Monthly Archives: June 2018

Chittoor youth who scaled Mt. Everest felicitated

Amazing Feats, Records, All, Sports

On cloud nine: N. Varaprasad successfully completed his expedition to Mount Everest on May 22.
On cloud nine: N. Varaprasad successfully completed his expedition to Mount Everest on May 22.

N. Varaprasad, a youngster from N.R. Peta of Chittoor rural mandal, who successfully scaled the Mount Everest, was felicitated by Chittoor District Collector P.S. Pradyumna here on Wednesday.

According to a press release issued by SETVEN, Mr. Varaprasad was the only finalist from among the 12 participants selected from the district for undergoing training at various stages.

In the first stage, the participants underwent rigorous training in November last year. The number reduced to seven and then to four. They underwent training in Darjeeling and Jammu & Kashmir in last November and this January respectively.

Beyond this, Mr. Varaprasad was the only person from the district who was selected for further training in Ladakh in February, followed by another camp in April and May. He achieved the feat on May 22.

Zilla Parishad Chairperson Geervani Chandraprakash, Chittoor SP S.V. Rajasekhar Babu, SETVEN CEO – District Youth Welfare and Sports Officer Lakshmi and others were present at the felicitation ceremony.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Andhra Pradesh / by Staff Reporter / Tirupati – June 14th, 2018

Youth who scaled Mt. Everest feted

Amazing Feats, Records, All, Sports
Proud moment: Joint Collector Md.Imtiyaz Ahmed felicitating K. Raja who scaled Mount Everest
Proud moment: Joint Collector Md.Imtiyaz Ahmed felicitating K. Raja who scaled Mount Everest

I felt I was on top of the world for a few minutes, says Raja

They dared to dream and their soaring dreams are being given shape thanks to Mission Everest programme of the State government. The programme launched in 2016 gives opportunity to young men and women to scale Mount Everest.

K. Raja, a 23-year-old youngster from Tadepalli, is among a group of six youngsters from the State who scaled the Mount Everest in April, 2018.

Dream come true

Conquering the highest peak in the world in the most gruelling weather conditions is no mean achievement for Raja, who had lost his father at a young age. His mother used to look after the family of three sons, until the elder brother secured a job in an automobile retail store in Gannavaram. Raja is now studying M.Com. in Tirupati.

“I have never dreamt that I would scale Mount Everest and I felt that I am on top of the world for a few minutes. The experience was also humbling as I leant to respect nature,” Raja told The Hindu.

He was felicitated by Joint Collector Md. Imtiyaz Ahmed during the Grievance Day held on Monday.

It was in November, 2017, when Raja saw an advertisement in a local newspaper about the Mount Everest programme.

A passion for sports and fitness motivated him and he applied and was selected as part of a group of 130 boys and girls. After a five-day physical training session at Ketanakonda in Krishna district, the group was screened and 40 boys and girls who passed the endurance test were sent to train in icy conditions at Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir. Another gruelling stint at Jawarhalal Institute of Mountaineering for 20 days hardened his skills, followed by advanced training programme in Ladakh. Finally, the batch was cut short to six persons.

Finally, the six-member troupe set out to scale the Mount Everest peak on April 9. After reaching Kathmandu in Nepal on the same day, they stayed at Lhasa and Tingri and finally started the trek at the base camp at an altitude of 13,000 feet. They reached advanced base camp at a further distance of 6,200 metres.

Icy winds

“The trek from camp 1 to camp 2 is the most gruelling test of endurance. With the guidance of Sherpa, I trudged up the snowy mountain braving icy winds touching a speed of 200 km per hour. Finally, I was able to scale the summit at 3 a.m. on April 16. This was the most thrilling moment in my life,” said Raja.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Andhra Pradesh / by P. Samuel Jonathan / Guntur – June 12th, 2018

‘Chilaka’ as State bird of Andhra Pradesh: The choice of parakeet ruffles some feathers

Agriculture, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Nature, Records, All, World Opinion
A pair of parakeets perched atop the branch of a tree. | Photo Credit: V_RAJU
A pair of parakeets perched atop the branch of a tree. | Photo Credit: V_RAJU

Conservationists, culture aficionados spar over State bird

The rose-ringed parakeet (Psittacula Krameri), known as the ‘Ramachilaka’, is very popular with poets and lyricists. Ideal couples are compared to a pair of parakeets. The male is distinguished by a rose-pink collar. The quintessential female is ‘chilaka’.

‘Chilaka Joshyam’, where a parakeet foretells the stars, is also very popular in the Telugu States.

Though there was general appreciation when the State government had announced the dimorphic bird as the State bird recently, it has also triggered a debate. For ornithologists and conservationists, it is a wrong choice but a right one for those rooted in Telugu culture.

None other than birdman of India, Salim Ali, has something unpleasant to say about them. In his The Book of Indian Birds, he describes it as “highly destructive at all times to crops and orchard fruit, gnawing and wasting far more than it actually eats”. Britain officially declared it as a pest in 2009 and seriously considered culling them in 2016 for displacing the local birds.

The conservationists feel that the new State has lost a great opportunity to project Jerdon’s Courser, which is found only in the State and is highly endangered. It’s locally called ‘Adavi Uthatitti’ meaning ‘jungle empty purse’. Declared extinct in 1900, it emerged eight and half decades later in January 1986. Subsequently, the Sri Lankamalleswara Wildlife Sanctuary was created to protect it, said former Assistant Conservator or Forest P Gracious. A great message could have been sent by selecting it, he said.

On the other side, there are those like Banaras Hindu University professor Bhudathi Venkateswarlu who contends that the parakeet has a very significant place in the Telugu culture. “Chiluka is the vahana of Manmadha (Indian Cupid). Sweet and pleasant words (chiluka palukulu) are compared to the chattering of the parakeets and finally the fruit half eaten by these birds is considered very sweet,” he says. Activist of Telugu language movement G V Purnachand says though the choice is okay, rooster which ‘reflects Telugu pride’, would have been better.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Andhra Pradesh / by G. Venkataramana Rao / Vijayawada – June 08th, 2018

She’s just one norm away from IWM title

Records, All, Sports, World Opinion
Nutakki Priyanka. | Photo Credit: HAND OUT
Nutakki Priyanka. | Photo Credit: HAND OUT

Nutakki Priyanka desires to become a Grandmaster

Sixteen-year-old city chess player Nutakki Priyanka is just one norm away from emerging as International Woman Master (IWM) when she clinched the second norm at the recently-concluded 3rd Kolkata Open tournament. She gathered the first at the 2nd Sharjah Masters tournament at Sharjah in April.

Speaking to The Hindu, Priyanka, whose Elo rating is 2180, said her shifting of base to Ponnur in Guntur district to train under senior coach G. Murali Krishna helped her improve leaps and bounds thus paving the way to gather the crucial norms.

“After training under Bobba Veerabhadra Rao and Rama Raju (Hyderabad) in the formative years, we decided to train under Murali sir , who resides at Ponnur. Incidentally he also coaches National champion and Grandmaster M.R. Lalith Babu,” said Priyanka’s mother Durga. Training under Murali Krishna proved productive for Priyanka, as she churned out a series of encouraging performances helping her come close to the coveted IWM title.

Big success embraced Priyanka in 2011 when she won the world U-10 girls’ title with one round to spare in Moribor, Slovenia. Priyanka wants to become a Grandmaster and dreams of emulating Koneru Humpy.

Next three months are going to be challenging for the young champion as she will be competing in Panevezys Open tournament in Lithuania in June, Najdorf memorial tournament at Warsaw and Poland-Czech Open in Czech Republic in July and RTU Open in Lativa in August.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Andhra Pradesh / by J.R. Sridharan / Vijayawada – June 06th, 2018

Two frog species discovered in Eastern and Western Ghats

Agriculture, Green Initiatives / Environment, Nature, Records, All, World Opinion
The new frog species – ‘Fejervarya kalinaga’, the new frog species discovered in the Eastern Ghats. | Photo Credit: arranged pic
The new frog species – ‘Fejervarya kalinaga’, the new frog species discovered in the Eastern Ghats. | Photo Credit: arranged pic

They are indicators of healthy ecosystem and live in wide habitat ranges

In a significant discovery, two species of frogs have been recorded in the Indian peninsular — Fejervarya kalinaga from the Eastern Ghats and Fejervarya krishnan from the Western Ghats. “The Eastern Ghats species of Fejervarya kalinga attains significance since it is endemic to moist high altitude forest of the region. Its type locality is from Mahendragiri in Odisha (west of Srikakulam). In Andhra Pradesh it is found in high elevation region of Srikakulam, Visakhapatnam (Araku, Chintapalli, Sileru) and Papikonda National Park of East Godavari district. It is one of the very few species of herpetofauna endemic to the Eastern Ghats,” said Prudhvi Raj, post doctoral research fellow of the Wildlife Institute of India and the lead author of the paper for the latest findings.

Mr. Raj has been working on various aspects of amphibians for the past five years. The discovery is a collaborative effort of institutions like the Wildlife Institute of India, the Zoological Survey of India and the North Orissa University. “These new species are habitat specialists, living in perennial hill streams and have been unnoticed due to their secretive habit and morphological similarities with similar looking species of cricket frogs,” Mr. Raj told The Hindu.

‘Fejervarya krishnan’, the new frog species that discovered in the Western Ghats. | Photo Credit: arranged pic
‘Fejervarya krishnan’, the new frog species that discovered in the Western Ghats. | Photo Credit: arranged pic

The species from the Eastern Ghats is widely distributed in the hilly mountains and named after the ancient kingdom of Kalinga — the historical region comprising Odisha and part of Andhra Pradesh that is north of River Godavari. The Fejervarya krishnan, found near the Jog Falls in Shimoga district of Karnataka, is named after the eminent biologist the late KS Krishnan for his colossal contribution in the field of biological sciences. Krishnan was professor emeritus at the National Centre for Biological Sciences, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), Bangalore and was one of the key persons in embarking the School in Herpetology sponsored by the Department of Science and Technology.

The Kalinga cricket frog was first spotted from various localities of the Eastern Ghats by Prof. Sushil Kumar Dutta, a renowned herpetologist and former professor at the North Orissa University, and the Krishnan cricket frog by Mr. Raj from a single locality near the Jog Falls.

‘Largest species’

Sharing details, Mr. Raj said: “The Kalinga cricket frog is one of the largest of its group and grows up to 6.5 cm, whereas the other has an average size of 2 cm.” Cricket frogs are indicators of healthy ecosystem and live in wide habitat ranges in agricultural fields, streams, swamps and wetlands.

Others who worked on the paper include KP Dinesh (scientist at the Zoological Survey of India, Pune), Abhijit Das (scientist at the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun), Niladri B. Kar (post-doctoral research scholar at the North Orissa University) and Pratyush P. Mohapatra (scientist at the Zoological Survey of India, Jabalpur).

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> States> Andhra Pradesh / by Nivedita Ganguly / Visakhapatnam – June 06th, 2018