Nearly 35,000 dogs including 16,000 at Kakinada and 9,000 in Rajahmundry and the remaining in six municipalities with an exception of Tuni municipality and also in rural areas, were vaccinated.

The municipal corporation, the Animal Welfare Board of India and an NGO, Jeeva Raksha Animal Welfare Society, entered into a tripartite agreement in March 2011 for administration of anti-rabies vaccine, as well as an animal birth control programme.

Though, the agreement was to carry out both vaccination and ABC simultaneously, only vaccination was done.

The agreement for ABC specifies sharing of the amount in the ratio of 50 per cent by the Municipal Corporation and AWBI.

According to AWBI specifications, Rs.445 is to be paid for carrying out either castration or sterilisation on each dog.

The NGO is learnt to have asked the civic authorities to catch and supply stray dogs to help them carry out ABC, to ensure transparency in implementation.

The civic authorities are not doing so. They apprehend audit objections.

Source: Deccanchronicle

The district rural development agency project director, Mr Y. Ramakrishna, taking part in a programme held at the sub-jail located at Kotadibba on Wednesday said that they were working out an action plan involving several agencies like DRDA, SC and BC Corporations, SETWEL, minorities and youth welfare, disabled welfare and industries.

He said that they intend to train the remand prisoners on various vocations and later provide them loans from the bankers to help them set up small scale units and eke out their livelihood.

He said that they were holding deliberations with the sub-jail staff and also with the remand prisoners to find out the nature of job skills required to provide training to them.

He said that they were taking up the programme based on the directions from the collector, Dr G. Vani Mohan, who was asked by the remand prisoners earlier to provide them training in job skills to help them lead a normal life in the society soon after they are set free.

Source: Deccanchronicle

Farmers in the district, which was affected by a crop holiday on the one side and drought on the other, besides delayed release of water for cultivation by the irrigation department, could not avail the facility though it was extended twice from January 8, and later to January 15, from the earlier date of 31 December 2011.

Efforts by the State Level Bankers’ Committee (SLBC) to get further extension was futile as the insurance company did not agree to this. This has deprived about 75,600 farmers in 44 mandals (as 14 mandals were declared drought hit) in the district in opting for fresh loans and for loan rescheduling without insurance coverage to avail interest free loans up to Rs.1 lakh and 3 per cent interest (pavala vaddi) beyond Rs.1 lakh and up to Rs.3 lakh.

This was extended by state government from October 2011 to these sections as part of sops to farmers.

Weather based crop insurance provides insurance coverage from sowing to post harvest till the grain is shifted from the fields within a stipulated time including crop loss due to natural calamities.

Farmers have therefore given undertakings to scheduled banks, expressing their willingness to forego insurance coverage to get the interest benefit extended by state government.

Andhra Bank sources said that they could not get further extension despite hectic efforts through the SLBC.

Source: Deccanchronicle

The district collector, Mr V. Durgadas, conducted a meeting with excise, police and revenue officials at his camp office here on Wednesday.

He enquired with the excise deputy commissioner, Mr M. Devakumar, about illicit liquor manufacturers and their dens where they brew the liquor.

Mr Devakumar said that they have identified 261 illicit liquor centres in the district and they were classified into A, B and C.

He added that there are 72 each in A and B classes and 116 centres in C class.

In all, 4,542 cases were booked and 1,339 persons were arrested apart from seizing 30,167 litres of liquor and destroying 15,46,315 litres of hooch under preparation, the official said.

Mr Devakumar said that the officials have seized 63 vehicles apart from booking bind-over cases against 193 persons.

The collector expressed dissatisfaction saying, “though the excise department was acting tough against the hooch trade, the results were not upto the mark.”

He directed the officials to go on with unrelenting raids to contain illicit liquor brewing.

He also directed the excise officials to keep an eye on illicit liquor flowing from neighbouring districts with the help of police department.

Mr Durgadas told the officials to book cases under PD Act against the people involved in illicit liquor brewing and trade.

The excise functionaries were also told to keep an eye on dabas on the highways apart from booking bindover cases against the habitual offenders.

The joint collector, Ms Anita Ramachandran, excise official, Mr Satyaprasad, administration superintendent of police, Mr Sivaiah, Dharmavaram RDO, Mr Prabhakar Pillai, and collectorate superintendent, Mr Ravindra, were present at the meeting.

Source: Deccanchronicle

The Election Commission has posted Mr Lakshmi Narayana, deputy commissioner, Income Tax wing, Chennai, as expenditure observer for the Kovur by-election. District collector B. Sreedhar revealed this while speaking to this newspaper on Wednesday.

The collector said that a media committee meant to keep a tab on paid articles has been formed with joint collector Saurabh Gaur as head of the committee.

Mr B. Srinivasa Rao from the print media and Mr S.K. Ghouse from the electronic media have been made media representatives in the committee.

According to Mr Sreedhar, Kavali revenue divisional officer Subramanyam Reddy will assist the ZP CEO and returning officer T. Veerabhadra Rao in the election process.

“All activities related to the election will be handled by the returning officer and we will only provide assistance wherever necessary,” the collector said.

Polling staff were being identified for appointment and letters were prepared to call them for a training programme, he noted.

He said that they will spare lecturers from election duty since Intermediate exams will be in progress at the time of the elections on March 18.

Source: Deccanchronicle

District superintendent of police B.V. Ramana Kumar said that they had established seven border check posts, and seven more on the entry points to Kovur Assembly segment to prevent the flow of money, weapons and liquor into the Kovur segment. The check posts started functioning from Tuesday.

Border check posts have been set up at Sullurpeta, Rapur, Venkatagiri, Pellakur, Kavali, Marripadu and Duttalur and check posts bordering the Kovur segment have been set up at Annareddy-palem, Venkateswara-puram, Sunnapubatti, Thalamanchi, NH 5 Penna Bridge, Kisan Nagar and TP Gudur, Mr Ramana Kumar said, when contacted.

According to him, the check posts will run in three shifts and will be manned by one sub-inspector, two police constables (civil), two police constables (Armed Reserve), one head constable and two home guards.

Officials manning the check posts have been clearly instructed to check all vehicles including government ones, entering the district and Kovur Assembly constituency.

They should maintain a general diary and note down the number of vehicles and type of vehicles checked.

The SP said that he had requested the Guntur range IG to provide additional force to man the check posts since they need at least 48 sub-inspectors as of now, and the requirement may increase if a VIP visits the segment for campaigning.

He said that they will also take the assistance of the AP Special Police battalion located in Venkatagiri for security arrangements in the by-election.

Source: Deccanchronicle

According to the survey, the youth aged between 15-24 years have chosen Sachin Tendulkar, Shahrukh Khan and Salman Khan as their Top 3 icons. Other budding stars like Virat Kohli, Ranbir Kapoor and Imran Khan have failed to make to the top ten list of youth icons.

However, the average age of the top 3 icons in the survey conducted by Brand Equity is 43 years, but Sachin, Shahrukh and Salman are seen as trendsetters in their profession. They are considered as the inspiring role models, have a great style quotient and are evidently convincing brand ambassadors for brands they endorse.

The strength has been increased from merely 10 security staff to nearly 50 personnel during the last two days. The commissioner of police, Mr N. Madhusudan Reddy, told this newspaper on Wednesday that quick Response Team would get special training to counter the terror activities.

With the introduction of Airbus services between Vijayawada and New Delhi six months ago the Airports Authority of India and the police depar-tment are taking extra security measures. Beca-use, the terrorists could hijack the plane and div-ert it to other countries.

The Airbus flight has more fuel capacity compared to smaller aircraft and can fly to longer distances. So, there is a security threat to the bigger aircraft. Hijacking of Air India flight to Kandhahar more than a decade ago is fresh in the memory of police officials.

Till one year ago, only Kingfisher operated services from Gannavaram airport. Now, SpiceJet, Air India, Jet Airways and Kingfisher are operating services from Ganna-varam to Hyderabad, Chennai, Bengaluru and New Delhi. Proposals are also being made to launch flight operations to Mum-bai and Kolkata viz Vizag. The passenger traffic also crossed more than 50,000 per year during the last few months. So, the city police decided to strengthen the security to check any untoward incident.

Closed circuit cameras will be installed very soon in the airport. The city police are holding talks with Airports Authority of India for the installation of CC cameras. Circ-le-inspector Mr Ramakri-shna is the new incharge of the airport security. Mr Ramakrishna is assisted by a sub-inspector rank officer. Double guards will be on duty for the aircraft during landing. Dog squad consists of six members and a dog trainer has been drafted.

Source: Deccanchronicle

Though Sunny is not yet finalised for the item number, but an elated Sunny is currently very excited about her Bollywood debut Jism 2. Sunny tweeted, “For everyone asking! The first time you are going to see me on the big screen in India is going to be for @jism2 ONLY!!!(sic).”

She also warned all, “Everything else you hear in the news is not true. I am going to make my debut with @jism2 ONLY!!!! I LOVE @jism2(sic).” Though Jism 2 release is still a long way to go, Sunny seems to be extremely happy even with the thought of it.

Ashmit Patel has stripped to support an article on underwear in the magazine. Throwing light on the importance of wearing right kind of innerwears, the actor has posed nude but holds a white-colour undergarment to cover his private part.

However, the actor, who has not got any film in his hands, is busy with television programmes. In the recent times, he is seen in in the TV series titled Superstud.