Monsoon update

(PIB NEWS) JUNE,14, Southwest monsoon has further advanced into some more parts of Konkan & Goa, Madhya Maharashtra, and Marathwada, Vidarbha, most parts of Telangana, some parts of Chhattisgarh, remaining part of Coastal Andhra Pradesh, some more parts of Orissa and some more parts of Gangetic west Bengal. Condition are favorable for further advance of southwest monsoon into remaining parts of central Arabian Sea, some parts of north Arabian Sea and south Gujarat, Maharashtra, of Madhya Pradesh, f Chhattisgarh, Orissa and West Bengal and some parts of Jharkhand and Bihar. Numerical Weather Prediction (NWP) Guidance states that Monsoon flow over Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal is likely to intensify during next 2-3 days. The western disturbance will affect western Himalayan region and adjoining plains during next 3-4 days. A major feature of weather forecast for next 3 days as per midday bulletin of India Meteorological department suggests widespread rain/thundershowers would occur over Kerala, Lakshadweep, Coastal Karnataka and Konkan & Goa. Fairly widespread rain/thundershowers would occur over Interior Karnataka, Madhya Maharashtra, Marathwada, Andaman & Nicobar Islands, West Bengal & Sikkim and northeastern states and scattered over Andhra Pradesh, Tamilnadu, Vidarbha, Bihar, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh. Scattered rain/thundershowers would occur over Jammu & Kashmir and isolated over Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand during next 48 hours and increase thereafter. Isolated dust storm/thunderstorms may occur over Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan. Rainfall activity would increase over Uttar Pradesh after 48 hours. Isolated rain/thundershowers would occur over Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh during next 24 hours and increase thereafter. Maximum temperature will increase by about 1-2°C over parts of northwest and Central India during next 48 hours.
==============================================

PM Asks Bhopal Disaster Gom to Report to Cabinet in Ten Days

(PIB NEWS) JUNE,14, The Prime Minister has directed that the Group of Ministers, headed by the Home Minister, constituted to look into all issues relating to the Bhopal gas leak disaster, may meet immediately to take stock of the situation arising out of the recent court judgement, to assess the options and remedies available to the Government on the various issues involved and to report to the Cabinet within ten days.

================================================

Send 'child saint' to school, rules Andhra rights panel

Hyderabad, June 14: Andhra Pradesh State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) Monday ordered that 'child saint' Sambhavi, who claims to be a childhood friend of Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama in her previous life, should go to school.Delivering its verdict on petitions filed by a group of rationalists and human rights activists, SHRC Chairman Subhashan Reddy directed the collector of Kurnool district to enrol her in a school within a week. He said the girl should have all the rights of a child and the parents should not claim that she is a 'child saint'. The panel noted that Sambhavi's parents themselves claimed the girl possessed "supernatural" powers. "Whoever may be the parents, they can't do whatever they want with their child," Reddy said. Ruling that Sambhavi is a 14-year-old, the Commission said that the authorities should make arrangements to enrol her in a school. Sambhavi had attracted people's attention last year by claiming to be the Dalai Lama's disciple in her previous life. She also predicted that Tibet would get independence in 2012. After her claims, people started thronging an old temple at Suryanandi in Kurnool district for her "darshan". For the last one year, the child had been at the centre of a row between Usha Rani, her caretaker, and rationalists and human rights activists who were demanding that the child be sent to school. They alleged that her 'caretaker' and some others with vested interests were exploiting her childhood and demanded her release from their 'illegal detention'. Rani gave a new twist to the case in December last year by revealing that she was the mother of the girl. She also revealed that after the death of her first husband in Guntur district, she had gone to an "ashram" in Varanasi, where she married yoga teacher Saumya Acharya. She claimed Sambhavi was born at Tirupati in 2002.
===============================================

Schools re-open in AP after summer vacation

Hyderabad,Jun 14: All the government schools in Andhra Pradesh reopened today after a nearly 45-day-long summer vacation with the government planning to improve the teaching standards in schools.Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister K Rosaiah who would be launching the  'Badibata' (Way to School) Programme later today, said the State Government was spending huge funds on education, especially on school education. He mooted a six-point action Plan for teachers to achieve excellence in school education, particularly in Government Schools, which included constant monitoring of teachers and students' attendance, improving teaching standards, providing text books to all classes on the reopening day, making optimum use of programmes like SSA to improve the infrastructure facilities, besides putting an end to drop outs and ensure that teaching standards were on par with corporate schools. In a statement here, Mr Rosaiah said the state was also leveraging funds from the Central Government schemes like Sarva Siksha Abhiyaan (SSA) and Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyaan (RMSA) for improving infrastructure facilities like school buildings, compound walls and recruitment of teachers, He expressed satisfaction that school and secondary education in the state of late had vastly improved, universalisation of elementary education had been achieved to a very large extent, and there was improvement in gross enrolment ratio, especially of girls and those belonging to the marginalised group. With the enactment of Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, it was expected that issues of drop-out, out-of-school children, quality of education and availability of trained teachers would be addressed in the short to medium term. Gender Parity at the elementary stage has improved appreciably. It is also a matter of satisfaction that Andhra Pradesh has attained 100 per cent access by providing at-least One Primary School within the reach of one km.A massive training programme for the School Assistants handling classes nine and ten for all Government and Local Body Schools was organised in Summer 2010 and 50,000 teachers trained with the main objective of improving quality in secondary schools, the release said.
=================================================

Andhra Police arrest another Maoist Central Committee member

Mahbubnagar (Andhra Pradesh), June 14 : In another major success for anti-Naxal operations in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, the security forces have arrested Maoist Central Committee member and Karnataka committee chief Chandrashekhar Gorebal.Gorebal was arrested near Aija village of Mahbubnagar District in Andhra Pradesh on Sunday. According to police, two other top Maoist leaders--Takkelapalli Vasudeva Rao alias Ashanna and Kanumukkala Ramesh alias Vijay managed to escape during the raid. All the three Naxal leaders are members of the Maoist Military Commission and the Central Action Team. Police have recovered one carbine gun, two pairs of Andhra Pradesh Police uniforms, one GPS set, walky-talky and a radio set from Gorebal. Earlier, intelligence agencies alerted both states about Maoists' plan to carry out violent activities at many places along the Karnataka- Andhra Pradesh border. Police claimed that all these three Naxals planed to carry out attacks on political leaders of both states by using police uniform. Gorebal, 45, who hails from Mudiyanur village in Koppal District of Karnataka, holds a postgraduate degree in Economics and was a lecturer in Sindhanur Government College of Karnataka's Raichur District before joining Maoists ranks.Gorebal went underground in 2004. He was earlier member of the Karnataka Vimochana Ranga (Karnataka Liberation Front) active along Hyderabad-Karnataka region. Three of his students from Sindhanur College--Hajima, Shivalingu and Chinnappa, who were drawn towards the Maoists ideology, were killed in three different encounters in last seven years. Meanwhile, the Karnataka Police has sent a team to Andhra Pradesh to seek Gorebal's custody. Earlier this month, Police arrested Nandakumar the Maoists Karnataka state committee secretary, and senior leader Neelaguli Padmanabh.
==============================================

Nine killed in wall collapse in Andhra Pradesh

Hyderabad, June 14 : At least nine people were killed and 20 others injured when the wall of a vegetable market collapsed Monday in Andhra Pradesh's Mahabubnagar district, police said.The accident took place at Gadwal town. The dead include three women and a child. Rescue work is on as some more victims are feared trapped under the debris. The incident occurred when the municipal vegetable market was crowded with buyers. Eye witnesses said the wall had weakened due to rain during the last three days.Chief Minister K.Rosaiah announced a probe into the incident. Minister for Small Scale Industries D.K.Aruna, who hails from the same area, has reached Gadwal.
==============================================

SW monsoon covers entire AP

Hyderabad,Jun 14: Southwest monsoon today covered entire Andhra Pradesh, with rain occurring at many places over Coastal Andhra Pradesh and at a few places over Telangana while isolated rain were experienced over Rayalaseema.Gajapathinagaram (Vizianagaram district) and Venkatapuram (Khammam district) recorded heavy rainfall of seven cm each, Met Department said today. The other chief amounts of rainfall recorded in cm were Araku Valley (Visakhapatnam district) six, Bhimadole (West Godavari district), Dummagudem (Khammam district), Narsipatnam and Paderu (both Visakhapatnam district) five each, Hakimpet, Visakhapatnam, Ichapuram, Patapatnam and Tekkali (all Srikakulam district), Narsampet (Warangal district), Polavaram and Tadepalligudem (both West Godavari district), Rajahmundry (East Godavari district) and Srungavarapukota (Vizianagaram district) three each, Bhadrachalam, Anakapalle, Chintapalli and Chodavaram (all Visakhapatnam district), Bobbili, Salur and Terlam (all Vizianagaram district), Cumbum (Prakasam district), Palakonda (Srikakulam district) and Peddapuram (East Godavari district) two each.The maximum temperatures significantly fell at many places over Telangana. They were below normal in Telangana. The highest maximum temperature of 44 degrees Celsius was recorded at Adilabad. Moderate to rather heavy rain/thundershowers would occur at many places over the districts of Srikakulam, Vizianagaram, Visakhapatnam, East Godavari and West Godavari. Light to moderate rain or thundershowers would occur at a few places over Telangana, Rayalaseema and in the remaining districts of Coastal Andhra Pradesh. Spells of rain/thundershowers may occur in parts of the city. Maximum and Minimum temperatures would be around 34 and 24 degrees respectively, the Met Department added.
===============================================

Andhra monuments to be developed as World Heritage site

Hyderabad, June 14: The Andhra Pradesh government is making efforts to develop the Kakatiya monuments in Warangal district as World Heritage sites.A steering committee headed by Tourism Minister J. Geeta Reddy constituted for the purpose held its first meeting here Monday. The minister told reporters that the meeting discussed the action plan to preserve and renovate three Kakatiya monuments - Ramappa temple in Venkatapur mandal, Thousand Pillar temple in Hanamkonda and the Warangal Fort. The steering committee would meet once every three months to review the progress of the work and prepare a dossier to be submitted to UNESCO for declaring the monuments World Heritage sites. "It is a long process as there are several norms for monuments to be declared World Heritage sites," he said. The committee comprises Kakatiya Heritage Trust founders B.V. Papa Rao and M. Panduranga Rao, public representatives from the districts, officials of Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), director of archaeology and museums and the Warangal district collector. The meeting discussed public private partnership model for building restaurants and cottages and for reconstruction and renovation of Ramappa temple. The government Saturday constituted a committee for the promotion of Kakatiya monuments. The steering committee will make efforts to conduct the 8th centenary celebrations of Ramappa temple in 2013. Warangal, about 150 km from Hyderabad, was the capital of the Kakatiya kingdom. The fort there withstood attacks during the 13th and 14th centuries. The Thousand Pillar temple and Ramalingeswara temple, popularly known as the Ramappa temple, are some of the famous Kakatiya monuments in and around the town.
=============================================