Non-stop death dance in Nizamabad

NIZAMABAD: Despite chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy asserting a few days ago that the government would ensure that no farmer would commit

suicide due to crop failure or mounting debts, 15 ryots have committed suicide in Nizamabad district in the last 22 days alone. And in many of these instances, erratic power supply was stated as the reason for them taking the extreme step.

“Unable to come to terms with the drying up of standing crops, the farmers who sowed the crops by borrowing huge loans from private moneylenders are resorting to suicide,” farm expert Ch Krishnamurthy said. Though it rained for a couple of days in Nizamabad town, the prolonged dry spell has hit the district farmers badly. Nearly 30 out of 36 mandals have recorded deficit rainfall in the last two months, officials said.

The heavy rainfall the district has been receiving in the last few days has come as too late for many farmers. Pokala Sailoo, 45, of Mudhelli village in Gandhari mandal and Toorpu Gopal, 48, of Gandhari, were the latest who ended lives on Wednesday.

If clearing the mounting debts was hanging like a sword of Damocles, the farmers were also crippled by withered crops and erratic power supply. “Do I have any other option? It (suicide) is the only alternative for us to run away from the debts,” said Kalali Srihari Goud of Devunipalli village in Machareddy mandal. Holding back the tears, Goud said besides the paddy seedlings, his maize crop sown in one acre had dried up at the budding stage itself due to lack of rainfall.

Taking a dig at the government, Goud, who recently borrowed Rs 2 lakh to perform his daughter’s marriage and dig borewells, said: “Will the real YSR please come to our rescue?” And Goud is no small farmer — he owns five acres of agriculture land!

It was Nenawat Govind, 25, who set the alarm bells ringing by hanging himself on August 6 at Piskalgutta thanda in Gandhari unable to clear the Rs 2 lakh debt. Debt-ridden Poshatti of Nagepur in Navipet mandal and Bhumanna in Donchanda of Morthad followed Govind and soon it became a death dance.

Three more farmers — Anantha Reddy of Borgam, Beerappa of Nyalkal and Krishana of Mudakpalli of Nizamabad mandal — also ended their lives due to distress. In the intervening period, Macha Karrenna of Gadkol in Sirikonda mandal, Chandu of Madnoor, Gaddam Saireddy of Darpalli, Ramulu and Sailu of Pitlam mandal have committed suicide.

10 lakh acres in Mahbubnagar to be irrigated in three years

HYDERABAD: The state government has prepared a detailed road map for bringing 10 lakh acres of ayacut in Mahbubnagar district under irrigation

within the next three years.

Reviewing the progress of four main projects in Mahbubnagar district – Rajiv Bhima Lift Irrigation Scheme, Jawahar Nettempadu Lift Irrigation Scheme, Mahatma Gandhi Kalwakurthy Lift Irrigation Scheme and Koilsagar Lift Irrigation Scheme – with engineers and officials at the secretariat, chief minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy asked officials to complete these projects and ensure water by 2012 kharif.

This includes a total ayacut of 7,93,250 acres under four main projects under construction and an additional ayacut of 2 lakh to be created under Rajiv Bhima Lift Irrigation scheme and Jawahar Nettampadu Lift Irrigation scheme. Prior to 2004, Mahbubnagar district had irrigation facilities 1.8 lakh acres under major irrigation. These include projects like the Rajolibanda Diversion Scheme and Jurala project.

Burqa ‘ban’ rocks Hyderabad college

HYDERABAD: Trouble erupted in Muslim dominated Mehdipatnam after burqa-clad young girl students held a massive agitation outside Vani College

(Junior and Degree) on Friday morning after the college principal, Y Annapurna, allegedly asked students not to wear burqa to class and shut the college gates on them.

The agitation soon degenerated into a stone pelting session with male students fron neigbouring colleges and parents of the girls joining in. The situation came under control only after the police – called in by the college management – resorted to a lathi charge.

The agitation came a day after a dharna by the students on Thursday protesting against what was termed by them as “the failure of the college management to react to the abduction of a girl student” from the institution earlier this week. The college management had looked the other way as they perceived that the girl had eloped with her boyfriend. In the event, the girl had returned by evening.

On Friday morning, the students charged that the principal had been berating them for wearing burqa for over a week saying that it did not comply with the uniform (salwar kameez) worn by other students. But the immediate trigger for the Friday trouble was the refusal of the principal to allow entry to late coming students, which soon degenerated into an argument about burqa, the month of Ramzaan and other matters like ‘promiscuity’ of girls.

“About 300 local youth joined the protesting girls and when police asked them to leave the place, some of them pelted stones at the police and college building,’’ deputy commissioner of police C Ravi Varma said. Eye witnesses said that male students of Gowtham Junior and Narayana Junior College who have their friends studying in Vani College joined in and started the bedlam.

“We were asked why are you wearing burqa when you are not particular about keeping our modesty. These comments are too much to bear,” a student from the college claimed. “The principal’s attitude irked us and hence we decided to take help from our parents,” a student of the college, Nadima Rahman told TOI.

The principal, Annapurna, however, told TOI, that she did not make any objectionable comment against the burqa. “The students were coming late for class and I had scolded them. They objected to this and staged a protest,” she said. The students, however, said that they were getting delayed because of the ongoing month of Ramzan and they had to offer Namaz before coming to college. They said, the college should not object to religious practices. “The college authorities blame us saying that we are spending more time in the mosque than with our books. This is objectionable,” a student said.

Analysts were amazed at the turn of events because the college has predominantly Muslims students. “I could understand such things happening in hardcore Hindu colleges and only with a few Muslim students. But not here,” said Salim Khan, a local resident. But an analyst – a Muslim—who does not want to be named said that “girls are girls, Hindu or Muslim. Their aspirations will be the same. Young girls will want to mingle with young boys, whether they wear burqa or not. Obviously, the principal is unable to appreciate this. She wants to say why are you friends with boys when you wear a burqa? This is the genesis of the trouble,” he added.

Govt. to pay for 20 per cent cost of mega development projects under PPP model

New Delhi: Union Urban Development Minister S. Jaipal Reddy on Wednesday said the government is ready to offer 20 percent of the cost of mega development projects if taken up as a public-private partnership (PPP).

Reddy said that in Mumbai some metro rail projects have been taken up as a private-public partnership and Hyderabad is also following suit.

The government is ready to encourage such gigantic projects so that they become commercially viable.

“In cases where such schemes are taken up, such gigantic schemes in PPP (Public Private Partnership) model we are giving 20 percent of the total cost of project by way of subsidies so that these mega projects can become commercially viable,” said Jaipal Reddy in the capital.

Reddy had earlier suggested an equity between the central and state governments, on the lines of the Delhi Metro model, which, in fact, had been considered and shelved earlier by the Mumbai etropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA).

Andhra admits to 20 farmers committing suicide in 40 days

Hyderabad  : The Andhra Pradesh Government has admitted that 20 farmers committed suicide in the state over the last 40 days.//
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The State Government, however, maintained that the actual reasons for the suicide were yet to be ascertained.

A communiqui issued by the Chief Minister’s office, admitted the fact. It also states that Chief Minister Y. S. Rajashekhar Reddy has announced the compensation of Rs 1.5 lakh each to the families of those who committed suicide.

Reddy has asked all the district collectors to work for the speedy distribution of the compensation and also to submit a report on the farmers’ death to the State Government immediately.

The communiqui also criticized the opposition Telugu Desam Party for stating that 70 farmers have ended their lives because of drought.

Reddy has constituted a Group of Ministers (GoM) to study the drought situation in the state and to recommend remedial measures.

Website of Football Players Association of India launched

New Delhi, Aug 28 : A website of Football Players Association of India (FPAI) was launched in New Delhi.

Launching the website, Indian football team captain Baichung Bhutia hoped it would unite the football community across the country and popularise the sport among the masses.

“It’s here to help the game, also mainly it’s obviously for the welfare of the players but at the end of the day to come together, share our issues, let our issues be known and just grow the game altogether,” he added.

The website http://www.fpaofindia.com will provide football fans a glimpse into the daily life of Indian football stars, and keep them abreast of the ongoing events.

Bhutia, who has become the first Indian footballer to play 100 international matches, said that the FPAI would work in line with the Professional Footballers Association (PFA), the players’ body in England, for the benefit of the players even after their retirement.

“If you look into the PF in England it’s one of the biggest association. Players Football Association in England is really big and I think we want to do that kind of work for the benefit of the players during their careers and after their careers as well,” he added.

The website will carry all the latest news, interviews with leading players beginning with Bhutia, a photo gallery, an event calendar and host chats.

Formed in 2006, the FPAI has been registered with Fipro, the international body for football players which has signed an MoU with FIFA.

Job insecurity causes health problems among workers

Washington, Aug 28: Constant job insecurity could take a toll on the health of workers, revealed a study.

Using long-term data from two nationally representative sample surveys of the U.S. population, the researchers assessed the impact of chronic job insecurity apart from actual job loss.

“Dramatic changes in the U.S. labor market have weakened bonds between employers and employees and fueled perceptions of job insecurity,” said University of Michigan sociologist Sarah Burgard.

“This study provides the strongest evidence to date that persistent job insecurity has a negative impact on worker health. In fact, chronic job insecurity was a stronger predictor of poor health than either smoking or hypertension in one of the groups we studied,” she added.

The researchers analysed data on more than 1,700 adults, collected over periods from three to 10 years.

They interviewed the same people at different points in time to disentangle the connection between poor health and job insecurity, and to control for the impact of actual job loss and other factors.

One of the studies was conducted between 1986 and 1989, the other between 1995 and 2005.

“It may seem surprising that chronically high job-insecurity is more strongly linked with health declines than actual job loss or unemployment. But there are a number of reasons why this is the case. Ongoing ambiguity about the future, inability to take action unless the feared event actually happens, and the lack of institutionalised supports associated with perceived insecurity are among them,” said Burgard.

To measure feelings of job insecurity, participants in one study were asked: “How likely is that during the next couple of years you will involuntarily lose your main job?”

Participants in the other study were asked: “If you wanted to stay in your present job, what are the chances you could keep it for the next two years.”

It was found that at any given time, as many as 18 percent of those surveyed felt insecure about their jobs.

However, only about 5 percent of respondents in the first survey and 3 percent of respondents in the second survey reported feeling anxious about their jobs both times they were interviewed.

According to Burgard, the findings have potential implications for both policy and intervention.

“Programs designed for displaced or unemployed workers are unlikely to solve the problems faced by workers who are still employed but are persistently insecure about their jobs. When you consider that not only income but so many of the important benefits that give Americans some piece of mind-including health insurance and retirement benefits-are tied to employment for most people, it’s understandable that persistent job insecurity is so stressful,” she said.

“We need to learn more about the conditions that generate or change worker perceptions of their job insecurity. Then organizations might want to intervene to reduce perceptions of insecurity or perhaps broader governmental policies might help to mitigate the degree of stress associated with perceived job insecurity. Additional acute and chronic strains at work and in other areas of life might also worsen or mitigate the health impact of long-term job insecurity.

“Certainly job insecurity is nothing new, but the numbers experiencing persistent job insecurity could be considerably higher during this global recession, so these findings could apply much more broadly today than they did even a few years ago,” she added.

The study appears in the September issue of the peer-reviewed journal Social Science and Medicine.

Social Media spreading FAST in Virtual World

New Delhi: Social Media is spread around the world imbued with the right values, it is the mean for fixing what’s broken in the world and bringing us together instead of continuing to keeping us apart. To define Social Media in a best way, will be the perfect fusion of Sociology and Technology, which transfers monologues to dialogues. In Business language, it can be defined as User-Generated-Content or Customer-Generated-Media.

The social web has been making huge stride because there are a host of tools that are working together using standardized formats. These standardized formats allow all of these tools to integrate, making the impact of the whole greater than sum of the parts.

Social Media represents a training and experimentation opportunity from which amateurs, hobbyists, creative doodlers and diary keepers will emerge as professional producers of professional media. The benefit of Social Media can be explained in following terms.

Social Media Sites Categories (According to Resources)

Communication:

• Blogs: Blogger, LiveJournal, WordPress.
• Micro-blogging: Twitter, Plurk, Pownce.
• Social networking: Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace .
• Social network aggregation: FriendFeed.
• Events: Eventful, Meetup.com.

Collaboration:

• Wikis: Wikipedia, PBwork.
• Social bookmarking: Delicious, StumbleUpon.
• Social news: Digg, Mixx, Reddit.
• Opinion sites: epinions, Yelp, mouthshut.com .

Multimedia:

• Photo sharing: Flickr, Zooomr.
• Video sharing: YouTube, Metacafe.
• Livecasting: Ustream.tv, Justin.tv .
• Audio and Music Sharing: imeem, The Hype Machine.

Reviews and Opinions:

• Product Reviews: epinions.com, MouthShut.com.
• Q&A: Yahoo! Answers, WikiAnswers.
• All Social Media Site Highlights: Socialpunks.

Entertainment:

• Virtual worlds: Second Life, The Sims Online.
• Game sharing: Miniclip, Kongregate.

To have the optimized value of usability of Social Media, one has to take care of certain aspects like, deciding what you are trying to accomplish. Then to decide whom with you have to converse. Then to decide upon the values which are to be taken into the conversation. Next to find out the daily/weekly/ monthly time to spend on these. Afterwards to identify the useful as well as useless contents. Then to consider a group blog and lastly to use the social networks to find people who can help you do your job better.

To get the best out of available social media networks, the different parameters can be taken into care are Traffic, Demand/Search Intent and Branding. Lastly we can say that Social Media Marketing can put the power of press/satellite/antenna in the hands of everyone with access to Internet. The future of Social Media is the future of the world. The final chapter is not yet written, but this chapter in our history is nearing its end.