Three students of Sri Chaitanya schools — J.Venkata Lahari, K.Sharan Siddhartha and E. Lalitha — bagged ISRO-GSLV awards.
Among the 41 students were 10 class district toppers from AP and Telangana, . After four rounds of selection procedure the three students bagged the top three positions. The awards were presented by SHAR Director M.Y.S Prasad.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Hyderabad /by Special Correspondent / Hyderabad – October 22nd, 2014
Hyderabad :
Telangana chief minister K Chandrasekhar Rao has given green signal to the Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation to go ahead with delimitation of divisions and reservation for the purpose of elections to the civic body
GHMC commisisoner Somesh Kumar broached the delimitation issue with the chief minister when he met him at the Secretariat on Tuesday. In view of the increase in population as per Census-2011 (67,31,790), the number of the wards (divisions) is likely to go up to 172 from the present 150. The delimitation work will begin after issuance of a government order which is expected soon.
The government is required to complete the process before the third week of this month in the wake of a recent High Court’s direction to the municipal administration department and GHMC to carry out delimitation of wards as per the GO 570 of MAUD at the earliest. Only after the delimitation should the government hold elections of the GHMC, it said.
The state election commissioner wrote a letter to the GHMC asking it to comply with the court order that polls be held before December 3, when the term of the present body expires, as mandated under Article 243 U (3)(a) of the Constitution.
The SEC will need 35 days to complete direct election of corporators or ward members (28 days) and indirect election of mayor and deputy mayor (7 days). The election notification is to be issued in the last week of October so as to complete the process before Dec 3.
The SEC has, therefore, asked the state government and GHMC to chalk out the schedule for delimitation of wards and reservation of seats. Based on the Census-2011, the number of wards will increase to 172 from 150. The number of elected members for the first 50 lakh population will be 143 and for the rest of the population it will be 29.
For every 60,000 people over and above 50 lakh there should be one additional elected member. That means there will be 28 elected representatives for a population of 16,80,000 and one for 51,790.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Telangana / by S. Bachan Jeet Singh / October 22nd, 2014
Writers in Nalgonda and family members of Venkata Subba Rao, who wrote our National Pledge, urge the government to acknowledge his work
Just like the National Anthem and the National Song that’s engraved on our memory, our National Pledge is taken by students in schools across the country, but the writer who penned it is hardly known to people.
Since the introduction of the Pledge in school textbooks in the erstwhile Andhra Pradesh in 1964, it continues to serve the same purpose as our National Anthem and is quite well-known. But its author Pydimarri Venkata Subba Rao, who hails from Nalgonda district, has remained inconspicuous for some reason and has not got the due recognition that he so deserves.
The successive governments in united Andhra Pradesh made no efforts to popularise him, neither did they give him credit for his work by mentioning his name in the textbooks that had the Pledge.
Questioning this, poets and writers from the district and the family members of Venkata Subba Rao have made an appeal to the Chief Minister, K. Chandrasekhar Rao, to acknowledge his work by including his name in the textbooks by issuing a government order. Also, they have urged the government to recommend his name for Padma award.
Born on June 10, 1916 at Anneparthi village near Nalgonda town, Subba Rao had a flair for writing and one of his poems appeared in Suravaram Prathapa Reddy’s book on Telangana poets Golkonda Kavulu published in 1934, when he was only 18 years old, said noted poet Venu Sankoju.
Subba Rao was an employee in the State Treasury Department and worked in various capacities in Nizamabad, Khammam, Nellore, Visakhapatnam and Nalgonda and retired in 1971. While he was in Visakhapatnam between 1962-64, India was in war with China during which time Subba Rao wrote a story to inculcate patriotism among people.
His elder son P.V. Subramanyam, recalling those memories, said that his father showed his song to senior Congress leader from Visakhapatnam Tenneti Viswanadham, who forwarded it to the then Education Minister P.V.G. Raju, father of current Union Minister for Civil Aviation Ashok Gajapathi Raju. Due to the efforts of the then Education Minister, the Pledge was included in school textbooks which was later translated to English, Hindi, Marathi, Gujarathi and many other regional languages.
Shockingly, the then State government did not even inform Subba Rao about the inclusion of the song in textbooks, allege his family members. He only came to know about it when his granddaughter was reading it aloud in his 70s, after his retirement.
But Subba Rao’s contribution to writing has been recognised in books of other writers like Elikatte Shankar Rao, who had authored Prathigna Padashilpi- Pydimarri comprising articles written by Telangana writers on Subba Rao. Mr. Shankar Rao has written another book Prathigna-50 Years of Discrimination highlighting the failure of successive governments in recognising the contribution of a legendary figure like Subba Rao.
“Union Ministry of Human Resource Development records, however, show Subba Rao as the author of the Pledge,” claims his family members and writers.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National> Telangana / by Staff Reporter / Nalgonda – October 21st, 2014
‘Brand Hyderabad’ received a shot in the arm with aerospace engine manufacturers Pratt and Whitney (P&W) all set to throw open the country’s first customer training centre here. The facility, spread over two acres, and located close to the international airport in Shamshabad, will be operational by mid-2015.
After training centres in USA and China, Hyderabad is the company’s third facility that will exclusively train aircraft engineers and technicians of their customers on their current and new engines. “About 40 per cent of the world’s training of our engines will happen here,” informed Bruce Hall, general manager (customer training), Pratt & Whitney, UTC India at the ground-breaking ceremony of the facility on Thursday. “Setting up of this facility was a logical decision for us since we have a huge customer base here,” Mr. Hall said.
He said the engineers of their customers from other countries in the region would also train at the centre and the training volume would double by 2018. In the initial phase, the facility will be used to train only the technicians of airlines using Pratt and Whitney engines but in future, academic education would also be imparted. The training would be provided on V2500 and PW1100G-JM Engines with scope for adding newer models. Telangana IT Minister K.T. Rama Rao, who was the chief guest, invited the company to set up their manufacturing unit in the city.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Cities> Hyderabad / by Staff Reporter / Hyderabad – October 17th, 2014
A volley ball enthusiast, ever-learning photographer, avid reader of science-related articles, ardent blogger and a passionate father would be too few words to describe Syed Maqbool Ahmed, who is presently heading the Central Instrumentation Laboratory of the University of Hyderabad, where he oversees the day-to-day functionings.
Perhaps the description that instantly draws eyeballs to him would be of his association with India’s successful Mars Orbiter Mission, Mangalyaan. Ahmed is the person who developed a quadrupole-based mass spectrometer, CHACE (Chandra’s Altitudinal Composition Explorer), which was used in India’s mission to the moon, Chandrayaan-1, which discovered water there. An upgraded variant of CHACE, named MENCA (Mars Enospheric Neutral Composition Analyser), is aboard Mangalyaan.
The 53-year old Principal Scientific Officer is known for his passion for science. Having worked at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in the US earlier (1994-96) and with ISRO’s Chandrayaan-1 project, Ahmed is a content and accomplished scientist who acknowledges the role of destiny and his teachers in his success.
Ahmed was the project manager of the team of scientists who, as part of the Moon Impact Probe (MIP) mission, developed an indigenous science payload called CHACE, which detected the presence of water on the Moon in November 2008.
Hailing from a middle class family in the remote village Alampur in Mahabubnagar district of Telangana, Ahmed went to Hyderabad for higher studies after completing his schooling in the Telugu medium. “My family, comprising five brothers and three sisters, wanted me to become an Engineer due to obvious reasons of poverty. I gave the EAMCET entrance test thrice and failed each time. That was a big jolt in life, but my aspirations were alive,” says Ahmed.
Back then, he had no passion for Science. After BSc Honours from New Science College in the city, the biggest turnaround happened in his life when he gave the interview for MSc Physics at University of Hyderabad in 1982. “Out of the 30 faculty members in the Physics department, 28 were US returned. In the interview, I could barely understand the questions due to the complex language,” recalls Ahmed.
“AK Kapur sir in the panel understood my difficulty and started asking me questions in Hindi and translated others’ questions too. The panel was happy and I got through. Had he not done that, I would neither have got through nor have realised my passion for Science. Such teachers of exceptionally high standards are hard to find,” says Ahmed.
Soon after his postgraduation, while his parents wanted him to go to the Gulf to earn a living, he decided to join Physical Research Laboratory (PRL), Ahmedabad for a PhD in 1985. “I had to literally fight with my siblings to pursue my PhD and I had to choose PRL over two IITs because of a few hundred rupees extra I would receive towards fellowship,” quips the scientist.
He went on to complete his PhD in Simulation of Planetary Atmosphere or Laboratory Astrophysics in 1990 and joined the Institute for Plasma Research (IPR), Gandhinagar, in 1992 and continued to work as Associate Professor, till 2004. During a sabbatical in 2001-02, he was engaged with the Swiss Federal Institute in Switzerland.
Ahmed joined ISRO’s Chandrayaan project in 2005 and developed a quadrupole-based mass spectrometer, CHACE, which worked successfully in India’s Moon mission. He left ISRO at the age of 46 when he found about a mysterious disease that had infected his daughter. The same year, he joined Central Instruments Laboratory of University of Hyderabad as Principal Scientific Officer.
For him, life has been driven by serendipity. “ISRO happened to me by chance. It was a coincidence when I met Prof R Sridharan, Director of Space Physics Lab (SPL). He took me to the Chief, Madhavan Nair, who handpicked me from Department of Atomic Energy (IPR comes under this department) to Department of Space. This was incredible,” recollects Ahmed.
Acknowledging the contributions of his teachers in his life, Ahmed, presently, apart from heading CIL, holds regular talks on Indian space programmes and also conducts training sessions for Science teachers.
“Schools have to ensure Science is taught with passion. The introduction of the subject is very important. It is very difficult to capture students’ attention for more than half an hour. I try to link the subject to day-to-day activities,” he points out.
He believes a bit of Psychology and sequencing of dosage where teachers ensure students understand the basics first before moving on to bigger things too is important in teaching.
“Students today are much aware of things around them. When they ask me well-prepared questions, I am forced to say I don’t know,” says Ahmed, who believes teachers need to be honest and prepared to bring their experiences and observations from life into the classroom.
According to him, India has failed to attract the best minds into research. “The reason US prospers in Science and research is because they have attracted the best minds and are providing incentives. Our people are doing programming at the same time,” he laughs.
On the CHACE-turned-MENCA, he offers, “It is a very sensitive instrument and I am confident that we will be the first to locate water on Mars,” says the proud scientist, who has been blogging about Mangalyaan for the past 18 months.
Rahul.v@newindianexpress.com
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Education> Edex / by Rahul V. Pisharody / Hyderabad – October 13th, 2014
Hyderabad :
In a move that could shed more light on the important historical aspects of Naya Qila heritage complex, the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has started excavating the site of what was once the Qutub Shahi Gardens.
Reliable sources from the Archaeological Survey of India told TOI that officials of the Hyderabad Circle of the archaeological juggernaut conducted an inspection of the heritage precinct last week. The land is currently in possession of the tourism department and its private partner, the Hyderabad Golf Association, the sources said.
“We have received orders from the director general of the ASI in New Delhi to begin work. The intention is to expose the Qutub Shahi Gardens, also known as Deccani Gardens. Further, there has been a long-pending demand from the activists for us to begin work,” said an ASI official who did not wish to be identified.
The ASI plans to drain the land parcel of the sewage water that has been accumulated over the years. Further, the vegetation and the debris on the heritage land would be also cleared as part of the plan.
“A report by eminent historian Ghulam Yazdani explains the presence of Qutub Shahi Gardens. We are hopeful that the results will be seen within a week of the excavation,” said ASI superintending archaeologist R Krishnaiah.
Rumours about the ASI unearthing a treasure chest began spreading early last week. The ASI, on the other hand, was swift enough to deny these claims.
“There is no treasure. The land was tilled by farmers until a few years ago. All these reports are baseless,” an ASI official said.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Hyderabad / TNN / October 06th, 2014
Hyderabad :
Have a valid mobile number and a Wi-Fi-enabled device? If yes, your commute in and around Hitec city has just become interesting, thanks to the free ‘Public Wi-Fi’ pilot initiative rolled out jointly by the Telangana government and telecom service provider Bharti Airtel.
Nearly 40,000 persons commuting between Cyber towers-Madhapur police station, Cyber Towers-Kothaguda junction and Cyber Towers-Raheja Mindspace circle are now entitled for free internet services of up to 750 mbps per day per user. As a part of its 3-month pilot, Airtel has set hotspots at 17 locations covering a total of 8 km around Hitec city for users to access free internet.
Typically, 750 mbps data usage will allow users with Wi-Fi-enabled devices like smartphones, tablets, laptops, netbooks, phablets, to send nearly 200 mails without attachments and even watch a 2-2.5 hour movie i.e., if the service provider permits. ‘’This is just a beginning. We will come to a position where the entire city will be Wi-Fi enabled in about four months. Tendering process is going on. The entire 700 sq km of Hyderabad city will be covered under Wi-Fi soon,” said IT minister KT Rama Rao.
He added that enabling public access to superior Wi-Fi technology was a part of the government’s broader agenda to promote greater digital inclusion for citizens, therefore making Hyderabad, a ‘Global Smart City.’
According to Venkatesh Vijayraghavan, CEO, Bharti Airtel, AP and Telangana, optic fiber technology has been used to provide the service. ‘’Though the speed of internet will be 40 mbps, the same will depend on number of users at that point of time,” he said adding that the company was in the process of working out tariff.
For Airtel, this is the first such free Wi-Fi rollout across the country. After the pilot, Airtel will take a call on how to extend its services. When asked, if Airtel will consider expanding this service to other states, Vijayraghavan said the company was in silent period to discuss expansion plans.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> States> Telangana / by ENS Economic Bureau / October 11th, 2014
Warangal :
The 74th death anniversary of legendary Gond rebel Komaram Bheem was observed at Congress Bhavan at Hanamkonda on Wednesday.Speaking on the occasionm, Congress district president Naini Rajender Reddy recalled the greatness of tribal leader born in Jodeghat.
He fought against the Nizams for Jal-Jungle-Jameen (water-forest-land) and died on this day fighting for protection of tribal rights.” Ex-minister Basawaraj Saraiah recalled that the state government organised a programme in memory of Bheem last year too. He also said Bheem’s biography should be included in school curriculum.
source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com / Deccan Chronicle / Home> Nation> Current Affairs / DC Correspondent / October 09th, 2014
Hyderabad :
Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) director Dr ChMohanRao, has been selected for the award of VisishtaPuraskarm by Ramineni Foundation, USA on the occasion of its 15th Anniversary Puraskaarams-2014.
He was chosen for his outstanding contributions in science and technology, particularly in the areas of protein folding in health and disease and molecular basis for lens transparency and cataract.
He played a key role in developing a diagnostic tool to identify a number of eye infections under the CSIR’s programme on New Millennium Indian Technology Leadership Initiative (NMITLI) and looking into a cost-effective treatment for cancer using photodynamic therapy.
He has combined biophysical, molecular biological and cell biological approaches to address problems of biomedical importance. He has published more than 100 research papers and several science articles in many national and international journals and is a Fellow of several national and international academies.
Dr Mohan Rao’s multidisciplinary expertise including electronics, fabrication and digital interfacing along with cellular, molecular and biophysical approaches enabled him to provide vision and leadership in several contexts. In addition to his outstanding research activity, he has been playing a significant role in popularizing science among the school children, science teachers and uninitiated public in general.
Ramineni Foundation was founded in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA with a noble mission of recognising and felicitating the spirited, relentless efforts and immeasurable services of all those veterans drawn from a broad spectrum of fields in Arts, Science and Humanities. The award of Vishishta Puraskaaram carries rs one lakh cash, a plaque and a memento by Ramineni Foundation. He will receive the award on October 12 at a function to be organised by the Foundation in Vijayawada.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Hyderabad / by Ch. Sushil Rao, TNN / October 10th, 2014
Hyderabad :
Pillalamarri, the famed 700-year-old banyan tree near Mahabubnagar, will appear on a special cover being brought out by the Department of Posts.
The magnificent tree with its branches stretching over an area of three acres is acclaimed as a “living legend” of the district. Over the years, the heritage symbol, located in the fields 4 km from Mahabubnagar town, attracted tourists from far and near. From a distance, it presents the look of a small hillock covered with thick foliage. As one draws closer, the majestic tree stands out like a giant umbrella, which can shelter upto 1,000 persons. There is a tomb of a Muslim saint underneath the tree.
On its part, the Postal Department has resolved to do its bit to commemorate the tree by releasing a special cover during a philatelic exhibition at Mahabubnagar on August 29 and 30. The special cover will be released by T.S.Govindarajan, Chief Postmaster General, Andhra Pradesh Circle.
A special video show for children on “stamp collection-an educative hobby”, philately workshop, essay and quiz competitions for students will be the highlights of the two-day exhibition. As an on-going effort to popularise stamp collection, the facility of philately deposit account is provided at all head post offices through which children can get newly released stamps with an initial deposit of Rs 200.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu, Online edition / Home> Southern States – Andhra Pradesh / by The Hindu Special Correspondent / Thursday – August 14th, 2003