Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, who has big plans for ‘Navyandhra Pradesh’, is known for doing things differently. Mr. Naidu, who has experienced the power of yoga for a stress-free work, has roped in spiritual guru Jaggi Vasudev to impart a special spiritual session to his Cabinet colleagues and bureaucrats so as to enable them to unleash the power of ‘inner engineering for joyful living’.
His critics, however, are talking about the flip side of Mr. Naidu’s move. They say that the administration has slipped into a ‘coma’ with Ministers, IAS and IPS officers performing yoga en masse. Himself a yoga practitioner, CPI State secretary K. Ramakrishna feels that the decision to practise yoga should be left to individual public servants and not imposed. “Happiness quotient” of the State could be improved only through welfare schemes for uplift of the toiling masses,” he emphasises.
Collector’s childhood wish fulfilled
In a rare gesture of religious harmony, Krishna district Magistrate and Collector Babu. A (Ahmed) on Sunday offered prayers to the standing deity of Balatripura Sundari temple at Kuchipudi village in Krishna district. Mesmerised with the heritage of the place during his maiden visit to the dance village, Mr. Babu accepted ‘prasadam’ from the priests and allowed them to apply a vermilion teeka on his forehead. Going down memory lane, the Keralite recalled that a girl student of his class in primary school had performed Kuchipudi dance at a school programme and ever since then, he had wanted to visit the village.
No pigs, no cleanliness?
Responding to stern warnings by Anantapur MP J.C. Diwakar Reddy against neglecting pig menace on town streets, the municipal authorities have started clearing the streets of pigs. The first and the biggest task before the MP post-election was to keep his promise of clearing more than 70,000 pigs off Anantapur streets. Interestingly, with the pigs being got rid of, it remains to be seen as to how many of the clogged drains will be cleared of solid waste.
Former Municipal Commissioners of Anantapur had gone on record, saying that pigs, in fact, contributed to the cleanliness of the town where more than 50 per cent of houses empty faecal waste into open drains.
(With inputs from S. Murali in Ongole, T. Appala Naidu in Machilipatnam and V. K. Rakesh Reddy in Anantapur)
