The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh News : Taking things for granted

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Tuesday, Jul 29, 2008
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh

Taking things for granted

There is an increasing tendency among people’s representatives and their relatives to create a scene nowadays, that too glaringly in public. The other day a few MIM MLAs created ruckus at Abids, when officials tried to demolish an illegal building. One legislator even whipped out a revolver and fired shots in air! On Monday, something similar happened. This time, it was brother of a Minister who created a lot of commotion at the RTA office. Will the law enforcement a gencies show this sort of a restraint, if a common man behaved in a similar way is the question doing rounds.

Barely ten days ago when the city and State were reeling under extended summer like conditions and the then impending ‘Trust Vote’, things were indeed looking bleak for the ruling Congress.

The assertions then of Agriculture Minister N. Raghuveera Reddy that monsoon would revive and “We are very hopeful of good rains” were taken by many as wishful thinking. Well, the Congress-led UPA not only won the trust vote comfortably, b ut the skies too opened up with copious rain in the last few days. Whether it is cloud-seeding or ‘Varuna Yagna’ or the prayers offered by Muslim devotees that opened up the skies, Mr. Reddy certainly seemed a happy man at the Sericulture Ministers’ conference that his prophecy indeed came true!

Getting a massive response to a recruitment drive might gladden the hearts of a private company. However, for this premier national training institute on the city outskirts, it became a headache.

When people in droves turned up for the recruitment for washermen and sweepers, they did not know how to screen the candidates. So the most common method was adopted. The candidates were asked to wash linen and clothes, while the sweepers were asked t o sweep the buildings.

The institute must have got really worthy candidates for the jobs after literally putting their skills to test. The side benefit was that the entire linen in the institute was washed and campus certainly looked spic and span.

Some innovation in screening. Huh!

Cell phone etiquette is something that surely lacks in this city, even among journalists.

A speaker at a press conference was rudely interrupted by a reporter’s jarring Himesh Reshamiyya ring tone for a whole minute. A few minutes later, the speaker was again interrupted, this time with a ‘Sakhi’ ring tone, this time it w as another scribe much to the reporter’s embarrassment. The poor speaker was forced to request everyone present to keep their phones in silent mode.

One is always advised to make a new beginning on an auspicious day and time. Driven by this notion, persons wait for days together for the auspicious hour and plan their schedules accordingly. It appears that the latest to join this club are city police officials.

A new building was constructed at King Kothi to house a traffic police station. While the construction is complete, police officials were waiting for the right ‘Muhurtham’ for inauguration. While some officials say the delay in inauguration was due to lack of appointments of higher-ups, others presume it would be done on Independence Day.

Some, however, feel it is due to the ‘Ashadam’ month. Whatever the reasons, looks like even the police aren’t taking any chances when it comes to the auspicious hour.

The recent national-level workshop on ‘Strategies towards Poverty Eradication’ had a few candid closing observations coming from OU Vice-Chancellor Tirupathi Rao. Recalling the words of former President A.P.J.Abdul Kalam who advocated the development of urban facilities in rural areas, the V-C remarked that migration to urban areas should be stopped at once by improving the conditions in rural areas.

“Otherwise, the population growth rate in urban areas at 45 per cent will become unmanageable in future,” he said. Indeed, wisdom prevailed at the end over all the official World Bank jargon at the workshop!

Begumpet airport was in news again. After air operations were shifted to the new airport in Shamshabad, the old airport ceased to interest anyone, though the ATC was still functional.

The old airport saw a battery of press photographers, videographers and reporters the other day when the cloud-seeding operations were launched by Minister Konathala Ramakrishna.

As the aircraft took off, the only discussion among the press corps was the past glory of the airport. Hopefully, Begumpet airport will regain its glory once the government’s plans to starting a civil aviation centre fructifies.

M. SAI GOPAL, M.L. MELLY MAITREYI, K. SRINIVAS REDDY, D.V.L. PADMA PRIYA, S. SANDEEP KUMAR, SWATHI.V, K. VIJAYA BHASKARA REDDY

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