| EC issues notices to AP Govt, Minister Hyderabad, May 12 : The Election Commission today issued notices to the Andhra Pradesh Government on its ''promises'' to the people by violating the Model Code of Conduct and to Agriculture Minister N Raghuveera Reddy on his alleged remarks against the Commission. Addressing a press conference here , State Chief Electoral Officer I V Subba Rao said the EC had taken a serious note of the government's promises regarding provision of Palmoil and Redgram at subsidised rates from June and enhancement of the income limit for issuing white ration cards. He said the EC had issued notice to State Chief Secretary K Ramakantha Reddy and asked him to reply before May 14. The EC had also summoned the Chief Secretary to Delhi on the issue. The EC also issued notice to Mr Raghuveera Reddy on his remarks against the Commission on 'Rythu Chaitanya Yatra,' commencing from May 17. The EC had taken a serious view of the Minister's remarks even before it took a final decision on whether to allow the 'Rythu Chaitanya Yatra.' The Minister was also directed to reply to the notice before May 14, Mr Subba Rao said.' Cong confident of winning majority seats in bypolls Hyderabad, May 12 : Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee (APCC) President D Srinivas today expressed confidence that the party would win nine Assembly and two Lok Sabha seats in the byelections scheduled for May 29 in the state. Addressing a press conference at the party headquarters Gandhi Bhavan here, he claimed that as per the present indications, the party would win majority of the seats in the byelections. He claimed the people were in favour of the Congress due to several welfare and development measures initiated by the state government in the last four years. He said Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy and himself would participate in the election campaign from May 15 to 18. He would coordinate with the party leaders and workers from May 19 to 22 in Hyderabad. Regarding the TRS fielding its candidate in Khairatabad Assembly constituency, following the demise of senior Congress leader P Janardhana Reddy, he said it was not good on the part of the TRS to field a candidate against Janardhana Reddy's son as the departed leader had worked hard for the development of Telangana region. He said the party would organise the re-dedication programme on May 14 in a simple manner in view of the byelections and around 10,000 party leaders, including MPs and MLAs, would attend the progamme. K'taka poll will mark countdown for UPA Govt fall:Naidu Hyderabad, May 12 : Exuding confidence that the BJP would come to power on its own in Karnataka, senior BJP leader M Venkaiah Naidu today claimed that the election in the state would mark the beginning of the countdown for the UPA Government's fall. Addressing a press conference here, he claimed that according to internal survey conducted by the party at the ground level, the BJP would bag 119 to 129 seats in Karnataka to form its own Government as the people there were disenchanted with the past coalition experiments and ''opportunistic politics'' of the Congress and Janata Dal (Secular). Denying any differences between BJP leaders B S Yeddyurappa and Ananthkumar, he maintained that all party leaders were working in a coordinated manner to win the election in Karnataka. The downtrend for the ruling Congress had already begun with the party getting defeated in 10 of the 12 states, which went to polls after the 2004 General elections, while the BJP had won in seven states, he said. Only leaders of those parties facing court cases were sticking on to the ruling coalition at the Centre, he contended, adding that even the Congress allies were ''dissatisfied'' with the performance of the Manmohan Singh Government. The Left parties were increasingly finding it difficult to support the Congress-led UPA Government, which had ''totally failed'' on all fronts, including to check the price rise, he claimed. Minister directed to address all pending cases under Rajiv Gandhi Garmeena Vidhyuti Scheme Hyderabad, May 12 : Minister for Energy and Minorities Mohd. Ali Shabbir directed the officials to address all the pending cases and give connection to the weaker sections under Rajiv Gandhi Grameena Vidhyut Scheme. According to this scheme, the below poverty line householders can get the power connection by paying just Rs. 125. This has said by the Minister for Energy while holding review meeting with the Nalgonda District Incharge and Home Minister K.Jana Reddy and senior officials of Power Sector of Nalgonda district. However, it has brought to the notice that 565 applications has been recheaded out of which 540 connections has been given under this scheme in Nalgonda. He also asked them to complete the target given in the SC, ST colonies of connection. In case of failure of transformers, he directed them to use rolling transformertemporarily till new transformers fixed. He also directed that if the work is pending for small material, he directed the senior officials to purchase it and complete the work. He clearly said that in Nalgonda district no work should be kept pending because of shortage of material or funds, if any transformer is overloaded, it has to be improved, he said. Investigation of Ayesha murder case is in progress : HM Hyderabad, May 11 : Home Minister K. Jana Reddy said it would be premature to make the statement on the Ayesha Meera Murder case, as the issue is under investigtion with various investigation agencies. Speaking to press persons, after participating in the review meeting on power with the concerned Minister Mohd. Ali Shabbir, here today, the Home Minister said that many people and many organisations are speaking in different manner, under this circumstnces it would be difficult to answer for each and every question. However, he assured that as soon as the investigation is over, he would be the first to tell the people of the facts of the case. Parents of Jyothirmayee, Kumar to leave for Britain Hyderabad, May 12 : The parents of an Indian girl student who was murdered near Birmingham last week and the parents of her murder-accused roommate are to leave for Britain. They were issued passports by the Regional Passport Office here Monday and are expected to leave in a day or two. While the parents of V.S. Jyothirmayee are going to catch a glimpse of their daughter's body, those of N. Nagraju Kumar are leaving to fight a legal battle to prove that he is 'innocent'. Both the families Monday met Regional Passport Officer Bala Bhaskar, who issued them the passports. Since it is likely to take four to six weeks for Jyothirmayee's body to be brought to India, her parents and sister are leaving to make arrangements to bring it back. The Andhra Pradesh government has agreed to bear the cost of their travel and bring the body, which is in the custody of the West Midlands police after two autopsies. Jyothirmayee, 23, a postgraduate student at Wolverhampton University and hailing from Vijayawada, was found murdered in her apartment on the outskirts of Birmingham on May 6. Kumar, who hails from Hyderabad, was found in an injured condition. Two days later, police arrested the 24-year-old on charges of murder. He allegedly inflicted injuries on himself to mislead the police. 84.86 percent students qualified in CEEP-2008 Hyderabad, May 12 : Out of the 1,41,010 candidates appeared for the Common Entrance Examination for admission into Polytechnics (CEEP -2008) which was held on April 30, in hich 1,19,658 qualified constituting 84.86 per cent. The girls qualified are 29,310 out of 32,242 which constitutes 90.91 per cent while the boys qualified are 90,348 out of 1,08,769 constituting 83.06 per cent. Out of the 10 candidates wo secured marks between 113 to 116 highest out of 120 total marks, 9 are from Tanuku and one is from Nellore out of 9 Tanuku candidate one is female candidate who secured 114 marks. Releasig the results, the Principal Secretary to High Education department Asutosh Mishra said that the present capacity of seats in 97 colleges which includes government, aided and private are 20,715 seats. However, from the coming year the government has decided to permit 30 colleges for 2nd shift (11 government and 19 private colleges) from this about 9500 to 9600 seats will increase, apart from Singareni colleries which is starting the college from the coming academic year will add 200 more seats. He said comparing to Engineering seats of 1.20 lakh seats Polytechic seats are only 1/6th, while it supposed to have more seats for Polytechnic than Engineering. He said the government had also decided to sanction more polytechnic, but how much is the number could not be said at present. CEEP 2008 results shall be available from the District Co-ordinators and Principals of all government and private polytechnics from where the candidates appeared for the examination fom May 16, Councelling for Admission will start from May 24. Space scientist terms Bush's view on price rise 'ridiculous' Hyderabad, May 12 : India's Space scientist U R Rao today ridiculed US President George Bush's statement that the growing prosperity of India's large middle class was responsible for the rising food prices across the world. ''It is highly ridiculous to put the blame on the Indian middle class'', said the former Chairman of the Space Commission, who was here to receive the prestigious A V Rama Rao Technology Award instituted by the Indian Institute of Chemical Technology. Prof Rao, who also delivered the national technology day lecture said India would witness serious food shortage, worse than the Bengal famine of 1943, in the next two decades unless urgent steps were taken to increase food production by harnessing space and biotechnology as production was now stagnating at 210 million tonnes, while the population was increasing by two per cent. Productivity was very low at 1.7 tonnes per hectare in the country as against the world's average production 2.6 tonnes and the world's best 4.5 million tonnes, he said. Need to enhance educational knowledge in advance techs Hyderabaad, May 12 : Department of Information Technology (DIT), Government of India, Secretary Jainder Singh today underlined the need for enhancing the educational knowledge in advance technologies to cater to the needs of the Information Technology (IT) Industry. Inaugurating the faculty updation programme ''Prepare Future'' for Engineering Faculty at the Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University here, he said India's image has changed because of IT and the country was able to provide latest Information Technology. Stating that it was necessary to update and enhance the skills of engineering faculty in advanced domains of Information Technology to keep pace with the IT Industry, he said there were many employment opportunities in the IT Sector. The IT exports of the country has crossed 40 billion dollars and it will double in the next three years, he claimed, adding 36 per cent of the Indian exports were from the IT sector. Around 2 million people were directly employed and six million indirectly employed in the IT industry, he said and added that 1.5 million jobs would come in the IT industry in the next three years. |