The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : If it were…..

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jan 01, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

If it were…..

The Indian Science Congress boasts that three Nobel laureates will attend it this week in the city. With the Asian team chess championships also being held around the same time, another Nobel laureate would have been added, if it were to be over two decades ago.

It was during 1980 when the first Asian Women’s Chess (individual) championship was held in Hyderabad which Rohini Khadilkar won ultimately. The two-member Singapore team had a manager in Prof. Lim Kok Ann. AICF secretary Manuel Aron announced at the meeting that Prof. Lim Kok Ann was a Nobel laureate in Medicine which was promptly reported in the press the next morning. Immediately, the authorities of Gandhi and Osmania Medical Colleges rushed to him with a request he addressed their students in his free time.

Indeed, Prof. Lim Kok Ann had lots of it with his two girls not at their best. Watching them, he was also seen jocularly remarking, “She ate a prawn (pawn) and lost a piece”.

‘Cell’ shocked

It was apparently a shock treatment for New Year revellers from the mobile phone operators when they were in high spirits to welcome arrival of 2008 with a big bang. Those who got addicted to sending SMSs at 10 paise were shocked when they had to shell down Re. 1 per SMS. Enquiries revealed that concessional package is withdrawn without prior information on certain days like December 31 when the SMS traffic is very high. “We are used to sending SMSs in bulk at 10 paise per message. But such steep increase is nothing but cheating,” an SMS user bemoaned.

Cashing in on popularity of SMS service, the mobile companies had jacked up per SMS charge from one to 10 paise per message for those opting for a monthly package sometime ago. (Prabhakkar Sharma and Santosh Patnaik)

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