Goud’s Nava Telangana Party in Chiru Rajyam

The Nava Telangana Party, launched by the former Telugu Desam leader, Mr T. Devender Goud, merged with the Praja Rajyam on Thursday in the presence of Chiranjeevi. The NTP leaders took the PR membership along with Mr Goud.

Speaking on the occasion, Chiranjeevi launched a scathing attack on the TRS chief Mr K. Chandrasekhar Rao and the Telugu Desam president, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu.

The Praja Rajyam chief Chiranjeevi asked the TRS chief, Mr Rao, why he joined hands with the TD, even though the PR was willing to give more number of seats to the pink party.

He further wanted to know what prompted Mr Rao to align with the TD led alliance, in which the CPI(M), an opponent of Telangana, was also a member.

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City records 39.1º, hot days ahead

The sun may be more of a deciding factor in the upcoming polls than slogans. Politicians will really have to sweat it out in the campaign trail with the mercury touching an unprecedented 39.1º celsius on Wednesday.

This is an increase of six degrees from the normal temperature during this time of the year. There are fears that the temperature in March and April may even touch 42 to 44º celsius.

Hyderabad is in the grip of north-westerly heat wave for the last few days and weather men have ruled out any possibility of rains to cool things down.

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2 sacrifice lives on Shivaratri

Two ardent devotees of Lord Shiva set themselves ablaze on Shivaratri apparently aiming to make the deity appear before them.

The incident occurred in Shivanoor village of Jainoor mandal when 13 persons who took deeksha for the last 41 days were singing bhajans in the local temple.

Mr Jankte Devidas, 23, who belonged to Mali community and Mr Ade Seetharam, 28, a member Gond community, left the bhajan midway, and went to the village outskirts.

There they set up a gundam (circle) with wood, sat in the middle and set fire to the logs while chanting Om Nama Sivaya. They were soon charred to death in the blaze. Family members said the duo had said that they were undertaking a ritual to make the Lord appear.

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Rahman is top dog

From the slums of Mumbai to the glamorous world of Los Angeles, the world went “Jai Ho” as India’s sound magicians A.R. Rahman and Resul Pokutty made history along with lyricist Gulzar, bagging three Oscars for Slumdog Millionaire, which won eight of its 10 nominations in a ceremony that had India written all over.

A ninth Oscar, for best documentary (short) went to Smile Pinki, starring Pinki, the girl who overcame social stigma because of her cleft lip.

It was clearly India’s day at the Oscars, one of the year’s most watched events on world television, with Indian music, Indian dance and Indian colours sweeping the Kodak Theatre in Los Angeles.

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Akula land deals to be probed

The Ranga Reddy district administration has initiated an inquiry into the land dealings brokered by Mr Akula Rajaiah, who reportedly facilitated the sale of thousands of acres of land to the Ramalinga Raju family and their associates.

The CID says Mr Rajaiah is untraceable. It wants to question him for his land dealings with the Raju family.

The Ranga Reddy collector, Mr Dana Kishore, told this newspaper that revenue officials had been instructed to keep a tab on Mr Rajaiah’s land dealings. The collectorate has also filed an appeal with the Land Reforms Appellate Tribunal to register a case against Mr Rajaiah.

The administration had in 2007 issued notice to Mr Rajaiah questioning his role in land sales. He replied that he had only dealt in land as a general power of attorney (GPA) holder.

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Ash beats Khans, Hrithik

The Slumdog Millionaire may be the toast of the season with its bouquet of Oscar nominations, but Aishwarya Rai has emerged as the most bankable star from India in Hollywood and has been ranked even more valuable than the “Khans of Bollywood” in a new Forbes list.

Rai is among half a dozen Bollywood actors on the list of “Hollywood’s Most Valuable Actors”, compiled by the American publication known for its rankings of the world’s richest persons. Other Indians on the list include Aamir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, Salman Khan, Irrfan Khan and Hrithik Roshan.

Although at 387th position in the global list of as many as 1,411 actors from across the world, Rai is ranked highest among all the Indian actors and is the only female actor from the country having made to this elite club.

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Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam sending kids to war: United Nations

UN agencies here have accused the LTTE of recruiting children as young as 14 as a desperate measure to fill up its ranks as government troops close in on its last little patch in the Vanni area of northeast Lanka. Many such child soldiers had died in recent weeks, they said.

Stung by the UN criticism, which till the other day was being blamed by the government of being pro-LTTE, the Tigers have hit back, saying the world body abandoned thousands of civilians by pulling out its staff from the battle zone.

According to Lankan military spokesperson Brigadier Udaya Nanayakkara, the Tigers have been decimated to less than 700 and their territory brought down to just about 100 sq km, barely two per cent of what they were controlling when the present war started a couple of years ago.

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Minor fire at Gachibowli

A fire broke out on the sixth floor of the DLF building at Gachibowli on Monday. however, no one was injured in the incident.

Waste materials such as cartons were kept there. A worker threw a lighted cigarette near the boxes, said the police.

Two fire engines from Filmnagar and Madhapur put out the fire immediately.

Meanwhile, the proposal of setting up a legal cell in the state fire and emergency department has been deferred by the state government. Hence, the violators of the AP Fire Act are let off.

The fire and emergency department sent a proposal in 2006 to the state government for a separate legal cell headed by a senior public prosecutor.

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NoTelangana state in Kutami plan

Cracks have surfaced in the Mahakutami, the grand alliance of Opposition parties. The reluctance of the CPI(M) and the CPI to include the Telangana statehood in the common agenda of the Mahakutami has irked the Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) which has asked the Telugu Desam chief, Mr. Chandrababu Naidu, to come clear on the issue.

The CPI(M) and the CPI are insisting that defeating the Congress be the single main issue for all alliance partners. This forces the TRS’ principal demand of statehood to the back seat.

The TRS, furious over the indifference of the Mahakutami, has called on the Left leaders to issue statements favouring statehood for Telangana.

“This is not the first time that we joined hands with the TRS,” said Mr B.V. Raghavulu, state secretary of the CPI(M), indicating his reluctance to oblige.

“Even in 2004 the TRS was a partner in the alliance led by the Congress. There would not be any problem for the alliance even if there is no joint agenda.”

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Satellites smash in space

Space officials in Russia and the United States were on Thursday tracking hundreds of pieces of debris that were spewed into space when a US satellite collided with a defunct Russian military satellite.

The crash, which Russian officials said took place on Tuesday above northern Siberia, is the first publicly known satellite collision and has raised concerns about the safety of the manned International Space Station.

The collision happened in an orbit heavily used by satellites and other spacecraft and the US Strategic Command, the arm of the Pentagon that handles space, said countries might have to manoeuvre their craft to avoid the debris.

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MLAs run amok in Assembly

In one of the ugliest incidents in the state legislature, Opposition legislators hit out at House marshals who were trying to evict on Wednesday. Mikes were torn out of desks and fists flew as legislators resisted being move out.

Trouble broke out when the Speaker, Mr K.R. Suresh Reddy, disallowed an Opposition move to discuss investments in Sandur Power Project of the Chief Minister’s son, Mr Y. S. Jaganmohan Reddy.

With the Opposition unrelenting, the Speaker adjourned the House twice. When the Opposition persisted, the members were suspended.

The suspended legislators refused to leave the House. When marshals were summoned to evict them, the MLAs fought back,

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Obama warns Pakistan

In a stern warning to Pakistan, the US President, Mr Barack Obama, on Tuesday asserted that his administration will not allow “safe havens” for Al Qaeda and Taliban terrorists operating with “impunity” in tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

This is the mes sage his special envoy Richard Hol brooke, currently in Islamabad, has been asked to deliver to Pakistan, he said.

“My bottom line is that we cannot allow Al Qaeda to operate. We cannot have those safe havens in that region,” Mr Obama said in his first press conference after assuming office on January 20.

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Giant blast shakes up city

A loud explosion at a chemicals unit on Monday night triggered fears of large scale damage and sent emergency services, and the media, into a frenzy. It turned out later that two persons were injured in the explosion at SM Labs Pvt Ltd, a drug intermediates manufacturing company at Moula Ali.

The Alwal DCP, Mr Sudheer Reddy, said there were no deaths. The blast was attributed to a petrochemical-based solvent used in manufacturing medicines.

The shockwaves from the blast was felt even 10 km away. Smoke engulfed the area, window panes of many buildings developed cracks and some buildings in the vicinity shook. “I could not breathe properly,” said Mr Jitender Reddy, a local.

Five fire engines and three water tenders battled the blaze for three hours to bring the fire under control. Eight ambulances were rushed to the site.

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Red flag for AP 07Q 9424

Everyone knows that city motorists are bad drivers, but just how bad is coming to light only now: Some motorists have dozens of traffic violations against their names.

The police recently listed vehicles that keep popping up on their offenders register and the results astounded even the hardened men in uniform.

According to Mr N.V. Surendra Babu, additional commissioner of police (traffic), the police has identified the clear topper: A Scorpio Turbo bearing No. AP 07Q 9424 registered in the name of one Muralidhar which is involved in 74 traffic violations. The total penalty pending against the vehicle is Rs 19,756.

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Roja sparks Pavan attack

Around 100 Praja Rajyam activists attacked the Telugu Desam office at Banjara Hills and created a ruckus over certain comments made by Telugu Mahila president Roja against the Yuva Rajyam president Pavan Kalyan.

Nine TD activists from Visakhapatnam, who had come to meet the Telugu Desam president, Mr N. Chandrababu Naidu, were injured in the attack and they were given medical attention.

The Praja Rajyam activists, who raised slogans against Roja, the founder N.T. Rama Rao and Mr Chandrababu Naidu, tried to barge into the office in protest against Roja’s comments.

The actress-turned politician had called Pavan Kalyan Kallu tagina kothi (a drunken monkey) in retaliation to verbal attacks on the party president and herself.

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India finds link in Kasab gene

DNA samples drawn from Ajmal Kasab, the only terrorist captured alive, have matched with imprints on a life jacket found on MV Kuber, the fishing trawler that brought the 26/11 gunmen to Mumbai.

“The sweat analysis from a life jacket found on the Kuber matched with the DNA samples of Kasab,” a top forensic official said. Kasab and nine others boarded the Gujarat-based fishing vessel in international waters sailed to within a few nautical miles off Mumbai.

DNA analysis of another five terrorists involved in the carnage is being conducted in the Kalina Forensic Science Laboratory.

In another development, the National Security Adviser, Mr M.K. Narayanan was contradicted for a second time in three days on Thursday by the home minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, who said that India had not received any response on the dossier given to Pakistan on the Mumbai attacks.

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Andhra Pradesh techie killed in Atlanta

An engineer from AP was found murdered in his house in Atlanta of United States on Tuesday.

R. Sudhir Kumar, 31, quality assurance engineer with Toyota Corporation., was staying alone in a house in Norcross area. The local police has termed it a homicide.

He is the second engineer from the state to die under suspicious circumstances in the US in less than a month and the eighth young person from AP to month and the eighth young person from AP to have been killed in that country in the last one and half years.

Mr Akshay Vishal, an employee of the crisis hit Satyam Computers, was shot dead by assailants in Arkansas on January 13.

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Lankans backing Prez: Minister

With the defeat of the LTTE now imminent, it is time for the Tamil community in Sri Lanka and the diaspora outside to re engineer their leadership “for giving up violence as the negotiation tool” and foster peace with the Sinhala people and the government in Colombo, Prof. G. L. Peiris, minister for export development and international trade said.

“The days of thinking that the LTTE is invincible are over. They must accept the fact that no single group or individual can now claim to represent the Tamils. The Tamils must present a democratic platform and give up violence as the negotiation tool,” Prof. Peiris said in an exclusive interview at his office.

Recalling his stint as the head of the government teams in the peace talks with the LTTE, he said the Tigers seemed determined to scuttle negotiations and were in fact using the trips to Oslo and other venues to build up funds from the local diaspora.

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India signs IAEA deal, can enter nuke trade

India on Monday signed a key safeguards agreement with the IAEA to allow inspection of additional civilian reactors and clearing the decks for supply of atomic fuel and technology. This formally ended a 34-year-old nuclear trade embargo imposed after the 1974 nuclear test at Pokhran.

The pact between the government of India and the UN atomic watchdog for the “application of safeguards to civilian nuclear facilities” was inked here by the Indian ambassador, Mr Saurabh Kumar, and the IAEA director-general, Mr Mohamed ElBaradei. It will enter into force once it was ratified by India.

This is a follow-up of the India-specific safeguards agreement (ISSA) was approved by the 35-member IAEA Board on August 1 last year.

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Sania creates history

Tennis ace Sania Mirza became the first Indian woman to win a Grand Slam title as she partnered Mahesh Bhupathi to capture the Australian Open mixed doubles trophy by beating Andy Ram of Israel and Nathalie Dechy of France 6-3, 6-1 in Melbourne on Sunday.

“It took a few minutes to believe. It’s great to be a Grand Slam winner. It’s a dream come true,” she said. “It makes it more special because it’s (the title) with someone that I know for so long and so well.”

It was a dream start to the season by the Hyderabadi, whose wrist injury marred her 2008 campaign.

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