Monthly Archives: March 2016

Musician Gangadharam dead

The first-ever film orchestra conductor in unified Andhra Pradesh, Peddireddi Gangadharam, passed away after a brief illness here on Saturday. He was 79. He is survived by wife, son, and daughter.

Born and brought up at Hasanbada near Draksharama in East Godavari district, Gangadharam learnt Carnatic music from Ch. Sanyasi Rao and harmonium from Akula Narasimha Rao in his childhood. His penchant for film music made him launch Gangadharam Music Party with five members in 1955, which was the first film orchestra in the Telugu States.

Subsequently, he resigned to his government job and turned a full-time orchestra conductor and gave thousands of performances in India and abroad over the years.

Renowned playback singers S.P. Balasubrahmanyam, P.B. Srinivas, V. Ramakrishna, Madhavapeddi Satyam, V. Anand, and Jikki sang for his orchestra many a time.

Last year, he celebrated the diamond jubilee of his orchestra here for three days, in which Mr. Balasubrahmanyam and Kalpana enthralled the audience along with several up-and-coming singers.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Andhra Pradesh / Staff Reporter / Kakinada – March 27th, 2016

Entrepreneurs must tap into cloud computing

In spite of being a country with a huge market capital, we are not controlling it, says expert
Kiranmai Dutt Pendyala
Kiranmai Dutt Pendyala

People of Andhra Pradesh are extremely entrepreneurship-savvy. It is for the Government to tap into this resource pool and gain maximum leverage, says Kiranmai Dutt Pendyala, AMD Greater Asia & EMEA Corporate Vice-President (HR).

Speaking to The Hindu on the sidelines of a conference on entrepreneurship, she says small start-ups can think of tapping into cloud computing and Internet of Things (IoT), the two most happening things currently.

“For instance in Anantapur district, look at the good work done by the Satya Sai Trust in the areas of education, health and drinking water.”

Ms. Kiranmai straddles diverse roles of designing strategic plans on talent acquisition, talent management and talent development and partners with the Human Resources leaders besides teaching, training and consulting.

Referring to the capital buzz in A.P., she says the aim is to make this place a manufacturing hub “but we need a different set of skills for it which none of the engineering colleges here impart. With the Government planning development of infrastructure on a large scale, there’ll be need for civil engineers and other ancillary units,” she said.

“Development of the ports and the five airports will create jobs. Youth here is technically very smart. But, articulation of speech, exposure and ability to speak up is what they lack.

It’s a typical small-town phenomenon and you find a similar thing happening even in the US; small cities vs. big cities,” points out Ms. Kiranmai.

Gap in demand and supply

Speaking about the wide gap between demand and supply of engineers in the industry, she says “it is because engineering education here is in lecture mode which imparts only passive skills. Students listen and write notes. Their productive skills are not put to use. This way, we are making followers, not leaders,” she rues, and goes on to add: “The need is to challenge the status quo”.

A lot of people here are entrepreneurial, but it is different from the global arena. “Ours’ is a large country with a huge market capital. But are we leveraging that?”

Talking about the new capital, she says it’s a 10-year play. “Vast infrastructure like good hospitals, schools, residential colonies and good roads are what we need to put in place and ask the bureaucracy to move in if we want the industry to develop here,” she says.

The authorities, she opines, should create a consortium and we need to tap into SMEs to have the growth engines started and once that happens, the larger players will automatically enter, she says.

Reiterating the need to make the best of the prevailing climate, she says the industry is very hungry. “After Gujarat, people are looking at Andhra Pradesh and Telangana States in the country. It is for us to find out ways and means to translate the attention into investments,” she adds.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Andhra Pradesh / by P. Sujatha Varma / March 30th, 2016

P. Susheela enters Guinness World Records

Veteran playback singer P. Susheela. File photo: Thulasi Kakkat / The Hindu
Veteran playback singer P. Susheela. File photo: Thulasi Kakkat / The Hindu

‘The queen of melodies’ has been officially credited by Guinness Book of Records for singing 17, 695 songs in 12 Indian languages.

Renowned playback singer P. Susheela Mohan, who has won many awards and earned accolades in a career spanning five decades, has added two more to her awards cabinet.

She has now been recognised by both the Guinness Book of World Records and Asia Book of Records for singing most number of songs in Indian languages. The usually reticent singer met journalists in Chennai on Tuesday to celebrate her new award.

While Guinness Book of Records has officially credited her for singing 17, 695 songs (solo, duet and chorus backed songs) in twelve Indian languages, Asia Book of Records has recognised her for singing close to 17, 330 songs.

Speaking about the awards, P. Susheela reminded everyone present that the adjudicators had only considered songs she had song from 1960s. “Please remember that I started singing from 1951,” she said.

None of this would have been possible without the work of her fans, who, by setting up psusheela.org, painstakingly catalogued the songs that she has sung over the last few decades and sent it to the adjudicators of the award.

Reflecting on the recognition, the singer said that she views it as an acknowledgement of her hard work. “There is a lot of hard work that has gone behind this achievement. Today, with so many television channels and newspapers, a talented singer can shine through quickly. But when I was singing, it was very slow and I had work my way up , step by step,” she said.

Crediting her husband for her success, she said that her husband, a doctor, was a corner stone in her life. “He fell in love with my voice and sacrificed his life so that I have a great career in playback singing,” she said.

She was candid in her response when asked why she had never considered a career in acting. “I was offered a chance to act by several directors, but I refused saying that I wouldn’t want to act even if I was paid a crore,” she said, adding, “My heart was in music.”

When asked why she is not singing anymore, the singer said that she would love to sing in movies if someone offered a good song. When she was nudged by journalists to sing her favourite song, she ended the press conference by singing Ennai pada sonnal, enna paada thondrum from Pudhiya Paravai, a hit song of 1964.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> Entertainment / by Udhav Naig / Chennai – March 29th, 2016

Advocate files petition in Telugu, enters record books

It is not easy to secure a place in the book of records for expressing one’s love for the mother tongue. But, this advocate has made this possible.

P.N.S. Prakash
P.N.S. Prakash

Pidatala Narasimha Surya Prakash, locally known as P.N.S. Prakash, is a practising lawyer in Punganur town, who shot to fame for bringing Telugu into the legal system. He became the first to file a petition in Telugu, when he had filed one in the Principal Junior Civil Judge’s Court, Punganur, in February 2012. The petition pertains to a civil dispute in Kandur village of Somala mandal in Chittoor district, which was accepted by the judge.

All the arguments were made in Telugu and the order copy summoning the respondent was also drafted in Telugu script. “This memorable day has been placed in the Telugu Book of Records,” reads the citation issued last year by Chintapatla Venkatachari, founder president of the Telugu Book of Records.

The achievement was also acknowledged by Book of State Records, as confirmed by its editor Nataraj. His effort was hailed by noted linguists Mandali Buddha Prasad, Yarlagadda Lakshmi Prasad and Vangapandu Prasada Rao.

When the then acting Chief Justice of Andhra Pradesh High Court Justice N.V. Ramana, participating in the World Telugu Conference in Tirupati, had advised the legal fraternity to employ Telugu to a greater extent, Mr. Prakash started filing all petitions in Telugu.

“After my record feat, I have filed 130 cases so far, all of them in Telugu,” he told The Hindu . Sadly, nobody else in the two Telugu States have followed suit in these four years and Prakash is still the lone advocate to have used Telugu script.

Translation

While regional language reigns supreme in the neighbouring Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, it is out of the reckoning here. “For example, the deponent is called ‘Dhruvakartha’ or ‘Vaangmooladaru’ in Telugu, which none uses. It is quite difficult to translate the legal jargon into Telugu but I believe that comprehension improves with continued use,” asserts Mr. Prakash, who uses Sankaranarayana and Padala Rami Reddy dictionaries for translation.

Four years after P.N.S. Prakash’s record, no petition filed in Telugu yet Love for mother tongue P.N.S. Prakash, a lawyer from Punganur, had filed the petition in Telugu in February 2012

All the arguments were made in Telugu and the order copy summoning the respondent was also drafted in Telugu script

So far, he filed 130 cases so far, all of them in Telugu

Nobody else in the two Telugu States have followed suit and Prakash is still the lone advocate to have used Telugu script.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> National> Andhra Pradesh / by A.D. Rangarajan / Tirupati – March 29th, 2016

From a tiled shed to a stunning edifice

 BezwadaRailwaysANDHRA28mar2016

From the days of meter gauge, semaphore signals, manual hand-operated levers, and steam engines, Vijayawada Railway Station has come a long way

Any vintage picture, with black and white shades, is close to the heart, for it acts as a heart-warming reminder of those wonderful days spent in a leisurely and qualitative manner.

This bird’s eye view of the Bezwada Railway Station of the past era captured by the city’s septuagenarian photographer M.A. Mohan Rao, will make the old-timers turn nostalgic.

This picture, taken from Gandhi Hill (erstwhile Orr Hills) of the 50s, portrays the pristine clean-air-no-pollution Bezwada.

“We don’t see the DRM Office and the Railway Institute. We also don’t see any high-rise buildings,” exclaimed a youngster after taking a look at the photograph.

For the geeks (read digital kids), the nondescript small-town station look of today’s ultra modern railway junction is a pointer that nothing remains constant and change is the spice of life.

“The sound of the trains moving on the Krishna bridge was clearly heard when I was sleeping on the terrace in the 40s at Governorpet,” says octogenarian Turlapati Kutumba Rao, recalling his days when the present railway station was just a small shed.

He remembers the Tongas (horse-pulled carts) and rickshaws pulled by humans waiting for the travellers who alighted from the trains hauled by steam engines.

“Those days, the fare between Bezwada and Gudivada was 25 paise.”

Asked G. Phani, a cricket administrator and a city chronicler, after admiring this period picture: “Do you remember the days when we used to lean out of the train window even though coal particles emanating from the steam locomotive chimney caused discomfort?”

This railway station saw several talented natives leaving to the land of fortune — Chennai — in search of glory, and topping the list was Nandamuri Taraka Rama Rao (NTR), Akkineni Nageswara Rao (ANR), Savitri, Waheeda Rehman, Chandra Mohan, and Murali Mohan.

ANR, who was returning from Tenali to Gudivada after performing a playlet, was spotted by Ghantasala Balaramaiah, a film producer, at the Bezwada Railway Station in 1944 for the role of Lord Rama in his film Sri Sita Rama Jananam.

NTR resigned his well-paid sub-registrar job at Bezwada and boarded a train at this very station to try his luck in the tinsel world.

Rest, as the clichéd adage goes, is history.

From the days of meter gauge, semaphore signals, manual hand-operated levers, and steam engines, the Vijayawada Railway Station has come a long way.

Bezwada – the connecting link 

The Bezwada Railway Station came into being in 1888 when the British wanted to extend the incoming traffic of Southern Mahratta Railways (SMR) towards the East.

The station, with two platforms, was operated from a small shed, and later came under Mangalore tiles in the 20s. The late seventies (1978-79) saw the station moving into a huge building.

In 1889, the Nizam Guaranteed State Railways Company (NGSRC), based at Secunderabad, extended its railway connection up to Bezwada owing to the commercial and trading importance of the coastal town.

Southern Mahratta Railways was merged with Madras Railways, and Madras and Southern Mahratta Railways (MSMR) was opened to the public in 1908 with headquarters at Madras. The Bezwada District, spread from Tondiyarpet to Waltair (Now Visakhapatnam), was part of it and the district transportation superintendent was in-charge of it.

Later, MSMR was amalgamated with Southern Railway in 1951, and South Central Railway was formed in 1966 when Hubli and Vijayawada Divisions of Southern Railway and Sholapur and Secunderabad Divisions of Central Railway were carved out and merged into a new zone.

In 1969, Golconda Express was introduced with an average speed of 58 kmph between Vijayawada and Secunderabad.

The train was considered one of the fastest steam hauled trains in the country those days.

Vijayawada is the pivotal point in the Golden Quadrilateral, connecting the South to the North and East of India.

The 80s saw steady growth of the railway station into a major junction under the stewardship of rail managers like M. Raja Rao (Andhra Loyola alumni) and Nandigama-born J.N. Jagannath.

For want of more area for the expanding station, Mr. Raja Rao took a decision to dismantle the traffic colony and created more open space and also railway mini-stadium.

Last Pushkarams (2004) saw the laying of more platforms and shifting of Tarapet goods shed.

The number of trains (both passenger and freight) that pass through Vijayawada in a day stands at 300-plus, and around two lakh passengers commute daily.

Vijayawada station was accorded A1 status in 2008.

True facts

The first Route Relay Inter-locking (RRI) system of SCR was commissioned at Vijayawada station in 1976

Electric loco shed was inaugurated in 1980 with a capacity to maintain over 100 electric locomotives

The station has 10 platforms, 5 entrance gates with booking counters and two escalators

The seventh platform is the longest one

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Vijayawada / by J.R. Shridharan / March 28th, 2016

Pusapati Ananda Gajapathi Raju no more

Visakhapatnam:

Pusapati Ananda gajapathi Raju, the eldest son of the last Rajah of Vizianagaram, PVG Raju, and hereditary trustee of 108 temples, including the Simhachalam Devasthanam and the MANSAS Trust, Pusapati Ananda Gajapathi Raju (65) died of respiratory problems at a hospital here on Saturday. The head of the royal Pusapati clan, Ananda Gajapathi Raju also served as former state health and education minister and was also elected twice to the Lok Sabha from Vizianagaram constituency.

An MA in economics from Columbia University, Ananda also worked as an journalist with a leading national daily from the south. He is the elder brother of Union civil aviation minister P Ashok Gajapathi Raju. He is survived by his wife and two daughters. His body was taken to Bungalow-7 in Vizianagaram soon after he passed away and the last rites were performed at the cremation grounds in Vizianagaram at 4.30 pm by Ashok Gajapathi Raju.

An avid reader and collector of books, Ananda Gajapathi Raju was considered one of the shining stars in AP politics. However, he invested all his efforts into turning MANSAS into a motivated and well-organised institution.

“His presence will be sorely missed by us all. He was a visionary who turned MANSAS into a proactive organisation and somebody who believed in selfless service,” said one of the members of his extended family.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Visakhapatnam / TNN / March 27th, 2016