Tags:
Journalism of Courage
Ban! Hic! Bottoms up!
CHENNAI: Liquor shops in the city were in high spirits on Saturday with the polling day ban turning into a boon for them. Desperate tipplers were willing to shell out double the price for a brand of their choice. While rum went off the shelf in most of the shops, pints of whiskey and brandy were available for an extra of Rs 20 to Rs 40. The sale was anything but clandestine. Though the shutters were down, little windows opened in the lanes. And as in the Aminjikkarai area, the crowd often spilled into the streets, making the apparent secrecy futile. The plastic tumblers and snacks, which virtually every paan shop displayed, were a dead giveaway.
VIJAYAWADA: Anything to have their prayers answered. An aide of the TDP nominee for Vijayawada West assembly seat, S. Nagul Meera, and a local party functionary were arrested for allegedly distributing clothes to parish priests at a city hotel late on Friday night. On a tip-off, the police rushed to the hotel and reportedly stumbled on more than 500 priests. The aide, A. Manohar, and TDP SC/ST cell leader Vesapogu Bhaskara Rao have been arrested and remanded to judicial custody.
HYDERABAD: The Andhra Pradesh power play has got hotter. An advertisement war has broken out between the TDP and Congress on the latter8217;s promise of free electricity to farmers. The TDP had an advertisement in the papers on Saturday seeking to 8220;expose contradictions8221; on the subsidy in the manifestos relased by the Congress at national and state levels. It said while the central Congress had promised to work for powerreforms and to manage the sector on commercial lines, state leaders were promising free power, which was 8220;unviable8221;. The Congress was quick to answer back at a press conference, where it announced that the subsidy would cost Rs 120 crore annually and not Rs 1,000 crore as the TDP was claiming.
8212; ENS AND AGENCIES
