Andhra Pradesh on Sunday announced the names of chairpersons for 56 Backward Caste (BC) corporations, set up by the Jagan Mohan Reddy government. With 50 per cent reservation to women, nearly 29 of the corporations are going to be led by women. In addition to this, the state government also appointed 12 directors for each corporation, representing all the 13 districts.
According to the Backward Classes Welfare Department of AP, the state has 49.55 per cent BC population.
READ | Andhra Pradesh: 56 bodies for backward caste welfare get chairpersons
Minister for BC Welfare, C Venugopala Krishna, said that the state is committed to their development, and as a step in this direction, Chief Jagan set up the 56 BC corporations. Minister for Municipal Administration Botsa Satyanarayana said this was a first-of-its-kind initiative taken up by any state in the country.
Ejji K Umamahesh of Chennai passed away on October 16 at the age of 72. A self-obituary left by him has now made netizens emotional and teary-eyed. The obituary titled “Self-written Obituary Announcement from Ejji K Umamahesh” was published in a local newspaper and is now being shared widely on social media
READ | ‘My party is over‘: Chennai man’s self-written obituary is leaving netizens teary-eyed
Describing himself as a “congenital sybarite, recycled teenager, rat-race runner (Retd.), whole-time househusband & homemaker, compulsive party host, theatre movie actor, international car rally driver and organiser, rationalist, humanist, atheist, free-thinker,” the obituary said that he “lived on his own terms as a religionless citizen of the world on village earth”.
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal on Tuesday announced a donation of Rs 15 crore for relief efforts in flood-hit Telangana, saying people of Delhi stand with residents of the state.
“Floods have caused havoc in Hyderabad. People of Delhi stand by our brother and sisters in Hyderabad in this hour of crisis. “Delhi govt will donate Rs 15 cr to the Govt of Telangana for its relief efforts,” he tweeted.
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The Department of Technical Education, Andhra Pradesh has extended the last date to apply for the counselling process for admission to polytechnic colleges in the state. The counselling process was scheduled to be closed on October 19, but it has been extended till October 22 to provide an opportunity to students who could not able to attend counselling due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
According to the official website, the last date for the payment processing is October 21, and the online window to verify documents will remain active till October 22. The first allotment list will be released on October 24 after 6 pm at the official website- appolycet.nic.in.
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Kumaran Silks, a popular textile showroom in Chennai’s T Nagar, was on Tuesday sealed by the Greater Chennai Corporation for violating the Standard Operating Procedures [SOPs] issued by the Tamil Nadu government to contain the spread of Covid-19.
Taking to Twitter, the civic body said: “A shop in T Nagar has been locked and sealed today, since they allowed overcrowding and didn’t follow the Covid-19 safety protocols. Other such shops, which don’t follow the protocols shall be sealed too. Shop owners and public are requested to strictly follow safety protocols.”
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Telangana Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan and Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Tuesday thanked Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami for announcing Rs 10 crore as relief to the rain and flood-battered state.
Palaniswami had on Monday announced Rs 10 crore towards relief efforts for Telangana as a token of support and solidarity of the government and people of Tamil Nadu with those of Telangana. Rao thanked the chief minister during their telephonic conversation, an official release said.
Further, he also expressed his condolences over the death of the Tamil Nadu chief minister's mother Davusayammal, who died of heart attack last week.
Soundararajan also spoke to EPS over the phone and thanked him for his announcement to provide Rs 10 crore to Telangana, the release said.
SCBA President Dushyant Dave had recused from the process of passing the resolution condemning Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy’s letter to Chief Justice of India S A Bobde in which allegations were levelled against a sitting judge of the Supreme Court, an official of the bar body said on Monday.
Dave had a different view “in principle” on passing the resolution at such an early stage, Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) Secretary Rohit Pandey said when asked about media reports on alleged division in the executive committee (EC) over the issue.
Dave had reportedly said the bar had no idea about the truthfulness of the allegations and such a resolution would be premature at this stage.
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Telangana recorded 1,486 fresh COVID-19 cases on Monday, taking the infection count to 2.24 lakh, while seven deaths pushed the toll to 1,282. Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) accounted for the most number of cases with 235, followed by Rangareddy 112 and Medchal Malkajgiri 102 districts, a government bulletin said on Tuesday.
As many as 20,686 patients are under treatment and 42,299 samples were tested on October 19. Cumulatively, 38.98 lakh samples have been tested.
The case fatality rate in the state was 0.57 per cent while the recovery rate in Telangana was 90.21 per cent.
Chennai recorded less than 1000 cases for the first time in weeks on Monday, taking the city's tally to 1,90,949. Currently, there are 12,285 active cases across all 15 zones of the city.
Here are the active cases in the top 10 zones in Chennai:
N Jeevithkumar, the son of a shepherd in Tamil Nadu’s Theni district, scored 664 marks out of 720 in this year’s National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET). With his all India rank of 1,823, he has secured the highest rank amid the government-school candidates from across the country.
Jeevithkumar’s father rears goat for a living while his mother is an MGNREGA worker. He had secured 548 in Class XII and was the district topper. This was his second attempt at taking the examination. Earlier, Jeevith had attended a 45-day NEET coaching camp organised by the government and wrote the exam but had failed to clear the test.
Though Jeevith had cleared the NEET, his dream of pursuing the medicine is hanging by a thread as the fees for medical colleges are beyond his family’s financial capability.
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Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao’s adopted daughter C Pratyusha got engaged in Hyderabad on Sunday. Photos of Pratyusha with her fiancé Charan Reddy emerged on social media Monday.
Officials at the Women and Child Welfare Department said Pratyusha and Charan are set to be married soon.
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Officials from the Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) sealed a shop shut in Chennai for violating COVID-19 guidelines. The store was found to be overcrowded, with customers not adhering to social distancing norms.
The Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) conducted 398 fever clinics in Chennai on Monday. A total of 18,210 people attended the clinics, with swabs collected from 832 people who were identified with ILI symptoms, while others were provided with medication for minor ailments.
The most number of camps were held in Teynampet (Zone 9) where 49 camps were set up, while Manali (Zone 2) had the least with four camps.
A total of 155 flights will be operated between Chennai and major cities today, with 78 arrivals and 77 departures scheduled at the Chennai International Airport.
Tangedco has announced a powercut in parts of Chennai today from 9 am to 2 pm to carry out maintenance work.
Here are the affected areas:
The Southern Railway Monday announced that a fully-reserved double-decker special train will begin services from Wednesday (October 21) between Dr MGR Chennai Central and KSR Bengaluru stations in both directions.
This leads to a direct passenger train service on the route resuming operations after over six months courtesy the coronavirus-induced lockdown, expected to aid hundreds of passengers daily.
As per the notification by Southern Railway. the train will comprise eight AC-chair car coaches and is scheduled to leave Chennai at 7.25 am to reach Bengaluru at 1.10 pm. In the return direction, the train will depart from Bengaluru at 02.30 pm to reach Chennai at 08.30 pm daily.
Reservations for the above specials are open from 8 am on Tuesday (Oct 20), according to the notification.
Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao on Monday announced Rs 10,000 as immediate relief to each flood-affected household in the city, besides an assistance of Rs one lakh each to totally damaged houses and Rs 50,000 to partially damaged houses.
Observing that essential commodities like rice and pulses have been lost due to the flooding, Rao said the financial assistance of Rs 10,000 would be distributed from Tuesday itself, according to an official release.
Rao instructed the Collectors of Hyderabad, Rangareddy, and Medchal districts (under the jurisdiction of Hyderabad) to send teams on the field to start distributing the amount to the poor from Tuesday morning, it said.
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Tamil Nadu recorded 3536 positive cases of COVID-19 on Monday, bringing the state tally to 6,90,936. Among these, Chennai reported 885 positive cases, bringing the city's total to 1,90,949.
The state recorded 49 deaths, putting the state toll at 10,691. Forty eight of them had succumbed due to comorbidities. Tamil Nadu discharged 4515 patients following treatment Monday, putting the total number of recoveries at 6,42,152.
As of Monday, the number of active COVID-19 cases in Tamil Nadu is 38,093. Till date, 4,17,216 males, 2,73,688 females and 32 transgenders have tested positive for the virus in the state.
According to a bulletin released by the Health and Family Welfare Department of Tamil Nadu, 90,31,696 samples from the state have been sent for testing till date, with 85,130 samples having been sent yesterday.
Good morning!
Welcome to the live blog from Chennai and Hyderabad where we bring to you the latest updates on COVID-19, lockdown in Tamil Nadu, lockdown in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana and more across Chennai and Hyderabad through the day. Follow the blog to stay up to date with the states in real time.
The Andhra Pradesh government set up separate corporations for 56 major castes under the Backward Classes category. Earlier, one single Backward Classes Corporation catered to all the requirements of 139 such castes.
During Y S Jagan Mohan Reddy’s padayatra before the May 2019 elections, he received several complaints from people belonging to several backward castes that benefits and schemes of the government were not reaching them properly. The YSRCP leader promised that he would set up separate corporations for BC castes which have a population of more than 30,000 so that each corporation can micro manage a particular caste’s people and their needs.
These corporations will receive funding from the government which will be used to deliver government’s schemes and benefits to the beneficiaries. Some of the benefits include pre and post-metric school fees reimbursement; financial assistance of Rs 18,750 given to women in the age group of 45-60 years to encourage them to start small businesses; old age pensions; rations through PDS; and healthcare benefits. Officials say they would be able serve the communities better because each corporation would be responsible for a limited number of beneficiaries.
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Fino Payments Bank is planning to add another 300 points at BPCL outlets to its existing 1,075 in Tamil Nadu, to help truck drivers to get fleet cards recharged by paying equivalent cash, without any hassles, a top official said on Monday.
Recharging the Bharat Petroleum (BPCL) SmartFleet cards that are used to pay for fuel has been a challenge to truck drivers for quite some time and in order to ease this discomfort, Fino with BPCL has started such facilities, its State head, Dhanasekaran said.
The digitised cash in the form of prepaid fleet cards allows drivers to make payments for fuel at BPCL outlets, which also completely frees BPCL from handling the cash given by the drivers, Dhanasekaran told reporters after inaugurating a facility at Perundurai in Erode district.
Actor Vijay Sethupathi has opted out of the Muthiah Muralitharan biopic 800 on the cricketer’s request. In a statement, Muralitharan said that doing the film would cause harm to Sethupathi’s career, and therefore he has asked the actor to quit the project. He also mentioned that the producers will be recasting the role and that the biopic will soon be available for his fans and general audience.
Sethupathi on Monday shared Muralitharan’s statement on Twitter and wrote, “Thank you and goodbye.”
The controversy began as soon as it was announced that Vijay Sethupathi will be playing Muthiah Muralitharan, who is a Sri Lankan Tamil, in the biopic 800. This is largely because Muralitharan is seen as a supporter of former Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was at the helm during almost 30 years of civil war that gripped the island nation. The war affected the Malayaga Tamils, with Indian-lineage, to a great extent.
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A total of 3520 people have succumbed to COVID-19 in Chennai across all 15 zones of the city till date.
Here are the deaths in the top 10 zones in Chennai:
Veteran filmmaker Bharathiraja, in his capacity as the president of Tamil Film Active Producers Association, on Monday wrote an open letter to all A-list actors and technicians of the Tamil film industry. In the letter, he has requested the members of the film fraternity to take a 30 per cent pay cut to allow film producers to restart the projects that were affected by the COVID-19 lockdown.
Bharathiraja noted that the producers of several unfinished movies are not able to raise money through the sales of digital, audio and satellite rights. And their condition was so dire that they are not even able to pay the interests on the loans they took to fund the projects.
“In this situation, it is the responsibility of all actors and technicians to come forward and help the producers, whose films are under production and are stuck due to this lockdown. The producers can manage to come out of this trying condition and release their films smoothly, only if their total investment in films is reduced by at least 40 to 50%. Only then, even if their films do not fetch big revenues, they can come out without much loss,” Bharathiraja said in the letter.
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Ejji K Umamahesh of Chennai passed away on October 16 at the age of 72. A self-obituary left by him has now made netizens emotional and teary-eyed. The obituary titled “Self-written Obituary Announcement from Ejji K Umamahesh” was published in a local newspaper and is now being shared widely on social media
Describing himself as a “congenital sybarite, recycled teenager, rat-race runner (Retd.), whole-time househusband& homemaker, compulsive party host, theatre & movie actor, international car rally driver and organiser, rationalist, humanist, atheist, free-thinker,” the obituary said that he “lived on his own terms as a religionless citizen of the world on village earth”.
The report also included a note for his “friends, enemies, and those-in-between,” thanking them for sharing their life with him.
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The Delhi High Court Bar Association (DHCBA) Saturday, in a complaint to the Commissioner of Police, said that members of its Executive Committee, including the bar president, received threat calls soon after they passed a resolution condemning Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy’s allegations against Supreme Court judge Justice N V Ramana.
Reddy in his letter earlier had alleged that Justice Ramana “has been influencing the sittings of the (Andhra Pradesh) High Court including the roster of few Honourable Judges”. The letter also referred to Justice Ramana’s alleged “proximity” to the TDP leader and former Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu.
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For the first time after several weeks, Telangana reported new COVID-19 cases below the thousand mark with 948 fresh infections taking the tally to 2,23,059, while four more deaths pushed the toll to 1,275, the state government said on The silver lining amidst the pandemic is that the total number of recoveries surpassed the two lakh mark at 2,00,686 with 1,896 people testing negative after treatment, the state health department said in a bulletin.
Greater Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (GHMC) accounted for the most number of cases with 212, followed by Rangareddy (98) and Medchal Malkajgiri (65) districts, the bulletin said.
As many as 17,432 are under treatment and 26,027 samples were tested on October 18. Cumulatively, 38,56,530 samples have been tested. The samples tested per million population was 1,03,614, the bulletin said.
The case fatality rate in the state was 0.57 per cent while the recovery rate in Telangana was 89.96 per cent. The number of individuals in home/ institutional isolation was 17,432.
Andhra Pradesh on Sunday announced the names of chairpersons for 56 Backward Caste (BC) corporations, set up by the Jagan Mohan Reddy government. With 50 per cent reservation to women, nearly 29 of the corporations are going to be led by women.
In addition to this, the state government also appointed 12 directors for each corporation, representing all the 13 districts.
According to the Backward Classes Welfare Department of AP, the state has 49.55 per cent BC population.
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The Greater Chennai Corporation (GCC) conducted 316 fever clinics in Chennai on Sunday. A total of 6970 people attended the clinics, with swabs collected from 398 people who were identified with ILI symptoms, while others were provided with medication for minor ailments.
The most number of camps were held in Teynampet (Zone 9) where 49 camps were set up, while Manali (Zone 2) had the least with four camps.
A total of 166 flights will be operated between Chennai and major cities today, with 83 arrivals and 83 departures scheduled at the Chennai International Airport.
Even as Hyderabad limps back to normalcy after multiple heavy spells of rainfall earlier in the week, the India Meteorological Department has sounded yet another warning for Monday and Tuesday. Heavy to very heavy rainfall, accompanied by thunderstorms and lightning, is expected at isolated places in Telangana on these days, as per the IMD’s forecast.
People of Hyderabad and surrounding areas can expect heavy rainfall starting Monday evening due to an upper air cyclonic circulation that will converge with a south-westerly flow of winds, said K Nagarathna, director in-charge of IMD in Hyderabad.
While the state received excess rainfall of 50 per cent during the south-west monsoon, the deviation in rainfall recorded in October as of date is an excess of 430 per cent. “There was nothing abnormal about rainfall yesterday. People are afraid because water bodies are full and many have already lost their shelters to urban floods,” she said.
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Tamil Nadu recorded 3914 positive cases of COVID-19 on Sunday, bringing the state tally to 6,87,400. Among these, Chennai reported 1036 positive cases, bringing the city’s total to 1,89,995.
The state recorded 56 deaths, putting the state toll at 10,642. Fifty five of them had succumbed due to comorbidities. Tamil Nadu discharged 4929 patients following treatment Sunday, putting the total number of recoveries at 6,37,637.
As of Sunday, the number of active COVID-19 cases in Tamil Nadu is 39,121. Till date, 4,15,121 males, 2,72,247 females and 32 transgenders have tested positive for the virus in the state.
According to a bulletin released by the Health and Family Welfare Department of Tamil Nadu, 89,46,566 samples from the state have been sent for testing till date, with 90,286 samples having been sent yesterday.
Good morning!
Welcome to the live blog from Chennai and Hyderabad where we bring to you the latest updates on COVID-19, lockdown in Tamil Nadu, lockdown in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, rains and floods in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh and more across Chennai and Hyderabad through the day. Follow the blog to stay up to date with the states in real time.