Ntr.jr pays tribute to Ntr

A steady stream of relatives, staunch supporters and fans, turned up to pay homage to the legendary NTR on his 19th death anniversary on Sunday. The buzz among fans went a notch higher as NTR Jr turned up in the company of Kalyanram, and then had a brief chat with his father Harikrishna, at the NTR Ghat, bedecked with flowers. 

This was one rare public appearance of NTR family after the sudden demise of Janakiram, Harikrishna's elder son, who died in a car crash only a few weeks back

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A big win for India,contentment for cricket fans

A big win for India, double delight for the Hyderabad Cricket Association as its president, Arshad Ayub, will be the manager of the Indian team to tour Australia next month and then the hometown ‘hero’ Ambati Rayudu’s dismissal of the well-set Tillakaratne Dilshan, providing the biggest cheer of all.

The Chief Minister, K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who was introduced to both  teams before the match, spent quite a long time at the venue. He was apparently very interested towards the HCA request to convert the lease agreement of the site into a complete ownership of the Association. “We were told a senior official will be asked to look into this,” says a HCA EC member.

It was good to see the naming of enclosures in the stands after some of the finest players from Hyderabad which included the likes of ‘Tiger’ Pataudi, Abbas Ali Baig, P. Krishnamurthy, Syed Abid Ali, M.V. Narasimha Rao (more popular as Bobjee who was here to watch the match along with another 1971 Indian tour member Govindraj), Kenny Jayanthilal, Mohammad Hussain and Gul Mohammed.

For a change, the fans, who at some gates faced embarrassing moments when they were forced to throw away their caps by cops, were in for a pleasant surprise with the eatables not too expensive at the Pavilion End.

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ICICI bank was asked to pay 50,000

Private banker ICICI Bank  was asked to pay Rs.50,000 to a customer for the loss of the sale deed of his property, which was mortgaged with the bank. While passing the ruling, the State Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (SCDRC) upturned an order of a district forum’s ruling, which has asked the bank to cough up a total of Rs.25,000 in compensation.

Sixty-one-year-old Y. Manikya Prabhu, a resident of Malkajgiri, had taken a loan from ICICI Bank Ltd. and had mortgaged his property. Subsequently, he paid off the loan, and then asked the bank to return his documents.

However, the bank informed him that his documents were lost, lodged a police complaint, and notified the same in English and Telugu newspapers to caution the public from misusing them.

The district forum, apart from awarding Mr. Prabhu Rs.25,000, also directed the bank to execute an indemnity bond in favour of the complainant, in case a third party misused the title deed. It also asked ICICI Bank Ltd. to handover a copy of the report given to the police, the newspaper publications and also to obtain a certified copy of the sale deed and link documents from the concerned Sub Registrar.

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NASA Technology:Secure Indian farmers from risks says-Ramakrishna Nemani

               A senior Indian earth scientist from National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), Ramakrishna Nemani, hailing from Hyderabad, has modified and adapted NASA technology to secure Indian farmers from risks of climate change like floods and droughts and ensure that crop insurance reaches the deserving farmer.

                            Dubbed as Terrestrial Observation and Predicting System (TOPS), the project recently received 15 months extension, after testing it in real world conditions for the past two years on pilot basis, by the Maharashtra government. The earth scientist is also working with local authorities here to implement a similar system for Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.

                                                   The NASA researcher has brought together a system of collecting weather and climatic data through satellite remote sensing, ground weather stations, human inputs and using climatic forecasting and ecosystem models to give risk determination of crop insurance, crop assessment, sampling of crop yield, early assessment of crop loss, categorising the risk regions and more significantly forecasting the climatic conditions in such zones.

                           “The idea is to make sure that we provide flawless scientific evidence so that insurance goes to the deserving farmer who has suffered crop loss and not to a farmer who has a fully functioning borewell, but continues to claim insurance by using devious measures,” the NASA earth scientist says.

                                 The earth scientist, who visits Hyderabad and Maharashtra at least once a month from United States, is a firm believer in crop insurance as the only way to help farmers tide over climate disasters. “Climate related risk to agriculture is here to stay and insurance provides best way to mitigate it. Why can’t we bring efficiency into the system that will insure every farmer?” he asks.

                                           “In NASA, everyday we study weather patterns, droughts, rains etc of planet earth. But, it has always been my aim to apply and adapt this technology by integrating satellite and climatic data to predict the yield of crops for Indian farmers. What we have implemented is a project that uses data to make sure that the farmers are protected from severe climatic patterns like drought, floods etc by bringing efficiency in crop insurance system,” he says.

                                                                   Along with his team, the researcher has collected 30 years of climatic data in 20,000 villages of Maharashtra, current climatic conditions between 2012 and 2015, historical crop yields of bajra, wheat, soyabean and jowar in the past one decade. “We have adapted NASA models that can forecast climatic disasters for the benefit of farmers,” he said. Mr. Ramakrishna can be reached at: rnemani@niruthi.com

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