Ever-obliging with a ready quote, TDP MP J.C. Diwakar Reddy says that the poor can do without subsidised rice at Rs 1 per kg because farm labourers are able to afford a cup of tea for Rs 5 per cup. “In my village (Juturu, near Tadipatri), farm labourers drink tea at Rs 4 per cup and coffee at Rs 5 per cup three or four times a day. Do they need rice at Rs 1 per kg?” asked Mr Diwakar Reddy, speaking rhetorically to the press at Uravakonda.
The outspoken MP did not stop there and trod on the more sensitive issue of free power for farmers. He said there was a need to rationalise that as well. “Let it not be free. Let the government price it at 25 paise. Farmers will then become more prudent and the government will get some revenue. Power will not be wasted,” said Mr Reddy.
And then he moved on to the NREGS, under which, he said, workers are being made to do 'useless' work. “In the name of providing employment, people are being taken to the hills and forests and do earth work. Who is benefited by this? Let NREGS be attached to farm work. At least farmers will be benefited by it as they are facing a shortage of labour,” said Mr Reddy.
It’s better than TV dinner
The forest department thinks the Vanamahotsavam tradition is a great way of rediscovering family values. Frankly, is there a better way of spending quality time with family and relatives than going on a picnic to a welcome grove and spreading out a feast on a chador and eating alfresco? At the forest department’s Vanamahotsav programme at Kambalakonda last week, the discussion soon turned to how this was a welcome way of spending time with relatives than at home with the TV on. “Thanks to the idiot box, guests feel they are not welcome at soap opera time,” said an official. “And if they do turn up, they have to be silent when the soap takes an unexpected turn.”
WhatsAPP or the office notice board?
WhatsApp seems to have become a part and parcel of life in any organization, whatever the field of activity.
What was once a private social media platform has now become a channel for official communications This is leading to some weird developments. An 'expert' group set up by the Department of Electronics and Information Technology (DeitY) has come up with a suggestion that one shouldn't delete Whatsapp conversations for 90 days.
The intrusion of social media into employees’ personal lives came up fordiscussion at a meeting organized by the Andhra Bank Employees’ Federation.Speakers lamented that even formal communications are being sent out onWhatsApp. The irony is that some organizations are issuing even circulars andorders on WhatsApp.
Battle begins for PWD grounds
After a brief lull, the sprawling PWD Grounds is back in the news again with members of civil society organisations and opposition parties rolling up their sleeves to oppose the authorities’ proposal to develop it into a park. Granted that the city can do with more parks, but the organizations say that PWD has become a signature location for the city, a platform for expression of public opinion. So they are organizing themselves to oppose the move to the end. Some youth organizations have already started a signature campaign
Online woes of publishers, authors
The stiff competition books are facing from e-books was a hot topic of discussion in a seminar on public libraries held at Andhra Loyola College last Friday. The challenges are manifold but book publishers and authors are clueless about how to survive. Prof. B. Ramesh Babu, formerly of the Mahasarakham University in Thailand, said the task of public libraries in the new millennium was to makeinformation available and accessible as freely as air and water. But the lack of awareness of some basic things like the bounden duty of publishers to submit a copy of every book published to national libraries is a fundamental hurdle.
