Category Archives: Inspiration /Positive News and Features

Now, they will walk the ramp for a cause

Amazing Feats, Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Inspiration /Positive News and Features
Aspirants of Miss Vizag-2014 pageant pose for a photograph at the audition conducted in Visakhapatnam on Sunday. Photo: C.V. Subrahmanyam / The Hindu
Aspirants of Miss Vizag-2014 pageant pose for a photograph at the audition conducted in Visakhapatnam on Sunday. Photo: C.V. Subrahmanyam / The Hindu

Aspirants of Miss Vizag pageant are happy to be part of something more meaningful. Besides Miss Vizag-2014 title and two runners-up titles, the participants have an opportunity to grab other titles such as Miss Beautiful Skin, Miss Beautiful Eyes, Miss Beautiful Smile.

The sixth edition of Miss Vizag will be remembered for two reasons. Firstly, the show was initially scheduled for October 12, the day when the city was battered by the cyclonic storm Hudhud. Secondly, to reach out to the cyclone victims, the organisers have decided to conduct the pageant for charity.

What has remained unchanged though is the spirit of the contestants, who are now keen on walking the ramp with energy and enthusiasm. The reason behind this, they say, is that their creativity is being utilised for something more meaningful.

WhatTheySayANDHRA03nov2014

At the first audition held here on Sunday, the participants shared their views on how they felt like being part of the relief team.

“Now, the impact of the show has become intense as we are able to come together to contribute to a social cause,” says G. Shobana, who is all excited about her maiden show.

Some felt happy that despite the odds, they were able to team up again.

“The natural calamity could not stop the much-awaited show in any manner. However, the delay has helped us bounce back with more vigour and drive to help the needy,” says Sirisha, another aspirant.

Sharing her views on the rescheduled beauty contest, Laxmi Bhardwaj, an airhostess and a contestant, says: “Charity is very personal and should come from within. This is a nice opportunity for us to walk the extra mile and bring the smiles back.”

A total of 50 aspirants turned up for the auditions and, out of them, 22 will be heading to the finale.

Besides Miss Vizag-2014 title and two runners-up titles, the participants have an opportunity to grab other titles such as Miss Beautiful Skin, Miss Beautiful Eyes, Miss Beautiful Smile.

Funds raised through the show, including contributions made by the participants and organisers, will be utilised for cyclone relief work, says Sharif, one of the organisers.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Visakhapatnam / by Rani Devalla / Visakhapatnam – November 02nd, 2014

Umar Alisha Rural Development Trust to plant 10 lakh trees

Green Initiatives / Environment, Inspiration /Positive News and Features, Nature

The Umar Alisha Rural Development Trust plans to plant 10 lakh trees in cyclone hit Visakhapatnam district to bring back the district’s greenery.

Addressing reporters after launching the project after planting a tree at their Viswa Vignana Spiritual Centre at Bheemjuniatnam in the district here today, Chairman of the Trust Umar Alisha said the trust would plant 10 lakh trees in the district within five years. He said 70 to 80 per cent of trees in Visakhapatnam have been destroyed due to cyclone.

‘Make Vizag Green’ is a project taken up by the Umar Alisha Rural Development Trust to replant lost greenery in Visakhapatnam.

He said it is everybody’s responsibility to protect the environment and plant trees which provide oxygen.

“Every tree will provide oxygen, which is very important for human beings,” he said.

Umar Alisha said that the trust would select trees which could withstand even wind speeds of 200 kilometres per hour during natural calamities like cyclones.

The project plans to use information technology, crowdsourcing, geocoding and social media to encourage people to participate.

He said the trust would plant 200 trees in various places in Bheemunipatnam today and also plant 1,100 trees in various places as well as both sides of the national highway.

source: http://www.business-standard.com / Business Standard / Home> PTI Stories> National> News / Press Trust of India / Visakhapatnam – November 02nd, 2014

Sachin Tendulkar to visit adopted village in Nellore

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Inspiration /Positive News and Features, Leaders, Sports
Sachin would be spending about Rs.4.5 crore from his Rajya Sabha member grant for taking up various developmental programmes in PR Kandrika. (Getty Images)
Sachin would be spending about Rs.4.5 crore from his Rajya Sabha member grant for taking up various developmental programmes in PR Kandrika. (Getty Images)

Nellore :

Master Blaster Sachin Tendulkar is visiting a remote village, Puttamraju Kandrika in Nellore district on November, 16.

Sachin adopted the village for over-all development as part of his Saansad Adarsha Grama Yojana (SAGY), the programme proposed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Sachin would be spending about Rs.4.5 crore from his Rajya Sabha member grant for taking up various developmental programmes in PR Kandrika.

Giving the details of Sachin’s tour, joint collector Gorle Rekha Rani, who was instrumental in prevailing upon Sachin to adopt the remote village on AP coast, said that Sachin would be reaching Chennai from Mumbai in a charted flight on the evening of November, 15.

He would then fly down at Krishnapatnam port in a chopper. Sachin would stay overnight in the guest of port and proceed to PR Kandrika village on the next day. He would inspect various works launched in the village and return to Chennai by afternoon.

Joint Collector said that all roads in the village would be converted into CC roads and an underground drainage would be taken up. In addition to providing protected drinking water to all residents in the village, they would see that each household have an individual toilet as part of the programme.

Rekharani, who got an opportunity to be the co-traveler of Sachin in a flight during a visit from US, made a request to adopt a village in her district to which the master cricketer had instantly agreed.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> Sports / October 31st, 2014

The good doctor!

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Inspiration /Positive News and Features, Leaders, Science & Technology
Endocrinologist Goutham Meher points out to a picture in which he is on the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest free standing mountain in the world. He is the first resident of Vijayawada to scale Mount Kilimanjaro. Photo: V. Raju / The Hindu
Endocrinologist Goutham Meher points out to a picture in which he is on the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro, the highest free standing mountain in the world. He is the first resident of Vijayawada to scale Mount Kilimanjaro. Photo: V. Raju / The Hindu

He wants to raise funds for the Indian Navy and Visakhapatnam which were battered by the Hudhud cyclone. The port city and neighbouring district too took a massive beating. Moved by the damaged caused by the super cyclone Dr. Meher turned into a fundraiser.

City-based endocrinologist Goutham Meher has attained celebrity status by becoming the first resident to conquer Kilimanjaro. He will be back in the news for running in a marathon to raise funds for the Indian Navy and Visakhapatnam city which were battered by the Hudhud super cyclone.

Besides mountaineering Dr. Meher is very fond of running. He has participated in most of the marathons conducted in the different places in the country. By default, he registered himself to participate in the Vizag Navy Marathon a couple of months ago.

Hudhud caused the Indian Navy a loss of Rs. 2,000 crore.

The port city and neighbouring district too took a massive beating. Moved by the damaged caused by the super cyclone Dr. Meher turned into a fundraiser. Instead of taking the beaten path of collecting for the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund (CMRF) he registered on to an online fundraising website saying that he would run the marathon to cover the loss of Indian Navy and for the re-building of Visakhapatnam city and asked his friends to donate generously on Facebook.

Dr. Meher received an overwhelming response from his friends, several of them NRIs. With two days still left for the event the physician raised five times what he set as a ‘goal’ for himself.

“We can win many battles, but it is not easy when you are against the fury of nature. Cyclone Hudhud battered the strategic naval base at Visakhapatnam, damaging its airfield and other installations. Thirty to forty per cent of trees inside the naval station got uprooted,” Dr. Meher said.

He was glad that all the income from the First Vizag Navy Marathon would also go for the rebuilding of Visakhapatnam city, he said.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Vijayawada / by Special Correspondent / Vijayawada – October 31st, 2014

15-year-old helps save the day

Education, Inspiration /Positive News and Features, Science & Technology
Executive Vice-chairman and Director of National Institute of Amateur Radio S. Ram Mohan and Tom K Jose of Hyderabad who played an active role in the relief works of the recent Hudhud Cyclone. Photo: Nagara Gopal / The Hindu
Executive Vice-chairman and Director of National Institute of Amateur Radio S. Ram Mohan and Tom K Jose of Hyderabad who played an active role in the relief works of the recent Hudhud Cyclone. Photo: Nagara Gopal / The Hindu

Uses his Ham radio skills to gather vital information during Hudhud. One contact talked about trees falling at a Jain temple in Bhimli and resulting in precarious conditions. The young Ham immediately passed on the information to senior officials, who in turn directed their field personnel.

For a week, Tom K. Jose kept his studies aside, travelled to a cyclone-hit city and used his Ham radio skills to contribute to disaster management.

When Hudhud swept through Visakhapatnam disrupting its communication network and a team of amateur radio (Ham) operators from the city were sought, the 15-year-old student of Little Flower Junior College, Uppal, volunteered for the task.

With his call sign, VU3TMO, Tom was stationed in the control room set up at Visakhapatnam Police Commissionerate and spent long hours collecting messages from other team members spread over the cyclone affected areas and passed them on to the administration for relief measures.

The intermediate first year student, who got his Ham licence at the age of 13, along with colleagues, operated under adverse conditions, often skipping meals and spending long hours before the radio, waiting for it to crackle with messages. “For seven days, I was at the Visakhapatnam Police Commissionerate and one day at the District Collector’s office at Srikakulam and made anywhere up to 500 contacts,” says Tom.

One contact talked about trees falling at a Jain temple in Bhimli and resulting in precarious conditions. The young Ham immediately passed on the information to senior officials, who in turn directed their field personnel, and the situation was attended to. Another was a contact from Bangalore who was desperately trying to locate his brother and sister in the Hudhud affected area. “We operated without checking the watch or caring whether it was day or night. We had to just sit in front of the radio and wait for a contact,” he says.

Tom, who got his licence when he was in class 9, explores the Ham world and so far, has contacted more than 150 countries and received appreciations for his operational skills from Ham associations from different parts of the globe, including US, Germany and Japan. He comfortably juggles his hobby with studies and says, “Each night after studies I spend 30 minutes to 45 minutes with the radio apart from a brief tryst in the morning before going to college.”

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> National> Telangana / by T. Lalith Singh / Hyderabad – October 26th, 2014

Police martyrs sacrifices recalled at commemoration

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Inspiration /Positive News and Features, Records, All
DIG B. Balakrishna gives away certificates to students who won in competitions held during police commemoration week in Anantapur on Tuesday. SP S.V. Rajasekhar Babu is also seen. — DECCAN CHRONICLE
DIG B. Balakrishna gives away certificates to students who won in competitions held during police commemoration week in Anantapur on Tuesday. SP S.V. Rajasekhar Babu is also seen. — DECCAN CHRONICLE

Anantapur: 

SP S.V.Rajaskehar Babu has paid rich tributes to martyrs at the police memorial in Sapthagiri circle here on Tuesday to mark the police commemoration week. Speaking on the occasion, Mr Rajasekhar Babu observed the police department was confined to serve people even by sacrificing their lives at many instances.

Recalling the sacrifices, the SP stated police department was aimed to ensure people live peacefully. “We are ready to sacrifice our lives for the sake of people from top to bottom in the department,” SP said.Anantapur range DIG Balakrishna presented certificates to the meritorious students, who won in essay writing, painting and other competitions held on the occasion of commemoration week.

Two town police of Anantapur organised a heath camp at police parade grounds on the occasion. SP Rajasekhar Babu had inaugurated the camp. Specialist doctors of various fields conducted medical check up for the family members of police. Additional SP Malyadri, AR ASP Venkatesh, Anan-tapur DSP D. Nagaraju, DMHO Ramasubba Rao and others participated in the medical camp.

source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com / Deccan Chronicle / Home> Nation> Current Affairs / by DC Correspondent / October 22nd, 2014

US Telugu Group Pledges $1,00,000 for Cyclone-Hit Andhra Pradesh

Green Initiatives / Environment, Inspiration /Positive News and Features, Nri's / Pio's

As the coastal region of Andhra Pradesh reels under the aftermath of the severe cyclonic storm, Hudhud, the Telugu Association of North America (TANA), which is said to be the largest Telugu organisation abroad, has announced a contribution of $1,00,000 towards relief efforts in the state.

Cyclone Hudhud has caused heavy rain and winds in Vishakhapatnam. / Twitter
Cyclone Hudhud has caused heavy rain and winds in Vishakhapatnam. / Twitter

Several casualties and massive devastation unfolded after the cyclone struck the coast, especially hitting the port city of Visakhapatnam hard on Sunday.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had announced an interim relief of ₹1,000 crore to the Andhra Pradesh government for relief and restoration in the cyclone-hit districts

The $1,00,000 relief amount from the Telugu Association will also aid relief measures in the state. The organisation has called out to all NRIs, especially the Telugu-speaking ones, to donate to the cause.

The details for donations to the TANA Flood Relief Funds are listed out on the website.

TANA President Mohan Nannapaneni will meet Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu to hand over the cheque, as reported by IANS.

“The current picture is grim and TANA intends to help with the rescue and rehabilitation, immediate relief for the displaced and effected people and also assist with long term rebuilding measures,” the group said on its website.

“After an emergency meeting, TANA leadership declared an initial contribution of $100,000 to the cyclone relief efforts and decided to put forward the best efforts to raise more funds for this cause,” it said.

Andhra Pradesh faces hundreds of crores worth of loss and destruction due to the cyclone.

source: http://www.ibtimes.co.in / International Business Times / Home> News> Society / by Mugdha Variyar / October 15th, 2014

Sachin Tendulkar to adopt Nellore village

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Inspiration /Positive News and Features, Sports

Nellore :

Legendary cricketer and Rajya Sabha member Sachin Tendulkar is reportedly planning to adopt a village in Nellore district under ‘Sansad Gram Yojana’ programme.

Sanchin Tendulkar met PM Narendra Modi in Delhi on Thursday and expressed his desire to join his ‘Clean India’ programme. Later, Sachin reportedly promised to adopt a village for providing all-round development under Sansad Gram Yojana.

Official sources said Tendulkar will visit Nellore district next month to finalise the agreement. Sources said Nellore district collector N Srikanth had sent a proposal for development of Puttamraju Kandrika village of Gudur rural mandal to a close aide of Sachin Tendular last week. Sources said the district collector proposed various works including underground drainage, sewage treatment plant, community hall, individual toilets in all houses in the village and drinking water supply connections.

The project will cost about Rs 4 crore.

Sources said Sachin’s close aide and former cricket administrator V Chamundeswarinath has suggested that Sachin adopt a village in Nellore district. Incidentally, Nellore is the home district of Union urban development minister M Venkaiah Naidu.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> City> Hyderabad / TNN / October 18th, 2014

Palacol mourns its child prodigy

Arts, Culture & Entertainment, Inspiration /Positive News and Features, Leaders, World Opinion
In this Nov. 15, 2007, file photo, Mandolin Shrinivas performs along with Hariharan at The Hindu Friday Review November Fest at the Music Academy in Chennai. Photo: R. Shivaji Rao
In this Nov. 15, 2007, file photo, Mandolin Shrinivas performs along with Hariharan at The Hindu Friday Review November Fest at the Music Academy in Chennai. Photo: R. Shivaji Rao

Grief overtook Mandolin Shrinivas’s admirers, childhood friends and artistes in this cultural capital of West Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh as news of his untimely death spread.

A pall of gloom descended on Palacol, the cultural capital of West Godavari district, with the demise of its child prodigy Uppalapu Shrinivas, a globally acclaimed Carnatic music exponent.

Shrinivas is its second son of the soil who did the tiny non-descript coastal town proud by securing Padmasri award in an early age after Allu Ramalingaiah, a noted film actor. He had the prefix `Uppalapu’ to his name replaced by `Mandolin’ for his blending the Western instrument with Carnatic music in a unique manner.

Grief overtook his admirers, childhood friends and artistes in the prosperous town. Although he was born in a marriage band music family in the town, he lost connections with his birthplace after he left for Chennai as a boy to explore the depths of music.

Pay your tributes to Mandolin U. Shrinivas here

According to Vinnakota Venkateswara Rao, a local septuagenarian scribe, Srinvas gave his concert last in his hometown was during the Tyagaraya Aradhanotsavams a decade ago. Manapuram Satyanarayana, president of the Palacol Kalaparishad, a childhood friend of Srinivas, recounted his association with the exponent. “I too used to associated myself with marriage band music parties with him (Srinivas), playing electric mandolin. Srinivas used to display innovation by playing mandolin for film songs when we were in elementary school itself”, he recollected.

Mr. Sudarsanam, a blind who retired as a lecturer in a local government degree college, was said to have attended his first concert in Palacol and could not resist his temptation to take part in another one in Eluru. He did it with the help of an assistant in the mid 80s. “This was how he cast a spell over his audiences,” said a retired teacher Krishna Prasad. He would not have been known to the world as an acclaimed classical musician, but for Rudraraju Subbaraju from Poduru near Placol, who taught Srinivas’ father Satyanrayana mandolin playing. Identifying the latent talent in the child prodigy, Mr. Subbaraju was said to have taken Srinivas and his father to Madras to hone up his skills under the tutelage of great exponents.

source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Vijayawada / by G. Nagaraja  / Eluru – September 19th, 2014

[Techie Tuesdays] Anand Chitipothu – The village boy who is impacting the world

Inspiration /Positive News and Features, Science & Technology, World Opinion

Anand Chitipothu had very humble beginnings and he made sure he worked hard to make the best use of whatever he had to make an impact on the world. Our Techie Tuesday for this week works at archive.org and is a Python enthusiast to the core.

The impact of the kind of work which Anand has been doing is not limited to one person or even a country. If you have a website or just browse the internet casually then there are chances that you might have clicked an archived link and visited a backed up version of a webpage at some point of time. Archive.org is a project by Aaron Swartz to create an archive of the internet and Anand works at Open Library – A project under archive. org, which aims to have a web page for every book.

AnandANDHRA17sept2014

Anand comes from Lingarao Palem, a small village near Guntur in Andhra Pradesh and had his early schooling in Telgu medium. It was only when he started studying in class 12th (intermediate as it was called then) he switched to English medium. In his first attempt Anand couldn’t get a seat in EAMCET – The common Entrance Exam conducted by Jawaharlal National University Hyderabad. Anand waited for a year and joined the electrical Engineering Course at Regional Engineering Collage (Now NIT) Bhopal. It was here that he was introduced to computers embarked on a journey which would change the course his entire life also affect a huge number of lives in the years to come.

They were introduced to PASCAL but the experience wasn’t good. The only things they could manage was to compile and run very basic programs on a DOS machine. Also the access the computer was a luxury even in the premier engineering college. Anand remembers, ” The computer center would close soon after the college hours and they wouldn’t let us skip the classes to use the computers. The only available time was lunch break and an hour just after the college times. ” To overcome the problem Anand and his friend decided to pool in some money and bought a computer for themselves to practice.

During the holidays Anand bought C programming books and practice reading and writing programs on paper. Once the college would reopen he would then go and practice those programs on the computer. The year was 1996 and Internet was not easily affordable by everyone. The only means available for Anand was to install Linux distros which used to come with magazines like PC Quest and language they could play around was C. Anand made best use of all the tools he had. He would look at a math equation and then figure out a way to plot a curve for that equation using C on the computer.

There was never a dearth of problems for them to work on and for Anand it was always a new challenge. Once he wrote a simulator for the 8085 microprocessor when the actual device started giving problems. Anand recalls, “8085 is microprocessor that is taught to electrical engg. students. It requires you to type in the machine code of the program in keyboard. In the lab, the instrument always used to give some error due to some hardware issues. So I wrote a simulator to try it without having to go to the lab and hold a physical device.”

By the time Anand passed out, he knew that his heart lie in computers and not in electrical engineering. Anand tried to get a job in programming but it was in vain. He decided to pursue higher studies in Computational Sciences and appeared for GATE. He got a seat in IISc. IISc proved to be a blessing in disguise.

Anand had moved from C to VC++ and from VC++ to Java. Each language was better than the previous one. There was ease of use. Talking about his migration from VC++ to Java, Anand says,  “I hated VC++ because of the way it works. It generates a lot of code and asks you to modify that. It used to become a mess very quickly. On the other hand Java was very beautiful, everything that you want to do is specified in the code. What happens on a button click, what is the title of the button etc, are all in the code. But in VC++, it was driven by UI. ”

After IISc, Anand took a job in a Strand Life Sciences – A startup from IISc itself. Which is where the introduction to Python happened and the interest in Python grew. After experimenting with Python for some time to automate workflows and developing tools in Jython (Python on a JVM) Anand started looking around for more Python related communities and joined Bangpypers – The Bangalore Python Group where he attended Python meetups and met likeminded Python enthusiasts.

Working in a startup, it was evident for Anand to read and follow the startup community. He started following Paul Graham very closely and decided to plunge into web programming after getting to know about viaweb(the startup Paul Graham sold to Yahoo in 1998). Anand tried to learn different frameworks like Django, Plone but found them too complicated.

Aaron Swartz released web.py framework at the same time and Anand took to it. Soon he started web programming and also after looking at the simplicity of Python, the dislike for Java crept in. Anand Says, “I knew how to build websites, my hands were itching to build something using the new things that I learnt. By then I started disliking java, after tasting Python. Java is too verbose. It takes too much code solve something. It was like ‘I knew what to do, I knew how to do, but takes 3 days coding to finish it’.”

Anand quit Strand and joined another startup called Picsquare. The required a custom photosite for events. Anand implemented it using web.py. During this time Anand also started working with Aaron Swartz, Anand recollects,” I remember seeing this page couple of times and dreaming about being there. http://web.archive.org/web/20051201022645/http://infogami.com/  though I hadn’t seen the code of Infogami, I tried building a clone of that for fun. It was very crude, but I could make one. 

Reddit.com and Infogami.com were launched around the same time. After few months of helping the startup, I saw an email in the web.py group from Aaron that he is looking for someone to help him on a web.py project. 

I replied to that email saying that I’m interested.He was looking for someone to build the next version of Infogami and I showed the clone that I built. He liked it and I started working with him on building Infogami. While I was working on Infogami, I started contributing to web.py and took over the maintenance of it from him.”

It was in 2007, Aaron asked Anand if he can move to US for a project, Anand decided he can be a part of the project from India itself and would work remotely. The project Aaron wanted Anand to work on was openlibrary and Anand was one of the first members on the team. Aaron moved on to activism while Anand continued working with the openlibrary project.

Like most of us in the open source community, Aarons death came as a surprise to Anand.                                                

“It was a shock. 

I never expected Aaron would do that. A friend of mine started working with Aaron on a project just couple of months before his death. I heard his big plans for future and what kind of things he wanted to build. I miss him dearly. 

We worked pretty well together. He had very good trust on my abilities and I enjoyed working with him. He asked me 2 months before his death if I wanted to work with him on a long-term project. I couldn’t accept because I wasn’t ready to quit the archive at that time.”

Anand is also actively involved in organizing PyCon India and have been in the organizing team since its inception. He is also leading an initiative on organizing Python workshops around the country with his initiative PythonExpress.

For people just starting out in technology, Anand refers them to read an article by Aaron Swartz. His advice to students is, “Be passionate, work hard, try new things. 

World is full of interesting problems waiting to be solved. There are lot of interesting problems around us, we just need to look around.” 

source: http://www.yourstory.com / YourStory.com / Home / by Aditya Bhushan Dwivedi / September 16th, 2014