Andhra Pradesh - Visakhapatnam   

Reporter's Diary

More than a heroine

Actor and singer Bhanumathi Ramakrishna was a legend in her own time. Her songs, films and characters earned her a name that will live for a long time. She played with élan a number of characters often dominating heroes. None can imagine Malleswari without Bhanumati. She carved a niche for herself in the male-dominated film world. Off the screen too, she was a no-nonsense woman and also a great humour writer with her `Atthagaru' series find a place in Telugu literature.

A compilation of articles written on Bhanumati titled `Mahamahila' was released at a function here on Sunday.

Former rector of Andhra University A. Prasanna Kumar narrated an incident at the function. For playing a role in NTR's home production `Tatammakala', NTR had asked her what her remuneration would be. She told him to pay her more than what he charged for a film as a hero. After receiving the amount, she returned it adding a few thousand rupees! She advised him to take more than what she had sent him for his next film. NTR had reportedly paid her a huge amount for a cameo in another home production. That film, however, did not see the light of the day.

Gorle Ramamurthy Naidu, new Zilla Parishad Chairman, seems to be highly superstitious. Perhaps he can boast of getting top honours if any contest is conducted for one's belief in `muhurthams.'

Though all the chairpersons presided over the first meeting of Zilla Parishads, Mr. Naidu was an exception. The reason: His family had put pressure on him not to attend the meeting as the timing was inauspicious due to `ashadham.' In the process, he impressed upon the newly-elected ZP territorial constituency members to abstain from the meeting, forcing officials to adjourn the meeting for want of quorum on Sunday.

Araku ZPTC member Killo Surendra, who took strong exception to the postponement of the meeting, later remarked that Mr. Naidu should have preferred to attend the meeting as per the instructions of the State Election Commission to discuss viral fever sweeping the agency area and other important issues.

Higher education in India is being increasingly dominated by the rich in spite of the proliferation of universities. It is not the statement made by an organisation or a political party but the findings of the surveys made by NCERT and UGC.

According to the survey made by NCERT, 80 per cent of students in the universities belong to the upper middle class and richer sections. UGC survey put the figure at 70 per cent.

Those who cannot afford professional education are joining degree courses and among them the poor and lower middle class groups prefer social sciences. These details were given by the Head of the Department of Economics of Andhra University, K. Srirama Murthy, at a seminar organised by SFI here recently.

The number of universities has gone up from 19 at the time of independence to the present 261 and the student strength from 20 lakhs to 8.80 crores during the same period. But the content of the universities and the investment in them by the Government has come down resulting in higher education going out of the reach of poor and lower-middle class segments.

Soon three types of graduates will be seen in the country: those from foreign institutions, corporate institutions and government institutions, says Prof. Murthy.

G.V. Prasada Sarma, Santosh Patnaik and G. Narasimha Rao

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