Andhranews

Kurnool, Aug. 14: The Tungabhadra river is in spate. As the water level reached the danger mark at Mantralayam, people in the nearby villages fear flood threat. However, the officials had made elaborate arrangements to shift the families of 30 villages to relief camps set up at 15 places. The water in Tungabhadra river which was running at danger level at Mantralayam had entered some villages on its banks in Kosgi and Koutalam mandals on Monday. Over 10,000 acres of crop was submerged under the rainwater.

It may be recalled here that the Hospet dam is receiving huge floodwater due to heavy rains in Karnataka. All the gates in Hospet dam were lifted and over 1.74 lakh cusecs of water was released to the downstream on Sunday. The outflow rate was raised up to 1.90 lakh cusecs on Monday. The water release would remain same for two more days, according to officials.

Even the floodwater reached Sunkesula from Mantralayam would be released by lifting 31 gates of the barrage to Srisailam reservoir. As over one lakh cusecs of water released from Sunkesula barrage, the officials alerted people in several low-lying areas in Kurnool town.

Collector Danakishore is personally reviewing the flood situation in Tungabhadra. He told this newspaper that they had identified at least 30 villages, which might face flood threat, and arrangements were made for their rehabilitation. However, he said that flood threat is not very imminent and people could directly contact him in case they have any doubts over the flood threat.

The collector further said that floodwater had entered in over 70 houses in Maliganur village under Kautalam mandal and they were shifted to a government school in Nadichagi village. Along with Maliganur, flood threat looms large in Patha Gudi Kambali, Marali and Vallur villages. Likewise, flood water entered into Kottala Lakshmipuram village in Kosgi mandal.

As the Tungabhadra river had completely submerged the steps near the bathing ghats of Mantralayam temple, the officials warned the people not to venture into the river for bathing. Meanwhile, the officials warned people on the banks of Srisailam reservoir’s backwaters about possible flood threat. As water is being released from Tungabhadra which would reach Krishna river, the water level at the Srisailam reservoir’s backwaters would go up imminently.
The fishermen were also strictly warned to not to venture into the river for fishing till the end of August.

Rayachoti (Kadapa), Aug. 14: Three persons were killed and six others seriously injured when the autorickshaw in which they were travelling was hit by a van at Anumpalle village in Rayachoti urban circle limits on Monday. According to the police, the victims were proceeding in an autorickshaw from Rayachoti to Mopalakunta village in Sundupalle mandal when a van proceeding from Sundupalle to Rayachoti hit it killing Subbarayudu, 40, and his son Nagendra, 11, both belonging to the Guvvala Harijanawada of Shibyala panchayat on the spot. Another passenger Kummari Subbaiah of Mopalakunta Kummarapalle village of Sundupalle mandal died on his way to Ruya hospital, Tirupati.

Six other passengers Manda Sarada, 35, Manda Harinath, 7, Eswaramma, 30, Babu, 1, Venkatanagulamma, 35, all belonging to Guvvala Harijanawada and jeep driver Abubakar, 22, of Mopalakunta were seriously injured and were rushed to Ruya hospital, Tirupati. Circle inspector Mallikarjuna Sharma rushed to the spot and shifted the bodies of the deceased to the local government hospital for post-mortem.

Meanwhile, the van driver, whose negligence driving is said to be reason for the mishap, was at large. Police registered a case and have taken up investigation.

Nellore, Aug. 14: In a rare gesture, prisoners of the Nellore Central Jail donated the cost of their one meal to victims of the recent floods in the State. Prisoners appealed to jail authorities to allow them to fast on Sunday afternoon and pass on the cost of this meal to the flood hit people.

Though Sunday is the only day when the jail authorities provide them their most cherished non-vegetarian dish, prisoners did not mind skipping the treat to extend a helping hand to the flood affected people. Jail superintendent K.R. Narayana Reddy said that he had obtained permission from the Director-General through the Deputy Inspector General after the prisoners gave him a representation over their intention.

With respect to the amo-unt being donated to the victims, he said that they were going to send Rs 11,000 to the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund through their Director-General. “We have calculated the cost of the food, including 750 grams of mutton, which we provide to each prisoner on Sunday,” the jail superintendent added. Meanwhile, all the State government employees, workers and staff of aided institutions will contribute a day’s basic salary to the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund towards providing succour to the victims of floods and heavy rains.

According to GO Ms No. 235 dated August 14, 2006, from the finance department, the government will deduct a day’s basic pay of the employees from their August month salary to be payable on September 1. The decision was taken by the government following letters from Joint Action Committee of the Employees, Workers and Teachers and from Andhra Pradesh Secretariat Employees Association.

Tirupati, Aug. 14: Tirumala continued to witness a heavy turnout of devotees on Monday. Devotees had to wait for 80 hours for free darshan to have a glimpse of the Lord and 70 hours for special darshan. All queue complexes were full to their brim with devotees waiting for their turn. Cellar tickets allotted to VIPs were cancelled.

Authorities prepared additional laddus anticipating a heavy turnout in the next three days. TTD authorities feel that VIPs should keep away from the temple town for the next three days since it was difficult for officials to provide them accommodation or darshan. In their bid to discourage them, off-icials are also calling VIPs sending recommendation letters, to explain the conditions prevailing at Tirumala.

Meanwhile, security has been tightened at Tirumala hills in view of Independe-nce Day on Tuesday. Bomb detecting squads have beg-an intensive checks at luggage keeping points, laddu counters, sanctum sanctorum and Parakamani besi-des the four Mada streets. Meanwhile, hundi collection was Rs 1.10 crore on Monday while it was Rs 1.60 crore on Sunday.

Warangal, Aug. 14: An eight-day-old baby boy was stolen from the Government Maternity Hospital in Hanamkonda in the wee hours of Monday and was later recovered from a rag-picker. There was high drama in the hospital after the baby’s parents, B. Latha and Kushudu, discovered that the infant was nowhere to be seen. They immediately raised an alarm and info-rmed the hospital authorities and the police. As the news spread, relatives of the couple and residents of their village Jayagiri thronged the hospital and started protesting aga-inst the hospital authorities.

Police rushed to the hospital and questioned some of the staff members and private security personnel. While the police were interrogating the staff, a rag-picker appeared out of nowhere and confessed that he had found a baby boy near the hospital premises. The rag-picker, R. Mallesham, told the police that the infant was with his wife Laxmi.

Police then went to the premises of the Mission Hospital nearby, where the rag-picker’s wife was found with the baby. Though the issue ended on a happy note, police are still puzzled about how the baby was taken out of the hospital and abandoned in the premises.

Nizamabad, Aug. 14: Int-elligence Bureau officials are busy collecting reports on floods, viral fever and chikungunya. Sources in the district Intelligence Bureau told this correspondent that the State IB officials had instructed them to collect reports on these issues, which are expected to rock the forthcoming Assembly sessions from August 17. Sources further said that Chief Minister Y.S. Raja-sekhar Reddy was holding exercises to give proper answers to the questions posed by the Opposition parties in the Assembly.

Telugu Desam president Chandrababu Naidu, who toured all the flood-affected districts in the State during the last week, had told the media that the TD would corner the State government in the Assembly on its failures. Similarly, the Telugu Desam is also expected to raise questions on viral fever and chikungunya and the measures taken by the State government to prevent the spread of disease.

In Nizamabad district, nine persons died at various places in the recent floods and the district ad-ministration had prepared a damage report for Rs 45 crores. At least six persons died due to viral fevers in the entire district, but no death has been reported so far due to chikungunya.

Guntur, Aug. 14: The vigilance and enforcement department will probe into the alleged irregularities in the printing and distribution of posters and books by the civil supplies department. Ironically, the swindling of funds has occurred in the printing of books and posters on the rights of consumers and it was the Guntur Consumer Forum which pointed it out first. Preliminary investigation by the V& E department made it clear that things were not done properly.

Civil supplies officials had claimed that 5.10 lakh posters on consumer rights were published in 2004. Ideally, consumer wings of each district should have received at least 20,000 posters. But Guntur district received only 10,000 posters. Moreover, the price of the poster was printed as higher than what was decided. Anomalies were also found in the publication of the books for consumer utility titled Viniyoga Taringini. Each district had to receive 1,300 books, but received only a handful of books.
Similarly, public funds were misused under the guise of establishing consumer clubs.

The District Consumers Information Centre of Guntur is being run in a haphazard manner without proper accounting or audit. Acting on the complaint filed by the forum, V& E directorate at Hyderabad ordered the probe.

Guntur, Aug 14: Security is still nominal at the Nagarjunasagar dam, despite warnings of a possible terror attack. Though Karnataka police tipped off their Andhra Pradesh counterparts about Nagarjunasagar being in the hit list of terrorists, officials have not bothered to tighten security there. Karnataka police had issue the alert after stumbling upon the emails of a Lashkar-e-Taiba operative. If the emails are to be believed, the LeT was eyeing Nagarjunasagar dam as a possible target.

The alert was given four months ago and security was beefed up for a while after the meeting of dam officials with the chief secretary. Later, Hyderabad police also learnt of the LeT plots and alerted SPs of districts where important installations such as dams and power plants were located. Superintendent engineer of Nagarjunasagar, Mr C. Krishnaiah, said that three sub-inspectors and 30 police personnel were deployed at the dam by the Nalgonda police after the recent floods. However, they were withdrawn soon.

A proposal was made to the director-general of police a few months ago to deploy 60 more police personnel in the area. But there was no response. A platoon of the Andhra Pradesh Special Protection Force guards the dam site round-the-clock. However, after the Maoist seizure of weapons from security forces at Srisailam dam in 2001, the weapons of security personnel at Nagarjunasagar dam were taken to the Nalgonda headquarters. At present, the security personnel are guarding the dam with lathis.

Visakhapatnam, Aug. 14: For the first time in the country, a pair of twins were born after Preimplantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) at an in-vitro fertilisation clinic here. Some institutes have had successful births after running the PGD test, but this is perhaps for the first time that twins were born after the test.

PGD detects genetic abnormalities such as disease-causing mutations and chromosomal abnormalities at the embryo level, much before the pregnancy in cases of in-vitro fertilisation. Clinic director Dr G.A. Ramaraju said that the technology is useful for couples undergoing IVF procedures with an advanced maternal age and for patients with repetitive IVF failure. “We can check the genetic make-up of the baby using this technology at the embryo level even before the pregnancy, (the genetic make-up) is usually checked after the delivery,” the doctor said.

Under the procedure, healthy embryos will be implanted in the womb so that the woman has babies without abnormalities.
“Malformations, retinal defects and other abnormalities in a baby can be detected much before and prevented through the PGD,” the doctor said. In the case announced on Monday, “We have detected some abnormalities at the embryo level and implanted healthy and unaffected embryos.

The result was two healthy twins” said Dr Raju. He said that the technology was an effective option for women who suffer recurrent first trimester pregnancy loss, for women with a history of chromosomally abnormal pregnancy and the women with age-related fertility. “The technology is used at very few places in the world and the city will now be on the world map due to the delivery of these twins with PGD,” Dr Raju said.

Visakhapatnam, Aug. 14: The Maoists are reportedly planning famine raids in the agency areas to distribute the loot to the rain-hit tribals. Apart from those affected by heavy rains that lashed the district, around 45 families were left homeless in a landslide at Kodipunjuvalasa village in Araku Valley.

The tribals in Naxal-dominated areas like Gudem Kotha Veedhi, Koyyuru, Hukumpeta, Chintapalli, Dumbriguda, Sileru and Golugonda had lost their crops because of the torrential rains and a majority of them are finding it difficult to get a square meal.
In the event of many tribal families, who lost their livelihood, not getting sufficient relief from the State government, Maoists had reportedly targeted to loot depots of Girijan Cooperative Corporation in the Agency areas.

Recently, the Maoists conducted a famine raid on a GCC depot and took some bags of paddy with them. After reports from various sources, the police had alerted the salesmen of the GCC depots to be cautious. The GCC officials, meanwhile, had taken some precautionary measures and stalled the supply of food grains and other essential goods to their depots in sensitive areas. A police official said that they would verify the facts and provide security to the GCC depots.

Earlier S. Kota MLA, Kumbha Ravi Babu told reporters at Araku that funds have been released under the Prime Minister’s Relief Fund to help the rain-hit tribals in the Agency areas, especially Kodipunjuvalasa villages. “Compensation will be handed over to the victims very shortly,” he added.