Kalyan, in his customary style, took an aggressive stance against Tirupati Congress nominee B Karunakar Reddy who was accused of indulging in intimidating voters and adopting fear tactics to stop them from supporting his rival parties.
“We may not be factionists, we many not carry weapons or money, but our hearts are filled with love and courage. I will not hesitate to take to the streets and counter the intimidation and fear psychosis being spread by the Congress,’’ he asserted.
Stating that `goondaism’ and faction violence would not fetch votes, Pawan Kalyan said people were eager to see Chiranjeevi, who entered politics with the sole intention of bringing change, become the chief minister.
At several whistlestops along the way, he reiterated his allegations that Karunakar Reddy was using money and muscle power to woo voters. “It will not work. I am there to protect voters against any such fear tactics. People of Tirupati, who are children of Lord Venkateswara, will teach a lesson to the person who looted Lord Srinivas himself to amass wealth. Congress’ hand is not Abhyahastam, but is the one which has cheated Abhayahastam of the Lord of Seven Hills,’’ he said.
Pawan Kalyan said he believed in `Dharmo Rakshati Rakshitaha’ and that `dharma’ was with Chiranjeevi who was determined to bring in change.
He said allocation of 104 seats to BCs was testimony to the fact that Chiranjeevi was fulfilling the promises he had made.
Source: www.siasat.com
Tirupati may give Chiru anxious moments
Chiranjeevi
TIRUPATI: Prajarajyam president Chiranjeevi may have to more than pray if he wants to win from the Tirupati assembly constituency as
in-fighting, possible desertion by a key community and shrewd tactics by his Congress opponent K Karunakar Reddy are making him to sweat it out in this temple town.
According to sources, chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy has instructed close aide Karunakar Reddy to leave no stone unturned to ensure the defeat of the PRP president. “As a first step, Karunakar Reddy has neutralised the TDP candidate K Sanakar Reddy in order to make it a straight fight between him and Chiru. The result is that Sankar has virtually given up campaigning,” a local leader said.
A former chairman of TTD, Karunakar Reddy has been assiduously building a base in Tirupati over the last four years and with the backing of CM, can make it a close contest, a local leader said. A major campaign point of Karunakar is that he is harping on the local candidate factor, something which Chiranjeevi cannot claim.
Another factor going against Chiranjeevi is the possible desertion by the Balija community. A forward caste, the Balijas comprise about 40,000 of the 2.34 lakh electorate here. They were initially with Chiranjeevi and helped in organising the first public meeting in this temple town on August 26 last year.
However, they seem to have been weaned away by Karunakar Reddy. This was made clear when state Balija welfare community chief Anna Ramachandraiah recentlyexpressed his support for Karunakar Reddy. “Anna has thousands of staunch followers among all the BC communities in Tirupati and this could come in handy for Karunakar,” a source said. “Apart from ensuring the Balijas are in his pocket, the Congress leader is also banking heavily on the 35,000-strong Reddy and 30,000 Brahmin votes,” an observer said.
If this were not enough, the PRP is beset with internal squabbles. According to sources, former Tirupati MLA Chadalavada Krishnamurthy and his brother-in-law N V Prasad are working at cross purposes. While Chadalavada joined PRP recently, Prasad, film producer and ex-Tuda chairman, has been with the party since inception and was the chief organiser for the launch meeting of the party.
“Instead of helping the party supremo, both these leaders are more busy in hatching plans to grab the seat once Chiranjeevi vacates it as he would like to retain Palakollu,” a party insider said. Sources said because of these two leaders, the TDP (both were in the yellow party then) suffered a big defeat in the 2004 Assembly elections when Congress leader M Venkataramana emerged victorious with a margin of over 40,000 votes.
“We are worried that the feud between the brothers-in-law is going to prove costly for our leader. In fact, many party workers are in a dilemma,” a local PRP leader said.
It is because Chiranjeevi is not sure of his victory from Tirupati that he is also contesting from Palakollu in West Godavari. However, as of yet, he has not given up the fight. In the last three days, he has roped in his brother Nagababu’s wife Padmaja, his sister Madhavi Latha and brother-in-law Raju to campaign for him. Chiru is set to visit again on the final day of campaigning. But will Lord Venkateshwara answer his prayers is not a certainty anymore.
Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com